2022 VGS NES Weekly Contest Suggestions Thread!!!

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Okay, action puzzlers it is!  We've got Tetris and Krazy Kreatures that I can think of; if there are two more out there then we can conspire against you and I'll take the puzzle crown for myself...

Didn't I win Krazy Kreatures though?

Yep it appears so. I guess you weren't participating then though.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

Just now, 0xDEAFC0DE said:

Didn't I win Krazy Kreatures though?

Yep it appears so. I guess you weren't participating then though.

I had no idea; last year was my first year.  Let's just say that if it comes up again, I'll give you a run for your money...

[mbd39 | 2,017]

5 hours ago, docile tapeworm said:

@mbd39 dude that is an awesome game. I mean it’s a shooter and your a dragon!! The power ups are pretty cool too. I’m glad your enjoying it. The ice stage takes some practice for sure. Sometimes I let the intro loop when I’m messing around in my game “room” lol.

The music absolutely rules. Might be one of the most underrated NES soundtracks. Or at least nobody talks about how good it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiyCv7YQi6E

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

10 minutes ago, mbd39 said:

The music absolutely rules. Might be one of the most underrated NES soundtracks. Or at least nobody talks about how good it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiyCv7YQi6E

The whole game is underrated.  It's the second best shooter on the NES, behind the almighty ZANAC!!!!!

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

I don't think any homebrews that aren't available freely should be considered.  Anything that can be found for free or that isn't out of print I suppose could be done, but even then it'd rule out competition for anyone who doesn't actually own it...so unless the ROM is publicly available to download, it probably shouldn't be used.  I might even go so far as to disqualify Mapper 30 homebrews as they can't be put on a cart using a donor (it's a specifically homebrew mapper), so anyone wanting to make a cart like @Dr. Morbis would, would have to order a custom board to do it.  But that may be extreme since at the very least it could be emulated.

But yeah, anything that isn't freely available in some form shouldn't be considered.  Also, any game used should be researched ahead of time so we don't encounter a last minute issue like Holy Diver last year.  I know not being able to have a standard repro precluded at least one person from performing a run.  Or completely broken games like World Games, that while a great game, probably shouldn't be used for a competition, at least one that isn't head-to-head in the same room.

[docile tapeworm | 4,194]

6 hours ago, mbd39 said:

The music absolutely rules. Might be one of the most underrated NES soundtracks. Or at least nobody talks about how good it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiyCv7YQi6E

Dude the first 15 second your deep in it then it hits you with that high pitch at 17 seconds….it awesome. Hell of a way to start my Friday morning I’m fucking jacked right now.

Edited January 21, 2022 by docile tapeworm

[docile tapeworm | 4,194]

@mbd39 this guy got a nice channel 

 

[T-Pac | 7,513]

Maybe my opinion on "code-peeking" is skewed because I only join in on these contests casually, but if I was so concerned with winning, I'd think about learning to read code in the off-season instead of making a big fuss about it during the weeklies.

(But then again I'm not concerned with winning, so my take doesn't really matter haha.)

-CasualCart

[docile tapeworm | 4,194]

@CasualCart I’m not so concerned with winning, certainly not enough to go outside the lines of the way the game was made to be played, and I cry like a baby with a shitty diaper about it. I just think it’s a lame way to play the games.

Edited January 21, 2022 by docile tapeworm

[T-Pac | 7,513]

16 minutes ago, docile tapeworm said:

@CasualCart I’m not so concerned with winning, certainly not enough to go outside the lines of the way the game was made to be played, and I cry like a baby with a shitty diaper about it. I just think it’s a lame way to play the games.

Haha I feel that.

I don't personally think it's a fun way to approach games, either, but I don't want to discount it for people who enjoy diving into the 1s and 0s.
My feelings on code-breaking in a contest setting are mixed, but considering this is all really just for fun, it's probably best to let people game in whatever way they enjoy it most (without blatant cheating, of course).

-CasualCart

[RH | 4,894]

19 hours ago, Richardhead said:

I’ll ride a Walmart bike and let you ride one of my bikes in a race…. I will still kick your ass.

Come to Colorado and give it a go. I’ll even not ride for a month while you train for a month. 
You can ride a super nice road bike and I’ll ride a fucking garbage Walmart mountain bike. 
Hell…. I’ll even ride a child’s bike…

Funny you mention that because I was talking about a friend who got into cycling as a younger kid and was doing it up through college.  He was also a guy who was naturally good at "everything".

