This is one of the times where explaining a joke, in fact, helps the joke. Speedrunner BloodThunder had a trap planned for his couch/audience at Awesome Games Done Quick late Thursday night/early Friday, but you need to know the meme he was working with to fully get the gag.
The perpetrator: BloodThunder (eighth all-time in the Any% run of BioShock, on PC). The victims: caster CovertMuffin and BloodThunder’s couch. The weapon: An elaborate variation on the Toddroll meme.
BloodThunder makes it to Andrew Ryan’s office and uses a glitch to bypass Ryan’s three-minute soliloquy, critical to record times on the game. But, BloodThunder says, some weird things can happen using this tactic. The blue screen of death seems to confirm this.
No, it’s actually a prank cutscene that BloodThunder modded into the game. For after the screen goes blank, it fades in on … Ralof? Everyone laughs, knowing they’ve been had, and it’s back to the run, which BloodThunder still completed in less than 50 minutes).
The “Toddroll” (note this KnowYourMeme entry is still being researched) goes to 2018, and starts with a copypasta (a mutation of another, decade-old meme) in which people believe they are playing one thing, but awaken in the cart to see the Skyrim title card, with the punchline “Todd Howard, you did it again.” (Howard is Bethesda Game Studios’ creative director.)
BloodThunder later noted that while his couch suspected hijinks, they were unprepared. He also apologized if any AGDQ technical support were flipping out. None were hurt in the creation of this master troll job.
I purposely didn't tell them, they knew I had something planned but didn't know what it was going to be.
— BloodThunder (@Bl00dThunder) January 10, 2020
Awesome Games Done Quick is ongoing and wraps up tonight with an Any% run of Super Metroid, followed by the event’s finale.
