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HSC Season 6 Week 4: Stay Frosty


Ze_ro

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

 

You were just chilling out at the North Pole, when a short-circuiting string of Christmas lights on Santa's barn set the reindeer dust on fire. Now magic fireballs are threatening to melt everything. It's up to you to put them out so you can keep your cool!

 

(Note: This game is part of the "Stella's Stocking" 2007 Christmas compilation. If you don't have this cartridges, the author has made a stand-alone binary available here. Alternatively, you can play it online here)

 

snowman_night.gif

 

Game Information
  • Game Name: Stay Frosty
  • Released By: Darrel Spice Jr, 2008
  • Left Difficulty: N / A
  • Right Difficulty: N / A
  • Game Mode: Default
  • Chosen By: SpiceWare

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 October 1st at 1:00 AM (CST).

 

Current High Scores
  1. 236,862 (darthkur) [+11]
  2. 232,439 (SpiceWare) [+10]
  3. 230,006 (DarthCalvin) [+9]
  4. 175,657 (toymailman) [+8]
  5. 169,191 (LS_Dracon) [+7]
  6. 151,297 (Deteacher) [+6]
  7. 116,285 (Nathan Strum) [+5]
  8. 98,764 (aftermac) [+4]
  9. 66,812 (LarcenTyler) [+3]
  10. 56,810 (Zoyx) [+2]
  11. 55,665 (jjd) [+1]
  12. 53,464 (Impaler_26) [+1]
  13. 50,093 (Kurt_Woloch) [+1]
  14. 38,443 (LoneWolfSeth) [+1]

Best Tips
  • SpiceWare [+2]

Challenges
  • None

TwinGalaxies Top 3
  1. N/A
(Game 1, Difficulty A)
Current Standings
  1. Coming Soon!








 

Scoring Points in Stay Frosty
  • Fire - 50 points when shrunk, 100 points when put out
  • Ice - 4-10 points depending on size
  • Level Bonus - If the level is cleared of ice you'll earn 1000 points for a solid snowman or 500-100 for various melted stages. No points are awarded if just a head remains.

 

Hints and Tips
The Manual
As always, you really should read the manual. In case you don't have the manual, you can find a text version attached to this post (look down). Unfortunately, it doesn't have any real hints.
LoneWolfSeth
After playing this game 3 times, the only hint i can think of is size matters. Some of the levels you will need to be a bit smaller to fit into.
SpiceWare
1) if you're already full size then jump over ice blocks else you'll waste them.

2) always collect all the ice to earn the bonus points, they add up quickly.

3) you'll sometimes need "running jumps" to reach difficult platforms.

4) difficult platforms are often easier to reach if you're slightly melted as your wider bottom will let you hang further off the edge of the platform you're jump off of.

 

--Zero

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post-19425-1222246116_thumb.png

 

1st try 20379 had to use stella again interesting game would love to have the cart one day too bad I can't use my atari joysticks on this computer (no steladaprer) there has to be a way to use the serial port as a joystick port (9 pin and 9 pin )

post-19425-1222253048_thumb.png29326

will keep trying this game gets frustrating but addicting

Edited by LoneWolfSeth
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after playing this game 3 times the only hint i can think of is size matters some of the levels you will need to be a bit smaller to fit into unless I am missing something while I'm using stella and i have noticed that stella tends to jump a bit on my computer most likly a problem on my hard ware considering I'm running xp on a 1.8ghz with only 768mb ram so like I said mot likely my hardware

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Very nice game Spiceware. Reminds me of that phrase,"simple to learn, difficult to master." :thumbsup:
This is a fun game! It's been a great season so far. Lots of good picks so far. :)

Thanks! You're off to a great start Darth :thumbsup:

 

had to use stella again interesting game would love to have the cart one day too bad I can't use my atari joysticks on this computer (no steladaprer) there has to be a way to use the serial port as a joystick port (9 pin and 9 pin )

 

will keep trying this game gets frustrating but addicting

Al has some of the special 64K boards left and will probably make another run of Stella's Stocking in December. You'll probably want to get one right away, I don't know how many of those boards he has left.

