Hi everyone! It’s about time to start preparing for FM 2017! This post has information about general plans and how we’re going to organize things this year. I’m really excited for another Fangame Marathon, and I hope you all are too! Also, thanks for your quick responses to the date thread.
I. General infoFangame Marathon 2017 will be held
June 16th - 18th, starting at around 12:00 PM EDT Friday, and ending around 12:00 PM EDT Sunday. (EDT is UTC-4)
A few of us decided it’s best to “rebrand” and use the acronym
FM instead of FGM. This is because the old acronym turned up very unsavory things when newcomers Googled it (don’t do it yourself, seriously not worth it). So let’s all try to use FM from now on.
The FM Discord will be where we discuss and plan the marathon, so please join here if you’re interested in helping out:
httpss://discord.gg/AtrNMT7. Please stay on-topic about the marathon at all times, and avoid excessive jokes/memes, since there will be a lot of people in there.
I sort of took the initiative to start administrating things this year, so feel free to contact me about anything relating to organizing the marathon: Discord: Patrick#0303, Twitch: Patrickgh3, IWC Forums: Patrickgh3.
II. Runners and volunteersHere is the
runner, volunteer, and relay submission form (Closed May 12th,
schedule here!). (please read the thread first though)
Here is the
submissions list.
The last day for submissions is
Friday May 12th!. Don’t wait until the last minute, but you also have time to prepare your runs.
Runner / event submissionsI think we should go for 48 hours of content again. Also, last year we had great variety in the submitted runs; I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone submits this year! For reference, here’s
last year’s schedule.
Note that “showcase” submissions, or "special events" of any kind are also welcome! Examples from last year include Nader and Max’s Churatch Sunpossible race, Shadows’s needle maker, david and goliath, needle master events, my fangame creation demonstration, Geezer’s twitch plays fangames, etc.
Please note that a submission does not necessarily mean an accepted submission. It will largely depend on dates and times that work for runners. Runners, please be as flexible as possible, as it makes scheduling much easier and allows for more variety within the schedule. The last two years, every single runner that submitted had a run in the marathon!
Volunteer workWe need A LOT of help, as much as possible.
Some “tech crew” things we need help with are: hosting, a.k.a. managing the actual FM stream for a shift or two, announcing during run transitions, ensuring runners are all set up, managing run highlights and YouTube videos, and generally making sure things go smoothly.
There’s also a bunch of odd jobs like sprucing up the channel page, making some graphics (Shadows will be helping with this), possibly putting together a fangame music playlist for transitions, etc. If you think of anything that you can help with, mention it in the submission form and in Discord.
Here are some details and differences from last year. For hosts/restreamers, we’ll have a remote PC that you can log on to that will do the actual restreaming, so bad internet is hopefully not an issue and we can have more hosts! We’re planning on hosting an RTMP server on that mchine too. Thanks to Klazen for setting this up! We’ll also have around 4 hour shifts instead of 8 hours. Also, we’re gonna try to have announcers be a separate person than the current restreamer, to divide up the work a little and hopefully avoid audio issues.
Relay RaceIn addition to all the submitted segments, we’re going to try to organize an additional big relay race segment this year! Denferok will be in charge of the relay.
Here’s how it works: There are multiple teams each with the same number of people, and they race to complete a set order of games as quickly as possible, with each person running 1 game. It should make for a pretty hype segment!
The games themselves will be well-known, race friendly games that our community has a history of commonly speedrunning. Also note that a game being played during the relay
doesn't rule it out of being a run on it's own in the marathon too. Once we get pretty far into the submissions period, we can start figuring out teams, a best time, and what games each person will play. We might end up with around 5-8 games and 2-3 teams, but it all depends on interest and scheduling. If you’re interested, fill out the relay section of the submission form.
3200min
Boshy
Churatch
Diverse
Venus
Bread
Challenge 100 trials
Yellow star
Across the rainbow
Uhuhu spike 2
Run the marathon
NANG
GReeeeN
Dark blue
Go the run
Animus
MELTDOWN
Kill the guy
III. Guidelines for runners and viewersThese rules are pretty much the same as last year’s, just reworded. Most are pretty obvious, but I appreciate everyone reading them regardless.
For runners:- Please be ready to stream at your designated time. We ask that runners be available up to 30 minutes before their scheduled time for setup and to allow for schedule inconsistency.
- We encourage you to commentate your own run as you go. You’re also allowed to bring in other commentators, as long as they are actually knowledgeable about the run. Let us know if your run is silent so the tech crew can get someone to commentate during the run.
- Please ensure that your stream is set up correctly beforehand, including audio balancing and a stable bitrate for your connection. We will provide instructions for streaming to the RTMP server closer to the marathon date.
- Please keep the FM twitch chat open during your run to be able to see tech crew messages and also interact with viewers.
- We ask that you keep your language to a respectable level. While a lot of players in the community tend to curse off some gate jumps, we ask that it stays as PG-13 as possible with no excessive cursing.
- Runners must comply with Twitch's Community Guidelines at all times. This includes no racism of any kind, even in jest. Please avoid use of words like "retarded" or "faggot" that may be grounds for offensive content per Twitch's rules.
- Most importantly, have fun! We put on Fangame Marathon to have a good time, so we hope you guys have fun during your runs!
For viewers:- Most of our viewers behaved excellently during the last event, so we look forward to positive behavior this time around! Please remember that just like broadcasters, viewers should refrain from excessive language in the chat, as well as any form of racism, even in jest
- Last year the marathon attracted a lot of newcomers, and as TJ noted, chat was very responsive and helpful in answering questions like "What are these games?" and "Where can I download them", and not making fun of them. Let's keep that up this year!
- Last year chat moderators did a great job last year with squelching spam and inappropriate messages, and generally being helpful and not abusing their power to spam the chat. Keep it up this year!
- Be sure to follow the twitch account,
www.twitch.tv/fangamemarathon, and feel free to host the channel during the marathon as well!
- We’ll be using the hashtag #FangameMarathon on Twitter, so feel free to join in on the hype using it as we approach the marathon.
- Know any big or small streamers that would love to watch FM with their viewers? Have any friends that would want to watch? Tell them about FM!
- Get HYPE!
IV. Misc notes and in closingWe’re not going to do donations to a charity this year. Last year it was a hassle and wasn’t very successful.
Also, for reference, here's
TJ's wrap-up thread from last year.Other links:
Twitch channel -
www.twitch.tv/fangamemarathonYouTube channel -
www.youtube.com/channel/UCfKa7cwruF4fSvlQ1CoxtnwIf you haven’t already, please join the FM Discord (linked above) if you’re intersted in helping out with the marathon. Feel free to ask any questions there or in this thread. Thanks for reading!