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Gaming Diary: 2017 SGDQ Blues

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SGDQ 2017

Summer Games Done Quick came to a close Saturday night/Sunday morning, and thus, Twitch is no longer playing on my PC or TV 24/7. I feel a bit empty. It’s almost the same feeling you get after binge-watching an entire series of a show on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime. Now that I think about it, it’s the same feeling you get after finishing a really long, 40-hour-plus RPG. I’m left wondering what am I going to watch all day now. Sure, I have the VODs I can watch for all the streams I missed. In fact, I’m going to be doing that for most of this week. But it’s not the same.

Games Done Quick happens twice a year, and it’s become my favorite video game event in existence. I can’t thank Chris enough for introducing speedrunning to me. This run I donated for the first time, and I’m proud I was part of the $1.7 million raised over the week for Doctors without Borders. I’m even happier I finally saw a “kill the animals” run during the Super Metroid race, which was insane as usual.

I am excited about EVO happening this weekend, but speedrunning holds a special place for me. I need to find more speedrun tournaments to watch while I’m at my computer. I’m officially a speedrun addict, even though I’ll never attempt it myself.

As for games I have been playing, I’ve been too busy watching people play games to play many myself. I did get through Thieves’ Town in A Link to the Past, which was far better than goddamn Skull Woods. I started Ice Palace as well, and so far, I like that palace far better than Skull Woods. Crazy I only have three crystals to go before taking on Ganon’s Tower. This will be the first old school Zelda game I finish!

Yes, I never finished the first one. I always get to Level 7 and then get bored and quit.

The Corner of Randomness: Oh So Tired

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I am tired as all hell today. Sadly, this isn’t even by choice. I just couldn’t fall asleep. So today I’ll be running off sheer will……aaaaaaand heaps of coffee. Yet, there is one positive to not being able to fall asleep last night. I got to watch a good amount of SGDQ. Yay?!?!

I knew I’d be up somewhat late as I wanted to catch the Tetris block. Why this was slated for such a late timeslot is way beyond me. Yet, it is what it is and so I figured I’d catch the Tetris runs, particularly the 2-players 1-controller race, and then crash. I’d just have to catch the Zelda runs when they were uploaded to YouTube.

That plan didn’t exactly work out. The Tetris block started way later than it was scheduled for. Still, I watched it in utter amazement as there is no way I could play Tetris: The Grand Master anywhere remotely as good as the runners. After that, the Zelda: A Link to the Past no sword all dungeons run took place. Still wide awake, I watched that as well. While that run was cool, it was more the commentary that made that run totally worth watching.

3AM rolls around and I’ve turned the iPad off. I’m staring at the ceiling. Craziness ensues. I start debating what games I’d speedrun. I start contemplating what categories I’d run on a game such as Super Metroid. Thoughts of grandeur fill my mind. Finally, sleep claims. Thankfully before I started documenting my crazy delusions of trying my hand at speedrunning.

Now here I sit. One cup of coffee already destroyed, and preparing to go make my second cup. I won’t be able to catch the last day of SGDQ 2017 as I’ll be travelling and that makes me sad. Yet, I’m travelling to go check out a new studio space, which means I’ll soon be doing more photography business. Before that all happens, I think I’ll go get more coffee and….oh, wait. What’s that Chrome? Twitch.TV wants me to visit? Right, here I come!

Monday Gaming Diary: Burn the Skull Woods to the Ground

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Skull WoodsAs the post title suggests, I have been working my way through A Link to the Past on my 3DS. I have no idea which attempt this is to try the game, but I am the farthest along I’ve ever been. I’m about halfway through the game, maybe less. I might have tolerated this game back in the day, because all games then had this much of a challenge. Little direction, unforgiving enemies, and a general feeling of floundering about. Miyamoto said that was his intention with the first Legend of Zelda game, because he wanted people to talk to one another for clues and tips. H wanted people to link together and discuss the game, hence why the hero was named Link. He’s a crafty one, Miyamoto-san.

I don’t have people to talk to for help, but I do have a strategy guide (that isn’t great) and I have my knowledge from watching speedruns. However, I can barely call that knowledge, as I have quickly learned that they make all of this seem so easy. I’m sure it is if you play this game to completion at least once a day. For the newbie, the game is brutal.

Case in point, I finished Skull Woods last night. I’m fairly certain I had 25-30 deaths ALONE in that dungeon. Dying that much gave me two things: a sharp need to toss my 3DS across the room and memorized strategies for rooms. What made it all worse was that I didn’t always have to repeat a room because I died. The Wall Masters are responsible for at least a third of my deaths, if not three-fifths. There’s nothing quite like FINALLY completing a room, only for a Wall Master to drop on your ass before you can even leave the freakin’ doorway.

And then there’s that lovely moth boss at the end! In the room of conveyor belts and spiked balls! I went through a red potion and a fairy, I still beat it with only 2 hearts left. I apparently need to study speedrunners’ strats better with that boss. Then again, no I don’t, because there’s no way I’m playing this game again.

I treated Chris to a barrage of angry texts about Skull Woods. I’m sure I amused him greatly. I’ve heard a lot of speedrunners say that Skull Woods is their favorite dungeon. To you all, you’re feckin’ nuts. I’m ready to burn the whole place down, the Dark World environment be damned.

