RiThom of the FGC

Chapter 2

I'd been going to weeklies for a little while now, but this time it was special. Instead of the usual format of playing casuals and then running a mini-tournament, this was going to be a much larger tournament, running under official rules for Tekken at the very least. I'd also managed to get the word out enough for a 16-man Soul Calibur bracket, convincing Graham to have some space in the corner. Yeah, it was nothing compared to the 80+ people that had arrived for Tekken, but at least it was something.

I came into the venue about an hour before the tournament started, having offered to help out. I'd also brought my PS4 and monitor. Dad had offered to help me out, since he had to drop my mother off at the hospital anyway. She's doing okay, at least. Not that it stops me from worrying about her.

When I arrive, the venue that we use hasn't been opened to the public, so I have to knock at the window, dragging the suitcase behind me like I'm some tourist fresh off the bus from the airport. Graham spots me and quickly lets me in. It's a surprise to see that despite the fact there's usually only me and him at this time, there's no less than seven people here already. We're all busy untangling wires and shuffling tables around, trying to find the optimal way to have as many setups as possible without removing too much room.

Eventually, we all set up. Most people are up on the balcony desyncing controllers from the consoles, whereas me and Chris are busy working on making sure the consoles in the corner are set up. To our surprise, despite the fact we were told we'd only be able to get four, we actually have five consoles, one of which has been set up to be a stream console. I glance over to Graham with a confused look on my face, as he comes down the stairs with a projector. "Why have we got this," I ask with genuine confusion. "We're the smaller game, aren't we?"

"Oh, no, you don't. Sorry, it's just so busy up there, we figured that keeping the stream down here would work in our favour better."

That made a lot more sense. I gave a nod and approach him, before giving him a hand with the projector. He lets some of the weight shift into my arms and holy shit, that thing was so heavy! I felt as if my arms were about to snap off, how had he carried that down the stairs without an issue? Wonders will never cease, I guess.

Only now do I understand how much work it takes to set up a stream setup for a tournament. Wires are literally everywhere, and my inner clean freak can feel myself desperately shooting towards the suitcase. There's the mixer, the speakers, the two monitors, the console, the projector, the PC, the monitor for the commentators to look at and a partridge in a pear tree. I eventually give into my cleanliness and grab from my bag some cable tidies. Applying them may be a pain in the ass now, but they'll come to love me later when all the cables for seventy million different things aren't wrapped up anywhere.

I sit down and play a few games on the stream setup in order to confirm everything is working as intended. The cameras that are sat on top on the monitor were making me feel sick, just thinking about the fact that this thing could let the whole world see me play. Of course, there's no reason for me to worry since I know the camera's off. I play a couple of rounds of Tekken and as I thought before, the game feels clunky as hell, and I don't like it. At least we now know the stream is working.

Once we have gotten the majority of the setups working, we breathed a small sigh of relief as a few more of the regulars started coming in. It would be nice to see some of the more familiar faces before people from other areas started flocking into the venue. There was still half an hour to go before the venue officially opened, which means I couldn't get a drink until then either. That especially sucked since I forgot to have breakfast this morning. Again. Instead, I set my stick down on a table near the stream setup and watch as two other players began to make Tekken look like it's actually fun. I may hate playing the game, but at least it makes for an entertaining spectator game.