Competitive single player games.

[Nutmeg]

In the past 10 years or so people have been enjoying single player games competitively through speed running.

When a game is designed around speed running (e.g. Doom and Quake) it's usually really fun to play that way.

But the vast majority of games being speed run weren't designed around that. This doesn't mean that they're not good for that, but it does mean it's just due to dumb luck when they are.

Speed running is also not the only way a single player game can be competitive. There is also scoring, and at least one genre of games - shmups - enjoys competition among those gunning for WR scores or their names on online leaderboards.

There's also just as many games where scoring exists, but doesn't make much sense or isn't very enjoyable and hence completely ignored. Did you know Starcraft gave you a score? Yeah.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn Civilization 4 was being played for score last time I checked 3 years ago. Much less common amongst Alpha Centauri players.

Another form of competition I am familiar with is low turn count runs amongst the Advance Wars and Fire Emblem communities. SRW players also do this.

I've also heard rumors of low level runs of RPGs.

So, what are your favorite single player games to play competitively?

 

[Wunderbar]

I like to watch speedruns of PS1 survival horror games.

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

War games. Winning or losing a battle or campaign can seem convoluted, but most of them at least rack up scores with victory points, morale points, win/loss numbers, etc. I played out a long Seven Years War campaign in Birth of America 2 last week. I had about 200 or so more points than the AI, so I won - barely.

How an ending like would have ended in real life, who's to say. Historically, England and France did some territory swaps and the Frenchies ended one step closer to some heads being lopped off, and America was one step closer to becoming the greatest nation that ever lived. Winning by 200 points in a video game? Pretty meh by comparison, but no video game offers free native pussy and wampum beads as victory tokens, so I have to settle for a glass of whiskey and a self high-five.

The other would probably be sports/combat games, but aside from the occasional bit of fun with Mutant League Football or Mortal Kombat, I don't play 'em much now.

 

[Nutmeg]

Mortal Kombat

Huh? How is competition here single player?

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

Mortal Kombat

Huh? How is competition here single player?

I don't know, tournaments perhaps? Watching Scorpion melt your face off with a fatality seems like a good incentive not to lose.

 

[Nutmeg]

I guess what I meant was competition amongst human players playing a single player game, if that makes sense.

Not just beating the AI.

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

I guess what I meant was competition amongst human players playing a single player game, if that makes sense.

Not just beating the AI.

Or both. I remember playing with friends back in the day and seeing which of us could get to Goro or Shang Tsung and beat them. On harder difficulties those tournament ladders were a bitch to climb.

 

[DraQ]

Ori and The Will of The Wisps, a platforming-centric metroidvania and direct sequel to Ori and The Blind Forest, good game but play the original first, seems to have race mechanics specifically for speedrunning given segments, optionally against recorded speedruns of other players most of whom cheat using exploits in an otherwise SP game:


Children of a Dead Earth, a hyperrealistic space combat and engineering game with only existing/near future (and in some cases even retro) technology - seriously, it's awesome, get it, allows you to download other people's designs from Steam Workshop and have them not work and/or break one another due to stupid namespace conflicts because other players are lazy and don't name their shit uniquely or import them manually and duke it out (caveat being at least one of the sides gets to be controlled by AI which is about as smart as a bag of bricks, so some cool advanced features are lost on it and knowing the right AI presets is necessary to let it fight with any effectiveness).
There were even tourneys where both players uploaded their designs and had them fight with both being AI controlled:
https://childrenofadeadearth.boards.net/thread/1543/coade-officially-unofficial-tournament-thread

Also design challenges:
https://childrenofadeadearth.boards.net/thread/1328/list-build-challenges-requests

And, of course, there is custom BT (Bunny Track) gametype and maps for good ol' Unreal Tournament '99.

 

[Metronome]

Sometimes I get competitive playing roguelikes, but most of the time just completing one is enough to brag about.

 

[Reality]

Roller Caster Tycoon - as far as I'm concerned it's the player vs Chris Sawyer - // the actual scenario goals are easy … but in the original game and it's expansions the "setpiece" starting rides that are in almost every level taunt me until I build something bigger and more creative than Sawyer did. It's actually the main reason why I prefer RCT 1 > RCT 2.

