Beyond the Board: Interview with InstaFiz

Hello everyone, and welcome back to this month’s Beyond the Board! Quite the activity we have this month, with both this and Bingothon Summer 2021 happening very soon on May 28th on both the SRL and Bingothon Twitch channels!

In any case, today’s guest is InstaFiz, an avid runner of Terraria who is going to talk to us about, well… Terraria bingos!

As usual, you can find the video below, as well as the FULL interview under that. Enjoy!

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Pikastroff: Hello everyone and welcome back to this new edition of Beyond the Board! This time around on Terraria – I’m definitely excited for this one and I hope you are too! 

Just before we get started I would like to remind that very soon there will be our marathon Bingothon Summer 2021 starting on May 28th on both the SpeedRunsLive channel as well as the Bingothon Twitch channel, so definitely do make sure to check it out when it happens!

With that said, that’s enough from me, so how about you introduce yourself?

InstaFiz: Hello! My name is InstaFiz and I like to play video games, I like to play video games fast, I like to make content, I like to stream… And I am a huge fan of Terraria! I’ve been playing the game for years, I absolutely love it and I love speedrunning it. They say that you shouldn’t speedrun your favourite games but that hasn’t affected me personally negatively though, so yeah, that’s me, just an absolute Terraria enthusiast!

Pikastroff: Yeah, some people may argue that speedrunning your favourite game will ruin it – which it actually did for me but shush! [Laugh] But I like this enthusiasm! And speaking of that, you said that you started playing years ago, so how then did you get into Terraria speedrunning?

InstaFiz: Ok, so… There is this legend on YouTube, alright, this legend in Terraria. His name is Yrimir. He was the one who popularized the idea of Terraria speedrunning. Back in the day, when Terraria was only a few years old his videos were very popular, people loved his videos so much. He would make videos on like ‘beating certain bosses on the first night’ and stuff like that and everybody loved it, everybody thought it was cool.

I was part of that group that watched those videos and I really enjoyed them. I was wondering ‘how far can this be taken?’, ‘are there other people who do things like this?’ and ‘can it be something more?’. As I was starting to look at other speedgames too like Super Mario Odyssey, which is a really fun speedgame for me, and started looking more into the world of speedrunning more and more through Yrimir’s videos I started to explore the idea of speedrunning more and I’m like ‘how far can Terraria be taken?’. We already know how Yrimir’s been doing this for a while now but can it go beyond this? Are there more people that do this? And then I started looking into that. I started to check out the leaderboards, check out the different categories, seeing what other people had brought to the table, seeing how things had evolved a lot since Yrimir started posting his videos. 

I was wondering ‘can I do this myself?’. So I started experimenting a lot doing some casual first night boss runs back when I only had the game on the Xbox One, and then when I got it on PC I started to mess around more, get LiveSplit, explore expert mode – because at the time expert mode was only on PC and not on console. I basically just started to snowball from there. I started doing more proper runs, I joined the speedrunning Discord for Terraria, started to submit runs to the leaderboards and I started to, dare I say, get good at it! And started to make a name for myself in the community. And yeah, that’s pretty much how it went, I really am happy with where I am now.

Pikastroff: Git gud! [Laughs] I think it’s interesting that you mention that it’s basically initially from YouTube videos that you got introduced to it, with those first night boss runs! In general, trying to relate this to my own experience, I don’t know how many people got introduced to it via YouTube videos but for me who is more on the Zelda side of things… You know, Zelda being Zelda, it’s been full of speedrunning content, for example such as with Wind Waker and Barrier Skip at the time… Anyway it’s interesting to see that it’s something that’s in common with many other games as well, how YouTube introduced many people to their games, though speedrunning culture is more prominent on Twitch.

Anyway, you’ve been mentioning how you were introduced mainly with those videos but then, when it comes to speedrunning it as a whole, especially for a game like Terraria that’s quite big what would then be your favourite aspect of it, and why?

