The 'Shroom:Issue 183/Pipe Plaza

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Director's Notes

Written by: Zange (talk)

Shroom2019 Zange.png

HOW IS IT ALREADY JUNE GOOD GRIEF

Anyways, I move into a college dorm for the very first time in about two months, so that's terrifying!! We don't have a lot of my stuff bought yet, but I think that's part of the plan when my mom and I go on vacation next month. Speaking of which, one of the days I get to see Dreamcatcher (aka my favorite Kpop group of all time) LIVE IN CONCERT! AAAAAAAHHHHHHH I'm so excited!!!!

We have a lot of really cool sections here this month!! You too can write a really cool section for us! Head to the sign up page to find out more!

Enjoy your month and may your weather forecasts not be full of terrible heat ^^;;

Section of the Month

PIPE PLAZA SECTION OF THE MONTH
Place Section Votes % Writer
1st NIWA News 5 33.33% PanchamBro (talk)
2nd Forum Update 3 20.00% Hooded Pitohui (talk)
3rd Anniversary Announcements 2 13.33% Lakituthequick (talk)
3rd Poll Committee Discussion 2 13.33% Luigi 64DD (talk)
Mariowiki sections
NIWA News
PanchamBro (talk)
Stay up-to-date with the latest happenings from the NIWA wiki network!
read more
Poll Committee Discussion
Ninja Squid (talk)
The best analysis of the polls around!
read more
Anniversary Announcements
Lakituthequick (talk)
The ongoings of the Mario Awards.
read more
Non-wiki sections
That NIWA List
PanchamBro (talk)
Take a look at some of the strangest articles in NIWA!
read more
Mario Calendar
GPM1000 (talk)
Find out all about this month's Super Mario releases.
read more
Roleplay Update
MightyMario (talk)
MightyMario is providing us with all the latest happenings of the forum roleplays.
read more
What's in a Campaign?
Mustard Machine (talk)
Your computer mouse is no longer safe.
read more
Forum Update
Hooded Pitohui (talk)
Think you missed anything on the forum lately? Fear not, just read this!
read more

NIWA News

Written by: PanchamBro (talk)

Hey it's me PanchamBro. It's time for this month's NIWA News, a section regarding news with each of the 32 members of the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance. We'll be going through staff changes and related wiki news in May. Let's begin!

Staff changes

  • Username (yes that is their name) has been promoted to admin on Pikmin Fanon. They're known for their work in helping with the technical works behind Pikmin Fanon.
  • On the other hand, GeneticistVarik has resigned from their bureaucrat and admin roles on WikiBound. They were WikiBound's representative for NIWA, and it's sad to see them go so soon after working hard on the role. Their contributions to WikiBound will be missed.

Wiki news

If you previously participated in Inkipedia's logo contest for Round 1, you have until June 25 of this month to submit your final logo and mockup for Round 2 of the contest. I repeat, only users that have previously made a submission to Round 1 can submit their entry to Round 2. Voting will begin the day after. Even if you didn't make a contribution to the contest during Round 1, you can still vote on what logo Inkipedia will use, and help decide the fate of these squid kids uhhh I mean their logo.

Nookipedia New Main Page.png

And speaking of changes, Nookipedia has launched a brand new main page design, with work done by Dorsal Axe and PanchamBro. There's now a listing for what critters are new for each month, the events going on in New Horizons and older titles, and a section for latest releases for merchandise, video games, and so many more. The design was also made to be mobile friendly as well, meaning that if you viewed this on your phone, it'll still look like how it is presented on desktop. Yes yes, I think this new main page speaks to all tanukis alike!

And while this news is very local, Super Mario Wiki has updated its standard Monobook look following a proposal in late May. Although it will be sad to say goodbye to the old background after more than 15 years, nothing screams Mario more than with classic Mario symbols!

On the topic of proposals, WiKirby held a referendum regarding how spoilers were presented. After 20 votes were tallied, the overwhelming majority with 43 points agreed to remove the spoilers template, but otherwise keep a spoiler warning on the site notice bar. And I'm definitely don't want to be spoiled in any regards, so I'll try to stay away from the time being. I don't know, the feeling of being spoiled by Marx is scary.

