HSC Season 5 Week 11: Dark Cavern

[Ze_ro]

Important Note: This weeks competition is over and no further scores will be accepted.

 

The object of the game is to avoid the blobs, spiders and robots... and destroy as many of them as you can!!! Your man is trapped in the cavern, there's nowhere to hide. Escape the creatures' bites and keep away from robot fire. Shoot to destroy... rack up points! It's a bitter fight to the end!

 

 

Game Information

• Game Name: Dark Cavern
  
• Released By: M-Network, 1982
  
• Left Difficulty: B / Novice - Easier Game
  
• Right Difficulty: N/A
  
• Game Mode: Game 1
  
• Chosen By: PressureCooker2600
  

Post your scores right here in this thread, and I will add them to the list. Remember to play the game with the recommended game mode and difficulty settings as shown above so that your scores will be consistent with everyone elses. The deadline for posting scores is Wednesday, Nov 28th at 1:00 AM (CST).

 

If you want to suggest a game for future weeks, please send me a private message and let me know! I will add your game to the list. One one game per person will be kept on the list, so you will not be able to suggest a game until your first game is played! (Please note that due to time constraints, I very rarely reply to private messages... but I do read them all!)

 

Anyone can play! Just post a score and I'll add you to the list! Please read the Rules & Information if you haven't already done so!

 

Current High Scores

1. 319,000 (toymailman) [+11]
   
2. 308,000 (keilbaca) [+10]
   
3. 295,000 (DarthCalvin) [+9]
   
4. 261,000 (PressureCooker2600) [+8]
   
5. 254,000 (Deteacher) [+7]
   
6. 249,000 (shadow460) [+6]
   
7. 136,000 (Recycled) [+5]
   
8. 92,000 (theking21083) [+4]
   
9. 85,000 (Kurt_Woloch) [+3]
   
10. 76,000 (homerwannabee) [+2]
    
11. 52,000 (Impaler_26) [+1]
    
12. 35,000 (Butterwasp) [+1]
    

Best Tips

• PressureCooker2600 [+2]
  

Bounties and Challenges

• None yet
  

TwinGalaxies Top 3

(Game 1, Difficulty B)

• 1,011,000 (Todd Rogers)
  
• 626,000 (Christian L Keilback)
  
• 364,000 (Stephen R Riesenberger)
  

Current Standings

 

(Note: These scores reflect the standing as of the beginning of this week, and do not include points scored from this game.)

1. Deteacher [106]
2. toymailman [80]
3. keilbaca [70]
4. theking21083 [63]
5. Pressurecooker2600 [59]
6. rheffera [45]
7. SpiceWare [39]
8. Blackjack [35]
9. Recycled [35]
10. Kurt_Woloch [31]
11. Impaler_26 [31]
12. Captain Beard [31]
13. homerwannabee [30]
14. Nathan Strum [29]
15. DarthCalvin [23]
16. Rom Hunter [23]
17. LarcenTyler [13]
18. midnight magicman [13]
19. Christophero Sly [13]

• Butterwasp [12]
• godzillajoe [11]
• shadow460 [10]
• theKLT [10]
• Artlover [9]
• keitaro [7]
• Nognir [5]
• ed1475 [4]
• Goochman [3]
• phaxda [3]
• atari2600land [3]
• Crazy Climber [2]
• gospeedde [2]
• Phantom [2]
• Snider-man [2]
• doctorclu [1]
• RJ [1]
• KaeruYojimbo [1]

Scoring Points in Dark Cavern

• Spider - Zero points (Spiders will paralyze you with their bite)
  
• Blob - Zero points (Blobs will steal your bullets)
  
• Purple Robot - 1000 points
  
• Red Robot - 2000 points
  
• Green Robot - 3000 points
  
• Yellow Robot - 5000 points plus another man!
  
• Two-headed robots appear when your score reaches 20,000
  
• The game starts with purple robots. Shoot one and the rest turn red. Shoot another before a new robot takes its place, and all robots turn green. Shoot another before any new robots appear and the last robot is yellow. Once a new robot enters the cavern, all robots turn purple again. You have to be fast to get to the high point robots!
  

Hints and Tips

As always, you really should read the manual. In case you don't have the manual, AtariAge has a typed copy available (Unfortunately, the formatting is kind of screwed up). Here are the hints it provides:

 

* Wait at a corner when a robot is in target range, fire! Quickly move around the corner to dodge his bullet!

 

* When a new man enters the trap door, wait until it's safe to enter the cavern.

 

* As soon as a gun appears in the cavern, go after it! It disappears quickly!

- Remember....even though you shoot them, they still shoot back (unless their backs are turned). Always have an escape route.

 

- Some people are more itchy with their trigger fingers and find they run out of bullets fast, so during the first few minutes of the game.....just go after bullets.

 

- Stay away from the spawn points.....you may think its safe, but something will always pop out and get you.

 

- For the two-headed robots, always make a gameplan and escape route before even shooting at one of them. Because when there is 3 or 4 of them, it gets kinda tricky.

 

- During the last game of Dark Cavern, StanJr made an excellent map of bad areas to be and good areas to be. Check it out.

 

- Always try to get robots in groups of two or three. One bullet, three robots. It saves bullets plus it racks up the points and gives you an extra man if they're the right color.

 

- Hanging out at spawn points is a VERY dangerous technique....unless you're really good at it and don't have other robots flanking you.

 

- In the first 10 minutes or so, try to get at least 50 bullets. Because when you hit 100k, it gets very hard to reach the bullets when you need them.

