Harvest Moon Marathon, for CHARITY! Options

[Mcfeegle]

Hi, guys. It's been a while since I've posted here, but I wanted to see what you guys would think of something. A way to combine Harvest Moon with helping people.

My brother runs Gamers Gaming For Good, a group that broadcasts game marathons to collect money for charity. Most recently, he organized a 48-hour marathon to send help to people in Haiti, and there's a Sonic marathon coming up.

Looking ahead, we're considering doing a Harvest Moon Marathon. We would play as many Harvest Moon games as possible in a continuous marathon. We would define beating the game as beating the main story line; collecting all the notes, restoring the Goddess Tree, etc. We would broadcast this online, with commentary from people not currently playing a game. At the same time, we would be collecting donations for a charity (not yet decided). We would have drawings to give out prizes to those who donate, name animals things that people donating want, etc.

So, here are some questions.

Would you be interested in a Harvest Moon charity Marathon?

Would you watch it?

Would you donate?

Would what charity we choose affect whether you donate or not?

What charities would you like to see us donate to?

Was this such a long block of text that you skipped it and went straight to the questions?

Thanks in advance for the feedback.

[Darth-Paper-Boy]

Neat. First off, answering questions:

Sure!

Sure!

Well, I already gave $50 to Desert Bus for Hope. What's another 10 or 20 if this gets going?

If it went to satanists, Scientology, or PETA, I probably would not. Say "children" and I'm probably so in.

*shrug*

No. I'm just addressing these first.

Though I've not heard of GamersGamingForGood, it certainly sounds like it's something gamers could get into for good. Yeah. The structure also sounds to basically be that of the Speedrunners, whom I've attempted to watch a few times but never felt like really going for since they seem to be doing them ALL THE TIME and I just don't keep up with them.

[Saffy]

Would you be interested in a Harvest Moon charity Marathon?

A marathon of Harvest Moon? Honestly, I don't see one getting very far in the game. Now if you somehow managed to pick up play Harvest Moon 64 all the way in one sitting I would be very impressed.

Would you watch it?

Again, only if there was significant progress in the game. I want to see it through to the end.

Would you donate?

I lack the ability to do so unfortunately.

Would what charity we choose affect whether you donate or not?

Again, I can't donate.

What charities would you like to see us donate to?

Perhaps something for sick kids? I feel good about those charities helping kids who are losing their childhood.

Was this such a long block of text that you skipped it and went straight to the questions?

Yes.

[Toaster Boy]

Would you be interested in a Harvest Moon charity Marathon?

Sure, but only if you were to be able to make it a long way. Playing just a bit isn't too exciting.

Would you watch it?

See above answer.

Would you donate?

I would, but am 14 and also don't make much to begin with.

Would what charity we choose affect whether you donate or not?

Again, I can't really donate.

What charities would you like to see us donate to?

To relief effort or some sort of Children's Hospital.

Was this such a long block of text that you skipped it and went straight to the questions?

Nope, but I have a tolerance to read.

[Darth-Paper-Boy]

I don't think you people understand "marathon."

[Mcfeegle]

We would definitely get far in the games. Like I said, we would finish the main story lines of each of them. We'd also probably add some extra requirements for finishing, like getting married.

The fact is that this would go on for a long time. It will probably last 72 hours, playing continuously. We switch off players for different games so people can get some sleep. We may run out of time before we finish all the games, but all the games we finish we will see through all to the end. And don't worry if you don't feel like you can donate much. You'd be entered into the raffle for as little as five dollars.

We actually were inspired by TheSpeedGamers, and the Haiti marathon was done with members from their community.

[Jitterbug]

I would totally donate if the money went towards Children. But not if it went towards research and crap.

[Saffy]

I just find it hard to imagine anyone making significant progress in Harvest Moon over three days =\ I'm sorry, but unless someone's actually going to beat the game or do something amazingly cool I'm not interested.

Look at it this way. When most people (at least I assume) watch a marathon they likely watch for an hour tops (unless it's very exciting) then disappear for a few hours and return to check up on progress. If I'm watching someone play Harvest Moon and it looks the same each time I check with minimal progress, I just won't find it very exciting. Where's the amusement?

[Darth-Paper-Boy]

Saffy. Just playing a few hours a night, in the span of three days I could knock out the SNES game with ease. There are things to do that vastly help these efforts of speeding the game along. Such as marry Maria in SNES and Karen in '64. Both have some way of getting full hearts very quickly, as I'm sure you know. Once marriage is out of the way you only need to gun for the high end crops and sleep, and towards the end blow all your money on animals and feed. You just got a non-failure ending with minimal effort and time.

As for excitement... yeah, I'd think the people PLAYING would need to do something as far as Harvest Moon is concerned. It's not fun to watch, really.

[Mizukithepanda]

Actually, it's rather possible to finish a game of HM64 in 72 hours, Saffy. That said, you'll be dedicating most of the next three days towards it, but it can be done. I may be mistaken, but I believe HM64 runs on the old 1 day = 10 minutes counter, and if you work that out, it means that in 72 whole hours you have the ability to play through 432 days in HM64 provided you don't spend much time dawdling inside of buildings and whatnot. To reach the end of the game, you only have to play through 270 days. That leaves you with 162 extra days or 27 hours of extra gameplay time. Now, realistically, since you can't avoid going inside buildings for periods of time, running into events, and other needlessly time-consuming things, all that really does is give you padding time to either spend napping, eating, or working on extra chocolate pudding to get a better ending. Still, it's entirely possible and quite doable, given that you can stand to play Harvest Moon that long without going insane.

~~~

Would you be interested in a Harvest Moon charity Marathon?
Yes!

Would you watch it?
Parts of it, though obviously not when I'm in class or need to be sleeping.

Would you donate?
I actually haven't given anything to charity yet, so... yeah. My budget's a little strung-out this month, but I can manage something.

Would what charity we choose affect whether you donate or not?
Of course. If you gave to pro-lifers or associations that oppose gay marriage, I would refuse to donate. I also wouldn't donate to a charity that wants to build churches or other religious type things to "help those in need". It'd need to be something that's going to directly help those who need it. Like everybody's said previously, I would not mind at all if it were an association that helped out children in need. I wouldn't even mind if the source on that were religious or something else stupid like that as long as it were actually helping the children and not pocketing the money while pretending to give to children.

What charities would you like to see us donate to?
I don't know of any off the top of my head, so I'll have to get back to you on that.

Was this such a long block of text that you skipped it and went straight to the questions?
Not at all. My own blocks of text are just as long if not longer in many of my posts, so this was quite the breeze to read through.

[Mcfeegle]

There are lots of things we can do to speed things up, like only doing everything that's necessary in a day and then going to sleep, even if it's still really early. Also, I realize that just watching the game would get kind of boring. That's why we have commentators. Watching them is where the majority of the entertainment comes from.

We'd also probably have multiple games going on at one time. One person would be playing HM64 while another person is playing ToT and one person is commentating, etc.

[Harvest Sprite]

You also wouldn't necessarily have to beat the games. You could set a gole, ie a proposal, main event or such, and then switch to a different game. I think that might work out with Harvest Moon specifically, just so viewers get to see a larger spectrum of the games.