Q: What is this?
A: It’s a weekend of fun, gaming, and fundraising! We’ll be playing through the Castlevania series throughout the weekend, going from one game directly to the next. We’ll be streaming our progress online, interacting with anyone interested enough to see what we’re up to. It’s also a charity drive. If you like what you see or want to keep the event going longer, give a donation to a charity to be announced soon!
Q: When does this take place?
A: We’ll start the vampire slaying Friday, October 14 at 6PM, and finish off at least 48 hours later.
Q: What games are you guys playing?
A: We’ve designated 12 games we will definitely be playing no matter what – even if it takes more than the 48 hours we quoted before – and they are:
Castlevania (NES)
Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest (NES)
Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse (NES)
Castelvania: Symphony of the Night (PS1)
Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness (N64)
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA)
Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (PS2)
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)
Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles (PSP)
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS)
Castlevania: Harmony of Despair (360)
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (360)
We’ve also designated the rest of series to unlockable extras if we get enough donations to warrant them. So these games are available on request:
Castlevania: Adventure (GB)
Super Castlevania 4 (SNES)
Castlevania 2: Belmont’s Revenge (GB)
Castlevania: Bloodlines (GEN)
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (GBA)
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (GBA)
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS)
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness (PS2)
Castlevania: Judgment (WII)
Castlevania: Adventure Rebirth (WII)
Q: Where did you come up with this list?
A: The intention with the list was to round up the major milestones in the series and come up with a list that was well-rounded enough to represent all sides of it. Naturally, we’re also trying to get the better games on the list too.
Q: When will you play the other games?
A: Those will follow after the main list…once we receive enough in donations to warrant it. Though we may add some of these extra games early if they’re linked in story to something we’re already playing (for example, if Dawn of Sorrow gets added on before we’ve finished Aria of Sorrow, we’ll put those two next to each other).
Q: Why aren’t you playing Insert Other Castlevania Game Here?
A: Castlevania 64 pretty much is included in Legacy of Darkness, Chronicles is too close a remake of the original game, Order of Shadows is a cell phone game that’s too hard to get a good stream of, and Legends has become too difficult to find without spending more for it than it originally retailed for. Beyond these, we’ve got the entire series that was released in North America available.
Q: Which version of these games are you using?
A: All the NES and SNES games are through the Wii’s Virtual Console, Rondo of Blood/Dracula X is the PSP remake, Curse of Darkness is the PS2 version, Lords of Shadow and Harmony of Despair are the 360 versions, all of the GB and GBA games are on original copies played via the Gamecube Game Boy Player (which includes the double pack of Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow), and the DS games are played via an emulator (though we do have actual copies of the games). Everything else is on its original form.
Q: Which character(s) are these games played as?
A: We’ll start with the default character for each game – if more than one are available on the outset, we’ll pick (but the audience is free to sway our pick). We’ll play as other characters if the event goes on long enough to request extra games.
Q: Are these speed runs, 100% runs, casual playthroughs, or something else?
A: Mostly casual, unless (once again) we get enough requests to do something else. We’ll be going far enough into each game to see an end credits screen (we’ll aim for the best ending if we can). We’ll consider Harmony of Despair in multiplayer mode enough to finish the non-DLC stages once, and if Judgment gets added on we’ll play through story mode with one character per player available at the time.
Q: Are you guys really good at these games?
A: That will probably depend on who out of our group is playing them. We’ll have people of varying skill levels and familiarity with the series. It’s unlikely we’ll be doing any sort of pro-level, Speed Demos Archive quality runs of anything. On the other side, we have played the games before and firmly believe we can finish them in reasonable time with little downtime and a fairly low game over count. So the short answer to your question is “Sorta, but not really.”
Q: What’s the box of randomness?
A: It’s a box full of discussion questions, dares, challenges for the games we’re playing, and other random stuff to keep you (and us) on our toes — essentially, our way of adding some flavor to the game and keeping commentary alive and well. We’ll draw from the box every 20 minutes (though we may adjust this based on how many people are watching or how much else is going on at the time). We’ll also draw whenever we receive a donation more than $10.
Q: Who are we donating to?
A: Our charity this time is the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, a leading nonprofit organization whose goal is to cure leukemia, lymphoma, and other related diseases and provide support to their victims. For those not in the know, leukemia and lymphoma are both forms of blood cancers that affect more than half a million people. Read more about them here.
