Robots vs. Knights

[DarkeSword]

Introduction

Past and future collide as two factions clash in the greatest musical battle the world has ever seen. Armored heroes meet metal warriors on the battlefield of wailing guitars, dirty drops, and soaring strings. Get ready, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for Robots vs. Knights!

Current News

MUSIC FOR THE FINAL BATTLE IS UP! Round 9: One vs. One Final Battle

Team Robot						Team Knight
Squad	Artist	Source	vs	Source	Artist	Squad
Rush Squad	Gario	Ballade	vs	Wandering Travelers	JohnStacy	Armor Squad
Rush Squad	Starpheonix	Enker	vs	Shield Knight	GCJ	Armor Squad
Rush Squad	Thirdkoopa	Mercury	vs	Shovel Knight	Jorito	Relic Squad
Tango Squad	Chiwalker	Uranus	vs	Polar Knight	theshaggyfreak	Shovel Squad
Tango Squad	Yami	Pluto	vs	Plague Knight	akalink	Armor Squad
Tango Squad	Ronald Poe	Mars	vs	Propeller Knight	Anorax	Shovel Squad
Beat Squad	Trism	Saturn	vs	Spectre Knight	PlanarianHugger	Shovel Squad
Beat Squad	Xenonetix	Punk	vs	King Knight	Dewey Newt	Relic Squad
Beat Squad	MegaDrive	Venus	vs	Mole Knight	Arrow	Relic Squad

Remixes are due Sunday, June 18th at 9 PM EDT.

All competitors will compose and produce remixes that combine both sources into one, cohesive piece of music. Collaboration with teammates is allowed, but the primary artists should be the competitors listed in the table above. All competitors are encouraged (but not required) to share WIPs with teammates in order to get constructive feedback. Good luck and happy mixing.

A lot of team discussion is happening on the OC ReMix Discord, be sure to make yourselves available.

As always, all participants (competitors and voters) are expected to adhere to the Competitions Code of Conduct.

Scoreboard

Battle	Team Knight	Team Robot
Ballade vs Shovel Knight	2	0
Uranus vs Propeller Knight	0	2
Saturn vs Plague Knight	2	0
Enker vs Polar Knight	0	2
Pluto vs King Knight	0	2
Punk vs Shield Knight	2	0
Mercury vs Spectre Knight	0	2
Mars vs Mole Knight	0	0
Venus vs Wandering Travelers	0	2
Boss Battle vs Tinker Knight	0	9
Total	6	19

Teams

Team Knight

Artist	Source	Squad
Anorax	Propeller Knight	Shovel Squad
theshaggyfreak	Polar Knight	Shovel Squad
PlanarianHugger	Spectre Knight	Shovel Squad
akalink	Plague Knight	Armor Squad
GCJ	Shield Knight	Armor Squad
JohnStacy	Wandering Travelers	Armor Squad
Jorito	Shovel Knight	Relic Squad
Dewey Newt	King Knight	Relic Squad
Arrow	Mole Knight	Relic Squad

Team Robot

Artist	Source	Squad
Gario	Ballade	Rush Squad
Starpheonix	Enker	Rush Squad
Thirdkoopa	Mercury	Rush Squad
Chiwalker	Uranus	Tango Squad
Yami	Pluto	Tango Squad
Ronald Poe	Mars	Tango Squad
Trism	Saturn	Beat Squad
Xenonetix	Punk	Beat Squad
MegaDrive	Venus	Beat Squad

Releases

• Round 1: Squad vs. Squad Block 1
• Round 2: Squad vs. Squad Block 1
• Round 3: Squad vs. Squad Block 1
• Round 4: Boss Battle 1
• Rounds 5-8: Block 2
• Round 9: One vs. One Final Battle

About

Robots vs. Knights (RvK) is a Team vs. Team competition. It’s a new format that I’ve been developing for a couple of months now, combining elements of the head-to-head battles of the Remix Battle tournaments (GRMRB, etc.) with the teamwork aspect of Gauntlet tournaments (WCRG, etc.). Here’s the full breakdown of how it’s going to work.

