2nd Annual CvW competition (December)

[+DZ-Jay]

Another great competition this year! Thanks first to DZ for being an awesome host. Your enthusiasm is contagious and really helps encourage us all to new heights.

 

Thanks also to the entire community ... it's great to play in a friendly competition where we're all encouraging each other. This is truly one of the best communities on the internet ... great people and great games!

 

And a final thanks to Shera, DZ's wife. Yes, DZ did the heavy lifting in designing the game, but it takes the solid support and patience of a wonderful wife to allow her husband the freedom and time to do it. Thank you for putting up with and even encouraging your husband's "crazy" hobby ...

 

@Fushek,

 

Shera and I sincerely thank you for your nice words. Shera remains behind the scenes, but what none of you see is that she also helped in the organization of the championship, along with Joe Z. and Cparsley. She also helped pick out the prizes and create the list of achievements.

 

She's been reloading this thread constantly to keep track of everyone's progress; she's celebrated with me when someone accomplishes some fantastic feat; admires the progress of new comers; and even lamented when some hard working players are overrun by more skilled ones.

 

On this side of the screen, she's been part of this championship as much as all of you have. (Plus she took the time to play the game this year and post a score!)

 

Don't forget also to thank the rest of the organizers. Joe Z. and Cparsley, although not directly interacting in the thread, have invested time and effort in organizing and keeping the game enjoyable. They also serve as acting judges, which believe it or not, is not so easy when you have over 400 individual entries to go through. Lots of thanks go to them too!

 

And finally, thank you all for participating and for making this event such an enjoyable activity for all of us.

 

-dZ.

Edited January 1, 2014 by DZ-Jay

[Kabeka]

 

Seriously, nobody got the hints?

Are you referring to the 2 days at the CGX Las Vegas convention in 2012 when Carol got introduced to the world? August 11

 

And August 10 when Carol website was launched.

 

Just guessing...

 

 

Edited January 1, 2014 by Kabeka

[Kabeka]

 

Edited January 1, 2014 by Kabeka

[+DZ-Jay]

Are you referring to the 2 days at the CGX Las Vegas convention in 2012 when Carol got introduced to the world? August 11

 

And August 10 when Carol website was launched.

 

Just guessing...

 

 

Ha! I practically had to beat you over the head with it!

[cparsley]

Here we go finally... had to do it on an iPod touch since the recording from the system itself wouldn't upcode to Youtube..

 

It's live here http://youtu.be/P1p9Zlzgk9k

[JacobZu7zu7]

Congrads Liduario, for your win at the big prize! Well earned and deserved...

 

 

Fun game, and contest. Happy new year everyone!

 

 

P.S., I hope to take pictures of the stuff I won last year on this game and post them.

[+DZ-Jay]

Here we go finally... had to do it on an iPod touch since the recording from the system itself wouldn't upcode to Youtube..

 

It's live here http://youtu.be/P1p9Zlzgk9k

 

Wow! Impressive! That's very clearly a Perfect Christmas Supreme, with 7,192 points. FANTASTIC! We gotta let you to play next year. Not even Liduario will be able to touch you.

 

-dZ.

 

P.S. What was your final score in that game?

Edited January 2, 2014 by DZ-Jay

[cparsley]

It crashed after that recording so the game didnt get completed. So I cant tell ya.

[+DZ-Jay]

It crashed after that recording so the game didnt get completed. So I cant tell ya.

 

Oh damn! Those stupid programmers and their buggy software!

 

 

(Sorry! )

Edited January 2, 2014 by DZ-Jay

[catsfolly]

Thanks dZ.

 

Even though i had no hope of competing with the Carol superstars, I had a lot of fun playing the game and making some achievements.

Thanks for all the work you put into this!!!!

 

Catsfolly

[arquillos]

Hi everyone!

thanks DZ for another incredible contest! there will be a 2014 version?

 

Congrat everyone and specially Liduario and Fushek! Incredible players!

 

 

I´ve had too much fun with this little game (again).

[Fushek]

Hi everyone!

thanks DZ for another incredible contest! there will be a 2014 version?

 

Congrat everyone and specially Liduario and Fushek! Incredible players!

 

 

I´ve had too much fun with this little game (again).

 

I had to improve ... you, Jesus and Oscar kept getting higher and higher scores.

 

You were a great opponent ... hope to play against you again next year. Maybe next year, Lid will take a vacation for all of December and us mere mortals may have a chance!

[LidLikesIntellivision]

 

I had to improve ... you, Jesus and Oscar kept getting higher and higher scores.

 

You were a great opponent ... hope to play against you again next year. Maybe next year, Lid will take a vacation for all of December and us mere mortals may have a chance!

