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SDA's Awesome Games Done Quick - Speedrunning marathon for charity

J

Jokab

Member
awfulgames.png

(shamelessly stolen from SDA's homepage)

INFO: http://speeddemosarchive.com/marathon/
SCHEDULE: http://speeddemosarchive.com/marathon/schedule/
STREAM: http://speeddemosarchive.com/ (direct link to main stream: http://www.justin.tv/speeddemosarchivesda)

Speeddemosarchive.com is the prominent speedrunning database on the web, with over 600 games listed. For 5 days straight they will be holding and streaming a speedrunning marathon, where they have (generally) invited the players whose runs are published on the site to do the runs live on stream. Most of the time commentary will be available by either the player him/herself or someone else who is knowledgeable of the game which is likely since the house they're hosting in will be packed full of speedrunners... watching the other speedrunners speedrun.

I figured people would be interested in this since the Siglemic Mario 64 thread has generated quite some interest. Sadly Siglemic won't be there, but Cosmo (ocarina of time WR holder) will though, running Ocarina of Time. This time though, you're donating to a good cause and not just the runner's pizza fund.

Speed Demos Archive, the home to video game speed runs, is proud to present a special speed running marathon: Awesome Games Done Quick, a 6-day online event played to raise money for cancer prevention and streamed live for you to watch!

All donations made during the marathon will go directly to the Prevent Cancer Foundation, our partner for this event.

The stream will start on Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012 at 3 PM EST (GMT-5). You can watch the stream on SDA's homepage.

To see when particular games are being played, check the runs schedule.

Special Events
During the marathon, we'll be holding several special events to keep things exciting:

Prizes – Donate for a chance to win great prizes such as hand-knitted plushes, perlers, artwork, games, and other great stuff like a Sonic comic collection and Super Meat Boy-themed meat tenderizer!

Donation Bids for Runs – As with every SDA marathon, you can donate for file names of your choice and certain challenges in runs. However, there are also different games and types of runs at stake! The donation battles include any% or 100% for Mega Man X, Mega Man or Bass in Mega Man 10, Alucard or Richter for an all bosses run of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, a run of Pokemon Red or Blue, and a run of LoZ: Link's Awakening or LoZ: Oracle of Seasons, among many others. Donate to pick your favorites!

Races – If the excitement of seeing games demolished by speed runners simply isn't enough, then make sure to watch the intense matchups between different runners as they compete to see who can complete a game faster. This marathon will include races for Sonic Adventure 2, Mega Man X, Mirror's Edge, the Legend of Zelda, and other great games!

Co-op Runs – Watch as runners team up to finish games in even faster and more ridiculous ways than usual. The co-op runs in this marathon include Portal 2, TMNT4: Turtles in Time, Contra 3, Double Dragon 2, Kirby & the Amazing Mirror, Magicka, and the Lawnmower Man.
Click to expand...

Games to look out for:

  • Quake
  • Final Fantasy VII
  • Earthbound
  • Pokemon Red/Blue
  • Portal 2 (co-op)
  • Halo Reach
  • Demon's Souls
  • Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
  • Sonic 1, 2, S3&K & Sonic Adventure 2
  • Mega Man 2, 3, & 10
  • Mega Man X, X2, & X6
  • Super Mario Bros & SMB3
  • SMW or Lost Levels
  • Super Mario 64 & Super Mario Galaxy
  • Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past
  • Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
  • Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
  • LoZ: Oracle of Seasons or Link's Awakening
  • Super Meat Boy (donate for all levels)
  • Half-Life
  • Mirror's Edge (race)
  • Castlevania 1, 3, 4, AoS & SotN
  • Bayonetta & Vanquish
  • Super Metroid
  • Super Mario RPG
  • Contra, Super C, & Contra 3
  • Kirby & the Amazing Mirror, KSSU
...and many more!
Click to expand...

If I've forgotten anything, just ask.
 
J

jwhit28

Member
I watched a run of Pokemon Yellow from last year. I hope that all the players explain how and why they do certain glitches. He even explained the differences between Yellow and Red/Blue and Nintendo's effort to block certain glitches.
 
A

Anth0ny

Member
jwhit28 said:
I watched a run of Pokemon Yellow from last year. I hope that all the players explain how and why they do certain glitches. he even explained the differences between Yellow and Red/Blue and Nintendo's effort to block certain glitches.
Click to expand...

Saw that too. Shit was mad educational!
 
T

Tain

Member
So is it safe to assume that a lot of the games with unclear platforms (Bubble Bobble, Super C) are the NES versions? If so, that sort of thing is always lame and annoying.

Either way, I want to see some of the games in here.
 
