This is a game called Walrus. No, I didn't name it; it's just a happy coincidence.
But what is Walrus? Walrus is essentially a completely biased song competition, judged by yours truly. There are 8 categories; entrants will select songs that fit these categories and submit them to me for judging. I'll score each song (alongside a brief writeup of my thoughts), award points based on the score, and then whoever has the most points at the end wins.
The categories are as follows (with included examples):
DISMANTLE THE PATRIARCHY: This one's fairly straightforward. I don't want to hear a single male voice in this song. Whether that means a female-sung song or an instrumental doesn't matter to me.
MEDIA CULTURE: We're on the internet. A lot of people watch a lot of shit. Send me your favorite song from the score of a film, the opening or credits of a TV show or anime, or a video game OST. The song should be one that was originally written for the media in question, and I will not be accepting covers or remixes this time around.
BORN IN THE WRONG GENERATION: As long as the song came out before you were born, anything goes. If you don't want to reveal your age, just send something that's reasonably old.
THE LUTE CATEGORY: Named after MU's favoritenecrophile lover of gothic horror, this one's all about spookiness. I'll be fairly broad about this one - you could go the route of talking about death in general, or lamenting the death of a friend or lover, or you could go full gothic and talk about spooky shit like zombies or ghosts or murdering someone. I'd caution against instrumentals unless you have something incredibly unsettling up your sleeve.
ANTHONY KIEDIS: If you've ever heard a song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, you understand. I want to leave this song having no idea what the song was trying to tell me. No instrumentals allowed on this one.
CONFESSIONS: I hesitate to call these "guilty pleasure" songs, because I don't think people should feel guilty about their music tastes, but that's essentially what this is. If there's a song you listen to that falls outside your ordinary tastes and you're somewhere in the neighborhood of ashamed to admit it, this is the category to send it for.
THE HYDRA'S RETURN: In my first Walrus, a duo-job with jumpluff, I had a category asking for songs with horns, whereas they had a category for songs with violins. In this Walrus, I'm going to combine the two: your song can contain either, or both, of the aforementioned things. For our purposes, we'll say "horns" are things like brass instruments and saxophones, whereas "strings" refers to orchestral instruments such as violins and cellos.
REGIFTED: Some of my favorite bands were first introduced to me by other people. For this category, send me a song that you would have no idea existed if it weren't for someone else. Feel free to let me know who that person is, too!
SHITPOST: I'll leave this one open to interpretation. The more I laugh, the more points you're probably going to get.
MEDIA CULTURE: We're on the internet. A lot of people watch a lot of shit. Send me your favorite song from the score of a film, the opening or credits of a TV show or anime, or a video game OST. The song should be one that was originally written for the media in question, and I will not be accepting covers or remixes this time around.
BORN IN THE WRONG GENERATION: As long as the song came out before you were born, anything goes. If you don't want to reveal your age, just send something that's reasonably old.
THE LUTE CATEGORY: Named after MU's favorite
ANTHONY KIEDIS: If you've ever heard a song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, you understand. I want to leave this song having no idea what the song was trying to tell me. No instrumentals allowed on this one.
CONFESSIONS: I hesitate to call these "guilty pleasure" songs, because I don't think people should feel guilty about their music tastes, but that's essentially what this is. If there's a song you listen to that falls outside your ordinary tastes and you're somewhere in the neighborhood of ashamed to admit it, this is the category to send it for.
THE HYDRA'S RETURN: In my first Walrus, a duo-job with jumpluff, I had a category asking for songs with horns, whereas they had a category for songs with violins. In this Walrus, I'm going to combine the two: your song can contain either, or both, of the aforementioned things. For our purposes, we'll say "horns" are things like brass instruments and saxophones, whereas "strings" refers to orchestral instruments such as violins and cellos.
REGIFTED: Some of my favorite bands were first introduced to me by other people. For this category, send me a song that you would have no idea existed if it weren't for someone else. Feel free to let me know who that person is, too!
SHITPOST: I'll leave this one open to interpretation. The more I laugh, the more points you're probably going to get.
This is the section you'll want to read if you're minmaxing.