InstaFiz: What I really like about Terraria speedrunning is that it’s different. It’s different from other typical speedgames. Where most speedgames would demand you to have good execution and the tightest times would revolve around frame-perfect inputs, just shaving those few milliseconds by executing your runs better. 

Terraria is different. You don’t necessarily need to have crazy execution skills to be good at speedrunning the game or even try to run it at all. It’s more about the cognitive ability, really. It’s more about your awareness of what’s going on. You need to be smart, you need to make good decisions on the fly. I just think it’s really cool how in order to get the best times in this game, or to get better at this game in general, it’s not necessarily about execution, it’s more about decision-making, deciding what is good to do in certain situations, how you can get yourself out of this pickle, what materials you should be going for at times… You need to adapt – yeah, adapt, I should have used that word earlier. You just need to adapt, and it’s a battle of wits. That’s what Terraria speedrunning is, really. It’s different and that’s what I really like about it, especially with all the random aspects and whatnot.

Pikastroff: Just with the way you are describing it there, it really sounds like the perfect game for a bingo! [Laughs] One of the key differences between normal speedrunning and bingos is that bingos require a lot of thinking on your feet, of adapting – that’s the word you were using… 

Just the way you’re making it sound and from what I’ve seen myself really makes it a good bingo game, and that leads me to my next question – how did you get into Terraria bingos, then?

InstaFiz: I was just hanging around the Terraria speedrunning Discord and there was an admin, his name was Hectique and he was more familiar with bingos than the rest of the server was. He had been setting up the Bingosync, the bingo card and the goals for Terraria. But nobody else in the server, not even the other admins, really knew what bingo was. He had it set up for a while – he had channels in the server setup for how bingo works and what to do if you want to do your own race. Nobody really touched it, you know.

But then, one day we decided to give it a whirl and when we did it turned out to be a lot of fun! It was so amazing, I just got to hang out with my fellow runners and partake in these fun activities, it was just really fun. Eventually, one of our runners got approached by you folks and it snowballed even more from there, it’s been amazing!

Pikastroff: Oh! I can see how bingos usually… Well the people who make the bingo cards are… well, they’re big-brains! That’s just the best way I can see it! [Laughs] They’re really dedicated, even when they’re basically on their own, they can still manage to really work on that, even with that very small bingo community! And yeah, I remember when you guys ran Terraria for the first time, that was for Bingothon Summer 2020 if I am not mistaken? So that really means it took off a year ago then?

InstaFiz: Yeah, definitely.

Pikastroff: Well, I’m happy to hear that it helped in making it take off, then!

Then, you know, I was going to ask you what it is that you think makes Terraria bingos fun… But I suppose that it relates a lot to what makes Terraria speedrunning fun in general. Would I be correct in saying that it would basically be the same answer?

InstaFiz: Yeah, definitely, it’s really related to that, about how Terraria is a game where you need to think on your feet and adapt opposed to execution. Like you said earlier, that’s really what bingos are all about and I guess that’s what makes Terraria bingos fun. It requires you to think on your feet and decide what the best thing to do is, and you take that with Terraria which is a speedgame that already demands those things, and it’s a match made in heaven! That’s what makes Terraria bingos so amazing.

Pikastroff: Definitely sounds like so, as I said it sounds like the perfect game for bingos! But, I dare say, what good would it be as a bingo game if it wasn’t challenging? So, what do you think is it that would make Terraria bingos the most challenging or engaging… You already said that it’s more about routing rather than execution so then I suppose my real question would be; what aspect of routing do you think is the most challenging or engaging about Terraria bingos then?

InstaFiz: When you’re doing Terraria runs, not everything you try is going to work. Sometimes the stars won’t line up as much as you want them to and typically when you are doing a run, you’d want to reset until you can get those things you want. But when you are doing a bingo it’s kind of like a no reset thing, especially when you are playing for a marathon or playing with other people which is really what bingos are. You know, there’s no bingo leaderboards where you can submit your times for those or anything like that. 

