Alternate sumo gaming world

[Sumo Spiffy 579]

37 minutes ago, Asashosakari said:

That being said, I don't know if "0.1% of nerdiest sumo nerds" is really accurate, or at least that it necessarily needs to be that way. Yes, the visual design of many games is long past its due date by now, but conceptually they've stood the test of time, and I think they'd indeed be appealing to many people if they were exposed to them. 

Agreed. When I said the nerdiest nerds are part of this conversation, I literally meant this conversation. Most games, though, are at least mechanically accessible, ie. easy to play even if they're hard to win. Then you look at Sumo Game; it's daily, which is generally a tougher haul for building participation, and it's on a site that's somewhere between most SB games and Goly's site in polish. That banzuke's gone down to makushita 80-something for a year, which is well over 200 people.

Other SB games will probably always lag behind the bigger ones, but the more that play the bigger ones, the more we probably end up with playing the rest. Some of them will be pretty casual. And I think they'll still enjoy it once they're here.

[Bunbukuchagama 765]

10 hours ago, Ganzohnesushi said:

Why the hell is Kachi Clash so popular?

Spiffy covered it pretty well, so, I will be brief.

KC is the ultimate casual game. It's easy to find (sumo Discord and Reddit give it a lot of buzz), it takes 2 minutes per basho to play, it has a slick modern design, it is as simple as it gets.

Yes, it looks like a primitive version to Roto-Sumo to us; yes, you are pretty much guaranteed to finish in the top 15% if you have a functional brain (because a lot of people just pick their favorite rikishi every time and/or fail to check the injury list); yes, it feels impersonal and crowded AF with over a thousand players. But casual beats hardcore in popularity every single time, and I don't see why sumo should be an exception to this rule.

Finally, if you asked me if it should be included in Superbanzuke, I would probably say "No". It's just too different from all the other SB games.

Still, I play it too. 

[Asashosakari 19,590]

BTW Spiffy, I'd love to see the Makushita Game added to your Game Explainer. IMHO that's an underrated gateway game to the more nerdy realms of the overall sumo gaming landscape, and there's a surprising amount of people out there who appear to follow the makushita division goings-on these days.

[Kachikoshi 37]

3 hours ago, Sumo Spiffy said:

KC's banzuke works perfectly for what KC is. You prefer grinding at ozeki to make yokozuna? Cool. Plenty of games give you that. But it would utterly cut against the nature of KC to make promotion rules so complex. 

I don’t play Kachi Clash, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought their “banzuke” is not really a banzuke in the sense that you move up and down based on your rank and record. Rather it’s just a table of high scorers over the last six basho, i.e. the same thing as GTB’s “top ten” they just call whoever is in first place at the time “Yokozuna East.”

[Bunbukuchagama 765]

2 minutes ago, Kachikoshi said:

I don’t play Kachi Clash, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought their “banzuke” is not really a banzuke in the sense that you move up and down based on your rank and record. Rather it’s just a table of high scorers over the last six basho, i.e. the same thing as GTB’s “top ten” they just call whoever is in first place at the time “Yokozuna East.”

Yes, pretty much so.

[Kajiyanosho 38]

Returning to this nerdiest nerds' conversation with a couple of points I forgot to make.

I agree that e.g. Kachi Clash as a game is not particularly interesting, which is why I'm not playing it. But again, people don't start games just based on their rules, but on community, ease of play, habits. That's why I wish for a SB 2.0 that could become popular among new fans.

The Masters Series and World Championship make the Superbanzuke quite unique. A mega-ranking that crowns the ultimate fantasy sumo nerd can be quite appealing, and it's what ultimately prompted me to go from a couple of games to almost all of them (I'm always too last minute to give a Oracle proper shot...). 

Even just an updated Superbanzuke site would make it easier to recruit players for the games included in it. With international sumo fans growing in numbers, there's no shortage of potential players.