The arcade games I remember having fun with 1CC were 1943 and Last Resort (easy I know)

For Score - Most any Arcade puzzle game, although most are really just for practive for VS mode. I did Dig Dug 2 (it's a score cap) but I plan to go all-in on Dig Dug one of these days.

I do speedruns. I'm touchy about it because of my low video quality. I do Star Control, and RTS games

 

[Burning Bridges]

The last of that sort I did was doing hotlaps in GPL.

My attempts were always hampered by the fact that me and my equipment sucked, and my best laps were still seconds from the absolute world records. But with some released car setups from the masters my times also jumped immediately by some seconds, so I think there is more about it than just driving as fast as you can and that there is also a scientific method behind it.

Some people are really astonishing and made a little career from it. This is a documentation on Gregger Huttu for example. He made it into a real racecar cockpit but failed, he did not suck and was quick but was vomiting and such things.

 

[Ghulgothas]

The DMC games have a small but notable community based around Style Tournies. They're natural fits for single-player competition given how they were built with Arcade Scoring in mind.

 

[nobre]

There exist single player Diablo 2 runefinding and or itemfinding tournaments. Basically, you run an area for x amount of time, whoever gets the best loot wins. Of course, a gentlemanly spirit is required for this as you can cheat very easily. The levels of autism on display are glorious. People are still optimizing their builds and tactics to this day. If that isn't play for plays sake, I don't know what is.

Link for anyone interested -> https://www.diabloii.net/forums/forums/single-player-forum.3/

 

[Lyric Suite]

Seems to me there really isn't such a thing unless the game includes a scoring mechanic. Speed running for instance is something the players themselves came up with it's not really part of the game.

And the only kind of single player games which are competitive and challenging without relying on meta stuff like speed running is arcade games, like shoot 'em ups for instance:



Two of my childhood friends are into this stuff and one of them is even part of some kind of Italian community that has actual scoring competitions.

From my part i suck at them. I play them only because my friends got me into them but i would never dream of competing with anyone. Best i could do is 1CC my way to the last boss and die like a retard at the last second lmao. But i almost made it damn it. I also tried getting into Battle Garegga has that one has some really novel concept behind it (the better you are, the worst the game actually becomes so you have to learn "when" to die which i thought was clever), but my gay ass eyes can't distinguish the bullets so i gave up.

 

[Nutmeg]

From my part i suck at them. I play them only because my friends got me into them but i would never dream of competing with anyone. Best i could do is 1CC my way to the last boss and die like a retard at the last second lmao. But i almost made it damn it. I also tried getting into Battle Garegga has that one has some really novel concept behind it (the better you are, the worst the game actually becomes so you have to learn "when" to die which i thought was clever), but my gay ass eyes can't distinguish the bullets so i gave up.

Garegga is awesome. Try the Saturn version which has difficulty modes to work your way up to arcade level. Alternatively if your only problem is bullet visibility try the sequel Armed Police Batrider, which even lets you change the color of various kinds of bullets by holding start and a direction (or something, look up the exact key combo).

I'm kinda in the same boat you are. I've been shit clearing good but not great shmups to hone my skills to enjoy the classics.

My 1CC log in rough order of how much I enjoyed them:

Spoiler

Batsugun special
Slapfight MD
Winds of thunder
Soldier blade
Biometal
MUSHA
Elemental master
Sylphia
Battlemania 2
Fighting hawk
Repulse

Part of the motivation of this thread was to find other cool games built around similar principles.

 

[DraQ]

There exist single player Diablo 2 runefinding and or itemfinding tournaments. Basically, you run an area for x amount of time, whoever gets the best loot wins. Of course, a gentlemanly spirit is required for this as you can cheat very easily. The levels of autism on display are glorious. People are still optimizing their builds and tactics to this day. If that isn't play for plays sake, I don't know what is.

Link for anyone interested -> https://www.diabloii.net/forums/forums/single-player-forum.3/

Sooo.... May the best RNG win?

