First off, congrats to Andy on the title.  More than a few impressive performances throughout the season.

Next, 2016 was a success as far as I was concerned.  Participation was pretty decent, and better than the early days of the NES contest.  Everyone played honorably.  The threads were civil.  And the mid-season switch to dual games seemed to be received well.  So how can we make 2017 better?

Did you prefer focusing on a single game each month, or did you prefer having two games to switch between?

Did the scoring seem fair?  Was it too hard to catch up to the leaders?  Was the lack of incentive for 4th place and below a late-season buzzkill?

Which games worked?  Which types of contests worked?

Which games didn't work?

Thoughts on a post-season?  December is out because of the holidays, and I would not create anything that was in direct competition with the NES tournament, but I am open to ideas that work around this.

It's been proposed that everyone's lowest scoring month be dropped next year so that people are allowed a break, or are relieved from having to acquire an expensive game or two.  Thoughts?  I had planned something similar this year, but the turnout really didn't make it feasible.

A number of people feigned interest early on, but never actually competed.  What can I do to bring you in?

I'd also be looking for a volunteer to spot-check and help maintain the score/leader boards.

Andy_Bogomil's selection - Donkey Kong Country
NA Poll selection - Bust-a-Move

 

January - TMNT IV: Turtles in Time & Super Mario Kart
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February - Gradius III & Bust-A-Move
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March - Donkey Kong Country & Kirby's Dream Course
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April - Killer Instinct & Total Carnage
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May - Super Star Wars & Ms. Pac-Man
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June - Tetris Dr. Mario & Batman Returns
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July - Super Buster Bros. & Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball
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August - F-Zero & The Lion King
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September - Earthworm Jim & Super Pinball
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October - Zombies Ate My Neighbors & Street Fighter II Turbo
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November - Wild Guns & Tiny Toons Wacky Sports Challenge
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Sweet, I already own most of these. I look forward to participating.

Since I recently joined NA, I don't really have much to comment on about improvements.

I really like the two game format. You should definitely keep it. I think that it's generally a good idea to pair more difficult titles with popular/easier titles. You'll get less participation when both games are too hard for most players (e.g. Super Empire Strikes Back and Paperboy 2, ugh).
 

Thanks, Brock. I really appreciate you putting this contest on and I had a lot of fun participating. Big shout out to the other players as well - some definitely pushed me to play longer or bump up my scores/times for certain games (Street Fighter II   ). 


Did you prefer focusing on a single game each month, or did you prefer having two games to switch between? 

I personally prefer the single game a month. I know it would get stale with some quicker titles, but when there were 2 games I typically had very little time for one of them. I think it's fine with two if there is more interest and there isn't two long games stacked in one month. Although the month makes it possible to get some time in on both games. 


Did the scoring seem fair?  Was it too hard to catch up to the leaders?  Was the lack of incentive for 4th place and below a late-season buzzkill?

I think there should be a spread between the top 5 like the Mario Kart scoring system. There wasn't a lot of incentive to shoot for a much better time if it was only going to net you 1 or 2 more points. Maybe top 5 and then everyone else gets a set score for participation below that. I also agree that we should have one month or two of the bottom scores dropped (even if they are 0 by not participating). There were some months you could have turned the game on and posted the title screen and got 6 or 7 points. 

Which games worked?  Which types of contests worked?

I think the best games were the ones that were popular, striaght forward, and could be played over and over in a relatively short amount of time. Games like Mario Kart and Street Fighter seemed to do the best. I think SMB 2 would have done a lot better if it wasn't in the last month. 

The post above has a good point about the difficulty. I think that turned A LOT of people off in certain months. Games like Star Wars were a fucking nightmare. Even for this year I think Star Wars should probably be on easy mode, although this one is generally a little easier than ESB. 

Looking forward to this year as a lot of these games I've played very little. I don't think I'll have as much time this year coming though in general. We'll see. 

Agreed.  Big lesson learned that month
 

While I only really actively participated by submitting a score for Super Mario Kart, I'll share my thoughts as I did follow this throughout the year.

Did you prefer focusing on a single game each month, or did you prefer having two games to switch between?

--> I personally liked the idea of having two games as some games are enjoyable to one person but not the other and vice-versa. Also, akin to the NES contest, it's about getting exposure to some games (often "classics") that we may have missed back in the height of SNES glory.

Did the scoring seem fair? Was it too hard to catch up to the leaders? Was the lack of incentive for 4th place and below a late-season buzzkill?

