everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music
Ok, the arcade tourney was 2000% awesome but it's time for the tourney everyone's been waiting for. Sorry for the short notice but I just realized it would be a good idea NOT to go through the SDA meet-up at Magfest, and I don't want to delay until next year. So, this tourney will be just 4 weeks long, but that's ok, I can always run another one again later next year.
So I don't have to explain a million things, best way to get caught up on the general idea is to first look at the arcade tourney thread if you haven't before. Now, of course there are some differences this time:
- First, a point of emphasis. No signups, just play whichever weeks you want. If you miss a week, you can still play in other weeks.
- Instead of playing for score, we are playing for time! I'll explain how it works later, but since not everyone will even beat the games in question, how far you get is criteria #1 and speed (e.g. for people who completed the game) is #2.
- Because there is no guarantee on awesome games this time, and because I'm lazy and want to deflect the blame of game selection to voters, there will be voting for games this time. For every week, you will be given 5 choices and you vote for the one you want in a poll.
- The goal of this tourney is to highlight games which don't have a run (or much run discussion) on SDA. This means there won't be any Mega Man or Mario or whatever. Hopefully you can play some great games you haven't before though. Even more hopefully, the winner of a given week might feel compelled to run the game for SDA.
- Four weeks this time (only four left until Magfest). The weeks will be: NES, Genesis, SNES, PS1. I was thinking maybe some SMS or PC if we had six weeks, but we don't.
- I'm thinking no prizes, because I don't think it affects turnout any, but it's possible that we help out the weekly winners with buying the game? Probably not, but we'll see.
Basic stuff:
The key idea of this tourney is to highlight games without runs or even much discussion on SDA. This means that most people won't have the games in question, which means that of course we will be using emulators (but obviously unassisted... do NOT make a tas). Ask if you need any help with emulation short of asking for rom links. For NES/Genesis/SNES, google for "emucation" and for PS1, google for "snesorama forum" and do a search once there. That's all the help I can give you in this thread.
Don't worry about PS1 and if you will be able to find ISOs or which plugins to use or if your computer will be able to handle it. Your computer is almost guaranteed not older than mine, and I can run all the tourney games fine in psx because they are 2D. psx doesn't require plugins either. It's ridiculously simple to use, easier than the emulators you'll be using for the other 3 weeks.
Here are some emulator suggestions which are just suggestions. If you don't want to have multiple emulators for a system, and you care about being able to do tasvideos stuff like watch submissions, you can get the tasvideos standard. The other emulator I list is the one I would use if being compatible with tasvideos was not a concern.
NES - Nestopia or FCEU (for tasvideos)
Genesis - Fusion or Gens (for tasvideos)
SNES - ZSNES or snes9x (for tasvideos)
PS1 - psx or PCSX (for tasvideos)
For timing, you can record a movie for easy (?) timing. SDA requires verification, but these emulated runs are obviously not for SDA, so no need to verify or prove anything. This is just for fun. Even with a movie, that's zero proof at all because it is way way easy to make a run with rerecords that looks like it has 0. So don't worry about all that and just play. I'm not even going to bother with recording myself, unless I happen to be the best at a game perhaps. The other option is to use this online stopwatch. Just click it, then start playing. We will use SDA timing, which is to start when you gain control of the character. At any point in between stages (if they're not clearly defined, I will define them), you can pause and note your time to that point. This is useful if you have a hunch you're about to die. (For that online stopwatch, hit mark before pausing.) So for example:
beating Super Mario World in 11 mins > beating in 30 mins > start of Bowser's Castle in 12 mins > start of BC in 15 mins
Oh yeah, please try out all the games before you vote like responsible human beings!
[hr]
Week 1:
Gimmick - 3
Journey to Silius - 5
Kabuki Quantum Fighter - 5
Shatterhand - 6
Yume Penguin Monogatari - 12
Week 2:
El Viento - 5
Granada - 3
Lost Vikings - 11
Ristar - 12
Rocket Knight Adventures - 3
Week 3:
Alcahest - 3
E.V.O. - 7
Magical Pop'n - 5
Pocky & Rocky - 9
Violinist of Hameln - 0
Week 4:
Adventure of Little Ralph - 0
Gunners Heaven - 4
Panzer Bandit - 0
Silhouette Mirage - 2
Umihara Kawase Shun - 3
So I don't have to explain a million things, best way to get caught up on the general idea is to first look at the arcade tourney thread if you haven't before. Now, of course there are some differences this time:
- First, a point of emphasis. No signups, just play whichever weeks you want. If you miss a week, you can still play in other weeks.