Did you see you beated my score from 2012?

 

I'm sure you're going to beat my 23k this December.

 

I'm considering playing only for the 64 perfect levels this year. This means 'only' 7,192 points.

[Oscar G.]

Hi everyone!

thanks DZ for another incredible contest! there will be a 2014 version?

 

Congrat everyone and specially Liduario and Fushek! Incredible players!

 

 

I´ve had too much fun with this little game (again).

Hey Arquillos (and Jesus),

 

It was a great pleasure to have you guys earlier in the competition. Both of you are amazing players and in my opinion it is more fun to be posting often as it adds drama to the competition

 

Thank you for participating and congratulations on both of your great scores

 

By the way, since you arrived more or less at the same time to the competition and both of you come from Spain I am assuming that you know each other personally. If so please Arquillos pass my warmest regards to Jesus.

 

See you around the forums

 

¡Los mejores deseos para el Año Nuevo!

[Oscar G.]

 

I had to improve ... you, Jesus and Oscar kept getting higher and higher scores.

 

You were a great opponent ... hope to play against you again next year. Maybe next year, Lid will take a vacation for all of December and us mere mortals may have a chance!

Hey Fushek amigo,

 

The last runs of all the Grand Masters were absolutely epic! The competition was very exciting during the last hours.

 

I am very happy for you for rolling the score. You totally deserve all recognition

 

Quite surely the "Fushek Hunt" of the last two days helped you to get to the Yellow Level.

 

This was quite of "competitive" team work of all Grand Masters

 

Best wishes!

 

PS Sorry Lid I was not mentioning your name in the previous Grand Master story. By no means I did not want to diminish your monumental achievement.

 

You my friend are in another level: Supreme Grand Master. When your name is mentioned we should all bow

[Oscar G.]

Did you see you beated my score from 2012?

 

I'm sure you're going to beat my 23k this December.

 

I'm considering playing only for the 64 perfect levels this year. This means 'only' 7,192 points.

 

Perfect Xmas Supreme anyone? It sounds like a special Menu from Mc Donalds

 

In my opinion, the mental state for achieving perfects is quite different than the one for achieving high scores.

 

I could only achieve my high score once I forgot about getting perfects. S-Baz may understand what I am talking about.

 

In fact, I got my Perfect Xmas by mere accident, without even attempting going for it. A little bit like Billy Chapel in "For Love of the Game"

 

Lid, your plan for the 64 perfects sounds like a fun challenge. You are one of the few players in the world that are qualified for such an enterprise.

 

I like your idea of leaving your amazing high score to rest for a while and delving into a new, but not less challenging, goal.

 

Best wishes my friend!

[+DZ-Jay]

 

Perfect Xmas Supreme anyone? It sounds like a special Menu from Mc Donalds

 

In my opinion, the mental state for achieving perfects is quite different than the one for achieving high scores.

 

I could only achieve my high score once I forgot about getting perfects. S-Baz may understand what I am talking about.

 

In fact, I got my Perfect Xmas by mere accident, without even attempting going for it. A little bit like Billy Chapel in "For Love of the Game"

 

Lid, your plan for the 64 perfects sounds like a fun challenge. You are one of the few players in the world that are qualified for such an enterprise.

 

I like your idea of leaving your amazing high score to rest for a while and delving into a new, but not less challenging, goal.

 

Best wishes my friend!

 

The Perfect Christmas Supreme is a play on menu items from Taco Bell, where adding sour cream to any item makes it "Supreme." I thought it was funny.

 

Did you guys check out CParsley's video? He shows what we were calling last year the Super Christmas or Extreme Christmas: completing all 64 levels. This earns you access to the "Kill Screen," which is shown on the video.

 

CParsley's achievement goes beyond that by completing the Extreme Christmas with "Perfect" score on all 64 levels, making it a Perfect Christmas Supreme! (with extra sour cream!)

 

On the video, you can see the score coming into the "Kill Screen" as 7,192. Amazing! He also did it last year. He's the only player who has managed to do it. (Also the first one to find the "Kill Screen" and to turn the score to Yellow.) You may not be aware of these achievements because he has not participated in the championship, but to my knowledge, he's one of the very top players ever.

 

Anyway, I invite everybody to check out his video. It's very cool. At least you get to see the infamous "Kill Screen"--the best easter egg in the game.

 

-dZ.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1p9Zlzgk9k

Edited January 3, 2014 by DZ-Jay

[Fushek]

CParsley,

 

That Perfect Christmas Supreme is UNBELIEVABLE . I can't imagine doing it ... Candy Cove would be an absolute horror to get a perfect on the master level. You obviously have some patterns (or some flipping MAD skills) that I haven't learned yet.