Q: How do I donate?
A: Just click the widget on the Donate tab!
Q: How much of my donation goes to them?
A: All of it. Unlike our previous events the money is not going directly to them as you make your donation, but LLS has requested we do it this way and are under a signed agreement to turn over the money after the event.
Q: Do you work for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society or have some other relation to them?
A: No. We’re just a group of gamer friends that want to help a good cause.
Q: Why did you pick this charity?
A: Two big reasons. The first and more important is that some of the players involved in this marathon know people that have had one of these diseases, so it’s something close to us. The second is that seeing as we’re dealing with a game series where the biggest villain is a vampire (another threat to healthy blood), it works well thematically with our games.
Q: Why should I donate? Aside from it being a nice thing to do, I mean?
A: Here’s a small list of other incentives.
* Every donation higher than $10 will get us to draw from the box of randomness (see above for what that is).
* Certain incremental amounts ($100, $200, $300, $500, $700, $1000, $1500, $2000, and every thousand after that) will lengthen the whole marathon by adding extra Castlevania games to our list, or get us to replay games with different characters or conditions. If you make a donation, just say which game you want to see most. If that game has the most money towards it when we exceed one of the amounts above, it’ll get added onto the list!
* Periodically we’ll announce actual prizes, in the form of swag, artwork, games, or other stuff. We’ll also come up with a mystery dollar amount and give you a range it’s between, and whoever donates enough to exceed this amount wins the prize!
Q: How do I request a game to be played later?
A: When you make your donation, write the name of the game you’d like to see most in the “Comments” field. Request one of the extra games, or request a game we already played as a different character with extra conditions or playstyles (though if your conditions are too outlandish or crazy you should probably clear that with us first). It’s up to you what kind of game you want to see – request a favorite, or something you haven’t seen and want to get a feel for, or even pick something you think we won’t like and prolong our suffering. We’re still sorting out the exact method as to when games get added on, but rest assured there’s a very good chance we’ll be adding games onto our list!
Q: What happens if I win a prize?
A: We’ll let you know using the same email address you provided. (We promise this will be the only reason we’ll email you!)
Q: How are you streaming all this?
A: We get footage of us the players thanks to a Panasonic MiniDV camcorder, and the game itself through a Dazzle DVD recorder. Due to technical limitations, for the DS games we’re instead screencapping an emulator (our alternative would be to point a webcam at the DS, which isn’t comfortable for long-term use or that high quality). We use Webcammax to put all the video into one finished package.
Q: Which members of Ocean City Trinity are involved in this marathon?
A: At present the roster should consists of Tom C, Sarah L, Jon G, Rich C, Nick B, Bern L, and a new member.
Q: Where are you guys based out of?
A: Most of us our located in southern New Jersey, though we have a few people from the Philadelphia, Baltimore, and north Jersey area as well. The actual broadcast is out of Tom and Sarah’s apartment near Cherry Hill, NJ.
Q: What other marathons have you done?
A: This is our eleventh show. Of our previous events, four of them were fairly traditional marathon affairs (Sonic, Mario, Devil May Cry, and Mega Man), one was an experimental segmented marathon (Suikoden), and the other five were competitions against one or two other teams (Star Fox, Banjo-Kazooie, Legend of Zelda, Mario again, and Metroid).
Q: What happened to the versus marathon?
A: Nothing, it’s just on hiatus. After the last one concluded all of the teams involved independently decided they wanted to run solo events first. Rest assured that the versus marathons will be coming back afterwards.
Q: How often were these questions actually asked?
A: Outside of our own group? They weren’t. We’re just being preemptive.
Awesome work guys. Just discovered your site through the castlevaniadungeon.net site – very interesting idea.
I don’t enjoy looking at playthroughs or speed runs, but this is a more exciting format for me as a viewer. If I want to torture you guys I can donate some cash and see one of you struggle through another game, L O L.
Sad that we get no new mobile Castlevania game this year but what can you do… but watch these playthroughs
Also found this on the Castlevania Dungeon! Sounds awesome and I’d love to participate, except I’m on the West Coast and probably can’t fly out there. Any way I could try streaming something from here somehow?
Sure, we’d welcome someone playing along from home! We can treat it like an informal race or something.
If it’s not too late, I have a copy of _Legends_ that I would be willing to loan or donate for the cause.