Lecture Plan (Part II) / Broodwar Festival

I took the liberty of devising a lecture plan for studying the marvelous game of Starcraft: Brood War, the original backbone of this community, as if it was a standard curricular activity integrated in our educational system. I described what a Broodwar Camp for youngsters might look like in a previous blog post. This time I'm emphasizing a fictitious evolution of the game, rather than providing anything truly useful for a learning player.

Chapter Two: Broodwar Festival (age 15-18). 25-30 concert stages and show tents in close proximity to one another in the center of a delimited area like a peninsula. No classes, just live shows, game-related visuals and films and competitive events. A bazaar of entertainment and Broodwar wherewithal.

Main Schedule for Day 1:

Capitol Movie Theater Tent:
15:00 - 17:25 : Welcoming hype-movie. Directed by Richard Kelly.
Starring: * Koh Kang Min

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as Dante / Vice-Commodore Quam scientist

* Doh Jae Wook

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as Commodore Bisu's second in command Captain Best / aspiring Quin scientist

Lim Yo Hwan

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as The A.I. - male appearance

* Seo Ji Soo

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as The A.I. - female appearance

* Park Jung Suk

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as Primus the Prophet

* Choi Yun Sung

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as President of the Shadow Government

* Ma Jae Yoon

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as Corrupt Ambassador for Zerg (pure essence), the codename for tier 1 thought emulation

* Lee Young Ho

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as Cyborg / Proxy A.I.

* Kim Taek Yong

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as Security Council Commodore / Revolution Leader

also Starring:
* Song Byung Goo as Voice of Ascended Battle Captain
* Lee Jae Dong as Ascended Tyrant
* Jung Myung Hoon as Anti Democratic Dictatorship instigator
* Anna Paquin as Holographic Avatar of benevolent alien civilization
* Eamonn Walker as The Founder / Redeemer of System Stability
* SKT1 Line-up from 2011 as The Quin
* KT Rollster Line-up from 2011 as The Quam
* Jim Parrack Input reader of Quin-Quam Tournament / News Voice

Plot Summary for "Dante's Peak"
The clandestine Blizzard Corporation has invented Starcraft, a platform to create a self-conscious, virtually emulated mind and they have been feeding it information about human interaction by disguising it as a game. The action takes place partly in the present and partly 178 years after a group of wealthy and influential individuals managed to seize international political power by enslaving, and corrupting the A.I. perfected by professional Prog[r]am[m]ing competitions.
It is up to an inconspicuous couple of dueling scientists to overload the A.I. during a competition so that the leaders of the revolution can hack in and restore the A.I.'s System to it's primal configuration. During this duel Dante and Captain Best momentarily puncture through a higher plane of existence and gain knowledge of an incoming threat to human civilization.

Imdb Review: 9/10
Quite the stunner, but with minor nuisances.

Good stuff, awesome actually. Being an amateur Starcraft2 player myself I was blown away by the extent at which the concept of Starcraft has evolved and grown to reach such a glamorous scale. Boxer, iloveoov, Reach and Tossgirl ?! If you know who is meant by these names you know you should cancel your plans for Friday night and reserve your movie-theater ticket NOW! And if you don't know who Anna Paquin, Eamonn Walker and Jim Parrack are you need to catch up with some original HBO series. The fusion is remarkable. Similar to Tarantino's fusion of Hollywood, German and French movie universes in Inglourious Basterds but even more outrageous.
Short-said HBO, creator and director of Donnie Darko Richard Kelly and the Korean Pro-scene have joined hands to bring you this instant classic, dystopian science-fiction extravagance of surprisingly good movie making.
How did they do it? How did they master the language barrier? .. Gosu improvisation. Everything that takes place in the present is mainly English while the main plot takes place in the future where .. surprise! They speak a mixture of English, Japanese, Korean and Afrikaans. And the funny thing is everyone can understand most of what is said regardless of national provenience. Sounds like magic and is the closest to magic I have ever witnessed in my life for sure. Of course it takes a little to get used to and for those who can't quite catch up there's text at the bottom but once you get the hang of it you can get eyes high on the visuals. It's like getting good enough at playing Starcraft that looking at your keyboard becomes obsolete, it just flows.
Similar to a video game, wouldn't you know it ^__^, this movie has Easter Eggs for the Connaisseurs of the pro-league scene. For example a certain someone is a Cyborg lawl, but that's not all. Check it out .. He's the proxy implantation of the primordially pure A.I. brain in a human candidate's body. While this way he becomes almost immortal, a Demigod among humans the only way for the Shadow Government to control him is an electronic leash implanted in his wrist, get it? An auto-destruction bomb in his WRIST. And who is entrusted with the remote detonator to it? None other than the Beesuit himself and his chosen apprentice and conspiracy adjutant Best.
What's bad about this movie? I'd call the plot, a mosaic of rip-offs. Stargate, Animatrix, K-Pax not to mention the similarities between Kelly's own creation which made him famous. Dante gets portrayed similarly as Donnie, a disturbed young scientist with the manifestation of a persistent hallucination, the beautiful Supreme Being Alien Ambassador played by Anna Paquin.
And.. let's face it. Progamers aren't actors, but Richard made a classy job hiding that fact. Also incorporated advertising was how this project kept it's finance in check during production, so try not o get your attention diverted by the fact that some spaceships have Subaru logos on them.
All in all a legendary movie. Sterling visuals btw, reminds me of Sucker Punch but with substance. I enjoyed every second of it.