I, however, just started taking up cycling this past fall but strictly for exercise.  So yes, you can probably beat me if you try.  I'm weak, but working on that!

[docile tapeworm | 4,194]

1 hour ago, CasualCart said:

Haha I feel that.

I don't personally think it's a fun way to approach games, either, but I don't want to discount it for people who enjoy diving into the 1s and 0s.
My feelings on code-breaking in a contest setting are mixed, but considering this is all really just for fun, it's probably best to let people game in whatever way they enjoy it most (without blatant cheating, of course).

-CasualCart

I agree. earlier in the thread I said I don’t mean to take away anyones fun. Just throwing my two cents in  

[Richardhead | 2,813]

2 hours ago, RH said:

Funny you mention that because I was talking about a friend who got into cycling as a younger kid and was doing it up through college.  He was also a guy who was naturally good at "everything".

I, however, just started taking up cycling this past fall but strictly for exercise.  So yes, you can probably beat me if you try.  I'm weak, but working on that!

I love cycling. I use it for more mental exercise. It is great for the body too. I actually haven’t been on my bikes for a few months though. Been running instead. 
Also…. I am not naturally good at ANYTHING!

[docile tapeworm | 4,194]

5 minutes ago, Richardhead said:

I love cycling. I use it for more mental exercise. It is great for the body too. I actually haven’t been on my bikes for a few months though. Been running instead. 
Also…. I am not naturally good at ANYTHING!

Your a natural at being a clown jk brother

[NESfiend | 1,514]

On 1/20/2022 at 4:28 PM, mbd39 said:

I understand. It's just that now that I can loop the score in Kung Fu I'd like to see a return to the old rules.

 

I would be all about this too. Id be up for looping game b also if that would make it shorter from increased difficulty. Its a really fun challenge to keep going on that one and it doesn't take that much time. 

@docile tapeworm, Id be with you on figuring everything out on your own if we played each game for a month. We are old. Kids, jobs, lives and we get a week. Ill take all the info I can get and that includes coding. Im with bea on sharing required on that. 

With @the_wizard_666that speed run stuff is a great addition, but def not majority. Playing NES games for score when I never really did has opened up a new aspect for me and that's what has me hooked here. Also with wiz on no scripts. 

Ill post some specific games in another post before long. Enjoyed famicom adds and would be good with quality pal exclusives too. Anti-homebrew and theres a league for it already. Sorry @JamesRobot. 

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

5 hours ago, CasualCart said:

My feelings on code-breaking in a contest setting are mixed, but considering this is all really just for fun, it's probably best to let people game in whatever way they enjoy it most (without blatant cheating, of course).

-CasualCart

But that's the whole point: the entire issue is about whether or not code diving is or is not cheating to begin with...

I love all the "if you really care about winning, why don't you just learn to read code?" comments.  laughable!  Anyone here who wants to be a billionaire, why don't you just learn to make lots of money, you damn fools!!!  

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

5 hours ago, CasualCart said:

Maybe my opinion on "code-peeking" is skewed because I only join in on these contests casually, but if I was so concerned with winning, I'd think about learning to read code in the off-season instead of making a big fuss about it during the weeklies.

(But then again I'm not concerned with winning, so my take doesn't really matter haha.)

-CasualCart

You've got a ton of skill with your artistry; you should use some of that skill to whip us up some charms for the last two year's genre winners...     ...

[JamesRobot | 5,786]

1 hour ago, NESfiend said:

Anti-homebrew and theres a league for it already. Sorry @JamesRobot. 

 

1.  You had your wish last year.

And 

B.  We've only done one homebrew contest here and that was the 2020 season.  

You can suck it up for one week.

[NESfiend | 1,514]

43 minutes ago, JamesRobot said:

 

1.  You had your wish last year.

And 

B.  We've only done one homebrew contest here and that was the 2020 season.  

You can suck it up for one week.

Lol one week is all you want? I am in then. Not much to ask and if there is just one, the game selection would be fire Im sure. If that was posted before I missed it. I thought there was a weekly homebrew contest in 2021. My mistakes! 

Edit: and thanks for reminding me - please keep the racing category going. @PIIseems destined to dethrone me, but I will fight hard

Edited January 22, 2022 by NESfiend

[Krunch | 303]

I got some thoughts on the code stuff and will have some other stuff later but for now this is where I'm at.