Lastly, Bulbapedia has been experiencing some technical issues regarding their autoscaler late in May. Issues have been mostly fixed, but if you experience any issues whatsoever, please let technical staff know either in Bulbagarden's Discord server or Bulbapedia Forums.

Anyways, that's it for any related NIWA news that I could gather for this month's 'Shroom. I'll see you later in my "That NIWA List" article where I...must think random things...think random things...random...uh...

Poll Committee Discussion

Written by: Ninja Squid (talk)

12thPollBanner.png

Hello there, 'Shroom readers. It is your 'Shroom Director here trying to survive the June apocalypse, and while you may clearly not know what I mean by that, I undoubtedly do!

Anyway, I am not here crying over why this month is horrible, but rather to give you results and an analysis of our most recent polls, so let's get to it!

The News

The election for the 13th Poll Committee Chairperson is now up! If you are interested in running to lead the Poll Committee for a one-year term, make sure to read the details on the section. I am very much looking forward to the election, and I hope you do as well!

Archives

In the event that Charles Martinet stopped voicing Mario, how would you prefer for Nintendo to proceed? (Waluigi Time (talk), May 15, 2022)

In the event that Charles Martinet stopped voicing Mario, how would you prefer for Nintendo to proceed?

Nintendo should continue reusing archive audio of Martinet while also using a soundalike for new clips when necessary. 51.37% (1,499 votes)
Nintendo should only reuse archive audio of Martinet for Mario. 19.88% (580 votes)
Nintendo should hire a soundalike and only use their recordings for Mario. 13.67% (399 votes)
I have no opinion. 8.53% (249 votes)
Nintendo should cast a new voice actor whose performance is distinct from Martinet's. 6.55% (191 votes)
Total Votes: 2,918

Various Mario titles feature "easy" mode options to help struggling players (e.g. Super Guide, Smart Steering). What is your opinion on them? (Ray Trace (talk), May 29, 2022)

Various Mario titles feature "easy" mode options to help struggling players (e.g. Super Guide, Smart Steering). What is your opinion on them?

I like these options as long as players are not required to use them. 52.47% (1,105 votes)
I like these options and want future Mario titles to continue to feature them or variations. 23.08% (486 votes)
I do not like these options as players should play the game without assists, but I am okay with them being present. 9.59% (202 votes)
I like these options and think that existing titles should add more ways to assist players through updates. 6.84% (144 votes)
I don't have an opinion on accessibility options. 4.08% (86 votes)
I do not like these options and I think future titles should stop having them. 3.94% (83 votes)
Total Votes: 2,106

Analysis

In the event that Charles Martinet stopped voicing Mario, how would you prefer for Nintendo to proceed?

The legend and the voice behind the legend.

If Charles Martinet stopped voicing Mario, I feel that it would be one of the biggest news of the century. The option with the majority of the votes (also with more than 50% of the votes!) was that Nintendo should keep using voice clips from Charles Martinet, while also using a soundalike for new clips when necessary. I have to admit that I agree with this option the most. Mario's voice is iconic, and I think it would be very VERY hard to actually adjust to a new voice actor, so a soundalike might be the best compromise between having a new voice actor and also a voice similar enough to the one that Charles Martinet gave to Mario over these past 20 years.

In second position, with roughly 20% of the votes is for Nintendo to only reuse voice clips from Charles Martinet, and if we count this with the top option, it brings the total up to around 70% of our voters that want Nintendo to at least keep using voice clips from Charles Martinet. Note that barely 7% of our voters would be fine with a new voice actor to take over. Clearly, this poll showcase that if Charles Martinet were to stop voicing Mario, I think depending on what will be Nintendo's decision, it may turn out to be controversial. Let us hope Charles Martinet keep voicing Mario for another good while!


