Jul 8, 2012 at 6:18 PM
Join Date: Aug 20, 2006
Location:
Posts: 2857
Age: 34
Pronouns: he/him
Read This Properly
One year after the last painfully disorganized but somehow not too bad attempt, it's time to see if it's worth trying this out again. I was going to wait until the reg thread was up, but it's already later than last year and neither it nor the regular Speed Demos Archive recruitment thread have started yet so I don't even know.
Brief Intro
Last years' hype thread
Last years' team thread, now with 100% more broken code boxes
(Probably a good idea to look through these first if you have any questions at the end.)
This will be a reasonably serious shoot-em-up tournament, taking part on another forum and starting probably late July, that I would like to bring a CS Tribute Site team to participate in. Each game is played for a week, usually on the arcade emulator MAME, and ranked by score. Up to seven people can join one team, and the top three for each week make up the team score.
Last years' final results
As you can see, we just scraped by into a respectable 14th, and this year we should aim to improve on that. The main objective is still to have fun, so if you're interested and willing to put in a little hard work, you may be just who I'm looking for!
Level of Input
I will expect team members to play something in the order of at least an hour per day on average. Starting early each week and making stepwise improvements is the key to solid results, and an extra dig on the last day is always appreciated
If I'm to go through with this and not go back to SDA or another team, I want a few more people who are certain they'll play every week they can and have at least some experience playing hard games if not shmups. This is partly to get a better result and mostly to lower my stress levels so I don't spend all week fingernail-biting while I wait for the third team result to come in 
Even if you don't think you want to bother that much or lack confidence, there may still be an opening for you (read below), so speak up!
What Has Changed
I have (hopefully) improved my own playing skills somewhat, and now also have a proper stream channel from which I will provide as much help and info as I can possibly manage, in addition to the team discussion thread. I usually stream at 10am-ish my time for American folks, but if you're in another timezone I'll have no trouble streaming again to help you out.
As for the tournament, this year the organisers are bringing back voting for each week's game, which hasn't happened since before I even started participating. Unless you're very familiar with the genre, you won't have to concern yourselves with this; however, if there is enough interest (read: twelve whole people at least), we might be able to put together a second, less-serious/-experienced team as a tactical move to double our voting power
The week themes haven't been announced yet, but I can tell you there will almost certainly be a week featuring developer Cave and one of their fancy-pantsy bullets-everywhere games (sort of like Touhou but with higher production values). To last years' team, I can also say that there's a 90% chance we won't have to play anything as shitty as Gokujou Parodius again, especially in week 1.
How to Get Involved
Post in this thread to start, obviously - don't worry about registering for the tournament yet, I'll explain that at a later stage to any total newcomers. If you are new, I'd like a resume of your finest gaming achievements and how much time you think you can devote. Currently, team strongman Crankenstein will be returning to ease the pressure over the first couple of weeks, which are always the hardest; after that, you should find a steady playing groove, and maybe even impress yourself
To avoid going in dry, some practice might be in order, and naturally, our official practice game is Guxt. If you do to play it, please hit up the high score thread! Some familiarity with MAME, the arcade emulator, will also help. There are several different frontends you can choose from, and here is my experience with a number of them (use Google):
MAMEUI - The default and usually most up-to-date frontend, which means most games work better. It's simply not feasible for some shmups though, because it lacks autofire and some other useful features. It also takes forever to update its games directory, to the point that it's better to simply dump them in the "roms" folder and manual search for them every time.
MAME Plus! - Has autofire and is updated regularly but not immediately. Main problem is certain games crashing whenever you try to load a savestate, but on the ones that it doesn't it's good for anyone.
ShmupMAME - Probably the best for ease of use, but it's based on an older version of MAME so some games won't work on it. For some reason, it also won't load games on my computer anymore, so I can't use it
ThunderMAME - Similar to ShmupMAME without the lag improvements. Useful mostly for playing certain games with sound that aren't working in base MAME yet.
