Bad Game Marathon: Preliminary Planning Thread

KennyMan666

Edit history:

KennyMan666: 2013-09-04 03:09:58 am

KennyMan666: 2013-09-01 05:03:13 am

KennyMan666: 2013-09-01 04:57:59 am

2013-09-01 04:50:23 am

Precursor

So while I don't actually consider it an awful game, it still somehow feels a good fit for a marathon such as this, for various reasons.

Adventures of Captain Becky, an XBLIG that has a kind of disturbingly extensive character editor. It's a puzzle-platformer-ish game, short stages. There's five "courses" - Tutorial, Easy, Normal, Hard and Extra - and a run of it would either be all of them or all except Tutorial. While my combined total best times for all stages is less than ten minutes an estimate would be 0:20:00 for now because there's a ton of ways to fuck up. Video to come once I'm able to record again.

And if I figure out how to run Labyrinth of Yukkuri you can be so sure I'm going to suggest that eventually. (edit: Okay, seems like floors are randomly generated and there's not much to do to speed anything up in a meaningful way. No go for that.) (edit again: Turns out the game isn't beaten in the way I thought it would be. Still doesn't seem very speed-upable in any meaningful way, though. Sad.)

So while I don't actually consider it an awful game, it still somehow feels a good fit for a marathon such as this, for various reasons.

[b]Adventures of Captain Becky[/b], an XBLIG that has a kind of disturbingly extensive character editor. It's a puzzle-platformer-ish game, short stages. There's five "courses" - Tutorial, Easy, Normal, Hard and Extra - and a run of it would either be all of them or all except Tutorial. While my combined total best times for all stages is less than ten minutes an estimate would be [b]0:20:00[/b] for now because there's a ton of ways to fuck up. Video to come once I'm able to record again.

And if I figure out how to run Labyrinth of Yukkuri you can be so sure I'm going to suggest that eventually. (edit: Okay, seems like floors are randomly generated and there's not much to do to speed anything up in a meaningful way. No go for that.) (edit again: Turns out the game isn't beaten in the way I thought it would be. Still doesn't seem very speed-upable in any meaningful way, though. Sad.)

Dragondarch

2013-09-01 04:20:07 pm

Pudding%

Copy/paste from my AwfulGDQ offer...

Quote:

Drakkhen (Awful%) [Estimate: 1:15:00]. AwfulGDQ candidate. This needs to happen with just how much shit is broken in this game. PJ and I can hopefully provide enough commentary to make this entertaining. Also, Pots & Pans Robot,
I Love You Robot, and Breadsnake. Both PJ and I went over our 1 hour estimate at our SGDQ donation streams, thanks to an improvised route to show off more glitches. Run could literally be anywhere from 40 min up to the estimate. RNG
trolling adds to entertainment factor. Expect lots of it.

In addition, so long as this is gonna be early next year, I could finally sit down and route Wizard of Oz. To counter the RNG Hell minigame, I could just have a password on hand that has the ticket and had beaten that stage (stage has a boss, which coughs up a password on defeat). I'd make like 5-10 attempts on the minigame at most, then just use the password if I don't get it. No idea on an estimate right now.
However, if I have to run Oz for this, you have to run Athena. Wink

Also, I could try and bug Rane to throw Karnov in.

Copy/paste from my AwfulGDQ offer...
[quote]Drakkhen (Awful%) [Estimate: 1:15:00]. AwfulGDQ candidate. This needs to happen with just how much shit is broken in this game. PJ and I can hopefully provide enough commentary to make this entertaining. Also, Pots & Pans Robot,
I Love You Robot, and Breadsnake. Both PJ and I went over our 1 hour estimate at our SGDQ donation streams, thanks to an improvised route to show off more glitches. Run could literally be anywhere from 40 min up to the estimate. RNG
trolling adds to entertainment factor. Expect lots of it.[/quote]

In addition, so long as this is gonna be early next year, I could finally sit down and route [b]Wizard of Oz[/b]. To counter the RNG Hell minigame, I could just have a password on hand that has the ticket and had beaten that stage (stage has a boss, which coughs up a password on defeat). I'd make like 5-10 attempts on the minigame at most, then just use the password if I don't get it. No idea on an estimate right now.
However, if I have to run Oz for this, you have to run Athena. ;)

Also, I could try and bug Rane to throw Karnov in.

Dragondarch

2013-09-02 04:56:04 pm

Pudding%

I forgot to mention that I could run Friday the 13th, estimate 20 min...or something. This game shouldn't need any explanation.

theseawolf1

2013-09-03 08:12:57 am

SGL Scrublord

Hehe, finally playing the Mysterium I sold you Zenic?