First thing is just addressing the fact that even though we're all talking hypothetically about "anybody" being able to read the code, we all know it was only deafcode who was doing it.  So it kinda falls flat for me right off the bat because here we have a contest that's been going for over a decade and it hasn't really been a common tactic to do this, and now one person is doing it which necessitates a huge rules overhaul.

But don't hate the player, hate the game, and I don't, so I'm sorry to be this upfront about this deafcode cause I do think you're a shrewd & cool dude with attitude but the year is done now and it's just easier to speak literally.

So the known roadblock is that many NES games aren't quite up to snuff in terms of how perfectly balanced the score system or other systems are.  As we all know that's why there's certain legendary games that still don't get played - they are too difficult to format.  But now there's possibly an extra layer of reliability needed for every game choice - it has to hold up to an even higher level of exploitation attempts.

It's quite difficult to get that level of reliability, and might even be virtually impossible.  It's complex, and it makes me feel for guill and Bea quite honestly.

It's like every week we're sailing in a boat that represents the game being played.  It's a metal boat, but it's covered in holes.  It still moves, because the holes are filled with silicone... but if you intentionally try to pierce through the silicone, it's gonna sink!

And what's worse is, it only sinks once it's already set sail, since only deafcode can conjure the tools to do it.  We can't see each and every hole until the contests are live and the games are being played which creates a dissonance.  Rule changes aren't completely avoidable, but they are messy.

The two weeks that stick out to me are Dr. Mario, and Golf.

Dr. Mario peeved me, although at the time I was like "whatev."  (Mind you, I've never done as well as I wanted in any Dr. Mario contest).  There's irony here in that this was one of the easier strategies for the layman to access - it's all over Youtube, it's apparently a known bug.  (I myself had never heard of it.)  But that actually made it worse in my opinion, if it's that known it shouldn't have been even attempted in good concsiense.  That one is cut and dry for me, that deafcode should have just said hey you can do this known bug and it shouldn't be allowed, but that's not what happened, and it felt sour.  It happens to be an easy future fix (Add a rule that says "don't do this bug"), and one might question why wasn't it already in the rules?  It loops back to not knowing the true level of exploitability a given game has before setting sail for the week - yes, even for a staple like Dr. Mario.  How deep are we expecting the organizers to go beforehand?

Golf was really blurring the lines too.  Deafcode makes a script where he can backwards calculate every shot condition to get it perfect.  Where's the skill?  Sure you still need to make the shot... but you aren't plagued with the guesswork.  The random element of the wind doesn't become completely zero but is highly mitigated.  The sport of golf has a linear scoring system with a tight standard deviation at high-level play.  There are no cross-incentives, you simply have to get the lowest score you can - that's the only limit you're fighting against.  Part of the point of the sport is that it is about consistency and that there is always room for improvement, but it didn't seem to me that deafcode's game could have been logically improved upon... (maybe 1 or 2 strokes tops? I didn't analyze really)  -23 was the score if I remember, that would be an insane score in a real golf round, that's 13 birdies and 5 eagles, no pars at all.  Many courses only have 4 par 5's - most likely for eagles - but in a bizarro flip, I would bet that par 3 hole-in-ones would be the easier eagle with this script method?

I don't mean to imply that VG golf should be exactly the same as real-life golf but the plain fact is that the events transpired made it LESS like real golf.  That's a clue you're not playing a game anymore.  It's not like the Hole 1 trick which is a useful NES-style trick, a slight advantage, that was cool... it felt like deafcode was just doing the rest because he could, it was more akin to building an easy mode than it was just carving out advantages.  And it was super effective during an important week.

As I mentioned I think truly preventing this while still allowing the practice of code-peeking will require the contest organizers to do a lot of brutal prep work.  Which is pretty unfair.  And it's also a grim prospect that these practices are more likely to reduce the amount of viable games, not boost them (with the recent additions of non-USA games notwithstanding - it still drops the ultimate total).  Boosting the list has usually been the macro-goal. 

Okay but then the question that makes me change my mind again is, "What are you allowed to know?"  Because it's not like you can ban knowledge.  What if there's some instance where a random member who never otherwise participates is a master at the game of the week.  And they're very good, since they've spent years studying the game with these tactics, they know about the inner workings, and let's say also that they happen to win.  What can you do then?

Overall I do enjoy the knowledge gain that results from these contests so this is why I'm torn.  We are accidentally incredibly productive researchers in these threads.  Most game faqs don't go behind the window like this.  Certain current games that warrant it have this level of analysis, it's the logical late-stage result of competitions.  So despite my qualms I think there's definite value in embracing it.

