Speedrunners, listen up. Reddit user Cosmeme_ is looking to pay you for any information on some particularly tricky sections of SpongeBob SquarePants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman.
His call to arms came on Reddit yesterday, offering two $50 bounties for two areas of the game that the community is struggling with. Figuring out either of the glitches would be a huge change to their speedrunning process and could majorly affect their times. Right now the fastest time is just under two hours, but players are looking to do better.
This isn’t the first SpongeBob game to get attention from speedrunners. SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom has an even more popular speedrunning community behind it, but it seems they are branching out and looking for more opportunities for under sea adventures.
While it may be rare to get a cash reward for you skills, it isn’t unheard of. Earlier this year Super Smash Bros. Melee fans were offering money to anyone who could prove and recreate Ness’ Super YoYo trick, a variation of an established glitch that drops Ness’ hit box onto the ground making players tougher to hit. That bounty is up to $456.
And last year, players of The Legend Of Zelda: Wind Waker were offering nearly $800 to figure out exactly how the barrier skip trick worked. Barrier skip allowed speedrunners to skip magical barrier blocking their access to the final dungeon, cutting valuable time off their run, and was finally mastered earlier this year.
Theoretically, offering bounties brings new players into the fold and gets more minds working on every problem. And once someone figures it out, everyone benefits.
If you’ve played the game before and are looking to recapture some nostalgia, or if you’ve never played it but you like the idea of making $50, Cosmeme_ wants you. Anyone interested can check out the community’s Discord and the Google Doc that they use to keep track of their latest tips and tricks.