Another year, another iteration of RPG Limit Break has come and gone. As usual it’s time to share my recollection of events though I won’t necessarily be doing quite the day by day account I did last year. Overall it was a pretty great event though I can’t deny there was a small air of melancholy over the whole thing, something I’ll get into later.
This year I did things a hair differently and went out on day one of setup, mostly since I had an abundance of vacation time and I may as well use it on getting away from things. I ended up being one of the first people to arrive for the event though whether I was the true first could be hotly debated since it seems that three of us from three different states with three different flights somehow managed to land in Salt Lake about roughly the same time.
There’s not much to speak of setup since it’s just… setup. The bulk of the work took place Friday and Saturday since we were shut out of most of our event rooms until then. I’m sure it must have been a sight for some of the other guests and employees to see people using the luggage carts to wheel around needlessly bulky CRT televisions. (God, when are we finally going to get around to building portable anti-grav technology?)
Sunday rolled around and the event began in earnest. I think this year is the earliest I’ve participated in any part of the active marathon when I sat in dowolf’s run of The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero. I didn’t really do much because it’s a rather short run but it was nice to be there.
Monday saw me in a slightly more active role when I did front hosting for Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia. (I say front hosting because with longer runs we do rotate hosts so no host is on the job for more than four hours at a time and with Ar tonelico being a six hour run I did switch out in the latter half.) Obviously it wasn’t my show but I think for the most part I did pretty alright having a rapport going on.
Of course this year I had my own gaming shenanigans to get into. (I apologize for all the shenanigans.) Once more I continued the Kiseki shenanigans with a co-op run of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd and somehow, beyond all probability, got to do my very first solo marathon run of Ys II. I’m not really going to comment on the runs themselves too much. I can’t express how much I’m grateful for the opportunity and I would like to thank ChampionBeef, dowolf, Freedom_Pulse and Schtolteheim for putting up with me and my silliness.
I won’t deny that while the marathon is great; funnily enough anymore it’s not necessarily the primary reason I attend. Don’t get me wrong, I hold the marathon in high esteem and we’re all here to participate in it in one way or another but since after my first event back in 2019 Limit Break has been more about meeting up with folks.
As neat as it was to be on the stage I can’t deny that it’s the quieter moments that stand out for me. Doing puzzles in the social room, bullshitting during breakfast or even just driving around was a far better experience. Perhaps my favorite moment of the whole event was early on in the week when I went out to dinner with Alec, Kiara, puwexil and rizu. Originally we had set out for a burger bar but shenanigans preventing us from crossing some train tracks (I think a truck may have been stuck or something?) blocked us from our destination.
We drove around for a bit trying to find some place to eat (Apparently not a lot of eateries stay open past 9 PM in SLC. Weeeeeeird.) until we decided on a P.F. Chang’s that wasn’t too far away. Once we got seated and ordered food we whittled the time away talking. In and of itself the night was nothing particularly spectacular but I don’t get out like I want to due to my job so it’s nice when I can get out with friends and have a pleasant conversation over a meal.
Of course there was more fun to be had during the week. Another fun food place stop was the Kumo Café, a café specializing in very fluffy soufflé pancakes.
I had been wanting to visit this place ever since I saw their menu and saw that they had a particular dessert, the bunny panna cotta, a gelatin like dessert shaped in the form of a small bunny. You may know of this if you’ve seen a GIF of a bunny dessert being smacked with a spoon and jiggling. Yeah, I had to recreate that.
As with all good things the marathon did come to an end. Once again I stayed to help with teardown and with everyone’s help (Including a few folks from NAMI and Ashen’s family) we had everything down in record time. Though it had been there for the entirety of the week it was about here that air of melancholy I had talked about really began to hit.
Ever since we learned of Utah beginning to pass transphobic laws I think many of us have been expecting the announcement we got at the end of the marathon, that we’re going to move away from Utah. It’s been something that’s has been floating around for a long while and with this move from Utah it’s finally given us a reason to make a real push for it. Before I go any farther I want to make absolutely clear that I am fully supportive of the move because our trans friends should be able to feel safe and comfortable with who they are without any assholes infringing upon them.
But I can’t deny that to a small degree I’ll miss coming out to Salt Lake City, if only for the location. This was my fourth visit to SLC (Along with being my fourth marathon. Coincidence?!??!?), the location has become familiar to me by now. This will likely be the last time I make a walk over to this particular Perkins, the last time I’ll ride down 5600 W and 172 to get to Village Inn where we’ll complain about a gas leak making everything funnier than it should be (Yes, that’s a joke.), the last time I’ll be able to look out and see this particular view of mountains.
I stylize myself as something of an adventurer so it’s not as if afraid to travel to new places. But for all the time I’ve spent here, for all the memories I’ve made I can’t deny I’ll miss it.
A little bit.
For those few of us still remaining after teardown most of us went out for one last dinner. Afterwards we invaded the practice room for one last round of gaming, including a final thing of FFIV Free Enterprise which seems to be verging on tradition.
Most left during the evening to night, the rest of us left the next morning. Alec and I were the last ones out of the hotel, the final elements of RPG Limit Break now gone forever.
The journey home was thankfully uneventful. I did get the world’s most mediocre $20 burger during my layover in Denver. I wish I could feign surprise but unfortunately I expected as much.
Getting home after hours of travel my cats were glad to see me after I so rudely abandoned them.
So now that RPG Limit Break is over what lies in store for the future, at least as far as I’m personally concerned? Obviously I’d love to make it out to 2025 but we’ll see how that goes. (I’m sure y’all can understand when I say it’s hard to commit this far out even though I don’t foresee anything seriously stopping me.) In terms of speedrun submissions I’m on a temporary hiatus since I want to clear out some of my casual stuff before I get back into it. (Two Falcom games next month and potentially the entire original Dragon Quest trilogy, according to rumors, is gonna be fun.) I do think I know what I want to submit though.
With that all said and done I do have one final thing I want to get into. Along with this event some people share their stories of struggles with their mental health. I’ve been waffling on sharing mine, especially since it’s taken me so long to write this entry in general, but I suppose I should do it since I’ve been bouncing things around in my head for days now.
I understand that mental health in general can be a touchy subject for folks so I’m going to share mine after a page break. If you’d rather not read it then feel free to stop here. I won’t blame you. Otherwise if you’re curious to hear my story then click on.