--> I am agreeable with the scoring as is. That said, I'd be interested to see what the consensus is you only get your highest place of the 2 games. So if I got 1st in one game and 17th in the other, I'd only get the first place points and not the participation score for the other game also. Again, just a thought and I'd be interested to see how others feel about that concept.

Which games worked? Which types of contests worked?

--> I'd agree with the SNES champ in that games that are able to picked up and played for only 30 minutes really worked well. It made it feasible for me, personally, to jump into the Super Mario Kart contest. I have no good excuse for missing Street Fighter II as that also fits that bill. Other games like Super Punch-Out did work fairly well too but since I didn't play it during the SNES era I came in as a total rookie and STUNK IT UP.

Which games didn't work?

--> I remember hearing a lot of complaining about Super Empire Strikes Back being challenging, aside from that I've got nothing here ...

Thoughts on a post-season? December is out because of the holidays, and I would not create anything that was in direct competition with the NES tournament, but I am open to ideas that work around this.

--> This may seem a bit odd but hear me out on this. What about, since the NES contest didn't have a mid-year tourney this year, maybe have one for SNES next year? Open it up to the top 8 participants and auto-invite the top 3 from the previous year and the top 5 scoreboard players in (accounting for if one of the top 5 of 2017 was a top 3 finisher in 2016 would simply require moving one more name down the scoreboard list for 2017). I still think doing prizes would be motivation to be first but also having something for summer tourney and 1st thru 3rd place overall may be worth considering. I know summer is busy and i'm busy too but i'm busy at this time of the year and it still worked for the NES contest.

It's been proposed that everyone's lowest scoring month be dropped next year so that people are allowed a break, or are relieved from having to acquire an expensive game or two. Thoughts? I had planned something similar this year, but the turnout really didn't make it feasible.

--> I like the idea of a lowest scoring month to be dropped. This makes it possible to skip a month if you're too busy or if you really stink at both games posted.

A number of people feigned interest early on, but never actually competed. What can I do to bring you in?

--> I think it takes time and more marketing by those playing. Bimmy busted out backstory and poetry, Santa would do his write-ups and all of it draws people in, even those that don't participate come to the thread just to see all the happenings. Also, more banter in the thread. I don't mean vulgarity or thread-crapping but competitive talk. I called Miles out in the Super Mario Kart contest and said talk is cheap and then he came in and slapped me and my scores around. Then Pegboy came in and slapped his scores around. All fun banter and helpful for the cause. Maybe we can make up some signature images, like Bimmy had for the NES contest, for the SNES ones. Also maybe make-up a collage not only for participation but also for winner of that game for that month that they could add to their signature and it'd further promote this event. Heck i'd even offer to create 'em if it helps the overall spirit of this.

Haha, Super Punch-Out is a tough little bastard until you have the patterns down. At first it seemed like the game was too hard for the players here, which caused Brock to introduce having two games every moth.

 

I had originally floated that idea, but didn't really receive much positive feedback about it

 

I'm no artist so I won't turn that down.
 

Had a blast playing this year. Thank you for doing this!!

Did you prefer focusing on a single game each month, or did you prefer having two games to switch between?
Love the 2 games per month. If I dont like a game or suck at one , having another option to try is great so I dont have to wait a month till the next contest. I can always play something more enjoyable for the competition that way

Did the scoring seem fair?  Was it too hard to catch up to the leaders?  Was the lack of incentive for 4th place and below a late-season buzzkill?
I think the scoring should be more like 

1.  10
2.   8
3.   6
4.   4
5th-8th  2 points
9+ 1 point

Have a little more seperation in there and incentive for trying for better places.    


Which games worked?  Which types of contests worked?
The ones Im good at   Im pissed I missed punchout. Its one of my games Im good at. Just not many of those. Joe and Mac was one of them. I think I could have won the super punchout competition if I was aware.

Super Mario Kart from a straight competition standpoint was the one that worked the best. That one was fun. I worked hard to get that top 4-5 finish in that one.

Which games didn't work?
I think pretty much any game works. Just make sure there is atleast 1 pickup and play option each month. 2 Hard games that take alot of practice to do anything dont make for very good competitions.

Thoughts on a post-season?  
This doesnt matter as much to me. I had some decent finishes( with 1 win, and some solid 2nd and 3rd months) but I know going in to a postseason I wouldnt win  

It's been proposed that everyone's lowest scoring month be dropped next year so that people are allowed a break, or are relieved from having to acquire an expensive game or two.  Thoughts? 
Im fine with this. As long as we have enough each month

A number of people feigned interest early on, but never actually competed.  What can I do to bring you in?
I wasnt aware of the contest really till it was too late. But I joined in april and played the rest of the way. All you can really do is advertise it. Make a sig banner that stands out. No clue really. You gotta like playing games to participate. 

