HSC14 Round 8: Spelunker & Caverns of Khafka

[RedThunder]

Spelunker

87,645 and 2 keys :-)

 

Caverns of Khafka

21,016

 

Tree Surgeon

4,415

(Cant on the rope swing)

Edited May 5, 2017 by RedThunder

[+therealbountybob]

Found a video for Tree Surgeon - if your copy looks like this in emulation, then turn the overscan mode off (see HSC beginners' guide).

 

I suspect the 2nd screen's were not finished and guess the idea was to get two pieces of ladder (that's all you have time for just about) and build the ladder up to the top platform but instead you can just jump up the steps. Top players new Tree Surgeon rules - we should all do this voluntarily, so get two pieces of ladder and take them to the top and plant them before jumping up the steps, unless anyone finds that you can build the ladder properly

 

I always wondered what that white bit was on the bottom right?

 

A few hints:

On the first screen hold fire in when walking in the tree to saw as soon as you can / less likely to fall off this way also! Make use of the springboard, pull R to exit on the 3 branch heights. Whack a branch on the squirrels head for more points!

 

On the 2nd screens use the 2 jumps and work out what you can do. You do not need to use the rope to get down just stand left edge and jump left. To get back to the rope stand on the right edge, you are safe and do a normal jump when the rope is leftmost.

[+therealbountybob]

Spelunker 189,510 reached the first door and then had to decide what to do with my last man so jumped down the shelf to the right made the first one but not the 2nd one!

 

Khafka 267,142 had 13 left to collect on level 2

[+therealbountybob]

Reading in Spelunker guide on 1st page I hadn't twigged they are [F]lares not bullets so they need to have room to explode (I'm assuming must be nearby to the birds); it says if they hit the cave roof they will not work - will try this out next session

 

first tables

SPELUNKER

1st Deteacher 471,510 12pts
2nd slx 297,210 11pts
3rd therealbountybob 189,510 10pts
4th RedThunder 87,645 9pts
5th beamer320i 87,510 8pts
6th jblenkle 25,860 7pts

Caverns of Khafka
1st beamer320i 1,119,24 5pts
2nd therealbountybob 267,142 4pts
3rd Deteacher 111,315 3pts
4th slx 35,125 2pts
5th RedThunder 21,016 1pt

Tree Surgeon (see special rules on 1st post)
1st therealbountybob 27,575 2pts
2nd RedThunder 4,415 1pt

p.s. beamer if you are back and want to stick 5 games on the list I'll use them for the next poll (will start in another week)

[vintagegamecrazy]

How hard is this game compared to the NES version? I ask because that version is one of my favorite games of all time and I've broken a million on that game before.

[Deteacher]

How hard is this game compared to the NES version? I ask because that version is one of my favorite games of all time and I've broken a million on that game before.

 

IMO,the NES version is a lot harder. If I remember, the jumps are much harder to make on the NES version. I can't get nearly as far as I can on the 8-bit. On the NES plus side, I think there's a pretty catchy tune that plays in the background.

[carlsson]

Good thing this is a three week round, as I haven't got around to even download the game files yet. Hopefully I'll post some scores at least by next weekend.

[CapitanClassic]

Spelunker - 340,335

Caverns of Kafka - 2,891,243

I made a few mistakes just before the barrel over the waterfall level. I know I have finished this game before in the past, both on a800 and NES.
As for Caverns of Kafka, is it considered cheating to jump through the walls when they turn white and you are invincible? If not, then I have the high score. I got all the way to the first level where the walls are invisible.

Edited May 7, 2017 by CapitanClassic

[vintagegamecrazy]

Will have to try this then as I love the Nes version and can finish the game many times over.

[+therealbountybob]

...

As for Caverns of Kafka, is it considered cheating to jump through the walls when they turn white and you are invincible? If not, then I have the high score. I got all the way to the first level where the walls are invisible.

 

There are no instructions on atarimania for this gem so I'm not sure if this is a feature or a bug Perhaps we should have two HSC tables, one with no deliberate wall diving?

 

What did you do Dom? Any thoughts?

 

I wondered what the colour changes were about, I figured it might be night and day?

[+therealbountybob]

NEW TREE SURGEON RULES (on 1st post)

Still Play on Beginner ("C1") and stop play after 6 screens (when you reach "C4"). Post score and lives remaining. You can max out the score by killing squirrels on the first boards and collecting ladder pieces on the 2nd boards (plant them anywhere you like and just use the steps to get back to the truck). Both Screens are time limited so this should be about right

 

With a lot of fiddling about it was possible to get two bits to align and then climb up them, though I've not found a reliable method yet:

 

Spelunker 208,855 completed "The Elevator" now that I've mastered the flares, you can fire one where you exit the wagon (before you climb the ladder) to make it safe above!

 

Caverns of Khafka 294,750 I think the "invincibility" allowing you to pass through the white walls is a feature - there are some areas where you might not be able to get the treasures unless you are invincible. Now we need to work out when this occurs and what about that tune coming on? (similar to Mountian King?)

Edited May 8, 2017 by therealbountybob

[Deteacher]

Spelunker: 616,990!

 

 

Made it through the shaft. My tip to you is to NOT pick up the batteries until you absolutely need them. If you're near one and waiting for the boat, don't grab it until you're ready to get on. That helps out a lot!

[pusakat]

Haven't played Spelunker in a long while, but it's one of my favorites.

 

Spelunker: 318,900 with 1 key.

 

 

Will try the other games when I can.

[+therealbountybob]

Welcome pusakat

 

211,870 I got a bit further on the Ropes but wasted loads of men on the double mini volcanoes - didn't seem to reliably jump thought might be my button my latest theory (and I'm sticking to it!) is that when the temperature is lowish the metal contacts in the microswitches are less good

 

I have been collecting everything btw

 

[RedThunder]

I know it's PC, but anyone played this ?

