I am doing an Explanation Speech on Melee, Please Help!!!!

[MrFluffaWuffakin]

First off I would like to say: no I am not trying to get you guys to do all of my homework (lolz), I just need some topics that will help the normal person (audience: college students) understand Melee better.

A little bit about myself: I am a freshman studying Computer Graphics Technology at Indiana University Purdue University of Indiana (IUPUI), and I am unfortunately forced to take speech my freshman year (stupid state rules). I've been playing Melee seriously for about a year and a half or so. So I was assigned an explanation speech (due next thursday) and I was wanting to do something that actually meant something to me instead of talking about some crap that everybody in the room could care less about. So I thought why not explain my favorite game, Melee.

I know that a lot of them have at least played some iteration of the game, so its not like smash bros is something that they have never heard of or anything. My problem is is that this speech is not a How To speech so I can't just teach them how to do things in the game. And I highly doubt that I can actually bring the gamecube in and play it in front of them, however I do plan on using a decent amount of gifs. So basically I have to explain the game. I need some help from you guys with some topics to talk about!

What should I explain to a person that doesn't really think this game was that special in the first place?

I was thinking about explaining how the games are different from each other, how melee is deep, how each character has unique moves/jumps/damage/ect. But i feel like I'm missing somethings and I don't want to necessarily get to deep about Melee because then my audience would eventually be confused and stop paying attention.

This speech is supposed to be 6 min long, max of 3 notecards, and 4-6 slides on a powerpoint. I also have to source a book (maybe wife's?), interview, website, and a periodical so if you know of any book, or periodical that would be useful in my speech I would appreciate it if you would let me know!

Thank you for looking at this and I hope you guys can help me explain Melee to maybe a future new player!

 

[Massive]

Start with explaining why the game is awesome to watch as a spectator (it's exciting, there are huge comebacks, it's easy to understand the action and rules, etc), if you are allowed a visual aid, a video of a particularly flashy/exciting match would be great here.

After that give some brief background, how the game is so simple to play anybody could pick it up, why you started playing to begin with, why you keep playing, the people you've met, the things you've accomplished, the places you've gone.

Focus on relationships between people, tournaments, and the exciting parts.

A lot of smashers have met their best friends through smash, some people have met their significant others through smash, some people have learned social and life skills from smash, a very lucky few even make their living from smash now.

It's always been my experience that giving a speech about something you are passionate about is very easy. Six minutes may sound like a lot, but if it was me giving the speech, it may not be enough.

 

[SAUS]

I am not sure how basic you should start at, but explaining the very simple, core mechanics might be a nice place to start. This would be like how the stage is just kind of floating in a box and you fight on it and you die if you fall off. Hitting people launches them farther and farther and each character has various ways to try to get back to the stage. The game is very simple, but still allows for so much. I think that is one of the big things about melee - it's got all these rather simple ideas but allows for so much stuff to happen.

From there, I'd move onto how you can truly be a master at the game - similar to martial arts or something, maybe music, where being a master does not mean you are at the peak of ability, but at a very impressive level and possibly at your own personal peak. I'd try to talk about how it encourages self-improvement since there is seemingly no end to what you can learn and master.

The combination of constant learning / mastery and lack of online play forces you to play with people frequently, and, being a game, it puts everyone in a positive environment. This leads to strong friendships and a nice sense of community. What Massive has stated is no lie. Many of my closest friends are people I met from playing melee. I used to be more shy, and all that. Melee really has been my place of growth. It's more than just a game when you get to this point. I really believe people when they say "melee is a way of life".

I can't help you too much with the actual speech since I have never done one, but good luck! I believe it is very manly to do a speech on something like this. Captain falcon would approve.

 

[MrFluffaWuffakin]

Eve

Start with explaining why the game is awesome to watch as a spectator (it's exciting, there are huge comebacks, it's easy to understand the action and rules, etc), if you are allowed a visual aid, a video of a particularly flashy/exciting match would be great here.

After that give some brief background, how the game is so simple to play anybody could pick it up, why you started playing to begin with, why you keep playing, the people you've met, the things you've accomplished, the places you've gone.

Focus on relationships between people, tournaments, and the exciting parts.

A lot of smashers have met their best friends through smash, some people have met their significant others through smash, some people have learned social and life skills from smash, a very lucky few even make their living from smash now.

It's always been my experience that giving a speech about something you are passionate about is very easy. Six minutes may sound like a lot, but if it was me giving the speech, it may not be enough.

