GDQ

First, it goes without saying that I'm really excited about the DKC relay being included. I have personally felt a lot of ownership for that submission, so I'm really excited to see a lot of that work pay off.

But credit where credit is due - I may have coordinated it and done a lot of the communication, but there are some *amazing* runners in this thing, and that's why it got in. For DKC, we have 3 runners with a 32/33. For DKC2, all 3 runners have a 40. And for DKC3, the 3 runners have a 48/49. These are *elite, extremely high-level times in all three games.* So not only is this a really cool idea, but we will have some of the best possible play.

THANK YOU to everybody!! Thank you to the games committee for agreeing to include it! Thank you to all the runners for submitting - *especially* the backup runners. I think the fact that we had so many backups for every game is what helped make this such a strong submission. I believe we had *15* people submitting in all, which really shows the strong community support. Thank you to everyone for putting up with my pestering on Discord and in Twitter. And an extra special thanks to Crismas. I believe this was her idea - or, at least, she was the first person I heard about the idea from. And to Kanis, who showed enough interest in it to really make me think this was an idea worth pursuing.

Next steps? Well, there are a few.

We'll have to figure out teams, and I'm not sure if we want to do that based on current PBs to let the teams get acquainted with each other, or to wait and re-organize the teams based on PBs at marathon time. Since we're gonna have Team Diddy, Team Dixie, and Team Kiddy (because if you're Donkey you're dead), it might be good to have those chosen ahead of time. Nobody wants to be Kiddy, so maybe we need to race for it. Nam was also thinking of making shirts for each team, so if there's support for that idea, it's even more reason to lock in teams ahead of time.

I'm planning to prepare quite a bit more for commentary this time around. The bar was set *very* high by Ghoul, Hobz, and Muncha during the DKCTF relay at SGDQ. I'd like to comment as many races as I can during the DKC2 Tournament in November. I also plan to watch back the DKCTF run and see what they did so well, and also watch back the 102% commentary from lsat year to figure out what I did poorly. I definitely want to have a practice race at AGDQ as well, so we can get a feel for talking and watching (and game swapping). I'm hoping that Claude, Cris, and Zera will be up for all of this, as well. If we do a good job, this could be one of the highlights of the marathon. I know the runners will bring their A-game, so we need to also.

More GDQ thoughts below.

--------------------

Major excitement:
*Shadows of the Empire
*Super Dram World
*All of Suzuri's runs - the excitement here may get me to play through some Kirby games!
*Mario Galaxy 2 - even more incentive to get N0cturne there, and I desperately want to meet him.

Mild bummer:
*Snoopy's Grand Adventure - I didn't expect this to be included - my run was unpolished and just simply isn't ready for the GDQ stage. But I submitted it because I think it's a cool game, and I would have loved to have had the chance and the excuse to put in more work.
*DKC Blindfolded - Sprinklez had some really cool stuff here that would have made a good bonus game.
*Diablo II - I know it's been in a lot lately, but I love it, I love MrLlama, and it would have been a cool race.

Major disappointment:
*Dode not being included in Super Dram World. Poo is great and is a fantastic performer/runner, but Dode is simply amazing and deserves to do this.
*Final Fantasy Tactics - I know it's a long shot and may not appeal to this particular crowd, but I absolutely want to see this game in a GDQ. That stage, with Claude's level of commentary, would be absolutely amazing.
*MrZeraTheMant - I wanted him to get a run in more than I did myself. I'm sad for him. He's a cool guy and serves to play on this stage. He is first backup for DKC in the relay, though.

Big shock:
*Final Fantasy? As the only FF game? Wow. I know it will be awesome, but I'm surprised.
*No Mario Maker? I mean, I get it - not doing it 3 times in a row and all, but still - it's a huge money maker....

Good call:
*Undertale Pacifist - the only thing in doubt about this game was the category. I think this was the right choice, as this is the "true" ending and is better to show off the spirit of the game for its first GDQ showing. I expect to see Genocide at SGDQ.

Lots of other good stuff, too. I'm really excited about a lot of this games list. I really, really hope they let me host again, as there are several blocks here that I would really enjoy being a part of!