J

Jokab

Member
Tain said:
So is it safe to assume that a lot of the games with unclear platforms (Bubble Bobble, Super C) are the NES versions? If so, that sort of thing is always lame and annoying.

Either way, I want to see some of the games in here.
Click to expand...
Yes they probably are. At least the Bubble Bobble-run on the site is for the NES version.
 
H

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
N4Us said:
Slight bump, about to start in an hour, they're just doing some test work at the moment.

Love watching these things. Really looking forward to how they'll speedrun Earthbound.

Here's a highlights reel of last year's with some crazy moments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1awnOnzDzFA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqUqICH_CKQ

And the bloopers!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qY9zDhMYOKw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGerVGjcgPU
Click to expand...
Watched a ton of the first vid. Ivysaurs, man. Water bikes. Wall phasing.
 
P

Proven

Member
Tain said:
So is it safe to assume that a lot of the games with unclear platforms (Bubble Bobble, Super C) are the NES versions? If so, that sort of thing is always lame and annoying.

Either way, I want to see some of the games in here.
Click to expand...

Why is it annoying?
 
J

jwhit28

Member
SMK the guy that did the awesome Pokemon Yellow run is up first with Psychonauts.

I wonder why they had Trihex go during the middle of the day. He usually streams Yoshi's Island late at night and his streams aren't exactly primetime friendly.
 
J

Jokab

Member
jwhit28 said:
SMK the guy that did the awesome Pokemon Yellow run is up first with Psychonauts.

I wonder why they had Trihex go during the middle of the day. He usually streams Yoshi's Island late at night and his streams aren't exactly primetime friendly.
Click to expand...

I suppose it's to make the time a little more euro-friendly.
 
T

Tain

Member
Proven said:
Why is it annoying?
Click to expand...

There's no real reason to go with, say, NES Bubble Bobble over the arcade version. The port isn't unplayable or anything, but it's pretty clearly a step down from the original, and chances are it's being focused on and positioned as the version of choice based on things like widespread familiarity, nostalgia, or "retro" cred instead of being the best version of the game.

A better argument can be made for using the Famicom/NES versions of a game with significant differences, like Super C, but even in a lot of these cases I feel that the arcade originals are overlooked like mad.
 
N

N4Us

Member
To be fair, they play pretty much all the games on original hardware (with exceptions like the Wii VC in some cases). Without emulation a lot of the port choices are pretty narrow.

Portal 2 Co-Op right now btw.
 
P

Proven

Member
Tain said:
There's no real reason to go with, say, NES Bubble Bobble over the arcade version. The port isn't unplayable or anything, but it's pretty clearly a step down from the original, and chances are it's being focused on and positioned as the version of choice based on things like widespread familiarity, nostalgia, or "retro" cred instead of being the best version of the game.

A better argument can be made for using the Famicom/NES versions of a game with significant differences, like Super C, but even in a lot of these cases I feel that the arcade originals are overlooked like mad.
Click to expand...

I feel like the main thing is that they want to go with one of the oldest versions, but when it comes to recording the gameplays arcade cabinets aren't the easiest to record. I don't think they have any replays of any arcade machines anywhere on their site, and there are only like 3 DS runs recorded on the site (the only one I can remember is Prime Hunters) for similar reasons.
 
T

Tain

Member
Proven said:
I feel like the main thing is that they want to go with one of the oldest versions, but when it comes to recording the gameplays arcade cabinets aren't the easiest to record. I don't think they have any replays of any arcade machines anywhere on their site, and there are only like 3 DS runs recorded on the site (the only one I can remember is Prime Hunters) for similar reasons.
Click to expand...

I thought they often went with emulation on the site. If I'm mistaken, that makes sense.
 
L

luffeN

Member
N4Us said:
To be fair, they play pretty much all the games on original hardware (with exceptions like the Wii VC in some cases). Without emulation a lot of the port choices are pretty narrow.

Portal 2 Co-Op right now btw.
Click to expand...

Is there an archived version for this?
 
F

Foliorum Viridum

Banned
There's always a torrent at the end of every run they do. Takes a while, but yeah.

That's what I'm waiting for. I love watching these... although I do find the people doing the runs quite annoying most of the time.

Still, SDA is awesome and charity is awesome, so this is awesome. Awesome.
 
J

Jokab

Member
XiaNaphryz said:
What's their stance on tool-assist?
Click to expand...
SDA doesn't publish tool-assited movies, there's www.tasvideos.org for that. Though there has always been much debate from the "normal" speedrunners whether tool-assisted speedruns are "legit" or not, I doubt SDA has any specific stance on the matter. The two sites overlap a lot of members, and there are a few speedrunners who do both kinds of runs.
 
L

luffeN

Member
Foliorum Viridum said:
There's always a torrent at the end of every run they do. Takes a while, but yeah.

