I can’t walk from my bedroom to the kitchen at dusk without stubbing my toe on something, so it’s hard for me to believe that someone could play a game while blindfolded — but a pair of unbelievable gamers did exactly that while raising money to help prevent cancer.
In an amazing display of skill — and with a crowd cheering them on — speedrunners Sinisterwon and Zallard1 donned blindfolds to play through Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! and Super Punch-Out!!, respectively. The runs, which were a part of the Awesome Games Done Quick 2014 marathon, attracted more than 80,000 viewers on the event’s Twitch channel.
Awesome Games Done Quick is an marathon where dozens of speedrunners get together to play games and raise money for special causes. Speedrunning is the act of blazing through a game as quickly as possible, and it has a dedicated audience of hardcore fans. The 2014 marathon has already raised more than $500,000 for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
To help raise extra money, Sinisterwon and Zallard1 promised to play through their games blindfolded if viewers met certain donation thresholds. Speedrun fans donated $10,035 to see the blindfolded run of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! on the Nintendo Entertainment System and $5,336 to see the blindfolded speedrun of Super Punch-Out!! on the Super Nintendo.
You can watch both back to back in the video below. The action gets started at around the five-minute mark:
Sinisterwon went first. He played through nearly all of the NES boxing game while wearing the blindfold but was unable to defeat Mike Tyson. The crowd of onlookers, who had to remain quiet so he could hear the audio cues in the game, erupted in cheers as he defeated each opponent.
Zallard1 followed up with his Super Punch-Out!! run and was able to beat the whole game. That earned him a standing ovation and hugs from the stunned crowd.