What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2019 (Season 12)

[karokoenig]

Atari 2600

Bank Heist: 54 min

 

NES

Boulder Dash: 12 min

Chip ‘n Dale 1: 3 min

Duck Tales: 5 min

Super Mario Bros: 5 min

 

Sega Mega Drive

Bio Hazard Battle: 8 min

The Flintstones: 3 min

Wolverine Adamantium Rage: 5 min

 

Tried out some new Mega Drive games I found on a recent flea market, played some NES with my son, and finally worked out how Bank Heist works. We will see tomorrow if my score was good enough :-)

[digdugnate]

I've already finished out my Classic time for the week- i beat my playthrough for FFVII so I'm on to other things till I get my Switch copy of X/X-2

 

NES:

 

Star Soldier -- 30 minutes

Super Mario Bros. -- 64 minutes

 

PS1:

 

Final Fantasy VII -- 673 minutes

[DragonGrafx-16]

I've already finished out my Classic time for the week- i beat my playthrough for FFVII so I'm on to other things till I get my Switch copy of X/X-2

 

NES:

 

Star Soldier -- 30 minutes

Super Mario Bros. -- 64 minutes

 

PS1:

 

Final Fantasy VII -- 673 minutes

I appreciate that Star Soldier was the start of one of my favorite game series of all time... but it's just too basic. Especially when compared to other NES shmups like Gun-Nac...

I can't really stand to play the original Star Solider for more than about 10 mins.

[+chue]

Played this week for the AA TI High Score competition:

 

TI-99/4A

 

Blasto - 60 mins

[carlsson]

Atari 8-bit:

Bomber [savetz] - 12 min.

Hubbub [Eric Henneke] - 26 min.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (April 8th through 14th)...

 

Arcade:

Splash - 28 min.

 

Atari 7800:

T:Me Salvo - 78 min. in 3 sessions

 

I've continued to play T:Me Salvo for a few shorter sessions, and I've revisited "Splash", an arcade game from 1992 which I liked to play back in the day. The purpose is to fill an area of color (actually, to remove the color in it to reveal the underlying picture) while fighting against bubbles and picking up bonus items and extras. As the game progresses, more and more bubbles appear, making the game harder and harder. I think this one has been developed on an Amiga because I recognize the character sets used from there. It also has the same main processor (a 68000).

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 170 minutes

Super Breakout - 277 minutes

Hunchy 2 - 8 minutes

 

 

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

NES:

Adventures in the Magic Kingdom - 117 min.

Dragon’s Lair - 272 min.

Dragon’s Lair (PAL version) - 5 min.

Genesis:

SeaQuest DSV - 2 min.

Beat Dragon's Lair (at last) and Adventures in the Magic Kingdom.

I also tried the PAL version of Dragon's Lair, which is substantially different, including a much faster gameplay speed, new enemies and bosses, and an extra death animation. I don't plan to take it on anytime soon, though.

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 2600

Aardvark (Demo) - 25 minutes

Asteroids - 85 minutes

Galaxian - 5 minutes

Mario Bros. - 20 minutes

Moon Patrol - 5 minutes

Pac-Man 2600 8K [WIP Homebrew] - 25 minutes

Space Game - 5 minutes

 

Mario Bros. was the first game which I played for 2600 NEW HSC Season 8 Silver Medal Bracket. With a 20-minute single attempt, I scored 140,600 points, which was enough to win and advance to next round - my opponent Lord Innit scored 95,600 points (best personal score), but he couldn't improve his score in the subsequent attempts.

 

I tried new 2600 games which are available in the link provided by Dan Iacovelli at the starting of 2019 Harmony Games Round 1: Aardvark, Pac-Man 2600 8K [WIP Homebrew] and Space Game.

 

EVIDENCE OF THE WEEK: My Pac-Man 2600 8K WIP Homebrew gameplay footage, after 1 month without playing Atari games with video capture.