 

For perfects, I can get them regularly on the advanced levels of Icicle Lane, Snowflake Garden, Freezer Burn and Twisted Toyland

 

I think, if I was trying hard, that I could get them on Krystal Keep and Frosted Maze (although I don't try ... they're too dangerous and that snowman is rocking fast).

 

Haunted Hallow seems like it would be a major challenge although my old pattern could be adjusted to try it.

 

Candy Cove and I became friends (in that I didn't loose many lives there) as we came to an agreement. If I wasn't greedy the snowman wouldn't kill me. Once I got greedy, the snowman wasn't happy with me!

[LidLikesIntellivision]

Thank you for all kind words, Oscar.

 

Perfects in Master level is very difficult indeed. I hope I can still learn more and have more fun from the game seeking cparsley's mastery.

 

Now I wonder how many points cpasrley can score...

I suspect he was the responsible for making Dz-Jay stating in the manual all scores from 0 to 49,999 are low, from 50,000 to 99,999 are middle with high scores begining from 100,000!

 

I also was very happy with Fushek yellow score and seeing many players posting scores this year.

That was a great contest to end the Intellivision HSC!

 

I'd love to see some players joining our little High Score Club - HSC - and playing with us some rounds.

It is a great tourney, so great I think this is only the second round I won. (I guess I only had won Popeye before)

[+DZ-Jay]

Now I wonder how many points cpasrley can score...

I suspect he was the responsible for making Dz-Jay stating in the manual all scores from 0 to 49,999 are low, from 50,000 to 99,999 are middle with high scores begining from 100,000!

 

 

 

LOL! No that's not the reason. As I mentioned in the podcast interview, I never expected anybody to get even to the yellow score. It was more of a wishful thought, a silly fantasy, that someone would play my game like Billy Mitchell did with Pac-Man--but I never really expected it.

 

On the first draft of the manual, the table was a single vertical list, taking almost a full page. After editing the manual considerably, there wasn't much space left for it, so I split it into three smaller tables of equal size. I thought it was appropriate then to call them each "Low," "Medium, and "High." The labels were for the score ranges, and was not intended to suggest that the first one were low scores.

 

-dZ.

[LidLikesIntellivision]

By the way, who won the 4th Season?

 

I guess cparsley won the 1st, 2nd and 3rd seasons!

Ignorama was leading this season and it seems he won.

[+DZ-Jay]

Hello Elves!

It is with great pleasure and joy that I announce the winners of the 2013 Christmas Carol vs. The World! Championship. For the full list of winners and additional achievements, please see the official announcement.

Grand Prize:
	Top Ranking Elf: Liduario - 23,205

The following get a mug and hot cocoa, and all earned patches:
	Top Master Elf: Fushek - 10,863
	Top Ranger Elf: Scalpel - 4,159
	Top Helper Elf: ebelhaki - 2,433
	Top Novice Elf: Felson42 - 1,209

The following get a patch for their rank:
	Master Elves:
		arquillos - 8,714
		Jesus - 8,108
		Oscar G. - 7,619

	Ranger Elves:
		grips03 - 4,047
		mphokie - 4,026
		SBAZ - 3,716
		Karima K. - 3,206
		JasonLikesINTV - 3,150

	Helper Elves:
		TrekMD - 2,283
		1980gamer - 2,159
		Yeliz K. - 2,059
		Gorfy - 1,960
		JacobZuz7zu7 - 1,808

	Novice Elves:
		Wilson T. Oyama - 1,180
		voltron - 1,147
		Loktar - 1,134
		Nour K. - 1,044
		intvsteve - 889

Thank you all for participating and for sharing your progress. I hope you had as much fun as I did. See you all next year!

 

-dZ.

 

 

P.S. I will be contacting all winners soon to get their information.

Edited January 6, 2014 by DZ-Jay

[arquillos]

Hey Arquillos (and Jesus),

 

It was a great pleasure to have you guys earlier in the competition. Both of you are amazing players and in my opinion it is more fun to be posting often as it adds drama to the competition

 

Thank you for participating and congratulations on both of your great scores

 

By the way, since you arrived more or less at the same time to the competition and both of you come from Spain I am assuming that you know each other personally. If so please Arquillos pass my warmest regards to Jesus.

 

See you around the forums

 

¡Los mejores deseos para el Año Nuevo!

 

Hi Oscar!

it´s a pleasure to play with so many nice players like you!

It´s been a very nice competition and I hope to get some free time in this new year and participate in another AtariAge comp.