Lets see,

Rambo (NES), aka Zelda 2 Bad to Not be an Acclaim Licensed Game: You run places (even while paused), get jerked around by the US Army and slaughter apparently Communist wildlife with abandon. I'd have to learn it, so no real estimate sadly. Fantastic dialogue. FANTASTIC!

8 Eyes, or as a verifier calls it, "Castlevania's Retarded Cousin" - Man and Bird fight giants in a nuclear-ravaged wasteland, one part Hokuto no Ken, one part Jekyll and Hyde. Likely a 25 minute run. Prepare to get Taxxan'd.

Amagon's too risky for live play I think, one bad jump would screw the run, and no continues.
Mystery Quest seems a little TOO repetitive.

ZenicReverie

2013-09-03 09:02:03 am

Waiting hurts my soul...

figured this would put it to good use.

Brossentia

2013-09-03 03:35:13 pm

No pain, no gain

Aright, sorry for the silence over the last few days. Hopefully tonight or tomorrow I'll have time to reply to everyone. However, just scanning over the list, I think these are all pretty good suggestions. They're at least appropriate for the marathon (yes, Adam, even Heavy Nova).

ButtersBB

2013-09-03 05:50:56 pm

Words cannot express the amount of hype that I have for this marathon. All that needs to be said is that I actually had to take the advice of a Cialis commercial that advised me to go to a doctor if I had an erection that lasted more than 12 hours.

At any rate, I am going to go scale a mountain and trap myself in a cave filled with poverty games until I find THE games that I feel are truly worthy to suggest for this marathon. So yeah, I'm going to hold off on my suggestions for now.

Patashu

2013-09-03 08:59:39 pm

Quote from ButtersBB:

Words cannot express the amount of hype that I have for this marathon. All that needs to be said is that I actually had to take the advice of a Cialis commercial that advised me to go to a doctor if I had an erection that lasted more than 12 hours.

At any rate, I am going to go scale a mountain and trap myself in a cave filled with poverty games until I find THE games that I feel are truly worthy to suggest for this marathon. So yeah, I'm going to hold off on my suggestions for now.

Lifeline isn't bad enough?

Cool Matty

Edit history:

Cool Matty: 2013-09-04 02:03:51 pm

2013-09-04 02:57:50 am

Crawlathon WR, get down on my level.

Sonic Spinball (GEN). Yeah, that's right, I'll force this damn game everywhere until it finds a home Sad

Estimate's going to be around 23-25 minutes, depending on how consistent I can get the final stage boss.

As usual I can provide pretty good commentary for the run as well, and if there's any deaths in the run you can be sure they'll be ridiculously funny bullshit.

RoboSparkle

2013-09-04 12:41:52 pm

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

Quote from Cool Matty:

Sonic Spinball. Yeah, that's right, I'll force this damn game everywhere until it finds a home Sad

Estimate's going to be around 23-25 minutes, depending on how consistent I can get the final stage boss.

As usual I can provide pretty good commentary for the run as well, and if there's any deaths in the run you can be sure they'll be ridiculously funny bullshit.

Horray! Master System Master Race Cheesy

SCXCR

Edit history:

SCXCR: 2013-09-12 03:53:14 pm

SCXCR: 2013-09-12 03:52:37 pm

2013-09-04 03:27:48 pm

No, the OTHER Marvel!

Okay, just throwing this out there:

Ninjabread Man (Wii)
Estimated Run Time: 15 minutes.
It's almost the same game as Anubis II and Rock n' Roll Adventures, which were also awful. The uncooperative camera, terrible motion controls and nauseating color scheme make this game tough to put up with for very long. That and the main character's movement spped is either "too fast" or "standing still." At one point, the developer of this game was pointed out as contributing to the shovelware label frequently slapped on the Wii.
This is the best thing I have online for NBM at the moment, in which I accidentally triggered a level skip. I still don't know how that happened:

Dragon's Lair (SNES)
Estimated Run Time: 20 minutes.
From the same developer that made the infinitely worse Virtuoso, this is nowhere near as bad as the NES Dragon's Lair. Still, Dirk's floaty, slippery platforming doesn't make this particularly enjoyable, nor do the "swimming" sections. Did I mention that some stages have fake exits that loop back to the beginning of the same stage?
While I don't have any speedrun videos of this at the moment, I do have this narrated playthrough from my channel:

Okay, just throwing this out there:

[b]Ninjabread Man (Wii)[/b]
Estimated Run Time: 15 minutes.
It's almost the same game as Anubis II and Rock n' Roll Adventures, which were also awful.    The uncooperative camera, terrible motion controls and nauseating color scheme make this game tough to put up with for very long.  That and the main character's movement spped is either "too fast" or "standing still."  At one point, the developer of this game was pointed out as contributing to the shovelware label frequently slapped on the Wii.
This is the best thing I have online for NBM at the moment, in which I accidentally triggered a level skip.  I still don't know how that happened:

[hide]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_Zfg_x_YtA[/hide]

[b]Dragon's Lair (SNES)[/b]
Estimated Run Time: 20 minutes.
From the same developer that made the infinitely worse Virtuoso, this is nowhere near as bad as the NES Dragon's Lair. Still, Dirk's floaty, slippery platforming doesn't make this particularly enjoyable, nor do the "swimming" sections.  Did I mention that some stages have fake exits that loop back to the beginning of the same stage?
While I don't have any speedrun videos of this at the moment, I do have this narrated playthrough from my channel:

[hidden]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCmM8gBP_kw[/hidden]

Zyre

Edit history:

Zyre: 2013-09-04 06:34:25 pm

2013-09-04 06:31:44 pm

The Speedrunning Teacher

I guess I could hook up the ol' Saturn and try for a Sonic 3D Blast run. No emeralds would be about 50 minutes, but if we wanted a good ending run (all emeralds), I'd have to try it out to see exactly how long it would be, but I would put a rough estimate at about an hour and a half. Why? Well, isometric 3d games usually don't get a lot of love. And I haven't run this game in quite a while.

Also, if it isn't a logistical nightmare to set up and Cool Matty wants to: Sonic Spinball race. I have my genesis version and should be able to easily pick it up. I'm no stranger to it at all, beating it multiple times easily.

I wonder how hard Earthworm Jim 3D would be to pick up...

Cool Matty

2013-09-04 11:15:57 pm

Crawlathon WR, get down on my level.

Quote from Zyre:

Also, if it isn't a logistical nightmare to set up and Cool Matty wants to: Sonic Spinball race. I have my genesis version and should be able to easily pick it up. I'm no stranger to it at all, beating it multiple times easily.

I'm okay with it, but I'm not sure how the game is as far as a race. Blowouts suck.

I can restream you to the marathon channel if necessary, I've done it before for the Spookathon (plenty of bandwidth on fiber).

mike89

2013-09-05 12:39:52 am

SEGA Junkie

How did I not offer my other legitimate bad game?

It's okay, I prefer it this way Cheesy

Zyre

2013-09-05 10:32:25 am

The Speedrunning Teacher

Quote from Cool Matty:

Quote from Zyre:

Also, if it isn't a logistical nightmare to set up and Cool Matty wants to: Sonic Spinball race. I have my genesis version and should be able to easily pick it up. I'm no stranger to it at all, beating it multiple times easily.

I'm okay with it, but I'm not sure how the game is as far as a race. Blowouts suck.

True. I'll play it and try to get a time close to what you posted as an estimate. I don't want it to be a blowout either, so if I can't get a close enough time, I'll bow out and just leave it to you.

ZachSK

Edit history:

ZachSK: 2013-09-05 12:24:40 pm

2013-09-05 12:23:59 pm

Feudal Family Lord

I can at least try.....even though I feel I know the result already

Game: Give Up, Robot (Flash)
Estimate: 10minutes
Why pick this game: Its known for at least being a mostly hard game, especially on first playthroughs.
The speedrun is lots of well executed tricks....ideally

Most people hate the game for reasons like
Its Flash
It hurts their eyes
the music is bad

Saint Connor

2013-09-12 01:11:25 pm

I'd offer up a Blasto Any % or Warp %, and while Blasto qualifies for AwfulGDQ, I'm not sure it's the level of awful as some of these other games, lol. If there is any interest in it though, I'd be more than happy to.

RedArremer

Edit history:

RedArremer: 2013-09-12 09:00:44 pm

2013-09-12 08:59:41 pm

Barbie: Super Model (Genesis)
Estimated Run Time: 10 minutes.
Every bad game section needs a game on a SEGA console, and what would be better than a Barbie game? The run might not be the most exciting watch, but with stuff like a Skype call going on, and chat interaction, this game is a blast, especially since it's short.
It also has bonus incentives - picking up all pickups, doing all the photoshoots and doing all the model shows correctly.

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair (X360)
Estimated run time: 30 minutes-1 hour (depending on character choice and if DLC stages are included)
I think just about everyone at least knows this game. If donations are taken, there could be an incentive for the 5 DLC stages (they aren't particularly interesting to watch though), and a bid war for the character played (there are 11 in total), although I would probably cut the selection down to characters that I like to play and/or that are at least somewhat entertaining to watch.

