Representing Singapore on the world stage is something that usually happens to the best elite athletes, but a few gamers from the sunny island have managed to do just that.
And these aren't your typical esports professionals that compete for glory and money. No, these are gamers who just love their games so much they found all sorts of tips and tricks to play and practise the game over and over again, with one goal in mind – be the fastest.
Take, for example, the 1988 game Super Mario Bros 3 released on the Nintendo Entertainment System. SMB3 is a game that may take a good player at least five hours to beat, but if you're a speed runner, it's possible to beat the game in a mere three minutes.
"I started watching speedrunning videos back in 2016, and watching games that I really love being played and thought it was pretty cool and thought maybe I should actually get into speedrunning," said Justin "juh0" Ho, a 26-year-old Twitch streamer.
But being a speedrunner isn't just about getting the best time. It's also about connecting with other like-minded players at one of the biggest speedrunning events that take place biannually: Games Done Quick.
Justin "juh0" Ho concentrating on Muscle March while wearing a muscle shirt. (Photo: Games Done Quick/Richard Ngo)
Ho is one of the rare few Singapore speedrunners to have appeared at Games Done Quick's biannual week-long charity events. Taking place in the US and featuring a weeklong 24-hour charity marathon stream, Games Done Quick has two main events a year: Awesome Games Done Quick and Summer Games Done Quick, and these have raised millions of dollars for the Prevent Cancer Foundation and Doctors Without Borders.
Each event receives thousands of video submissions from speedrunners and other gamers showing a speedrun performed by them, and only around 150 are picked for the event. These players, called runners, then showcase the game live in front of attendees, which is also streamed all around the world on Twitch. Depending on the game they run, they get assigned to blocks, for example, a horror block where speedrunners play horror games, or a segment where players just showcase terrible games.
Getting to be a runner is an achievement, because of how it is to be selected, and how much work you have to put in to ensure a flawless run when performing, since any delay will affect other runners down the line.
Ho managed to get on the exclusive list of runners twice. The first time was during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022, where he completed Alisa, an indie horror game from his HDB flat with a Singapore flag prominently hung behind, in 52 minutes and 4 seconds. The second time, he travelled to the US in 2024 to show off a ridiculously weird game called Muscle March that had the crowd rolling in laughter during the 15 minutes he spent playing it.
"I remember the time I saw my game on the list, and I was like, eh, I finally got in, after like four years, I was so happy, I couldn't sleep for like seven to eight hours," said Ho.
"The second time I submitted four horror games and one silly game because it's really hard to make it to the horror block, and my last one, I chose Muscle March."
He also worked on figuring out how to make the run funny, since the silly games block was known for wacky and funny performances – one friend suggested he put on a muscle shirt.
Ho, who normally speaks in a Singaporean accent, said he worked really hard on his American accent so that he could appeal to a wider audience.
"Normally, I don't talk like this, because Singaporean to Singaporean, I can speak like that. But I also had to work for a very long time for the accent to actually come out," he said.
Chunithm runners Tay "Bezat" Tze Jun, 24, Goh "Ravielle" Zuo Jie, 24, and Chen "Blaze" Defeng, 24, in front of the Chunithm arcade machine they used for their performance. (Photo: Aloysius Low)
More recently, another bunch of gamers were picked to showcase at Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) 2025. But they weren't actually speedrunners like Ho. Instead, these three gamers showcased Chunithm, a rhythm arcade game that features a piano-like touch bar while also letting players move their hands around in the air.
"For the longest time, I wanted Chunithm to be showcased at Games Done Quick, but due to a lot of factors, such as location, timing, equipment, it's very hard to execute something like this in Singapore because a lot of the arcades that have Chunithm are public," said Goh "Ravielle" Zuo Jie, a 24-year-old student at Raffles Musical College.
He added that there would be a lot of elements to coordinate, but thanks to Bunnyside Basement, a private invite-only arcade at Prinsep Street, the trio were able to stream the performance to a global audience watching on Twitch.
Chunithm-2: Tay "Bezat" Tze Jun, 24, monitoring the live feed on the PC they used for streaming.(Photo: Aloysius Low)
The arcade owner also helped with purchasing some of the equipment they needed for streaming. During their performance, AGDQ reached their target of raising US$1 million (S$1.3 million), which meant the team also had to improvise around that milestone.
"None of us expected the US$1 million goal to be on us. It did take some time to reach the number, but it's well worth it, and everyone celebrated the US$1 million," said Chen "Blaze" Defeng, a 24-year-old Applied Physics student at Nanyang Technological University.
