S.P.E.R.G.I.N.4. (Stepcharts Produced by Enterprising Rhythm Gamerz In the Northwest 4our)
Brought to you by Ben (sfxazure) and Laura (SomeLauraChick)
With help and hosting from Scott (Suko)
19 July 2014, starts at noon o clock sharp!
Entry Fee: $5.00 if you preregister, $10.00 at the door.

EDIT: The amazing fantastic submissions page is here!

UPDATE: The pack can be downloaded here!

Time for another round of S.P.E.R.G.I.N. y'all! I have tentative dates of July 19th, 2014 for the tournament and May 25, 2014June 8, 2014 for the submission cutoff. I'll follow up on this thread once the dates are finalized or if either of them change. Like previous S.P.E.R.G.I.N.s, this will be held at Suko's house (confirmed once I get the final 'ok' from him).

For those of you new to the PNWBemani scene: S.P.E.R.G.I.N. is an unserious tournament  held in the PNW every summer with a ruleset inspired by Zetorux’s DOWNS customs tournaments. Preregistrants can submit up to four songs that, once approved, compose the tournament pack. The pack is frozen after a cutoff date, and the tournament is a (mostly) standard double-elim bracket played with the competitor-submitted pack.

What's new this time around:

• We've heard a few complaints about being unable to test charts on the ACME machine which has led to sync issues. I have a few ideas around fixing this issue but haven't landed on a solution yet. I'll update this thread once I have a solution or if USB is fixed and I don’t need one.
• Seeding is now based on registration time. Want a high seed? Hurry up and preregister!
• Nothing else. The format works; why change it?

The Rules

Phase One: Pre-registration and Stepchart Submission
Due Date: May 25, 2014 June 8, 2014

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 by PMing me. I'll be accepting payment through Amazon Payments, PayPal, or in person. To keep things organized, please use the title “SPERGIN4 Preregistration” for your PM.

You will have from today until June 8 to submit up to four songs (one stepchart each) to be included in the tournament pack. 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:

• The chart must be to a song which does not exceed 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Stepcharts must have at least 50 hittable arrows. 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.
• The stepchart must be Expert difficulty. This is to ensure that we can use the ITG machine’s built-in Random selector to pick tie-breakers. Submitted songs can have any number of stepcharts, but only the Expert chart can be picked during the tournament.
• Charts that have already been submitted to a previous S.P.E.R.G.I.N. tournament can not be submitted. We want original content! If you’re not sure what counts as “the same chart”, ask us!

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

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 Laura 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.

We can’t stop you from preregistering, submitting charts, and then not showing up. But doing that is super lame. Come on, don’t be lame.


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.


Phase Three: TOURNAMENT!
July 19, 2014
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.4. pack will be playable in this tournament.

Seeding:  Seeding is based on registration order to encourage early registration.

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.4. 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.

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