ShooTing Game Tournament '11 Hype and Recruitment Thread - READ LATEST POST

Jun 30, 2011 at 8:58 AM
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I'll try to keep this vaguely succinct :debug:

Once a year this other site I'm active on gets teams together for a reasonably-friendly-but-reasonably-competitive shmup tournament over on this other other site. So, after spending a couple of years learning the ropes, I thought that this year I'd try to get a team together from the CS Tribute Site! The registration thread isn't up yet, but the tournament is supposedly due to start in mid July so I don't think I should put off making this thread any longer. Here I'll try to give you a good idea what to expect - and what I'll be expecting from you.

The setup is fairly simple: teams of at least five and up to seven people play five different shooting games over the course of usually six weeks; generally these are at least a decade old, so as to be easily emulated using MAME. The top three scores from the team go toward the team score, so less-experienced players need not worry about holding their team back. To give an example of this system in action, check out these scores and results from week 1 last year.

However, there is one especially important thing you should take note of before signing up:
These games are hard.
This isn't going to be a happy-go-lucky funfest like the comic contest. These games were designed to eat coins out of wallets and are generally very unforgiving if you aren't familiar with them. Moreover, you'll be competing against a forum full of people who play these on a regular basis. There's a decent amount of wiggle room, as I'll explain shortly, but I want to avoid having people sign up who will try the first game once, hate it, and stop playing (as has oft occurred in the past).

I wasn't very good at these games during my first tourney, but I persevered, and as the weeks went on it paid off. This is doubly important, as I've found that the competition becomes a lot quieter by week 3, and by week 5 everyone has pretty much given up. The scoring system is designed to reward consistency, so a slow start does not necessarily mean a bad finish - I finished 50th during my first year! And there are plenty of better Cave Story players here than me, so I am aglow with optimism :D

Some games from the genre you folks around here might be familiar with include Touhou, Warning Forever, Gradius/Parodius and Guxt (!!!). The games in the actual tournament are likely to be harder, but these should give a basic idea of what to expect. Because of how team score is calculated, I'd like to get at least a fairly solid top four together (that is, me plus three others... I also have a buddy who might be interesting in signing up, which may only leave two spare slots, if that even becomes an issue >_>). I'd expect around an hour of shmooping per day from my players (provided the game is halfway decent), to give you an idea of the workload. And I'll be sure to get on your behind if I think you're slacking off, while most likely being annoyingly encouraging at all other times.

If you've got the time and patience, feel free to sign up! If you're still uncertain, you could try some out for yourself. Guxt is fine, but if you want to try an old arcade shmup I would suggest using lagless MAME to play something like Strikers 1945 II (hard-ish but simple scoring), which you can find at your local ROM outlet. To get it working, go to Options -> Directories... and select the folder you've put the game in (don't extract the archive!). Enter is the "Select key", Tab brings up the emulator menu for setting up things like the controls and autofire, Escape is quit, Shift+F7 will let you save states and F7 will load them. I recommend exuberant use of savestates for practicing and learning, but obviously they are not allowed for 'proper' scoring runs. Don't hesitate to mention other games or challenges that you've beaten either - especially other shmups! - and of course feel free to bring up any questions you have regarding the tournament/what I've said here.

In conclusion, I declare applications open for

Team CAVE DESTROY

Banner possibly incoming at some point; if for some reason someone else wants to make one, note that it must be 200x50 pixels or smaller, in accordance with Shmup Forums' rules, which you should probably also read first.
 
Jun 30, 2011 at 1:44 PM
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Re: ShooTing Game Tournament '11 Hype and Recruitment Thread

So before i make an application let me get this straight. So we are going to participate in a shooting game tourney online with mame were we will play the game in an attempt to get the highest score for our team am i right so far?
 
Jun 30, 2011 at 5:45 PM
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Re: ShooTing Game Tournament '11 Hype and Recruitment Thread

Oy, I won't be able to do this because I am woefully bad at that type of game, but I wish team Cave DeStory best of luck!
 
Jun 30, 2011 at 5:48 PM
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I'm pretty inexperienced at these games too. The only one I really enjoyed was Warning Forever, and that's not even typical fare for these sort of games. I could make a banner if this gets moving if you want. It'd be "The greatest".
 