Even though I think I will touch on the community, I don't want the whole speech to be about the community instead of the game. however I will bring up tourneys, and the people.

Thanks for your input!!!!

 

[MrFluffaWuffakin]

I am not sure how basic you should start at, but explaining the very simple, core mechanics might be a nice place to start. This would be like how the stage is just kind of floating in a box and you fight on it and you die if you fall off. Hitting people launches them farther and farther and each character has various ways to try to get back to the stage. The game is very simple, but still allows for so much. I think that is one of the big things about melee - it's got all these rather simple ideas but allows for so much stuff to happen.

From there, I'd move onto how you can truly be a master at the game - similar to martial arts or something, maybe music, where being a master does not mean you are at the peak of ability, but at a very impressive level and possibly at your own personal peak. I'd try to talk about how it encourages self-improvement since there is seemingly no end to what you can learn and master.

The combination of constant learning / mastery and lack of online play forces you to play with people frequently, and, being a game, it puts everyone in a positive environment. This leads to strong friendships and a nice sense of community. What Massive has stated is no lie. Many of my closest friends are people I met from playing melee. I used to be more shy, and all that. Melee really has been my place of growth. It's more than just a game when you get to this point. I really believe people when they say "melee is a way of life".

I can't help you too much with the actual speech since I have never done one, but good luck! I believe it is very manly to do a speech on something like this. Captain falcon would approve.

Thank you, this is probably the template that I will come close to following. The paragraph about how deep the game could possibly be is exactly what I think I was missing. I knew that I wanted to tell them that the game was deep, but explaining it is pretty hard, however your explanation is very well written.

I know haha, I was honestly tired of doing speech's that had no connection to me really. Hyes!!!

Again, Thank You! This helped me tremendously!

 

[Xyzz]

This speech is supposed to be 6 min long, max of 3 notecards, and 4-6 slides on a powerpoint.

and your choice is Melee (which is a really, really complex topic)? Good luck, haha :D

 

[StokeTheForge]

If you can, include some videos of people screaming (Wombo Combo, GRBrawl, EMG). That will help get your point across.
No joke.

 

[muddykips]

A 6 minute speech sounds way too short to go super deep into the more advanced side of the game. You need to think of what will interest (and, most importantly, be comprehensible to) your audience, and not necessarily what you want to talk about. Be prepared to leave stuff out.

I think the main guideline for your topic would be to present things in a simple, logical, and engaging manner. Don't bring up anything that doesn't relate to helping your audience understand the point you're trying to convey. This means that if you want to talk about Melee's importance in particular, it's good to start with something releatable and recent like Sm4sh, but committing a few moments to talk about differences between the games will only serve to waste your limited speech time.

(gotta go do something, i'll add more to this later)

 

[MrFluffaWuffakin]

and your choice is Melee (which is a really, really complex topic)? Good luck, haha :D

ik, i just want to scrape the top of how deep the game can go without going into detail (maybe telling them a technique that proves the depthness of the game)

If you can, include some videos of people screaming (Wombo Combo, GRBrawl, EMG). That will help get your point across.
No joke.

hhhmmmm for some reason this sounds like the perfect solution to everything...... forget it, im just going to show the wombo combo video in a loop for 6 min.

A 6 minute speech sounds way too short to go super deep into the more advanced side of the game. You need to think of what will interest (and, most importantly, be comprehensible to) your audience, and not necessarily what you want to talk about. Be prepared to leave stuff out.

I think the main guideline for your topic would be to present things in a simple, logical, and engaging manner. Don't bring up anything that doesn't relate to helping your audience understand the point you're trying to convey. This means that if you want to talk about Melee's importance in particular, it's good to start with something releatable and recent like Sm4sh, but committing a few moments to talk about differences between the games will only serve to waste your limited speech time.

(gotta go do something, i'll add more to this later)

Yah i know it is kind of a short time to prove how deep melee is, but that's not necessarily what I'm wanting to convey. Sure proving that the game is deep is important but I need to give them an example that would prove that there are plenty of super super little things in this game that makes it soooo deep. At the end of the day I got to explain Melee, even though that may sound hard I'm just trying to get it to the most simplest, yet understandable explanation i can give. And yah i agree with you, I shouldn't spend to much time on how each game is different, but instead talk about how maybe just melee is different (fast paced).

Thanks, yah your post diffidently made me realize how hard it's going to be to not give them information that isn't necessary to my speech.

I look forward to whatever else you have to say! Thanx!