Seems to me there really isn't such a thing unless the game includes a scoring mechanic. Speed running for instance is something the players themselves came up with it's not really part of the game.

And the only kind of single player games which are competitive and challenging without relying on meta stuff like speed running is arcade games, like shoot 'em ups for instance:

[citation needed]
Scroll up to my previous post for glaring counterexample of the most kind.

 

[nobre]

There exist single player Diablo 2 runefinding and or itemfinding tournaments. Basically, you run an area for x amount of time, whoever gets the best loot wins. Of course, a gentlemanly spirit is required for this as you can cheat very easily. The levels of autism on display are glorious. People are still optimizing their builds and tactics to this day. If that isn't play for plays sake, I don't know what is.

Link for anyone interested -> https://www.diabloii.net/forums/forums/single-player-forum.3/

Sooo.... May the best RNG win?

Luck definitely is part of it, but you can increase your odds greatly by decreasing your run times, packing more MF, killing more monsters per run or per time unit or what have you. So there's a tactical and strategic layer to it.

 

[DraQ]

There exist single player Diablo 2 runefinding and or itemfinding tournaments. Basically, you run an area for x amount of time, whoever gets the best loot wins. Of course, a gentlemanly spirit is required for this as you can cheat very easily. The levels of autism on display are glorious. People are still optimizing their builds and tactics to this day. If that isn't play for plays sake, I don't know what is.

Link for anyone interested -> https://www.diabloii.net/forums/forums/single-player-forum.3/

Sooo.... May the best RNG win?

Luck definitely is part of it, but you can increase your odds greatly by decreasing your run times, packing more MF, killing more monsters per run or per time unit or what have you. So there's a tactical and strategic layer to it.

Still looks like a
kind of nope to me.

 

[Onionguy]

Seems to me there really isn't such a thing unless the game includes a scoring mechanic. Speed running for instance is something the players themselves came up with it's not really part of the game.

And the only kind of single player games which are competitive and challenging without relying on meta stuff like speed running is arcade games, like shoot 'em ups for instance:



Two of my childhood friends are into this stuff and one of them is even part of some kind of Italian community that has actual scoring competitions.

From my part i suck at them. I play them only because my friends got me into them but i would never dream of competing with anyone. Best i could do is 1CC my way to the last boss and die like a retard at the last second lmao. But i almost made it damn it. I also tried getting into Battle Garegga has that one has some really novel concept behind it (the better you are, the worst the game actually becomes so you have to learn "when" to die which i thought was clever), but my gay ass eyes can't distinguish the bullets so i gave up.

At least You have great friends. Mine are into Fallout 4....

 

[HansDampf]

I once went through a phase where I did scoring attempts in Ikaruga. I could never figure out how to do chapter 4 properly.

Nowadays, the only games I've played competitively to beat scores of other players are the Zachtronics puzzle games.

 

[Duralux for Durabux]

In the past 10 years or so people have been enjoying single player games competitively through speed running.

When a game is designed around speed running (e.g. Doom and Quake) it's usually really fun to play that way.

But the vast majority of games being speed run weren't designed around that. This doesn't mean that they're not good for that, but it does mean it's just due to dumb luck when they are.

Speed running is also not the only way a single player game can be competitive. There is also scoring, and at least one genre of games - shmups - enjoys competition among those gunning for WR scores or their names on online leaderboards.

There's also just as many games where scoring exists, but doesn't make much sense or isn't very enjoyable and hence completely ignored. Did you know Starcraft gave you a score? Yeah.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn Civilization 4 was being played for score last time I checked 3 years ago. Much less common amongst Alpha Centauri players.

Another form of competition I am familiar with is low turn count runs amongst the Advance Wars and Fire Emblem communities. SRW players also do this.

I've also heard rumors of low level runs of RPGs.

So, what are your favorite single player games to play competitively?

FUCKING BLOODBORNE, one of the most enjoyable singleplayer experience to speedrun.

 

[DraQ]

Nowadays, the only games I've played competitively to beat scores of other players are the Zachtronics puzzle games.

Oh, those definitely count. Nice.

 

[The Fish]

Devil Daggers