• Sign-ups
  • 18 people sign up.
  • I’ll divide everyone into 2 teams of 9. I’ll be assigning people to their respective teams in order to ensure a balanced competition.
  • Each team will be given a pool of sources to select from. Team members will decide how to assign sources themselves. I won’t be running a draft.
    • Team Robots will be given a selection of sources from the Mega Man Game Boy games.
    • Team Knights will be given a selection of sources from Shovel Knight.
  • Each team will form 3 squads of 3 members each. The squad will be your group that you’ll rotate with throughout the competition, similar to the teams from gauntlet competitions.
• Squad-vs-Squad Battle 1
  • The first 3 rounds are squad-vs-squad battles.
  • Each squad will decide their remixing order for the first three rounds and provide that to me.
  • Each round, I’ll post 3 match-ups between squads on opposing teams.
  • Each squad’s artist will submit a remix that uses their selected source and the opposing squad’s selected source.
  • At the end of each round, artists send their remixes to me, I’ll put the tracks up, and people will vote.
  • Each victory will earn points for the team.
• Boss Battle 1
  • The 4th round is a boss battle.
  • I’ll post a boss theme source.
  • All 6 squads will submit a remix that combines the boss theme with one of the squad’s sources.
  • Any member of the squad can be the primary artist. The primary artist is not required to use their own personal source; they can use any of their squad’s 3 sources.
  • At the end of the round, voters will select their 3 favorite remixes, unranked.
    • The team that has the most selections at the end of the voting period will choose between two rewards: a chunk of points, or the right to counterpick in the next block of squad-vs-squad battles.
• Break 1
  • While votes are being collected for Boss Battle 1, we will take a week-long break, using the time to review remixes from past rounds.
• Squad-vs-Squad Battle 2
  • The next 3 rounds are squad-vs-squad battles.
  • If a team has the right to counterpick, they’ll be provided the opposing team’s remixing orders first before determining their remixing orders. I will still determine the actual match-ups based on the updated remixing orders.
  • The 3 rounds of squad-vs-squad battles are conducted as before.
• Boss Battle 2
  • The 8th round is another boss battle, conducted in the same way as the previous boss battle round.
• Break 2
  • While votes are being collected for Boss Battle 2, we will take a week-long break, using the time to review remixes from past rounds.
• One-vs-One Battle
  • The 9th and final round is comprised of 9 one-on-one battles.
  • If a team has earned the right to counterpick from the previous round, they’ll be allowed to determine the 9 match-ups; rematches of previous battles from the squad-vs-squad blocks are not allowed.
  • If no team has counterpick, I’ll determine the match-ups.
  • Each artist will be responsible for writing a remix that uses their selected source and their opponent’s source.
  • At the end of the round, remixes will be submitted and voted on.
  • The team with the most victories will earn a large chunk of points.
• The team with the most points at the end of the competition wins.

Submissions and File Name Rules

Submission
All entries must be sent to me (DarkeSword) via PM on the forums. Please include your team name, squad name, and the round number in the subject line of your PM. I encode all MP3s myself, so please send me your submissions in 16bit, 44.1KHz WAV format. Don’t send MP3s.

Please do not use MediaFire, RapidShare, or any other ad-ridden public sharing site as a host for your entry. There are many better options you can and should be using to host your music. I recommend Dropbox or SoundCloud. Make sure your files are downloadable.

File Names
If you worked on the remix without the help of your teammates:

Team Robots - DarkeSword - Be Cool, Man (Ice Man vs. Polar Knight).wav

If one team member helps you with your entry in a significant way and you want to give them credit, add their name as follows:

Team Robots - DarkeSword feat. Neblix - Be Cool, Man (Ice Man vs. Polar Knight).wav

If more than one team members help you with your entry in a significant way and you want to give them credit, add their names as follows:

Team Robots - DarkeSword feat. Neblix, Liontamer - Be Cool, Man (Ice Man vs. Polar Knight).wav

Notes

• Make sure you’re using proper capitalization for team names and character names.
• Put spaces on both sides of the hyphens between Team Name, Artist, and Title.
• If your remix’s title has special punctuation that you can’t include in the file name (e.g. \ / : \* ? " < > |), please let me know in your submission PM so I can include the correct title in the tags.

