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Retro Rumble - A web game show about playing old games!

Really well done effort. Very enjoyable to watch. If you can get me to watch 3 webisodes in a row, you have something good. Some really entertaining commentary throughout. I really love how the contestants aren't sure how to play Asteroids (how do I move the ship?) and Swimmer at the beginning of each challenge.

My only quibble is that the lighting for the peanut gallery is inconsistent and not very good overall. I'd also throw a 4" riser on the back row to make the arrangement of friends more camera-friendly.

Will watch the next episode. When is it due?
 
vireland said:
Really well done effort. Very enjoyable to watch. If you can get me to watch 3 webisodes in a row, you have something good. Some really entertaining commentary throughout. I really love how the contestants aren't sure how to play Asteroids (how do I move the ship?) and Swimmer at the beginning of each challenge.

My only quibble is that the lighting for the peanut gallery is inconsistent and not very good overall. I'd also throw a 4" riser on the back row to make the arrangement of friends more camera-friendly.

Will watch the next episode. When is it due?
Click to expand...

Yeah, we knew lighting was an issue the night we shot and it is something on our to do list for season 2. Plus it seems like both cameras were not configured the same in terms of color. The static crowd cam I tried to adjust colors in production so it looks better, but not great. I'm very new to editing video so it's a learning process.

Good idea on making the seats more "bleacher" like. Awesome suggestions to add for sure.

New ones are out each Friday.

Ed
 
We are getting ready to get started on season two.

Any ideas or suggestions are most certainly welcome. Is everything making sense in how the game is played? Do we need more informational screens?

Ed
 
Good job! It's fairly entertaining. Here's some suggestions for season 2:

1. Multiplayer. Contestants fighting against each other will always be entertaining.

2. Maybe 2 or 3 games per episode? I don't know though. I'm used to the normal tv show 30 minute or 1 hour format for game shows.

3. You mentioned a big button that's pressed to choose the game. Put a camera on that. It doesn't serve much purpose if we can't see it!

4. On that same tangent, your host needs to be seen more. He was in the first episode and none after that i think. Of course you would need a "professional" host who can really justify the screen time. I remember the first episode being kind of awkward in the beginning.

5. Get some commentary and stories about the game from the players. I'm sure they have some interesting or funny arcade stories. One of the players veto'd donkey kong and said "He is not going to play donkey kong!" but I never knew who he was talking about. This is where the host would come in and pull the information out of them to bring some context to the situation.
 
This is totally awesome. I'd love to do something like this with my friends.

My suggestion:
Don't listen to every suggestion being made. I think the current format works and you should just focus on tightening everything up/getting audio levels more consistent, stuff like that.

Where are you guys located?
 
ArcadEd said:
We are gonna begin shooting season 2 in about a week. Any suggestions you might have please let me know and I can bring it,

My only fear right now is if the show starts to get stale after a little while.

Ed
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I checked out the 3 episodes and enjoyed them. I'll keep tuning in.

If you'd like constructive feedback, I think the content is pretty light. Each episode starts with approximately a minute recap and ends with a preview also around a minute. Conceptually that's fine, but not when the entire episode is 5 minutes. There's not enough "show" and too much recapping. I'd suggest expanding to the youtube standard 10 minute format, either by combining episodes (2 games instead of 1) or showing more game performance footage & adding some narration. Still, an interesting premise that I enjoyed watching and good job overall.
 
Thank you. Yes, we are going to try and spend a little more time on the players, maybe having little snippets of them before and after games talking about them, etc.
 
Haha poor Shawn, hope he gets to make at least a little of a comeback.

It's great that we're already getting these on at least a weekly basis. How likely do you think a biweekly pace is by Season 2 at this point? Either way, I'll keep watching. This is fun stuff.
 
Fantastic show, just subbed. The shit talk between all of the players and everyone else makes this. I've also never heard of Swimmer or Alpine Ski, so now I'm just interested in discovering more arcade history through the show. This is going to go places.
 
I'm not sure. We'll have to see what kind of improvements we make when we shoot season 2. I'm hoping enough to make editing much easier. Right now, as you can tell, we are still messing with the layouts, background, scoreboards,etc. We should have that all final and make things easier. Plus I am learning the software more and more so it's making it easier.
 
Bowling Pin said:
Fantastic show, just subbed. The shit talk between all of the players and everyone else makes this. I've also never heard of Swimmer or Alpine Ski, so now I'm just interested in discovering more arcade history through the show. This is going to go places.
Click to expand...


Thanks man, we are trying. There are a lot of arcade games out there no one has heard of :).
 
this is excellent, just watched all of these. I really like the format as-is (if anything, the recap can get cut a bit)

I absolutely want to do this with my friends :)
 
Glass Joe said:
I checked out the 3 episodes and enjoyed them. I'll keep tuning in.