I don't necessarily think there's anything 'bad' in Superbanzuke games being relatively small and niche. It's arguably better to have a smaller core of dedicated players than a bigger pool of people e.g. failing to play consistently daily games and making the experience less enjoyable. But many people who are engaged enough to discuss sumo on Discord, YouTube or Telegram would be excellent Superbanzuke players. [One recent example is Joputosu, who I 'recruited' from the Italianozeki Telegram channel].

[Kachikoshi 37]

On 23/08/2024 at 08:39, Sumo Spiffy said:

I would be fine with trying to host an updated game and see how it works. Overall, hosting probably isn't the issue, which means even if there was a willingness to crowdfund something, I'm not sure it would help. We need a programmer.

I suppose I could offer some help here. I’m a professional software engineer. I used to run a soccer/football game for five years, until factors outside my control forced me to shut it down this year. So now I have a void that needs to be filled. I know first hand how tedious running these sorts of games can be if you don’t do a ton of automation. If anyone is running a sumo game and would like some help with the programming side, please reach out. I’m going on paternity leave in October so I’ll have time for a personal project.

Edited August 30, 2024 by Kachikoshi

[Jejima 1,411]

42 minutes ago, Kachikoshi said:

I suppose I could offer some help here. I’m a professional software engineer. I used to run a soccer/football game for five years, until factors outside my control forced me to shut it down this year. So now I have a void that needs to be filled. I know first hand how tedious running these sorts of games can be if you don’t do a ton of automation. If anyone is running a sumo game and would like some help with the programming side, please reach out. I’m going on paternity leave in October so I’ll have time for a personal project.

Bench Sumo please 

[Sumo Spiffy 579]

On 30/08/2024 at 12:08, Kachikoshi said:

I suppose I could offer some help here. I’m a professional software engineer. I used to run a soccer/football game for five years, until factors outside my control forced me to shut it down this year. So now I have a void that needs to be filled. I know first hand how tedious running these sorts of games can be if you don’t do a ton of automation. If anyone is running a sumo game and would like some help with the programming side, please reach out. I’m going on paternity leave in October so I’ll have time for a personal project.

 

On 30/08/2024 at 12:50, Jejima said:

Bench Sumo please 

Agreed, more automation for Bench (especially removing the barrier for new players) would be a tremendous boost. Hell, just removing the barrier for new players would be a tremendous boost.

I'm willing to host games, but I'm perfectly happy letting everyone else do it.  My offer is of the if-there's-no-other-options variety.

[Randomitsuki 2,841]

On 27/08/2024 at 15:00, Kajiyanosho said:

Even just an updated Superbanzuke site would make it easier to recruit players for the games included in it. With international sumo fans growing in numbers, there's no shortage of potential players.

I tried to make the Superbanzuke site more "modern" a few years ago, but my utter lack of both design skills and HTML skills prevent me from having something better to offer. If someone, anyone with HTML skills and interest in redesigning the site would contact me, I'd be more than happy.

[mt fuji 976]

just wanna add my game to the list of sumo games - https://fantasysumo.net/

I feel more confident in my HTML / CSS / JavaScript / React / Ruby skills than my web design taste, but if anyone wants some help with coding or programming questions, feel free to send me a message!

[Kajiyanosho 38]

11 hours ago, Randomitsuki said:

I tried to make the Superbanzuke site more "modern" a few years ago, but my utter lack of both design skills and HTML skills prevent me from having something better to offer. If someone, anyone with HTML skills and interest in redesigning the site would contact me, I'd be more than happy.

Thank you! Again - I didn't mean to criticise or moan about the site at all, I'm thankful for it! I thought about the Superbanzuke site because it's the gateway to all games and intuitively it could be easier to redesign, as it's just a collector of information and has no user input. I'm not a designer but I worked with UX I'd be happy to help in any other way. 

[shimodahito 317]

What a great thread!  I've been playing BS since almost the beginning, still terrible, not gotten any better at moving up the banzuke.  And Kofuji rocked.  Here are just some random thoughts from a very non-tech player and non-tech, manual, game manager of TORCHBEARER, possibly the only sumo game where picks are annual.  I am VERY GRATEFUL for the forum allowing me to host and share.