 

While they're both 9 pins, they're wired quite a bit differently. Stella does works with regular USB joysticks and gamepads. Using one of those may cut down on the frustration level :evil:

 

210,132

post-3056-1222294834_thumb.jpg

 

Author's Tips:

1) if you're already full size then jump over ice blocks else you'll waste them.

 

2) always collect all the ice to earn the bonus points, they add up quickly.

 

3) you'll sometimes need "running jumps" to reach difficult platforms.

 

4) difficult platforms are often easier to reach if you're slightly melted as your wider bottom will let you hang further off the edge of the platform you're jump off of.

Edited by SpiceWare
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I got to 204k and some change with 2 lives left, then Stella froze up!!!! :mad:

 

That's pretty frustrating isn't it? Stella does that periodically for me, too. Some games it's a chronic problem. Here's a question: Given the saved state practice method you mentioned last game... Should periodically saving the state of a game be allowed to protect against losing a high score if Stella crashes (but not to be resumed otherwise)?

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I never had a problem with Stella freezing until last week, but that's also when I installed a converter to use a Gamecube controller on my pc. (waiting for stelladaptor, impatiently I might add) You use a stelladaptor, don't you? I was hoping the problem would go away once I started using something designed to work with stella.

 

As far as the save state, I won't be doing it. If we come across another game with a ridiculous leap forward in difficulty I'll practice with it, but until then I'll just deal with it freezing from time to time. Anyone know how to rub alcohol on an emulator? :)

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I never had a problem with Stella freezing until last week, but that's also when I installed a converter to use a Gamecube controller on my pc. (waiting for stelladaptor, impatiently I might add) You use a stelladaptor, don't you? I was hoping the problem would go away once I started using something designed to work with stella.

 

As far as the save state, I won't be doing it. If we come across another game with a ridiculous leap forward in difficulty I'll practice with it, but until then I'll just deal with it freezing from time to time. Anyone know how to rub alcohol on an emulator? :)

 

I use a combination of the Stelladaptor (with several different joysticks and paddles), Logitech Precision USB gamepad, and sometimes even the keyboard. Depends what works best for that particular game. When I come across a game that crashes, it crashes no matter what controller I'm using. You'll love the Stelladaptor, but it won't stop the crashing, at least in my experience.

 

The only person who might be able to "rub alcohol" into Stella is probably Stephena, who stops in here every now and again. Not sure if anything can be done about the crashing until the re-writing of Stella is complete.

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I never had a problem with Stella freezing until last week, but that's also when I installed a converter to use a Gamecube controller on my pc. (waiting for stelladaptor, impatiently I might add) You use a stelladaptor, don't you? I was hoping the problem would go away once I started using something designed to work with stella.

 

As far as the save state, I won't be doing it. If we come across another game with a ridiculous leap forward in difficulty I'll practice with it, but until then I'll just deal with it freezing from time to time. Anyone know how to rub alcohol on an emulator? :)

 

I use a combination of the Stelladaptor (with several different joysticks and paddles), Logitech Precision USB gamepad, and sometimes even the keyboard. Depends what works best for that particular game. When I come across a game that crashes, it crashes no matter what controller I'm using. You'll love the Stelladaptor, but it won't stop the crashing, at least in my experience.

 

The only person who might be able to "rub alcohol" into Stella is probably Stephena, who stops in here every now and again. Not sure if anything can be done about the crashing until the re-writing of Stella is complete.

I've never personally seen Stella crash, so debugging that issue will be difficult. If you could show me a ROM that consistently causes a problem, it would make fixing the issue 1000x easier. I have noticed that Stella sometimes freezes, though. It seems to happen more in OpenGL mode (or maybe that's only because I use OpenGL mode almost exclusively that I notice it). However, if you leave the app for a few seconds (sometimes up to 10 seconds), everything starts working again. I really think it's somehow related to input or something, but again, as it's so infrequent and can't be reliably reproduced, I can't fix it.

