STGWeekly Live 2.0 at Anime Los Angeles

[Frenetic]

Hope you guys can make it tomorrow Sunday 9:30 a.m. at Anime Los Angeles! Softdrink and I will be doing a better and badder version of STGWeekly Live for attendees tomorrow!

---STGWeekly 1.0 Recap below---
Hi guys,

Welp, we've done STGWeekly Live at Pacific Media Expo. First of all a big thanks to Softdrink for being game to put on the panel with me. Without his hard work on the presentation, his great commentary, and precise playing this wouldn't have been possible. We had our share of technical difficulties (it wouldn't be an STGWeekly without them, eh?) but all in all we ecstatic how well it went! Links are up on YouTube here along with the slides in .PDF form in the 1st part comments, so follow along!

IMPORTANT POINT: You guys have our permission to copy/modify our presentation if you want to do a panel at a anime/video game convention or panel. These live demos are AWESOME and people love watching them, once they see them in a live setting.

http://goo.gl/irwBt5 (PDF slideshow)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ5WnT8YNwE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4JfW5yT-Es

We had a sparse crowd but it really got going when Softdrink was doing his live demo, which drew people in the room. Later on we were able to setup in the Console Gaming Room thanks to the generosity of the PMX staff. We were able to play Ketsui and Mushihimesama Futari Black Label on a monitor (to minimize lag) and the projector using an ioGear VGA splitter.



Favorite quotes during the presentation:
"I only play the PCB!"
"Ohhh, the focus was on the lens!"
"You guys can do this too!"

We got speakers but no RCA adapter for the headphone jack so we ended up taping them together in to get sound. I like to think that we were presented with obstacles (like in shmups) those difficulties were like bullets, but we kept our patience and worked through the difficulties to "1cc" this event.

Last but not least, many thanks to the Shmups Forum community. Your suggestions, comments, and advice all helped make the panel a success.

Let's all spread the shmup love.

-the F-man

[rancor]

Use this French docu as an outline for the history section:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBD-KqsIqIQ

Have a hi-score contest on some simple, short game. Either spend some money on the prize, or burn a DVD-R full of freeware doujin shmups:

http://www.sk8tokyo.com/shmup/free.htm

or hell, just buy a 100 pack of cheapies, fill them all and have everyone "take one"...

Have some commentary on some extremely easy, but fun games that the audience can understand. BWR+ is a perfect example of this. After showing them how easy and fun they can be, hit 'em with some more serious shit that takes a bit more practice.

Print some business cards with this sites address to give away along with a list on the back the communities top 10 games to try, or where to begin. Be sure to put your youtube channel on there as well!

infinite possibilities.

[drunkninja24]

Be sure to mention Ikaruga to draw the crowds

But seriously, sounds like a great idea.

Wish I could offer more input, but a I really like a lot of rancor's ideas there.

[Acid_Rain]

For the example games, I wouldn't use loli-heavy games (deathsmiles). They tend to scare people away. Instead I'd use the older DoDonPachi, Strikers or Raiden games, because the normal gamer is usually used to the gears-of-war-color-palette. (Don't scare 'em with MuchiMuchi Pork )

Superplays tend to impress all kinds of gamers, but I think a live run with commentary is more intense to watch, because the crowd starts to sympathises with the person playing.

The french documentary rancor mentioned is really good. Perhaps you can take parts of it and use them in your speech. (But I don't know if you can acquire rights to show the content.)

[broken harbour]

I think a live run with commentary is more intense to watch, because the crowd starts to sympathises with the person playing.

+1

[DJ Incompetent]

- Preech, illustrate, and defend the 1CC concept.

- Demonstrate basic dodging techniques like tap dodging, bullet hoarding, etc. and illustrate how they can be used in a wide variety of STGs.

[Frenetic]

Great ideas, keep them coming guys!

What do you think shmups offer than other games?

I like the definite quantifiable feedback shmups give you (you get to stage 4, 5, etc.) and/or your score.

Also that saying "while your characters level up in RPGs, you yourself are leveling up."

Shmups are different from fighting games because you it's you vs. the game instead of you vs. another person. So there are plus' to that (personal competition, also you can gauge your progress instead of relative to another person).

Moar ideas. We need moar ideas!!!

[DMC]

frenetic: Tell them perhaps about the immediate accessibility of STGs. You don't need to go through a boring tutorial or play through a couple of hours before it gets interesting. The controls are intuitive and the goal clear from the first few minutes so you can dive right into the action.