I wanted to get in on it but then I had to pack it all up then moved then just got it unpacked and now vacation in Saturday haha. I did like the idea of 2 games less of a chance of a game you don't like. I ordered a snes ever drive for black Friday so I'm hoping to contribute more next year since now I'll have all the games haha

I had an absolute blast playing in the SNES contests this year (I believe I participated in every single one) and I'm really looking forward to 2017.  To answer the questions:

Did you prefer focusing on a single game each month, or did you prefer having two games to switch between?
I really like playing two games per month.  If you're not good at one game or dislike one of them, there's always a second one to play.  Plus, by selecting two games per month, you're exposing participants to more games in the SNES library, getting people to play their games, and getting people to try out new games they had never played.  I am in agreement with others on not picking two longer games in one month.  One short game (a la Mario Kart) and one long game (a la Super Metroid) would work fine.  Or maybe even two shorter games.

Did the scoring seem fair?  Was it too hard to catch up to the leaders?  Was the lack of incentive for 4th place and below a late-season buzzkill?
I thought the scoring system was fair.  However, like I run into with the NES contests, if people don't commit to them all year, they have a hard time climbing the leaderboard.  That was why I changed the participation point from 1 to 3 points.  The point system used for the leaderboard really depends on how many people play.  As the NES contests grew in popularity, we tweaked the point system each year to accomodate the growing number of participants and to also help give everyone a chance to climb up the leaderboard.

Which games worked?  Which types of contests worked?
I think all the games we played this year worked well for a contest.  The furthest progression ones were a fun test of skill to see how far you could get in a game.  There was also a good spread of genres in the SNES contests this year, from shooters to fighters to platformers, sports games, puzzle games, and beat 'em ups.  That's definitely an important thing to making the contests fun and catering to all gamer types.  Playing all platformers or all shooters can get boring after a while, as well as aggravating for those who don't excel at those genres.

Which games didn't work?
I'm going to be biased when I say this, but I don't like fighters, so I really did not enjoy Street Fighter 2.  However, like I mentioned above, you need to cover all genres to make the game contests successful and that includes choosing games that will cater to some and not be as popular to others.  Everyone has their gaming genre that they dislike.  I'm going to be biased on this again, but I really enjoyed playing Super Empire Strikes Back.  I know it wasn't a popular choice amongst most of the participants because of the difficulty, but I was stoked to play it.  It was one of my first SNES games as a kid, so that's where the bias comes in.  I know that game, as well as the other Super Star Wars games, very well.  I definitely think all of them should be played at some point in the SNES contests (as well as Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures), but perhaps set the difficulty level to Easy for future competitions.  There is definitely a spike in difficulty in those games from easy to normal.

Thoughts on a post-season?  December is out because of the holidays, and I would not create anything that was in direct competition with the NES tournament, but I am open to ideas that work around this.
A post-season would be fun.  December definitely wouldn't be a good month for most because of Christmas.  I wouldn't sacrifice another month at this point in time for a post-season (November for example) until the contests really start to grow in popularity.  We didn't start doing tournaments in the NES contests until just a few years ago when the popularity of those began to soar.  Doing month long competitions makes it tough to schedule a tournament, but perhaps if you did bi-weekly contests then you could schedule a post-season later in the year.  Once the popularity goes up, then it would be a good idea to do a tournament.

It's been proposed that everyone's lowest scoring month be dropped next year so that people are allowed a break, or are relieved from having to acquire an expensive game or two.  Thoughts?  I had planned something similar this year, but the turnout really didn't make it feasible.
To me, this would only work out if it doesn't hurt someone in the leaderboard standings.  I have no problem with a bad score being dropped, but if dropping a score drops someone a couple spots on the leaderboard and hurts their overall finish, then I would be against it.