So yeah, it’s a no reset game. You have to come up with some alternate strategies or some safer strategies if certain things aren’t going to work when you’re playing bingos. Or you can just go big or go home and try those riskier things and pray that the stars align for you. Or you can go for these absurd squares where it doesn’t seem like it might work but if you can pull it off, then that will make the whole bingo game easier and you can really get ahead of the competition. I guess the thing that makes bingos challenging is that this is the only chance you’re going to get. Are you going to go this way, or are you going to go that way? It’s a really big deal when you’re doing bingo runs.

Pikastroff: So there’s basically a big risk-and-reward kind of thing going on at play, is there?

InstaFiz: Yup, definitely.

Pikastroff: So then, I’d be curious to know… What would be some examples for something that is super risky… Actually, how would I phrase that best… The kind of scenario that can be really risky but could yield a really high reward? And alternatively, in that same scenario, would could be a safer strat? Do you have any example scenarios that you can think of in particular? If you need a minute to think about it that’s fine!

InstaFiz: We can use my Bingothon Summer 2020 run as an example, when I was running with the other folks. Let’s take for example the Wall of Flesh. He’s a boss that lets you get into the hardmode which is like the ‘phase 2’ of the game you could say. Normally what speedrunners do is that they buy a bunch of dynamite, run on the bridge as he approaches you and try to throw the dynamite item. Obviously when you are dealing with explosives you can imagine that can go wrong if you aren’t careful. So when I was doing my run I went for a safer strat where I killed a boss called Queen Bee, and I used her beenades that she drops to kill the Wall of Flesh. It was a little slower but it was definitely a lot safer. Beenades are what people used before experimenting with dynamite. I believe I came second place in that run, 4 minutes behind MaxOverpower, best Terraria speedrunner ever. If I went for that dynamite strat, I probably could have done it successfully.

On the topic of strats that you wouldn’t normally see in normal runs but ones that you can see in bingos… Sometimes you’ll have a square that will give you an excuse to do something that you normally wouldn’t do in a normal run, but it will be something that will benefit you for the rest of the run. Let’s say you get a square where you have to get an NPC called the Truffle… So the Truffle is an NPC that will let you craft Shroomite Bars, and Shroomite Bars are a bar that will let you craft Shroomite Armour, which is one of the best sets for rangers in the game – it really benefits ranged weapons. What you need to do to get the Truffle is so time consuming because you need to build a mushroom pine on the surface, you need to get the seeds, you need to build a house, you need to wait for him to move in… It’s not practical at all in a normal run! But let’s say, in bingo you get a square that says ‘Get the Truffle’, well now you have an excuse to go after that Shroomite Armour. Seeing how that’s one of the best armours in the game, now you can use it for the rest of the run. 

So yeah, sometimes there are some cases where you’ll want to go for safer strats. There are also cases where squares will let you do some things that you would normally not think to do in a normal run that would actually be really helpful!

Pikastroff: Yeah it’s true sometimes that goals can really just take you in areas, if you will, that runs simply just don’t explore at all. That’s something we’re going to cover a bit later on as well, but it’s just one of the things with bingos that’s really cool about it, it really just explores the game a bit more alongside the strats that you would already be familiar with. Makes you think outside the box!

Something you mentioned earlier is that you really liked the random aspects of Terraria. As such, how do these said random aspects affect bingos and how would you deal with them when routing? I guess that must be quite a fun thing to do!

InstaFiz: Sometimes you’ll get cards where like… It doesn’t just happen with world generation, there are some really absurd squares out there, like I don’t know what Hectique was thinking when he made a few those goals! You’ll generally want to go for the safest route possible when doing a Terraria bingo, that’s a trend I’ve noticed from a lot of my fellow runners when we’ve done Terraria bingos. But sometimes you’ll come across a random event that really shakes up the game for you and suddenly you have that square filled in that you didn’t expect to fill in at all and now you can just snowball from there, maybe that square was connected to a way easier bingo.