Just don't show them some of the last cave games after having said that.

[BulletMagnet]

What do you think shmups offer than other games?

To borrow the intro from here:

If you utter the word “shooter” in this day and age most gamers will assume that you’re talking about Call of Duty or Halo, but not too terribly long ago those seven letters meant something quite different: they represented the enduring spirit of a time when one button was all you needed, two was a luxury, and three was pushing the envelope. When the only “motivation” you or your onscreen character ever needed to keep going was “the screen doesn’t scroll the other way” “that, and the fleeting opportunity to enter a few measly letters onto a list that would reset every time the machine was unplugged. When pretense, pandering, and half-baked rationalizations were not allowed within spitting distance of the all-important “start” button. “Shooters”, as they were originally conceived, and unlike so many of their “legitimacy”-hungry descendants, make no apologies about what they are and the purpose they were created to serve.

This straightforward self-awareness still lives on today, within the classic gaming genre of shoot-em-ups, or “shmups” for short: the silly-sounding abbreviation, whose coining is generally attributed to Commodore-centric UK magazine Zzap!64, has grown so pervasive that fans are sometimes called “shmuppers” or “shmup-o’s” (in Japan the category is frequently labeled “STG”, ostensibly an abbreviation for “shooting game”). A crucial midwife to the birth of the video gaming medium, shoot-em-ups have experimented and evolved on occasion, but never strayed far from their primeval nature: fittingly, the shmup stands tall today as one of the “purest” digital experiences available. Fashionable buzzwords like “realism”, “immersion” and “cinematic” are routinely cast aside in favor of the bedrock principles that launched the industry: simplicity, precision, and the raw joy of racking up big points in the face of seemingly-impossible odds.

To contemporary audiences raised on sidequest-laden open worlds and control pads requiring roadmaps to navigate, however, a product whose modus operandi can be summed up as “move, shoot, and roll credits after 40 minutes” is all but destined to be passed over, especially if it retails for anything above bargain-bin price. Anybody who’s ever played a shoot-em-up “in earnest”, however, knows better. Despite their easy-to-grasp premise, shmups outright refuse to treat their audience like insecure children; it’s the individual player’s job to mine the depths of each and every compact, focused experience, gradually honing one’s skills not in flailing pursuit of some arbitrary virtual trinket, but because the game is fun and well-crafted enough to replay again and again on its own merits. It’s a notion largely lost to a culture obsessed with getting top dollar back on its disposable trade-ins, but to anyone out there who would further explore such a “radical” approach to video gaming, be advised: once you’ve experienced the rush of a finely-tuned shooter for yourself you might find it tough to go back.

In case you were planning on it, I have no objections to your borrowing from that article for your presentation, as needed; I doubt Racketboy would either, but you might want to shoot him an email as a courtesy.

[CStarFlare]

For history, I've always found Hudson's shooting events to be fascinating, and a great way to illustrate the position the genre once held.

The doujin scene is also a rich subject. Fangames getting picked up for release by an established publisher is always a cool story.

[blackoak]

I agree with DJI--really emphasize the experience of going for a 1cc. I think there's a common misconception among the gaming public that a 1cc is just some silly autistic thing the "hardcore" or "elite" do. Not enough gets said outside of this forum about the experiential qualities of that state of mind: the tension, the excitement, the sense of achievement. But especially the excitement and tension. I think you might be able to appeal to a kind of "game burnout" that people have today, what with the monotony of MMORPG style "achievements" and grinding being common features of popular games now: here is an antidote to all that. Seriously, a lot of people never even consider the way these games should be played because they encounter them in a non-arcade context, after all.

What DJI said about commonly used tactics is also good. Bullet hells and the like are visually intimidating, but knowing just a couple techniques might open the door for people. The techniques could be demonstrated live, but it would probably come off best if they were prepared beforehand in clips sorted by technique, leaving you free to comment on them at the presentation (more legwork, but also something to be shared in the strategy threads for posterity. perhaps a "learning about shmups" one-off page could be created somewhere as an adjunct to the presentation, something for people to visit later?).

Finally, it might sound simple, but I think it would be helpful for newcomers if you frame these games as a mix of action and puzzle, or dexterity and intellect. That could be a springboard into talking about the variety within what appears, at first glance, to be a very samey genre: depending on the game you choose, some will be more puzzle based, while others will allow for more improvisational dodging and dexterity. Most games will be approachable either way, at least until the "one best route" mentality of scoring comes into play.