A number of people feigned interest early on, but never actually competed.  What can I do to bring you in?
I get this a lot in the NES contests as well.  Lots of people express interest in competing, but just don't find the time when the contests start.  It's going to happen regardless of how popular your contests become.  However, here's some tidbits that certainly helped me expand interest in the NES contests.  Advertising certainly helps bring people into the contests.  Adding a banner to your signature (as I have in mine) certainly helps draw people into the contests.  Playing popular games certainly helps too.  Don't pick a stinker of a game just because it is easy to come up with rules for that game.  An example would be the time we played Contra Force in the NES contests.  It was easy to make rules for, but hardly anyone played because not too many people like the game.  Picking game franchises like Mario, Donkey Kong, Street Fighter, TMNT, Adventure Island, and Castlevania will always draw people in because they are popular, and for the most part, are excellent games.  Doing random prize giveaways helps pique interest and draw in competition as well, but beware that announcing a random prize drawing ahead of time can draw in unsavory folks.  Writing fun little intros, poems, stories, and gaming write-ups (a la the Santa Weekly Update) helps draw in people, too.  However, we didn't start doing more of this until the NES contests got more popular.  You certainly don't want to write a 10-page fan fiction intro if only 5 people are going to play that month.  However, doing quirky little stories and intros does help bring some light-heartedness to the competitions.  I love to write, so if you have a passion to do that, it certainly helps.


As for the 2017 game list, it certainly looks like it's going to be a fun year.  I'm excited to see Turtles in Time, Super Buster Brothers, Batman Returns (played this A LOT as a kid), Super Star Wars, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Donkey Kong Country, and Total Carnage.  There are 8 games for this coming year that I will need to get, so it will be fun (and a good excuse) to add them to my collection.  As for schedule tweaks, if the schedule isn't set in stone, I would suggest swapping out two of the games: Super Mario Kart and Wild Guns.  We played Super Mario Kart this past year and it would be nice to see a different game in its place, however a fresh set of rules could make a good choice 2 years in a row.  We certainly do that sometimes in the NES contests.  I've never played Wild Guns and it looks like a VERY good game, but the price tag on it keeps me from going out and buying a copy.  I know we have plenty of time to save up money and go out and buy a copy, but considering the price, I would likely have to go the emulator route on that game and I don't really care for emulators.  However, Wild Guns would certainly make a good contest game.

I didn't participate other than playing and not posting for Tetris Attack so I won't comment on suggestions. Just wanna say that looks like a solid roster of games. And probably a good reason to get an SNES Everdrive cause I'm missing like half of them. Looking forward to it!

I enjoyed the contests, I just had too much IRL stuff going on to properly compete. I like having two games for the entire month, as a nice contrast to the NES weekly contest focusing on one game.

That spot was originally Top Gear, but I swapped SMK in a couple weeks ago because of how popular it was this year.  I will try to change it up a bit to keep it fresh again.  If nothing else it will be brand new tracks.


  This is another thing I've wrestled with, and the catalyst for my proposed score-dropping rule.  Each year will most likely have one higher priced title on the slate, always at the end of the year so people have time to think about it.  I love Wild Guns and really wanted to include it, and a later year will feature Pocky & Rocky for example.  I just feel like they're too good to not include.  But I realize its not realistic for many to play these in non-emulated forms which is why I've tried to blunt that impact.

 

I liked the SNES contest way more than NES ones, mostly since I am much more of a SNES guy and I own a good selection of games for it. I like the switch to two games a month since if I don't have or like the one game that is there, at least now I have a second one to play. I wanted to play more than I did this year but I kept running out of time between house buying and wedding planning and all that. 2017 should be a less busy year for me so I plan on participating more. Can't wait to blaze through Donkey Kong Country this year   (DKC2 and 3 would be amazing ones to blast through too!) I also don't participate to win, because I know I'm usually not that good and I just play for fun, I could care less what the incentives are :-P

Just please dont include special cup donut plains stage in mario kart. That stage would ruin the comp for me  

Im not good and i started in april last year. Ended up getting 2nd with 1 win and a few solid finishes. So even though i played for fun and tried my best, its still possible to place 

haha X 2... worst race in the game. 


I wouldn't worry too much about Wild guns and the price. There are so many games that are expensive I don't see a lot of people going out to buy them just for the contest. There are several games this year I don't own and I wouldn't be putting out the $20-$40+ to buy them. We'll miss a lot of good games if price point is consideration. Emulation is not ideal, but buying a $10 controller for your computer for all games is much more practical. 

I haven't participated in this yet, but i hope to in 2017. Hopefully you guys won't judge me for emulating. It's not that I don't have most of these games, (I do) but being overseas currently limits my access to my collection as one might expect. So it's emulator or bust for me until July.

Emulators are fine and it would be great to have you.  I've been logging all of the NES historical scores and you would be a great competitor
 

Thanks brock landers for the second place prize.

Ive barely ever seen pinball fantasies . Def an uncommon game. Never wanted to spend for it. Didnt have it. Awesome!

I almost sent you Bassin Black Bass as a joke  

Lol as you know ive seen plenty of bassins. Saw 2-3 more a couple weeks ago