Arcade-A-Thon

[REBIRTH]

So now that my Cab is 99.5% done, I figured it was time to give it a big workout.   I try to find different ideas to get a bunch of friends together every so often (i.e. playing cards, Risk, etc) so I decided to have a night of arcade competition.  I have a trophey to give out to the winners, plus a bunch of beer and food.  Should be fun.  I am expecting about 12 people.  I sent out an oringinal email a couple of weeks ago asking everyone what their favorite games are, which is how I came up with the list of games in the tournament.    Below are the rules I sent out., thought the people on the board might get a laugh....  

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OK, You are the ones I heard from that are coming.  We may have a couple more.  Below are the games we will be playing.  As I said, come over around 7pm - 7:30pm.  We'll have some open play for about an hour before getting down to the serious competition.  First we will team up into two man teams.  For the first two rounds we will play as teams.  After that the remaining teams will break up and we'll turn to man-to-man competition.  Each game will have a time limit to keep people from playing too long - so racking up points early will be key, not necessarily going deep into a game.

Games
======

Team Rounds - The teams will play 1 two person game for each of the games in the round.  The scores are added together for the team total in that game.  For each game a team is awarded 5 points for the best score, 3 for the 2nd best and 1 for the 3rd best.

Round 1 (team round)
--------------------------------
Dig-Dug
Pac-Man
Frogger
Joust (2 players playing simultaneously)
Centipede
Missile Command
Kick Man (Stu's gay favorite game)

After round 1 no one gets kicked out yet.  The bottom teams from rounds 1 and 2 will get kicked out, except if either of them were in first place in one of the rounds.  

Round 2 (team round)
-------------------------------
Asteroids
Defender
Tempest
Galaga
Robotron
Donkey Kong
Tapper

As stated above, bottom team from round 1 and bottom team from round 2 are kicked out (unless one of them came in first in a round).

Individual Rounds - Each remaining person plays one game of each, playing 1 player games.  Same as above - 5 points for best score in a game, 3 and 1 points.

Round 3 (individual Round)
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Gyruss
Space Invaders
Mario Bros.
Arkanoid
Vanguard (Defender II)

Top two players from Round 3 move to the final "Mame Master" round.  Mame Master round is simply 2 out of 3 games wins.

Mame Master Round
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Top Player picks any game
2nd Player picks any game
Host Picks any game

[Hoagie_one]

Street fighter?

a bunch of old people eh?

J\K   sounds fun

[MilitiaMan]

Sounds like a good time ... you don't live in Jacksonville, FL ... do you?

I'd love to get my hands on that trophy.  

MM

[REBIRTH]

Street fighter?

a bunch of old people eh?

J\K   sounds fun

Funny you say that.  Half the guys are my age (35) who I guess missed out on the Street Fughter craze (I'm not a huge fan).  But the other half are 24-27 years old, you would have thought one of them would have suggested Street Fighter, but no one did.  

Sounds like a good time ... you don't live in Jacksonville, FL ... do you?

Ha!  I live in NY (Long Island).   It would be cool to get together with fellow MAME'ers.

[Hoagie_one]

Funny you say that.  Half the guys are my age (35) who I guess missed out on the Street Fughter craze (I'm not a huge fan).  But the other half are 24-27 years old, you would have thought one of them would have suggested Street Fighter, but no one did.  

I understand.  As much as I love Fighters, there is nothing like the classics that we grew up on.  Personally, I'd add Dragon's lair, but thats not a Mame game.

[Frostillicus]

Great idea, Rebirth.  Sounds like fun.  Dragon's lair is of course a cool game, but probably not the reflex twitching excitement of the other classics, if there was one thing lacking from DL is gameplay (or it's lack thereof).  

I think Robotron should be the lightning round or something - you can't get any more twitchy than that!  

[1UP]

I was thinking of trying to organize a L.A. area Mame club or something, where every month we would all gather at some (un)lucky BYOACer's place and try out their machines.  Of course, I am a little wary of just inviting a bunch of peeps I don't know into my abode, but it still sounds fun...

[pointdablame]

I live in Jersey, i wanna come! haha.

Seriously tho, that sounds cool. Maybe I'll do something like that for the unveiling of my machine whenever it gets finished.

[SirPeale]

Should have it at FunSpot.  Not MAME cabinets, but 113 classic cabinets in one room, plus a bunch of new stuff in other areas.  Too fun!

A bunch of us from alt.games.mame are having a get together Oct. 23-27th or so there.  We just did one back in June, and we had a blast.

Here's some pictures from our last two trips there:

http://www.pealefamily.net/gallery/

[REBIRTH]

Should have it at FunSpot.  Not MAME cabinets, but 113 classic cabinets in one room, plus a bunch of new stuff in other areas.  Too fun!

A bunch of us from alt.games.mame are having a get together Oct. 23-27th or so there.  We just did one back in June, and we had a blast.

