Musashi Talk

I wanted to look at my recent submission of Brave Fencer Musashi Any% to Smash the Record objectively and try to figure out what I can do to make the game more marathon friendly. I'm not bummed in anyway (there was a lot of great submissions) but I feel it a good exercise to think critically towards it to improve my chances in the future.

First let's look at games of a similar length that WERE accepted. For the record my submitted estimate was 165 minutes, or 2:45:00.
- Earthbound (Pajama %) - 150 minutes
- Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix HD - 205 minutes
- Paper Mario TTYD - 200 minutes
- The Legend of Zelda: Four Sword Adventures - 150 minutes

So obviously most games are shorter than these, and those are some big name games as well as runners (Spike / Alamo / VB / Pidge). So I can fully accept this event couldn't handle Musashi under that pretense. It's 4 days and they are doing popular things to bring attention to the event and raise money.

So what can I do to improve my chances of getting into AGDQ? I can think of a few things I could easily improve:

- My PB. Having WR makes the case for getting your game in much better. I have a deep understanding of game mechanics and tricks, but without putting a time out that properly showcases that, it gets diminished.

- Improving my narrative during runs. I feel like I'm an above average speaker when it comes to games but that doesn't mean I'm not full of "um" and "hmm" while I'm explaining things. One thing I refuse to do is censor myself on my own stream however, if they don't think people are adult enough to watch their mouth during a marathon run they need to get over that. So the possibility of putting together a mock marathon run could make it more appealing.

I'm sure there's other things I could do but in reality I just need to keep submitting and improving my time. It would be cool to be able to show it off at AGDQ, that's my ultimate goal. I think the run is great and has lots of cool tricks to showcase plus some hilarious voice acting and unique game play. I also understand everyone thinks that about their games, but it's true for so many!

I'll be submitting to AGDQ with the same goals as StR. Get the game in and attend if it does. I'll look to improve my PB and do a commented run. Hope everyone has fun at the next event - see you soon on stream :D