Era 2: Moving On (Hopefully...)

Aug 17

Aug 17 Era 2: Moving On (Hopefully...)

Welcome Back!

Thank you so much for wondering what I’m up to - I am so happy to see you. I am back from our family vacation in the middle of nowhere! It was amazing. Check these pics out before we get to more serious topics.

podo in his puppy life vest which we started him out in

I’m in my Era-Era

My life has started to take on this era-based approach. I think it first started when I retreated into the Ninja Turtles Hyperbaric Chamber. That could probably be retroactively named Era 1, but for some reason it feels more accurate to me to call it Era 0.

Era 0: The Ninja Turtles Hyperbaric Chamber

This came at a time where my progress in the four speedgames I had been playing all stagnated. It was the end of my previous “No Reset Rotation” concept, where I played each speedgame I had active once per stream, and tracked the data.

On May 2nd, 2024, I decided that I was going to push myself to legitimately learn every Turtles in Time strat. It was a new, heightened level of focus and attention to detail.

Era 0 was 22 days. May 2 - May 23. I vowed to practice Ninja Turtles every day until I could do every strategy that TMNT IV legend Ceriel did in his 19:03. I did no live streaming during this time. I wound up practicing 17 days of the era and taking 5 days off. That comes out to 30% of the days being days off, which is a number that I now intentionally shoot for while designing an era. Era 0 starts with me being #18 on the leaderboards, and ends with me being #9.

Now, at this point, I wasn’t actually thinking that this era approach was going to be something I repeated. I’m not sure why, since it was clearly wildly effective, but at the time I just resumed streaming regularly, and aimlessly. Eventually I plateau at the previously mentioned #9 on the leaderboards. It occurs to me that I need to do that wildly effective thing again, so I start a mini-era. We’ll call it Era 0.5.

Era 0.5: Befriending Deliberate, repetitive Practice

Era 0.5 I again do not live stream at all. It is a 9-day offline practice streak where I vowed to put reps in. I could feel that I knew the strats, I just couldn’t do them consistently enough or fast enough. During this era, I would do things like fight Shredder for half an hour straight, or replay one small section of a level 50 times. During this era, I really appreciate that some levels of improvement will ONLY come with repetition. Learning in the classroom is great, but repetition is a mandatory part of this art form (and probably whatever art form you’re interested in, too).

Era 0.5 was June 10 - June 18. On the leaderboards it doesn’t look like much happened - I start Era 0.5 at leaderboard spot #9 and end it at #8, but that undersells the progress significantly. I cut my PB by 39 seconds from the beginning of Era 0.5 to the end, and at this point, my time is in the 19:xx range. 39 seconds was a ton of progress. As a reminder, there is only one 18:xx time on the leaderboard.

At this point I catch on to my compatibility with these hyper-focused and clearly defined working periods. This time I intentionally outline a time period during which I will try to maintain a really high level of focus on improvement. I think the intentionality behind the defining of this era is why it feels like Era 1.0. I also strategically end the era when we’re going on vacation. I am starting to feel the flow of my life come together.

Era 1: Robbie’s first online grind

Era 1.0 lasts from July 7 - August 11. It’s 36 days. This was the online grind. During the first 26 days, there is only 1 day where I do not either practice turtles or stream attempts of it. I stream attempts 12 different days for a total duration of just over 53 hours.

I definitely pushed myself. I start the era at #8 and end it at #2. The biggest learning I take away from this era is timing the peak of your performance. This era overlapped with the 2024 Olympics, and I watched quite a bit of it. The Olympics demands an almost-absurd timing of your peak, if you’re going to medal. It’s once every four years for goodness sake!

As I was watching these Olympians, I couldn’t help but think of my Ninja Turtles speedrunning. Yes, I am comparing me playing Ninja Turtles 4 to being in the Olympics. Get into it.

Not every gold medalist is the #1 person or team going into their event. Some people just have their best race on the big day. Well, as a speedrunner, the big day can be whatever day you choose to hop online and stream attempts. That’s a relief. If I could only officially record a PB once every 4 years, it would be a lot to handle.

During this era, I notice when I am playing at my peak, and when I am not. I experiment a lot. I start out streaming attempts every other day, using the day in between to do focused practice sessions of the hardest and most critical parts of the run. This works well.