Various Mario titles feature "easy" mode options to help struggling players (e.g. Super Guide, Smart Steering). What is your opinion on them?

Real life recording of me playing golf.

Poll coming from the Poll Committee boss! Another one were the top option had more than 50% of the votes, and where I also agree with the option. I do think it's good that video games are as accessible as possible to all kinds of players, but I do think it is important that these features are optional. This is why I thought that New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe where two characters (Toadette and Nabbit) are actually forced to be used in multiplayer is disappointing as these two characters both have elements that makes the game easier. Nintendo should have made sure to make it possible for players who wants to play in multiplayer normally like the original New Super Mario Bros. U did. Blue Toad now only being a reskin of Yellow Toad was one of the weirdest decision they did. Essentially, make it playable without a forced easier mode on it.

Our second most voted option, with close to 25% of the votes, is that people want future Mario games to continue having such features. Again, if we count the number of votes from both the two most voted options, it brings it to around 70% that like having easier features available in Mario games, which even for a small sample, it does seem that such features are popular. However, around 13% of our votes does not like having these modes in Mario games, which fine, but I do disagree with them as I think video games are something that everyone should be able to play and enjoy no matter what are their preferences in genre as long as you have the option as for how do you prefer to enjoy them.


Conclusion

That's a wrap! Good news, I haven't collapsed yet! Thank you for reading Poll Committee Discussion. Please, continue to vote in our polls on the wiki's main page, and make sure to take part in the Poll Chairperson Election!

Anniversary Announcements

Written by: Lakituthequick (talk)

“Incidentally, "getting rid of U is a good step" is what Nintendo said after releasing the Switch.”
—Roserade (talk · Boards)

Good day people, and welcome to the June edition of Anniversary Announcements! How is your June? Mine is... busy... to say the least.

The news

There is not much news, but there is one important bit of news: the polls are now open! Go vote on the Mario and Fail awards, or vote in the Community Awards from within the dossier!

The tournaments

It is time! Tournaments are starting up! In this subsection, I will summarise upcoming and ongoing tournaments and update you on their proceedings.

Super Mario Maker 2 VS Tournament
Sign-ups for this tournament close the day after this edition releases. In this tournament, the host will create courses on which participants have 1-vs.-1 races to the finish. You have a week to complete your match per round, in which you can practice on your own before facing off with your opponent.
This is an online tournament, so an active Nintendo Switch Online subscription is required.
Awards Killing Game: Odyssey
A deduction game in which one person kills someone else each night, and the day is used to find out who did it. The fifth edition at the awards, this year it will be themed around Starline Cruises, which sets sail on the S.S. Circinus and S.S. Cetus to see the elusive comet, the Sargasso Vermelha.
The game was originally scheduled to start on 16-17 June, but was delayed to 23-24 June. While all spots have filled up, replacement sign-ups are still open.
Panel de Pon Tournament 3
Featuring the Tetris-like game Panel de Pon, this tournament is played in a Round Robin format where every player will play against every other player. The game was kicked off on 13 June.
This is an online tournament, so an active Nintendo Switch Online subscription is required.
PuyoVS High-Score Tournament
PuyoVS is an online clone of Puyo Puyo, a game comparable to Tetris. This simply tournament requires highscores of a run in endless mode to be submitted.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Tournament (Singles and Doubles)
A tournament with both 1-vs.-1 and 2-vs.-2 rounds using specified rulesets. The sign-ups closed and the game started on 15 June.
This is an online tournament, so an active Nintendo Switch Online subscription is required.
Kirby 64: Checkerboard Chase
A minigame in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, Checkerboard Chase is a game where players need to kick their opponents off the stage in order to win.
This is an online tournament, so an active Nintendo Switch Online subscription is required.

The following games have been mentioned as upcoming:

The following games have been coined to gauge interest:

The awards

In this part of Anniversary Announcements, I update you on the awards that have been discussed, and all changes made to them. This includes new and removed awards, as well as nominees within.