The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 1 (SNES)
Estimated run time: A lot (I'm in the process of routing this, and I'm going to time a full run of this soon)
I... don't even know why I'm suggesting this game. Though I guess it would work as a graveyard shift game? I dunno lol.

There's some other games I could look into, but those 3 are actually ones I run. At least CVHD is heavily dependent on if I can get a replacement for my broken Dazzle.

[b]Barbie: Super Model[/b] (Genesis)
Estimated Run Time: 10 minutes.
Every bad game section needs a game on a SEGA console, and what would be better than a Barbie game? The run might not be the most exciting watch, but with stuff like a Skype call going on, and chat interaction, this game is a blast, especially since it's short.
It also has bonus incentives - picking up all pickups, doing all the photoshoots and doing all the model shows correctly.

[b]Castlevania: Harmony of Despair[/b] (X360)
Estimated run time: 30 minutes-1 hour (depending on character choice and if DLC stages are included)
I think just about everyone at least knows this game. If donations are taken, there could be an incentive for the 5 DLC stages (they aren't particularly interesting to watch though), and a bid war for the character played (there are 11 in total), although I would probably cut the selection down to characters that I like to play and/or that are at least somewhat entertaining to watch.

[b]The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 1[/b] (SNES)
Estimated run time: A lot (I'm in the process of routing this, and I'm going to time a full run of this soon)
I... don't even know why I'm suggesting this game. Though I guess it would work as a graveyard shift game? I dunno lol.

There's some other games I could look into, but those 3 are actually ones I run. At least CVHD is heavily dependent on if I can get a replacement for my broken Dazzle.

Melodia

2013-09-12 11:50:27 pm

If any game deserves to be on a 'bad game marathon', LOTR does...

RedArremer

2013-09-13 12:16:15 am

Yeah, but it's not really... exciting to watch. The only upside to it is its nice music, but you hear that only a few minutes, most of the music you hear is the caves theme. Tongue

RoboSparkle

2013-09-13 10:44:30 am

Magical. Flying. Bathtub

Still a WIP but I can also offer Cosmic Spacehead on Mega Drive. It's an old Codemasters game that was originally released as Linus Spacehead's Cosmic Adventure for the NES, which is itself a sequel to Linus Spacehead, part of Quattro Adventure.

Basically it's a point-n-click adventure that becomes a platformer between each area (but only once; once you complete an area you don't have to platform more). The story is that Linus/Cosmic crash-landed on Earth, and upon his return expected to be a hero that discovered a new planet with sentient life, but no-one believes him because there's no evidence (apparently whoever gave him a lift back to planet Linoleum disappeared pretty sharpish), and you have nothing but your birth certificate to hand as you try and get back to Earth with a camera to document your discovery. During the course of the game you have to gamble your money away no less than THREE times, buy gunpowder from the Post Office and build a bomb, give a helium balloon to a monster (a puzzle which is given away by the BOX ART), buy Larry Flint's stolen driving license from Shady Lionel. It's a kids game, as you can plainly see.

There's a couple of sequence breaks (you're meant to deactivate the robots in the Detroitica factory but with careful platforming you can bypass them, and you can skip one of the Linoleum platforming sections by using a teleporter). I've only played through a few times but already got my time down under 40 mins and I plan to drop it further, at least to consistent sub-35 standards. Other things worth being in mind are that the hitboxes are somewhat counter-intuitive, and also if you get hit by an enemy near the exit of an area and your corpse exits the area before hitting the bottom of the screen, then you still finish the section and don't lose a life!

My 39:37 run is here: Part 1, Part 2. Obviously there's a lot of improvements to be made but it was only the 3rd go at that point!

I also found a TAS of the NES game which looks pretty good:

Still a WIP but I can also offer Cosmic Spacehead on Mega Drive. It's an old Codemasters game that was originally released as Linus Spacehead's Cosmic Adventure for the NES, which is itself a sequel to Linus Spacehead, part of Quattro Adventure.

Basically it's a point-n-click adventure that becomes a platformer between each area (but only once; once you complete an area you don't have to platform more).  The story is that Linus/Cosmic crash-landed on Earth, and upon his return expected to be a hero that discovered a new planet with sentient life, but no-one believes him because there's no evidence (apparently whoever gave him a lift back to planet Linoleum disappeared pretty sharpish), and you have nothing but your birth certificate to hand as you try and get back to Earth with a camera to document your discovery.  During the course of the game you have to gamble your money away no less than THREE times, buy gunpowder from the Post Office and build a bomb, give a helium balloon to a monster (a puzzle which is given away by the BOX ART), buy Larry Flint's stolen driving license from Shady Lionel. It's a kids game, as you can plainly see.

