I actually practiced a fair amount last year, as did Kareshi, though I admittedly wasn’t particularly scientific about it. I think I at least tried to practice each game a time or two, though I’m coming into this year much more prepared than I did last year. That and, like I said, I had at least played pretty much all of the games on the list last year even before the challenges, so even near the end when I was out of the stuff I could do easily and was sort of winging it desperately trying to get more points, I wasn’t playing the games completely cold.

As for the points disparity, I’m of two minds about it. Yeah, there aren’t nearly as many games where you have two and sometimes even three possible challenges, but on the other hand, I think there’s actually a wider variety of games than there were last year. I’m not exactly sure how the SDA presence will affect things on that front; it doesn’t sound like a lot of them will be putting in much time at the booth, but you never know.

And yeah, whatever the final results turn out to be, having fun is the most important thing. Can’t wait to see you, Kareshi, Sunny and everyone else again!

I think that the disparity in the points will be even greater this year by the fact that last year, for some games, the player had the option to try an easier difficulty if he wasn’t able to finish the harder ones thus maximizing the point total.

This year, there is only one difficulty for each games (at the exception of 2 or 3) So for the people who practiced a bit, we won’t waste as much time on the booths compared to those who will desperately try to get more points on games they never played before, trying to understand the mechanics of obscure games on the spot ( kinda like we did last year :p )

I’d be dissapointed if The Shizz won’t get #1, 2, 3 this year also.

However, no matter who finishes where, no matter if someone loses in a tie breaker, no matter if we haven’t reached the goals we were trying to get, this competition is all in good fun, meeting people who actually care for the 8 bit era and an awesome opportunity for us to devellop our skills for future gaming projects.

On this, I wish you all the best and I can’t wait to meet you at mag again bro!

Metal Dream