Detailed rules

Statement of intent towards the participants:

Speedrunning is a discipline that is both demanding and fun. On one hand, the idea is to beat the game, to surpass oneself and possibly aim for the world record or to beat friends in a race. However, it must always remain a friendly experience. We can practice in a competitive way, but it is important to have fun and always respect others. The rules we set are a framework, giving purpose and goals to make the most of the event, but you should always feel free to set your own seasonal goals. You can play all the games listed, or just one! You can also contribute by making game tutorials, coaching others, giving advice, routing games or even search for glitches... UD is an event often described as a friendly competition, but it is also a community that shares a common experience and culture, which leaves room for individual and collective initiatives: organizing races, streaming training sessions on your channel, offering special events (team tournaments, increased difficulty...). Due to cost and accessibility reasons, all games are played on PC and some of them on emulators. The general idea, beyond introducing you to a discipline, is also to watch other players, within the context of tournaments or their training. Play, watch and be watched while playing. This season we wanted to focus on two additional concepts: the LIGHT and DARK modes, which are meant to be more inclusive with players of all skill levels.

Point system:

The basic rule is, one challenge per game, one game per challenge, so there are ten challenges since we are in a decathlon. The challenges here are speedruns (finish the game, or at least the objective set, as fast as possible). For each speedrun, we set a maximum time in which the run must be completed in a tournament (see below for details by game). Regarding the championship: when you submit your personal records (PB), there is no maximum time. Depending on how long it takes you to complete the event, you will be awarded a certain number of points. If you play slowly, it will tend towards 0, if you play moderately fast, it will tend towards 100, and if you play fast, towards 200. In other words, the faster you go, the more points you earn, and you can earn up to a maximum of 200 points per challenge, or even a little more in very rare cases, if your record is particularly good. However, the score is capped at 205 for this season. This season, for the championship and the decathlons in tournaments, your total score will not be the simple sum of your 10 scores, but your 8 best scores among the 10. For tournaments with less than 10 games, it depends on their length, but they are always balanced this way, focusing on your best scores among all games played, leaving you one or two jokers.

LIGHT and DARK :

With their names, inspired by Super Meat Boy and Zelda: A link to the past, LIGHT and DARK are two championships that will take place in parallel during this season. Players will only have access to LIGHT to begin with. By registering to the event, you automatically gain the right to submit times in this championship, and to participate in the tournaments linked to it. The DARK is only accessible to players who qualify for it (both the championship and the related tournaments). Once qualified for the DARK, a player can still submit times to the LIGHT championship and participate in the tournaments of this category. The DARK corresponds to the classic championship as you may have seen it in previous seasons: 200 points per game, and the challenges generally consist in finishing the game. The final stages of the season and the main tournaments will be played according to these rules. The LIGHT will be played on the same 10 games, in the same manner: speedruns that give points according to the speed at which the challenge is completed and the total is calculated on the 8 best scores. However, the events will be shorter. Roughly speaking, you will have to complete half of the DARK event, but with less time pressure. The idea is to have a shorter and more accessible program, to learn the basics of the 10 games. Specificity of the LIGHT : the maximum number of points is 150 per challenge (strictly capped points). Specificity of the DARK: the maximum time allowed to finish the events is the one corresponding to 151 points. Subsequently, no time worth less than 151 pts can be submitted in this mode. In a DARK tournament, it is possible to submit your time only for the LIGHT category if you did not finish the game within the time limit.

THE 10 GAMES and their Speedrun (DARK // LIGHT):

1. Hollow Knight : Any% // First Dreamer (Lurien)
2. Steamworld Dig 2 : All Major Upgrades // 7 Upgrades
3. Mintroïd : Any% // Bomb + Morph
4. Ghouls'n Ghosts : Any% 2nd loop // Stage 3
5. Unworthy : Any% // Undercity Key + Spire Dungeon Key
6. Hamster Ball : All Races (Championship) // Toob Race
7. Trials Fusion : All Medium + Hard Trials // Rainforest Ramble
8. Kururin Squash! : Any% Normal // Snow Scape
9. Super Monkey Ball Adventure : All Beginner + Advanced Challenge levels // Circuits
10. Vectronom : Any% // Tetromino

Access to the LIGHT mode:

No requirements: just register for the current season.

Access to the DARK mode:

There are two conditions to meet in order to submit a time on a DARK game. You must be qualified and the DARK mode of the game must be unlocked. The first one corresponds to an individual goal, the second to a collective goal. To satisfy the first condition, you must have at least 8 games with 150 points in the LIGHT championship. To meet the second condition, there must be enough participants with 150 points in LIGHT on that particular game. This number will vary depending on the game and will be communicated during the season.

