[NO MORE MONKEYING AROUND] TALKCORDHAUS VGM GUESSING CONTEST XXVI: Ape Games

[SirChasm]

ALL MY APES

Hello, and welcome to the 26th Talkcordhaus VGM Guessing Contest! I'm your host, Sir Chasm.

Pretty sure it says your name is "SirChasm".
Yeah, but Talkhaus doesn't allow spaces and I didn't want to use an underscore.

Wait, weren't you the guy who hosted the contest with rules so abhorrent that someone had a negative score?
That was not my finest hour, but Kitikami still had me on the list of potential hosts and gave me another shot; I'm grateful for the opportunity to not screw it up this time.

So are the rules the same as usual?
Pretty much! Sixty songs, arranged through a random number generator after I compiled my initial list, are ready for you to listen and guess their identities.

And, of course, one of them is an intruder, not from a video game at all. Who keeps letting these songs in to these contests?

How about the inevitable gimmick?
Ape Games! Not in the raocow sense, though. Ten of these songs fulfill at least one of these criteria:

• A playable monkey (simian with a tail)
• A playable ape [simian without a tail]
• A playable character who is half-monkey or half-ape
• A playable character who can transform into a monkey or an ape

For the pedants out there, while humans are biologically considered among the great apes, they will not count for this gimmick.

Yeah, yeah. How about the scoring system? Are you gonna do something stupid again?
Not intentionally! Here's how it works:

• If you correctly name the game that a song is from, you will earn two (2) points.
• If you correctly name the series that a song is from, you will earn one (1) point.
• For every Ape Game you identify correctly, you will earn one (1) point.
• If you correctly identify the intruder, you will earn three (3) points. Remember that you have to say the song is an intruder; if you identify the source, but don't say it's an intruder, you won't receive any points!
• If no one else is able to find the game (or series) that a song is from other than you, you will earn double the points for that song! This includes the intruder, as well as the bonus points for identifying an Ape Game.

No losing points this time?
I learned my lesson. The closest thing is if you identify more than ten games as Ape Games, I'll only count the first ten guesses. (If you are absolutely adamant that I inadvertently included more than ten and can provide evidence, I will allow it.)

How about hints?
Well, that's less losing points than spending them. I'll give you three (3) hints to start with, and you can buy up to an additional five (5) for one (1) point each. Each song can have two (2) hints used: one will give a hint that, with a little creative thinking or knowledge of a reference, should provide an answer. A second hint will be a bit more direct and give something like the publisher, developer, or console of the game.

What's the deadline?
You have until Tuesday, October 1st, 2024, when the Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door episode is uploaded. So just about three weeks, in other words.

How do I submit my answers or ask for hints?
Send me a DM on here or through Discord (@NoMoreSpearows). I'm not on either of the raocow-related Discord servers as of right now, so if you go through that means you'll have to say something to let me know you're submitting an entry to the contest since I might not recognize you.

Will there be prizes?
Well, only one participant who won one accepted theirs last time, but there will be prizes up for grabs once again. In horse-racing terms:

• Show (3rd place) will receive a code for a Steam game of their choosing priced at $5.00 USD or less.
• Place (2nd place) will receive a code for a Steam game of their choosing priced at $10.00 USD or less.
• Win (1st place) will receive a code for a Steam game of their choosing priced at $15.00 USD or less.

Can, uh, you explain why this whole thing has been a bizarre back-and-forth instead of just being a regular set of introductions?
Anxiety!

Fair.
So with that said...

LET'S GO BANANAS!

To download a .ZIP with each clip from Dropbox, please click here! Note that the clips are in .WAV form.

Alternatively, here's a .ZIP from MEGA instead.

[Crow]

don't recognize enough of these to reasonably do this one (i'm at like one positive ID after going thru the entire set LOL) but damn that's a lot of video game jazz

i need to know what #32 is 'cause it's a jam

[KobaBeach]

will enter later if i remember i am but a scrung

[Bean]

Got them saved. Thanks.

[james49]

don't recognize enough of these to reasonably do this one (i'm at like one positive ID after going thru the entire set LOL) but damn that's a lot of video game jazz

i need to know what #32 is 'cause it's a jam

Video game jazz has such a feel, even yet it sounds like you're taking on a challenging set! If you got selected to #32 then it indicates something extraordinary. I'm curious to find out too since often the greatest shocks are the ones that are hidden gems!

[Crow]

no offense but you post like chatgpt

[KobaBeach]

i need scissors! 61!

[AmeijinMayo]

We got some songs, heck yeah. These snippets are bananas

[SirChasm]

One week has passed, so let's post some statistics!

• Number of submitted lists of answers: 1
• Number of summited requests for hints: 0
• Number of individuals who made one post on their account solely on this topic, and who are more likely than not just AI: 1

I'm hoping the low amount of interest is purely because I'm not doing a good enough job of hosting/spreading the word rather than an overall disinterest in the VGM guessing contests. What else am I supposed to obsess over every few months?

Two weeks left for entry. In the most literal sense, if you enter now, you'll already be a winner!

[Bean]

Well, I usually give them a couple of passthroughs before starting to make my first round of guesses, but it's been really busy around here basically playing caretaker and assistant to someone that had surgery a week ago. Barely have any time for myself right now that isn't wondering when I'll be on the clock again.

But it would also help if I would sticky the topic right away instead of waiting until now to do it in a section many don't browse often. That's been fixed. Good luck on getting more guessers. These topics usually get 5-10 total final responses by the end nowadays.

[KobaBeach]

Yeah, I'm sorry!

I'm working on my mental health and eating properly* myself. I can do some gamedev and video game relaxation, but even then only so much. I'm waiting to get more energy going before working on art again, and even watching anime/reading manga and literature needs a little push from myself because of how passive it is (mostly watching than reading).

I'll get to it eventually, hopefully!

* - No real weight issues (over or under), I'm just very bad at eating regularly bc mental illnesses lol.

[SirChasm]

Two weeks have passed, so let's post some statistics!

• Number of submitted lists of answers: 2
• Number of summited requests for hints: 1
• Number of hosts who realized far too late that the subtitle for this quiz should have been "New Funky Mode": 1

I now have a very small bit of hope that more entries will be submitted in this last week or so, but I still feel like a lot of the issue here is that I'm not doing a decent job hosting the topic or getting the word around. But one doesn't want to be obnoxious in saying "ENTER THE QUIIIIIIIZ!" lest it have the opposite effect. And, of course, I don't mean to put any added pressure on those with real-world issues that eclipse this in importance.

Always a fountain of moral ambiguity, the Talkcordhaus VGM Guessing Contests.

One week left for entry. In the most literal sense, if you enter now, you'll already be a winner! Still!

[KobaBeach]

i got 7 of em (2 with hints)

im ebin

[Bean]

Finally got my first wave of guesses in.

Edit: And final guesses in after getting my hints. We'll see how things go!

[SirChasm]

Out with the apes! No more submissions will be accepted; I'll get the scores calculated and posted soon!

[KobaBeach]

i was thinking about monkey boys today