"I was worried about my own performance, because I'm the first to go and I also played three of the hardest songs back-to-back during my incentive showcase. I was mostly worried about how well I would play," he added.
Unlike a normal speedrun that usually relies on muscle memory, the trio's showcase required lots of physical stamina, as they were playing at the hardest difficulty. Besides performing, the players also had to commentate on their own run, since they were doing it remotely from Singapore.
But watching the video of their over one hour run, you probably wouldn't notice a difference, given how at ease they looked explaining the game, the mechanics and background of the tracks they picked.
"I spent a lot of time working on the script, making sure it was really something that I think would help people understand the game and come out with a greater appreciation for rhythm games," said Tay "Bezat" Tze Jun, a 24-year-old studying social work at the National University of Singapore.
Tay, who happens to also be the second best Chunithm player in Singapore, said the scripts were colour coded to and broken into segments to allow the trio to easily commentate while one of them was performing – and at one point, had 100 pages. It was also the opportunity to show the game to a Western audience, as the game is more popular in Asia.
Justin "juh0" Ho at Summer Games Done Quick 2024 before his Muscle March run. (Photo: Games Done Quick/Richard Ngo)
As for Ho, being a gamer has been his dream all this while. While he originally wanted to be a Counter-Strike esports professional since 2008, it has been hard for him to break into the pro scene. While he considers himself "pretty good" at it still, he thinks it's probably too late to become a competitive player. Streaming has also been tough for him, because of the games he streams.
"In Singapore, everyone wants to play mainstream games like Counter-Strike, DotA, or Valorant, and not a lot of people who want to go into the niche side of things. So I try to play games that other people don't really play, which means my content is like oil and water, and doesn't mix well with other Singaporean streamers," he said.
Ho, who has battled depression in the past, added it has been tough to find a full-time job after dropping out of ITE. But once he attends his final Summer Games Done Quick 2025 in July, he's going to look for a gaming-related job and cut back on streaming, but not fully quitting his passion just yet. And if he doesn't get selected for a run at SGDQ 25, he's still hoping to go and say farewell.
"But I'm hoping I can actually go if I do get a game in, and if I don't get a game in then whatever, lah," he said. "This is my last time to try and meet all my friends before going back to reality."
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And these aren't your typical esports professionals that compete for glory and money. No, these are gamers who just love their games so much they found all sorts of tips and tricks to play and practise the game over and over again, with one goal in mind – be the fastest.
Take, for example, the 1988 game Super Mario Bros 3 released on the Nintendo Entertainment System. SMB3 is a game that may take a good player at least five hours to beat, but if you're a speed runner, it's possible to beat the game in a mere three minutes.
"I started watching speedrunning videos back in 2016, and watching games that I really love being played and thought it was pretty cool and thought maybe I should actually get into speedrunning," said Justin "juh0" Ho, a 26-year-old Twitch streamer.
But being a speedrunner isn't just about getting the best time. It's also about connecting with other like-minded players at one of the biggest speedrunning events that take place biannually: Games Done Quick.
HARD TO GET SELECTED
Justin "juh0" Ho concentrating on Muscle March while wearing a muscle shirt. (Photo: Games Done Quick/Richard Ngo)
Ho is one of the rare few Singapore speedrunners to have appeared at Games Done Quick's biannual week-long charity events. Taking place in the US and featuring a weeklong 24-hour charity marathon stream, Games Done Quick has two main events a year: Awesome Games Done Quick and Summer Games Done Quick, and these have raised millions of dollars for the Prevent Cancer Foundation and Doctors Without Borders.
Each event receives thousands of video submissions from speedrunners and other gamers showing a speedrun performed by them, and only around 150 are picked for the event. These players, called runners, then showcase the game live in front of attendees, which is also streamed all around the world on Twitch. Depending on the game they run, they get assigned to blocks, for example, a horror block where speedrunners play horror games, or a segment where players just showcase terrible games.
Getting to be a runner is an achievement, because of how it is to be selected, and how much work you have to put in to ensure a flawless run when performing, since any delay will affect other runners down the line.
Ho managed to get on the exclusive list of runners twice. The first time was during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022, where he completed Alisa, an indie horror game from his HDB flat with a Singapore flag prominently hung behind, in 52 minutes and 4 seconds. The second time, he travelled to the US in 2024 to show off a ridiculously weird game called Muscle March that had the crowd rolling in laughter during the 15 minutes he spent playing it.
