VAIN (Videogames are Extremely Niche) Announcement

[Mike Bentley]

This is an announcement for VAIN (Videogames are Extremely Niche). This tournament will be a Mike Cheyne-style subject tournament on videogames. In other words, this will be a tournament consisting of a lot of short (length cap is 4 lines) tossups, with answers skewing pretty hard and in subdistributions I'm interested in. This isn't to say there won't be any questions on easy topics or on boring genres (e.g. RPGs), but they'll be more weighted towards my interests than if I was setting out to write a general-purpose subject tournament.

Right now I have around 100 tossups written and tentatively plan on writing 100 more. I expect to be done writing it around the beginning of October. If the entire tournament is done in a shootout style I imagine it could be done in around 2 hours. Alternatively, I'm open to coming up with an online format since the audience for this event may not be extremely large.

There will be no charge to play in this tournament.

[Auks Ran Ova]

boring genres (e.g. RPGs)

This will be a fine complement to the all-RPG tournament, then!

(I am very excited for this)

[Cheynem]

I've never really confirmed this, but I think some of Mike's vanity choices for video games are close to my heart, so I'd be extremely down for this.

EDIT: I'd also like to trademark the "Mike Cheyne subject tournament" format.

[Mike Bentley]

It looks like this is going to be run at Minnesota Open at some point.

[dtaylor4]

It looks like this is going to be run at Minnesota Open at some point.

Assuming I can make it to MO, I'll staff this.

[Sima Guang Hater]

Can this be sent to the Maryland mirror site?

[Mike Bentley]

Can this be sent to the Maryland mirror site?

Fine with me.

Also, the tournament is about 80% written at the moment. The current plan is to have 9 packets of 20 tossups each and then an additional packet of death.

[Unicolored Jay]

In other words, this will be a tournament consisting of a lot of short (length cap is 4 lines) tossups, with answers skewing pretty hard and in subdistributions I'm interested in.

Which is...?

[Auks Ran Ova]

In other words, this will be a tournament consisting of a lot of short (length cap is 4 lines) tossups, with answers skewing pretty hard and in subdistributions I'm interested in.

Which is...?

"not JRPGs"

[Mike Bentley]

I've been writing the set in a bit of an ad-hoc manner at the moment, so I don't know what the final subdistribution will be. Contrary to my exaggerations, there will be questions on JRPGs and other genres I'm not especially fond of on a personal level. On the other hand, there will certainly be questions on particular areas of the videogame canon that I'm known to indulge in. Anyway, if you like videogames there will probably be something for you here.

[Auks Ran Ova]

I've been writing the set in a bit of an ad-hoc manner at the moment, so I don't know what the final subdistribution will be. Contrary to my exaggerations, there will be questions on JRPGs and other genres I'm not especially fond of on a personal level. On the other hand, there will certainly be questions on particular areas of the videogame canon that I'm known to indulge in. Anyway, if you like videogames there will probably be something for you here.

Fantastic!

[Mike Bentley]

I still need to edit some of the questions, but this tournament is now complete (9 rounds + 1 really hard finals for a total of a little over 200 tossups). If anyone wants to run it at a TERP site rather than waiting for Minnesota Open, let me know.

[Mike Bentley]

As a reminder, this set is being used at Minnesota Open, so please don't discuss it publicly until then. Feel free to e-mail me ([email protected]) with any comments or corrections.

[rylltraka]

Mr. Bentley,

I would like a copy of your set for the purposes of possibly running it at our MO mirror 11/21.

[Papa's in the House]

This was run as a shootout. Gautam, Jerry, Ryan, and Lafer all left before this finished.

Rob - 31/10/11 = 510
Craig - 21/10/23 = 300
Trevor - 13/3/11 = 170
Donald - 3/2/4 = 45
Joe - 5/1/3 = 70
Sorice - 9/8/20 = 105
Cheyne - 4/5/3 = 95
Lafer - 10/4/8 = 150
Ike - 9/1/2 = 135
Charles - 3/1/2 = 45
Gautam - 1/0/0 = 15
Jerry - 0/0/1 = -5
Ryan - 0/0/0 = 0 (I don't know if he was actually playing)

[Black-throated Antshrike]

Wow this is awesome!!!! I was wondering if I could possibly have a copy of it cuz i think alot of kids on my team would enjoy playing this at practice?

[minusfive]

It's being played as part of UToronto's TIT Mirror on January 22, so please keep the blackout on public commentary until at least that date. Thanks!

[... and the chaos of Mexican modernity]

Is this set being mirrored anywhere else?

[Mike Bentley]

No, there are no more mirrors. I'll post the set later tonight. If you want to discuss the questions in this thread, go ahead.