Glibathon X Postmortem and Other Stuff

Glibathon X is in the books (finally). It was a wild endeavor, certainly one that I won't be forgetting any time soon. As is the usual with these big streaming events, I usually write a big ole pastebin talking about it. This is that pastebin. I'll talk about what went well, what didn't, and what's next. Sidenote: I'll save the personal stuff until the end, but I'll put what it means for the stream itself in the TLDR.

First off, let me just start alllllllllll of this off with a massive THANK YOU. One of my greatest worries, as with any large project, is how it will be received. Even though times are wild right now, we still were able to raise over 700 dollars for Hunger Task Force ($713.85 if you're wondering). Beside all the generous outpouring for those in need, the streams themselves were always a ton of fun. So thank you if you were involved in any possible way, be it donating, subbing, giving bits, hosting the stream, chatting, or even just big lurking. I struggle immensely to express gratitude, but it means more than you could possibly imagine.

Another thing that I think went pretty well was the setup of incentives. Channel points are a really neat addition, and allowed people to contribute without needing to anything other than watch the stream. I think in future Glibathons, I'll probably have a similar setup. There are a couple tweaks I think I could make, one of which is making the point totals larger so that I don't completely run out of incentives with 2 games left, the other being finding a way to have people help keep track easier. I had a google doc that I thought only a few people could edit, but it turns out everyone could. Luckily nothing bad happened with it, but I'd like to find some way that allows people I trust to edit it so I can focus on playing video games :P

Probably the biggest hurdle was the schedule. I knew I was being extremely optimistic thinking I could get everything done in 9 days, and there was no way I would reasonably cram 108 hours of content in that time span, but it still dragged on quite a bit. I streamed nearly every day that I could, but it definitely got to the point where I was playing just to get it done, which was unfortunate. Another thanks to everybody that helped see me to the finish line. Obviously if I were to ever do this again, there'd be a lot more prep put into in terms of actually playing the games, but I think it would definitely go quite a bit faster.

I guess I'll go over each game, pass some thoughts on what I felt about them, and share a few good clips. Most of these games I have never done the full things in as little time as possible, so I definitely learned a lot about them.

SM3DW: Still the best 3D Mario, fight me. I've obviously done 380 a handful of times, and racing it with The New SM3DW Crew (as I'm just now officially dubbing us) was a ton of fun, as always. Since this race nearly a month ago, nearly everybody in the race and a few new faces have started getting actually decent at the game, and I'm very tempted to put a little time into it so that I don't lose future 380 races by 2 hours. Dirty practice is dirty, but it looks like a really fun game to go fast in. This will 100% return to the stream in some form or fashion, and I'm still holding out hope that the rumors of a Switch release/remake come true.

SM64DS: I think SM64DS is a fantastic game held back solely by a horrid control scheme. I had never played this game before Glibathon X, but I have obviously played a decent amount of SM64, so things were mostly familiar with a few new twists, most of which I enjoyed. Every stage had a bonus star, and there were a few new stars strewn about the castle. I think the only one I really did not enjoy was farming the silver rabbits at the end, although I think that star is pretty universally hated. I don't know if I'll bring this game back or not, while it was a lot of fun, it might be a struggle to do 150 Star in one sitting, which is probably what I would want to do. We'll see. It did probably provide the best clip of the entire event tho: https://www.twitch.tv/aweglib/clip/HilariousInventiveClipsdadShazBotstix

SMG: I'll start this off with a clip that encapsulates the greatest thing the SMG Playthrough had to offer: https://www.twitch.tv/aweglib/clip/AmusedLivelyDiscKappaPride
Honestly, that's about all that needs to be said about Galaxy. This is probably my least favorite game of the bunch, but I wouldn't necessarily call it a bad game, just maybe one that lacked a clear vision. The galaxy games shift from giant worlds that have stars hidden throughout them to more or less straightforward courses, but it seems like they shifted mid-production or something, because some stages follow a linear path while others just drop you in a spot. There's a lot of stars that just take a long time to do without really accomplishing much, and I mistakenly saved the final Bowser fight until I had no other options, and had to scramble back and forth to get the purple coin stars, go BACK to Bowser, then do the 121st star which is fairly underwhelming. If I wanted to do this again, I'd probably use a route or something to make things go smoother.

SMG2: Galaxy 2 takes a lot of things that I thought SMG didn't get right, and fixes them. It understood better that it was a more linear game, both in how the overworld is structured, and the levels themselves. The green stars aren't always the most exciting content, but it all lead to The Perfect Run, which is a really good cap to the game. It would be rough to do 242 in one sitting, but maybe I'll bring this back as a weekend long thing sometime, who knows.

SMS: Blue coins were a mistake. I still firmly believe that they were added at the last minute or something, because collecting 240 blue coins to get 120 shines is a realllllly big pain, especially when the blue coins really don't do anything towards actually beating the game. Sunshine is a decent game with a really odd structure. Again, I don't think it's a bad game, just not as good as a lot of the other ones on this list. I still like racing Any% with friends here and there, 120 isn't completely out of the question, but I'd want some way to help make the blue coins less of a slog.

SMO: This game is great. It's fun. If you've somehow not played it yet, do it. You'll enjoy it. Mario is fun to move, the levels are fun and interesting, and the cap mechanic is really fun. All that said... there's no reason this game should have 999 or 880 moons or honestly much more than 500. Perhaps they wanted to make it easier for people to reach Darker Side without having to get *every single moon* but so much of the game just feels like bloated content after doing Darker Side. There's been rumblings and grumblings of trying to get some people together for a fun Darker Side race, which I'd be down for doing. If I went for 999 again, I'd definitely split it up to keep it from getting stale.

SMRPG: Not gonna lie, I was TERRIFIED of this game. All the other games before this are platformers, I know eventually I can figure out whatever I need to do in a platformer. SMRPG is one of only 2 JRPGs I've ever finished, and I was very scared that I would get stuck in some sort of death loop. Granted, the first time I tried to do this with Mack Skip, and it went very poorly. The second time I attempted it, I fought Mack, and although it was a rough fight, I got through it, and things went mostly smoothly from there. Did have one unfortunate death that set me back quite a bit, but other than that, the beginner speedrun guide really made things go well. I enjoyed this a lot, and I'm tempted to give it a go in one sitting some time.

MP3: Mario Party 3 owns. Story Mode runs a little long, but it's a fun time. I did Hard Mode this time around, but to be honest, it's not much different than any other difficulty, especially with the CPUs making plays like this:
https://www.twitch.tv/aweglib/clip/BoringCharmingEndiveKappaPride
Another game I'll almost for sure be playing again.

All told, there were a lot of good times and fun memories. I would love to bring this back in some form or fashion at some time in the future, maybe in 2021 when I think of some other dumb way to group all these games together. As mentioned, every single incentive I laid out was met, so there's gonna be a lot of other fun on the way on stream soon. But as to that...

*Personal stuff ahead, skip to TL;DR if you want*

I don't often get into personal stuff, and I'm going to be purposely vague here because even this is more than I'd like to say, but I need a break. I've obviously streamed way more than I ever have in the last 4 weeks, but I think it might be more than that. I'm hoping it's just burn out, but I also feel myself slipping into some habits and thoughts that have really wrecked me before. I get my head wrapped around ideas and things that I shouldn't, and I think stepping away for a moment would at the very least help me clear my head. Gonna disconnect and hopefully things will be better in a few days or so. I'm hoping at the very least; I'll be back for my birthday on the 30th. I'll try to still pop in now and again, we'll see.

TL;DR Glibathon X was dope. I need a little break. Hopefully I'll be back by my birthday on the 30th.

Kbai,
Aweglib