General season schedule:

• March 27, 2021 2:00 pm, launch.
• April, May, June, LIGHT tournaments and championship with a gradual transition to DARK.
• July, final tournaments:
• Saturday, June 26, LIGHT Last Chance Tournament.
• Saturday, July 3, LIGHT Grand Finals.
• Sunday, July 4, Last Chance Tournament.
• Saturday July 10th, Grand Semifinals.
• Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 July, Grand Finals.
• Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th, Pentathlon Finals.
• Saturday 31st July and Sunday 1st August, Ultimate Final live in Fougères if the sanitary conditions allow it.

Detailed schedule of events for the season:

Information/Detailed schedule

Details about the different speedruns:

To be seen in the resources of the game (Information/Games/Game name)

Thematic Pentathlons:

Strong accents may be placed on certain tournaments, on two distinct game selections.

• Pentathlon "Sidescroller": Games 1 to 5.
• Pentathlon "Skill game": Games 6 to 10.

Submission of a personal best (PB):

Must have previously joined the season. It is desirable to have a video of your performance. On the website, under " Account">"Submit a PB" (or the "submit" button at the top right of the championship), select the game, the LIGHT or DARK mode, and state your time. This score, once validated, will take its place in the relevant leaderboard, and if it is among your top 8 in the decathlon, to your total.
Submit a LIGHT PB: the time must have been done during the season 9, i.e. no earlier than 27/03/21 at 2pm and no later than 31 July at 11:59pm.
Submit a DARK PB: the time must also have been made during the season, the DARK mode must have been unlocked by the community AND you must already be self-qualified. If you're impatient, coach people! Example: If you have not yet qualified for DARK, a run submitted that validates 150pts LIGHT and 151pts+ DARK will count as LIGHT and cannot be resubmitted to count as DARK.

The Championship:

This is where you submit your personal records to gain places in the ranking for each game and in the general ranking (sum of the 8 best performances out of 10). You can view the cards of each contestant as well as the videos of their different records.
On your cards as well as on the tables, the people on the podiums of each game will be awarded with special icons. The scores appear on a background with a gradient of the game color, getting darker as the number of points increases: C-Tier (0 à 150), B-Tier (151+), A-Tier (190+) and S-Tier (200+) are the different steps (at 200 the background is black).
One can participate for various reasons (pleasure, surpassing oneself, sharing...) and it is, with the tournaments, one of the competitive axes of the event. The ranking is an objective in itself and is also a way to qualify for various final tournaments.

Tournaments:

Tournaments are organized every Saturday at 2pm and can be followed directly on the UD channel: twitch.tv/ultimedecathlon. They contain between 1 and 10 distinct events and generally follow the format: ranking based on the X best performances on a set of Y games.
The tournaments give access, beyond the personal glory and the opportunity to practice, to visual rewards that will appear on your personal cards: gold, silver and bronze stars will be distributed. The tournaments are commented live, and the players' performances are shown.
You can participate for various reasons (fun, to surpass yourself, to share...) and it is, with the Championship, one of the competitive axes of the event. The tournaments are an objective in themselves as well as a way to qualify for the Grand Semifinals and the Grand Finals, and are the only way to reach the Ultimate Final.
Max times in tournament are by default the time of 151 pts in DARK. If the event is a LIGHT event, it is the time of 100pts in LIGHT except in the following cases: for Steamworld Dig 2, Kururin Squash! and Unworthy the max time is fixed at 30 minutes, for Hollow Knight the max time is fixed at 45 minutes.

Participation in a tournament:

You must first be registered for the current season, then register in advance for the relevant tournament: account / participate in a tournament / select the relevant tournament. LIGHT tournaments are accessible to everyone, DARK tournaments are only accessible to those qualified in DARK mode, and final tournaments use specific procedures.

Participation in a race:

Speedrun races are all organized on discord: discord. They can be friendly: freely organized by players, or official: in conjunction with an ongoing tournament.
Races take place in dedicated rooms with the *!start* command, players indicate that they are ready with the *!ready* command and the race starts with the *!go* command. A player will then indicate that they are done with the *!done time* command, specifying their time if they wish. Once all players have finished, the show closes, and a ranking summary is published.

Participation in a tournament:

You must be registered for the current season, then join the relevant tournament in advance (on the website or via discord using the !register command): account / join a tournament / select the given tournament.
LIGHT tournaments are accessible to everyone, DARK tournaments are only accessible to those qualified in DARK mode, and final tournaments use specific procedures.

Final Tournaments:

All final tournaments are played over the 10 games and the sum of the top 8 scores, with the exception of pentathlon finals.

