News Flash! Smash Bros. Dojo: Tournament Melee

TN: We’ve only skipped one previously posted posted this time: New Systems!

Posted 9.21.2001

Even though it’s called “Tournament Melee,” it’s really a mode where a large number of people can play matches against each other.

We have four people, but only three controllers…

Five people ended up coming over…

Even something like that happens, don’t worry.

There are three ways to play Tournament Melee:

Tournament, Winner Out, Loser Out

Tournament

Like the name says, this is a tournament where the winner advances.

First, the game asks you some questions, setting the rules.

Keep answering the questions, and a bracket will be generated.

Players per match: 4
Number of entrants: 16
Number of players (number of CPUs): 14 (2)

Then, if you press OK after setting the rules of the match (time, stock, etc), you’ll come to a screen where everyone can enter their character and name.

You choose your character with X and Y.

Press start and your tournament will begin! Characters will be placed randomly across the bracket.

Who will I fight? My heart is racing.

Games will proceed from the left to the right.

When your match is about to begin, the game will prompt you to insert your controller in the right port and press start. For those who have their own controllers, this is where you plug in.

Are you ready?

And the game begins. Woah.

Then you play out your game, and the winner advances on. And that’s how you fight to be the champion.

I’m sure game stores will host tournaments using this mode, for example. There may be times where the player who’s supposed to fight has already left! For situations like this, if you press Y at the preparations menu, you can forfeit.

This thoughtful design.

Winner out
Loser out

If you have 5 or 6 people, then I think you’ll probably play using the Winner out/loser out rules.

Winner out: winner has to pass on their controller and switch with another player

Loser out: loser has to pass on their controller and switch with another player

This game will even generate the order of matches for you! Wow.

You’ll set the rules in the same way. Number of players per match means the number of controllers available.

After you pick your character and name, you’ll come to this screen.
The four players on the left are playing.

Now, let’s say they played their match and Kirby won. Kirby is moved to the bottom of the queue, and the first person in the queue is moved to the match.

The remaining players don’t have to switch controllers around or anything, and can keep playing with no interruption. This ruleset has no forfeits or end, but it’s just a mode for fun, so you can switch the rules and characters up as you see fit.

I think that when you’re making a game, you need to envision how the players are going to play the game.

So after thinking of all the different ways that people end up playing, I came up with this mode. I hope you have fun.

Oh, Tournament Melee can actually support up to a 64 player bracket (which seems like a joke). Leaving aside whether you could actually get 64 people to show up, it is possible.