RTA in Japan Winter 2022 includes a one-million-cookie speedrun tournament of Cookie Clicker

The schedule for RTA in Japan Winter 2022 has been released. RTA in Japan is a biannual speedrunning event that was first held in 2016. The upcoming winter event will run for six days, from December 26 to 31 (JST), and will include 80 speedruns.

Kicking off the schedule on the 26th is a Hard Any% run of Burger Burger, a Japan-exclusive burger shop simulation game for the PlayStation that was released in 1997.

The 27th is headlined by a 100% run of Kirby’s Return to Dream Land and the second Cookie Clicker one-million-cookie speedrun tournament. The Kirby’s Return to Dream Land speedrun is being performed by Shiro, who just set a new record for the game on November 12.

During the Cookie Clicker one-million-cookie tournament, players compete to see who can bake one million cookies in the shortest amount of time. It is the only tournament style matchup being held at the event. The current world record time is under seven minutes, so it will be interesting to see if anyone in the tournament can come close to that or even beat it.

On the 28th, there is an All maps run of Pogostuck: Rage With Your Friends and 100% and Any% runs of A Dance of Fire and Ice. Pogostuck is an action game where you use a pogo stick to climb a mountain. In contrast with the vibrant and cheerful visual style of the game, it is brutally difficult, so much so that players have given it the “Psychological Horror” tag on Steam. There are three maps in total and the run’s final time will be the sum of the in-game time for each map.

A Dance of Fire and Ice is a rhythm game played only with the spacebar. A musical score is displayed as a single line upon which two circles move along at a uniform pace. Players must hit space when the circles are overlapped with the line. Speedrunners compete for the quickest time in clearing all worlds with a timing rating of “Strict” or above.

Highlights on the 29th include a run of the Windows version of Shiren the Wanderer Gaiden: Asuka the Swordswoman and an Any% (No Night Skip) run of The Convenience Store. The speedrun of Shiren the Wanderer Gaiden will be a race between four players and is expected to last an arduous four hours. The Convenience Store is an indie horror game where you play as a woman working the night shift at a convenience store.

On the 30th, we have an All fruits run of Pikmin 3 Deluxe and an Any% (Unrestricted) run of last year’s indie darling Inscryption. The Pikmin 3 Deluxe run involves collecting all 66 varieties of fruit in the game and defeating the last boss as quickly as possible. The Inscryption run is in the Unrestricted category, which means that the use of any bugs or exploits is permitted.

Finally, the event comes to an end on the 31st with a trilogy run of the Donkey Kong Country series (All Stages, Any%, Any%). It will be a relay speed run based on the total time of three players each taking on one of the three Super Nintendo installments in the series.

There are many more games being run at the event than what we were able to cover here, so anyone who is curious to learn more can check out the schedule page for RTA in Japan Winter 2022 here (Japanese only).

Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2022-11-14 15:56 JST)