In my opinion it comes down to either:

- having the rulesets down pat out of the gate with any exploits considered (big task, still probably impossible to perfect)

- or, having deafcode (or anyone in future) continue to say what they're doing as he has mostly done.  I really think it has to be basically 100% open book though.  And it could be in a separate thread or threads to keep the conversation in the main thread more diverse.

- I also think that if something is discovered that crosses the line that the organizers should be able to make any rules changes they see fit to handle it. 

- following and in conjunction with points 2 and 3, and this might be extreme, but... how about a small leaderboard point deduction if you do anything or things that you have to announce to the group?  It seems crazy... but does it?  We could use our point system to balance all the others, it de-incentivizes but still allows the practice.  It would create a choice for the player, whether it's deafcode or someone copying him, to either play "au naturel," or "Pandora-style" with a deduction & knowledge boost - what will net you more points this week?

(By the way I am in favor of changing up the VGS point system in other ways too.  But I'm gonna share some of my thoughts on that in a following post, and might relate it back to this when I do.  Thanks all for the great season - I'm really looking forward to starting the next one!)

[Krunch | 303]

On 1/20/2022 at 10:31 AM, BeaIank said:

I am considering the following point structure:

1st: 20
2nd: 16
3rd: 13
4th: 10
5th: 8
6th: 6
7th: 4
8th: 2
9th and onward: 1

This gives a bigger incentive for people to try and secure a top 3 standing during the contest weeks.

This is interesting - I like how 1st is the only slot that goes +4 on the slot immediately under it, then it's a sliding scale.

This definitely increases the spread, which is needed, but to slightly curtail this have you considered opening it back up to top 10?  Nothing too drastic but gives two more slots that aren't just minimums, and (I think) it would create more of a "bottom-half" fervor.

I suggest

1st: 20

2nd: 16

3rd: 13

4th: 10

5th: 8

6th: 6

7th: 5

8th: 4

9th: 3

10: 2

Participation: 1

 

So when comparing each placement to the placement immediately underneath it's

1st (Winner): +4

2nd and 3rd (Top 3): +3

4th and 5th (Top 5): +2

6th to 10th (Top 10): +1

(Participation: Equality!  Well it's +1 technically if compared to anyone on the site who doesn't play.)

 

 

(Alternatively and more extremely, you could alter it where the Winner gets points equal to the total number of participants in a week once it's wrapped up, and everyone else just slides down from there with the same +4,+3, etc rubric - until you get to 1 and that's considered the participation bar.  It could makes "big wins" with lots of competition naturally worth more, and make the inverse for less competitive weeks.)

[Krunch | 303]

And Also

LET US PLAY M.U.L.E.

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

1 hour ago, Krunch said:

I got some thoughts on the code stuff and will have some other stuff later but for now this is where I'm at.

First thing is just addressing the fact that even though we're all talking hypothetically about "anybody" being able to read the code, we all know it was only deafcode who was doing it.  So it kinda falls flat for me right off the bat because here we have a contest that's been going for over a decade and it hasn't really been a common tactic to do this, and now one person is doing it which necessitates a huge rules overhaul.

But don't hate the player, hate the game, and I don't, so I'm sorry to be this upfront about this deafcode cause I do think you're a shrewd & cool dude with attitude but the year is done now and it's just easier to speak literally.

So the known roadblock is that many NES games aren't quite up to snuff in terms of how perfectly balanced the score system or other systems are.  As we all know that's why there's certain legendary games that still don't get played - they are too difficult to format.  But now there's possibly an extra layer of reliability needed for every game choice - it has to hold up to an even higher level of exploitation attempts.

It's quite difficult to get that level of reliability, and might even be virtually impossible.  It's complex, and it makes me feel for guill and Bea quite honestly.

It's like every week we're sailing in a boat that represents the game being played.  It's a metal boat, but it's covered in holes.  It still moves, because the holes are filled with silicone... but if you intentionally try to pierce through the silicone, it's gonna sink!

And what's worse is, it only sinks once it's already set sail, since only deafcode can conjure the tools to do it.  We can't see each and every hole until the contests are live and the games are being played which creates a dissonance.  Rule changes aren't completely avoidable, but they are messy.

The two weeks that stick out to me are Dr. Mario, and Golf.

