Solution to Game Ditty Quiz

The first step is to identify all of the songs. The first number for each song will be used as an index. The second number is a year, but it doesn’t correspond to the release year of the video game. Finally, each song is sped up (or, in a few cases, slowed down) by a different factor.

The title and flavortext point us to GDQ (Games Done Quick), a semiannual speedrunning marathon. As it turns out, each video game was shown during GDQ in the given year, with a completion time (in hours and minutes) corresponding to the adjusted length of the song (in minutes and seconds). This lets us match each song with a unique GDQ run, and we can index into the name of the person who played each one (“the runners”). The gdqvods database may be helpful here.

(*) Note: CGDQ was the first GDQ event, in 2010. Prior to 2012, GDQ apparently did not run timers, so the times are approximate.

Now we have an intermediate message pointing us at vgleadsheets: a repository of fan-transcribed sheet music (“the staff”) that so happens to include all the songs in this puzzle. (If we’re missing some song identifications but know which games they’re from, browsing through this site might help.) After tracking down each song, we can use the same index as before on the name of the person who transcribed it (“everyone who helps arrange”).

Finally, submitting this yields an instruction to “Send us a recording of your team performing any song from a video game to the best of your ability.” Doing this is rewarded with the answer ORTHOGONAL.