Jun 30, 2011 at 6:23 PM
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Re: ShooTing Game Tournament '11 Hype and Recruitment Thread

The greatest :J
 
Jun 30, 2011 at 6:52 PM
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Re: ShooTing Game Tournament '11 Hype and Recruitment Thread

well i guess ill make an application. Time to play me some guxt.
 
Jun 30, 2011 at 7:02 PM
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Re: ShooTing Game Tournament '11 Hype and Recruitment Thread

I'd have to go with Noxid and Lace, old-school shooters are not really my style.
However, I wish anyone signing up from the forums good luck, and may the whole team of Cave DeStory be glorious in battle!
 
Jun 30, 2011 at 7:41 PM
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Re: ShooTing Game Tournament '11 Hype and Recruitment Thread

This looks really interesting, and I do play shmups frequently, it's just that I'm really HORRIBLE at them. I might sign up in a few days, I just need to check if I got significantly worse at them since I last played.

EDIT: I think I'll hold off joining unless you're really needing another player, or if I can stop being so bad at shumps.
 
Jun 30, 2011 at 11:47 PM
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Re: ShooTing Game Tournament '11 Hype and Recruitment Thread

Sorry but when it comes to shmups, I'm as useless as a chicken.
 
Jun 30, 2011 at 11:53 PM
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Wow, look at the members pouring in

I managed to beat Touhou 6 and am getting close to beating 7 on Normal with no Continues, if that's good enough, though I don't know if that'd translate well to these other shmups. {I don't really play these games normally, I don't know why I like the Touhou ones so much}
But my biggest worry would be exactly how the tourney thing works, it sounds like we just choose the times within the week 'round' and record our one playthrough or something...? Though that sounds rather easy since you could then just replay the game until you got a good score....
Or is there a specific preset time you have to do these on? I'd be a lot more interested in joining if there was a lot of wriggle room, like if my first guess was right.
 
Jul 1, 2011 at 12:08 AM
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Re: ShooTing Game Tournament '11 Hype and Recruitment Thread

Id be intrested in joining if you expand on how we submit our scores?
 
Jul 1, 2011 at 4:17 AM
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Re: ShooTing Game Tournament '11 Hype and Recruitment Thread

Omega said:
well i guess ill make an application. Time to play me some guxt.
Bonus note to all: you can shoot the bosses after you beat them to pick up a shield, 'tis mucho useful

Noxid said:
I'm pretty inexperienced at these games too. The only one I really enjoyed was Warning Forever, and that's not even typical fare for these sort of games.
Considering your Tetris skills, your twitch movement and pattern recognition are probably pretty good!! I know you'd be willing to put the effort in as well, but it's up to you obv.

Noxid said:
I could make a banner if this gets moving if you want. It'd be "The greatest".
:rolleyes:
Just don't go overboard on the 'Cave Story' aspect, and do include the team name somewhere on it (same as I wrote it in the op).

Landonpeanut said:
This looks really interesting, and I do play shmups frequently, it's just that I'm really HORRIBLE at them. I might sign up in a few days, I just need to check if I got significantly worse at them since I last played.

EDIT: I think I'll hold off joining unless you're really needing another player, or if I can stop being so bad at shumps.
I know you have some experience at least and that's better than nothing D:

VoidMage_Lowell said:
{I don't really play these games normally, I don't know why I like the Touhou ones so much}
They do look pretty, especially compared to a lot of other bullet hell shooters

VoidMage_Lowell said:
But my biggest worry would be exactly how the tourney thing works, it sounds like we just choose the times within the week 'round' and record our one playthrough or something...? Though that sounds rather easy since you could then just replay the game until you got a good score....
Or is there a specific preset time you have to do these on? I'd be a lot more interested in joining if there was a lot of wriggle room, like if my first guess was right.
JetHawk95 said:
Id be intrested in joining if you expand on how we submit our scores?
Everyone plays on their own time. You don't need to record, as scores are submitted on an honour-based system, and you can submit as many scores as you want. I typically submit about four a week! You can read through the score thread from week 1 last year that I posted in the OP to get an idea of how it works.
 