Please follow the file name format exactly; I use the file names to make sure that all the metadata is correct when I tag the MP3s. It’s a massive pain sitting there renaming, re-spacing, and reformatting so that everything works properly with mp3tag’s file-name-to-tag tools, and ultimately it means that when you all do it right, I can get the music up for voting way faster.

Voting Rules and Guidelines

Voting is conducted publicly in the Public Voting forum. Every week, a thread will be created for the most recently completed round of remixing. Because RvK has two different types of rounds (squad-vs-squad and boss battle), please make sure you read and follow the instructions in the voting thread.

Things to keep in mind when voting:

• The most important thing to consider when voting is how well the remix incorporates and arranges both themes. Production and enjoyability should also be considered, but this is primarily an arrangement competition.
• Everyone is allowed (and encouraged) to vote, including competitors.
• Everyone must adhere to the Competitions Code of Conduct.

FAQ

This is pretty interesting, but why are you doing this instead of just another Tournament or Gauntlet?
The philosophy behind RvK is to create an environment where more artists will be working together to help and learn from each other. I want to tap into the spirit of teamwork and collaboration in a bigger way this tournament. Rather than just having two friends working on tracks with you week to week, you’ll have eight other teammates that you can use as resources.

What do you mean by resources?
In the past, I’ve tried to limit the amount of collaboration allowed in competitions because I wanted to make sure that people were putting forth a concerted effort to grow as artists on their own. While we’ll still be adhering to the idea of a Primary Artist for each remix in RvK, some of the limitations will be relaxed. Artists will be able to get help from all 8 of their teammates. This includes production help, session instruments, and arrangement feedback. The Primary Artist will still be responsible for the bulk of the work that goes into a remix, but they’ll have a lot more help in getting that remix polished up.

How many remixes do I have to write?
You will be responsible for at least 3 remixes: 2 remixes from the squad-vs-squad battles, and 1 remix in the final battle. You may also be responsible for any of the boss battle remixes, but that will be up to your team.

Why can’t we choose our own teams?
I’m going to determine the teams based on skill level in order to ensure fairness across the board. I want both teams to have a healthy balance between novices and veterans.

Do we get to pick team names or squad names?
No. The two teams will be known as Team Robots and Team Knights. I will also be setting the squad names which will be revealed once we get the competition started.

I really want to be on Team Robots/Team Knights! Can you put me on that team?
I’ll consider your preference but I can’t guarantee anything.

Notes

Stardroid sprites used in Team Robot sigs were colorized by onyx801.

[Sir_NutS]

TBD

[Sixto]

okay i am do

[Jorito]

Me three.

[Gario]

I will do this. But so much responsibilityyyyy...

I will still do this, though.

[SuperiorX]

So so so tempting. I need to try out my new computer. I don't know any Shovel Knight. But Mega Man

Put me down as a tentative

[Nabeel Ansari]

You know I'd be all over this if I had time.

[DarkeSword]

Alright guys, first post updated with a rundown of the format.

[Yosh1PrisMa]

this will be very succulent  v (that my face of excited)

  

Edited August 4, 2016 by Yosh1PrisMa
Change Photo

[Eino Keskitalo]

Haha, this sounds really cool. More Shovel Knight is always welcome. I'm also impressed and appreciative of trying out some new things with the format.

[Troyificus]

I'm in!

[Xenonetix]

Sounds epic - I'm improving with FL Studio, and I really thought Shovel Knight's soundtrack needed some cool remixes! Mega Man music is epic too, although I feel a lot more remixes are around of it.

I'd love to participate if you'll have me.

[MindWanderer]

I don't have time to participate these days, but I'm excited to get some Game Boy Mega Man mixes out there.  Criminally neglected.

[DarkeSword]

Hey everyone, glad to see people are excited about the compo, even if they won't be able to participate. I've updated the first post with more details about the competition. The format remains unchanged, but I've added a FAQ section that details some of the philosophy behind the format and the approach to collaboration this year.
 

[Anorax]

I'm excited

[DarkeSword]

Hey guys; posted a callout for help with visual identity and branding for RvK over on my tumblr. Quoting here:

Quote

 

Hey friends!

So as many of you know, I run these really big tournament-style remix competitions over at OC ReMix. Last year’s competition was the Sigma Fortress Remix Gauntlet, which featured music from Mega Man X.

