What's the 30 4 30 Challenge?

The "30 4 30" originated in 2019 in honor of sg4e's 30th birthday. During the 30 days of November leading up to his December 1st birthday, sg4e beat 30 different games.

The spirit of the original 30 4 30 continued on in a new form starting in 2020, with the creation of the first 30 4 30 Challenge: an endurance trial in which participants attempted to beat the 10 selected games before the end of November. The few who managed to complete the challenge have their names inscribed on this page in recognition of this achievement. And this year, the 30 4 30 Challenge begins once again, with an all-new gameslist. So... are you up for the challenge?

The 30 4 30 Challenge begins on November 1, 2025 at 12AM EDT (UTC-4) and ends on November 30, 2025 at 11:59PM EST (UTC-5) (Daylight Savings Time ends while the challenge is active). See rules below.

Revisions

Any revisions to this page after its initial publication will be listed here. Please check back periodically to become aware of any updates or clarifications of rules.

There are no revisions yet to the 30 4 30 Challenge 2025.

Games and Objectives

This year is a SNES-only challenge. You must play the SNES version of all games, or equivalent in emulator/Virtual Console. Co-op/2-player mode is NOT allowed.

Game	Objective	Notes
Super Mario World	No Starworld
Donkey Kong Country	All Stages
The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse	Any%	Any difficulty is allowed.
Spanky's Quest	Any% US	Using a password to resume from previous progress or Game Over is allowed.
Joe & Mac	Easy	Be aware that this game has 3 continues and then requires you to start from the beginning. It may take a few attempts, but is pretty short (less than one hour, sg4e did a test playthrough). You are allowed to play on a harder difficulty (not recommended).
Kirby's Dream Course	Normal Courses, Any Medals	This is the "Beat The Game" category. You can play the game blind and not worry about somehow missing the objective.
Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing	Win the Championship	You may resume from any password you have earned from the game. "Arcade" difficulty (easier) is recommended. "Audio: Music and Sound Effects" is HIGHLY recommended.
Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose!	Easy Mode	"Children" mode is required (this is what speedrun.com calls Easy Mode). Children mode grants you unlimited continues and the ability to resume from password. You may use passwords to resume from previous progress. Due to a bug in the game, it is impossible to advance past Stage 2 if you bind the dash command to any button besides the R button (the default). If you wish to rebind this button, rebind it in the emulator controls instead of the in-game controls. If playing on console, you may use this bug-fix patch.
Yoshi's Cookie	10 Rounds	This is the game's "Action" mode. There are 100 stages. You must play all the stages in order, but you may use the "Round" option to resume your progress from a previous session. This option lets you resume from Stage 1, 11, 21, 31, etc., without any negative consequences. The game grants you unlimited continues from any stage you fail. You may freely adjust the "Speed" to whatever value suits you; you do not have to play the whole game on the same "Speed" value.

Elite Games

Like Elite mobs in MMOs, these games are markedly more difficult than the rest of the games, either by virtue of their more grueling objectives, or the demanding nature of the game itself.

Completion of the 30 4 30 Challenge is defined as meeting the objectives of 10 of the selected games on this page. The format supposes that most players will choose 1 of the Elite Games alongside the other 9 normal games to achieve their completion of the challenge. However, choosing to complete both Elite Games to forgo playing one of the normal games is expressly permitted.

This year's list contains only two Elite Games.

There is no additional recognition or award for completing more than 10 games.

Game	Objective	Notes
Chrono Trigger	100%	This is a blind-playthrough-friendly game in spite of the 100% goal. The only additional requirements of 100% over just beating the game are the 8 optional endgame sidequests. These sidequests are NOT missable, at any point of the game. Here is the sprite of the quest-giver. He is required for main-story progression as well, so you will definitely find him even in a blind playthrough. He appears in a very prominent area that you will revisit many times: As part of the verification process, please include the timestamp with your VoD talking to this NPC when he has either only one quest left or no quests to give you. sg4e wrote a 100% casual-play guide for when this game was raced during the Blind RPG Races series.
Goof Troop	Full game US, sub 36:00 RTA	You may play as Goofy or Max even though they are separate leaderboards on speedrun.com. You must include a timer on your streaming layout, but any splits are optional. You must stream your attempts; local recordings are ineligible for this Elite Game. Your time must be strictly less than 36 minutes (35:XX.XXX). This is a Real-Time Attack challenge; In-Game Time is irrelevant. It is highly recommended that you make a local recording while streaming your attempts in case a momentary Internet outage affects your stream. Your successful run must meet all the requirements of a valid submission to the Goof Troop speedrun.com leaderboards.

