Idea - ZOOM Hi Score Gameshow?

[retrogoober]

SO, I had this idea, and think it would be fun, and curious if it draws viewers on Youtube, but hold a Zoom Covid 2600 hi score competition, thinking 10-15 participants with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prizes, I'd be willing to front, maybe $25, $35, and $50 credit at AtariAge store?  I'd record the show, and upload it, participants wouldnt have to show face, just voice and nickname.  We may have to standardize, like Stella and keyboard only, and no way to 100% verify, or camera on an actual 2600 screen required?  maybe start with a homebrew, Super Cobra comes to mind, or Draconian.  3 lives hi score.  Then upload to YouTube.

 

Thoughts?  Pros?  Cons?

 

Lee

4th place Hi Score Club finisher season 8 (major major cred! lol)

[+KaeruYojimbo]

It's an interesting idea. One potential issue that comes to mind if you want to do it live (and I think it would be a lot more exciting for both the players and the viewers if they were playing at the same time) would be scheduling. Finding one time that 15 people who want to play (and who the potential audience would be interested in watching) could be tricky considering that players from around the world compete in the HSC.

 

Other than that, I'd suggest finding a couple of people to do play-by-play/commentary would make it more entertaining as well.

 

Ric

2nd place Hi Score Club finisher season 6 ?

[retrogoober]

I Like the ideas, thanks Ric!  However all playing at once I think might be disorienting, plus not sure logictically possible in recording, as a viewer I'd prefer one at a time, LOVE the commentary idea, I could certainly provide, but open to a co-host if interested?

 

Yes getting all at once would be tough, so maybe fewer participants at a time?  MAYBE 5 at a time, 3 waves, so 15 total, highest winners play each other in a grand finale!

 

I'm also now thinking a game that wont or cant go too long, Space Invaders?  Dragonfire?

[+cvga]

I like the idea, especially with multiple players at one time and a game that is limited in time. Spaceman Splorf would be a great homebrew, Pepsi Invaders would be a great hack and Freeway would be a good choice for released games.

[+KaeruYojimbo]

I haven't used Zoom, so I don't know what's possible technically, but I think seeing 3-4 players competing against each other real time would be more interesting to watch than 1 at a time. They do that for the Tetris World Championships at PRGE, with 2-4 players at a time (depending on the round) projected on a giant screen while the MC does commentary. I'd be up for taking a shot at co-hosting.

 

Game-wise, Freeway might be a little too short. Spaceman Splorf would be a good choice (got my patch in the mail the other day) but I don't think the ROM has been publicly released yet, has it? I'm thinking you'd want something that would last maybe 5 minutes or so per game.

[retrogoober]

I may well try this, thanks for considering co-hosting Kaeru.

 

Games - I REALLY wanna support homebrews, but can think of more original titles that would be great at 5 minutes, Berzerk game 3, Dragonfire game 1

 

Homebrews - Chetiry? Toyshop Trouble? Galactopus?  (GREAT game BTW!  Thank you, and it'd be awesome to have the host as the programmer!)

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

As an additional idea you could have head to head competitions using Javatari which support multiplayer Atari games over the Internet, and you can load your own ROMs into it!

 

A couple of months ago on ZeroPage Homebrew we streamed ourselves playing two player games over the Internet and it worked really well.

 

Video (Jump to 44:12 to see it in action):