For example, let’s take the Blood Moon. The Blood Moon is an event that only has a 5% chance of happening each night. There’s an enemy in the Blood Moon called the Bride and there’s also one called the Groom and if you kill them you can get the Bride and Groom vanity sets. That’s a square! Obviously, 5% chance each night, like who the heck wants to do that?! Obviously no one is going to go for that… But if the stars align and you do come upon that, suddenly you can fill in that square now because RNGesus decided to smile upon you. Now you can go off of that square and potentially fill in easier squares.

So, the fun part about Terraria bingos and randomness is that if certain absurd things happen to you out of nowhere, where you can suddenly fill in a square that you weren’t expecting to fill in, now you have more options available to you and it can potentially win you the game!

Pikastroff: Oh man, just imagine having that Blood Moon objective on a blackout card! Oh no! [Laughs] I suppose that makes sense – so basically, it really means that you can’t necessarily route, or well you CAN route accurately from the start, but those random elements can affect your routing at any point in the run, and coming back to the idea of adapting that you’ve been talking about a lot that can then adapt said route that you can have. For instance, there are some other games where the runners can basically route their entire run from the start and in such cases it really depends more on their ability to execute their route rather than, well, adapt to it unlike Terraria. I think that’s an interesting perspective in that regard, that difference in mentality in routing due to the randomness of the game and how you then have to adapt to different goals…

And, speaking of goals… That’s something that’s been kind of touched upon to some extent already, but in the context of Terraria, what would think is a goal that’s fun and engaging versus one that needs some rebalancing on the card?

InstaFiz: There’s some fun and engaging goals that might include you being restricted to use certain items or weapons, or beating a boss in certain conditions. Those are some really fun goals alright, just goals that involve you challenging yourself. I think those are really some amazing goals.

Ones that need to be rebalanced, like I mentioned earlier, there are some really absurd squares out there that require the stars to line for you really well and nobody goes for that stuff, and if you do you’re nuts! But then there’s some other ones… Obviously Terraria, being a sandbox game, it’s gonna have a crafting system alright? And there’s some really complicated items out there that have huge crafting trees, and there are some squares that involve those kinds of items. There’s an item called the Cell Phone and obviously in our modern era of technology, cell phones can do everything you know? They’re a GPS, they can tell you the weather and all sorts of crazy things like that and in Terraria there exists an item called the Cell Phone and to craft it you need to get all these crazy devices that can do various things and you combine them all into the Cell Phone and there is this complex crafting tree… And that’s just one item! 

Besides the goals that require crazy luck, there’s also some goals that require you to do so, so much that it’s really difficult to do in a normal playthrough, even if it’s glitched! So yeah, there’s just some really absurd goals out there where you really have to shoot for the stars and put in so much effort… And it’s just bleh! Those are some goals that can constitute as unfun.

Pikastroff: I’m really starting to see a narrative in these Beyond the Boards. When we ask that question about goals that need rebalancing it seems like quite often, for a lot of these goals the problem they have in common is that they’re goals that tend to require a lot of prerequisites.

InstaFiz: Yes!

Pikastroff: That seems to be quite a common topic, and that definitely makes sense. When I think about it I can understand why they’ve been included, at least in the case of the games I am more familiar with, because you know you may think ‘oh, it’s fun to add goals that add an extra challenge!’. While it might work individually, it’s the kind of thing that can completely throw off a route, just throw off the whole synergy of the goals. So really I think that’s just some food for thought, the fact that this is something that constantly comes up, for those that are interested in making bingo cards. Once again, just to think about the prerequisites of your goals.

Then, I see here that my next question would be about your favourite goals and your most hated ones! But I suppose that you would give a similar answer as before, would it be?

InstaFiz: Yeah, it would be. I really like the goals that require you to try different things, challenge yourself, putting restrictions on yourself, so you can try new things which is really what bingo is. Once again like I mentioned earlier, that Truffle goal, I really love it because I love the Shroomite Armour and I really like just playing with new toys! Just goals that make you try new things, fun things, exciting things. Those are my favourite kinds of goals. Just stuff that you don’t really get to try in a normal run but they’re really awesome things.