"I remember the time I saw my game on the list, and I was like, eh, I finally got in, after like four years, I was so happy, I couldn't sleep for like seven to eight hours," said Ho.
"The second time I submitted four horror games and one silly game because it's really hard to make it to the horror block, and my last one, I chose Muscle March."
He also worked on figuring out how to make the run funny, since the silly games block was known for wacky and funny performances – one friend suggested he put on a muscle shirt.
Ho, who normally speaks in a Singaporean accent, said he worked really hard on his American accent so that he could appeal to a wider audience.
"Normally, I don't talk like this, because Singaporean to Singaporean, I can speak like that. But I also had to work for a very long time for the accent to actually come out," he said.
A MUSICAL SHOWCASE
Chunithm runners Tay "Bezat" Tze Jun, 24, Goh "Ravielle" Zuo Jie, 24, and Chen "Blaze" Defeng, 24, in front of the Chunithm arcade machine they used for their performance. (Photo: Aloysius Low)
More recently, another bunch of gamers were picked to showcase at Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) 2025. But they weren't actually speedrunners like Ho. Instead, these three gamers showcased Chunithm, a rhythm arcade game that features a piano-like touch bar while also letting players move their hands around in the air.
"For the longest time, I wanted Chunithm to be showcased at Games Done Quick, but due to a lot of factors, such as location, timing, equipment, it's very hard to execute something like this in Singapore because a lot of the arcades that have Chunithm are public," said Goh "Ravielle" Zuo Jie, a 24-year-old student at Raffles Musical College.
He added that there would be a lot of elements to coordinate, but thanks to Bunnyside Basement, a private invite-only arcade at Prinsep Street, the trio were able to stream the performance to a global audience watching on Twitch.
Chunithm-2: Tay "Bezat" Tze Jun, 24, monitoring the live feed on the PC they used for streaming.(Photo: Aloysius Low)
The arcade owner also helped with purchasing some of the equipment they needed for streaming. During their performance, AGDQ reached their target of raising US$1 million (S$1.3 million), which meant the team also had to improvise around that milestone.
"None of us expected the US$1 million goal to be on us. It did take some time to reach the number, but it's well worth it, and everyone celebrated the US$1 million," said Chen "Blaze" Defeng, a 24-year-old Applied Physics student at Nanyang Technological University.
"I was worried about my own performance, because I'm the first to go and I also played three of the hardest songs back-to-back during my incentive showcase. I was mostly worried about how well I would play," he added.
Unlike a normal speedrun that usually relies on muscle memory, the trio's showcase required lots of physical stamina, as they were playing at the hardest difficulty. Besides performing, the players also had to commentate on their own run, since they were doing it remotely from Singapore.
But watching the video of their over one hour run, you probably wouldn't notice a difference, given how at ease they looked explaining the game, the mechanics and background of the tracks they picked.
"I spent a lot of time working on the script, making sure it was really something that I think would help people understand the game and come out with a greater appreciation for rhythm games," said Tay "Bezat" Tze Jun, a 24-year-old studying social work at the National University of Singapore.
Tay, who happens to also be the second best Chunithm player in Singapore, said the scripts were colour coded to and broken into segments to allow the trio to easily commentate while one of them was performing – and at one point, had 100 pages. It was also the opportunity to show the game to a Western audience, as the game is more popular in Asia.
ONE LAST SHOT
Justin "juh0" Ho at Summer Games Done Quick 2024 before his Muscle March run. (Photo: Games Done Quick/Richard Ngo)
As for Ho, being a gamer has been his dream all this while. While he originally wanted to be a Counter-Strike esports professional since 2008, it has been hard for him to break into the pro scene. While he considers himself "pretty good" at it still, he thinks it's probably too late to become a competitive player. Streaming has also been tough for him, because of the games he streams.
"In Singapore, everyone wants to play mainstream games like Counter-Strike, DotA, or Valorant, and not a lot of people who want to go into the niche side of things. So I try to play games that other people don't really play, which means my content is like oil and water, and doesn't mix well with other Singaporean streamers," he said.
Ho, who has battled depression in the past, added it has been tough to find a full-time job after dropping out of ITE. But once he attends his final Summer Games Done Quick 2025 in July, he's going to look for a gaming-related job and cut back on streaming, but not fully quitting his passion just yet. And if he doesn't get selected for a run at SGDQ 25, he's still hoping to go and say farewell.
"But I'm hoping I can actually go if I do get a game in, and if I don't get a game in then whatever, lah," he said. "This is my last time to try and meet all my friends before going back to reality."
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