Aug 09

So You Want to be a Speedrunner Progress- Day 4

Today was another day where I slowly but surely made progress. With help from Silver, I was able to get a picture that captures the long, hard, exhausting process of doing research for a speedrun. Look at how hard I’m working!

Besides that, Andrew G gave me permission to use a clip from his Super Mario Bros. run in my presentation, which is awesome. He even explained the one part that I figure people will have questions on (Because I did)–apparently, as long as Mario is moving downward, he takes precedence over an enemy, meaning you can actually stomp the middle of certain enemies (Like a Hammer Brother) if you get the timing right. Neat to know.

The other main thing I did today was to make a list of everything I could think of that could possibly go wrong with the presentation. This isn’t to make myself nervous or psyche myself out of going through with the panel–quite the opposite in fact. If I can think of anything and everything (Well, almost everything) that can go wrong, I can be prepared for it and have a Plan B. The way I see it, while stuff going wrong is obviously bad, if I can show I’m prepared to roll with whatever, that’ll leave a positive impression on anyone watching it.

Tomorrow will start the process of taking the portions of some of the speedruns I want to use in the presentation. Besides the two I mentioned, I want to use a part of my glitchy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles run (Scroll down to January 3rd), and probably one or two more runs that I can fit into the themes if possible.
-EE

Aug 08

So You Want to be a Speedrunner Progress- Day 3

It’s kind of interesting that I can honestly say that I was playing Phantasy Star II to prepare for the panel. And yet, that’s exactly what I did today. In attempting to come up with some more visuals for the slides part of it (I suppose “PowerPoint” would be the commonly accepted noun for a slideshow nowadays, even though it’s technically incorrect here–I use OpenOffice.Org Impress to compose my slideshows), I got an amusing idea. A few downloads and a bit of time later, I had created this. The brief process of creating that image and the feelings it evoked in me as I did so is another post unto itself.

I was more productive on the publicity front, though. I finally made the topic that should probably have been made right off the bat, on the Speed Demos Archive Forums. The other topic I made was on The Minibosses Forum at the Shizz, whom I owe a particular debt of gratitude to for various reasons, but specifically (As it relates to this panel) because they were the ones who got me going to various conventions in the first place. Without them, I never get the idea of giving a convention panel in my head–heck, I probably wouldn’t even know there was such a thing in that case.

I seem to be getting pretty encouraging feedback from the topics I’ve posted in various places. This seems to jibe with what I’ve read about public speaking–mainly, that people want you to succeed (And in the case of anything that uses slideshows, there’s an undercurrent of “Please please please don’t put me to sleep like 90% of people who use them!”). That’s helpful to keep in mind as the time to present this draws nearer.

The other thing that I did was ask Andrew Gardikis for permission to use a couple levels from his Super Mario Bros. run. And Essentia wrote me back and gave me permission to use excerpts from her FFVI run, which is quite nice.
-EE

Aug 07

So You Want to be a Speedrunner Progress- Day 2

Today I basically finished up the “text” portion of the slides I’ll be using for the panel. It currently has fifteen slides, although the final total will likely end up slightly higher as I create a few more pictures to go with the slides.

The next step, after that, is to try and get permission to use video clips from various speedruns in the presentation. I made my first moves towards this today, asking Kari “Essentia” Johnson if I could use the final battles from her Final Fantasy VI(III) run in the panel. I figure this is a pretty solid choice in that the convention is mainly anime-focused (And mainly 21+, though there will be plenty of all-ages stuff there throughout the weekend), and the intersection between anime fandom and Final Fantasy fandom is higher than it would be for a lot of other games. That, and the fact that Kari turns the typical Final Fantasy final battle (An army of characters with 4000+ HP exchanging thousands of damage worth of HP with multi-parted monstrosities) into a complete joke after a couple minutes of “What in the heck is she doing?” setup makes it a fine watch, even if you’re not quite sure what’s going on throughout it.

The other thing to do is publicize the fact that I’ll be doing this particular panel. So I posted to the Introduce Yourself thread on the Gobble-con forums, plus made a post in The Speed Gamers Community to see if there’s anyone else from Connecticut who might like to go to the convention and see the panel.

Aug 06

So You Want to be a Speedrunner Progress- Day 1

I did say I wanted to use this more than I have been…

So today I got another slide done on my presentation. Yes, one. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but A. I have over three months before I have to give the panel (Though I’d like to be done long before that so I know approximately how long to ask for time-wise), and B. I had 12 slides already done before I even decided to start this log.

This slide is different from a lot of the rest in that it has a picture! I’ve been reading various public speaking/presentation resources online, and one of the things they advise is “make sure your slide show is not just an outline of your presentation.” To be honest, I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to avoid that, but I’m going to try to add a few pictures and whatnot to distinguish the panel that much more, in addition to some speedrunning clips I plan to put in there (With permission from the runners themselves, of course).

The other thing I did was to e-mail Mr. Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics (And Project Wonderful, the engine that runs the advertising for the site when I can be bothered to log into it) and ask him for permission to use this comic in the presentation. It’s a great summary of speedrunning in general, and hopefully he’ll actually respond either way.