There's a couple of sequence breaks (you're meant to deactivate the robots in the Detroitica factory but with careful platforming you can bypass them, and you can skip one of the Linoleum platforming sections by using a teleporter).  I've only played through a few times but already got my time down under 40 mins and I plan to drop it further, at least to consistent sub-35 standards.  Other things worth being in mind are that the hitboxes are somewhat [url=http://www.twitch.tv/robo_sparkle/c/2895402]counter-intuitive[/url], and also if you get hit by an enemy near the exit of an area and your corpse exits the area before hitting the bottom of the screen, then you still finish the section and don't lose a life!

My 39:37 run is here: [url=http://www.twitch.tv/robo_sparkle/c/2895373]Part 1[/url], [url=http://www.twitch.tv/robo_sparkle/c/2895486]Part 2[/url]. Obviously there's a lot of improvements to be made but it was only the 3rd go at that point!

I also found a [url=http://tasvideos.org/2965S.html]TAS [/url]of the NES game which looks pretty good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00do6d6mIYE

OtakuSRL

Edit history:

OtakuSRL: 2013-09-16 04:16:32 pm

2013-09-16 04:14:10 pm

< ^ > < ^ >

Quote from PJ:

Quote from Brossentia:

Quote from EggmaniMN:

Oh god, do I dare offer Gumby vs The Astrobots? Or even really go through with trying to learn it for real? The only problem is it would have to be an emulator run since I have no way of streaming from GBA/DS and no money to correct that.

This is a good question. SDA doesn't accept emulator runs, but I don't think I'd have a problem with it myself. I mean, if someone wants to run through the whole game of Cheetamen 2, it's not even possible on console. As long as you're not doing emulator-specific tricks, I'd be fine with it, but it'd be good to hear others' opinions about it.

I'll go through the rest of the games today or tomorrow. It looks like we're getting some good offerings.

Just want to chime in to say it IS possible to play all of Cheetahmen II on console. You have to play through the first 4 stages, reset, and then hope it takes you to level 5. Not joking, btw.

I hope you're not assuming we all have an original copy lying around, haha, hehehe.

Quick edit: I am really kind of interested in this, I might start playing Toy Story 2 which might fall under that/these category(ies), but I've never played it before... but I sure have time to do so!

Haha.

[quote="PJ"][quote="Brossentia"][quote="EggmaniMN"]Oh god, do I dare offer Gumby vs The Astrobots? Or even really go through with trying to learn it for real? The only problem is it would have to be an emulator run since I have no way of streaming from GBA/DS and no money to correct that.[/quote]
This is a good question. SDA doesn't accept emulator runs, but I don't think I'd have a problem with it myself. I mean, if someone wants to run through the whole game of Cheetamen 2, it's not even possible on console. As long as you're not doing emulator-specific tricks, I'd be fine with it, but it'd be good to hear others' opinions about it.

I'll go through the rest of the games today or tomorrow. It looks like we're getting some good offerings.
[/quote]

Just want to chime in to say it IS possible to play all of Cheetahmen II on console.  You have to play through the first 4 stages, reset, and then hope it takes you to level 5.  Not joking, btw.[/quote]

I hope you're not assuming we all have an original copy lying around, haha, hehehe.

Quick edit: I am really kind of interested in this, I might start playing Toy Story 2 which might fall under that/these category(ies), but I've never played it before... but I sure have time to do so!

Haha.

Chiron97

2013-09-18 01:27:10 pm

Terrible at games

Surprised this one hasn't been mentioned yet (although it's pretty much impossible to "speedrun")

Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing (PC) (All Possible Races%) [Estimate: 4:00]

This game is just hilarious. It has, quite literally, no collision detection, fantastic win messages, going offroad, vertically up slopes, and sideways on slopes without losing speed and you can go infinite speed in reverse and go OoB. There are 5 levels in the game, and the last 2 crash on loading. (And yes, this is the final release that was sold in stores)

http://www.twitch.tv/chiron97/c/2955000

It's a joke run but it's funny, and there's a lot of glitches that I can just show off.

Bismuth

2013-09-18 06:58:28 pm

Worthless categories WR master

Big Rigs not being in a bad game marathon would be an outrage.

Chiron97

2013-09-19 02:18:11 pm

Terrible at games

I realized this isn't actually specified anywhere in the thread, is this an on-location or online marathon?

Useful to know for obvious reasons.