The most significant change this time is a mostly administrative one: all awards have been completely renumbered, in order to have closely related awards be adjacent to each other again. Over the years, awards have been replaced in place, which caused some awards, for example Favorite Mario Party Game and Favorite Mario Party Board, to be placed a distance away from each other, such as in M18 and M22. This has now been cleaned up, with the intention to keep doing this in the following years.
In the overview below, I will not list the renumbering among the changes, as this change has affected nearly every award. The old and new numbers are displayed in the document linked below.

On a different note, the last two meetings have been devoted to the complete review of all awards, to catch any last minute additions and changes. Due to the nature of this, small changes such as for spelling or formatting will not be listed below.

The complete and up-to-date list of awards and nominees can be viewed in this document at any time.

Mario Awards

M8. Favorite Instrumental Track
M10. Favorite Art Style (new)
An award with the same name was previously removed; this new award covers games that use their aesthetics to great effect, even with any hardware limits that may exist.
M15. Favorite Merchandise
Favorite Mario Platformer (removed)
This award has been split into Favorite 2D and 3D Platformer awards.

Fail Awards

F14. Most Shameless Business Decision
  • Added:
  • Utilizing a 'free update' model to justify releasing games with minimal content at launch
  • Mario Kart Tour / Dr. Mario World gacha
  • Limited-time availability of Super Mario 3D All-Stars
  • Nintendo Switch Online subscription
  • Artificial scarcity (NES/SNES mini, certain amiibo)
  • Restricting availability of old games
  • Requiring YouTube creators to surrender a sizeable cut of their profits
  • Adding advertisements to LEGO Mario voice lines
  • Refusing to fix issues causing Joy-Con drift at point of production
  • Frequent takedowns of fan content
  • Reselling older games at the price of modern releases
  • Restricting availability of game soundtracks
  • Utilizing a 'free update' model to justify releasing games with minimal content at launch
Worst 3D Level (removed)

Community Awards

C3. Favorite 'Shroom Section Design
Renamed from Best 'Shroom Section Design.
C9. Favorite Wiki April Fool's Event (new)
Favorite Community Event (removed)

And such marks the last changes to this year's awards! But we're only just starting. As I mentioned, the polls are currently open, and after those close, it's counting down to the Awards Ceremony on 12 August. This does mark the end of this month's Anniversary Announcements, but I, too, will continue next month. Until then, have a good one!

That NIWA List

Written by: PanchamBro (talk)

In many of the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance wikis, there are plenty of articles that are considered unusual to readers alike. Today, I'll showcase these articles from one of the many Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance wikis.

This section was inspired by Wikipedia's unusual article page, which documents the most unusual articles documented on the site. Unlike Wikipedia however, the selection of unusual articles here will be decided on a case-by-case basis, whether or not the documented material is weird enough to warrant being on this section.

ARMS Character Select Screen.png

Random! That's what I told my boss on why I was super late to coming to work, the traffic was being random. So random in fact that he randomly told me I was fired, hence why I'm randomly making this 'Shroom article. You know what else is random? Talking about ARMS, the most successful video game by Nintendo with 2.56 million copies sold in total! It's up there with the other Nintendo games released in 2017 as of March 31, 2022: Super Mario Odyssey at 23.50 million, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild at 26.55 million, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at 45.33 million. Hmm...okay, maybe it's not impressive, but ARMS couldn't have been a failed attempt at a franchise after the success of Splatoon, right? It's not like there's an upcoming graphic novel series that will totally be cancelled right? Wait...it did?! Well, I guess that's just the only thing related to ARMS that has failed, not counting the failure to establish an official competitive scene by Nintendo, or the failure to provide content-packed updates that don't delay features for the base game just as they did for some other titles. All digressing aside, ARMS is a video game, and just like all other video games, there is a hint of Random.