Jul 1, 2011 at 4:51 AM
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Pretty's not the half of it

DoubleThink said:
They do look pretty, especially compared to a lot of other bullet hell shooters.
Yeah, sometimes it's harder to stop watching the pretty patterns than it is to dodge...
I think I might join up, but I'd like to wait a bit more until it's closer to the tourney time to 'officially' be apart, if that's alright; things have had a real habit of going south lately, and I don't want to sign up and then end up ditching....
 
Jul 1, 2011 at 4:56 AM
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Re: ShooTing Game Tournament '11 Hype and Recruitment Thread

Is fine, like I said the reg thread isn't up yet anyway. Also I should have mentioned it's not like you're required to play every week or something.
 
Jul 1, 2011 at 5:04 AM
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Re: ShooTing Game Tournament '11 Hype and Recruitment Thread

I greatly respect the shooting genre and all who make such games.
But I suck so so so horribly at them. I don't think I've made it past stage... 3? in Touhou 6 without continues. I just can't figure out some patterns, and the rest are just too fast.
The only other game I played was Darius 2 (well, Sagaia on Genesis/MD) and I suck at that too. Too much surprise attacking me.

But Team Cave DeStroy will win. I'm sure of it. We know how to get the booster 2.0 or something.
 
Jul 1, 2011 at 6:55 PM
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Re: ShooTing Game Tournament '11 Hype and Recruitment Thread

Count me in.

I've been playing a lot of shmups lately, including some pretty hard ones like dodonpachi, so I like to think I'm decent at them.
I already play them over and over again shooting for high scores as it is, so this sounds right up my alley.
 
Jul 1, 2011 at 7:47 PM
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Re: ShooTing Game Tournament '11 Hype and Recruitment Thread

well so far while playing guxt ive gotten as far as getting to stage 3 without dying once.

edit: thanks doublethink.
 
Jul 2, 2011 at 2:58 AM
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Re: ShooTing Game Tournament '11 Hype and Recruitment Thread

The reg thread is up; I'll handle setting up the team later so don't worry about it now. Looks like there'll be five consecutive weeks this year.

Yakkers said:
I've been playing a lot of shmups lately, including some pretty hard ones like dodonpachi, so I like to think I'm decent at them.
I already play them over and over again shooting for high scores as it is, so this sounds right up my alley.
Great! If you can handle scoring in DoodlePatchy you should be fine :momo:

Omega said:
well so far while playing guxt ive gotten as far as getting to stage 3 without dying once.

edit: thanks doublethink.
:(
 
Jul 2, 2011 at 9:55 PM
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Re: ShooTing Game Tournament '11 Hype and Recruitment Thread

So, for the sake of conversation, am I the only one who loves shmups but doesn't really like the touhou series?

I kind of like the ratio of focus on shooting/dodging to be a little higher on the shooting side than touhou has. In TAOHAO it feels like I'm weaving though a latticework of little shiny things while keeping my character lined up with an icon on the bottom rather than actually shooting things and dodging bullets.

I think Raiden has the perfect balance, which is why I'd say it's my favorite series.
 
Jul 2, 2011 at 10:09 PM
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So many bullets.

Yakkers said:
So, for the sake of conversation, am I the only one who loves shmups but doesn't really like the touhou series?

I kind of like the ratio of focus on shooting/dodging to be a little higher on the shooting side than touhou has. In TAOHAO it feels like I'm weaving though a latticework of little shiny things while keeping my character lined up with an icon on the bottom rather than actually shooting things and dodging bullets.

I think Raiden has the perfect balance, which is why I'd say it's my favorite series.
That's because that's what most of Touhou is, it's a game that focuses on bullet density rather than speed {Most of the time}; hence why it's referred to as a Bullet Curtain game.
A good Touhou player knows that real dodging requires little movement. That said, that no where makes it simple or easy, just try an Extra Stage and see how far you get.
The real skill comes in being able to see the entire screen at once and take in all that information constantly while making split-second micro-decisions non-stop, knowing that even the tiniest slip will end it all for you. Just because you're weaving through pretty patterns instead of rapid dodging means very little difference in required skills, if you think about it.
TVTropes points it out best, this is about as close as you'll ever get to having enough Dakka.
 
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