The Final Week!

Finally, IT BEGINS! And it ends 11:59 PM Tuesday, March 4th!

Jeff's Challenge: Go Go Go!
Competitors will dramatically fail to play competent matches of the ancient game of Go on the KGS Go server in the following double-elimination tournament bracket:

Games will be played on a 13x13 board with the default time settings and and komi set to 5.5. In addition, color will be chosen at random. It's a tricky game, but just remember: when the Going gets tough, the tough get man this totally wasn't worth typing.

Alise's Challenge: Some Kind of Hedgehog Pun

Did you think week 3's retro ironman challenge was fun, but that the only problem was that the game was too good? Well, has Alise got something special for you! Competitors will speed through Sonic 2 via the magic of emulation until they are slain by some kind of horrible monkey robot that for some reason is encasing a small furry animal that isn't even a monkey in the first place. Hey, what the hell is this game about?

Week 4 Coverage

Wiki Wars playlist
Left 4 Dead Bloodbath, Team 1 (SB's perspective)
Left 4 Dead Bloodbath, Team 2 (Pi's perspective)

Week 4 Concludes

Delicious, delicious brainpower week has come to a close. The final competition looms in the shadows ahead, and the Brolympics Secret Final Event Committee is tasked with bringing it into the light. Are they ready? I sure hope so, because I can't keep vamping like this.

Week 4 Scores
The preliminary scores for week 4's events are as follows:

Left 4 Dead 2
Team 1
Aaron - 9 (5 points + 4 incapacitation bonus)
Jeff - 7 (5 points + 2 incapacitation bonus)
SB - 8 (5 points + 3 incapacitation bonus)

Team 2
Alise - 2 (1 point + 1 incapacitation bonus)
Andrew - 4 (1 point + 3 incapacitation bonus)
Pi - 5 (1 point + 4 incapacitation bonus)
Shane - 5 (1 point + 4 incapacitation bonus)


Wiki Wars
1st - SB (7 points)
2nd - Pi (6 points)
3rd - Shane (5 points)
4th - Aaron (4 points)
4th - Andrew (4 points)
6th - Alise (2 points + 1 extraordinary sportsmanship bonus)
6th - Jeff (2 points)


Week 5 And All The Looming
The Brolympics Secret Final Event Committee has been selected. Alise and Jeff will each be submitting an event for the final week by 11:59 PM Thursday, January 30th, at which point week 5 will commence. Prepare yourselves!

Week 4!

The third period of time that we're going to call a week has finally ended, and the big finish is in sight. At the bottom of this post you'll find coverage of the week 3 games along with the big reveal of week 5's MYSTERY FORMAT, but first of course you'll want to know about the challenges that lay before you this week (which ends at 11:59 PM Thursday, January 23rd):

Wiki Wars
A test of intellect, reading speed, and search fu, Wiki Wars challenges you to find your way from one given (which is to say randomly chosen) Wikipedia page to another solely by clicking links in the body of Wikipedia articles. The randomly matched double elimination bracket follows:

For clarity: Because the tournament is double elimination, the winner of the loser's bracket must defeat the winner of the winner's bracket twice to claim first place.


Left 4 Dead 2 Bloodbath
Last week featured only half a dozen deaths but we'll make up for it with this event, which promises to feature half a dozen deaths per minute. Players have been divided into teams to compete in a Left 4 Dead 2 versus match played on the Hard Rain campaign. Just as in the last team event, the winning team will score 5 points while the losing team scores 1; in addition, one bonus point will be awarded for each member of the opposing team that you are able to incapacitate while playing as the infected.

Team 1
SB
Aaron
Jeff
Some kind of fantastic metal man (Yes, the bot counts as a member of the team for the incapacitation bonus)

Team 2
Andrew
Pi
Shane
Alise


Week 3 Coverage
Stone Age Pod 1 (Andrew, SB, Pi, Aaron)
BONUS: Stone Age Pod 1 Practice Game: Aaron learns to play the game
Stone Age Pod 2 (Jeff, Shane, Alise)
Playlist of the SMB3 runs
SMB3 Combined Coverage Video
BONUS: How SB Did Not Get His Groove Back

Week 3 Results
Super Mario Bros Super Ironman Show:
1st - Pi (Floated gently into lava in World 4's second fortress; 7 points)
2nd - SB (Fell to an embarrassing death on 3-6; 6 points)
3rd - Jeff (Slain in World 2's pyramid by the most lethal of all weapons: a boomerang; 5 points)
4th - Aaron (Out-karated by a Koopa Troopa in World 2's desert; 4 points)
5th - Shane (Tricked by a mushroom and impaled in World 2's fortress; 3 points)
6th - Alise (Immolated on 2-1; 2 points)
7th - Andrew (Caught a broadside on World 1's airship; 1 point)

Stone Age Results
Pod 1
1st - Andrew (4 points + 4 diet diversity)
2nd - SB (3 points + 4 diet diversity)
3rd - Pi (2 points + 4 diet diversity)
4th - Aaron (1 point + 4 diet diversity)

Pod 2
1st - Jeff (4 points + 4 diet diversity)
2nd - Shane (3 points + 4 diet diversity)
3rd - Alise (2 points + 4 diet diversity)


The Scoreboard
The total column on the scoreboard now displays your score with your two lowest-scoring events dropped, making it a clearer indicator of your actual position in the pack.