My tip kind of goes against one of Pressure Cooker's tips. I like to hang out close to one spawn point...specifically, the one on the right. I'll hang out in the bottom right hand corner. I only hang out there when the room is cleared of robots. That way, if one comes out of the spawn point on the right, I can nail it right off the bat. This tactic is especially helpful when the robot that comes out is yellow. You nail it right away for 5,000 points and a bonus life. If you're lucky, you can nail 2 or 3 yellows for a ton of points and a few extra lives. In this 230K game, I nailed 3 yellows in a row for 15K in points and 3 extra lives.

When you first start, spend a few minutes just dodging the 2 monsters and 2 "whatever they're called I forgets" and grab ammo. When you have about 60 bullets then start attacking. That technique jumped my score from about 100k to about 300k in just one game.

The trick to scoring higher in the last levels is to get a lot of bullets in spare, then wait in a spot. Try to kill 2 at a time, being they respawn quickly. If you can get 3 very quickly then find a "train" of enemies so each enemy you kill in the train is 3000 points, your score will skyrocket.

 

--Zero

[PressureCooker2600]

Aww....HELL YEA!!!!!

[keilbaca]

Ah this again. I'm off of work till friday, so I'll be sure to get some good playing in.

[PressureCooker2600]

Some tips:

 

-Remember....even though you shoot them, they still shoot back (unless their backs are turned). Always have an escape route.

-Some people are more itchy with their trigger fingers and find they run out of bullets fast, so during the first few minutes of the game.....just go after bullets.

-Stay away from the spawn points.....you may think its safe, but something will always pop out and get you.

-For the two-headed robots, always make a gameplan and escape route before even shooting at one of them. Because when there is 3 or 4 of them, it gets kinda tricky.

-During the last game of Dark Cavern, StanJr made an excellent map of bad areas to be and good areas to be. Check it out.

[keilbaca]

I'll start off the mayhem.

 

273000

[toymailman]

I eventually got the hang of it. Looks like another fun week ahead of us.

 

257,000

 

[Recycled]

136,000

[shadow460]

176,000. Might be my only score since my cart is busted.

[toymailman]

I got a little bit of playing time in on Turkey day.

 

319,000

 

[DarthCalvin]

295,000

 

 

This game makes me swear at my TV, a whooole lot, but I like it

[PressureCooker2600]

133,000

 

First semi-decent score from last night.

 

One of my all-time favorite VCS games.

[Kurt_Woloch]

OK, this is my first entry for this week... 60000.

 

 

This seems to be a typical M-Network game. M-Network tended to do some things differently than other companies. Their specialities are:

 

- not too colorful graphics (no multicolored objects)

- Beautifully drawn, but rather low-res backgrounds

- Using missiles and balls for displaying objects that don't look like missiles and balls (here they even multiplex them)

- an inconsistent framerate (the player doesn't seem to move at a constant speed, but sometimes pauses, and so do the enemies - this effect also is somehow present in Burger Time)

- rather slow-moving games

[Deteacher]

My first submission: 230,000!

 

My tip kind of goes against one of Pressure Cooker's tips. I like to hang out close to one spawn point...specifically, the one on the right. I'll hang out in the bottom right hand corner. I only hang out there when the room is cleared of robots. That way, if one comes out of the spawn point on the right, I can nail it right off the bat. This tactic is especially helpful when the robot that comes out is yellow. You nail it right away for 5,000 points and a bonus life. If you're lucky, you can nail 2 or 3 yellows for a ton of points and a few extra lives. In this 230K game, I nailed 3 yellows in a row for 15K in points and 3 extra lives.

[shadow460]

200K even. I kept running low on bullets and had to make a few mad dashes for the guns.

[Impaler_26]

52,000.

[DarthCalvin]

200K even. I kept running low on bullets and had to make a few mad dashes for the guns.

 

When you first start, spend a few minutes just dodging the 2 monsters and 2 "whatever they're called I forgets" and grab ammo. When you have about 60 bullets then start attacking. That technique jumped my score from about 100k to about 300k in just one game.

[theking21083]

First score 92,000. I never liked this game much in the past, but it is growing on me.

[Deteacher]

249,000!

 

Getting better. By the way, the maximum number of lives you can have is 9.

[PressureCooker2600]

I need to get some more games in tonight.

 

I love this game but haven't had much time this week. Plus....I don't like my puny score.

[PressureCooker2600]

151,000

 

Not much of an improvement.....hopefully I can, at least, break the 200k mark tonight.

[homerwannabee]

Ok, I really suck at this game. Here is my score of 76,000

[Deteacher]

251,000!

 

Only 2K better than my previous best, but an improvement is an improvement.

[keilbaca]

308000

 

The trick to scoring higher in the last levels is to get a lot of bullets in spare, then wait in a spot. Try to kill 2 at a time, being they respawn quickly. If you can get 3 very quickly then find a "train" of enemies so each enemy you kill in the train is 3000 points, your score will skyrocket.

[Butterwasp]

35000

[PressureCooker2600]

261,000

 

That was one WILD game last night! The only thing that sucked was I had around 8 lives and then I lost my focus and lost them all faster than you could say "Shit!"

 

Some helpful pointers from my last game:

- Always try to get robots in groups of two or three. One bullet, three robots. It saves bullets plus it racks up the points and gives you an extra man if they're the right color.

- Hanging out at spawn points is a VERY dangerous technique....unless you're really good at it and don't have other robots flanking you.

- In the first 10 minutes or so, try to get at least 50 bullets. Because when you hit 100k, it gets very hard to reach the bullets when you need them.