Register and Submit Your Completions!

This year's iteration of the 30 4 30 Challenge features a dedicated website for submitting games as you complete them and monitoring other participants' progress. A Twitch account is required to register, but you may submit your playthroughs from any video platform.

If streaming on Twitch, it's recommended to register with the account you plan on streaming most of the event games on, so that your stream may be featured when you go live.

Participants are encouraged to register even if you don't intend to complete every game of the Challenge. You will still receive recognition for the games you do complete on the participants' progress page.

Announcement video

Challenge Champions

2024

Flant
Doctortimewarp
KrzyforBacon
tapioca
Vandal00
captainvwv
Thomatrix3d
DjiboutiWarrior
xoble
Skarm137
ChibiEris
Ysalamiri
shoehorse
kirbyfan5009
riocoys
poptart_cat
Esca_zZz
Thatonenewtagerplayer
Yimmo_
Laxaria
pandakar
SyuraStream
LucarioZealot
Sp0ck1
Masteroftherun

2023

2022

2021

riocoys Twitch | Playlist
tapioca Twitch | Playlist
poptart_cat Twitch | Playlist
Thatonenewtagerplayer Twitch | Playlist
shoehorse Twitch | Playlist

2020

poptart_cat Twitch | Playlist
Halfbeasty Twitch | Playlist
riocoys Twitch | Playlist

Past Challenge Event Pages

Rules

Completion categories for each game are the same as those defined on speedrun.com. The rules for the speedrun shall also be in effect for the 30 4 30 Challenge except where explicitly revised in the "Notes" column of the respective game.
The start time of the event is November 1, 2025 at 12:00AM EDT (UTC-4). You may not load any save file created before this time.
Cheats are NOT allowed. Cheats are hidden button-press combinations on the game's start menu, secret passwords, etc., intentionally coded into the game by its developers to give the player some type of powerful advantage when activated and are almost always labeled as "cheats". Conversely: glitches, out-of-bounds clips, integer overflow/underflow, arbitrary-code execution, and any and all speedtech are expressly allowed, provided that they are permitted in the speedrun category.
Event games must be streamed, or local-recorded and uploaded to Youtube/Dropbox/anywhere they can be publicly accessed. Due to changes to Twitch's VoD storage policy, you are no longer required to highlight your VoDs if streaming on Twitch. You may submit a link to a Past Broadcast instead. Make sure you have saving Past Broadcasts enabled (it is off by default).
You must submit your proof of completion via the event's website as you complete games. No proof may be submitted after November 30, 2025 at 11:59PM EST (UTC-5).

Marathon-Stream Exception: If you are streaming an event game at the moment the submission window closes, that game remains eligible for submission under the following conditions (all must be met):
1. You are livestreaming a 30 4 30 Challenge-eligible game on a livestreaming service (e.g. Twitch) without viewer restrictions (e.g. a subscriber-only stream). Local recordings are ineligible and must be completely uploaded and submitted before the submission window closes.
2. Only the game you are streaming at the moment the submission window closes may remain eligible.
3. You may take breaks while you attempt to complete the game past the closure of the submission window. Breaks are defined as any period of 15 or more seconds during which the player does not issue input to the game. However, no single break may exceed 30 minutes, and cumulative break time may not exceed 120 minutes.
4. Internet outages or computer problems that cause the stream to become momentarily unavailable do not render the completion attempt as invalid per se, as long as no substantial gameplay occurs while the player's stream is offline. However, time for which the stream is offline shall be counted as break time, with all conditions for breaks in effect.
5. If the player completes the game past the closure of the submission window with all of the above conditions met, the player has 60 minutes from the moment the clear condition is met to submit the VoD on the submissions website, after which it is no longer eligible.
6. For only Goof Troop, wherein this Marathon-Stream Exception clause the phrase complete the game appears, it shall instead be interpreted as "complete a successful speedrun under 36 minutes RTA". That is, the remainder of your streaming session of attempts shall remain eligible for the Marathon-Stream Exception (persuant the other conditions), not just the current attempt at the closure of the submission window.

You may complete any of the event games in multiple sittings as long as all of the gameplay is submitted.
You may NOT use any savestates or the rewind feature available in virtual-console re-releases such as those available on Nintendo Switch Online.
You may use an emulator to play any of the event games as long as the emulation behavior is close to console. However, you may NOT use any emulator capabilities that are not available in the original console release. This includes, for example, savestates and speedup.