"Eclipse 2023" (EE23) DDR A20+ Tournament Acknowledgement and Credits
The success of any dance game event at scale is made possible by the direct and indirect efforts of a team of people, with each person contributing their time and effort in a unique way to make it happen.
I had the honor and privilege on Saturday, December 9th, to run my second “major” tournament attended by some of the best DDR players in the United States, including Puerto Rico. 50-odd players showed up to compete in DDR over twelve hours, and the stories these players told in their matches over the larger tournament arc were enthralling, chaotic, and full of surprises.
This post is not a full-on retrospective. I have many things I want to write and say (and I still haven’t said much about BITE6 or MOTL5, for that matter), but I’ll save such thoughts for future posts. For now, I’d like to give thanks.
Goddish
Before I begin, I’d first like to thank Goddish, EE23’s Head TO and an EO, for giving me the opportunity to TO. In early August, he put out a recruitment message on a Discord server for dance game TO’s that I’m a part of asking for someone to fill the position. I reached out to volunteer; and after his accepting the offer and my clarifying my schedule, I was off to the races to craft an experience for… does math… just over 1 in 4 attendees to EE23. Without him and other EO’s like Sneezle and DrMurloc giving me a shot to run this event, I would’ve probably otherwise treated this weekend like any other, with a Saturday spent at home and a Sunday with one or two friends going to a Round 1 in the greater Philly area somewhere.
RGTM
I’d next like to thank RGTM, my co-TO this year, for giving me his blessing to, from the start, put this thing together. Where he could, he lent support in the development of the tournament from the initial socialization of the color-coded card draw concept to spending several hours providing color codings of his own to proofreading documentation and making sure everything checked out. And his day-of demeanor I found commendable: he was full of energy, ready to socialize with anyone and everyone to facilitate the successful administration of the tournament, and went the extra mile to make sure things happened as needed.
Volunteer DDR TO’s
I’d next like to thank ancient_grainz, BamBam, Dunc, and Jungtahrone for volunteering a large portion of their day on Saturday to help run the tournament. For each one, Eclipse 2023 was their first time ever helping to run a DDR tournament; and amidst the chaos of juggling up to twenty-four players at once to advance the tournament, each of them pulled through with giving players their matches, moving pools along, and maintaining a positive and exciting atmosphere.
I’d like to give a special commendation to Dunc, who from expressing last-minute interest to volunteer TO at the event, got up to speed on reviewing a lengthy runbook, administered a pool, and set up card draws for a substantial portion of the tournament. Staying beyond his initial lunch-to-dinner commitment, Dunc ran card draws through to the tournament’s end, giving me the bandwidth to monitor the tournament’s progress at a high level, navigate scheduling, and keep the team directed accordingly.
Cathadan
I could not have run this tournament, let alone a modified version of it, without the DDR card draw web application that Cathadan maintains here . Open-source software improves my quality of life, and Cathadan’s work on this software underpins my competitive experience of DDR. In the months leading up to tournament day, he gave some of his time to help me learn how to modify the software to meet my needs to implement a new metadata attribute (here, the color coding) and then draw charts based on that attribute, wrote up documentation outlining the steps to do so, and gave me pointers here and there when I got stuck. Although my computer science skills are generally robust, I’m still overall a novice at TypeScript, and his help pointing me to the right places helped me close that technical gap.
Additional Thanks
Dunc (again), Kwuarter - I attribute the success of the color-coded card draw in part to the sum chart knowledge and attention to detail of these two who volunteered the several hours necessary to proofread an estimated 400 chart color codings and give feedback when certain codings were incorrect or suboptimal.
Dimo - As I wrap up my sixth DDR tournament appearance this year and my third time running one, I’d like to thank him again for assembling and maintaining a space for dance game TO’s to network and learn from each other. I’ve picked up multiple improvements this year to the interpersonal and technical skills required to prepare and administer a dance game tournament, and I owe that to being in contact with other TO’s in space that he’s created.
Gergc, StarCreator - for being professional and prompt points of contact to maintain the four DDR cabinets on tournament day. Administering the tournament would not have been as easy without their attention and servicing the hardware.
LIFE4 - for providing the Required Songs Masterlist which served as the foundation for the color coding spreadsheet used throughout the tournament’s development and administration.
Ranatalus - for distributing a TO runbook for MOTL5 which motivated me to do likewise for EE23.
You - for playing, and for coming! It’s tacky to say, sure; but, dance game events, even at scale, are driven out of an enjoyment for the games and an enjoyment for the company of the people who play the game. On my end, in one place, I got to connect and reconnect with folks from my local arcade up to folks who crossed an ocean or the continent to make it out here. I think that’s really cool, and I think that it should speak volumes that when people build something, people come, and everyone’s the better off for it.
If I’ve missed someone who belongs on this list, or if I’ve made some sort of mistake, feel free to let me know. Otherwise, thank you all for making this tournament the memorable success that it was. I could not have done it without you.