8BIT 1337

It's about time I chime in with my score, in case I don't get another chance to play before the deadline. 75,500 (the picture is blurry because, let's face it, the score doesn't last long on the screen ) Count me amongst those who did not vote for this one. I've never actually played it before this but I like it okay. When it comes to voting, though, I will vote for anything but the arcade conversations personally. Not that I don't like them (I certainly loved them at the time), but in this day and age where I have a MAME machine in the basement and can play a much closer approximation to the original than a port, I find the ports boring. I'd much rather play something that was specific to the Atari or at least only available on it and it's competition at the time

Well, I put off playing this until the last minute because, frankly, I never liked the game and I'm not very good at it. (The two are probably related ) I just seem to die constantly, and I have no interest in learning the patterns. Anyway, just to put me on the board I got 41400

Sounds like a great name for an indie game! (I'd go with "Butter me up, KONG" personally)

As a Canadian I liked it better when the USD wasn't quite as strong (I actually would be purchasing new paddles since mine are busted and beyond my ability to repair them, but the falling Loonie has kept me away from making a purchase. For now anyway - once I need it for HSC I'll probably buckle )

Another new high score - 75,330. My score on my first life was a lowly 3300 (got caught trying to eat a 4th ghost ). I joined 'highscore.com' which is why I taped my handle onto my TV. Just wanted people to know I'm not actually concerned about people stealing my screen shots

3rd or 4th attempt, and the old high score has been broken : 67,630.

Let's see. Some of my faves: Bristles Bruce Lee Canyon Climber Cosmic Tunnels Encounter! Great American Cross-Country Road Race H.E.R.O. Hot Lips Ixion Kennedy Approach Lode Runner Montezuma's Revenge Moon Shuttle Mr. Robot and his Robot Factory Preppie! Quasimodo River Raid Serpentine Snokie Zeppelin (of course I don't know if a proper version of this even exists, but man did I like what I could play).

What I don't understand is why, as a customer, if you have been told that you can't have a digital download for whatever reason (regardless of willingness to pay for it), anyone would continue to pursue the matter further. Or, as a developer, you'd pay any attention to such a customer after telling them you have made your decision. This isn't food/water/shelter that is being denied to anyone. Nobody *needs* this stuff, it's just fun to have, and nobody is getting rich off of it. Why does anybody get all worked up about it?

I assumed it was when I joined (middle of the year) and set a goal for myself to crack the top 10, which I did eventually do (with maybe 3 rounds or so left in the season). I gathered the same thing as you - it's typical. It might be interesting to have quarterly standings as well as yearly ones, see if that inspires players to stick around for 4-6 rounds if they can't make the whole season.

Another HSC regular here (well, regular for half of last season anyway ). I definitely prefer the 2 weeks per round format. Anything shorter than that would make it difficult to participate in each round for myself. The number of games per round doesn't matter, although I liked the variety (and clever round names) when more than one was involved. For those who have never participated: it's the one spot on the internet where it's just about the games - no drama (other than having your high score beaten at the last minute but trbb ). FWIW I recommend it, even if you're coming in to it late or just want to play a round here and a round there. It's one thing to break out the Atari to play the games you loved. It's totally another to have that incentive to play just one more time because you're competing against others.

New Zenji score: 27,960

New high scores for Zador: 3740 And 1060 for level 1 (not big enough to top 1100, but better than trbb ) And a new high for Zenji (which I haven't played since I posted my first score): 25,200

Thursday is the 15th, so is it actually Sunday (the 18th) that the contest ends?

You should definitely be able to. But you're turning the piece, not the field. Click the button and push right and that level should be completed.

Zador: 2120 (p) (can you tell I'm hooked yet? )

New Zador Score: 1860. And yes, that was using PAL instead of NTSC. You definitely have *way* more time on PAL vs NTSC. I made it to level 3 on my second game (and I can *barely* get through the 1st level when I play NTSC). I was running Atari800 in Linux. Looks like it will run on Atari800Win 4.1 as well.

New Yoomp high score for me: 9442 I just thought of something yesterday: couldn't the slower speed of the PAL version give users in Zador an advantage? I can barely scrape through the first level (admittedly that's because I'm still not entirely sure how all the special tiles match up so I make it harder on myself). But it looks like I'm the only NTSC player to do so so far, which seems odd. Just a thought - I'll check out the newly updated info on the main post for sure.

New high scores - and I also *finally* got through the first level of Zador. Yoomp! 6446 Zador 1050 I'm really impressed by these 2 (as I said before I was a fan of Zenji already - these are both new to me)

It wasn't your instructions, it was me. I'm just not smart enough for this one - I can't believe you guys are getting to future levels. Amazing. My new high is 380.

Yoomp: 3485 4865 Zador: 270 Gave Zenji another try but couldn't top my previous high. Sorry about the bad Yoomp! picture. I'll have to beat that score so that I can post a better picture. I'm still not sure I understand how Zador works (I had originally though the pieces had to be on the outside, but two pieces adjacent to each other within the image can also be removed I found out). A fun little group of games this week for sure. Zenji has been a long time favourite of mine, Yoomp I had tried but never played on real hardware before, and I can see myself getting hooked on Zador.

Just Zenji so far: 22,595. Moved my Atari upstairs on my 36" flat screen, just to try to motivate myself to play more

Well don't I suck at these two games: Wavy Navy: 5660 (my favourite Space Invaders clone) X:8 21900 (great little game) Will post higher scores if I get a chance to, but I've got my kids this week and gaming time is not easy to come by

My highest first tunnel score is 35,810 with 3 lives left. Highest overall score is 55,800. I can't seem to sneak a shot pass the end boss. And I've been so busy with kids and work I haven't really had a chance to play Vanguard much since I (finally) had a chance to fire up my 1200 XL to improve my score (I haven't played in 5 days, and I'm just now getting around to posting in case I can't do anything more before the end of the round. I had a good gaming going here (54,680 with 2 lives left) but the game crashed

New high score for Upward: 257. I got to the top finally and about half way up again before dying. After I finished the first round my score was 117, which leads me to believe that points are doubled in the second round (as I went about 60 points worth of distance but got an extra 120 points on top of my finished the level score). Skyler moves faster too. I *really* enjoy this game, but it's time to move on to Vanguard next and just come back to this for a break when needed. I'm pretty sure I can climb up again, there's just one finicky jump that if you overjump you hit the ceiling and I don't quite have the exact pixel placement down pat for that jump yet.

Random fun fact: the name of the bat in Upward is "Skyler." The game appeared in A.N.A.L.O.G. #59. Pressing select changes the speed of the bat (3 levels worth) and pressing option changes his accuracy (also 3 levels worth). Max out your STR or AIR guages and you, as we all would have guessed but haven't ever had that happen yet, die. I've gotten to 80 but that's as far as I've gotten. The article didn't mention how the scoring worked, but it did say that the * beside your score means it is a new high score. I think scoring is dependent on how high you get and how much str/air you have left when you ultimately plunge into the lava. But I could be wrong.