RPGLB and Ninja Gaiden II top 8

RPG Limit Break 2016:

I attended my first RPG marathon last week and it was really enjoyable! It certainly had the feel of older GDQ events where there were not a ton of people and everyone was just relaxing and having a good time playing games fast. No drama, just laughs and fun in a laid back environment. The organizers and crew did a great job and were super welcoming to everyone. It was really nice to see how much people were invested in/cared about the cause they were raising funds for (NAMI). I am not much of an RPG player but even I played some while I was there. I also got introduced to some terrible games by PJ and Omni, thanks guys :) The one downside was minor, the hotel had very poor cell service nearly everywhere. I would certainly go back next year, and recommend going if you have not been before.

Ninja Gaiden II tournament:

Thanks to organizers/staff: Feasel, Mithical9, Duckfist, Thadarkman78, Zaelorae, and Jimmypoopins for making this a reality. Major thanks to all 27 participants, you all put a lot of work into the game and it showed. Anyone who watched was rewarded with high level exciting game play and some very close races. Thanks to the viewers, I hope you enjoyed the show. We had pretty solid viewership for a game that is really not very popular outside of the folks that run it.

This was a really fun event, and I am glad I could watch/commentate it. There is a lot more work to putting on a tournament than I initially realized, but I also think that it will be easier in the future for people to do Swiss tournaments now that one has been done.

I have already commented on the Swiss so this will be just regarding top 8. Everything went pretty smoothly this time around, and while I am sure there are improvements, only a few stand out to me at this time:

1) I should have grouped the quarterfinal matches by bracket (Jimmy v. Backslash should have been in the first set instead of Garadas21 v. Arcus87). This would have ensured even wait times between rounds for winners. Garadas21 got the worst of this as he had a huge break between his quarterfinal and semifinal match.

2) Missing deaths. I am not really sure how this happened outside of the time I was refreshing my stream, but I guess it is hard to keep an eye on two streams at once especially when a death happens very early in a stage and you can't notice a dramatic shift in where the player is.

3) This was just miscommunication between us staff, but I did not realize the bracket was being shown to viewers prior to the matches until about 15 mins in. We probably could have had a smoother pregame show.

4) I maybe misconstrued this during commentary to make it sound more like trash talk than it really was, but Endy was confident in his ability to win in the quarterfinals, and rightfully so. I know he and Riche are friends and respect each other, sorry if it came off the wrong way.

I still want to hear more feedback from players and viewers alike as far as improvements. We tried to make some from the Swiss and I think we succeeded in that. The top 8 ran much smoother and there was hardly any unscheduled downtime. Players knew what to expect and were more prepared for the format.

So what is next? There are many games that would make for great Swiss tournies. Examples include Ducktales 1 & 2, Chip N Dale: Rescue Rangers, Aladdin, Batman, Super Mario Bros 1 & 2, and probably a lot more. There is already discussion about doing a post ESA Ducktales tournament, perhaps in August/September. If you can think of any games that are easy to learn, have a solid player base already, and are less than 20 minutes long please let me know.

tl;dr RPGLB was fantastic, would go again. Ninja Gaiden II top 8 was insane, can't wait for more Swiss tournaments!