Pikastroff: Yeah, they would be! It’s great to try new things!

Obviously, routing is something we’ve been talking about a lot. It’s something that’s very important already in bingos in the first place but even more so in Terraria. You’ve also talked before for example about how randomness can affect routing. Do you then have any other aspects that you can think of in routing that most people would usually not think of? And if that would make any sense to answer, perhaps any mistakes in the thought process behind routing that for instance beginners can have, and how can they then improve on that in that regard if that makes sense?

InstaFiz: The thing about Terraria, it’s a game where if you’re playing it, if you’re enjoying it, then you generally have a bunch of hours logged into the game. You generally have a bunch of knowledge on it, you generally know how things work, the ins and outs, even if you’re not speedrunning. So, for the most part, if you’re running Terraria you’re not an idiot alright, you’re not gonna try things that you know you can’t do… But on that note, there are still some mistakes that can happen even though Terraria players tend to have so much knowledge of the game. There are still mistakes that can happen.

The main thing that comes to my mind are goals that are easy to do, but if you’re not careful then that really can hurt the run, to the point of a forfeit.

Pikastroff: Oof.

InstaFiz: Take for example ‘Defeating the Old One’s Army’. That is an event that requires you to look for the Tavernkeep NPC. You find him after defeating the Eater of Worlds or Brain of Cthulhu, he can just be lying around the world knocked unconscious and you have to find him. If you’re not careful he can die while you’re trying to talk to him depending on where he spawns and that will just really mess up the run. So just, when people make mistakes when playing bingo it tends to come from people trying to go for goals that are easy to do, but if RNG isn’t kind to you or something really unlucky happens or if something goes wrong, then it can really hurt you. Sometimes it can be really unexpected too.

Pikastroff: So basically, do not underestimate the low hanging fruits of goals?

InstaFiz: Yeah, pretty much.

Pikastroff: That’s interesting to think about, I never thought of it that way. You know, when you start a run it’s easy to just go ‘oh yeah, I’ll go for the easy goals first’ if that fits their routing. But it’s true that sometimes there are aspects that might not seem obvious that can then impact your run in more important ways than it may seem at first.

Speaking of the fact that ‘oh yeah, for instance when people start routing, you know if the goals fit on their route…’, well… Ugh, I’m just trying to do a lousy transition here to the bingo type discussion! [Laughs] What do you think then, in the context of Terraria, is the most fun bingo type to do?

InstaFiz: Terraria and blackout generally don’t really go together. I’ve never tried it myself, I don’t think anybody is crazy enough to try it themselves, but I have done double bingos in the past and I think those can be really awesome! I have fun memories of doing some double bingos, especially during my Winter 2020 run where we reached a donation goal, and it was really awesome!

But on the topic of blackouts, I think it could be possible to go for one in the most recent update for Terraria. Before when we’ve been doing bingos we’ve been going back to 1.3.5 because that’s the version that has the most useful glitches and the goals for Terraria were made with those glitches in mind. When 1.4 rolled around, which was last year on the game’s 9th anniversary, suddenly this update came by and we were thrown off. A few weeks later Bingothon Summer 2020 happened and we just had to downpatch and for Winter 2020 we had to downpatch as well. I don’t think anybody has ever tried a bingo with 1.4… 

But, in 1.4, there has been introduced a new game mode called Journey Mode. Essentially what Journey Mode is, you can think of it like a Creative Mode of some sort, though there’s one key difference. It’s not exactly a Creative Mode because you’re not given everything at the start. You have to research a certain amount of items before you can get infinite of it. But, you do have all sorts of crazy tools at your disposal like weather control, god mode and stuff like that. I think if anybody wanted to try a blackout it would have to be on Journey Mode. You may be wondering, like it would be pretty boring to try and speedrun a Creative Mode or something but no, it’s actually really interesting because those Journey Mode runs are the most execution-heavy categories in the game. If anybody wanted to try blackout it would have to be with Journey Mode, which is something I actually plan to do with a friend for Winter 2021 – so that should be really fun!

