22 replies to this topic

[atari2600land]

Let's play some Qix! I know I haven't been very active in the Lynx part of the forums, but I'll try to play this one. The contest runs from now until July 31, 2011.

scores:
PFG 9000 - 392,394
atari2600land 95,222
tempest2k 87,464
zylon 56,546
roadrunner 44,764

Edited by atari2600land, Sun Jul 10, 2011 11:45 PM.

[zylon]

Alright! I actually have this one.

[Tempest2k]

me too. And its not sealed

[zylon]

I find this one a lot harder than A8 or 5200, but here's my first go: 47,756

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[roadrunner]

atari2600land, you didn't post the high scores for Rygar.
When i put together the Lynx HSC all time records thread you missed zoltan's 100,700 score for Batman Returns
and EricDeLee's score for Turbo Sub.

[Tempest2k]

my points: 55530. this game frustrates me.

[roadrunner]

The Lynx HSC All Time Record is 376,528 by EricDeLee


some gameplay footage

[atari2600land]

God forbid I break 100,000...
95,222.

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[Austin]

Anyone have a cheap copy they want to sell?

[zylon]

2nd session wasn't productive, but 3rd had some improvement.   Having played 5 ports of Qix, this one needs better controls IMO. Still fun though.
56,546

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[zylon]

?- Is my screen giving up the ghost?

[Atari_afternoon]

Played it a little while last night. I don´t qualify for nothing here still not finished level 2 even!

EDIT June 26. And also yesterday. Stuck in the high 20,000 only so far

Edited by Atari_afternoon, Sat Jun 25, 2011 7:32 PM.

[Tempest2k]

new points 87464. Man it´s difficult

[roadrunner]

44,764

I had one good game and my other 3 games were crap.

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[PFG 9000]

This game is driving me mad.  It's made me want to inflict severe pain on my Lynx several times, and I'm usually a pretty calm player.  I used to play this a lot as a kid.  My old strategies came right back, and I'll post them here eventually.  I'm trying to beat EricDeLee's alltime high score, but I've got a ways to go yet.  I hate how the Qix always hovers around you, no matter where you go.  Of course there wouldn't be much of a challenge if its path was truly random, but its hatred of my little pixelated cross-hairs seems unfair.

Maddening, I tell you.  Maddening.

[PFG 9000]

zylon, on Fri Jun 24, 2011 10:45 AM, said:

?- Is my screen giving up the ghost?

Mine does the same thing.  It always has.  It seems worse now than I remember, but that's probably just my imagination.

[PFG 9000]

392,394


This might be the first time this High Score Competition caused me to lose respect for a game.  I played this game a lot as a kid, and while I didn't like it as much as most of my other games back then, I still had some good times playing it.  When I first started playing this again last week, I had fun with it.  But I got frustrated pretty quickly.  I've probably put about 5-6 hours into Qix in the last week.  In that time, I've died three times for absolutely no reason other than bad programming, apparently.  I'm not talking about dying when I thought I should've had a near miss.  I'm talking about dying when there are absolutely no enemies (including the fuse) around me whatsoever.  I also had one time when the Stix (or Qix or whatever the cylcone is) went right through the thread trailing behind me, from one side to the other, without killing me.

But the most frustrating part about Qix is the inconsistency.  It seems I can play a game where the first few levels are a breeze, and the Stix leaves me alone and travels slowly.  And then there are games where the first level is stupidly hard and the Stix seems twice as fast as the last game.  It's just inconsistent.  I feel I'm a good enough player that I should be able to beat the first few levels consistently, but I can't.  And I don't feel it's my fault.  When your success in a game seems mostly due to either blind luck or the whimsy of the software, that's just bad programming.

[PFG 9000]

Sorry for the four posts in a row.  Here are some strategies that may help.  Keep in mind my thought above on the game's inconsistency.  This might not work in every session, but in general it's a good way to get a decent score.

Rule #1.  Split the Stix whenever you can.  Each time you spilt them, your score multiplier goes up by a factor of 1.  So after level 4, you should be earning 3x as many points as you were in level 1.  The secondary benefit to splitting the Stix is that it's a quick and relatively easy (depending on the temperament of the Stix, at least) way to beat the level.  The only problem with this is that sometimes the twin Stix absolutely refuse to split up, and you waste so much time waiting for them to put a little distance between each other that the sparks start to multiply and come after you.  Your multiplier stays with you even after you die, until your game is over.  But if you're not splitting the Stix, your score isn't going to be nearly as high as it could be.

