SGDQ 2018

[Ben X]

SUMMER GAMES DONE QUICK 2018

 

June 24th - July 1st

 

Links and stuff here

 

Starts in about 8 hours.

 

@SecretAsianMan - I feel weirdly bad for posting a thread on this before you! Let me know if you want to usurp it

[SecretAsianMan]

I've been so busy lately I totally forgot to post about it!  Thanks for remembering!

 

...also it's 2018

[SecretAsianMan]

Looking over the schedule, here's what stands out to me

 

Metroid Samus Returns - This is on the 3DS remake so it'll be the first run I've seen of that

 

Spider-Man & Venom's Maximum Carnage - I really liked this game as a kid and will be interested to see the speed tech

 

Cuphead - By a really great runner, TheMexicanRunner

 

Getting Over it with Bennett Foddy - self explanitory

 

Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 - by my favorite runner PJ

 

TASBlock

[Ben X]

  On 6/24/2018 at 6:34 AM, SecretAsianMan said:

...also it's 2018

 

 

Thanks, edited

[Problem Machine]

The Amy run (Amy%) was a ton of fun

 

[SecretAsianMan]

I watched a chunk of the Metroid block last night.  The Zero Mission race was pretty good with some unfortunate bits.  One of the runners had to drop out when their console fan died and the unit overheated and shut down.  All the remaining runners finished the race, including getting a trick that if missed would invalidate the entire run.  Another runner took a pretty bold strategy of skipping a health refill during the stealth section.  One hit would have ended the run for him.

 

The Samus Returns run makes me want to play the game.  I haven't played a Metroid in a long time.  There's one really unfortunate part in the run where he loses several minutes of time trying to get a single OOB clip to work but he perseveres and manages to get it with some audience support.  He even came in under the estimate, though he admits he put a large buffer in the estimate.

 

I only saw the beginning of the Super Metroid 100% map completion run but I want to go back and finish it because that's such an unusual category that involves really strange routing and movement to fill in every square.

[RubixsQube]

  On 6/27/2018 at 12:32 PM, SecretAsianMan said:

Metroid discussion

 

I watched all three of these runs, too! I was especially sad about the fact that Dragonfangs' console died because he is only 47th on the Zero Mission 100% leaderboard, and I was hoping to see him get a result that pushed him up a bunch. Also, it's a good race just in terms of how everyone was getting quite a few major tricks all at the same time, causing the commenters to have a hard time keeping up, which is always fun. 

 

If you haven't played Samus Returns, you should, but know that Mr_Shasta made the game look profoundly easy. As was said a bunch throughout, everything does indeed "hit like a truck" and for me, I definitely did a lot more meandering around the map, barely clinging to life. It's a pretty good game. 

 

I was a little annoyed about the 100% Map Completion run because I don't find some of the couch commentators particularly funny, but they think they're very funny, which is always a frustrating aspect of GDQs. There are a few commentators who come back again and again (see: Patty) and like, act like an asshole as a way of Being Funny, and the audience eats it up, but it mostly comes off as shitty. 

[SecretAsianMan]

  On 6/28/2018 at 3:50 PM, RubixsQube said:

I was a little annoyed about the 100% Map Completion run because I don't find some of the couch commentators particularly funny, but they think they're very funny, which is always a frustrating aspect of GDQs. There are a few commentators who come back again and again (see: Patty) and like, act like an asshole as a way of Being Funny, and the audience eats it up, but it mostly comes off as shitty. 

 

Stuff like this is always very disappointing.  I've had to stop watching runs I was interested in because either the runner or the couch is just unbearable.  Although on the flip side I've seen runs that became some of my favorites because of the runner/couch, despite not being interested in the game itself.  I suppose to each his own.

[SecretAsianMan]

As expected, the Mario Maker blind relay race was great and the hard levels exhibition after was amazing.

[SecretAsianMan]

Now that the marathon is over, I've created a public YouTube playlist.  Anyone can add to the list.  Please keep to the official channel videos or those of the runner.