 

http://www.spelunkyworld.com/original.html

 

PS Gamemaker 8 Lite is here...I must finish that Field Archery Game one day .... :-)

 

http://auntiepixelante.com/gamemaker/gmaker80.exe

Edited May 9, 2017 by RedThunder

[RedThunder]

Just sneaked into the "The Ropes"

 

with

 

138,880 :-)

 

It's always dumb ass jumps, that get me :-(

 

Great Game... This is further than I got in 1984 :-)

[+therealbountybob]

Spelunker 318,645

After several goes where I seem to be doing well but then drop a load of men in about 3 seconds I made it through "The "Ropes" to "The Falls", I went down the falls and got stuck on the island having to waste about 4 men so had a sneaky peak at the guide (on post #1) and I need to find a magic rope, so I went the wrong way bit of a mean game eh?! I'm glad this is a 3 weeker, next go tomorrow

[McKong]

Spelunker 42750

[McKong]

Spelunker 107715

[+slx]

Spelunker 302295

 

Took me a long while to make any progress, went through the elevator without any losses, although I started skipping on areas that would not really advance me but where I always lost Spelunkers in the past (like the leftmost part of the section under the mine cart).

 

Just like TRBB, sometimes I lose 3 in a row for some stupid jumping mistake.

 

Any opinions on whether you can amass spare lives beyond the 6 displayed?

 

[+therealbountybob]

Spelunker 302295

 

Took me a long while to make any progress, went through the elevator without any losses, although I started skipping on areas that would not really advance me but where I always lost Spelunkers in the past (like the leftmost part of the section under the mine cart).

 

Just like TRBB, sometimes I lose 3 in a row for some stupid jumping mistake.

 

Any opinions on whether you can amass spare lives beyond the 6 displayed?

 

Make that 5 lives in a row

 

You really have to be disciplined to play this, Karate Kid style... "jump on; jump off" and do not move after falling off as you are nearly always placed next to a crater which is a bit annoying.

 

Spelunker 338, 550

2nd explore of "The Falls": this time I had trouble getting from R to L across the lift, I was on the top right - can this be done or is it a no go area? (might be bit in screenshot below) [perhaps I should have jumped directly to the left lift platform - DOH!]

 

Khafka 774,963 made it to Stage 4 where it was night mode and I really struggled to get anywhere. I've been making good use of the invincibility to go jump crazy and get to the treasures in the difficult bits!

 

Tree Surgeon 27,650 with 4 men shown on the status bar - completed CA-C3 (this is what we are doing) ended play. You can possibly get 1265 plus any bonuses (drop branch onto squirrel or even both bird and squirrel on later rounds) on the first screen but on the dump screens can get many more points. I did jump onto the mother bird (on a later round) near the nest and think it gave me points - I was avoiding it - worth checking out. We'll say 1000pts per man left for now. If you have more than 5 they are shown in white over the others.

[+slx]

2nd explore of "The Falls": this time I had trouble getting from R to L across the lift, I was on the top right - can this be done or is it a no go area? (might be bit in screenshot below) [perhaps I should have jumped directly to the left lift platform - DOH!]

Aware of the risk that this might allow you to pull even further ahead of me, you can jump from an up to a down lift platform. You need to time the jump so that the feet will "grab" the downward platform which will cause the Spelunker to stop on that platform. Another way is to jump at the top and bounce off the top of the elevator.

 

Though I can't claim to master either of these in my sleep...it works sometimes

 

Having been there twice there seems to be nothing in the area right of the elevator that is required to complete the game, just points and one or two stars if you're in dire need of an extra Spelunker.

 

Still amazed how much time I had as a bachelor to play this to the end....

 

Funny enough I never seem to have troubles with double volcanoes, maybe Altirra syncs them automagically? But then, I mostly manage to die when trying to jump a volcano on the run without duly waiting for a cloud to form and disappear before jumping.

 

All that involuntary training in the upper levels starts to pay off. Arrived at the Fall with lots of lives and even managed to jump the green platforms correctly after a few tries but then lost my last Spelunker as I had forgotten about the advice on how to get off the last rope...

 

Nevertheless a slight increase to 325950 and some hope to make it to the Geysir at on of the next attempts....

 

Need to do some real work before the next attempt, though.

Edited May 12, 2017 by slx

[snakeboy]

Spelunker: 71,505

[+therealbountybob]

thanks slx, jumping across the lifts from one side to the other is much better - sort of diagonal up jumps works nicely.

Got the rope thingy and climbed up it but burned through all my lives on the green moving floor things (too much pressure) need to keep calm next go!

 

Spelunker 351,210

 

New poll will start tomorrow

 

 

[carlsson]

A few quick scores from me, in order to not be totally absent from this round:

 

Spelunker - 38910 pts

I didn't manage to get the dynamite to work on either of the two versions I tried. The flare works though, and the ghost is possible to scare away at least on one of the two versions. I also had trouble climbing ladders in one of two versions. Those are disk images I've got on a SD card since before, perhaps the versions pointed by the HSC work even better.

 

Caverns of Khafka - 32128 pts

A quick 5 minute one. Since I come from the Commode world, I am a bit more used to the C64 version of the same game.

 

I try the Tree Surgeon bonus game later on.

 

Tree Surgeon - 6215 pts (level C1, screen 2)

I didn't get to take a screenshot, and although I kind of understand how to navigate the second screen, I didn't manage to complete it. Perhaps I didn't read the game rules closely enough, as this game seems a bit more complex than it first looks like.

Edited May 14, 2017 by carlsson