SF Bay Area / Norcal / San Jose meet 2014, Sat. June 21

[Softdrink 117]

Duly noted, and thanks for the advice with the 7-11. I think I can work something out. Wish I could bring proper food but w/e

[BER]

alamone, just confirming with you that my guest and I still plan to go. Can't wait!

[Kiselgof]

alamone, just confirming with you that my guest and I still plan to go. Can't wait!

Just confirming that I'll be attending and homemade wine cake and brownies will be ready to go! I can also bring cookies if there are requests. My fiancée loves to bake so I'm taking advantage of it

[alamone]

Just confirming that I'll be attending and homemade wine cake and brownies will be ready to go! I can also bring cookies if there are requests. My fiancée loves to bake so I'm taking advantage of it

Requesting oatmeal raisin, sugar cookies, or whatever her specialty is!

[blackoak]

I'll be there, thinking I won't need a ride home after all too (truck came back from the shop). I was going to bring Baklava, but I think it might be overkill with the pizza and the other sweets... so I'll bring some nice beer, hehe

[alamone]

Putting the finishing touches on everything. Also will have a second screen for DBAC:

[Frenetic]

Gosh this looks so awesome! You are so inspiring alamone! After STGWeekly @ Anime Expo, I'll be sure to hold a SoCal shmupmeet!

--the F-man

[Teddy KGB]

Thanks for letting me be Mikhail's +1. Meet you all soon.

[BER]

Heading out to get the ice cream! I'll be there just after noon. Don't know when my guest will arrive.

[Softdrink 117]

Running a little behind with my schedule this morning; I'll probably get there around 1PM/1:30.

[alamone]

DBAC stream is live
http://www.twitch.tv/alamone

[segasonicfan]

I could always bring mine

YAY! Ill bring my Cotton X68000!

Sweet, thanks for the heads up Al! I'll be there and can bring some homemade wine cake and brownies. Trust me, they were a rave at prior small local gatherings

If only we could get you to bring Demon Front and Fixeight instead

[Teddy KGB]

Thanks again for hosting Al. Sorry I had to bail early but thanks for pulling Vimana out to play! Let me know if you ever get tired of it.

[Kiselgof]

An awesome setup by an awesome host! Thanks so much for all the work you put into this, Alamone.

Darius Burst was literally bringing down the house with the amps and speakers under the chairs. The whole setup was just tops. Good to see the usual people and catch up. The variety of setups, games, and shmup styles is what makes this whole get together so exciting.

Now recuperating in a dark and quiet room Thanks again to Al and to all the cool people who brought good food (fried chicken mmmm) and fun conversations!

[Softdrink 117]

Wowwwwwww this was an awesome meet!!

First off: That DBAC setup was unreal. It wasn't a game, it was an experience. Especially with the speakers and bass shakers. Silly satisfying to be attacking stuff or laser dueling a boss and feel the explosions all around you. Incredibly glad that alamone managed to get everything working; I never thought I'd have a chance to play this game at all. Great fun. I even got a clear (of the easy A-D-H route but still)! The multiplayer was good too, although I'm not sure what to think of the shared lives.

The selection of other games was pretty awesome too. I probably spent a bit too much time on CC:WI (I haven't had enough free time for even a single credit since it was released), but I tried pretty much everything. The Darius and Ray series were particularly well represented. I got a request to demo Ibara, which was a lot of fun since I hadn't played in a while. Didn't clear but did get a D,2ish run that ended to Teresa. I think I scared people off instead of convincing them to try though...

Specific comments:
I didn't talk to as many people this time as I had hoped... I get too distracted around this many games. Sorry! :3

To anyone who brought food: Thank you. Delicious stuff all around. Chicken and brownies in particular.

@Nereid: Thanks for bringing the IIDX setup! I did get a chance to play a couple rounds of doubles, so thanks for bringing your Dao as well. Really enjoyed getting the chance to play the game again; I haven't found the time in months. I'll have to try getting some stiffer springs for my keys after trying yours; they really were much more comfortable. As always, really inspiring to see you play.

