Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, like the rest of the series, involves a certain amount of luck. When you're trailing the leader, a blue shell can send you soaring toward victory, but the game's latest speedrunning challenge has players trying to hit themselves with the blue shell.
Called "Blue Yourself," the challenge sees Twitch streamers trying to hit themselves with the blue shell as quickly as possible, and it's not as simple as just crossing their fingers. There are dozens of people trying to complete it. Dozens!
In a video from Skilloz, who appears to have set the current fastest time, he starts on the classic Game Boy Advance Mario Circuit stage and reverses course in order to get an item just behind the starting line.
He gets an invisibility star and a triple mushroom time, racing forward after collecting a blue shell so that when he does go into first place and uses it, it hits him. He accomplished this in just under 38 seconds. Of course, someone else--or Skilloz himself--is probably going to beat this record, as well, as it seems there is still a fair amount of luck involved and there are always slight ways to shave time off the clock.
Mario Kart has always been a pretty popular choice for speedrunning, though players are usually finding exploits and shortcuts to win races rather than something this silly. Skilloz specializes in the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, as well as Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2, for some reason. You'll have to ask him about that one.
Later this summer, we'll have a chance to see what other speedrunners can accomplish in Summer Games Done Quick. The organization hasn't said whether it will be online-only like its last few events, but we expect that to be the case.