This is one of the greatest challenges I've ever faced in gaming. I was pushed to my limits and beyond, physically, mentally and emotionally. It took almost 800 hours of grinding, over the span of 2 years (Jun 2020 - October 2022) This happened over 3 different hunting season which each lasted a month and had a minimum of 6 months break in between.
As someone who's played Trackmania at a high level for close to 10 years, I've never before come across such a challenge that required so much precision, patience, memorisation and effort. The precision required for this map goes way beyond just doing the correct lines and avoiding obstacles. You have to think about car speed, stablility, knowing where the car can land bug or get pulled sideways, reacting to the car suddenly getting pushed/pulled to the side, knowing every single speedcheck, the speed range that works for all speedchecks (You can be too slow AND too fast), if you need to airbrake at certain speeds at those speedchecks. The list goes on and on.
The mental toll and burnout I experienced on this map lasted almost the entire 2 years. Burnout from putting a ton of effort and heavy focus into the map, dealing with the many many many MANY failed attempts, especially the ones that made it far. The constant nerves and shaking when a run gets past 5 minutes no crashes. The occasional dropped inputs and game crashes made things even more frustrating.
When I got the 10:06 back in December 31st 2020, I was so done with the map and ready to give up, leave it behind. I constantly said I was done when people asked about going for the one shot, but it kept plaguing my mind. I constantly thought about this project and just how close I got and how doable it is. I tried again in late 2021, just before the TMGL Fall season. My pace improved everywhere, but my consistency dropped off and I never gave myself a real chance at the sub 10. I ran out of time and had to recover for the TMGL season. At that time, I thought I wouldn't have another window to attempt this again.
Going into 2022, I see that a TAS run was made of this in 9:43, which killed any motivation I had left before watching it. When I did watch it, I didn't find it interesting or take any strats as the speed was already impossible after 25 seconds. I still don't understand what the purpose of the TAS was other than to showcase how Overpowered SD's combined with super low airtime are. This time I was done, truly done with the project of sub 10 minute RTA and I was able to move on and focus on TMGL. I ended up winning Spring 2022 season & playoffs. I also ended up playing at the TM World Cup Grand Final in Paris and got a Bronze medal, which I'm super proud of.
I'll be honest, the only reason I came back to Deep Fear at all, is because of the 6 month break from TMGL changing its calender. I thought to myself "This break is probably my last chance to have a real go at Deep Fear" So I ended up de-rusting and grinding it again in September. Attempts just kept getting faster and faster the first 2 weeks, driving paces I NEVER saw in any previous grind. My patience and consistency was also WAY higher than before. The motivation kept on building and focus was staying consistent every session.
The grind goes into October and I end up having my best session ever, getting MANY attempts past halfway and getting lots of chances of clutching the sub 10. The average session time was 4 hours, this one ended up being 11 hours because I truly believed that was the day. That day ended in heartbreak and I had to take a week off to recover.
Now we get the Thursday, October 13 2022, the stream starts at the usual time, I do my sector 6-10 practice runs, they aren't going well, but I shake it off since it's been a week, so whatever. I get into attempts and can't get past the 3 minute mark for a while, then I got 1 attempt into sector 7, made a mistake at the end and crashed into the sector 8 cp. I restart the game since I do that after every good attempt (memory leak prevention) then I quickly got another run into sector 7 and crashed about 25 seconds in. Then I instantly got another run to sector 7 and past it. That's the run you're watching on this video.
I started this challenge before my first and only Open Grand League season and finished it after winning my first Major title in Trackmania Grand League. That alone shows how much time and energy needed to be invested into this project.
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