 

Add to SGDQ 2018 Playlist

 

SGDQ Official Channel

[Problem Machine]

The Mario Maker race was fun as always but holy crap the format for it was straight garbage. Hopefully they go with something substantially different next AGDQ.

I was hoping we'd see another blind game marathon race like last time, but I don't think there was one. I guess it's hard to do time estimates for them, but still.

[Henke]

I was scrolling through the youtube playlist and stumbled on someone doing a speedrun of my first game! 

 

 

Honestly, I didn't even know you could just roll ahead like that. That's not something I intended, and I haven't seen anyone else do it like that before now either. Very impressive!

[Ben X]

  On 7/1/2018 at 11:37 PM, Problem Machine said:

The Mario Maker race was fun as always but holy crap the format for it was straight garbage.

 

What didn't you like about the format?

 

Congrats on getting a game in there, Henke!

[thepaulhoey]

@Ben X If you haven't seen it instead of it being a straight race from start to finish there was a 6 minute time limit per level, with the first team to complete the level getting the point then both teams move onto the next level. You then got a time advantage on the final level based on how many levels you won(which was a bit redundant).

 

I thought the new format worked really well for it, I think the last time they did Mario Maker one team got stuck on a level so the race was pretty much over half way through. At least with this format they're constantly racing on the same level. I thought the final level seemed a bit too easy as they got through it incredibly fast.

[Nappi]

Holy shit, Henke! That is awesome!

[SecretAsianMan]

I think the Mario Maker race had some pros and cons.  I can understand wanting to have a much better idea of an estimate so imposing hard time limits on each course makes sense.  It also made for a dramatic finish on one course.  On the other hand you lose some of the momentum and excitement that gets built by immediately jumping into the next course and with maps like these it doesn't seem like 5 to 10 seconds of lead time is very significant, especially given the way the race played out.  I think it worked overall though.  I preferred it to one of the previous marathons where the format was "we picked a random level to be the winning one and which ever team beats it wins, j/k there was no winning level".  I'm glad to see them play around with the format at least.

 

Also yay Henke!

[Professor Video Games]

Thanks for that playlist sam...I missed almost the entire thing this time and when I did remember to tune in, it was the final game. A seven hour "speedrun" of FFVI, which is cool and all, but no thanks.

[Problem Machine]

Yeah the sudden death thing felt pretty arbitrary, like they had the score up for the entire thing and then when they won the final map just added enough points to make them the winner by one point, so it revealed the points as, uh, pointless. Also, if they're going to have a hard time limit, the timer should count down instead of up -- it might seem like a petty quibble, but it really changes the feeling, at least for me, from "getting arbitrarily cut off" to "trying to get in under the wire".

I think conceptually it works but it was implemented in a pretty slapdash way. First, have the timers count down. Second, rather than a strict cutoff, make it so after the timers expire you have either 30 more seconds or until your next death to finish the level. Third, just make every level worth 1 point, or sum up the differences of the times, or really anything that doesn't completely invalidate the rest of the race based on the results of the last level.

[SecretAsianMan]

I feel like that's taking the race more seriously than it should be.  It's just a silly motivation to give them a goal beyond simply completing the levels.  The real point is to show off the levels and skills of the runners.  The format is just a way for them to have some extra fun.  Is there a better way to do it?  Sure, but they all seemed into it and I still enjoyed watching.  Can't really ask for more than that.

[Problem Machine]

Yeah, but if something seems unfair then it takes some of the fun out of spectating it, at least for me. I mean I totally get that that's not the thrust of the event, and it was still a ton of fun, it was just a small but constant annoyance, kind of like having a bad couch commentator.

[SecretAsianMan]

It's not really an SGDQ thing but it is speedrunning related.  ESA2018 (the European version of GDQ) was just held recently and TheMexicanRunner pulled off the first live blindfolded deathless run of the infamous Battletoads turbo tunnels.  As one of the many, many, many people to never get past this level as a kid, it's impressive as heck.