This year I’m trying out a brand new format that I’ve been developing for the past few months. It’s a Team vs. Team competiton called Robots vs. Knights that will feature music from Mega Man and Shovel Knight. You can view the details of the competition at OCR.

Here’s the thing. With SFRG, I developed this really nice visual identity that carried across the competitions. I created the banner, album art, user icons, and competitor sigs with a consistent look (colors, typography, etc.). The competition had a really nice professional feel to it as a result.

I’d like to do this again with Robots vs. Knights, but I’m afraid I might be out of my depth here. I’m looking to give the competition a really strong visual identity, and I need an artist or artists to help me out.

Let me be upfront about this right now: this is not going to be paid work, as there’s no revenue involved. Anyway, here’s what I’m looking for:

• 12-bit aesthetic; a pixel-art look with a color palette halfway between 8-bit and 16-bit.
• A logo that plays on the idea of Robots (technological) vs. Knights (medieval).
• Head-to-head graphics, i.e. something you’d see in a fighting game with the two characters staring each other down. I would need 18 characters drawn so that I could use them in Photoshop to create the match-up graphics and sigs for the competitors.

I’m looking to start the competition up in mid-September; I realize that’s very soon, especially for non-paying work. But if anyone has ever been interested in getting involved with OC ReMix as a visual artist, this is a great way to do so. Send me an ask with some samples of your work if you’re interested.

Thanks!

 

As many of you know, I have pretty high standards for artwork on my projects (albums and competitions). I'm looking for someone with a very strong sense of good design. This is more than just a "draw some pictures" gig.

[theshaggyfreak]

Sure, I haven't done one in a while. Sign me up if there's room.

[Xarnax42]

I'm sure the Game Boy MM tracks are great, but they don't have the massive familiarity and nostalgia that the NES ones do for me.  I do love me some Shovel Knight, though. In any case, I've taken a spot and been unable to produce more times than I'd like.  If the roster fills up, I don't want to take someone's spot. But if this somehow comes up short on mixers, I'll make myself available.

Either way, very much looking forward to the results!

[WillRock]

I'm being stupid. Sign me up. 

My personal preference team wise is the shovel knight team, simply because i've done so much bloody mega man - aware and accept it is your decision tho

[DarkeSword]

Keep in mind, because of the way this competition is set up, nearly all of the remixes you write with include a Mega Man source and a Shovel Knight source. Being on the Robots team won't mean you'll only be remixing Mega Man tunes, and the same goes for the Knights team with Shovel Knight tunes.

[Jorito]

So ultimately it doesn't really matter on which team you're on, as you get a bunch of sources to choose from in either team, right?

Anyway, I'm game but I also have a 2 week holiday planned in between, so I'll have to work out with whatever team I end up in how to deal with that.

[DarkeSword]

1 minute ago, Jorito said:

So ultimately it doesn't really matter on which team you're on, as you get a bunch of sources to choose from in either team, right?

Anyway, I'm game but I also have a 2 week holiday planned in between, so I'll have to work out with whatever team I end up in how to deal with that.

Yeah, pretty much. Depending on how you work it out with your team you'll be on the hook for anywhere from 3-5 remixes:

• 2 squad-vs-squad remixes will be MM vs. SK
• 1 final one-on-one remix will be MM vs. SK
• 1 boss battle mix will be your source vs. a Mega Man based boss theme
• 1 boss battle mix will be your source vs. a Shovel Knight based boss theme

The blue items are the ones you're definitely responsible for. The purple items will be handled by one person per squad.

[fxsnowy]

Ohh this sounds like fun, sign me up! I prefer team robots 

[Xarnax42]

The teams do matter a bit, of course, if you have one source that you'd like to try multiple approaches with.  If you're Team Robots, for example, you'll get your one Mega Man source three times, and three Shovel Knight sources one time each.

[SuperiorX]

On second thought, I will have to pass. I LOVE the idea but I realized I just won't have enough free time September & October to participate to the fullest extent. Plus I'm not familiar with the GB MM games and was hoping for the NES classic series. Regardless, I'll definitely check out the mixes and vote. Good luck everyone!