Originally Posted by
RTM
Hello fellow gamers:
I'm writing today with the support and encouragement of TG head custodian Jace Hall to present an idea that was borne more than 14 years ago which I am now presenting once more for community consideration, contributing commentary and suggestions.
While there will always exist to one extent or another various championships either at specific venues or major events, the titles always vary and comparing one year's winner versus any other is apples-to-oranges.
In the Olympic Decathlon, participants know well in advance what each event is and train accordingly for 4 years, and then for the next 4 years, etc. Events can, but rarely, change thus the comparison between one Olympic Decathlon winner and another is apples-to-apples event-wise, but winners differ depending on their competition.
But what if the competition was open to everyone, year after year, and not just to those who "qualified" ? What if current year competitors would be competing against not just active competitors but the legacy results of former competitors...the never-ending benchmark results of prior competitions. Better yet, what if the competition never, ever ended, so competitors could be competing year-round, at their convenience, year-after year until they were satisfied with their personal legacy bests on each event ?
Thus I present to you the proposal for "The Twin Galaxies Annual Classic Arcade Player of the Year Championship"
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Twin Galaxies will select a definitive ten (10) titles which will be reflective of the best quality and combination of player skills, title challenges, title prominence and title competition legacy.
These ten (10) titles once selected will never change. Competitors will be able to submit at any time performances towards any of these titles, and once validated their score is entered into the competition database. A percentage value will be assigned based on that score's relative value as compared to the validated top competition performance at any given moment.
Therefore it is a given that only newly submitted scores, and not older validated scores, will be included.
Players become eligible for a competition ranking when they have at least one (1) submitted and validated performance for each of the ten (10) competition titles. This value is ever-changing as both higher scores may be validated from other players on any one of the event titles at any time, or the player may submit any number of higher, subsequent performances at any given time which are later validated.
Every year from inception of the competition, whoever the top ranked player is across all ten titles will win the mantle of "Twin Galaxies Classic Arcade Player of the Year" for the prior year, possibly a virtual gold trophy for first place, silver for second and bronze for third.
Possibly, depending on TG programming capacity with a player's profile, a tally of such trophies/awards can be accumulated for legacy purposes.
The competition continues year-after-year so that future generations of gamers who become aware of and join Twin Galaxies can test their arcade mettle and gaming skills against the best aggregate totals from the champions of yesteryear. And no matter how high (or low) you place in the rankings, your eligible, highest aggregate percentage total, will be forever preserved for sake of current and future competetive comparison.
In theory, for example, you may rank as high as number 25 today out of 50, 75 or 100 competitiors...but 25 years from now maybe you are still number 25 or lower out of 1000 registered eligible competitors. That's quite the legacy achievement even after you retire from competitive gaming.
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Some nuances will need to be discussed and worked out such as subsequent score challenges impacting prior results. And the initial operating assumption is that all titles currently available today will still be available in years to come.
The second biggest decision to make is whether this is to be solely arcade original, solely MAME, or a mix of the two. That is also open for constructive commentary and debate. But keep in mind that decades from now submissions on arcade original hardware may be extremely difficult to guarantee, so with longevity in mind, this is perhaps the most important preliminary decision to make.
Lastly, there is no immediate rush for implementation with January 1st coming up. Such a roll-out could occur at any given time, but clearly advance planning and preparation is a must, which is why this is just a proposal at this stage and awaiting constructive commentary and debate.
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Now for the BIG decision...what should the ten title composite be ?
For starters, with longevity in mind, and as certain controller types are not readily available outside of the arcade original without special purchase or construction, the goal will be to focus on what the majority of participating gamers can likely find available to them for sake of competition.
Thus, unique and rare controller types will be excluded, and those that are not common-place among MAME submitters such as but not limited to the "yoke" controller which is attributed to titles such as "Star Wars", "Return of the Jedi", "Firefox", "Turbo Sub" and "Lock-On".
Additionally, titles that have not yet been ported over into MAME or which are so rare/unique that the likelihood of worldwide player participation is null shall also be excluded. This includes "Marble Madness 2" and "Bouncer" which are so rare that most players have never even seen these.
Marathonable titles (as far as marathon settings are concerned OR titles that can be marathoned even at harder settings) will only be included if sufficient challenging settings (TGTS or other) exist to warrant inclusion.
A possibility to discuss/debate is whether a one-hour format or even 15-minute format might work best for such a challenge, to promote multiple attempts per competitor and to somewhat level the playfield.
Lastly, as this is intended to be a competition where each title has the potential to have the top score raised at any given time (thus potentially changing all elgible rankings commensurately), no title with a fixed maximum attainable score shall be included (i.e. "Pacman", "Lode Runner", "Circus Charlie", etc) as their inclusions would defeat the spirit of the competiiton.
Fortunately, however, the most beloved, popular, challenging and contested titles are more likely than not to have associated controller types which are easily accessible to the masses, including the titles themselves still being very much accessible in original arcade format to this day (though decades from now that may change).
Here below is the initial pool of "contender" titles for consideration of which a final ten (10) will be selected by Twin Galaxeies as the go-forward definitive championship roster.
INITIAL POOL OF CONTENDERS
Not just the titles, but the possible formats. Shorter duration formats promote multiple attempts per player and tend to level the playfield while simultaneously promoting "point pressing" skills)
This is just the initial list of 37 contenders to get the ball rolling, and a POSSIBLE final ten just to give you an idea of what it could be like. A lot of titles are likely excluded which are worthy contenders. Some may be excluded for one or more reasons. Titles reliant on point-perssing gimmicks early on ("Karnov", "Ghosts and Goblins" , etc) are excluded from further consideration. Titles where tricks or "warping" allow the sudden acquisition of non-standard points ("Phoenix", "Crystal Castles", "Major Havoc") are also excluded from further consideration. Titles reliant on 49-position optical joysticks such as (but not limited to) "Sinistar" are excluded for reasons of practicality.