@BER: Always cool to see you play. Your runs at DBAC were both inspiring and informative, and without your advice I probably wouldn't have cleared the route that I did (or at least it would have taken longer). I kinda regret that we never tried a proper coop run, given that we both had a good handle on things by the end.

@Kitaru (I think?): Enjoyed meeting you and talking to you about Bemani/shmups/Ibara/etc. Thanks for asking me to demo; I always have fun explaining the game. I hope you give it a try again! Let me know if you do end up in SoCal for any of Frenetic's meets or w/e.

@Cham0mile: Thanks for ruining one of my DBAC runs. ;P -- In all seriousness though, it was great fun meeting and talking with you. I am now suffering from painful urges to watch more Girls Und Panzer, which I really don't have time for right now. Thanks for that. :3 Look forward to hopefully seeing you at AX!

@alamone: Thanks so much for letting me demo your LCD-2s at the end when everyone else was clearing out. I've never had a chance to listen to them before, and they're a truly amazing pair of headphones. I only wish I could even begin to approach affording them. And of course thanks so, so much for hosting this!!

[parts]

I was blown away by the amount of crts, lcds, cabs and game hardware all housed in a non-descript 2 bedroom apartment! Thanks for hosting this meet Alamone and it was great to meet the forum folks there. I'm envious over that egret 2 100 yen cab, the super harrier and darius burst were awesome too.

[BER]

Yeah, alamone, thanks for hosting this again! So many new games to try, so little time. The Bishi Bashi was a pleasant surprise, too!

@BER: Always cool to see you play. Your runs at DBAC were both inspiring and informative, and without your advice I probably wouldn't have cleared the route that I did (or at least it would have taken longer). I kinda regret that we never tried a proper coop run, given that we both had a good handle on things by the end.

Glad to pass my findings along to you. And yeah, a coop run (or even a 4-player clear with everyone surviving) would've been nice! I just wish the devs designed the offline multiplayer system more thoughtfully, like having each player who presses start use a credit and add two lives to the life pool instead of just using up the lone player's life stock (or if there is a way to do this, make the menu flow more user friendly to do so).

[alamone]

I think the idea behind that is since it might have been expensive when it first came out (maybe 200 yen a play),
you might want to only insert one credit but have a few people play since each credit gives you 3 lives.
There's the option for unlimited lives if you insert enough credits, that's more suited for 4 player casual play.

Anyway, before you play you do have the option to set the entry rules; you can set "entry prohibited" by pushing up/down
on the joystick and nobody else can drop in and steal from your ship stock. The default, however, is to allow others to
drop in and steal from your ship stock. It's maybe not as obvious since I have the Japanese version and everything's in Japanese.

[cham0mile]

Some pics I took.
Thanks again for hosting, it was great meeting everyone.

[papa_november]

Thanks so much. I had fun!!!

[segasonicfan]

AMAZING MEET. I had a freakin blast!! Here's some hilariously terrible videos I took:

http://youtu.be/nYAQgcoYLnQ
http://youtu.be/gGp2GK-UaS4

Al is always the best, changing out games, rocking the new headphones everywhere and being a swell host. The pizza was great and the drinks and ice cream too! A real slice of paradise.

Big thanks to papa_november for that X68000 action with the Cotton! Best version of that game anywhere, it's incredible.

-Segasonicfan

[blackoak]

Some last minute shit came up (as usual) and I missed this, very bummed about it. Looks like an amazing setup though. Did you get some 4p darius going?

[alamone]

Hey, was gonna ask why you didn't make it, I guess whenever next time...
There were a few multiplayer sessions but I think 3P was the max at once.
It didn't get as much play time as I thought it would, maybe because it was in the other room.

The Darius 2 with the no-sound I couldn't get fixed, but I have another Darius 2 that was repaired successfully,
so that will be in the next meet.

[Battlesmurf]

Just got clued into this thread. Sounds like it was a blast, congrats all around!