But yeah, when you’re playing the game, blackout just doesn’t really work, it doesn’t really mix with Terraria, but for Journey Mode it might work and we’ll see if that will ever happen in the future.

Pikastroff: I’m not surprised at all to hear that blackout does not work, because I keep thinking again about that Blood Moon objective! [Laughs]

InstaFiz: It’s just one of many, it’s really stupid.

Pikastroff: As I was saying myself earlier, getting that kind of objective on a blackout card would be absolutely terrible!

InstaFiz: It’s inevitable in Terraria. You’re always gonna have one crazy square, it’s just not gonna work.

Pikastroff: Yeah, that makes sense then why that wouldn’t work. But that’s interesting then to see if that Journey Mode can change things up! I guess we’ll see down the line! Tease tease tease! [Laughs]

So, now, what would you say is the barrier for entry, if you will, for people who are interested in picking up Terraria bingos and have you got any advice for them?

InstaFiz: So like I said earlier, the decision-making thinking on your feet, that can be really overwhelming for some people but the way I found it is that if you just keep playing the game, then you’ll get good at it. And if you really love Terraria then you’re definitely going to get better at it because that’s just the thing, a lot of people really love this game you know. The people who play it just tend to love it so, so much. I’d say that if you are committed enough, if you love the game enough, you will eventually get better at it. 

The essentials that you need to know for speedrunning Terraria, there’s not that many! Just a glitch here, a glitch there, a few boss strats, but it’s all simple stuff to learn. Really, the biggest barrier of entry is yourself and how far you are willing to go, how easy you want to make things for yourself, how hard you want to make things for yourself. Really it all just depends on you and if you can see things through. It doesn’t have to be that way either, you can choose to take things slow, it will be fine if you do. That’s another thing about Terraria speedrunning and bingos in general. You don’t have to be nuts, there’s some fun to be found in taking things slow and going for easier strats. That’s just what Terraria is and I think it’s really fun. 

So yeah, the biggest barrier for entry, at the end of the day it’s just you.

Pikastroff: That makes sense to me, especially the part about just loving the game and loving playing the game because by definition, bingo is something that really makes you experience the full game even more so than speedruns. If you don’t enjoy the game, or if you don’t enjoy playing the game, then bingo is unfortunately not going to be something that’s really fulfilling for you. If you enjoy playing that game then that will make it easier for you to push yourself to do your best, if that makes any sense! [Laughs]

InstaFiz: Definitely.

Pikastroff: The question I am always curious to ask that I love asking every single time is; do you think that ‘normal speedrunners’ could benefit from doing bingos in some way? Especially regarding runners that run categories that do not necessarily explore the game to its fullest. However what I think is interesting is that you already mentioned that to get into Terraria speedrunning in the first place you already need to have properties like being able to adapt properly among other things, which are already properties which are good to have in bingos. So I feel it creates an even deeper connection between bingos and speedrunners, and I think that’s what makes it even more interesting. What do you think about that?

InstaFiz: Ok, so… Take our best runner for example, MaxOverpower. He has thousands of hours on the game logged, alright. But the time he spent playing the game normally, without a timer on his screen? 100 hours only, alright. So, when I was playing bingos with him, I noticed some things that he’s only been exploring for the first time and it was kind of cute honestly. 

The thing about playing bingos is that bingos reward you for already having extensive knowledge on the game, and I think that’s really fun. If you’re somebody who’s hellbent on just speedrunning the game in general, if you’re like one of those people that just pick up Terraria as a speedgame when they picked it up for the first time and got interested in the speed aspect of it more than the rest of the game… Considering Terraria is a really big game, if you’re just hellbent on the speedrunning aspects then there’s going to be a lot of things you miss out on. So the cool thing about bingos is that like I said, it rewards you for just being a fan of the game in general. If you’re somebody who just loves speedrunning the game then you’re going to discover a lot of new things, and yes, bingos can benefit ‘normal’ runners by teaching them. It’s essentially the bridge between casual and speedrunning, and I think that’s really admirable.