Asteroids (60 minute, 15 minute or single ship challenge)
Berzerk (no pattern 60 minute or 15 minute challenge or single life challenge)
Black Widow (starting level 1, 60 minute or 15 minute challenge)
Carnival (full game)
Centipede (60 minute, 15 minute challenge or the dedicated 3-minute ROMset challenge)
Defender (60 minute, 15 minute or single ship challenge)
Dig Dug (full game, 60 minute or 15 minute challenge)
Donkey Kong (full game, 60 minute or 15 minute challenge)
Elevator Action (standard difficulty full game, 60 minute or 15 minute challenge OR single life challenge)
Food Fight (full TGTS game starting from level 1, 60-minute or 15 minute challenge)
Frogger (60 minute or 15 minute challenge)
Galaga (full game rank "D", 60 minute or 15 minute challenge)
Galaxian (60 minute, 15 minute or single ship challenge)
Gorf (starting 3 lives, 60 minute, 15 minute challenge or single life challenge)
Gyruss (TGTS, 60 minute, 15 minute or single ship challenge OR highest score after Earth, one complete loop of game, on single ship)
Joust (full TGTS game, 60 minute, 15 minute challenge)
Junior Pacman (60 minute, 15 minute or single life challenge)
Make Trax (60 minute, 15 minute challenge or single life challenge)
Mappy (60 minute, 15 minute or single life challenge)
Millipede (starting point round 1, full TGTS game, 60 minute or 15 minute challenge OR single shooter challenge)
Missile Command (TGTS with 60 minute or 15 minute challenge, or highest score after wave 20)
Moon Patrol (60 minute, 15 minute challenge or single life challenge)
Night Stocker (full game)
Paperboy (Easy path, full game)
Pengo (60 minute or 15 minute challenge)
Pole Position (full game)
Popeye (60 minute, 15 minute or single life challenge)
Rally-X (single player, full game challenge)
Robotron (full TGTS game or single life challenge)
Space Invaders (60 minute, 15 minute or single ship challenge)
Space Zap (full game, 15 minute or single life challenge)
Stargate (60 minute, 15 minute or single ship challenge)
Tempest (starting point round 9, full game, 60 minute or 15 minute challenge)
Track and Field - (TGTS, full game challenge)
Tutankham (60 minute, 15 minute or single life challenge OR highest score after stage 16)
Warlords (single player, full game challenge)
Wizard of Wor (60 minute, 15 minute or single life challenge)
Possible additional titles to add to the above "short list"...proposed settings TBD
Gravitar
Tapper
Zookeeper
POSSIBLE TEN (10) FINAL SELECTIONS
This is in no way to suggest that these are THE ten definitive titles and challenges, but only to show the "why" behind these possible inclusions...
Donkey Kong (60 minute challenge)
Why - a full game would be not allow most players to come close to competing on this title, while 15 minutes is a point-pressing fest for even novice players...60 minutes is in the middle. Single life option is meaningless for this title as more than a few players can do so simultaneously with 60 or 15 minute challenges
Elevator Action (15 minute challenge)
Why - very few players last 60 minutes or longer on this title, while the game throws too many curveballs at you for single-life to be fair, so 15 minutes seemed like the best option
Frogger (60 minute challenge)
Why - very few players will last a few hours on this title, while too many can last 15 minutes, and as a few players can last for hours on the 1st life, a 60 minute challenge seemed like the best option
Galaxian (15 minute challenge)
Why - while a number of players can last 60 minutes on this title, most cannot, though an elite few can go well beyond 60 minutes on a single life, so 15 minutes seemed like the best option
Gyruss (highest score completing "Earth", one full game loop, single ship challenge)
Why - the game is marathonable and even a 5-life setting would go past a million. Most players will be able to last for an hour, so the goal here is to promote point-pressing for the first loop
Pole Position (full game)
Why - there is no other necessary choice for this title...it is a short, finite achievement well within the grasp of all gamers, thus it comes down to technique
Popeye (single life challenge)
Why - although a few players can last an hour, most cannot, but 15 minutes is well within the grasp of most gamers yet becomes point-pressing at key moments in certain levels. Thus the single life option here seemed like the best option
Robotron (single life challenge)
Why - the game seems far too harsh and unpredictable for a single life option, however the full TGTS game will isolate a few elite players far above the rest for the duration, so in this case the single life challenge seemed best as it is a balanced risk-vs-reward mix of both point-pressing and survivability
Rally-X (full game)
Why - as with Pole Position there is no other necessary choice for this title...though not finite, the separation in score and levels cleared between strong and weak players is not that great, so full game for this title
Wizard of Wor (15 minute challenge)
Why - lasting 60 minutes is all but impossible save for a very small number of elite players, and the game is too wildly unpredictable for a single life option due to the disappearing/re-appearing Wizard, so 15 minutes seemed like the best option
In reviewing these selections and the accompanying competition settings it does weigh heavily on a focus towards point-pressing more so than longevity which is why determining the final ten titles and settings should optimally be more of a balance between the two.
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I am contributing this proposal with Jace's encouragement but have no interest in being harassed in any way. As such I have asked that he personally keep an eye on this posting.
Thanks in advance to all who wish to contribute towards this possible future competition proposal.
Robert
