The Compolympics

The Sonic Zone Remix Competition reached round two of the Robotnik Bracket resulting in 11 entries. The tournament has been home to some tense but fun banter amongst the participants, including Amphibious’ note that he sequences all of his arpeggios by hand because it’s “the only way.” In this sense, I felt like a reporter hanging out in the locker room after a sweaty game in the Olympics. Elsewhere Dwelling of Duels started June off with the wonders of “Town Month” in which participants could remix video game town themes. More specific rules apply, such as that the town be occupied by non playable characters. 

June was also the start of OLRmageddon, this time centering on the “Racial Stereotypes” of the gaming worlds. A list had even been provided with various examples, such as “evil Russians, evil Japanese, evil gays” in wrestling games. LLCompo made its transition away from SolidComposer and onto a site that it felt was more manageable. For round 20 the theme was “Your Worst Enemy” accompanied by an introduction by Saif and Kay Faraday, narrated by WVI: In a distinct change from the norm, it blasted along with a metal beginning that lead to quirky orchestral music topped by WVI’s ironic rant. Battle of the Bits had a slew of competitions in the past few weeks, but ran into a problem with its domain as of this writing.

JHCompo on Tuesday turned up the heat for its 102th round with its “Volcano Theme”. I began the nights proceedings with a spoken-word introduction gradually overcome by the sound of the earth’s crust shifting. SonicThHedgog sent up a brief riff fest of guitar and breakneck snare as he ascended “Mt. 5150”. skyndileg opted to take a flight out of the area, looking back on the aftermath of an eruption using somber strings, woodwind and bongos. nikola took perhaps the most fat out route by constructing an “epic space volcano” that he admitted was in the early stages of development. 

Thursday’s OHC settled on paying tribute to the “Death of a legend”, without saying who the entity was. After prompting, the compo organizer specified that the round was dedicated to Eduard Khil, better known as the Trololo Guy. Given the also-recent death of Ray Bradbury, entrants that night chose either direction, or to other places altogether. Slimeball got the top spot and bid rest to Khil via vocal samples pitched to resemble the funeral dirge. seventhelement was the first to forgo specific people and simply laid down breakbeats amidst an orchestral soundscape. 

Several others took the theme and went on their own journeys. TheMisterCat wrote an “Epitaph” regarding the mysteries of life; DDRKirby(ISQ) touched upon the Legend of Zelda and the legendary status of his own previous entries; johnfn dedicated his track to his own death since he neglected to study for finals; and CJthemusicdude asked the audience to avenge the death of a heroic friend. munchi slid onto home plate at the end with “Death of a Legend (instrumental)”, noting that he intended to have vocals in the chorus: fittingly the lyrics were "DEEEATTTH OOOOOFFFF A LEEGEEENDDD!!!"