Blindfolded Mario 64 Speedrunner seconds away from a heartache with invalid attempt at record recording

The moment of tension that one feels when they realize that they are closer after a Recordrun can be felt. Double if the competitor is a blindfolded speedrunner who cannot see the chat who tells him that his webcam has been eliminated.

Last week, as spotted by Gamesradar, Speedrunner Bubzia worked on beating the world record for a blindfolded 70-star run in Super Mario 64. It is a record that he himself set in June, 25 minutes and 11 seconds. He had tried to overthrow his own record for days – 72, at the time of this incident. And on February 10, while he is at a good pace to break his record, Bubzia’s Webcam was eliminated.

Yesterday it finally happened. My webcam died at the start of a 70 -star run, and I didn’t know until I finished an hour later. Fortunately it was a few seconds behind the world record 😅😅 pic.twitter.com/7bjzfwyhvH

– Bubzia (@Bubzia1) February 11, 2025

Bubzia had had some difficulties with his webcam before the run started. “That is a new guy,” he said in a run prior to the big one, where his webcam is about a minute and 34 seconds.

The heart breaker in question would take place after, after 23 minutes and 59 seconds in a really solid run. You can view the YouTube vod of his run to see the chat in real time, respond. “This can be the funniest WR,” said a person in the chat.

The Facecam is crucial because it is required to make the run valid. On the rules and regulations of Speedrun.com, it states specifically: “The player must be visibly visible of the view during the gameplay, that is, something has to cover the eyes.” Ergo, if you could not verify that Bubzia had covered his eyes all the time, the run would not be eligible.

Having a backup of a species, such as a report, can be a thought. But the second category-specific rule says that runners cannot have help from other people. This includes hints from a discord call or text-to-voice chat. After the first webcam -Mislukking, Bubzia confirmed that he “everything was eliminated” to warn him in the event of a failure and had received several Discord DMs who tried to attract his attention while running.

For some viewers it can be painful to see how someone runs a game for more than an hour, not being aware of their attempt is invalid since 24 minutes. Bubzia’s chat even leaned in the irony, hoping for the runner not Set a world record to prevent the heartache when the blindfold came off.

So in this way it might have been a relief that the time of Bubzia came behind the world record within a few seconds. The Tempo clock was closed at 1:26:09, almost a full minute behind the standing record of Bubzia.

“If this had been the world record, I would have cried,” Bubzia said after he had left his blindfold and realized that the Facecam had been eliminated. “Guy, I would have left SM64, man.”

You can follow more attempts by Bubzia, whose facecam is currently working at the time of this writing, on his Twitch here. And for more information about Speedrunning, view our speedrun video series of developers who respond to speed runs from their own games.

Image credit: @Bubzia1.

Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.