Labs

Replay Room

Watch thirteen games in the real engine, in your browser: the course's homework game and the matches from the season Berkeley won.

The short version

  • Thirteen of the class's replays. One was the first homework. The other twelve are games from a 2009 college league, the season Berkeley's team won.
  • They play here, in your browser, on the real engine. Nothing is a video and nothing is re-recorded.
  • Everything written under each game is read out of the file itself: the players, their races, the map, the length and the date. Nothing is guessed from a file name.
  • Observers are not players. Most of these were played on observer maps with three or four people watching, and they are listed separately.
  • Start with the first one. It is the homework, and it comes with its question.
  • What Happened

    RiZi[aR] (Z) against Aesthetic[x.PG] (T)

    WGT14 - Lost Temple 2.4 (Ob). 16:41 at fastest. 7 December 2007. 2 observers in the game.

    The homework, restated in our words. Watch this game and say what is significant about the mix of units on the board. The hint the lecturer gave later was to look for what is missing rather than what is there.

    It is not one of the class's own games: it is an older replay they were handed, and the class site warned that the end of the file is corrupt. Watch it anyway. The answer is visible well before it breaks.

    2 more in the game, watching and not playing.
  • League week 1, Bullet against Flash, game 1

    flash[uci] (P) against BuLLetHeLL (T)

    Andromeda 1.0. 11:42 at fastest. 21 February 2009. 1 observer in the game.

    1 more in the game, watching and not playing.
  • League week 1, Apoth against Darren, game 4

    darrenc[UCI] (P) against ApotheosisX (Z)

    Sin Chupung Ryeong2.1. 14:15 at fastest. 21 February 2009. 4 observers in the game.

    4 more in the game, watching and not playing.
  • League week 1, Nimue against Darren, the ace match

    flash[uci] (T), Nimue[Flash] (P) and darrenc[UCI] (P)

    Medusa 1.1. 18:50 at fastest. 21 February 2009. 5 observers in the game.

    5 more in the game, watching and not playing.
  • League week 1, YoshSam against ShakaKage, two against two

    [UCI]Shaka (P), Sam_Bak_Za (P), xKagex (Z) and yosh (T)

    Vampire. 5:44 at fastest. 21 February 2009.

    Nobody was watching this one from inside the game.
  • ApotheosisX against trypt

    ucsb.trypt (Z) against ApotheosisX (Z)

    Sin Chupung Ryeong2.1. 10:12 at fastest. 28 February 2009. 3 observers in the game.

    3 more in the game, watching and not playing.
  • League game 0381

    Nimue[Flash] (P) against ucsb.arsenic (Z)

    ColosseumII 2.0. 14:33 at fastest. 28 February 2009. 3 observers in the game.

    3 more in the game, watching and not playing.
  • Against UC Santa Barbara

    Lore (Z) against ucsb.trypt (Z)

    Destination 1.1. 4:54 at fastest. 28 February 2009.

    Nobody was watching this one from inside the game.
  • League game 0380

    Zeko (P) against ucsb.arsenic (Z)

    Othello 1.1. 7:13 at fastest. 28 February 2009. 4 observers in the game.

    4 more in the game, watching and not playing.
  • Set 1, Tyler against Haitao

    DeepOneTerror (Z) against HAITAO (Z)

    Destination 1.1. 10:14 at fastest. 7 March 2009. 3 observers in the game.

    3 more in the game, watching and not playing.
  • Set 5, Zeko against Stryker

    Zeko (P) against StRyKeR (Z)

    ColosseumII 2.0. 23:16 at fastest. 7 March 2009. 4 observers in the game.

    4 more in the game, watching and not playing.
  • Set 2, Zeko against bashing

    Zeko (P) against Muirheadbashing (P)

    Andromeda 1.0. 7:13 at fastest. 7 March 2009. 4 observers in the game.

    4 more in the game, watching and not playing.
  • Set 3, two against two

    StRyKeR (Z), [Prime] (P), yosh (T) and SamBakZa[CAL] (P)

    Hannibal 1.1. 8:10 at fastest. 7 March 2009. 4 observers in the game.

    4 more in the game, watching and not playing.

How to watch one of these

The class's own rule, from the syllabus, was that you watch your own replays. These are not yours, so here is what they are for instead.

Watch the flow, not the battles. Give the game one pass at speed and note where the advantage moved. Usually it is not the fight you remember, it is what happened two minutes before it.

Find three good decisions and three bad ones. Not three good clicks. Three moments where somebody chose, and the choice paid or did not. Write down when they were.

Watch one player only, on the second pass. Pick the loser. Losing is more legible than winning: the mistake is usually still on the screen thirty seconds later.

These are 2009 games played by students, and some of them are rough. That is the point: rough games show their mistakes clearly, and finding them is the skill you are practising.

Sources for this page