MindWanderer

Hmm... I think a lot of people who aren't very good at Mario got this game for Christmas. I just noticed that all my levels (except the music one) took a giant plunge in clear rate, by half or more. One of my easier ones went from 10% to 1%.

Yes, that's correct; the YouTube link points to the right source. Underground Caverns, 1797 is the name of the location and year in which it's heard. Thematically, the cultists' summoning has caused the Burning Town from 1792 to appear merged with the Underground Caverns of 1797.

Sorry, Sir_NutS, looks like you're out of luck. Too bad, I would have been interested in watching a stream, too (though probably just the archive). The Alucard pairings are: Alucard Bracket Gario: Warakiya Village, 1476 vs. PlanarianHugger: Plant Castle, 1591 HoboKa: Burning Town, 1792 vs. Yami: Underground Caverns, 1797 theshaggyfreak: Munitions Factory, 1917 vs. Aleix Ramon: Master's Keep, 1944 It's actually completely a coincidence that they turned out to be in the same chronological order I originally listed them in. That probably won't happen for the other brackets. Remember, the deadline is exactly two weeks from now, January 27 at noon PST. I know that may seem like an odd time, but it's what works with my own schedule. Please don't procrastinate! I won't download the remixes until the deadline, so if you send me a link and then want to improve your mix, just update it in place (and make sure downloading is enabled! I see that mistake a lot on SoundCloud). Please keep the voting guidelines in mind when working on your mix. Work on integrating the two themes smoothly first, then worry about production and other elements.

Touch the triple bars in the top right, then Account, then Account Settings. Touch the drop-down arrow next to Overview. Signature is one of the options. You'll need to upload the banner somewhere, then Insert Other Media -> Insert From URL.

I'm fine with it if someone agrees before the pairings go up. Aleix Ramon and PlanarianHugger need to be in the first bracket, but I haven't heard any such schedule restrictions from anyone else.

Session musicians are fine. DarkeSword's logic makes sense: having access to a musician is like having a sample library.

Sources and brackets are finished and in the first post. Please review to make sure your selection is correct and that the timing works for you. Also please note the area title assigned to your source. You'll be using that when you name your remix submission files. Edit: Missed this earlier, somehow: Yeah, that was before I started frequenting these forums, but I did notice that from reading the archives. That's why I'm doing a point-based losers' bracket, so that if someone is too fatigued to continue, their dropping out won't be a free pass for their opponent--and if they want to jump back in later on, they can. That's also why I'm calling the winner of the winners' bracket a tournament victor even if they lose the final round (thus effectively making that round optional for them), but the winner of the losers' bracket has a shot at earning co-winner. Also, since I'd like to make an OCR-I out of this for Castlevania's 30th anniversary, I want to give people who drop out more chances to create something they like well enough to include.

18 will actually work out great! We'll have three brackets with a couple of special rounds. I'll finalize the selections and start putting the brackets together in about half an hour.

Hah, I make an 11th-hour grab to get a 16th participant, and end up with 17, a lovely prime number. If anyone's having second thoughts, now would be the time to express them. Otherwise we'll be starting off with a qualifier/seeding round.

"Evergreen" is the only ineligible source (it's the CV III end sequence). You'll undoubtedly get your first pick anyway (which is a personal favorite of mine). Final reminder: If anyone has any upcoming schedule conflicts--vacations, exams, etc.--please let me know so I can put you in a bracket that avoids that conflict.

That was in reference to "Treasury Room," which is still up for grabs as a first pick! I'm going to list the original Castlevania III version as the official source for "Beginning", but if you want to make your mixes more directly inspired by the Rondo of Blood version, that's fine. I'm hoping that the optional losers' bracket makes up for that failing. I'm just really hoping for as many good matchups as possible. There may not have been as much turnout for this as for DarkeSword's Mega Man compos, but there are some amazing remixers with some amazing source selections that I really, really want to see happen. Kind of wish I had some reasonable and fair "seeding" method like what they have for sports tournaments. "Den" (your second pick) kind of falls into that category, IMO. It's mostly a medley of Vampire Killer, Bloody Tears, Beginning, and another source I can't recall the name of at the moment. Mixing that with something else while making "Den" specifically a recognizable source would be one hell of a challenge. In other news, since I haven't been able to get the forum calendar fixed, I'm extending the signup deadline 24 hours, just in case someone was counting on the midnight deadline.

Maybe there's a more gentle attack on one of the other instruments that's making it sound slightly off? Otherwise, my ear isn't very well trained, so it might be some auditory illusion that's tricking me. Using cheapo headphones myself.

Sorry, that was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. I could have said the same thing about The Moon and it would have been equally ridiculous, especially as of today.

You already have this. There is no need for further Double Dragon remixes, the pinnacle has been reached.</opinion> Could do a whole album on criminally underlooked soundtracks. I'd submit Tetris Battle Gaiden, myself.