And now, the moment you've all been waiting for....
Week 5's MYSTERY FORMAT Revealed!
The two lowest-scoring competitors at the end of week 4 will become the Brolympics Secret Final Event Committee, each designing one event for the final week of competition. The following restrictions apply:

Availability
The competitor selecting the game is responsible for ensuring that everyone else is able to play it. If the game is not free, you must make sure that everyone else already has it or that you can provide it to them to play somehow.

Fairness
The scoring criteria for your event must be entirely objective.

Recordability
The Brolympics is meant to be fun for spectators too, so your event should be something that we can post a video of after the fact.

There will be a short delay between the end of week 4 and the beginning of week 5 to allow the Committee to finalize the details of their events and get them to me. Week 4 has up to 16 points on the line for each competitor, so even if you think you're doing well it might be wise to start thinking about what you'd submit if you get selected for the Committee!

Week 3!

The second week of our tournament featured 1000% more head-crushing and dream-crushing than the first, which is a trend we can only hope will continue. Check out the bottom of this post for all the gory evidence! But first, the third week ends at 11:59 PM on Sunday, December 22nd January 12th and features these challenges:

Stone Age: Better Huts and Gardens

Competitors have been divided into pods to attempt to reinvent the wheel on Brettspielwelt. Make an account and then hook up with your pod for some prehistoric pandemonium! Scoring for this event will be based on your placing within your pod's game; first place in each pod will be worth 4 points, second in each pod 3, and so on. In addition, one bonus point will be awarded for each non-food resource type your villagers eat during the game. 

Pod 1

SB

Pi

Aaron

Andrew

Pod 2

Jeff

Shane

Alise

Super Mario Bros Super Ironman Show

Progress as far as possible into the legendary Super Mario Bros 3 without dying. And no warping! At your first death, your run is over. Then of course submit your beautiful bean footage to me and I will cut it together with everyone else's in such a way that everyone involved looks as dumb as possible.

Week 2 Coverage

Alien Swarm Pod 1

Alien Swarm Pod 2

Chivalry Pod 1

Chivalry Pod 2

Chivalry Final Rounds

Week 2 Results

Alien Swarm:

Pod 2 (Pi, Andrew, Aaron): 39:55.30 = 5 points

Pod 1 (SB, Alise, Jeff, Shane): 43:39.17 = 1 point

Chivalry:

1st - Aaron (6 points + 3 diversity bonus) = 9 points

2nd - Andrew (5 points + 3 diversity bonus) = 8 points

3rd - Shane (4 points + 3 diversity bonus) = 7 points

4th - SB (3 points + 3 diversity bonus) = 6 points

5th - Alise (2 points + 3 diversity bonus) = 5 points

6th - Pi (1 point + 2.5 diversity bonus) = 3.5 points

Week 2!

The first week of competition has drawn to a close, and judging from the amount of blood on the track it must have been a success! Check the bottom of this post for all of the week 1 coverage that you can possibly stand. Looking forward, week 2 ends at 11:59 PM Thursday, December 12 and the schedule is as follows:

Alien Swarm Bug Hunt

In teams, competitors will race through the campaign of Alien Swarm (Difficulty: Easy, Friendly Fire: Normal, Onslaught: Disabled). Smash bugs, save lives, display your cooperative spirit, and unravel the mystery of whatever the hell it is that this game is about. Pick a person on your team to record your adventure so that the future space marines who find your emptied-out corpses will have something spooky to listen to! The team rosters (selected by an arcane but ultimately fair method):

Team 1
SB
Jeff
Alise
Shane

Team 2
Pi
Andrew
Aaron
An AI character of their choosing

Chivalry Duel Competition

Armor up and get ready to smash some skulls! Competitors will engage in acts of medieval brutality in a series of best-of-three Chivalry duels. A half-point diversity bonus will be awarded for each different weapon group used as the primary slaying tool in a fight, and a maximum of one bonus point will be awarded per round. Note that the diversity bonus requires the use of weapons from different groups and you will not score a diversity bonus for using multiple weapons from the same group! As always, one of the duelists should record the fight and send it to me.

