CLOSED.

From today until May 14th, RPG Limit Break - a gaming marathon for charity - will bring a bunch of speedrunners together who'll try to beat RPGs as fast as possible. Donations go to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) - www.nami.org.

Looks like a whole week of fun to watch via stream if you are into community events like that. Well, I am. So I thought I'd do a giveaway to bring them a bit of extra attention:

== The Giveaway ==

Possibly win what's really the most bizarrely hilarious, and undoubtedly greatest 3rd-person shooter of them all: Shiny's action masterpiece -

[prize]MDK [/prize]

For this, pretend you're once more about kindergarten age. Summon your own little artist and draw a scene from any game you like. Scratch your colored pens, crayons or smudge finger paint across a piece of paper.

✏ Traditional media only (no digital stints; I want you to have something you can tape to your fridge right away).
✏ Scan or take a photo.
✏ Upload here to show everybody just how awesome your command over all the pretty colors is.

Art must be kids style; you know, the quick, confidently messy pieces that look so focused and complete when done by children. Here's an example I did (MDK). As you can see I found it challenging to imitate the careless fluidity small humans produce with such natural ease... Search for drawings on the web if you need to be reminded of how that style looks. If all fails, bribing a real kid to do this assignment for you is allowed ;)

= Additional Info =

This giveaway closes sometime after RPG Limit Break ends (likely May 15th).
Out of all entries, I will shortlist three art pieces. Then, random.org will find us one winner.
Taking part for fun is fine.

Enjoy yourself and good luck everyone! Looking forward to your contributions :)

= Kindergarten Art Class of 2016 =

✏ KasperHviid's Robotron

EDIT: added list of entrants; formatting; pin to your fridge I changed to tape - don't want your fridge to get damaged ;)

Hey chevkoch! Thanks for another creative giveaway.


Unfortunately I'm not too good at imitating a kid's drawing so I won't be in. I probably could bully one of my nieces to draw something (they're the right age), but I won't be seeing them before the deadline :(

It's really not about achieving quality, but about having fun with the concept of drawing like a four-year old :) I drew the example above in about ten minutes, and you can tell it's not great by any means. Doesn't have to be. Be in I'd say, if you find this fun at all :)

Thanks for the cool contest giveaway, chevkoch!

One question: The marathon is specific to RPGs, so why are you giving away a game that is not an RPG?

(Not in.)

Not in, but thank you for your generosity and for drawing our attention to this event and to this cause.
I took a look at the schedule and I just might try to catch the Parasite Eve speedrun tomorrow and perhaps more later on.

P.S. What does "Any%" mean?

I like to do giveaways now and then to let a bit more people know about some charity gaming marathons. In addition, I enjoy the opportunity to bring attention to games that are in my absolute favorites list.

RPG Limit Break happens to be about roleplaying games only, but If you read the setup of this giveaway, it is not RPG-specific - people can choose whichever title they are excited about and want to draw a scene from. That I thought would broaden the appeal for this idea instead of maybe limiting the concept to one genre. That's why I feel it's not really jarring that the prize is also not an RPG in this case.

I want to try and see if people find this particular giveaway idea fun. But sure, one could also go another route and make it all about conforming to the theme of the marathon. PE, I hope to catch that one too!

"Any%" basically means completing the game without any further specific requirements. In stark contrast to "100%", where you need to collect 100% of the items. Here is a speedrunning glossary where most of the lingo can be found. Thanks for stopping by :)

A few things to add:

1. While the category may seem open-ended, in practice, this means "do only what's required to beat the game or what saves time". In other words, if you look at multiple any% speedruns from about the same time, you will find that they tend to take the same route. (Note that if they are not from about the same time, there may have been new discoveries (even for 20+ year old games!) that have resulted in the route changing.)

2. Any% routes are sometimes heavily glitched. For example, a Baldur's Gate 2 Any% run would likely skip most of Chapter 4 with a couple polymorph teleports, for example. Sometimes, this can be taken to an extreme, like the Ys 1 (SMS version) speedrun that beats the game (for some definition of "beat") in less than 30 seconds.

3. Sometimes, even a so-called "any%" category may impose some restrictions. For example, most speedrun categories for Zelda: A Link to the Past disallow things like save-warping. (I actually dislike the rules the ALttP speedrunners have chosen, so the only serious run I've watched was a Reverse Boss Order run which didn't use those rules.) Super Mario World's old "Any%" category became 11-exit after people discovered a method of triggering the ending early by tricking the game into executing arbitrary code. Furthermore, SethBling managed to beat the 11-exit world record by programming a cheat routing into the game (on the actual console, no cheats or tool-assistance used), so they had to make rules to specifically forbid that. Final Fantasy 4 has a "no stair glitch" category because there's a glitch that lets you skip most of the late-game by overflowing the area of memory that the game uses to keep track of where "Warp" sends you when cast.

In the end though, all categories are arbitrary ;)

Some categories are more arbitrary than others.

In particular, a simple category, like "trigger the ending" or "defeat bowser", does not feel particularly arbitrary. For example, Super Mario Bros. Any% does not feel arbitrary at all; even Warpless still doesn't feel to arbitrary for that game.

On the other hand, what becomes arbitrary is when you start having rules like these (from Super Mario World 11 exit): (In particular, why is the instruction pointer allowed to hit open bus? (Especially since the Wii Virtual Console doesn't accurately emulate the behavior of open bus.))

The most arbitrary category that I have seen is Zelda: Ocarina of Time Glitchless (what counts as a glitch?)

Not even a day has passed and donations are at $8813.25. Well done so far, RPGLB!

The Wild Arms (Trial Version) run on Friday sounds cool indeed. Right now, I'm digging the Final Fantasy X-2 race :) I have a feeling this week will be over far too soon. The tech and strats intricacies are a science to themselves... Incredible, the dedication and skill of those runners.

I'm in!

Fun idea - Been a while since I played around with color pencils!

Hmm, they are doing FF V and Seiken Densetsu 3... two of my favourite games. I'd be quite interested to see those.
May have to remember to catch the highlights (doubt I will be around for the actual streams) at some point.

Thanks for the giveaway, not in :)

You are so in!

Is this concept art commissioned by Williams in 1982? Hm, but a mere score of 38.795 at wave 21? Prototype before balancing, that's how I'd explain that one :D Thanks for really getting into it :)

Their YouTube channel is here. They have a marathon playlist for 2015, so I guess they'll upload the current runs as well sometime. That's what I hope for at least, can't catch everything live...