Now why does an article on the basis of randomness exists for ARMS? Well, we have to understand why random even exists for video games. Random is a unpredictable sequence that cannot be controlled by the user. Generally speaking, it has to be done via random number generation, a mechanic that many speedrunners dread and sometimes try to manipulate. For example, say you wanted to make a pizza but can't figured out what toppings to chose. All you got to do is make a random topping generator, and congratulations! You managed to make a generator that will force you to make a pizza with the worst toppings, like bananas and strawberry pizza, as if pineapple pizza wasn't bad enough. Except with ARMS, swap the pizza and the toppings with forgettable characters and forgettable stages, because that's how random works in ARMS. Once the random setting is selected, the character will be revealed, and the stage is shown via the loading screen. Fantastic! Let's hope you're the lucky one and get someone more memorable like Min Min.

In all honesty though, it's bizarre that ARMS Institute would even host an article on this topic (a stub even!) So while ARMS might still be at the forefront of being left in the dustbins by Nintendo's ignorance, ARMS is still ARMS, and as a non-ARMS fan, it serves as a good article worthy to be on that NIWA List.

Mario Calendar

Written by: GPM1000 (talk)

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another Mario Calendar! Happy June, and Happy Pride Month! Let’s get into this, shall we?

Region Abbreviations

Abb. Region
ALL All Regions (JP/NA/EU/AU)
JP Japan
NA North America
EU Europe
AU Oceania/Australia
SK South Korea
CHN China
UK United Kingdom

Console Abbreviations

Abb. Console
NES Nintendo Entertainment System
Famicom Family Computer Disk System
SNES Super Nintendo Entertainment System
N64 Nintendo 64
GC Nintendo GameCube
GB Game Boy
GBC Game Boy Color
GBA Game Boy Advance
DS Nintendo DS
3DS Nintendo 3DS
Switch Nintendo Switch
Wii VC Nintendo Wii Virtual Console
3DS VC Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console
Wii U VC Nintendo Wii U Virtual Console
VB Virtual Boy
G&W Game and Watch
64DD Nintendo 64 Disk Drive
MS-DOS Microsoft Disk Operating System
CD-i Philips CD-i
IQ iQue Player
NVS Nvidia Shield
ACPC Amstrad CPC
ZX ZX Spectrum
Coleco Colecovision
TI-99 Texas Instruments TI-99/4A

And that’s all for this month! For a month that started off relatively slow, this was a crazy month overall. Super Mario 64, Donkey Kong in the U.S., and even Tetris and Mario Bros.! But most importantly of all, remember that Mario Strikers: Battle League came out on the 10th, so be sure to pick that up if it’s something you’re interested in! See you next month, GPM out!

Roleplay Update

Written by: MightyMario (talk)

Hello again! This is MightyMario with Roleplay Update! Let’s see what happened in the Roleplay section in May!

New RPs

Sega Roleplay [by OhoJeeOnFire] Ever wanted to adventure through the worlds of SEGA games? Now you can! OhoJee stars as Sonic and LJS stars as Tails in this way past cool roleplay.

Notable Events

  • Cayde and Abby (played by MightyMario and LJS) are being tracked down by Nitros Oxide (played by MightyMario) while Kara and Lyra (played by MightyMario and Matz Lunne) and venture to save Orion (played by Matz Lunne) from Deep Space in Into the Cosmos.
  • The NIGHTS arc concluded after a battle with Clawz (Toadettefan) in Mushroom City Car Wash.
  • A Puyo Puyo arc started by OhoJeeOnFire continues in Tales from the Megaverse.

New Bans

None. Keep that streak going!

And this was another edition of Roleplay Update! I’m MightyMario and see you in July for more updates!

What's in a Campaign?

Written by: Mustard Machine (talk)

Hello 'Shroom readers, and welcome back to another What's In a Campaign? a section where we look through the various robots of the hit UK TV show, Robot Wars. Last month, we took a look at Series 1 champion and ultimate wedgebot, Roadblock. This month, we're going to return to Series 4 and look at the appropriately-named MouseTrap. But before we get to the robot, I'd like to insert a nice and subtle plug and say that everyone should read this month's special Blooper races and see who takes home the one-of-a-kind, unique Shine Sprite and a free vacation!

Oh, MouseTrap. I just got that.