18:00 - 19:00 : Effect of Broodwar on mental state of Astronauts (Documentary)
"A Friend in Need" is a study that took place on the ISS (International Space Station) whereby 11 test subjects where isolated in distinct quarters for 2 years and could only interact which other on certain maintenance missions roughly once every 2 weeks for 3 - 4 1/2 hours; no outside contact whatsoever. 3 individuals have been given a computer each, interconnected via lan, equipped only with Starcraft: Broodwar, a mouse and a keyboard glued to the desk. Likewise other 3 but with the sole difference that it was Starcraft II. Another 3 individuals had 10 mainstream games of that time (2011) to choose from, of different genres: Racing, FPS, Fighting, Adventure; single-player as well as multi-player. The last 2 participants had only books, a movie and music collection to take their minds off the vast dullness of space.
The candidates were asked to record video diaries and fill out tests that were specifically rationed for each month. The same type of tests that they had to take to get elected for the experiment.
Surprising results make game developers reconsider their approach to game design.

Psycho-Techies Tent:
Try it yourself virtual reality Starcraft addon. Biological psychology researchers, geeks and techie freaks collaborated on a device that let's you move around a virtual 3d emulation of a certain Broodwar map with your thoughts, using electrodes on a helmet. Combined with an actual 1v1 on that particular map it makes for a live visual manifestation of the way a person perceives the action, what he remembers about his unit and building placement, strategic positions etc. It also has a build recorder, and input recorder so that the player can watch the replay afterwards with these particular aspects highlighted in a visually appealing design and compare strengths and weaknesses with other player's strategies. Come check it out!

Main Stage:
20:00 : The Fighting Spirits; featuring vibes from the new album "Macro Tunes"
21:30 : Presentation of upcoming "Starcraft Galaxy" persistent world MMORTS game. A fusion of Eve Online, Starcraft: Broodwar and Alien vs Predator.
22:00 : International Female Starcraft League 1v1 Tournament Day 1
~0:00 : Foam Party featuring Radio Free Zerg and various casual social and sports games.

Observatory / Planetarium:
02:45 - 03:15 : Space Show, Presentation of Prototype 3d Planetarium Software based on "Starcraft Galaxy" engine.

Main Schedule for Day 2:

Capitol Movie Theater Tent:
15:00 - 17:25 : The Effect of Broodwar on Alzheimer's patients (Documentary).
17:40 - 19:00 : Interactive Broodwar Lessons. Situations, Strategies, Tricks, Mindsets. Every seat has a mouse and keyboard and will be randomly picked to perform in a given situation against another randomly picked player with a game concept in mind. Demonstrations by Pros, Interviews and Talk Show Debate afterwards.

Psycho-Techies Tent:
Starcraft as testing platform for Pharmaceutic Drugs and how the new generation of games will be psycho-nautical in nature.

Main Stage:
20:00 : International Starcraft League 1v1 Tournament Day 1
22:00 : International Female Starcraft League 1v1 Tournament Day 2
~0:00 : randomly mixed 2v2 Tournament

Bungee Jumping, Paragliding, Jet skiing, Music, bathing fun with inflatable trampolines

Observatory / Planetarium:
02:45 - 03:15 : Speakers from the Field of Cosmology. Presentation of the Polaris Clock Movement: propagating the recognition of the clock formed by the constellation Ursa Minor with Polaris as the center and Kocab as clock-arm, as seen from the northern hemisphere, to be the internationally abided Universal Time. A 12 hour / day, 120 minute / hour system whereby the need for a shift in the number of days per year once every 4 years is eliminated and a "second" is redefined as 1 full rotation divided by 12 divided by 120 divided by 60.

Main Schedule for Day 3:

International Starcraft League 1v1 Tournament Day 2
Autograph signing wit Pro gamers, Showmatches
Testing of hardware provided by Logitech, Steelseries, Samsung, Razer and others.
Korean and Japanese Food Court free samples
In Concert: The hidden Expos feat. MC Greedy

Lecture Plan (Part II) / Broodwar Festival

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