If you'd like constructive feedback, I think the content is pretty light. Each episode starts with approximately a minute recap and ends with a preview also around a minute. Conceptually that's fine, but not when the entire episode is 5 minutes. There's not enough "show" and too much recapping. I'd suggest expanding to the youtube standard 10 minute format, either by combining episodes (2 games instead of 1) or showing more game performance footage & adding some narration. Still, an interesting premise that I enjoyed watching and good job overall.
Click to expand...

I agree with these comments. I really think doing 2 games per episode is probably the sweet spot. Not only will it put you around the 10-minute Youtube standard, but it will also put you into the three-segment TV Game Show standard.

Otherwise, great job on the show. Good idea and well executed.

edit - one more suggestion. Going with 2 per episode also potentially gives you a nice "Final Round," where the contestants are forced to play two games back to back and combine the scores. The combined winner gets triple points (so 15/9/3), making a late comeback possible.
 
wondermega said:
this is excellent, just watched all of these. I really like the format as-is (if anything, the recap can get cut a bit)

I absolutely want to do this with my friends :)
Click to expand...


We started out with something similar we called MAME Challenge just using the Random Game selection in MAME32. We played for high score on one credit for each game.
 
ArcadEd said:
We started out with something similar we called MAME Challenge just using the Random Game selection in MAME32. We played for high score on one credit for each game.
Click to expand...


This would also be nice to see. You guys are currently playing based on a set time, but no time limit, and instead a credit limit could be intriguing.

I also agree with the comment above that the recaps are probably unnecessary. It's an internet show. Anyone watching episode 4 will have already seen episode 3, etc.

And I too was curious about the donkey kong veto.
 
ArcadEd said:
I have a donkey kong cabinet at the arcade and whitelaw is our current DK high score holder. Hence the veto :).
Click to expand...

You own that arcade? That's pretty awesome.

I would love to own an arcade, but I didn't think they could possibly make money anymore.

Curious, thinking back to King of Kong, what's his high score?
 
Nothing near those guys. He gets close to about 200k though, better than any of us can do. He's put a lot of time into it.

Yeah, I own the arcade. You don't get to see much of it in the video, we hope to change that as well in future episodes :).

And no, it doesn't make money. The machines are all on free play and I do birthday parties at the arcade for both kids and adults. Plus we do a lot of fighting game tournaments and it's kind of the local hang out for the newer fighting games like SFIV and Marvel3
 
ArcadEd said:
Nothing near those guys. He gets close to about 200k though, better than any of us can do. He's put a lot of time into it.

Yeah, I own the arcade. You don't get to see much of it in the video, we hope to change that as well in future episodes :).

And no, it doesn't make money. The machines are all on free play and I do birthday parties at the arcade for both kids and adults. Plus we do a lot of fighting game tournaments and it's kind of the local hang out for the newer fighting games like SFIV and Marvel3
Click to expand...

I think the only way to make money on an arcade nowadays is to get a liquor license and sell booze like Dave & Busters.
 
Yeah, it's not really a money making venture. The fighting game community and birthday parties do enough to keep it open and give me a little spare cash to buy and repair arcade cabinets.

It gives me a place to put them all too. :)
 
Maybe you guys have some ideas. I'm trying to work on getting more community involvement with the series. Maybe having a weekly contest where people post there best score in the game played that week or something. I'm up for any ideas.

Also, any idea you might of a sponsor that deals in retro items like t-shirts or something that might want to donate some prizes would be awesome We can plug them in the videos of course.
 
u guys should do a Bayonetta episode!

I love Bayonetta!!

they have an outrun stage in that game too!

u guys should do a outrun episode!
 
Is Bayonetta a retro game I missed? ;)

Outrun would be awesome though. I have a steering wheel all configured and ready for some racing games.
 
I started to just post up some random Let's Play arcade videos too. I'm not the greatest at commentating (I feel weird talking to myself) but I am getting a feel for it. Some of the other RR members and crew are going to be making their own videos as well.

They are on the same channel. www.youtube.com/TheRetroRumble
 
JEKKI said:
it's retro to me!!

u kno, a wise man once said,

just becoz it's old skool dont mean that it's classic, and just becoz it's classic dont mean it aint brand new.

u can quote me on that!
Click to expand...

Good point, except we don't just put "classics" on the show. The games that people don't know about make the best episodes. It's great to see these younger gamers try and figure what is going on in these games.

Who knows, maybe this will spawn a show with games from the latest consoles as well :)..
 
FYI,
This Saturday night we are going to old auditions for the next few seasons of Retro Rumble. We will be doing this live and streaming it. I'll be posting details soon.

If you happen to be in Tucson, AZ and want to audition, please email us at retrorumble@gmail.com
 
Laughing my ass off :D Great idea for a show and well executed.
 
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