Dr. Mario peeved me, although at the time I was like "whatev."  (Mind you, I've never done as well as I wanted in any Dr. Mario contest).  There's irony here in that this was one of the easier strategies for the layman to access - it's all over Youtube, it's apparently a known bug.  (I myself had never heard of it.)  But that actually made it worse in my opinion, if it's that known it shouldn't have been even attempted in good concsiense.  That one is cut and dry for me, that deafcode should have just said hey you can do this known bug and it shouldn't be allowed, but that's not what happened, and it felt sour.  It happens to be an easy future fix (Add a rule that says "don't do this bug"), and one might question why wasn't it already in the rules?  It loops back to not knowing the true level of exploitability a given game has before setting sail for the week - yes, even for a staple like Dr. Mario.  How deep are we expecting the organizers to go beforehand?

Golf was really blurring the lines too.  Deafcode makes a script where he can backwards calculate every shot condition to get it perfect.  Where's the skill?  Sure you still need to make the shot... but you aren't plagued with the guesswork.  The random element of the wind doesn't become completely zero but is highly mitigated.  The sport of golf has a linear scoring system with a tight standard deviation at high-level play.  There are no cross-incentives, you simply have to get the lowest score you can - that's the only limit you're fighting against.  Part of the point of the sport is that it is about consistency and that there is always room for improvement, but it didn't seem to me that deafcode's game could have been logically improved upon... (maybe 1 or 2 strokes tops? I didn't analyze really)  -23 was the score if I remember, that would be an insane score in a real golf round, that's 13 birdies and 5 eagles, no pars at all.  Many courses only have 4 par 5's - most likely for eagles - but in a bizarro flip, I would bet that par 3 hole-in-ones would be the easier eagle with this script method?

I don't mean to imply that VG golf should be exactly the same as real-life golf but the plain fact is that the events transpired made it LESS like real golf.  That's a clue you're not playing a game anymore.  It's not like the Hole 1 trick which is a useful NES-style trick, a slight advantage, that was cool... it felt like deafcode was just doing the rest because he could, it was more akin to building an easy mode than it was just carving out advantages.  And it was super effective during an important week.

As I mentioned I think truly preventing this while still allowing the practice of code-peeking will require the contest organizers to do a lot of brutal prep work.  Which is pretty unfair.  And it's also a grim prospect that these practices are more likely to reduce the amount of viable games, not boost them (with the recent additions of non-USA games notwithstanding - it still drops the ultimate total).  Boosting the list has usually been the macro-goal. 

Okay but then the question that makes me change my mind again is, "What are you allowed to know?"  Because it's not like you can ban knowledge.  What if there's some instance where a random member who never otherwise participates is a master at the game of the week.  And they're very good, since they've spent years studying the game with these tactics, they know about the inner workings, and let's say also that they happen to win.  What can you do then?

Overall I do enjoy the knowledge gain that results from these contests so this is why I'm torn.  We are accidentally incredibly productive researchers in these threads.  Most game faqs don't go behind the window like this.  Certain current games that warrant it have this level of analysis, it's the logical late-stage result of competitions.  So despite my qualms I think there's definite value in embracing it.

In my opinion it comes down to either:

- having the rulesets down pat out of the gate with any exploits considered (big task, still probably impossible to perfect)

- or, having deafcode (or anyone in future) continue to say what they're doing as he has mostly done.  I really think it has to be basically 100% open book though.  And it could be in a separate thread or threads to keep the conversation in the main thread more diverse.

- I also think that if something is discovered that crosses the line that the organizers should be able to make any rules changes they see fit to handle it. 

- following and in conjunction with points 2 and 3, and this might be extreme, but... how about a small leaderboard point deduction if you do anything or things that you have to announce to the group?  It seems crazy... but does it?  We could use our point system to balance all the others, it de-incentivizes but still allows the practice.  It would create a choice for the player, whether it's deafcode or someone copying him, to either play "au naturel," or "Pandora-style" with a deduction & knowledge boost - what will net you more points this week?

(By the way I am in favor of changing up the VGS point system in other ways too.  But I'm gonna share some of my thoughts on that in a following post, and might relate it back to this when I do.  Thanks all for the great season - I'm really looking forward to starting the next one!)

I think Bea has looked into the code in the past but obviously it's not a reasonable expectation that anyone could do it. That's why I do agree that we probably need rules of some sort about it. I appreciate the people saying that if anyone wants to compete at the highest level, they should try code peeking themselves. But I just don't think most people want to play that way. If it's still allowed, I do encourage others to give it a shot. I don't think it's quite as hard as people think it is, and it can be fun like solving a puzzle. If anyone is interested, I would recommend starting with an NES tutorial such as Nerdy Nights and look through the NES dev wiki to at least get comfortable with ready NES code. Then this post might be helpful as a intro to code peaking 

 I work through an example from Blue Marlin. 