[Agamon]

Atari 2600

 

River Raid (9 min)

Solar Fox (8 min)

 

NES

 

Gradius (6 min)

Gyruss (16 min)

Popeye (6 min)

 

While I loved many of the Atari arcade ports as a little kid, when I was a teen, I kinda looked down on the arcade ports for the NES, preferring the platformers and RPGs. These days I like the pick up and play nature of the ports. I kinda suck at shooters, but they're fun.

[zylon]

5200-

 

Popeye- 15min

[DragonGrafx-16]

Override (PC-Engine/TG-16) 30 mins
Soldier Blade (PC-Engine/TG-16) 45 mins

Weird how I prefer to play Override at max speed (how fast the player ship moves) but prefer to play Soldier Blade at low speed.

[+wongojack]

Arcade

Area 51 19

Arkanoid 12

Crossed Swords 3

Defender 12

Dig dug 16

Donkey Kong 253 (New Personal Best 79,100)

Donkey Kong Christmas Remix 8

Frogger 28

Frog Feast 5

Gauntlet II 7

Gorf 21

Heavy Barrel 6

Hook 12

Jonas Indiana and the Temple of Ra 5

Knights of Valor 4

Major Havok 4

Pole Position 11

Popeye 22

Return of the Invaders 2

Space Gun 4

SQIJ! 12

 

Atari 2600

DK Arcade (RC1) 24

DK VCS 5

Fix it Felix 15

Miner 2049er (Faster & Sprite Hack) 36

 

C64

Bounty Bob Strikes Back 16

Manic Miner 12

Miner 2049er 131

Hunter's Moon 3

 

 

Well, I did a bit of emulation and a bit of arcade hopping to get these numbers. I downloaded hombrew MAME and dinked around with it. Also, we're having an arcade explosion in Dallas, and I visited 2 of them this weekend. I'm afraid this renaissance won't last, but I took advantage of it in the short term. Look for more arcade times from me in weeks to come.

 

I also played these physical pinball tables:

Aerosmith

F14 Tomcat

Hobbit

Mata Hari

Metallica

Popeye

Star Wars Ep1

Sinbad

Taxi

[Eltigro]

Just one game this week:

Genesis

Castlevania Bloodlines - 49 min (Still not very good at this game, but got further than I had before... I think.)

[digdugnate]

Arcade

Area 51 19

Arkanoid 12

Crossed Swords 3

Defender 12

Dig dug 16

Donkey Kong 253 (New Personal Best 79,100)

Donkey Kong Christmas Remix 8

Frogger 28

Frog Feast 5

Gauntlet II 7

Gorf 21

Heavy Barrel 6

Hook 12

Jonas Indiana and the Temple of Ra 5

Knights of Valor 4

Major Havok 4

Pole Position 11

Popeye 22

Return of the Invaders 2

Space Gun 4

SQIJ! 12

 

Atari 2600

DK Arcade (RC1) 24

DK VCS 5

Fix it Felix 15

Miner 2049er (Faster & Sprite Hack) 36

 

C64

Bounty Bob Strikes Back 16

Manic Miner 12

Miner 2049er 131

Hunter's Moon 3

 

 

Well, I did a bit of emulation and a bit of arcade hopping to get these numbers. I downloaded hombrew MAME and dinked around with it. Also, we're having an arcade explosion in Dallas, and I visited 2 of them this weekend. I'm afraid this renaissance won't last, but I took advantage of it in the short term. Look for more arcade times from me in weeks to come.

 

I also played these physical pinball tables:

Aerosmith

F14 Tomcat

Hobbit

Mata Hari

Metallica

Popeye

Star Wars Ep1

Sinbad

Taxi

Wow, you were a busy bee in the arcade! hehe.

 

I grew up in Sherman, so it's always interesting to hear someone talk about my old home turf.

[Eltigro]

Sounds like I need to get to Dallas to visit some arcades. I live a couple hours East of the Metroplex, but every time I go there it's for some specific purpose and not much time to go around and do my own thing. (Maybe I'll sneak off some Saturday...)

[carlsson]

Arcade

Frog Feast 5

Jonas Indiana and the Temple of Ra 5

SQIJ! 12

I understand those are recent homebrews for various arcade hardware? I didn't find them on KLOV but I did find them on Google, both in arcade versions and different home ports. At first I was almost certain that Jonas Indiana and the Temple of Ra was a misspelling of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but then I looked it up and saw it really exists under that name. SQIJ! of course is known as one of the worst games on the ZX Spectrum (somewhat better in the original C64 verison) so quite interesting that someone decided to port it for Taito arcade hardware last year.

[+davidcalgary29]

Dreamcast:

 

Sonic Adventure, 67 minutes

[carlsson]

Also this forest of 8K Pac-Man games for the Atari 2600 confuses me a lot. The tracker had like a half dozen entries for Pac-Man 8K in various forms and versions, dating back to 2009. After some research and educated guesses, I'm down to 2 entries, one Pac-Man 8K game/hack that dates back to Nukey Shay in 2004, and the New Pac-Man 8K by DINTAR816 first posted in 2014.

 

Based on the video posted by oyamafamily, he must have played the latter this week. Kurt twice this year played Pac-Man 8K, most recently two weeks ago, but I don't know if it was the new or the old one. Same goes for minutes posted in the last few years:

 

2008: Pac-Man 8K (DINTAR816) 0 + Pac-Man 8K (Nukey Shay) 0

2009: 0 + 210

2010: 0 + 35

2011: 0 + 41

2012: 0 + 15

2013: 0 + 12

2014: 21 + 0 <- DINTAR816 version arrives

2015: 49 + 15

2016: 194 + 120

2017: 176 + 97

2018: 38 + 0

2019: 25 + 39

 

Total 503 + 584

 

Probably not a biggie, but I strongly think it would be a good idea for programmers making new versions of games already existing on the same system, to give those unique names even though I fully understand the excitement to call your game Pac-Man which is exactly what it is and plays like.

[+wongojack]

Wow, you were a busy bee in the arcade! hehe.

 

I grew up in Sherman, so it's always interesting to hear someone talk about my old home turf.

 

 

Sounds like I need to get to Dallas to visit some arcades. I live a couple hours East of the Metroplex, but every time I go there it's for some specific purpose and not much time to go around and do my own thing. (Maybe I'll sneak off some Saturday...)

 

Yesterday I went to the Quarter Lounge in Bedford and Regeneration arcade and bar in far North Dallas.

 

The Quarter Lounge is in an old retail space, so the ceilings are low and arcade machines take up several rooms in what could have been some sort of office space years ago. They also had an area for consoles and PC games. You pay $3 to get in and then the classic machines are a quarter. Pinball machines are .50. I had the most fun playing Frogger and the Mata Hari pinball machine, but I also pumped a few dollars into Pole Position. Stuff was well maintained there for sure and it was somewhat busy. They don't sell food, but I carried a flask with Bourbon in it with me and drank from it while I played - no one seemed to care. There is also a game and toy resale shop in the same building. I assumed it was run by the same owner, but I didn't ask. I bought 4 used Wii games from their shop.

 

Regeneration is a place where you pay $10 and all the games are free. They also feature ALL Texas beers there which was interesting, and I ended up drinking a lot more alcohol than a typical Sunday. It felt like being in the dream business of a very specific 40/50 year old person who adapted what he likes to attract millenials. They also had consoles set up, and it was fun to watch someone play the first hour or so of L2tP since I just recently played it myself. I met a friend, and we had the most fun playing Gorf and the Popeye pinball machine together. I stuck around after he left and played a handful of other games including F14 Tomcat (pinball). It is super close to my house, so I may just end up going there again some night to play 10 games of pinball and leave or something.

 

I'm very concerned that both places won't make it very long. Perhaps that is irrational, but there's no way that arcades can just come back right? I have more plans to visit some other local places including Realms of Arcadia near Lake Lewisville, Free Play arcade in Richardson, the BOS pinball lounge in Garland, Cidercade in Oak Cliff, and the Texas Pinball Museum down in Midlothian. There are even some others that have popped up that I want to go to as well. Truly an explosion.

[digdugnate]

I have a friend that lives in Mansfield- he was talking about one of those places just like a month ago but darned if I remember which one now (I'd have to look back at my Facebook posts from him to see).

 

Usually if I'm in the area I'm either in Sherman visiting my dad, or in Farmer's Branch working at one of our offices, or in Mansfield doing something with my friend so hopefully they're still around when I make it down that way I'm thinking I'll end up on a Texas trip in the fall.

[+wongojack]

I understand those are recent homebrews for various arcade hardware? I didn't find them on KLOV but I did find them on Google, both in arcade versions and different home ports. At first I was almost certain that Jonas Indiana and the Temple of Ra was a misspelling of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but then I looked it up and saw it really exists under that name. SQIJ! of course is known as one of the worst games on the ZX Spectrum (somewhat better in the original C64 verison) so quite interesting that someone decided to port it for Taito arcade hardware last year.

Yes they are!

 

I was browsing ROM downloads at pleasuredome.org.uk and saw the collection for HBMAME (Homebrew MAME). I had recently used Misfit MAME to play those Donkey Kong hacks, so I was interested in what I would find in a romset dedicated to homebrew arcade games. I downloaded the romset and spent a few hours trying various games. The three you mentioned stood out to me as I don't think any of them were based on an existing parent rom. They are unique games. I could be wrong though because I tried a bunch. It is also possible that some of those are Neo Geo games, and I didn't categorize them as that. I'm fairly certain Crossed Swords is a Neo Geo game for example.

 

Regarding SQIJ!, I had never heard of it. I played it for a few minutes and then did a search to discover it gets itself onto the "worst games for X system list." I have no idea how it compares to the ZXS version, but It did feel like a homebrew for sure, so if I purchased it as a full retail game, I could see how I might be disappointed.

[+wongojack]

I have a friend that lives in Mansfield- he was talking about one of those places just like a month ago but darned if I remember which one now (I'd have to look back at my Facebook posts from him to see).

 

Usually if I'm in the area I'm either in Sherman visiting my dad, or in Farmer's Branch working at one of our offices, or in Mansfield doing something with my friend so hopefully they're still around when I make it down that way I'm thinking I'll end up on a Texas trip in the fall.

 

FYI that another place that I've gone to locally is called PinStack. It is a bowling alley that has a Dave and Buster's type arcade. However, they have a whole wall of a dozen modern pinball machines too. I've gone to that place at lunch before just to walk in and play a few pinball games. They have multiple locations too, so you might find that to be an easy place to just fit in while visiting the area.

[Eltigro]

I lived on Coit road close to Campbell for about five or six years. So that area is pretty well known to me. Might have to try out Regeneration next time I'm up there.

[carlsson]

Regarding SQIJ! [...] if I purchased it as a full retail game, I could see how I might be disappointed.

 

It appears that The Power House released SQIJ! as part of a compilation of 8 rather mediocre games in 1987 at the price £9.99:

 

Cyrox 4.06 / 10

Tomb of Syrinx 4.05 / 10

SQIJ! 1.65 / 10

Odd Ball 3.73 / 10

Time Flight 3.94 / 10

Hercules 4.44 / 10

Sword and Shield 4.71 / 10

Slingshot 3.79 / 10

 

Lemon64 doesn't even list SQIJ! though Gamebase 64 does of course and suggests it even was re-released at one point though it doesn't have to mean it was popular, just that the software house needed new shovelware to fill the shelves.

 

Then again you could never buy a full arcade game cabinet for £10 anyway, most probably nowhere near a loose JAMMA board even.