[nasty_wolverine]

If you want to show people that bullethells are not as hard as they seem. Fire up R-type against something like BWR+ (or Deathsmiles) and watch them fail at R-type and breeze through BWR+. Thats how I convinced a couple of friends.

[Aleksei]

Tell them to watch STG Weekly, of course you will . On a serious note, the place where I tutor has a range of ages and when they finish early and there is time before the program ends they play computer games. One day, a middle schooler said he was bored with all the types of online games and installation of games get wiped every night so nobody played and stupid MMOs or bejeweled after they noticed their progess would disappear. So I brought a usb stick with MAME on it and shmups, two guys loved to play ESPGaluda and they even managed to get to level three with a little bit of my couching on one credit. Over the course of a week, one of the two kids was able to get to the 4th stage consistently on one credit, and after a month got to the final boss! I was proud of his progress but alas he stopped coming to the program and I don't have contact outside of the program so I don't know if he every 1cc it. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that STGs are what you play after you're bored with all those other crappy games that don't give you a challenge after a while, this kid could beat me in mortal combat and COD, which I hardly play anyway, and commented that the fighting games were as appealing to him as the shmups. I agreed with this and I always hope that there is at least one shmup at an arcade filled with fighters because thats the only place I've ever seen them. In Austin, arcade UFO has about 4 STGs and the rest are mainly fighters. With that said, the fighting crowd should be most understanding of the appeal of STGs because of their similarities. Both require memorization, both require many years of practice to get really good, and both are extremely rewarding because the developers add modes that make them playable for years not months. STGs are pure games, not life simulations/battle simulations like most popular games tend to be (GTA and so on), and when those types of games end and theres nothing left to do, you either play MMOs that never end, or you could give STGs a chance! Now, I've never played an MMO so sorry if my view is skewed; please take what you want from this story for your panel. STGs are the roots of video games anyways, lets not forget our roots

The games I would showcase would be Ginga Force/Eschatos, the horizontals like Darius, Gradius, R-types and some mid to early cave and raizing for rank. You've got to talk about rank wankery, thats a whole 20 min of something exclusive to STGs in terms of how rank changes according to how you play.

[majik989s]

For the example games, I wouldn't use loli-heavy games (deathsmiles). They tend to scare people away. Instead I'd use the older DoDonPachi, Strikers or Raiden games, because the normal gamer is usually used to the gears-of-war-color-palette. (Don't scare 'em with MuchiMuchi Pork )

Hmmm... Well it is at the Pacific Media Expo, they may enjoy the loli aspect.

As a suggestion, it might be worth mentioning Novice and training modes in the latest releases. It really seems like companies are trying to make it as accessible as ever for newcomers.

[Frenetic]

Just wanted to let you all know I was able to get the panel rescheduled from 4pm on Friday November 8th to Sunday, November 10th at 11am. Much better since I work on that Friday.

Please keep the ideas coming, I'm adding them to a planning sheet.

[Sarethums]

Is this event going to be posted on youtube? id love to see it.

[Aleksei]

Live broadcast

youtube, twitch

[Softdrink 117]

Live broadcast

youtube, twitch

We are going to try to record. I don't think we'll be able to stream anything, and I'm not sure how much of the presentation we will be able to capture, but we will do what we can.

[Aleksei]

Its up,
and its good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ5WnT8YNwE
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4JfW5yT-Es


How many people attended?

[Frenetic]

Recap/links with video and PDF slides are up!

Thanks for the kind comments Aleksei! We had about 15 people attend, probably 5 stayed during the whole presentation. Kinda small. BUT we went down to the Console Gaming Room and handed out the rest of the 50 handouts to passerbys and people playing the game. Kudos to PMX for letting us borrow a projector and speaker system.

[Softdrink 117]

So happy to have been a part of this. Definitely learned a lot, about what worked and -- more importantly -- what didn't work. Would love to be a part of another event. Hopefully next time we can put some more polish on things and make a bigger impact. A tripod for recording would be great too.

[Frenetic]

Hope you guys can make it tomorrow Sunday 9:30 a.m. at Anime Los Angeles! Softdrink and I will be doing a better and badder version of STGWeekly Live for attendees tomorrow!