- Instead of playing for score, we are playing for time! I'll explain how it works later, but since not everyone will even beat the games in question, how far you get is criteria #1 and speed (e.g. for people who completed the game) is #2.
- Because there is no guarantee on awesome games this time, and because I'm lazy and want to deflect the blame of game selection to voters, there will be voting for games this time. For every week, you will be given 5 choices and you vote for the one you want in a poll.
- The goal of this tourney is to highlight games which don't have a run (or much run discussion) on SDA. This means there won't be any Mega Man or Mario or whatever. Hopefully you can play some great games you haven't before though. Even more hopefully, the winner of a given week might feel compelled to run the game for SDA.
- Four weeks this time (only four left until Magfest). The weeks will be: NES, Genesis, SNES, PS1. I was thinking maybe some SMS or PC if we had six weeks, but we don't.
- I'm thinking no prizes, because I don't think it affects turnout any, but it's possible that we help out the weekly winners with buying the game? Probably not, but we'll see.
Basic stuff:
The key idea of this tourney is to highlight games without runs or even much discussion on SDA. This means that most people won't have the games in question, which means that of course we will be using emulators (but obviously unassisted... do NOT make a tas). Ask if you need any help with emulation short of asking for rom links. For NES/Genesis/SNES, google for "emucation" and for PS1, google for "snesorama forum" and do a search once there. That's all the help I can give you in this thread.
Don't worry about PS1 and if you will be able to find ISOs or which plugins to use or if your computer will be able to handle it. Your computer is almost guaranteed not older than mine, and I can run all the tourney games fine in psx because they are 2D. psx doesn't require plugins either. It's ridiculously simple to use, easier than the emulators you'll be using for the other 3 weeks.
Here are some emulator suggestions which are just suggestions. If you don't want to have multiple emulators for a system, and you care about being able to do tasvideos stuff like watch submissions, you can get the tasvideos standard. The other emulator I list is the one I would use if being compatible with tasvideos was not a concern.
NES - Nestopia or FCEU (for tasvideos)
Genesis - Fusion or Gens (for tasvideos)
SNES - ZSNES or snes9x (for tasvideos)
PS1 - psx or PCSX (for tasvideos)
For timing, you can record a movie for easy (?) timing. SDA requires verification, but these emulated runs are obviously not for SDA, so no need to verify or prove anything. This is just for fun. Even with a movie, that's zero proof at all because it is way way easy to make a run with rerecords that looks like it has 0. So don't worry about all that and just play. I'm not even going to bother with recording myself, unless I happen to be the best at a game perhaps. The other option is to use this online stopwatch. Just click it, then start playing. We will use SDA timing, which is to start when you gain control of the character. At any point in between stages (if they're not clearly defined, I will define them), you can pause and note your time to that point. This is useful if you have a hunch you're about to die. (For that online stopwatch, hit mark before pausing.) So for example:
beating Super Mario World in 11 mins > beating in 30 mins > start of Bowser's Castle in 12 mins > start of BC in 15 mins
Oh yeah, please try out all the games before you vote like responsible human beings!
[hr]
Week 1:
Gimmick - 3
Journey to Silius - 5
Kabuki Quantum Fighter - 5
Shatterhand - 6
Yume Penguin Monogatari - 12
Week 2:
El Viento - 5
Granada - 3
Lost Vikings - 11
Ristar - 12
Rocket Knight Adventures - 3
Week 3:
Alcahest - 3
E.V.O. - 7
Magical Pop'n - 5
Pocky & Rocky - 9
Violinist of Hameln - 0
Week 4:
Adventure of Little Ralph - 0
Gunners Heaven - 4
Panzer Bandit - 0
Silhouette Mirage - 2
Umihara Kawase Shun - 3
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