Raising $34,255 over four days, Smash the Record 2017 was another year of fun and charity. Originally started as an attempt to break a world record, STR has become the premier charity event for the Smash community. Below, we highlight the various events that took place.
Tournament Bracket
STR is, first and foremost, a tournament. As such, there were plenty of bracket sets that gave viewers something to enjoy. With the relaxed nature of the tournament, many of the well known players for both Melee and Smash 4 played secondaries or even played random characters. With relaxed commentary, the sets have a personal touch that make them interesting to watch for fun or sport.
Melee Singles
Melee Doubles
Smash 4 Singles
Smash 4 Doubles
Special Tournaments
Over the weekend, various special-rule tournaments took place. These created new challenges for players, as it gave them new limits or variables to grasp as they played. These included events like One-Stock, Pokémon, Oven Mitt, and Stamina tournaments. Watching players adapt to the situations these tournaments brought made for quite the spectators delight.
Speedruns
Sprinkled throughout Smash were speedruns conducted by various members of the community. These included Super Mario 64 Chaos, Super Metroid, Silent Hill, Super Mario Land 2, and Smash 64 Adventure Mode. These gave levity to the hours of Smash, and gave members of the community an outlet to demonstrate some of the crossover the community has with the speedrunning community.
Smashbot Demonstrations
Pitting the AI Smashbot against players of all levels, viewers got an interesting glimpse of where the future of Smash may be heading. The bot made quick work of most players of every level, and demonstrated what a computer can accomplish with Melee. The developer also hinted at ew shaping the bot into an analysis machine, which would be capable of giving quantitative data about a player's weaknesses. With these demonstrations, Melee may only be getting started in how optimal the game can be run.
STR Side Events
Conclusion
STR 2017 delivered once again, to remind us of how Smash can still be a fun experience for just the sake of fun. With this year coming to a close, we can only hope that STR 2018 is just as strong.
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