The Corner of Randomness: SGDQ 2017

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Well, SGDQ (Summer Games Done Quick) is just a few days away. This most certainly means that Keri and I will be glued to our Twitch.TV streaming devices for a solid week. We’ll be texting and chatting in amazement as the various games we watch get absolutely destroyed. There will be plenty of hype as games such as NieR: Automata are completed in two hours, and the runner will do that while playing the game one-handed. It’s a stupid fun week of video game streaming.

I figured with SGDQ kicking off on Sunday, July 2, I would help newcomers with some of the terminology that is thrown around. Here are some of the phrases you might hear during the event.

PB: This stands for Personal Best. This is when the gamer achieves their best time in a run.

WR: World Record. That should be pretty self-explanatory.

Frames: Games tend to run as 30 or 60 FPS (frames per second). This means the game is drawing the world 30 or 60 times in one second. If you hear someone say this is a frame perfect thing they must do, that means they have fractions of a second to execute whatever it is that they are doing. 30FPS games are also considered more cinematic in presentation while 60FPS games tend to look much smoother during action sequences.

Save the frames. Kill the animals: The big finisher for any GDQ event is often a Super Metroid run of some sort. Sometimes it’s a race. Sometimes it’s two players one controller. At the end of the game, there is a small area that you can go to that has some animals that can be set free. Over the course of the event, people can donate as to whether or not these animals are saved, or a few frames of time are saved and they are left to die when the planet explodes. This is by far the biggest donation incentive and it gets pretty crazy as the game draws near to saving or killing the animals.

Version of the game: You’ll see a plenty of Japanese versions of games being run. This is done to save time. Sometimes it’s due to text being faster to plow through. Sometimes it is because certain glitches are not patched out.

This also applies to patch levels as well. In DOOM, they tend to run on an unpatched version of the game due to the glitches that exist. The version of the game is a very important part of speedrunning.

Optimized: This refers to the routing used to get through a game. If a game is optimized, it means that plenty of work has gone into finding the optimal route through a game. When a game is considered “optimized”, squeaking out fractions of a second to improve times comes down to player execution.

100%: Speedrunning a game and achieving 100% of all the tasks that need doing so the game says it is 100% complete.

Any%: Speedrunning the game, but beating it as fast as possible. This can mean bosses are skipped, quests are incomplete, and/or glitches used.

Glitchless: Glitches, such as clipping through the world, are not allowed to be used.

RNG: Random Number Generator. This can be how a boss attacks (like Dark Souls III bosses), what items are found, or just manipulating getting specific Pokémon to show up at the exact time they are needed.

OOB: Out of Bounds. Some glitches allow you to go outside of the game world and just cruise to the very end.

Bonus: DS Dad: A few GDQ events ago, an older gentleman was sitting towards the front of the audience. He was consistently playing his DS. He became dubbed “DS Dad” via Twitch chat. He has subsequently donated to the event (AGDQ 2017) thanks to Twitch chat. He has even done commentary a time or two. At this point, he is pretty much an icon for GDQ.

There are plenty more terms that I know I missed. However, this should be a good primer to help get any new watcher into the event. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go watch some 2016 VODs. Cuz I don’t have an addiction problem. DON’T JUDGE ME!

Gaming Diary: So Much A Link to the Past

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A Link to the Past randomizer tournamentChris mentioned in his Corner of Randomness that we’ve been sucked into a Link to the Past Randomizer Speedrun Tournament. I haven’t been able to watch the whole thing, but I came in at a good time. The Bronze Medal matches took place over the weekend, and the Finals have been going on since Friday. The Finals had three games back-to-back on Sunday, which was both insane and exciting. The  matches ended with the racers 2-2, so they have to go to a fifth game. Said fifth game is this afternoon. Excitement level is over 9000.

After watching so much ALTTP, I thought maybe I should give the game yet another try. I’m a bit of a better gamer than I was the last time I tried it. Maybe this time will be it. Also, I picked up a ton of new strategies from watching the players. This should be a snap.

I ran into one tiny problem, though. I’m not as good as they are. Not by a long shot.

They make it look so easy to avoid enemies. To save time, they dash through as much as possible, and they don’t fight any enemies unless they have to (to get a key or open a door or a boss). I was all, “THAT’S GENIUS!” In a Zelda game, fighting enemies does really nothing other than risk loss of hearts. It’s not like Link levels up from skirmishes. I do dash through everything and avoid fights as much as possible. But I don’t know the maps half as well as they do, probably not even a quarter. I don’t know the RNG a tenth as well as any of them. It’s easy for them to avoid enemies with ease because they know exactly how and where they will appear.

That said, I’ve learned a lot from their strats running through dungeons and fighting bosses. I always had a hard time with Armos, that first boss in the Eastern Palace. After watching that fight several times on Twitch, I tried one of their strategies, and lo and behold, it worked! It worked the first time, at that. I didn’t even lose any hearts. I pulled out my old strategy guide, which was released for the GBA port of A Link to the Past/Four Swords. It’s not as much of a strategy guide as it is guidelines for what to expect. No wonder I never got far each time I tried it. I’ve learned more from this weekend of watching a randomizer tournament than I have in a guide.

It’s an Official Nintendo Player’s Guide, as well. So much for those. Guess I know which guide I won’t be using whenever I decide to bite the bullet and give Ocarina of Time an honest go. (For the record, I have six different OoT guides. It’s…a long story.)

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