So I had the idea for the tagline/the text a while ago. That was the easy part. What took some research and digging was finding a case where it was true, in particular on the NES because that's the easiest to stitch (easy 1:1 pixel to stitch ratio and limited colors). A common joke among speedrunners is that when they die or do something unintended/detrimental, they did it on purpose to manipulate the RNG. Without getting too technical, computers aren't really random, they can't generate true random outcomes. So games and programs have ways to simulate random results, called Random Number Generators, or RNG. Depending on the game or program, one might be able to manipulate the RNG by performing certain actions, changing the order they do things, etc. Dying is rarely the case, but I was able to find an instance where it was actually used to manipulate a desired outcome:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1312607393 at about the 5:56 mark (warning: some casual swearing). If you really care what's going on, the wherefore and why, do a search for "super mario bros 3 early hammer". The technique used, dying in that spot and all is obsolete, but about three years ago, it was a legit method based on the knowledge at the time. So yes, the text is the funny part and speedrunners will get it and all, but it is also a true statement, which was exactly what I was looking for when I first came up with the line and starting looking into things.
Also included is the full screenshot from which my pattern was derived. Actually played the game myself to try to die in as close a position as shown in the video above. Took several tries, but playing on the computer/with an emulator, I could slow things down, rewind, use a variety of tools to get the shot I wanted. So really looking forward to not only stitching this, but having it shown off at SGDQ. Super Mario Bros. 3 is a little more known than Flipull, so that'll help. And Mario is one of the more popular franchises run at GDQ events, so it is quite possible this will be part of a prime time
showcase. We'll see.
We'll see how long stitching this takes. Much less involved than King Zora from last year, though not as simple as most of my AGDQ prizes. All the threads I already had, so that helped. In fact, because I used the sprite of Mario from SMB3 as part of a previous SGDQ prize, I could just look up what colors I used there. Did have to order the cloth, but that was easy enough and we got it a couple of weeks ago. Got a light blue cloth, so we won't have to stitch any of the background sky, which was the idea to save time and effort. Going to be out of town the weekend of February 8-9, so my tentative plan is to start in the lower right corner, which is unusual for me, so that I can do some of the outlines of the blocks now, which I'll want the pattern pulled up and be looking at, and work on filling in the blocks while I'm gone, which is mindless filling and doesn't require looking at the pattern. So, tomorrow we'll measure our cloth, get things cut and begin stitching and go from there.