Built by father and son Stan Launchbury and Jake Launchbury, MouseTrap is, as its name suggests, based off a mouse trap! With wedge body built partially out of an old wooden desk, armored in 5 mm polycarbonate (a Series 4 staple), MouseTrap was powered by five 6 volt Yuasa 12Ah batteries, with a max speed of 11mph. The weapon is actually quite interesting. It's a 9.6kg guillotine-like blade with a pneumatic system powered by a Chubb fire extinguisher. The blade is not designed to do damaged, per se, but instead it's designed to snare a competing robot, preventing them from escaping, much like an actual mousetrap. MouseTrap is a super interesting robot. It's the one of the best examples of a control bot in early Robot Wars, being a robot not designed to flip over or damage another robot but rather a robot built to trap other robots in its weapon and smash it around the arena.

As a reminder, all pictures are sourced from the fantastic Robot Wars Wiki. We don't have a video of just MouseTrap's fights, but we do have videos of both the episodes MouseTrap was in! You can watch the Heat K video below, but if you want to see Semi-Final B, you'll have to click here and watch it on YouTube. Weird, I know! But it's okay, because you still get that sweet robot fighting if you click, (If you watch the heat video, you should also watch 17:40 to see the world's slowest full-body spinner play pinball).

Participating in the Robot Wars Series 4 qualifiers, MouseTrap participated in two fights, defeating a robot named War Weary but also losing to an unnamed robot. Despite going 1-1 in its fight MouseTrap, was given a spot in the series and was placed in Heat K. In Heat K, MouseTrap was placed against the crusher Tiberus and Panic Attack clone/12th seed Evil Weevil. Interestingly enough, Evil Weevil was the robot that knocked out team MouseTrap's first robot, Triterobot, in Series 3, so the team is looking for revenge here. This fight (5:46, first video) goes terribly for MouseTrap! MouseTrap manages to land one blow on Evil Weevil while kind of driving around aimlessly before Tiberius penetrates MouseTrap with its crusher. The crusher appears to get stuck inside MouseTrap, forcing Refbot to break the robots up, but this only caused MouseTrap to get stuck on the Refbot's plow!

Only entertaining part of the fight

But don't worry. Literally none of this matters, because the Evil Weevil team, despite bringing six batteries, somehow managed to put the one uncharged battery into Evil Weevil, causing Evil Weevil to power down after like twenty seconds! This error on the part of the Evil Weevil team sends MouseTrap into the second round without the robot having to do anything.

In the second round, MouseTrap faces off against the best robot of all time, Sumpthing, who, for the first and only time, managed to escape the first round of something! This fight (28:03) is actually pretty good! It starts off hot, with Sumpthing managing to land a number of pickaxe blows on MouseTrap, but then MouseTrap brings down its blade and manages to catch the pickaxe of Sumpthing! MouseTrap then slams Sumpthing into the wall but foolishly lets Sumpthing go. The two trade blows as they drive around the arena, with MouseTrap getting dangerously close to a CPZ before slamming its blade into the wheel of Sumpthing. Then, tragedy strikes, and MouseTrap stops moving as Sumpthing lands blow after blow with its pickaxe! Could this be the end of MouseTrap!? No... No, it's not! MouseTrap springs to life, but only with very slow stop and start movements. Sumpthing charges in, looking to land the killing blow, but apparently, in doing so, activates MouseTrap's trap card, as MouseTrap moves at the last second, causing Sumpthing to slam its weapon into the arena floor, fucking Sumpthing all the way up.

Classic Sumpthing

Something buckles in Sumpthing, preventing its wheels from getting on the ground, leaving Sumpthing unable to move. Sumpthing is counted out and sent out of the competition, sending MouseTrap into the heat final.

