The Big One

The Big One

Posted June 05, 2019 at 3:47 PM by notaburger

Before we get down to business, let's take a stroll down memory lane.  Stifle your groans and let me be sentimental for a minute; I'm sipping on the CVGC X edition of Warp Whistle and it is making me nostalgic.

Let me set the stage: It's 2009, Barack Obama has just become president of the United States running on the promise of "change we can believe in", and the H1N1 virus is sweeping the world.  I'm sitting upstairs at my still relatively new house drinking beers with my good friend Woot.

For years I had been accumulating video games as stores were going out of business, through treasure hunts at local shops, from flea markets, on auction sites, and on online forums.  It had recently gotten to the point where my game room was overflowing; there were literally stacks of games and systems all over the place.  I realized that what I was doing wasn't ENTIRELY unhealthy, but it was also a complete waste since the games were just sitting around not being played like they should be.  I turned to Woot and pitched him the idea of getting our friends together for one weekend to just sit around and play games.  To be honest, I was prepared for my suggestion to be shrugged off as a joke as I honestly didn't believe that many people my age would be willing to devote so much time out of their busy schedules to do something so childish.  When Woot didn't immediately mock me, I decided to up the ante a bit and tossed out the idea of setting up a tournament of old games.  Once I received the encouragement from Woot, I reached out to other friends and things started to snowball.  From that seed, we have grown from a tiny event in 2009 with less than 10 people, to what we are today.  Let's take a look at some pictures/details from Events Gone Past.

Note:  If you notice anything wrong listed below, please speak up; I did the best that I could do considering my miserable record keeping.  Also, if you have any pictures that you can add, please add them to the applicable linked album.


2010, October 2 - The Inaugural CVGC

Place

Player

1

David

2

Matt

3

Woot

4

Pam

There isn’t much to be said about this one that hasn’t been said.  This is where it all started.

Matt and I finished the tournament with the same score, and we agreed that a “tie wouldn’t fly”™, so we spontaneously decided that we would play one round of Duck Hunt to see who would take home the top prize.  Matt went first and, in a show of sportsmanship, I stepped out of the room so that I’d go in blind for my run.  Needless to say, the bonus round wasn’t exactly close, but that spontaneous finale still had the full attention of the crowd.  This is what I hoped CVGC could and would be.  I’m confident saying that it was the way in which this first tournament went that got everyone else behind the idea of doing this year in and year out.  Despite everyone showing signs of fatigue (we WERE into the wee hours of the morning at this point), the whole crew was on board for more and looking forward to CVGC 2011 (well, except for me; I just wanted to collapse).

2010 was unfortunately before we came up with the idea to make rupee trophies, so this is what was made instead:

The intention was that someone else would have this trophy with my face (poorly) photoshopped onto it, but, since I won, I “got” to keep it and, if I’m being honest, it just feels egotistical.  The design is a modified version of the label for the NES “classic” Anticipation developed by a little company called RARE.

Photos:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/D241ikkC8btB8UqR9 (we all look like babies) 


2011, September 3 - The first "big" year

Place

Player

1

David

2

Steven

3

Matt

4

Patrick

Big thanks to Matt for helping with the logo this year.  I ended up using it as the banner for the NEW CVGC site that I put together.  Surprisingly, this site is still live.  Before I give you the link, please understand that I didn’t use much html and that I barely had a clue as to what I was doing.  Some of it is broken (like the chat) but some of it isn’t (like the embedded score spreadsheets and photos).   Anyway, just don’t judge me too harsh; I was young and dumb.

https://sites.google.com/site/bdcvgc/home

This year we played such gems as Katamari Damacy, Super Mario Kart, Goldeneye, and Smash Bros.  Yeah….we kind of went overboard with the big hitters this year.