• Have I thought about automating TORCHBEARER?  Yes, but only thoughts.   I'm not smart enough to do it, and I'm not sure the need for passwords and collecting e-mails and logins.  However, it would be clever to show an animated rise of the TORCH throughout the year.  Perhaps links or animated versions of each TORCH MATCH highlighting the ranks, the rikishi, and any TORCH players involved in the match.  Then, even if your pick isn't involved in the TORCH MATCH, all participants could get a one-match (less than 10 second) update of where the TORCH is -- perfect for younger surf/swipe, short attention phone crowd.  And perfect for highlighting lower-division bouts and rising rikishi with the TORCH (like Kyokukaiyu this year).  This could make TORCH a gateway intro game. 
• The possibility of TORCHBEARER picks is every rikishi on the banzuke times every rank on the banzuke -- 200,000+ possibilities.  Most games are just the rikishi in makuuchi for a basho.  So TORCH is less likely for 17-way ties.
• The challenge for TORCH is explaining the rules.   It could be easier eliminating the end-of-year bonus point system, but it's the chance of the bullseye and bonus points that could thrust someone from 12th place into the winner's circle on the last match of the year.  It incentivizes folks to pick where the TORCH will end up at the end of the year.  For rank picks, there's a historic "zone" but for rikishi, it takes some study.  I initially thought TORCH would be a game of luck, but most who finish in the top third of points each year are very good in other sumo games. 
• For me the most time consuming aspect is managing all the entrees and ensuring I don't miss a TORCH MATCH that involves a participant, typing updates.
• Right now the only "automation" is that if you don't update (or forget to update) your picks at the beginning of the year, your prior picks carry over.   No one wants to have to wait a year to play again if they missed the entry deadline.
• TORCHBEARER has a prize (a tradition that used to be part of the BS game), but I only need the end-of-year winner's personal information IF they want the prize.  
• Although I prefer following sumo on a computer, it would be interesting to know what percentage of Superbanzuke and sumoforum gamers play on their laptop or or play on their phone.  Any game adapted to a phone app that looks good is going to soar.
• We've come along way.  I recall Joe Petrow's "chat room" where folks would watch the basho and chat live on how each match affected their gaming; but I preferred the chat room where no gaming was discussed, only the live match at hand.
• The Makushita game is the most under-rated game.  It's a great blend of ease (no daily picks) and nerd level (have to know more than the top dogs).

Like it or not, the games do help the sport attract new fans (as pointed out with fantasy NFL games).  

Thanks for all who started this and the early pioneers of BS and other early games.

 

[Rocks 1,809]

On 23/08/2024 at 14:30, Asashosakari said:

To me, Kachi Clash is kind of the successor to Sumotalk's defunct Fantasy Sumo, which I mean as a compliment - that game also targeted a more casual crowd and was also mostly off the radar of the more committed players for several years (it even had a non-standard style banzuke as well ), before it was "discovered". Likewise, IIRC its participation numbers dwarfed any game on the Superbanzuke*, and that was back in the boom days when games like Bench and Toto themselves were still in the 150 player range.

I would wholeheartedly agree with this, but not as a compliment. I checked out this game a while back and skipped it exactly because it reminded me of Fantasy Sumo. One only wonders at what point, to avoid the inevitable stack of winners when the most obvious picks all perform well, KC moves to putting rikishi in the group they "should" be in rather than their actual rank, like Wakatakkage and Takaysu in Sanyaku the way Fantasy would, essentially putting the obvious picks together and limiting the ability to pick them to one or two rather than all 5. 

KC is basically Roto but limited to macuuchi. Roto works better because adding the Juryo picks gives a bit more differentiation.

That said I think KC's popularity comes down to the minimal pick,  simple and well made site with simple login, partially. 

The other factor, as I think it was with Fantasy, is having someone with a large following pushing people towards it. In this case a Sumo streamer, who coincidentally won last KC, mentioning it a number of times each stream. 

It would be nice to see the older game sites updated a bit. At the very least, despite the fact I love it per tradition, removing the banzuke page background (and other graphic/textured)  which makes things almost unreadable.