Here's some pictures from our last two trips there:

http://www.pealefamily.net/gallery/

Cool idea.  There is place in midtown Manhattan (I live about 45 minutes outside of Manhattan) that has about 100 classic games.  Better than inviting strangers into your home!

[hyiu]

where in midtown ??..... 113 classics ??.....
I would like to check it out !!!....

I'm from Brooklyn !!!....  

[REBIRTH]

where in midtown ??..... 113 classics ??.....
I would like to check it out !!!....

I'm from Brooklyn !!!....  

Called Lazer Park, on 46th just east of Broadway in Times Square.  I used to work right next door at BMG Music, so would go in some days during lunch or after work for a few beers (they have a bar area in there).  I said they have about 100 classic games, may have been a little enthusiastic.  Check out their website, here is a page that lists their games.  On the bottom of the page lists the classics...  Last time I was in there they had Defender but I don't see it on the web page now  

http://www.lazerpark.com/5.html

[Hoagie_one]

since when is Super Street Fighter 2 concidered Vintage?

[hyiu]

haaa haa haaa.... SF2 is vintage already.....

I guess we're all old school.....

they have have SF Alpha3 or whatever....

I'll check that place out when I have a chance.....
thx for the info....  

[soslo]

REBIRTH - great idea man! Let us know how it turns out.

Off topic: anything like this going on in the SF Bay Area?

[REBIRTH]

Live and Learn.....

So I had Arcade-A-Thon I last night.  10 guys playing.  I thought it might be a problem, and it definitely was - too man games.  As stated at the top of this thread I started out with 5 2-man teams, breaking to single man teams after 2 rounds.  After the first game (Dig-Dug) it was obvious we weren't getting through all the games unless I imposed a time limit.  I had about 20 games I hoped to go through.  The time limit worked in the sense we would have made it through all 20 games, but it was took some of the fun out of the game.

There was a Mame Master and a trophy was awarded (I won even though I only counted 50% of my scores since I was in my home turf), but it didn't feel like a legit competition.

Long story short - we all had fun, drank a lot of beer, but for Arcade-A-Thon II I am just going to have about 6 guys over, let each guy pick 1 game, and limit it to 6-10 games and just let people play full games.

On a side note - Xbox Tiger Woods 2003 golf got a ton of play while people were waiting their turn.  One of the best golf games ever (since Links LS).

Below is a picture from the first round...

[soslo]

Rebirth, Where did you get your side art/marquee???

[REBIRTH]

Rebirth, Where did you get your side art/marquee???

Made them up myself in Photoshop (well sort of, read on) and had them printed at Kinkos (marquee on backlit film, sideart and bezel on self adhesive vinyl).  I got some of the base graphics from www.deviantart.com (asking the artists if I could use them), brought them into Photoshop and then modified them and merged them and added the text from there.  My marquee is the same picture that I have below as my signature.  

I wish I had the talent/time to come up with completely original artwork like that myself....

[Lilwolf]

Saint... you should really look into hosting a kaillera server at byoac!  

Then I could see the same thing going over the net.

but can others watch in on kaillera?  It would be SWEET if it would post frame images for others to view.

[SlikStik-Christian]

We are just moving into new (larger) space now, maybe we can host a small get together in NJ when we get up and running. Its gonna be a month or two at least till we are settled but when we are we will make a post and see in anyone is interested.

Jerry Mascari
SLIKSTIK

[REBIRTH]

Count me in Slik!

[Daver4676]

That's a good idea.  I should plan something like that too when I get my cab complete.  Only problem is that only one or two of my friends actually play games much so it'll be a small compition.

I live in the Long Island area too (actually eastern edge of Queens) and I was about to suggest a good trophy place by me but it seems you already had the comp.  and the trophy so that's out of the way.  

I'm 27 and I was age appropriate for the whole Street Fighter/Mortal Kombat era but never really got into them in the arcades.  They're good games but I was turned off by trying to compete with those who were able to store the numerous stick/button sequences in their mind and call them up without hesitation.   I just stick by my ole standby: "when in doubt - quarter circle foward and punch".  

[Brogner]

I look at the picture and see a man with a (cell phone?) playing dig dug and remember how we laughed at "old people" playing our games. Now us "old people" are still playing the games of our youth and realise we are all getting older....
But with Mame we can feel young for a while longer and they are still as fun....ouch pinky got me again!  
That is one beautiful machine REBIRTH

Brogner

[AlanS17]

Well my machine lives in a frat house, and I don't think I could get enough people together for such a competition. Nobody cares abuot the machine anymore except me. They're so tired of seeing it there incomplete. They will probably be happy the day it's finally finished and then happy again the day it leaves. I even got fined 5 bucks the other day for making a mess while working on it. What's that all about?   It's not my fault the vacuum is broken, they don't own a decent broom. (OK now I'm venting...)