To be honest, the intention was to make a new trophy each year, but, after I won the second year, I didn’t have the motivation to make MYSELF another one….which leads us into CVGC 2012…

Photos:  All, I’ve got is a photo that I snapped tonight of our old score sheets.  Yes, someone spilled something on them making them gross, but I still have them in 2019….which makes it grosser.  Well, on the plus side, without these I wouldn’t have known who got second place through fourth place (hopefully my math is good). https://photos.app.goo.gl/3VjvD9NMBenAPxCE9


2012, May 5 – Super Marry-Oh Bros., the forging of the Rupees, and the introduction of CVGC for charity

Place

Player

1

Matt

2

David

3

Steven

4

Patrick/Erica

2012 is probably the most important year for CVGC.  It was at this year that we decided to use the event as an opportunity to raise money for charity.  I wish that I kept better record on what we earned, but I do know that the money went to MD Anderson.

This was the rupee blank that Bob and I made for the mold.  I wish I had pictures of us making the resin rupees, but you’ll just have to use your imagination.  I know that you can hear the jingle just looking at this (duh, duh, duh, DUUUUUNNNNN)

I guess other stuff happened that wasn’t rupee related.  Some dude other than me won and Steven and Drew stayed up late into the night trying to beat my hacked up version of Super Mario Bros. that I made for Erica’s proposal (very charmingly named Super Marry-Oh Bros.).  Spoiler:  I had to help them beat the game too.

The standout games from this year include such gems as:

  • Amplitude
  • Galaga
  • Nights into Dreams
  • Bubble Bobble
  • Mega Bomberman (my personal favorite version of Bomberman)
  • 2 on 2 Open Ice (NBA Jam…but for Hockey)
  • X-men vs. Street Fighter (some of you went Colossus on my arcade with your button mashing…luckily it made it through the evening)

This was one of the BEST years for photos, so here are some of my favorites:

Erin made some killer shirts

 

Look at these super cool Koozies we made and sold off for charity.

I sometimes miss the days of using paper and tallying up the scores at the end of the night.

  

There are some really great shots from this CVGC, but this one sums it up the best.  EVERYONE got invested and committed to the event.  It was magic.

Photos:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/L3sMyyDdn7GFM9Y79 


2013 - The year that never was

Alright, they can’t all be winners.  In 2013 we crashed and burned hard.  To be honest, we still had a lot of fun; we just didn’t play many video games.  I almost threw in the towel and gave up on the whole thing, but, with some encouragement, we decided to give it one last shot before calling it quits or moving CVGC to a non-annual event.  If nothing else, we’d at least go out on top instead of with a whimper.

Photos:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/i9YxBo1tzKNYAtR96


2014, May 31 - Birth of the Hour of Power, the forging of the Black Rupee, the year that ALMOST never was, and the year of the pregnant ladies (AKA The year we went all-in on CVGC)

Place

Player

1

Jesse

2

Patrick

3

Steven

4

David

Here are just some small things that we did (off the top of my head):

  • BBQ’d to the 9s. I…don’t know why I did this to myself.
  • Spent probably more than 100 hours creating what is known as the hour of power – 60 randomly chosen games on the arcade with their own individually chosen and set save states that run for 60 seconds each. The idea is simple:  Win more rounds than your competitor.  Between rounds you have the ability to adjust the scores on the arcade’s secondary monitor.  The idea is super solid but, unfortunately, I have never worked out all the bugs and finished testing it before CVGC.  Every year that I try to incorporate it as something meaningful, someone finds a way to break it.  Maybe one day this will be done, but, until then, we can at least use it as a fun diversion.  I should really make the code available online.  I’m sure someone would convert it to a proper program instead of relying on an Autohotkey Script like I did.
  • Spent over an hour freaking out and barraging the electric company with calls since we lost power the afternoon of CVGC. Luckily we regained everything early enough where we could start on time and avoided having to come up with a plan for a VIDEO game tournament with no power.
  • Raised a fair amount of money to help Makayla’s family pay for her cancer treatment (I believe that this was the first year that we broke $1k).

Good luck playing anything in this light.

Those bellies are now PEOPLE!  WILD!

