Naming the Brackets and Picking the Top Seeds

There are a few ways I can assign the contestants to the various matchups in my March Gaming Madness tournament…I could randomly select 2 games and set them to compete against each other, basically exploring the matches as they are built…I could randomly assign all the teams and then seed them based on my gut feeling or preferences for the games…I could randomly select the number one seeds, then number 2 seeds, and so on.

I’m thinking the last one sounds quite interesting since it sets up a bit of anticipation in the brackets since I won’t know who is competing against who until later on in the selection process. The first strategy kinda focuses on the matchups right off the bat. At the same time, the middle tactic would interject my preferences into the setup, which I think I want to hold off on until the matches actually take place.

With that said, I think I’ll go through and pick my top 2 seeds – 4 each of number ones and twos – to get things started.

The Number Ones

• Dark Souls 2
• Neverwinter Online
• Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
• Undertale

The Brackets

These four will head the 4 brackets of my tournament, and I will name the brackets based on these games…

• Dark
• Winter
• Shadows
• Under

The second seeds will only face off against the number ones if they both make it to the Elite Eight, but they head the bottom of the brackets

The Number Twos

• WURM Online
• Octopath Traveler
• Final Fantasy I
• Valheim

So the first eight contestants are names. They will likely not battle each other and at least not for many rounds, but I find the diversity interesting.

I’ve played plenty of Neverwinter and WURM, basically reaching the endgame, as I have previously mentioned. In Neverwinter, I played a Paladin who was pretty much unstoppable, while in WURM, I managed to put together a pretty nice deed and build roads leading to my neighbors and starting towns. I could easily see myself kicking off new characters and playing through to the current endgame of either of these games.

Dark Souls 2 and Sekiro worry me because I’m not very good at these fighting games. I know there are patterns that have to be learned, though, and if either of these wins, I’m sure I’ll be able to figure out and learn the patterns. I just realized that these two games are made by From Software which I find interesting.

Final Fantasy I is an old-school game that kicked off at least 15 sequels, so there’s got to be something worthy of this game. I never had a way to play the game previously, but now it’s out on PC, so here it is on my list. Valheim is one of the popular games from the past year, and I’ve heard a lot of good things about it. My experience has been about an hour of gameplay, but it looked like a cool environment.

Undertale is an indie RPG game that looks really cool and is rated very highly, so I am excited to find out more and see if this can advance in the tournament. Octopath Traveler is another highly rated RPG, and here’s another game that shares a parent in Square Enix…they also produced the Final Fantasy game.

So the plots are interesting…2 game developers have 4 of the top seeds. Final Fantasy has a chance of taking on Sekiro in the Elite Eight, but Octopath Traveler won’t see Dark Souls until the Final Four if they both make it.

Anyway, I’m excited to get these picks made, and the beginning of my March Gaming Madness tournament kicked off.

Ramble 101 | Dingo 19 | 2022.29 | Naming the Brackets and Picking the Top Seeds