Hello, I'm Kieran, but I go by Kierio online. Welcome to my home page! I was born in England in 2004, and have lived in New Zealand since 2009. My first video game was Mario Kart DS, and it was there that I chose the name "Kierio". I found my name offputting alongside the other characters, so combined the first half of my name with the second half of Mario's name: Kieran + Mario = Kierio. I came up with this name some time from 2010-2014; I don't quite remember when. The "04" was added when I made my first social media accounts in 2017, as it seemed to fit in better with other usernames. Depending on where you look, sometimes the K will be capitalised. I still can't decide which I like better.

For someone mainly unaffiliated with TASVideos, I'm proud to say I've TASed a lot of games, and have involved myself with a lot of TASing communities over the years.

In 2016, I discovered Mario Kart Wii at a friend's house. Until then, I actually didn't know that there were other Mario Kart games (and as such, had no idea what "SNES", "N64", "GBA", and "GCN" meant). Early on, I always thought I wanted to go into custom track design, and have dozens of books and notepads filled with drawings, but this all changed once I started playing it more and more. In 2017, I had got tired of having to go to my friend's house to play MKWii, so downloaded a pirated copy, and used Dolphin emulator to play instead. Over time, I got more frustrated of fails and began using savestates to undo mistakes. I did this for about a year before I realised what I was doing was called TASing. In July 2018, I uploaded my first MKWii TAS to YouTube. Meanwhile in 2018, I finally bought a Wii and a real copy of the game, and returned to time trials RTA, and stuck to uploading mainly RTA content for the rest of the year (all of which I've now unlisted).

In late 2018, most of my friends at high school were playing some bootleg Super Mario Bros. chrome extension, and I wanted to try it out. I played it and became quite good, and in researching more about the game, I came across many videos about SMB1 and TASing (to my surprise, but unsurprisingly, the chrome extension had completely different physics to the original). I downloaded FCEUX and started TASing the game for real in September, and uploaded my first SMB1 TAS. Over the next few months, I TASed more and more, eventually finding TASVideos in December. This motivated me to try and get a TAS published. I was still very experienced, so my first and second attempts were both rejected.

In January 2019, I came across a MKWii TAS video, and, following a trip to Brisbane, I made a discord account and joined the MKWii TAS discord. During the year, I witnessed the uprising in collaborative TASing, MKWii at SGDQ 2019 TAS Block, 3 new ultra shortcuts discovered in a single day, and the supergrind revolution. I was young and annoying back then, so was quite disliked by most of the community. I would beg for credit in projects I merely suggested be worked on, I would create two alt accounts, and I would marginally improve the ending of a major collab TAS and reupload it on my YouTube channel. Overall, I didn't really start out well, but I was one of the most active contributors to the community, so they weren't losing me anytime soon.

In October and November, I took a break from MKWii TASing to pursue SMB1 again, and made the exact same mistake as I did before, with my third and fourth attempts at getting published being cancelled by Maru (if you're familiar with the history of TASVideos, you'll know the significance of this). Around this time, I found my way to the SM64 TAS community. There, I entered in Task 19 and Task 20 of the 2019 TAS competition. My profile picture is a frame from my Task 19 submission. This first experience with TAS competitions gave me inspiration for potentially making one for MKWii, but I wouldn't think about it for a few months. I also delved into the A Button Challenge, trying my hand at routing a hypothetical 120 star ABC TAS.

In January, I announced the start of the MKWii TAS Competition, to mixed reception. The first task was a moderate success, with 5 serious submissions (one of which was me). The second task was a huge failure, riddled with over-clarification and stunted by a complex and arbitrary competition ruleset. This second task was cancelled, but I recruited a task creator, and the third task was yet again a moderate success. Throughout the year, more TASers would submit, and the successes became greater, until reaching its peak in Task 22, with 15 submissions, and even a shoutout in an EZScape Speedruns video The MKWii TAS Competition is now one of the most successful TAS competitions of all time. Throughout the year, I would switch between focusing on MKWii and focusing on SM64, getting involved with the 70 star ABC TAS project now. During this year, the pandemic hit, and my YouTube channel experienced a huge rise in popularity, helped by a regular upload schedule (thanks to the TAS competition). In July, I would write the most comprehensive documentation of strategies and techniques in the game that had been made.

The MKWii TAS Competition saw huge success in 2021, with the introduction of livestreamed result reveals on Twitch, and yet another increase in the popularity of my YouTube channel. This year boasted two tasks with over 30 submissions, and was responsible for bringing up many current TASers. In January, I helped prepare the polls for the inaugural 2020 MKWii TAS Awards. From January to April, some of my best TASing work was released, and perfectly coincided with a series of TASes of mine going viral. In June and July, I was part of the effort to shut down the private TASing channels, which was a landmark change in the structure of the TAS community. Also in July, I participated in the first SM64DS TAS Competition. In October, I participated in the 20th SMB1/2J TAS Competition.

I had planned to gradually step down from running the TAS competition this year, but due to having nobody to fall back on, I instead pursued some of the most ambitious tasks, and burned out, cancelling the competition after 50 tasks. I prepared the polls again for the 2021 TAS Awards. This year saw the MKWii TASing scene turned completely upside down with several game-changing discoveries in the first few months. I, along with many other TASers, were negatively affected by what it meant to the future of TASing the game, and took a hiatus from regular TASing. During this time, I would enter into some very controversial talks with the SM64 TAS and TASVideos communities regarding the alleged negative state of the MKWii TAS community, and their views on low-optimisation TASes, almost being banned from it as a result of nearly alienating several hundred people. With reputation tarnished yet again, and loyal competitors begging for its return, I restarted the TAS competition, briefly in July, and then fully in August, bringing about a revived era of the TAS competition during one of the quietest years for the TAS community.

In January 2023, I announced the start of the Multi-Game TAS Competition, featuring 9 different TAS communities all taking part in hosting tasks in a combined competition. This was met with universal acclaim, and helped break numerous submission records for all games but the already-popular SM64. I took over as full organiser for the 2022 TAS Awards. I worked with several MKWii TASers on a yet-to-be-completed MKWii TASing history project, and contributed to Dolphin Python Core development. In September, I pitched a potential return to GDQ, which was taken on-board, but ultimately it didn't happen (both because the community decided to switch goals to the following GDQ, and because GDQ rejected the submission). The MKWii TAS competition was more active than ever, with some of the greatest tasks ever run being featured throughout the year. In December, I finally was able to step down as host of the competition, after 78 tasks spanning 4 years.

Originally planned to have two rounds in 2023, the Multi-Game TAS Competition received a change in format to become an annual event lasting the entire year, and expanded to 12 games. The 2024 Multi-Game TAS Competition began in February, and is currently ongoing.