 

Maybe this should move to another thread or email me directly. Especially if anyone can reliably cause a crash, I really want to know about it.

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I've never personally seen Stella crash, so debugging that issue will be difficult. If you could show me a ROM that consistently causes a problem, it would make fixing the issue 1000x easier. I have noticed that Stella sometimes freezes, though. It seems to happen more in OpenGL mode (or maybe that's only because I use OpenGL mode almost exclusively that I notice it). However, if you leave the app for a few seconds (sometimes up to 10 seconds), everything starts working again. I really think it's somehow related to input or something, but again, as it's so infrequent and can't be reliably reproduced, I can't fix it.

 

Maybe this should move to another thread or email me directly. Especially if anyone can reliably cause a crash, I really want to know about it.

 

Perhaps the freezing you described is what is happening. It is infrequent and random, but it seems to happen to some games more than others. Playing on Mac OS X, I am always using OpenGL. The problem with switching to another app is that I play in full screen mode (less distracting) and Stella seems to disable Command-Tab. I usually have to force-quit to get back to the desktop. I guess if I'm having a problem with a specific game, I could try playing in "windowed" mode, so I can switch apps easily and see if that helps.

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I've never personally seen Stella crash, so debugging that issue will be difficult. If you could show me a ROM that consistently causes a problem, it would make fixing the issue 1000x easier. I have noticed that Stella sometimes freezes, though. It seems to happen more in OpenGL mode (or maybe that's only because I use OpenGL mode almost exclusively that I notice it). However, if you leave the app for a few seconds (sometimes up to 10 seconds), everything starts working again. I really think it's somehow related to input or something, but again, as it's so infrequent and can't be reliably reproduced, I can't fix it.

 

Maybe this should move to another thread or email me directly. Especially if anyone can reliably cause a crash, I really want to know about it.

 

Perhaps the freezing you described is what is happening. It is infrequent and random, but it seems to happen to some games more than others. Playing on Mac OS X, I am always using OpenGL. The problem with switching to another app is that I play in full screen mode (less distracting) and Stella seems to disable Command-Tab. I usually have to force-quit to get back to the desktop. I guess if I'm having a problem with a specific game, I could try playing in "windowed" mode, so I can switch apps easily and see if that helps.

Please list all ROMs where it seems to happen more commonly. There is obviously some pattern here; it'll just be very difficult to track down. But since it seems to happen in Linux, OSX and Win32, I can safely rule out an OS-specific issue.

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Please list all ROMs where it seems to happen more commonly. There is obviously some pattern here; it'll just be very difficult to track down. But since it seems to happen in Linux, OSX and Win32, I can safely rule out an OS-specific issue.

 

Well, I think we can safely say it commonly happens with Stay Frosty. Circus Atari also stands out, because that was the first game in the HSC that I used my Stelladaptor, so I initially thought that was the problem. As for other games, I'll have to go back through the games we've played in the HSC in the last 9 months since I started.

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Please list all ROMs where it seems to happen more commonly. There is obviously some pattern here; it'll just be very difficult to track down. But since it seems to happen in Linux, OSX and Win32, I can safely rule out an OS-specific issue.

 

Well, I think we can safely say it commonly happens with Stay Frosty. Circus Atari also stands out, because that was the first game in the HSC that I used my Stelladaptor, so I initially thought that was the problem. As for other games, I'll have to go back through the games we've played in the HSC in the last 9 months since I started.

I've started a new thread in the emulation forum concerning this issue (http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=132113). Please add your info there, being as detailed as possible.

 

EDIT: The thread link is now clickable.

Edited by stephena
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OK, here's mine... 50093.

 

post-8393-1222364098_thumb.png

 

I must say that this is really a fun game, reminiscent of such classics as "Toy bizarre", "Manic Miner" or better yet, "Bounty Bob strikes back". It also reminds me a bit of Bomb Jack. I also like the cute face movements of the snowman character. And the fireballs... well, that's the way they should have been drawn in Donkey Kong.

Edited by Kurt_Woloch
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