 

PD: I don´t know Jesus personally but I´ve contacted him and it´s a very nice person and better player

[+DZ-Jay]

Here are the final statistics on the participants of the championship:

Output for "build-lb" generated on: 01/06/2014 06:13:11

GENERAL STATISTICS:
-------------------
	Total Entries Processed:       426
	Disqualified Entries:           10
	Non-Participating Entries:       3
	Total Qualified Contestants:    43

CHAMPIONS PER RANK:
-------------------
	Novice:        23
	Helper:         8
	Ranger:         7
	Master:         0
	Grand Master:   5

LAST STAGES BY RANK:
--------------------
	Haunted Hollow:        47
		Novice:         5
		Helper:        25
		Ranger:         3
		Master:         4
		Grand Master:  10

	Frosted Maze:          37
		Novice:         8
		Helper:        10
		Ranger:        14
		Master:         4
		Grand Master:   1

	Candy Cove:            71
		Novice:        10
		Helper:        46
		Ranger:         3
		Master:         4
		Grand Master:   8

	Icicle Lane:           53
		Novice:        27
		Helper:        18
		Ranger:         5
		Grand Master:   3

	Snowflake Garden:      39
		Novice:         8
		Helper:        26
		Ranger:         4
		Grand Master:   1

	Freezer Burn:          38
		Novice:        21
		Helper:        12
		Ranger:         1
		Master:         1
		Grand Master:   3

	Krystal Keep:          40
		Novice:        27
		Helper:         4
		Ranger:         5
		Master:         1
		Grand Master:   3

	Twisted Toyland:       64
		Novice:        16
		Helper:        31
		Ranger:         7
		Master:         3
		Grand Master:   7


ACHIEVEMENTS EARNED:
--------------------
	One Smart Cookie:                     3
	The Spirit Of Christmas Present:     43
	The Spirit Of Christmas Past:         9
	Ice Cave Raider:                     41
	Cavern Explorer:                     41
	Santa's Magic Touch:                 38
	The Boss Is In:                      23
	Elf In Training:                     33
	Elf Apprentice:                      25
	Santa's Elite Elf:                   16
	Elf Superstar:                        5
	Practice Makes Perfect:               9
	The Perfectionist Elf:               13
	I Have A Sweet Tooth:                10
	Icy Flower Power:                    10
	Frozen "P":                           9
	A Perfect Christmas:                  4
	Five Golden Rings... Of Life:        13
	Savior Of Christmas:                 20
	The Twelve Days Of Christmas Carol:   8
	Elf On Duty:                          8
	Santa's Little Helper:               20
	I, Ranger Elf:                       11
	I, Master Elf:                        5
	I, Overachieving Elf:                 5
	I, Christmas Savior Extraordinaire:   6
	Walking On Egg Shells:                2
	Code Breaker:                         0
	To Kill A Mocking Ghost:              1
	Tread On Yellow Snow:                 2
	A Perfect Christmas Supreme:          0
	Exalted Elf Knight Of Christmas:      1
	A Clockwork Orange:                   1

A few things of note that can be gleaned from that are:

• 20 people saved Christmas, six of them did it twice before Christmas Day
• 8 people completed the Twelve Days Of Christmas Carol (that's a lot of playing!)
• 8 people played on Christmas Day
• 13 people completed levels with "Perfect" bonus
• Nobody found the last secret code

 

On the levels achieved, I see:

• Candy Cove is still where most Elves go to die, especially Grand Masters. It seems that if you are skilled enough to beat the game a few times over, you still are most likely to end up dying on the next Candy Cove.
• More Novice Elves die on Krystal Keep than on Twisted Toyland.
• Helper Elves have a higher incidence of death on Candy Cove than on any other stage. So it seems that as soon as they earn enough skills to save Christmas, and upon being promoted to Helper Elves, they end up caught in the Candy Cove trap. Apparently this early trauma is enough to affect their gameplay even as they advance to Grand Masters.

 

On another note, below is a set of extra special achievements awarded to some select participants for notable accomplishments in this year's championship:

PLAYER STATISTICS:
--------------------
	Overachiever Extraordinaire:        Liduario (30 achievements in total)
	High Elf-Esteem:                    Liduario (From 2,758 to 23,205 points)
	Workaholic Elf:                     mphokie (14 consecutive days played)
	Prolific Elf:                       SBAZ (46 entries in total)
	Higher Elf-Esteem:                  arquillos (From 4,667 to 8,714 points in only 6 days)
	Head Of The Class:                  Oscar G. (5 ranks earned)
	Busy Bee:                           Fushek (21 days played)

What do you guys think?

Edited January 8, 2014 by DZ-Jay

[ebelhaki]

Very cool, you have put a ton of effort into this, thanks again!