Yesterday, I spoke of speedrunning video games and all the different ways things are categorized there.  However, there is ONE other way gamers can challenge themselves when playing their favorite games, provided a specific something exists for said game... we call it a

 

RANDOMIZER

What's a Randomizer?  At the most rudimentary level, a Randomizer shuffles all the items you have to collect in a specific game (including expendables, like Link's arrows/bombs/rupees in Link to the Past SNES) and places them all in different spots than where you'd normally find them (provided the randomization doesn't end up putting it in its "Vanilla" location anyway).  You can also CHANGE the goal to beat the game using the setup websites/programs for these Randomizers (for LTTP, you can make it a Triforce piece hunt, where Triforce pieces are now part of the item pool for you to find, or a Pendant based goal to get the Red/Green/Blue Pendants you get by beating the 3 "light world" dungeons in the "Vanilla" version of the game.)

Some games simply do items, while other also can change what enemies go where and where doors will take you in more complex games.  I realize this is a hard thing for me to explain with just text, so I'll provide some examples from some people I watch on Twitch:

 (Resident Evil 3, played by BigJon, and I do know this was part of the ESA playlist I posted before)



 (Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past SNES, played by BigJon, for ESA's 2020 COVID-era marathon



 (Donkey Kong 64, played by Mikegibney)

And now, a question I'm sure you'd ask if you could talk back to a pre-written blog post:
"Can it generate a situation where you literally can't beat the game?"

Most randomizers at this point have logic checks where a key item can't be hidden behind the place where you'd need said specific item....unless you REALLY wanna risk it and tell the settings menu of the randomizer seed generator to give you one that specifically ignores said logic).

Oh, and then there's multi world & multi GAME randomizers...in multi world ones, you play with others (with their own seeds) where the items for ALL the games are mixed up with one another.  You could find an important item... only for it to belong to someone else's game and be slightly disappointed.  Meanwhile, Multi Game Randomizers (like the currently popular "Archipelago" system) mix items between games, even if that item doesn't normally belong in said game!

For example, Link could find a Power Star for Mario, who can find a suit upgrade for Samus, who finds a bunch of bombs for Link to use (simplest example I can come up with)

 To better understand, here's another video from a recent stream from Mikegibney):


Hopefully I didn't miss anything (not going into detail about races where 2 or more people compete to beat the game the fastest, everyone having the same seed meaning everyone's item shuffle is the same)

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