IT'S CAME BACK
BEWARE IT AND PREPARE IT
S.P.E.R.G.I.N. 2
Brought to you by Laura (Laura) and Ben (sfxazure)
With help from Scott (Suko)
4 August 2012
Entry Fee: $5.00 if you preregister, $10.00 at the door.

Important: The tournament pack is now available for download here.  

For those of you unawares, Ben and I ran a not-so-serious tournament last summer called S.P.E.R.G.I.N., which was a traditional double-elimination tournament with a pack made entirely of charts submitted by entrants.  It was awesome and fun, and we can't wait to do it again!  Once again, we need YOUR help to make it happen!

Changes from S.P.E.R.G.I.N.:
- Unlike S.P.E.R.G.I.N., this tournament will NOT be run at ACME.  Rather, Scott (Suko) has graciously offered to allow us use of his garage and private machine.  In order to ensure he does not regret this decision, we will not post his address publicly on the internet.  If you need it, please PM one of the organizers.

Notable things that haven’t changed:
- Songs must still be playable in a public space like ACME.  Although the tournament will be played in a private venue, most entrants only have access to a public machine for practice.
- Rules for passing the song you pick have not changed.  That is, “you pick it, you pass it” does not apply.


Phase One: Pre-registration and Stepchart Submission
Due Date: 1 July, 2012

Preregistration will begin immediately and will run until the end of Phase One.  Attendees who preregister will pay a discounted rate ($5.00 instead of $10.00.)  Preregistration will be handled through PMs to Ben/sfxazure, who will accept payment through Amazon Payments, PayPal, or in person.  To keep things organized, please use the title “SPERGIN Preregistration” for your PM.

You will have from today until July 1st to submit up to four songs (one stepchart each) to be included in the tournament pack. Please use this submission form, and make sure to identify yourself by name/forum name somewhere in the file.   We encourage you to create and submit new stepcharts, but any are fine as long as you had a hand in their creation.  Submitted songs/stepcharts will be rejected if they do not conform to the following rules:

1. The chart must be to a song no longer than three minutes and thirty seconds (3:30) in length.  There are many reasons for this, including but not limited to the fact that we have to keep the tournament moving and the fact that 3:30 is ACME's cutoff for a “long song.”  We don’t want people to have to pay more to practice some charts than others.

2. Songs must be appropriate for play in public venues such as ACME Bowl.  Please avoid profanity or find some way to work around it (clean versions, comedic censoring, etc.)  Any content deemed inappropriate for a public venue will be rejected.

3. Songs must be ITG Arcade Ready.  Details for preparing your songs can be found here.  If your song is over 2 minutes, DO NOT .OGG PATCH IT. Also, it is recommended that you test your file on Acme’s ITG machine before submitting it, as different machines have different syncing.

4. Stepcharts must have at least 50 hittable arrows.  We are all for exploring a wide range of difficulties, but please no “Beginner mode.”  While there may be ways to make an interesting chart with under 50 steps, it would increase the likelihood of ties and slow the tournament down.


We also reserve the right to reject a stepfile for unusual reasons, such as the file crashing StepMania.

Note:  If a song is rejected for any reason, you may submit a replacement; cleaned-up versions of rejected submissions can be submitted, as well as completely different songs/charts.  After a song has been accepted for the pack, it is finalized and can not be replaced or modified.

As soon as a stepchart is accepted into the pack, it will be made available for download at the bottom of this post.  This is because Ben and I will be entering the tournament ourselves, and we don’t want to gain an unfair advantage by viewing songs before they are released publicly.

By submitting charts to the tournament pack, you agree to enter the tournament.  While people who have not submitted stepcharts may enter, those of you who submit stepcharts must enter.  Because of this, we will not begin to evaluate stepcharts from any given entrant before they have preregistered for the tournament; consider your entry fee a form of collateral.  


Phase Two: Practice

During this period of time, the organizers will combine your charts into a pack.  If the organizers feel that there are not enough new stepcharts on which to run a tournament, we will find some quick hack to fix this issue.  This should take about a week.  After this, the pack will be released and installed on the ACME machine, so that you may practice these charts at your leisure.  This should take about a month.


Phase Three: TOURNAMENT!
4 August 2012, 12:30 PM, Suko's place
Please note:  You will see the phrase “Because this is not intended to be a serious tournament...” many times.  This is because this is not intended to be a serious tournament, and is supposed to be for fun!   Please do not get too caught up in minor details.

This will be a double elimination event with room for up to 32 entrants.  Only songs from the S.P.E.R.G.I.N.2. pack will be playable in this tournament.

Seeding:  Because this is not intended to be a serious tournament, seeding will be random.  If you complain about this, we will make fun of you on the internet.

Matches:  High seed gets first choice of machine side or pick order.  The other choice goes to low seed.  Each player will then pick one song of their choice to play against the other player.   Whoever gets the highest percentage (as calculated by the machine) on a given song wins that song.  (You know how this works by now.)  If both players are tied at the end of two songs, a third song will be chosen from the S.P.E.R.G.I.N.2. pack by way of the ITG machine’s “random” function.  If both players are still tied, another random tiebreaker will be chosen until the tie is broken.  

Song Selection:  Each player may only use a song as their “pick” once over the course of the tournament.  Because this is not intended to be a serious tournament, either player may fail any song throughout all tournament rounds with no additional penalty - once you fail, your percentage is “locked” as your score.  

Level Caps:  Because this is not intended to be a serious tournament, there will be no level caps. Any chart may be picked at any time in the tournament, regardless of difficulty (or opponent, since seeing is random.)  

Prizes:  Once preregistration ends and we have a better idea of how many entrants we will have, we will determine a prize structure based on 100% of the entry fees.

Please note that although the “IN” in “S.P.E.R.G.I.N.2.” does stand for “In the Northwest,” out of state players are still more than welcome to participate and submit stepcharts.