Thursday: 16:16
Friday: 27:20
Saturday: 42:26 (1 Google)

Saturday was notable in that I got the 13-letter BINGEWATCHING with only the first G in place, but clearly the rest of the puzzle was not so easy. Super-low word count. Nothing horribly obscure, but unfamiliar, like CANTILEVERS.

Crushed Friday Night Magic 3-0 with a little help from Rekindling Phoenix.

That card is good.


I'm missing blog entries for a few reasons, but the biggest one is getting hooked on Link to the Past Randomizer tournaments on YouTube. I can't stop watching and I've often found myself up past 3 watching them.

Video game races can be exciting at times. One of the most thrilling I've seen was a 4-way Super Metroid race where three players all finished within one minute of each other. One misstep by any could have swung the race. Except pro Super Metroid players don't screw up too often, that's why the race was so close. They ALL got the various sequence breaks, and although one guy unfortunately died, it was more like a game of chess, where one when two players are of equal skill, it's essentially the first blunder that decides the game.

A Link to the Past is many people's favorite Zelda game. While for me, that title still goes to Ocarina of Time, LttP has a lot going for it. The games which came later owe a lot to this game. Primarily, it's that each dungeon has an item which is needed either to beat that dungeon, and/or that dungeon's boss. It doesn't always hold true in the game. Sometimes the dungeon item is the Blue or Red Mail, which is never critical to anything, or the Moon Pearl, which you need to progress later on, but has nothing to do in the dungeon. But in later games, it really holds fast. You NEED to find the bow in the Forest Temple to beat the Forest Temple, etc. If there are any other necessary items, they'll give you a separate quest for that.

Anyway, because of the way the game is somewhat linearly built, a Zelda race wouldn't have much drama. It would be almost entirely proficiency-based, and unless you're doing something like 100% completion, luck would play almost no role (or else it would play too much of a role, like in the Agahnim fights). People are amazing though, and hacked the game. First, it takes all the items (I mean ALL), and randomly distributes them among all the chests and hidden areas. There's logic in place to make sure you get enough keys in the right places to complete dungeons, and you won't find the hammer in a dungeon you need the hammer to enter, for example, but that's the only limitation. You can take the long road to Zora's domain, pay 500 rupees, which would normally get you the (needed for completion) flippers, and get 10 arrows instead, or find the hookshot in the first chest. Heart containers are in normal chests too, and a boss usually gives you something else. Bomb and Arrow capacity upgrades count as items too, so there are some extra chests in some rooms, and all the dialog is cut (it's the Japanese version of the game anyway). So in a race you play the same seed. but there are many different routes to take. Some players go the "normal" route to the dungeon after your uncle. Others wander further afield in hopes of getting a few bombs and raiding all the chests those give you access to in Kakariko. There's always a sense of excitement when you open a chest, so the game stays fresh.

Additionally, Zelda isn't as "solved" as Super Metroid. That game nearly defined the speedrun scene for a decade. The first speedrun I saw of any game was Super Metroid at a site called metroid2k2 (which should give you an idea of how long ago this was, though the site is still around.) It contained a video of a 100% 1:00 in-game time, unprecedented at the time, and even segmented. The 100% world record, single segment, is currently 43 minutes in-game. And all the professionals are really close to that every time they play. Super Metroid has been so thoroughly dominated that for the first time ever, the multi-day Awesome Games Done Quick speedrun marathon for charity didn't even include it. The Zelda tournaments are a little less cutthroat. Some people are better at abusing bomb jumps or dash-hovering (speedrun argot) but routing and gambles are generally more important than execution. People make mistakes, accidentally die, etc. They're obviously very good, but not exactly as machine-like as the Metroid pros.

It also removes most of the random elements. The Agahnim fights are guaranteed to have the same number of returnable shots in both games, the digging mini game takes the same number of digs, you always "win" the chest game on the first try.

What dungeons contain what crystals/pendant is also random, although you can see which is which on your map. If Turtle Rock contains a pendant instead of crystal, it's possible the Ice Rod isn't needed to win. But if some needed item is at the Master Sword pedestal (yes, the swords are in random chests too, but you get them in progression (i.e. you get the level 1 sword first regardless or where you found it)) you need the pendants. Or you need just the green one, so Sahasrahla will give you an item (In the true game, it's the Pegasus Boots. Finding that item before the other guy is fantastic, though not necessarily needed to win the game, depending on the item in the library and a few other locations). Sometimes the races are runaways. One player might take a gamble spending extra time to get all the chests in a dungeon for no gain, while another just goes straight to the boss. Sometimes the guy who goes straight to the boss gets screwed and find himself having to backtrack later. But sometimes they're extremely close. In one race, Player 1 was pretty much ahead the whole time. He found some better items earlier, and was, it seemed, a whole dungeon ahead of Player 2. But Player 2 took a gamble, seeing what was missing, and without even sidetracking to check the pedestal, beat the pendant dungeons and got something crucial from the pedestal. Still, Player 1 had figured out that he needed to do that as well not long after, but he had already cleared Turtle Rock, while Player 2 had that dungeon to do last. Although Player 1 got his last crystal a couple of minutes before Player 2, because Player 2 finished at Turtle Rock, he was ready to go much closer to Ganon's Tower and eventually narrowly won.