WillRock + DuckTales = instant download. But... is it just me, or is the backing arp just a fraction of a second ahead of the beat? There's something about it that's just a little jarring.

I don't think you'll need those, since everyone's getting their first picks right now, but I've added them anyway. Took me a little while to find YouTube links, since both names are a little off. No one has Beginning as their first choice yet, and it's one of the all-time classics. But really, at this point all you need to do to find awesome sources is to go to the signup roster and choose a few that aren't anyone's first picks. This guy has a not-totally-unreasonable point about Treasury Room.

10 signups so far. I've tabulated the selections so far here. Some of these are slightly modified from what people posted. Selections that were not stage/location themes were removed (but added to my list of special themes). Whenever someone gave me a YouTube link to a remix that appeared in a later game, I used a link to the original. One or two source names were changed to their official name. Fortunately, there are currently no duplicates for first choice, so as it stands, everyone gets their pick. I was very surprised at how few people chose the iconic themes of the core games--the popularity of Aria of Sorrow in particular was something I didn't expect. Awesome, but unexpected. 5 more days until signups close! Still hoping for picks from wildfire, theshaggyfreak, and Gario at least. Hopefully we can drum up a few more so we can have a proper bracket of 16! (Though I'll make it work in any event.)

There are a lot of new remixers putting out some incredible work, and you really should spend some time going through everything. However, it sounds like your tastes run pretty similar to mine, at least in part, so here's a short list of some of the artists whose remixes are still in my list of music I've downloaded but not transferred to my permanent collection: Sir_NutS Tetrimino Geoffrey Taucer DDDRKirby(ISQ) Jorito Metal Man Hylian Lemon Sam Dillard Chimpazilla Showroom Dummy Chris ~ Amaterasu Claire Yaxley Nutritious Phonetic Hero timaeus222 Gario Again, that's really reductionist, and you really shouldn't limit yourself to just a few choices like that. (Oh, but if you like Game Over, make sure to check out The Megas if you haven't yet.) Put on OCR Radio and let it take you to new places.

Only partially. This was a backwards way of arguing that if games are not are, then movies are not art also. However: So, this is a definition of art by merit of prototyping. Things which share the characteristics of things commonly defined as art are art; those with different characteristics are not art. This is a common way of defining things, but it's a poor one. It's the same sort of logic that leads to declaring platypuses as not being mammals, because there's something about them that's different from something that all other mammals (except echidnas) have in common. It works as a heuristic, but the better way to define categories is to determine the essential characteristics of those categories. Defining art as a creative work meant to evoke an emotional reaction is a valid definition, and most games (certainly most modern games) meet that definition. Certainly games meet the dictionary definition of art. While you could certainly define art as "blah blah blah that's not interactive," I'm not sure why you'd do that. Exclusionary definitions like that are how people used to not classify rock and roll as music, etc.

So media which includes participatory elements is not art? Improvisational theater in which the audience suggests elements to be included are not art? The Rocky Horror Picture Show is not art? I'm guessing you'd say that yes, those are art, because the "observer" isn't a core participant in the events, they only get to control certain elements or add minor embellishments. To which I would argue that this is true of video games as well; even in the games which allow the greatest amount of player agency, the story is substantially railroaded. Some events might unfold in a couple of different ways, there might be a couple of different endings, and you might choose to do things in different orders or omit some sidequests, but the bulk of the game remains the same. The player can't even really fail, since dying or meeting other fail conditions just causes you to reload. The only exceptions are games which have essentially no narrative at all--an open world without quests, like, say, Proteus (which most people would call an "art game"). Besides, I can't think of any reason participation has anything to do with the definition of art.

I'm going to take a fairly radical position here: Movies are not art. Bear with me for a moment. Movies are the combination of many discrete forms of art, arranged to make a composite whole. Script-writing, acting, score, art direction, visual effects, editing, sound, stunts, etc. By that same logic, of course games are also not art. They too are a combination of many elements, including graphics, score, writing, etc. (though there's no single artistic element that a game must have), but there are also many technical aspects as well: programming, game balance, etc. Movies also have some technical elements, of course, especially in the digital age, but not as much as games. Now, you could consider the assembly of all the discrete elements to be itself a work of art. This is the director's job; if you consider a movie director to be an artist, there's a claim to be made that "a movie" is itself a work of art. But by that same logic, I don't see why a game wouldn't be. A game's director has to artistically combine many if not all of the same elements that comprise a movie, while meeting the technical constraints of making it a functional and fun gameplay experience.

I think I figure out why I can't set the Calendar field now. It seems my event-creating privileges have been revoked--I can't find a "create event" button anywhere anymore. I can't select either calendar because I can't create events in either calendar.