Both of the older frontends may run into problems on 64-bit OS's, or with romsets that have been renamed since they last updated. Games are loaded into MAME by placing them into the "roms" folder and hitting F5 to load them into the "Available" category, or setting the directory under Options -> Directories.... In-game, you can open the main menu with Tab, can check the default MAME controls under "Input" and adjust them as desired. It shouldn't be too hard to get the hang of.
As for what to try out, there is a decent chance that the week I mentioned earlier will feature a game called ESPGaluda, which runs on the newer versions of MAME (if you still have MAME Plus! from last year that should be fine) and will be worth practicing. If ESPGaluda isn't chosen, the week is going to suck anyway, so don't worry about playing the wrong thing
If you have any troubles getting MAME working, or want some more reccomendations, please let me know.
Last Important Stuffs
I mentioned savestates earlier; it's perfectly okay to practice with these, but of course to get submittable scores you will have to play a clean credit each time. Practicing is important, but again I'd like everyone to make proper runs more consistently to help the team stay on the curve, if not ahead of it. A top 10 finish last year and some of the scoring targets I set were a bit over-ambitious, but now I have a lot more experience both captaining and with shmups in general. As long as you keep trying to improve your scores, I'll be happy
If it's okay with everyone, I'd also like to try a little... shake-up of the team theme this year. I don't know how many of you remember, but a long time ago somebody made a mod called Dave Story. Here's a quick synopsis for those unfamiliar:
You can probably tell where this is going 
Jack didn't shrink very well but it's not meant to be 'good'; if someone else wants to dave up a better banner they are welcome. In addition, we shall all have Dave-themed team names and coordinate avatars of people or characters named Dave; I fancy flying as Australian funnyman Dave Hughes.
Provided it's okay with all of you, of course.
Finally, there will probably be a conflict with CaveCon during week 4 or 5; last year it only went for a couple of days, so it might not matter. I'll worry about it when it approaches.
If there is anything more you want to know, please post and ask, unless it's something I've already answered in which case I will deliver shame upon your mortal soul
One year after the last painfully disorganized but somehow not too bad attempt, it's time to see if it's worth trying this out again. I was going to wait until the reg thread was up, but it's already later than last year and neither it nor the regular Speed Demos Archive recruitment thread have started yet so I don't even know.
Brief Intro
Last years' hype thread
Last years' team thread, now with 100% more broken code boxes
(Probably a good idea to look through these first if you have any questions at the end.)
This will be a reasonably serious shoot-em-up tournament, taking part on another forum and starting probably late July, that I would like to bring a CS Tribute Site team to participate in. Each game is played for a week, usually on the arcade emulator MAME, and ranked by score. Up to seven people can join one team, and the top three for each week make up the team score.
Last years' final results
As you can see, we just scraped by into a respectable 14th, and this year we should aim to improve on that. The main objective is still to have fun, so if you're interested and willing to put in a little hard work, you may be just who I'm looking for!
Level of Input
I will expect team members to play something in the order of at least an hour per day on average. Starting early each week and making stepwise improvements is the key to solid results, and an extra dig on the last day is always appreciated
If I'm to go through with this and not go back to SDA or another team, I want a few more people who are certain they'll play every week they can and have at least some experience playing hard games if not shmups. This is partly to get a better result and mostly to lower my stress levels so I don't spend all week fingernail-biting while I wait for the third team result to come in Even if you don't think you want to bother that much or lack confidence, there may still be an opening for you (read below), so speak up!What Has Changed
I have (hopefully) improved my own playing skills somewhat, and now also have a proper stream channel from which I will provide as much help and info as I can possibly manage, in addition to the team discussion thread. I usually stream at 10am-ish my time for American folks, but if you're in another timezone I'll have no trouble streaming again to help you out.