The Heat Final sees MouseTrap face off against the spinning lawnmower blade of Little Fly. I'll be honest, this fight is terrible. Little Fly is a bad robot! MouseTrap starts the fight (37:15) by landing a direct hit on the blade of Little Fly, which, hey, solid offensive attack! Little Fly then manages to get around to the side of MouseTrap, hitting it with its blade, causing Little Fly's spinning blade to just stop because... of course. MouseTrap manages to get Little Fly on its wedge (not hard, as Little Fly has a lot of ground clearance) and land a guillotine blow to the body of Little Fly, which does only superficial damage. MouseTrap again gets under Little Fly and pushes it a bit while landing another blow. Then, Little Fly begins to push back before both robots stop, seemingly locked up, unable to push each other. Refbot then decides that this is terrible television and breaks the two robots up. Little Fly actually manages to almost do something with its weapon, hitting the spring of the MouseTrap. Here's the thing, though. That spring doesn't do anything! LOL! Commentator Jonathan Pearce constantly says that severing the spring will stop MouseTrap from firing its blade, but, no, he's wrong. The spring is just cosmetic; it doesn't power anything.

It was a real struggle to find an image for this fight.

In any case, Little Fly does not sever the spring. MouseTrap then begins the most sustained offensive of the fight, shoving Little Fly several times before pushing it into the Matilda's CPZ, where Matilda attempts to flip Little Fly with its tusk. The fight then ends with MouseTrap barely moving because... of course. It goes to the judges and, despite my personal belief that they should have DQed both of these robots and should have just let Tiberius go to the Semi-Finals, The judges have to pick between these two robots and obviously they pick MouseTrap, sending the trap into the Semi-Finals.

STINGER SMASH

Heat K is, without a doubt, the worst heat in Series 4. All of the best robots get taken out in the first round, and, honestly, the two seeded robots weren't even that good. This heat is a good example of why you don't need thirty-two seeds, because, like, Evil Weevil is a completely fair seed. They were a Series 3 semi-finalist, after all. But Wel-dor 2 (the other round one seed) was given the 28th seed despite going 2-for-2 in Series 3 with wins over bad robots The Iron Mask (main series) and Prometheus (the First World Championship). There's just no need to have thirty-two seeds because you just start seeding robots who are just kind of okay. Then, in the second round, the weaker robot wins both fights because Tiberius was dominating Little Fly before one of their drives went out, and Sumpthing was well on top of its fight with MouseTrap before basically breaking itself. It's just this weird heat where all the "good" robots just break down and in the end you have, like, MouseTrap, who really wasn't impressive through this entire heat, going on to the Semi-Finals.

If you were wondering, "okay they had a bad heat, but maybe they really breakout in the Semi-Finals?", well, I can assure you they do not. Placed in the Semi-Final B, Mousetrap faces off against the thirty-one seeded thwackbot known as Stinger. Stinger is honestly the worst possible thing a robot like MouseTrap can face, because it's basically just a big mace on wheels, so there's nothing really for MouseTrap to latch onto. The fight (4:53 second video) starts with Stinger driving in and slamming its mace into MouseTrap as MouseTrap fails to catch it with its blade. That's really the first thirty seconds of the fight. It's just Stinger moving in fast and slamming its mace onto MouseTrap, with MouseTrap's blade just not being quick enough to catch Stinger.

So close to history changing

Stinger, throwing itself around the arena, begins spinning in circles landing fast and heavy blows into the side of MouseTrap, ripping off the chain that controls the blade of MouseTrap, leaving them without a weapon. After this, MouseTrap, who was already having some mobility issues, falls very quickly to the onslaught of Stinger, breaking down completely, being counted out, and being sent out of the competition.

Now you might have read all of this and thought "Man, he really doesn't like MouseTrap." But that's not true. I think MouseTrap is really cool. It's the perfect early series robot where the designers looked at an actual mouse trap and thought "hey, we could make a robot out of this"! It's just too bad that MouseTrap in Series 4 just isn't a great robot. MouseTrap would return in Series 5 as a much better robot. Seeded 20th (the lowest seed ever given to a returning heat winner, which, yeah, fair), MouseTrap would go out in the second round of Heat C, but, honestly, despite only getting to the second round, MouseTrap has a much more impressive performance. Defeating two-disc spinner Shredder by KO (after Shredder drove itself into the pit), MouseTrap would then face future two-time top 8 finisher S3, taking them to a judges' decision in a fight they honestly control. MouseTrap manages to trap S3 in its blade for a good portion of the fight and nearly clips the aerial of S3, which would have taken S3 out completely.