The fighters have been randomly separated into two pods. Each fighter will battle the others in their pod to determine their placing within the pod. (In the event that the pod round robin fails to yield a result via the dreaded spiral, pod placement will be determined by a single free-for-all fight between all three competitors, with the winner taking first in the pod and the other two places being determined by the previous match between the second and third place competitors.) Once pod placements have been determined, each fighter will duke it out with their counterpart from the other pod for final placement; the two first placers will fight over 1st and 2nd, the two second placers will fight for 3rd and 4th, and the last two will fight over 5th and 6th. The pods are as follows:

Pod 1
Aaron
Alise
Shane

Pod 2
Andrew
Pi
SB

Week 1 Coverage
Super Meat Boy Combined Coverage Video
The 5 Stages of Shane Playing Super Meat Boy
Playlist of everybody's scoring Super Meat Boy run
Spelunky Pod 1 Race (Pi, Shane, SB)
Spelunky Pod 2 Race (Alise and Jeff)

Week 1 Results

Super Meat Boy:

Pi - 07:38.67 (6 points) + 1 bandage (0.5 points) = 6.5 points

Andrew - 10:34.63 (5 points) + 0 bandages (0 points) = 5 points

SB - 11:41.38 (4 points) + 6 bandages (3 points) = 7 points

Aaron - 12:56.23 (3 points) + 0 bandages (0 points) = 3 points

Shane - 14:57.07 (2 points) + 0 bandages (0 points) = 2 points

Jeff - 46:14.08 (1 point) + 4 bandages (2 points) = 3 points

Spelunky:

SB - 03:50.47 = 5 points
Jeff - 04:39.07 = 4 points

Shane - 07:15.60 = 3 points

Pi - 15:16.47 = 2 points
Alise - 16:38.67 = 1 point

Week 1 Begins!

Welcome to the first week of the Brolympic Games! This week's events are as follows:

Super Meat Boy Individual Competition
To compete in this event, record yourself completing all levels in light worlds 1 and 2 of Super Meat Boy. Commentate your run if you can! Scoring will be based on completion time relative to the other racers, with a bonus half-point awarded for each bandage grabbed.
(If you'd like to wipe your save so as to be able to get bandages that you might have already grabbed, it's stored in %STEAM_DIRECTORY%/steamapps/common/super meat boy/UserData/savegame.dat and savegame.dat.bak. You can just move it somewhere else while doing your run and then restore it afterward if you don't want to lose your progress. You might also have to disable Steam cloud saves for SMB.)

Spelunky: Race to the Jungle
Racers will gather in pods to race to the bottom of the fourth level in the original Spelunky. Each racer must submit a video and, ideally, one racer from each pod should submit a recording of the race's audio so we can all enjoy the trash talk and wails of anguish. Scoring will be based on completion time relative to all other racers (not just those in your pod).

If you need recording software, I highly recommend OBS: http://obsproject.com/

This week's tentative end time is 11:59 PM on Monday, December 2nd. If you need some more time because of a busy schedule around Thanksgiving, talk to me and we can figure something out!

The Format

Welcome to the Brolympic Games! The august Brolympic Committee has released the competition's tentative inaugural schedule, and it promises to test each competitor's every faculty (except for those related to, like, physically moving around). Ten events will challenge our brave "athletes", with each competitor's top eight scores contributing to their final rank (which means that you can just skip up to two events at no penalty if you so choose). And of course, throughout the event the Brolympic Coverage Team will ensure that no triumph goes uncelebrated and also that every embarrassing mistake will be enshrined forever on the Internet. Let's take a look at the schedule:

Week 1 (Indie Week): 

- Super Meat Boy Individual Competition (Worlds 1 and 2)
Each competitor will submit a single-segment video of them running the first two light worlds of Super Meat Boy. Scoring will be based on completion time, with a half-point bonus for each bandage collected.

- Spelunky Race (Complete the Caves)

Competitors will be gathered in pods to race to the bottom of Spelunky's second region while misleading and taunting each other in realtime! Scoring will be based on completion time.

Week 2 (Combat Week):
- Alien Swarm Co-op
The competitors will be divided into teams based on week 1 scores and sent into the inky void to reclaim a space station from the clutches of the terrifying Zerg generic non-copyrighted space bugs in the game's original campaign. Scoring will be based on completion time and all members of a team will receive the same score.

- Chivalry Duel Competition
Competitors will fight a series of thrilling hand-to-hand duels in the most advanced yelling simulator ever released as they slaughter their way through this single combat tournament. Scoring will be based on placement, with bonus points for diversity in weapon use.

Week 3 (Prehistory Week):
- Stone Age
Competitors will be divided into groups based on current overall scores to get in touch with their distant, distant roots in a round of Stone Age on BrettspielWelt. Scoring will be based on placement within your game group.
- Super Mario Bros 3 Individual Ironman
Each competitor will submit a single-segment video of them getting as far as possible in a warpless run of Super Mario Bros 3 without dying. Scoring will be based on progress.

Week 4 (BRAAAAINS Week):
- Wiki Wars
Competitors will participate in a brain-tingling (?) contest of wits in which they must navigate from one given Wikipedia page to another only by clicking links within the body of Wikipedia articles. Scoring will be based on placement in a tournament bracket.
- Left 4 Dead 2 Bloodbath
Competitors will be divided into groups based on current overall scores to battle each other in a savage Versus Mode bloodbath. Scoring will be based on Versus Mode rounds won.

Week 5 (SECRET Week):
- It's a secret!
Two secret events selected by the Brolympic Secret Committee will be inflicted on competitors in our final play period. They're so secret that not even I know what they are!



The committee (which is to say me) will be accepting competitor applications and comments and suggestions about the tournament format until Saturday morning, at which point week 1 will begin, barring any unforeseen issues. Hit me up on Skype or Steam!