As mentioned though, I experiment. Eventually I start streaming daily and foregoing this focused practice day. Each consecutive day that I streamed attempts without a practice day in between, I got worse, and worse, and worse. This is the aspect that reminded me of the Olympics. This is all about your personal peak performance. During this time I see that I need to learn how to have a peak performance.

Eventually I experiment with longer streams, thinking that I will get progressively warmer as I play and peak at the end of the stream. At my max, I am streaming five consecutive hours of attempts. After the 2.5 hour mark, the quality of play drops, and continues to drop the longer I play. And note that during these five hour streams, I was taking a 5 to 10 minute break once per hour. I was taking steps to stay at my peak. But, the ball don’t lie - my play got worse and worse as these marathon sessions went. By my last streaming day, I was doing a 2 hour session in the morning, then getting offline completely and doing things in the real world, and then doing a second 2 hour session in the afternoon. I am still experimenting and trying to fine-tune my process to find the best results.

Era 2: Moving On (Hopefully…)

So here we are - the start of Era 2. The theme of this era is “moving on”. For one, I formally decided to take a break from game dev. That is one form of moving on happening. Another incidence of moving on is (hopefully) going to be moving on from playing Turtles in Time. I have set my sights on posting a sub 19 as the final Turtles in Time goal (for now, anyway).

So, while previous eras had a more singular focus, Era 2: Moving On will hopefully feature me ending the playing of one game, and starting the playing of a new one. That new game is going to be Zombies Ate My Neighbors, specifically the All Neighbors category. It’s possible I could change my mind last second, but right now that’s my choice for the next speedrun project.

As mentioned though, my mindset is still on Turtles. I know I have one PB left in me. In respect to Turtles, I won’t talk about Zombies any further today.

Hypothetically though, Era 2: Moving On will have at least two time periods, and possibly even three.

Era 2, Period 1 : Getting the sub 19 in Turtles in Time. Let’s all acknowledge that I’m assuming that I’m going to do this soon even though only one other person has done this. I have been known to be overconfident. But, whatever. If I never do it we’ll check back in and laugh about it. Based on my results so far though, I will be able to put up a sub 19 sooner or later.

Era 2, Period 2: Learning ZAMN.

A long, entirely-offline learning project of Zombies Ate My Neighbors. This will include introducing myself to the Discord community, and making that a regular place I socialize. The other day I answered a question from a new runner in the Turtles in Time discord, so if you’re wondering about my own community management, I do plan to stay on as a Turtles mentor to others and to remain a friendly face in the community. I believe this might be how you end up with a lot of friends.

Era 2, Period 3: First streamed ZAMN runs

If I get through the above fast enough, we’ll have time to stream some ZAMN runs at the tail end of this era. We’ll see though!

Era 2 starts August 16, and ends October 3. That’s 49 days. The final 7 days are vacation - the equivalent to the cabin thing I just got back from. Erika and I are going to plan something to do, TBD.

In order to have 30% of the days be days off (the target I currently use), that means I have 7 days off to use during the rest of the era. Let’s call these personal days. In the end, that will amount to 49 total days, 7 vacation days (all at the end), 7 personal days, 35 work days. Let’s do this.

Bead Art Thoughts

If you’ve been following along with this blog, you’ve noticed that I make a lot of video game bead art. A bunch of them I feature in the background of my stream. Many I’ve made and sent to others as gifts. Some I’ve sold. I’ve dabbled in perler-land in a variety of different ways.

I have two bead art ideas that I’ve been kicking around.

First - offering the bead art sprites that I have in my stream background for sale. I think this is neat because it gives me opportunities to make new pieces that I personally like, and enjoy them as my own for a while, before eventually shipping them off to their final destination. I also think it’s a nice way to offer memorabilia to fans of my stream.

Imagine buying a perler that was featured in a PB! Oh the excitement.

Second idea - having a page on this site where I allow people to request a custom perler. One thing I’m picking up on now that I have more bead art experience - I am not interested in making a million Mario’s and selling them. If you can find a piece of bead art elsewhere, I’m not really that interested in making it. Recently I made this custom piece for a friend - it’s a boss from Final Fantasy IV. I posted it in my last post, but this was a piece that brought me happiness. You cannot get it anywhere else, and giving people the opportunity to get niche sprites you won’t see on etsy is appealing to me. It also turned out awesome.

Anyway that is all from me - have a great day! I will talk to you soon.