Really, MouseTrap probably would have won the fight if not for S3 getting free in the last thirty seconds and taking huge chunks out of MouseTrap with its terrifying blade. The team would then fail to qualify for Series 6 with their sequel to MouseTrap, called Mutant Mousetrap, which apparently had a spinning drum. They would then go on to make one last appearance with the clusterbot Black and Blue in Series 7... who would also go out in the first round. My point is, I really like MouseTrap. I think it's a cool idea for a robot with a great design that, as shown in Series 5, could actually be a fairly competitive robot. Could it ever win a title? Probably not, but it could have at least made another Heat Final and maybe even another Semi-Final. That's all for this month's What's in a Campaign? Join us next time as we look at another robot (also, here, have a shameless plug and let me tell you to read Living Game: Where Are They Now?).

Forum Update

Written by: Hooded Pitohui (talk)

Hello, all of you readers of The 'Shroom! Would you believe that the time has already come to vote in Awards? It has, so be sure you're voting once a week! With that plug out of the way, let's see what's happened on the forums this month.

News

There isn't much to report in terms of major news this month, though I will point out that, with Awards season starting, there's been an uptick in activity in the Mario Awards XVI board as tournaments have started. Be sure to take a look and to keep up with tournaments you're participating in.

King of Forums has revealed its final team, for those of you who have been following along. Take a look through the thread and see all seventeen teams and character breakdowns if you've missed any! This month has also brought with it another Lightning Direct, with this presentation focusing on revealing details about the upcoming second installment in the Lightning Mafia+ series.

Re-Threading Old Ground

An Analysis of Secret Boards - Have you ever noticed the numbers in the URLs of the Super Mario Boards, each apparently corresponding to a board? Have you ever wanted to catalogue those numbers, or found yourself wondering why some numbers appear to be skipped over? Well, you aren't the only one. All the way back in 2014, a user by the name of 3D Player 2004 decided to try and list the boards in numerical order, prompting others to join in to mention how many boards they had access to at the time and to help fill in the gaps in the numerical list. Looking through the thread, you can find a comprehensive list maintained by Lakituthequick, a list which was last updated in March of this year, no less!

Statistics

  • Total Threads: 41,193 (Difference: +79)
  • Total Posts: 2,236,728 (Difference: +1,999)
  • Total Members: 3,432 (Difference: +27)

Thread of the Month

thread - In the grand tradition of Mindless Junk threads, here we have a thread with a simple joke premise, a handful of replies with differing levels of relevance, and a smattering of threads taking inspiration from it and borrowing its core joke. With nothing visible in the OP, Flygon64 has indeed delivered, as promised, a thread.

Quotes

Forum Games

  • Zelda CD-i Mafia - This game is currently looking for sign-ups. No set start date and no minimum number of players are listed. Day phases have been extend to 48 hours.
  • Bowser's Minions Mafia (Concept) - This game is currently looking for sign-ups, and has been bumped after a period of inactivity. No minimum number of players or start date has been listed.

Interactive 'Shroom Threads

That's all the news from the forum for this month. I don't have a witty sign-off, so we'll leave it off here, but check back next month to stay up to date on all the news from the forum!

As always, if there's something you feel I should add to Forum Update, let me know. For now, I will turn my attention to gathering news for June!

All information above was correct as of 16:52 EDT on 17 June 2022.

The 'Shroom: Issue 183
Staff sections Staff Notes • The 'Shroom Spotlight • 'Shroomfest • Poll Chairperson Election
Features Fake News • Fun Stuff • Palette Swap • Pipe Plaza • Critic Corner • Strategy Wing
Specials Community Awards Dossier • Blooper Race • Living Game: Where Are They Now?
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