Pikastroff: I like the way you put it as bridging and speedrunning, because I think that’s true. Essentially, if you remove things such as glitches and speedrunning tricks out of the picture, bingos are a lot more casual-friendly for a player who only plays the game casually but knows the game, rather than someone who’s been grinding a category… which is why I suck at Breath of the Wild bingos! I’ve had a few discussions with people telling me that bingos can help, for instance… A phenomenon that happens to a lot of runners is that they can often start to… I don’t want to say ‘resent’ the game they play, but they’ll start feeling more bored, or just generally feeling different about it, but bingos has helped them just kind of rekindle their passion about the game because it helps them explore that casual fun again that a bingo can bring in… Just to say, I liked the way you phrased bridging casual and speedrunning, that’s a long way to say it! [Laughs]

So since we’re talking about the community now, how do you think that the community can further support bingos?

InstaFiz: I think that the best thing you can do is just pop by the server and just do them more. If you’re a fan of the game and you are a fan of the speedrunning community in general, why not pop by the server and just set up a bingo? Anybody can do it at any time. The members of the Terraria speedrunning Discord will be more than willing to just have some fun with bingo. If you really want to support bingos more, just do them more, you know? I’m sure there will be people who would love to join you and stuff like that… and yeah, just continue to support us over at Bingothon because you know, we could really use all that, and it’s all for the greater good! Just keep doing what you’re doing.

Pikastroff: Bingos are such a niche thing. I think that’s just the simplest way to put it indeed, people just playing it more often. Well, I’m not the best person placed to say that because I haven’t really picked up a video game in a month but I would definitely play more bingos once I do! Playing them really is the best way to support them. Now speedrunning is getting more and more mainstream these days, but bingos in of themselves is not something that many people know. Here at Bingothon we’re basically I guess just trying to show them off a bit more, to make sure they’re not as niche, but that’s gonna be tricky in of itself. But yeah, that’s something I can definitely agree with in that regard, so yeah, play bingos! [Laughs]

So… we’re almost at the end. Before we get there, have you got any anecdotes you’d like to share? However random it can be!

InstaFiz: Alright, so… [Laughs] Oh boy! I think it was during Winter 2020 when we had the ever so famous phrase happen to me which was ‘this never happened to me before!’, and those are the magic words of a marathon!

Terraria has always been known to have, like, spaghetti code. If you’re familiar with programming and you just look into the game’s code you’re probably going to cringe a bit, but despite that it still managed to be a great game! [Laughs] But anyways, Terraria’s multiplayer has especially been known to be a little jank, where certain things just don’t happen, where certain events won’t initiate.

There’s this boss in the game called Plantera. And to summon her you need to find a bulb in the jungle called a Plantera Bulb, which is probably the most infamous aspect of Terraria speedrunning as a whole. It’s such a meme in the community which is just making fun of the Plantera Bulb and hating on it so much because it can be so elusive sometimes, there’s no telling where it’s gonna be, where it’s gonna show up! I remember during Winter 2020 I’d found one and I just destroyed it and nothing happened. That was the first time that it ever happened to me, and those were the magic words of the marathon!

It was just really funny and the clip itself was hilarious. Everybody in the Terraria speedrunning Discord really got a laugh at it, it’s been posted more than once it was hilarious!

Pikastroff: Oh yeah, I was just going to mention, wasn’t there a clip of that moment? I was searching for it as you were telling that story! I don’t have it right now, I have to find it, but the clip cut right after you basically yelped in pain due to the current situation! [Laughs] But yeah, if we’re thinking of the same clip, then insert it here! But yeah, I remember loving that clip, I’ll have to find it.

InstaFiz: [Laughs] I’m really happy about how impactful that run was to Winter 2020 as a whole because you know, we had that fun moment, we reached $2,000 during it, it was the last run of the whole marathon… I’m just really happy that we could have a good time during that despite me having some stream issues as well. I was surprised at just how many people enjoyed that marathon run despite the technical difficulties, which by the way, have improved since then! I’ve got an ethernet cable now, life’s good. But yeah, I’m just really happy that you all enjoyed it as much as you did, it means a lot to me.