As for the tournament, this year the organisers are bringing back voting for each week's game, which hasn't happened since before I even started participating. Unless you're very familiar with the genre, you won't have to concern yourselves with this; however, if there is enough interest (read: twelve whole people at least), we might be able to put together a second, less-serious/-experienced team as a tactical move to double our voting power
The week themes haven't been announced yet, but I can tell you there will almost certainly be a week featuring developer Cave and one of their fancy-pantsy bullets-everywhere games (sort of like Touhou but with higher production values). To last years' team, I can also say that there's a 90% chance we won't have to play anything as shitty as Gokujou Parodius again, especially in week 1.How to Get Involved
Post in this thread to start, obviously - don't worry about registering for the tournament yet, I'll explain that at a later stage to any total newcomers. If you are new, I'd like a resume of your finest gaming achievements and how much time you think you can devote. Currently, team strongman Crankenstein will be returning to ease the pressure over the first couple of weeks, which are always the hardest; after that, you should find a steady playing groove, and maybe even impress yourself
To avoid going in dry, some practice might be in order, and naturally, our official practice game is Guxt. If you do to play it, please hit up the high score thread! Some familiarity with MAME, the arcade emulator, will also help. There are several different frontends you can choose from, and here is my experience with a number of them (use Google):
MAMEUI - The default and usually most up-to-date frontend, which means most games work better. It's simply not feasible for some shmups though, because it lacks autofire and some other useful features. It also takes forever to update its games directory, to the point that it's better to simply dump them in the "roms" folder and manual search for them every time.
MAME Plus! - Has autofire and is updated regularly but not immediately. Main problem is certain games crashing whenever you try to load a savestate, but on the ones that it doesn't it's good for anyone.
ShmupMAME - Probably the best for ease of use, but it's based on an older version of MAME so some games won't work on it. For some reason, it also won't load games on my computer anymore, so I can't use it
ThunderMAME - Similar to ShmupMAME without the lag improvements. Useful mostly for playing certain games with sound that aren't working in base MAME yet.
Both of the older frontends may run into problems on 64-bit OS's, or with romsets that have been renamed since they last updated. Games are loaded into MAME by placing them into the "roms" folder and hitting F5 to load them into the "Available" category, or setting the directory under Options -> Directories.... In-game, you can open the main menu with Tab, can check the default MAME controls under "Input" and adjust them as desired. It shouldn't be too hard to get the hang of.
As for what to try out, there is a decent chance that the week I mentioned earlier will feature a game called ESPGaluda, which runs on the newer versions of MAME (if you still have MAME Plus! from last year that should be fine) and will be worth practicing. If ESPGaluda isn't chosen, the week is going to suck anyway, so don't worry about playing the wrong thing
If you have any troubles getting MAME working, or want some more reccomendations, please let me know.Last Important Stuffs
I mentioned savestates earlier; it's perfectly okay to practice with these, but of course to get submittable scores you will have to play a clean credit each time. Practicing is important, but again I'd like everyone to make proper runs more consistently to help the team stay on the curve, if not ahead of it. A top 10 finish last year and some of the scoring targets I set were a bit over-ambitious, but now I have a lot more experience both captaining and with shmups in general. As long as you keep trying to improve your scores, I'll be happy
If it's okay with everyone, I'd also like to try a little... shake-up of the team theme this year. I don't know how many of you remember, but a long time ago somebody made a mod called Dave Story. Here's a quick synopsis for those unfamiliar:
DAVE STORY
INSTEAD OF HERMIT GUNSMITH, A HERMIT CALLED DAVE SMITH
OPEN THE DAVE
IT'S A DAVE
YOU CAN DAVE LITERALLY EVERY DAVE
INSTEAD OF HERMIT GUNSMITH, A HERMIT CALLED DAVE SMITH
OPEN THE DAVE
IT'S A DAVE
YOU CAN DAVE LITERALLY EVERY DAVE
Jack didn't shrink very well but it's not meant to be 'good'; if someone else wants to dave up a better banner they are welcome. In addition, we shall all have Dave-themed team names and coordinate avatars of people or characters named Dave; I fancy flying as Australian funnyman Dave Hughes.
Provided it's okay with all of you, of course.
If there is anything more you want to know, please post and ask, unless it's something I've already answered in which case I will deliver shame upon your mortal soul