***LIGHT FINALS

On June 26, the Last Chance LIGHT Tournament (TDC LIGHT) is held: only those registered for the season who have not yet validated the LIGHT can participate. The top 3 qualify for the LIGHT Grand Finals (LIGHT GF).

On Saturday, July 3, the LIGHT Grand Final takes place: only players who have validated the LIGHT (LIGHT Stamp) + the top 3 TDC LIGHT can participate.

***DARK FINALS

On Friday, July 2, 7:00 pm, the ranking freezes momentarily. The top 3 qualify for the Grand Final, the rest of the top 10 for the Grand Semi-Final.

On Sunday, July 4, the Last Chance Tournament (LCT) takes place. Everyone with at least 8 games at 151 points or higher (DARK Stamp) can participate except the Top 10 in the championship. The top 3 qualify for the Grand Semi-Final. One additional person qualifies for the GDF for every 5 players who qualify for the TDC. Example: 40 entrants = 5 qualifiers; 60 entrants = 9 qualifiers

On Saturday, July 10, the Grand Semi-Final (GSF) takes place, only qualified people can participate. The top 3 qualify to the Grand Final. If there were to be 12 entrants at the GSF, there would be 1 more person qualified to the GF, and one more at 15 (and so on as we qualify a third of the people).

On Saturday, July 17 and Sunday, July 18, the Grand Finals (GF) takes place. Only those who qualify can participate. The top 4 qualify for the Ultimate Final. Showdowns on Saturday, the actual final on Sunday.

***PENTATHLON FINALS

The "Skillgames" and "Sidescroller" pentathlons finals will be held on Saturday, July 24 and Sunday, July 25 respectively. These tournaments are played on only 5 games, and based on the sum of the 4 best scores. Anyone can participate.

***ULTIMATE FINALS

On Saturday, July 31 and Sunday, August 1, the Ultimate Finals (UF) take place. The final in itself on Saturday and show matches on Sunday.

Awards and Cards:

The idea is to give extra personal motivation through the well known but effective system of cosmetic rewards. They can be accumulated throughout the season and will appear on your personal cards.

STARS are awarded during the tournaments. Gold, silver, bronze : respectively 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in DARK or FINAL tournaments. DARK: Validate X games at 151 pts during a tournament where we play the best of X scores on Y games. LIGHT : Validate X games at 150 pts during a tournament where you play the best of X scores on Y games. We distribute a maximum of 1 star per player per tournament (by default, the most prestigious).

The STARS are awarded according to your progress towards the Ultimate Final. LIGHT : 8 games at 150 pts, this stamp makes you eligible for the DARK (championship) and makes you eligible for the GF LIGHT on Saturday July 3rd. DARK : 8 games at 151 pts, this stamp makes you eligible for the TDC. Bronze : qualify for the GDF (by the championship or by the TDC) Silver : qualify for the GF (by the championship or by the GDF) Gold: qualify for the Ultimate Final (necessarily by the GF).

THUNDERBOLTS and DUMBBELLS are awards related to challenges / bounties / achievements that will take place throughout the season. The THUNDERBOLTS are given to the person(s) who validates an objective listed on discord in the challenge channel (chasseurs-de-primes). Dumbbells are given to people with a record at least 30 days old (see archives-du-duc on discord) as well as to the person (only if both are different) who breaks the record in question.

The SHOES are distributed during the team tournament. Gold, silver, bronze in the final and according to the place. Light and dark SHOES are given to team members if all members score 150+ or 151+ respectively on all games chosen during a week of competition.

Friday recap:

Every Friday night, the live stream provides an opportunity to get together to review the news of the event, ask questions and comment on the championship.

About emulators:

About roms, it is mandatory to use those explicitly allowed in the detailed rules per game, for emulators, it is at your discretion. We strongly advise you to use those provided in our seasonal pack. On a case by case basis, if some emulators are deemed unfair, they will be banned.
It is forbidden to use a turbo controller and/or to make macros. The binding of the keys must follow the simple rule: one key per action, one action per key. Example: the A button on the NES controller must correspond to a single key on your controller, and that key on your controller must not be associated with any other key on the NES controller.

Training:

There is no magic formula to progress, but different strategies are possible depending on how much time you have, which method you are naturally more comfortable with, the type of game, etc. Don't hesitate to ask for or give methodological advice, practice collectively, relax by talking with others. Don't hesitate to take it easy when you feel more vulnerable, tired. On the medium/long term in an event like this, you have to take it easy!

Useful links:

• Download the season 9 pack: Info/Download/Pack UD9
• You will find emulators, roms, game icons, livesplit files (tool we use to time runs).
• Mumble, Discord..., tutorials : Information/Tools & Tutorials