I did a thing: the 100 GAME KUMITE PROJECT.

I've been talking about this a bunch on Tumblr and Twitter, but I guess not here!

I decided, on my birthday, which was September 1, to stream 100 different fighting games before the end of summer. So I did. I finished the project last night.

Please see the "hundred game kumite" tag on my tumblr for all the vods.

What did I learn?

Fighting games are really fun. Still. It’s a joy to fight other people, it’s a joy to stream and have friends come through.

Most of the people who came through, to be totally honest, were my IRL friends, and that was a great emotional boost. I’ve been lonely since quarantine started and I wish I could see them. There were some local FGC people who supported the endeavor too, either by encouraging me or showing up in the stream. Also a few random Twitch folks came through just due to the game I was streaming at the time.

Remarkably few Tumblr folks. Step it up, Tumblr folks :-O

Lindsey was really supportive of the project ♥ ♥. She tried being a co-commentator one evening, but she decided to just make that a one-time thing.

Surprises finding online matches – some games more active than you'd think, others less so

Some games that I would have thought would have active online scenes, I couldn’t find any matches! The new Samurai Shodown game, for example – when I tried at least, no matches! Dead Or Alive 6 seemed dead; no good. Fighting EX Layer was empty when I tried it. Several more games too.

Games that I was happily surprised to get online matches: Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown, Tekken 6, Vampire Savior, Mortal Kombat 2 and UMK3 (all on PS3!) – and Dead Or Alive 5 LR on PS4, it was still going down! Despite its successor not having any matches going. And the Steam version of Melty.

Also the "online arcade" mode in Super Turbo (in the SF Anniversary Collection) was quite active, and that was a bunch of fun.

Where did I mess up?

I had a few snafus getting some games going, either in general (input issues with Steam games, one time when I forgot my laptop was running Folding@Home), or particularly with my two-monitor stream setup. I could have done a better job making sure the games for the night were configured correctly before starting the stream.

Also, I probably did too many versions of Street Fighter II.

I FORGOT GAROU: MARK OF THE WOLVES, WHAT THE HECK. Somehow I never wrote it down in the planning spreadsheet?? That would have been way better than, say, yet another version of SFII, or Gang Beasts, which is a fine game, but turns out not to have any single-player content.

What do we want to do in the future as a result of this?

Keep playing fighting games.

This series really renewed my love for KOF, Virtua Fighter, Darkstalkers and Killer Instinct; I want to git gud at a KOF game, VF5:FS, Vampire Savior, and KI 2013. Also I would really love to understand Fighting Vipers more. That game is super charming.

Aaaahhhhh maaaaan. And Guilty Gear Xrd Rev2. Maybe I’ll dig into GG Strive.

There are so many good fighting games in the world.

Thanks for reading ♥.

Here are all the games I streamed, by series...

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