Rule #2.  You earn more points when you complete a box with the slow-draw option, or whatever it's called.  You would think that this would be incredibly risky, and therefore not much use, since you move so much more slowly when holding down A or B.  But here's the trick:  At the beginning of the level, starting at the bottom of the playing field, build a thin, narrow "pillar" upward toward the top of the playing field.  Use the standard draw speed when you're doing this, because it's safer, and if your pillar is thin enough then you really aren't wasting too much of a point potential.  Also, do this with as many small boxes as you need to do so safely.  Once your pillar is about 80% of the way to the top, sit at the top of your pillar and wait for the Stix to move away from you.  Then, using the slow-draw method, draw a line connecting your pillar to the top of the playing field.  The entire side of the playing field opposite from where the Stix is will fill in with the slow-draw texture, and you'll get some nice points.  It doesn't make a huge difference at the start of the game, but when you've built up your point multiplier with multiple Stix splits, it's pretty significant.

Rule #3.  You can use the same pillar method to split the Stix more easily, but you shouldn't build it up more than about 60% of the height of the playing field.  If you build your pillar too high, the Stix won't want to move around it and you'll have trapped them on the same side of the playing field, giving you less room to navigate and therefore making it tougher to split them.  You can also build a T-shaped pillar, either capital-T or lowercase-T, and navigate around the structure so that you don't have as far to go to reach the far side of the playing field when the Stix finally do decide to put a little distance between each other.

Rule #4.  If you're using the pillar method, and your pillar is somewhat symmetrical, you can use it to avoid the sparks.  Both sparks should cross more or less at the top of your pillar.  Wait for them to get close, move out into the playing field a tiny bit, and as soon as they've crossed and begun to head away from you, move back to your pillar to complete your tiny box.  Of course, this only works if the Stix isn't breathing down your neck, but if you can pull it off, you won't have to think about the sparks again for another 25 seconds or so.

Rule #5.  Let's say you have a nice box in the corner of the playing field.  You can actually build a second box that's perfectly kitty-corner to the first one, so that you can travel along either edge of the box.  This is a little loophole that would probably make it easier to avoid the sparks if you want to play around with it.  Usually I'm too busy getting kicked around by the Stix to make much use of this, but I'm aware that it exists.

That's all for now.  Hopefully you can use this to boost your scores a bit.  The killer part is that even with these tricks, the game is still incredibly difficult.  Good luck.  

[roadrunner]

PFG 9000, on Sun Jul 10, 2011 10:38 PM, said:

392,394


This might be the first time this High Score Competition caused me to lose respect for a game.  I played this game a lot as a kid, and while I didn't like it as much as most of my other games back then, I still had some good times playing it.  When I first started playing this again last week, I had fun with it.  But I got frustrated pretty quickly.  I've probably put about 5-6 hours into Qix in the last week.  In that time, I've died three times for absolutely no reason other than bad programming, apparently.  I'm not talking about dying when I thought I should've had a near miss.  I'm talking about dying when there are absolutely no enemies (including the fuse) around me whatsoever.  I also had one time when the Stix (or Qix or whatever the cylcone is) went right through the thread trailing behind me, from one side to the other, without killing me.

But the most frustrating part about Qix is the inconsistency.  It seems I can play a game where the first few levels are a breeze, and the Stix leaves me alone and travels slowly.  And then there are games where the first level is stupidly hard and the Stix seems twice as fast as the last game.  It's just inconsistent.  I feel I'm a good enough player that I should be able to beat the first few levels consistently, but I can't.  And I don't feel it's my fault.  When your success in a game seems mostly due to either blind luck or the whimsy of the software, that's just bad programming.

Congrats on breaking the Lynx HSC All Time Record!  

[PFG 9000]

roadrunner, on Mon Jul 11, 2011 1:54 PM, said:

Congrats on breaking the Lynx HSC All Time Record!  

Thank you.  

[Tempest2k]

what do we playing this month?

[PFG 9000]

Anybody up for some Slime World?  Klax?  S.T.U.N. Runner?

[roadrunner]

S.T.U.N. Runner sounds good.