Fangame Marathon 2017 Megathread

[patrickgh3]

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 info

Fangame 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: https://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 volunteers

Here 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 submissions

I 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 work

We 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 Race

In 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.

(click to show/hide)

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 viewers

These 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 closing

We’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/fangamemarathon
YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/channel/UCfKa7cwruF4fSvlQ1Coxtnw

If 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!

[tehjman1993]

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to clarify a minor thing regarding submissions. I've noticed a lot of hesitation and confusion (through discord chatting) regarding "what to submit" and if it would be acceptable to run at a marathon as part of a solo run, an event (like relay), etc.

Let me be very clear: Everything is acceptable to submit.

Let the event organizers (Pat and others) figure it out when submissions come to a close. If you think you can show off an unpopular needle game as a fun speedrun, then go for it. If you think game X isn't good because it isn't on speedrun.com, submit it anyway. Chances are that more popular games will get accepted, but we love to see variety within the marathon, even if the game is considered "sub-par."

I hope this clears some things up. Now get submitting!

[ShadowsDieAway]

Sign up for the special events here! Comment with your name and availability to be added to the list.

Three events this year (with a twist for each) to sign up for: Needle Maker, Jump Master, David and Goliath.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S9s0b06k5aDIruJ-IAGwIUdIIz6GdHspn983wc02xpY/edit?usp=sharing


Needle Maker:

Gamemakers will be given jtool maps of two previously unseen rooms containing a start point, an end portal, and blocks to break up the room, and will make needle levels out of them. Unlike last year where GMs has 15 minutes per room, GMs can use a full 30 minutes to work on both rooms. Also, there will be a twist this year for the final extra 15 minutes (TBA). GMs can use anything in jtool for their level, including water, refreshers, etc.

At the end of the 45 minutes, players will share their levels and speedrun them in alphabetical order of creator until the event time limit.



Jump Master:

Note: IWBT Jump Master will be updated for this event.

Fangamers will fight to be the best jump master by completing as many of a single jump in a row over a 30 second time
period. These jumps range from Gate Jumps to Double Diamonds. The Fangame "I Wanna Be the Jump Master" will be used which works by a point system, giving you points per jump along with a multiplier bonus for doing jumps in a row.

If there are 2-4 racers they'll happen on one 4P layout stream. If there happens to be more we can do a tournament.

At the end of all the rooms, the game will list a summary for each type of jump and the total points. The the person with the most points wins.



David and Goliath:

Ever wonder how skilled fangame speedrunners are? Beginners and Experts (and those in between) will "face" one another in the same game with handicapped game modes

This is in essence a handicapped race: beginners will play on easy, the experts will play on hard (and moderate on medium).

The game will be IWBT Incremental Game. If there are many players we will have a race to finish worlds, then the winners will face the other difficulties. Otherwise, it'll be just hte latter with the goal of making it as far as you can in the hour time-slot.

And as always, there will be a twist for experts at the event's end...

[patrickgh3]

Just to reiterate, TJ's post about everything being acceptable to submit applies to special events too. Shadows is running these 3 cool events again this year, but we're always welcome to more if people have ideas and want to make them happen.

[patrickgh3]

The run/segment submission deadline will be Friday May 12th! So y'all have a little less than two weeks to prepare your runs/segments! Spread the word! Keep in mind that everyone is welcome to participate, and that non-speedrun segments are also welcome. And if you want to help out with the event other than submitting a run, contact me. Thanks everyone!

The submissions list so far can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kjME9uKEBdQOydybdJmtQFeSlaOQzjtZEHG87mthCBg/edit#gid=0

[patrickgh3]

If you're reading this and you're not in the Discord server, come join it! https://discord.gg/AtrNMT7

Only 7 more days to submit your runs/segments for Fangame Marathon! Spread the word!

You can also sign up for:
- David and Goliath: Race Incremental game with people! It'll be fun! We need some beginner and expert players (we already have some moderate players). Use the link below.
- Needle Maker and Jump Master each have 6 people, but could have more if there's interest. Use the link below.
- Want to show off a 10 minute demo of your WIP fangame? We'll have a segment like that, 4 people so far. Contact me if you're interested.
- Relay race! Sign up in the standard google submission form. 10 people so far, the more the merrier!

(Signups for David and Goliath, Needle Maker, Jump Master: https://goo.gl/PFQBL0)

[patrickgh3]

Tentative schedule!

First off, thank you to everyone who submitted! A group of us (Pandy, Shark, Piranha, Piece, Klazen and I) put together the tentative schedule this weekend.

1. Please note the schedule is NOT FINAL YET while we confirm time slots with runners. Also note that the schedule will display in your local time zone.

2. Runners, please read the schedule and verify your time slot is okay. You can post in the FM2017 Discord in #general, or DM anyone with the TechCrew role.

3. We need some more runners for the relay race! If you can pick up any of the below 6 games (especially NANG bad end and Go the run) we need you! To join, DM on Discord Patrick#0303 or Shark3143#3825. The relay race will be at the very end of the marathon, and it'll hopefully be a really cool community event. You can check what time it is on the schedule. We're hoping for 3 teams and 6 games, and we will coordinate game assignments and teams soon. The following people are set to participate, please make sure the time slot is okay: LarsraL, Piece, BBF, MrSSFireball, RandomErik, Wolfiexe, Pandy49, Ony, Bummerman, Den, Cakesauc3, Geogeo222, Wolsk, Stonk, Yiazmat, Sudnep, aferalsheep, Krakka.



Tentative schedule here!