Have you ever had an idea that just won’t go away? You push it aside, throw it off a cliff, and keep telling yourself that you lack the tech and talent to put it together properly BUT IT JUST WON’T DIE.
Troy Goodfellow and I have talked about doing some sort of project together for, quite literally, years. This project almost happened ages ago, but then he left the press side of the field and hopped the fence over into gaming PR. Now the moons have magically aligned, we came up with a reformatted version of the project we’re both excited about, and are finally ready to go!
Welcome to Supervision Required!
An exercise in constant, hilarious failure (or)
The only gaming show featuring live severe beatings
The premise is quite simple: we take turns introducing the other to a game we are passionate about AND THEN CRUSH THEM AT IT.
*cough*
The real pitch is that we’ll play games against, with, or parallel to each other, using games that are out of one our comfort zones. I’ll be challenging Troy to genres that I love like platformers, racing, maybe the odd JRPG, and he’ll try to convince me that his strategy-type games aren’t just about watching animated flags cross a map. We might get bold one day and I’ll teach him how to play hockey, while he can respond by teaching me how to cook more than cereal, but we’re going to start by keeping it simple. In fact, we’re starting with Super Mario World (SNES). A classic.
I’ve got a dozen reasons why SMW is the perfect game to start — which I’ll get into more next week — but since Troy hasn’t really played any Mario games since the first one, it’s a nice bridge between old school NES difficulty and the present day Mario (2D or 3D) world maps and powers. Super Mario World also presents a ton of cool secrets and routes, allowing me to design a neat challenge and introduce everyone to what makes Supervision Required different from a typical “Let’s Play” runthrough. My goal for episode one is to beat Troy to defeating Bowser AND getting all 96 exits, which is a 100% completion challenge. All Troy has to do to win is defeat Bowser.
Ok, I know what you’re thinking. Yes, if Troy gets smart and figures out a certain route, I’m going to lose in under 30 minutes. But this is not a straightforward race, either.
Deck of Destiny? Cards of Anger?
Troy and I have come up with a deck of cards to be played at different points during the game. We’ve got Challenge Cards, Rescue Cards, and Chat Cards.
Example Challenge Cards for Episode 1:
- Get All The Dragon/Yoshi Coins
- NO CAPE
- Go Find A Moon
- Kill Lakitu
- Get a Blue Yoshi
- Do The Dolphin Level The Hard Way
- Finish a level with only 2 seconds remaining
Example Rescue Cards:
- Show Me A SECRET
- Show Me A TOP SECRET
- Show Me A Ghost House Exit
- Teach Troy to Fly
- Jenn Beats Next Castle
Example Chat Cards:
- Jenn takes a dive (immediately head for the next cliff)
- Troy takes a dive
- DO IT AGAIN (replay last level)
- Tell a Mario Story (just random storytime about anything Mario related)
If things go really well/poorly, I’ve also got Challenge Card: Beat Bowser going through every door and Rescue Card: Open the Back Door. As we get closer to broadcast time, we’ll spell out the rules on when and how the cards are put into play.
But that’s not all. . .
Swear Jar! Death counter!
Just how many times will Jenn heartlessly abandon Yoshi to die, all alone, either on a platform or off a cliff??!? (spoiler: a lot)
The Swear Jar will also be interesting. Troy and I are still working out exactly how much different things should cost us so that it’s still a meaningful thing, but doesn’t land us in the poor house. In my original notes I had the following:
actual swear = toonie
creative swears = loonie
alliterative creative or actual swears = 50c
bad puns = 25c
super bad puns = $5
Troy was far more reasonably thinking a quarter per, and person who swears most in a stream chips in another buck or five. You guys can count and call us out on it if we miss any, too ;)
Saturday, October 6th, 2012
Canadian Thanksgiving Weekend Saturday, woo. Mark the date! For this first outing, we’re going to race through Super Mario World at my place and stream the whole thing on twitch.tv. You will not need a twitch.tv or justin.tv account in order to watch the stream, but you will have to sign up if you’d like to chat with us live. We’ll properly announce the start time next week, and you’ll be able to watch the whole thing after the fact, too.
I’m very excited to get this thing off the ground at last and, no, this does NOT replace OpenAlpha. I’ll talk about the setup I’ve arranged for SupReq in the future since it’s also going to make OA production so much easier.
Please drop in the comments any questions, thoughts or suggestions you may have. I’m totally open to more ideas for the Deck!! ^_^
{ 6 comments }
A card that forces the other person to complete the level in smallest form :)
This looks like fun, or possibly like brutal horror. Either way, I’d watch it. Can’t wait for Canadian Thanksgiving weekend ^_^
I like the race idea. No 99 Lives coin trick. How about a card that forces the other person to play with an upside-down controller.
Looking forward to it.
I do like the idea of encouraging super bad puns, but I’m not sure it’s worth removing $5 from the swear jar. That would mean being able to swear uncreativly 5 times for every bit of clever wordplay. Maybe nerf it a bit?
This is a really interesting idea! I love the thought of gamers introducing one another to new genres (or underappreciated favourites).
Let’s see how effective the swear jar will be… ;)
I am so looking forward to Supervision Required! I love the idea of the challenge cards. Will cards be discarded, or will they be shuffled back in after they have been played?
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