That's what I'm waiting for. I love watching these... although I do find the people doing the runs quite annoying most of the time.

Still, SDA is awesome and charity is awesome, so this is awesome. Awesome.
Click to expand...

Where exactly?
 
F

Foliorum Viridum

Banned
I'm not sure where I saw the torrent links. Probably in a news update. Their site is too badly designed for me to go looking, sorry.

Edit: To clarify, I meant a torrent of the ENTIRE marathon at the end. Like weeks after with all the runs in it. Not after each run today or tomorrow. Bad wording on my part.
 
T

Tain

Member
Jokab said:
AFAIK emulation is not allowed on SDA.
Click to expand...

Looking at the faq, it looks like "You may produce your run on whichever system you prefer, but many people would rather watch runs on their original systems." Nothing solidly for or against emulation anywhere.


oohhhhh well
 
J

Jokab

Member
Tain said:
Looking at the faq, it looks like "You may produce your run on whichever system you prefer, but many people would rather watch runs on their original systems." Nothing solidly for or against emulation anywhere.


oohhhhh well
Click to expand...
Actually:
-Virtualization: We will not accept speedruns recorded on emulators (ZSNES, VBA, DOSBox, etc.) or other virtualization software (Wine, VMware, etc.). Emulators commonly allow for recording games frame-by-frame and then playing back the input at normal speed. Also, most emulators and virtualization programs have minor inaccuracies in timing and slowdown that prevent accurate comparisons between runs. Finally, it is illegal in most countries to obtain ROMs. Note that an exception is made for officially sanctioned emulators such as the Game Boy Player for GameCube, Virtual Console, or GameTap. Due to problems with some official emulators, however, runs on those emulators may be considered a separate category.
Click to expand...

Another reason which isn't explicitly listed there is that it is impossible to verify the legitimacy emulated runs.
 
A

Aeana

Member
Tain said:
Looking at the faq, it looks like "You may produce your run on whichever system you prefer, but many people would rather watch runs on their original systems." Nothing solidly for or against emulation anywhere.


oohhhhh well
Click to expand...

That's talking about ports to other systems. SDA absolutely does not allow emulation or TAS.

From their rules:

-Virtualization: We will not accept speedruns recorded on emulators (ZSNES, VBA, DOSBox, etc.) or other virtualization software (Wine, VMware, etc.). Emulators commonly allow for recording games frame-by-frame and then playing back the input at normal speed. Also, most emulators and virtualization programs have minor inaccuracies in timing and slowdown that prevent accurate comparisons between runs. Finally, it is illegal in most countries to obtain ROMs. Note that an exception is made for officially sanctioned emulators such as the Game Boy Player for GameCube, Virtual Console, or GameTap. Due to problems with some official emulators, however, runs on those emulators may be considered a separate category.
Click to expand...
 
T

Tain

Member
That's pretty clear! Damn shame that so many great older arcade games are going to go relatively unexplored by these guys, but it's understandable. And there's always MARP/ReplayBurners/random stuff on NicoNico, I guess.
 
L

luffeN

Member
Foliorum Viridum said:
I'm not sure where I saw the torrent links. Probably in a news update. Their site is too badly designed for me to go looking, sorry.

Edit: To clarify, I meant a torrent of the ENTIRE marathon at the end. Like weeks after with all the runs in it. Not after each run today or tomorrow. Bad wording on my part.
Click to expand...

Oh, the whole run, damn... that's going to be a lot of gigas ;)
 
F

Foliorum Viridum

Banned
Yeah it was like 50gb or something.

My speedrun folder is like 500gb thanks to SDA, though, so eh!

You can pick and choose what you want in torrent programs, too.
 
P

PKrockin

Member
Cool, I want to watch one of these but I always just missed them. I'll hop on the stream when I get back from work.

Hopefully I can catch part of that EarthBound run...
 
C

Charoncaori

Member
They have an alt stream link when there's a co-op game or race going on: http://www.twitch.tv/speeddemosarchivesda1

Right now it's just showing some donation totals.

I watched last year's entire marathon after the fact. I found out about it through archive.org, which hosts the runs. I'm very happy to be watching it live this year.

My birthday's in a week, so here's hoping I win something!
 
E

evlcookie

but ever so delicious
When the sm64 run happens I think people need to donate with a message of, this is the run #neogaf or something like that.

Boss turned up so I had to turn it off :(
 
F

FSLink

Banned
jwhit28 said:
I watched a run of Pokemon Yellow from last year. I hope that all the players explain how and why they do certain glitches. He even explained the differences between Yellow and Red/Blue and Nintendo's effort to block certain glitches.
Click to expand...

Any archives for this? I missed this last year.
 
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