Anyway back on topic. I do feel that most of your gripes could be solved by making any info found through code peaking, have to be shared immediately. In the case of Dr. Mario I would share about the bug and then the contest organizers could decide whether it should be allowed. Additionally, a fair bit of the workings behind the bug were already documented if you knew where to look (the TAS submission text and the page it links to). Of course like you said, it would be too much with to expect the contest organizers to find bugs like that. 

In the case of Golf I do agree it feels different from the rest in retrospect. Hence why I called it out specifically in my initial post. I would understand if a rule was made banning external scripts. FWIW, there is a fair amount of room to improve on my score. The TAS gets -40 IIRC and the Speedrun gets -21. I'm sure the speedrunner could beat my score if he took his time lining up shots. For the hole in ones, I don't remember if I even got any (maybe one). Even with the script a lot is times it just isn't possible for a certain wind or at least requires frame perfect shots. 

 

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

2 hours ago, Krunch said:

(Alternatively and more extremely, you could alter it where the Winner gets points equal to the total number of participants in a week once it's wrapped up, and everyone else just slides down from there with the same +4,+3, etc rubric - until you get to 1 and that's considered the participation bar.  It could makes "big wins" with lots of competition naturally worth more, and make the inverse for less competitive weeks.)

This would be a sure way to weaken my puzzle genre wins, lol. I would love to have more competition in those games but they always seem to have lower participation due to no one else liking puzzle games. 

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

NES Puzzle game suggestions:

• Wario's Woods - Never played it, but looks fun. It's never been in the contest either it seems. I looks like the time race mode would be the easiest to make into a competition.
• Pipe Dream - Never played it, but looks fun. It's never been in the contest either it seems. There seems to be a kill screen at 8,388,608 points (= 2^23) so maybe a tiebreaker could be lowest level if multiple people get the kill screen.
• Yoshi - Never played it, but looks fun. Last played in 2017
• Palamedes - Never played it, but looks fun. Last played in 2018
• Kickle Cubicle - Never played it, but looks fun. Last played in 2018
• Loopz - Never played it, but looks fun. Last played in 2018
• Hatris - Never played it, but looks fun (although I've heard bad things about it). Last played in 2018
• Qix - Never played the NES version, but I liked the GB and arcade versions. Last played in 2018
• Solomon's Key - I've beaten it but never played for score. Would be interesting. Last played 2019

FC Puzzle game suggestions (I bought all of these recently but haven't gotten around to playing any of them yet. Also I don't think any of them have been used before):

• Babel no Tou - Looks a lot like Solomon's Key
• Binary Land - Seems like it would be fun, but I wonder if someone could just follow a longplay.
• Cadillac - I actually have played this one. To be honest, it's probably not that great of a game, but there is something about it that made me keep playing.
• De-Block - This one looks really promising for working well for the contest
• Flappy - Is kind of long, otherwise it would work well
• Gorby no Pipeline Daisakusen - If Pipe Dream wasn't enough pipes for you here's another pipe game. I'm actually really interested in this one.
• Knight Move (FDS) - A lesser known Alexey Pajitnov game

On 1/29/2021 at 12:52 AM, 0xDEAFC0DE said:

Lastly might as well suggest The Legend of Zelda scored in the style of Reed's ALttP competition. It looks like we've never done Zelda before, probably because there's no scoring system. Reed solved it by going Progression > Low deaths > Low hearts > etc. I imagine Zelda 1 could be scored similarly as Dungeons completed > Low deaths > Low hearts > etc. Where etc. could be specific (like Low sword upgrades > Low ring upgrades > Low weapons) or more generic (Low items and upgrades). Also there probably needs to be a ruling on whether retrying is allowed as it won't increase the death counter.

I looked up the Low% speedrun rules and they ban Heart containers, Letter, Blue Potion, Red Potion, Bomb Upgrades, White Sword, Magic Sword, Blue Ring, Red Ring, Power Bracelet, Magic Shield, Wooden Boomerang, Magic Boomerang, Wand, Red Candle, Book/Bible, Magic Key. This leaves Sword, Raft, Stepladder, Bow, Arrow, Silver Arrow, Blue Candle, Recorder, Food as the required items. Plus the Power Bracelet is required if we are doing second quest.

Or we could just do a Zelda Speedrun.