I still had the score sheets from this year too!

This year we really knocked it out of the park.  Everyone muscled through and we COMPLETELY made it through until all games were played.  Who knows what time it was all over, but man was it fun.  We played games like:

  • Joust
  • Parappa the Rappa
  • Snow Brothers (Bubble Bobble for hipsters)
  • Paperboy (thanks to the Shermans for their generous gift!)
  • Burnout 3 Crash Party

Black Rupee of Shame Winner:  Lauren was our first “winner” of the Black Rupee of Shame™ on her first (and only) time in the tournament.

Photos:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/Eq8eetSefvAdHKMB7


2015, May 30 – The “fifth” one

This is probably my favorite logo so far.

Place

Player

1

Patrick

2

Jesse

3

David

4

Matt

I know you’re probably asking yourself:  Dave, how is this CVGC V if you started in 2010 and are calling 2019 CVGC X?  Well, if Microsoft can go from Windows 8 to 10, then I can also correct my timeline.  The short version is that 2013 left a sour taste in my mouth and I wanted to treat it like it never happened.  Eventually I came to terms with the fact that, despite us having to quit early on, it was still CVGC…just a crummy one.  Instead of treating it like it didn’t happen, I needed to treat it like a learning experience.  Once that happened, it was retconned back into the official timeline.

For 2015 we played some of my personal offbeat favorites:  Mario Kart Double Dash and Sega Bass Fishing (with fishing controller thanks to Jesse!).

Anyway, this was a good year.  We had a lot of fun with it and raised a lot of money for a family in need. 

Black Rupee of Shame Winner:  Erica

Erica made me proud and took the Black Rupee of Shame.

Photos:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/Vv3UW8Cev9MLvkpL8 


2016, June 11 – The last one at the original residence and the first without the D

Place

Player

1

Jesse

2

Matt

3

Patrick

4

Woot

This was the year that I finally took a step back and decided to focus on running the event instead of being in it.  What can I say?  You all act like a herd of cats (I don’t care if that isn’t the correct colloquialism).  It takes my entire focus to make sure that we get everything knocked out on time...or at least before the sun comes up.  All joking aside, I like it this way.  It keeps the tournament pure and allows me to focus on what I think is most important: making sure everyone has fun and that we raise a lot of money for charity.  Speaking of which, this year we raised $1700 for the Birthday Project – an organization that throws underprivileged kids birthday parties…but also an organization that refuses to take donations of bounce houses.

Black Rupee of Shame Winner:  Zach

Games that we rocked:

  • F Zero
  • Mega Man 2 (you’re welcome Drew and Bob!)
  • Street Fighter the Movie (the only fighting game starring both Kylie Minogue and Raul Julia)

Photos: :(  https://photos.app.goo.gl/q6A9RPzZueqohSQPA  (god, we really need to get better about taking pics) 


2017, June 24 - The Golden Tee Year and that time we refound social media 

Place

Player

1

Patrick

2

Jesse

3

Woot

4

Matt

This was the year that we decided to give the ol social media another shot.  This time we went with the homepage of the internet:  Reddit.  Luckily Woot had the foresight to lock in https://www.reddit.com/r/cvgc before the gold rush.  If you’re a Redditor, be sure that you smash that subscribe button (ew; gross) so that you’ll get all the latest CVGC updates.  If you’re not, for the love of god you better have your homepage set up as www.cvgc.net!

This is also the year that we introduced the world to the greatest game ever created.  A contest between two individuals that combines the finesse of martial arts and the precision of a rhythm game…DANCE DANCE BUSHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDO:  https://youtu.be/9LG0Ja1XeuY

Probably most importantly, this is the first year that I got some serious full-time help from Michael.  Thanks Mike!  I’d have given up on this a while ago without your help.  He also started a new CVGC tradition of running a gameshow between the second and final rounds!  This year was Name That Tune.

Patrick mopped the floor in Golden Tee, securing a return to the top of the podium.

Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/GnNvCr4B33R8Z3Ev8

Our charity this year was Kids Meals Houston (http://www.kidsmealshouston.org/).  It’s an organization that provides food to underprivileged kids.  Think Meals on Wheels, but only for preschool aged children.  We love food and we love helping kids, so it was serendipity. 

Black Rupee of Shame Winner:  Bob...kinda sorta.  He had a playoff with Drew to determine who got the rupee.  They ended up calling an audible and decided that the WINNER would get to take the BRoS home.  GUYS!  WE HAVE RULES FOR A REASON.  IT'S WHAT SEPARATES US FROM THE ANIMALS.


2018, September 1 – The year we had a theme and no one dressed up for it and the one where everyone fell in love with Shaq

Alright, I take back what I said about the CVGC “V” logo…I think that I like this one more.

Place

Player

1

Jesse

2

Patrick

3

Holt

4

Andrew

This was a really great year.  We listened to some great tunes on our video jukebox, played a TON of games, ended up having to have a play-in game for the second round (DAYYYYYYYYTOOOOOOOOOOONA), and had arguably one of the best final rounds ever when Jesse and Patrick raced through a level of each of the games on Super Mario Allstars.

Bob really brought it with the auction items this year as his magnet sets ended up fetching hundreds of dollars.  Between that, all of the other cool stuff people brought/made, and the SNES Classic Raffle, we ended up raising over $2000 for the McNabb-Harrison family!

Andrew and Holt managed to crack the top 4 this year, getting us some much needed new blood up there.  Sadly Andrew had to cut out a bit early, otherwise he might have had a chance to push even higher.  Erica made me proud (again) and brought back home the Black Rupee of Shame.

On top of all of this we also had a mascot this year:

Meet Shaquile O’Barkley

I really hope SOMEONE has a good picture of Michael as he was even more “90s” than we were. 

Black Rupee of Shame Winner:  Erica (our first TWO time winner)

Photos:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/iLDNzC5oc6FEADYm7


2019 and BEYOND

Over the years we've learned a lot.  The event duties are now shared with Michael (shout out to Mike; I literally would have given up on this by now without your help.  You are a saint (sorry Patrick) for putting up with me.).  My time during the event is now almost exclusively devoted to hosting and not participating, but, to be honest, I enjoy it that way.  One of the major things that I wish I would have done better is to document everything.  In this day and age it is inexcusable to not know exactly what games we played each year, who participated, and how much money we raised.  We have been doing a MUCH better job of this now that we’ve switched to digital records, but there is no way we will get back what is lost to time.  This is where I can use everyone's help.  Take pictures and share them with the group.  Participate in the comment threads.  Visit our subreddit.  Call me out if I get something wrong.  We will continue to improve with your help!

 …and now…what you’ve all been waiting for…..


2019 – CVGC X

Oh man do we have a doozy planned for you this year.  I’m not going to spill all of the beans just yet, but here are some highlights:

  • ALL games will be games that we’ve played in previous years.
  • I will be auctioning off (or possibly raffling off) a set of Westvleteren Beers with a matching glass.  If you’re not aware of what this beer is, I’ll just leave this here: https://www.ratebeer.com/beer/westvleteren-12-xii/4934/.
  • Erica's working on a crafty thing to auction off that I THINK you guys are going to love.
  • Michael and Woot are putting together a tournament of champions for past winners (yes, BIG D himself is coming out of retirement for one night only).
  • The theme this year is 80s. Yes, it is cliché at this point to have an 80s party, but we haven’t done it yet.
  • TWO VR HEADSETS!!!!!!!!!!
  • CVGC merch
  • I’m going out of my way this year to make sure that ANYONE who has previously attended is notified and is bugged to come back for this year.
  • Tons of surprises, so keep your eyes and ears peeled.

As always, if you have any suggestions for the charity, please let me know.

Thanks guys for all the happy memories and start getting PSYCHED for CVGC X.

-D-