Aug 05

PublicSpeakereye

I’ve been holding off on posting anything about this until it was 100% official that I would be doing it, and I got word yesterday that I’m good to go on that front, so here it is:

At Gobble-con, I’ll be giving a panel titled “So You Want to be a Speedrunner: A Leisurely Guide to Playing Video Games in a Frantic Manner”. Those of you who know me are no doubt laughing hysterically at your computers, knowing how confident and outgoing I am.

But in truth, as I mentioned previously, this is something I’ve actually thought about doing for awhile, in part because it’s so contrary to the image of me that most people have of me. That said, the fact that I’ve never lost the Best Vocalist Award at Connecticon‘s Rock Band tournaments, in which performance is a factor, does show that I can fake the confident, outgoing persona for short periods of time when it’s required…and I figure I’ll be fine as long as I keep telling myself “I don’t have to actually be outgoing and confident, I just have to fake it for an hour or so.”

More seriously, the fact that Gobble-con is a small (Don, the guy running it, told me he’s expecting somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 to 300 people. In contrast, Connecticon had roughly 8000 people this year.), first-year convention was what convinced me to take the plunge and try to do the panel there. For one, I figured that, being a first-year convention, they’d be looking for panels (And more willing to grant a panel to someone who has never actually given a panel before), as opposed to something like Connecticon which more or less has its pick of panel submissions. For another, the smaller audience means that if I do badly for whatever reason, not a whole lot of people, relatively speaking, will see my spectacular failure.

Truth be told, I’m excited about this. I’m hoping to use some of the stuff I learned in the How to Run a Panel panel, and I’ve been scouring the Internet for public speaking advice as well, using my judgment whenever I come across any contradictory advice. I also plan to use this site (Yeah, the one I’ve been neglecting for the past six months) a bit more to post my progress in this endeavor. I should really change that “Newest Song” at the top to more or a “Latest Progress” kind of thing, what with not having done any recorded music stuff in about two years.

Until next time..
-EE

Jul 14

Connecticon 2010- The Inmates Run the Asylum

Well, Connecticon 2010 was certainly my most…eventful convention to date. A quick warning: This is absolutely huge even by my “Massive post-Convention Post” standards, weighing in at over 5000 words according to WordPress…before this disclaimer. So, in addition to the traditional “Cut”, I put in some links so you can skip directly to the day you may want to read about.
Thursday Night
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Continue reading

Jul 12

A Quick Word-Count Post

Some of the word counts, according to WordPress, of my post-convention posts:
MAGFest 8/The SDA Charity Marathon: 3631
Connecticon 2009: 4125
Game UniCon: 2315
MAGFest VII: 1379
Connecticon 2008: 2786
MAGFest VI:1578.

Yeah, I tend to write a lot about conventions. Connecticon 2010 will be no exception.

Jun 30

It’s Time For An Update

Yes, I’m pretty terrible at this “Updating the website” thing lately. Fairly soon, though, that should get better.

We’re now less than two weeks away from Connecticon. On an individual level, I honestly don’t think I’ve practiced as much as I did for last year’s tournament. As far as my band situation goes, though, I’m in far, far better shape, with an actual band (Who won’t desert me this year!), and a solid set list to practice between now and then. Hopefully I’ll come out of it with my entire band victorious, as opposed to just me winning Best Vocalist. Not that I would necessarily complain about that outcome, mind you.

In writing news, I’ve started a liveblog of the original Dragon Warrior. Unlike my Wizardry Liveblog, I actually expect this one to end in success, if only because dying just sends you back to the castle minus half your gold (And because you have to do enough experience grinding anyway that this penalty is effectively meaningless in the long run).

Hysterium development is still slowly going on. I plan to really ramp that up and turn it into an actual writing project as well once I finish the Dragon Warrior liveblog. I figure that forcing myself to write about what I do every day, no matter how small, will motivate me to get something playable out into the world.

May 16

Two Posts In a Month?! Incredible!

Yes, so suffice to say my posting here has slowed down somewhat.

However, I continue to work on Hysterium. This is probably the longest I’ve stuck with a project since the songwriting process for the basically-aborted album I was making in 2008. Today, I think I overcame the last great programming challenge, in that I can now save and load my progress in what little bit of the game I have. Now it’s just a matter of actually implementing everything, and then the frankly kind of boring process of testing (Barring the occasional spectacular crash of the whole thing because of Argument Out of Range Exceptions and the like). I like the basic skeleton and idea I have for the game, although by the time I’m done actually making and balancing everything, I’m going to be totally sick of it. I must admit, though, that I was giddy like a little kid when I realized that my saving and loading actually worked properly, like “I did that! Awesome!”.

I managed to win $72 at Mohegan Sun yesterday as well. Professional Poker career, here I come!

….not quite.

May 06

Watch As I Shill Marathons I Don’t Participate In!

This is just a quick post saying to check out The Speed Gamers marathon of the Mother series Friday through Sunday, May 7th through 9th. American gamers will know the Mother series by its second entry, called Earthbound here in the U.S. They’ll be playing for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a charity dedicated to fighting breast cancer.

Check it out if you have some time this weekend!