It is always nice to see people turning their passions into opportunities to help others, and this week gamers from around the world are coming together to speedrun some of their favorite games for charity.

The European Speedsters Assembly (ESA) is a loose coalition of gamers who throw a weeklong event once a year to benefit Doctors Without Borders. “European Speedster Assembly is not an organization on its own, it’s just a plain, simple name for something not entirely different, friendship between gamers,” the ESA’s website says.

What began as a series of small, local get-togethers grew into an event with dozens of gamers attempting speedruns of over 100 games, all of which are now livestreamed through Twitch.tv. This year’s event just kicked off on Sunday in Skövde, Sweden, and it will run through July 4.

The event has two separate streams running on Twitch that will showcase around the clock speedruns. The Purple Stream is the event’s main channel and will host the majority of the scheduled speedruns. The Yellow Stream is the secondary channel and will also host scheduled speedruns, as well as a more eclectic late night “Open Stream.”

While the ESA notes that it is no longer “a pure charity/speedrunning marathon,” the charity speedruns are the main focus of the event’s livestreams on Twitch.

How the speedruns work

There are more to speedruns than simply beating a game in the shortest time possible, although that is definitely the most popular event type. This type of speedrun is called Any%, meaning the player attempts to complete the game as fast as possible without any additional restrictions.

Another popular speedrun type is 100%, which involves completing all optional side-quests and finishing all item collections. For example, a 100% playthrough of Mario 64 would involve collecting all 120 stars.

There are also other speedrun types with unique restrictions such as requiring players to complete a game on a certain difficulty, without using glitches or exploits, or without using upgrades or powerups.

Some of the games on this year’s schedule includes classics like Super Mario Bros 3 and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, as well as more recent titles like Dishonored and Dark Souls II.

You can view a complete schedule of this week’s speedruns on the ESA’s website.

Screenshot via EuropeanSpeedsterAssembly | Twitch