Pikastroff: I think that’s what counts the most, for it to be fun. And yeah, indeed that was the run where we reached $2,000! Also, I’m still searching for the clip, I just need to be sure that’s the one!

InstaFiz: I know somebody who probably has it on deck…

Pikastroff: I can’t move on without finding that clip! Unless you find it first? I guess this is a race now!

InstaFiz: Yeah! [Laughs]

Pikastroff: I can’t find it…

InstaFiz: I got it!

Pikastroff: That’s the one!

 

 

Pikastroff: It’s just that table slam and UUUUGH, that gets me everytime! [Laughs]

InstaFiz: I’m really happy I could provide that entertainment!

Pikastroff: Alright, hopefully we’ll have more Terraria shenanigans soon enough! Not just Terraria, just shenanigans in general.

InstaFiz: Summer 2021 should be exciting because I’m not going to be doing Terraria this time around personally but the other folks are going to try to finally the 1.4 bingo without glitches, and we’ll see how it goes because early I was discussing how we’ve been relying on those and how bingo was relying around those glitches but we’re going to try something different this marathon. I have confidence it’s gonna go well!

Pikastroff: Yeah, I do believe from what I’ve seen in the submissions that it’s the other folks in the community this time around that are submitting, while you will be running Pokémon.

InstaFiz: That is correct!

Pikastroff: With all of that said, I suppose that is really bringing us up to the end, now. Have you got any final words you’d like to say to the community?

InstaFiz: I just want to say thank you to everybody in the Terraria community that has shown me kindness during my journey just playing this amazing game. So many people have been friendly to me, supporting me, and I just want to say; y’all are troopers, and y’all better chase your own dreams for me and everybody just continue to share this passion for this absolutely amazing game. I just love seeing passion, more than anything in the world, and I’m just really happy to see so many people enjoy Terraria as much as they do. Keep being passionate and keep being a trooper, be greater, be yourself!

Pikastroff: Couldn’t close it with better words! So where can people find you online?

InstaFiz: My handle for every social media is InstaFiz, except for my Twitch which is InstaFizYT. I am a content creator, but I’ve been sort of moving into a phase where I make videos that take a lot longer to make, videos that have a lot more effort put into them, so like video essays or like challenge videos. There’s still going to be a bunch of speedrunning content on my end, don’t get me wrong, but if that all sounds like something you’re interested in, then yeah, just check out my socials and hopefully you won’t regret it!

Pikastroff: Hmm, video essays, now that caught my attention! [Laughs] Well everyone, definitely make sure to follow InstaFiz then on all social media. First off, I want to say thank you for joining us here for this Beyond the Board. As a final reminder, we will be having Bingothon Summer 2021 on May 28th on both the SpeedRunsLive channel and the Bingothon Twitch channel, so definitely don’t miss out!

Thank you everyone, and we’ll be seeing you next month on the next Beyond the Board! Cheers!

InstaFiz: Take care!

—

And that is it for this month’s Beyond the Board! We hope you enjoyed it!

Definitely do make sure to give a follow to InstaFiz on Twitch, Twitter and YouTube, and if you are interested in Terraria speedrunning, then do not hesitate to check out the Terraria SRC page as well as the Terraria speedrunning Discord server!

With Bingothon Summer 2021 happening on May 28th things sure will get busy soon, so do make sure to join the Bingothon Discord server if you haven’t already, as well as follow both the SpeedRunsLive and Bingothon Twitch channels so you can watch the marathon live when it happens.

Thank you everyone, and we’ll be seeing you on the next Beyond the Board!

One of the Main Organizers of Bingothon. If he’s not busy with the organization of the next event (with responsibilities including Scheduling, Fundraising, Social Media, and other organizational tasks), chances are that he is either editing some kind of video, or working towards the 3D Zelda Challenge… Or perhaps, some other plans to take over the world!