As you can see by the example songs, I listen to a lot of alt rock and classic rock. I'm also a pretty big prog fan, be it classic stuff or modern prog metal. Speaking of metal, I'm hit-or-miss on the genre as a whole; more melodic stuff is more likely to do well. New wave is pretty good.
Funk, soul, and more upbeat varieties of jazz will do well. Pop stuff that skews more towards the rock end of the spectrum and/or features incredibly talented vocalists has a chance. I'm extremely picky with rap; clean flows and a more rock or orchestral base will do much better than mumble rap and trap beats. East coast generally reigns supreme over west coast or the dirty south.
I tend to favor something upbeat and uptempo over something somber and melodic. Something more laid-back and chill works if it catches my attention.
In addition to the bands in the example songs, I've listened to the following artists extensively, and would recommend not sending them: Muse, Boston, Cage the Elephant, Foo Fighters, The Heavy, Queen, the Black Keys, anything with Jack White's involvement.
As you can see by the example songs, I listen to a lot of alt rock and classic rock. I'm also a pretty big prog fan, be it classic stuff or modern prog metal. Speaking of metal, I'm hit-or-miss on the genre as a whole; more melodic stuff is more likely to do well. New wave is pretty good.
Funk, soul, and more upbeat varieties of jazz will do well. Pop stuff that skews more towards the rock end of the spectrum and/or features incredibly talented vocalists has a chance. I'm extremely picky with rap; clean flows and a more rock or orchestral base will do much better than mumble rap and trap beats. East coast generally reigns supreme over west coast or the dirty south.
I tend to favor something upbeat and uptempo over something somber and melodic. Something more laid-back and chill works if it catches my attention.
In addition to the bands in the example songs, I've listened to the following artists extensively, and would recommend not sending them: Muse, Boston, Cage the Elephant, Foo Fighters, The Heavy, Queen, the Black Keys, anything with Jack White's involvement.
SCORING: Is to be determined. I'm posting this walrus across three sites: MafiaUniverse, 2+2's Puzzles and Other Games, and Smogon's Circus Maximus. As such, I have no idea how many people I'll be working with, and will be designing the scoring system around that.
What I DO know, however, is that I'll be awarding bonus points for podium finishes and for reaching certain scoring thresholds. A failure to fit the category in an objective category will result in a score of 0 (but not necessarily 0 points!); in subjective categories, this likely won't be an issue. I also know that intentional pandering (sending a popular song by any of the bands listed as examples/in the about me section) will result in an automatic 0 as well for failure to read.
REVEALS: Will be live on Discord, as well as posted in the thread. Depending on the number of signups I get, I'll either be using MU's discord server or (if I'm afraid of flooding it) making my own and inviting a music bot myself.
SIGN-UPS: Will not be capped unless I legitimately feel I won't be able to complete the Walrus, and I'm extremely masochistic with these sorts of things so that would require quite the turnout. Deadline will be May 22nd at 11:59 PM CDT (currently UTC-5).
CURRENT SUBMISSIONS
-Adam (MU)
-Texas Cloverleaf (Smogon)
-RODAN (Smogon)
-KnightsofCydonia (Smogon)
-Zack (MU)
-Fable (MU)
-4maskwolf (MU)
-Lord Gaius (Smogon)
-zorbees (Smogon)
-Myzozoa (Smogon)
-Bloobird (POG)
-Drawesome532 (Smogon)
-TraceOfLife (Smogon)
-Inawordyes (MU)
-Fort Colorcastle (Smogon)
-LightWolf (Smogon)
-lute (MU)
-Nego (MU)
-Yeti (Smogon)
-vonFiedler (Smogon)
-Xicor (MU)
-Empoof (Smogon/MU) (fucker submitted over discord so i can't stick him in a box)
-Priptonite (POG)
-RAORoman (POG)
-Owner of a Lonely Heart (MU)
-Alette (MU)
-Pidge (Smogon)
-Paperblade (Smogon)
-Martin (Smogon)
-Blazade (Smogon)
-NeedMoreManasi (MU)
-t om (MU)
-Dave (MU)
-shubaka17 (Smogon)
-Thingyman (MU)
Note that posting in this thread is not a binding signup. The only way to be officially In is to send me a ballot before the deadline.
If you want to find examples of this running in the past to see how it works, there's plenty in the Other Games section of MafiaUniverse.
Last edited:
