RCorcoran

O.K., here it is. This is a simple guide to help you on your way to mastering Adventures of Tron for the VCS. You will not find any super secrets or devine guidance. What you will find are tips and techniques Todd and I use whenever we play this title. Basic Game Notes: - This game is very tricky if you have a BAD joystick. So make sure the one that you are using is A-OK. General Strategy: - PATIENCE is the key to winning at this game. Most players want to rush thru each level. This will get you killed quickly in the upper levels. - Remember, in a pinch you can always go to the center and drop down a level or use the platforms if things become a little rough. - Pay careful attention and don't land on anything that will kill you. - You can control your decent a bit by pushing up to slow down your rate of decent and then pull down to regulate your speed back to normal after a death. - Most enemies are in groups of One's ,Two's and Three's (just like in KeyStone Kapers). You must time your jumps so you make it with out touching anything. - Use the Elevator Platforms. You can push up while on the platform. Or you'll have to wait. Either way, dont panic. If worse come to worse, look for an arrow or go to the center and Drop if your on an upper level to escape from being killed. - Be aware that once you drop from an upper level you can't avoid the enemies below if they are directly below you. Again, you will die if your timing is off or rushed. I/O Beam Strategies: Gathering the necessary items to lite up the I/O Beam (center bar) can be tough, so here are a couple of pointers. - Never get too anxious, timing is everything - Learn where your enemies come out. This is helpful so you dont get pinched on the wrong side where they come out by grabbing the arrow. - Learing how to jump with out killing yourself. This is key and you're going to have to learn this for the later stages which get much faster. - Remember, those Tanks are unforgiving when they shoot. So you must time your jumps between those bullets and the actual tank it self. We hope this helps. Following these basic tips and strategies can help you achieve better scores. Just remember, the key is patience. Try not to rush or force a bad position. Use you head, pay attention to what's happening on the screen and by all means, learn the game's behaviours. Knowing when and where an enemy will appear is the difference between good and great scores.

I picked up two of those at CGE2001.

Todd and I are just about finished with our players guide/hints/tips for AoT. I should have it finished by Saturday and will post it here. Thanks for your patience.

...in what they call Winter here I would agree. However, in the summer, when it's 115F+, I'm not so sure...

David: We are playing Game 1, Diff BB as per the TG Rules. Factory Default. Both Difficulty switches MUST be set to the "B" (Novice) position. And yes, it is VERY challenging.

I want to congratulate Chase Hermsen for SMASHING the pervious WR on Carnival for the Atari VCS by almost 500k points! The new VCS Carnival WR is now an astounding 1,084,030 !!! Way to go Chase!!! http://www.twingalaxies.com/cgi-perl/searc...latformSelect=5

I too have been a HUGE fan of TRON since the day I saw it in the theater... hence... Of course now I have the new ATARI tag.

I am going out of town from 24 Oct - 31 Oct (tech conference in KC). When I get back, I'll post a write up of strategies, hints, etc. on this game. Todd Rogers and I have quite a few I think you might like. If your serious about AoT, this will be a must read.

On which game John? MoM or Crackpots?

David: So, when can I expect a ColecoVision DKong score from ya?

At this time, David Yancey (DYancey) has a score of 136,490. This also happens to be the only score in the TG dBase... http://www.twingalaxies.com/cgi-perl/searc...latformSelect=5 So, send in those tapes/digital recordings and get in the book of records!

Here's a link to bcprs1's "map" of Double Dragon. http://atari.ninjahackers.com/~atari/dd.htm

I picked up my copy at CGE this year for $40USD. Prior to that I used PCAEWin or the SC and a real VCS.

David (and others): Please give this title a try. I'd love to see the upper bound of score that can be achieved. I don't think my 11,450 is as high as it can possibly go. Todd has already stated he will give it another try to see if 15k is possible... Come on folks, let's push this one up there.

The current architecture of the dBase is alpha sorted by player name when equal scores exist. I would like to see it age based to give "a higher degree of credit" to the person that achieved the score first. However, since a good many records were lost in the fire in the late 80's, we do not have accurate dates on alot of scores. Hence, the alpha sort. Not perfect, but better than guessing...

If you're referring to the section: SCORE PERCENTILE: 1e-09% Yes, this is a mistake. I'll take a look at the dBase and your account to see why this is happening. Typically this happens when the account creation process gets corrupted... At least it shows your name and your score.

Manuel: Congrats on your new WR!!! Your score and been reviewed and posted! http://www.twingalaxies.com/cgi-perl/searc...latformSelect=5 Well played!

Manuel: Thanks and yes, it arrived yesterday. I'll review it this week when I get some time.

Serguei2: You may want to try again as it just worked for me. If it still won't work for you, I'm sure someone here (like myself) with a copy will gladly send it to you via other means.

To complete the game, it took me about 40 minutes. After level 2 flooded, it got a bit hairy. I actually ended up spending most of my time between level 3 and 4 collecting robot parts. I'm not sure how much higher the score can go as you really don't have a great deal of time once the mines start flooding. I'm sure someone (more than likely Todd) will push the score upper-limits higher by figuring out a way to maximize level 5 of the mines. I didn't even mess with level 5, other than to go directly after the objective. I probably could've squeezed a few more points out of it.

Tonight, after three (3) months of practice, I was able to finally beat the game! Below is a screenshot of the final/end game board showing defeat of the enemy robots. I have several more pics showing progression thru the game including going from 9950 to 10040, and beyond. Sorry Todd...

Andrew: Thanks for the tip about abebooks. I was able to get Lance Leventhal's 6502 Assembly Language Programming and Judi Fernandez's 6502 Assembly Language Programming books, both for less than $25USD.

As a follow-up... is everyone o.k. with the Code comment blocks? Andrew asked that I segment the code better and change the text colour to make it easier to read.

Thanks for the feedback. I tried to keep it true to the original thread (as best as possible) and it does get a bit "jerky" now and then. I even considered including all commentary, but noticed a good amount were laudatory comments or not related to the discussion at hand. I am willing to accept any/all feedback, good, bad or indifferent, and adjust the document accordingly. I want this to be a valued (offline) resource and do Andrew and the AA community justice. Would it help to restructure the document in such a fashion that the poster of the "comments" are included? I opted not to do so initially as it looked strange... As for moving content, I think for a first pass I'll leave the doc as is. Once we have a good sense for the flow, we can all decide where commentary/topics need to be placed (logically).

I have finished compiling this thread into a PDF. I have included commentary where appropriate and have also highlighted code blocks (per Andrew's suggestion). You can find it here: http://www.snipercade.com/atari/docs/2600p...programming.pdf File Size = 2.36MB Document Size = 145 pages Comments/Suggestions welcome.