TheCurlyBard

2024-04-18T15:51:35Z

On 4/17/2024 at 4:29 AM, hcmffm said:

Oh, I didn't expect that people do practice runs until they submit their first score. I think it's more fun and challenging to post (almost) any score. But that's just my impression and feel free to practise more. As long as you don't submit a score of 150.000 on 30th April. 😉

Thank you, Brett, for your having tried emulation on a PC out and sharing your experience. I've tried out Scramble with Dr. Snuggles emulation and gave up pretty quickly because of the controls, too. I had the impression that there was some delay when controlling the ship but I might be wrong. I guess my fine motor skills are just not good enough to play games on a 5.8" screen with a virtual controller. 😉

Lol no I'm not hoarding huge scores, I guess I'm trying to get to my previous pb

Tuesday at 07:07 PM

On 4/14/2024 at 11:45 AM, hcmffm said:

We're all playing well. Which dude? 😉

We're eagerly waiting for your first Scramble score, @TheCurlyBard. 😉

I know, i'm finding I'm a bit busy but I have had a few practice runs

Saturday at 07:32 PM

Well done dude!

April 5

11 hours ago, Lord Innit said:

65330 Original hardware and Sean Kelly multi cart.

Is it me or is the collision detection a little less forgiving when flying through the maze on the 2nd run compared to the first run?

The hit box doesn't seem consistent to me either. Not sure if that's on purpose, a bug, or a result of the finicky screen

April 4

It does seem to highlight controller issues this game.

Great scores though guys, well done

March 31

Well that's it guys, some amazing scores here, best recorded on the internet, and really great to see so many people joining in.

Good luck with Scramble everyone

March 31

HSCBigLogoForum.png.702973508970082b32bf70fae01b0d68.png

Round 3 - April 2024 - Scramble

Status:

This is the current round being played in the Vectrex High Score Club. Join in and submit your scores!

Current scores & ranking:

1st playvectrex 94,930

2nd Madwindoman 91,720

3rd cheeko 87,300

4th Carey85 70,750

5th Lord Innit 65,330

6th hcmffm 58,910

7th VF 2084/Vorkosigan 55,880

8th Mickey50 37,370

9th Darrin9999 37,120

Welcome!

Scramble! Often credited as the first recognisable shmup (although from long before that word needed to exist) and the Vectrex got a solid port. The game is very tough, but also very short so which makes it easy to learn.

Scramble-280px.png.e6b2a5af3bc5fa704c4c48d690b15fe6.png

Availability

As this was an official release, Scramble is freely available to download from many places, it's included in all multicarts, and the original release sold well so there are plenty of original cartrigdes out there too.

Scramble is of course available on Dr Snuggles emulator too:

https://drsnuggles.github.io/jsvecx?rom=Commercial/Scramble_1982

Manual

http://vectrex.de/_static/2017/Scramble_Manual.pdf

Settings

Game mode 1 (default)

March 25

@Madwindoman @scalpel @Mikey50 @MattPilz still some time to get a score in for Galaxy Wars SL, but not long until we move to Aprils game Scramble which I'm sure everyone is able to play

March 14

7 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

One thing to be aware of is that Packrat is on hiatus with no word of when he will return. Space Frenzy and Vectrexagon are both available for download so that shouldn't be a problem.

I'd like to nominate KnightEx by phob0z. It's a fun Joust clone that does a lot right.

Oh.. Well that's good to know, I hope Packrat does come back, they have loads of games I would like!

Loving all the homebrew suggestions, as a new owner it's hard to know where to start and most of the toutube round ups concentrate on the official games

March 13

As promised, some sort of schedule that we can talk about

I've picked out some of the homebrews suggested here for the end of the year, as there is least myself that will need to order those and I hear the lead times can be long.

I've also suggested Berzerk, although it comes with complications of which versions we should play

March 13

HSCBigLogoForum.png.eee717c236d958b5b1a9f708a37f17b9.png

This is the current provisional list for the games that will be played. As you can see there are still some gaps while we get organised and get a feel for which games people have access to.

Please bring any suggestions to the discussion thread

Feb - Minestorm

Mar - Galaxy Wars SL

Apr - Scramble

May -

June -

July - Vector Pilot - http://www.kristofsvectrexgames.be/vectorpilot.htm

Aug - Berzerk

Sep - Space Frenzy - https://www.packratvg.com/vsfrenzy.html

Oct - Vectrexagon - https://www.packratvg.com/vvgon.html

Nov - Reserved to coincide with this years Vector Wars

March 13

8 hours ago, Madwindoman said:

If it’s possible maybe you can come up with a game list for the whole season. That would give people a chance to acquire a game they don’t have. For example I don’t have this months game and didn’t have enough time to try and get it

Absolutely, this could have been better planned by us and will be in the future, especially for newer games.

March 13

Flipping heck, well done!

Was just trying a few different approaches myself, so I'll take a look

March 12

I've seen a couple of Scramble videos, seems like a death in the fireball section is a run killer. It's a great shmup, hard but short and learnable.

March 12

It's a tough thing to pick, as we don't want ro race through the best official games too quickly, nor force people into buying homebrews.

I do love Scramble, I'm intrigued how many loops can be completed before it gets inhumany fast. I've a feeling @playvectrex will show us how many that is

March 10

Improved my pb to 35678

I am finding Space Launcher a bit luck based, or at least frustrating as I can't predict or react to being shot in close range. I'm assuming the bonuses rotate in a predicable pattern, and I'm def going for time bonus rather than risking killing loads of ufos

March 5

@Mikey50 see above, sorry I failed the tag

March 3

On 3/2/2024 at 5:39 PM, Lord Innit said:

13140 on original hardware. I'm finding heading for the brightest enemy is paying off.

I'd say you are right to be honest, it does seem to be worth getting a least a few bonus hits.

It might seem obvious to most, but in the Galaxy Wars levels it's far safer to put your ship to the side of the UFO and let it fly into you rather than risk approaching from the bottom as those shots are viscous.

As far as Space Launcher is concerned, but I'm sure there will be a predictable pattern to the scores for the docking stations. You can't get there before they cycle at least once, and hanging around just underneath the UFO's for them to cycle again is too dangerous and wastes time bonus

March 3

@Mikey50 which multicart do you have? I know some have a selection of homebrews on, and maybe we could use some of those from time to time?

Same question to everyone else really? How many of use can load any rom, or own a shelf load of carts?

March 3

41 minutes ago, scalpel said:

I am in the same situation. I think, to have more players, it could be nice to play first to the original releases.

Hmm OK, we'll keep that in mind. It was a bit of a test really to see how many people have a writable cart or an emulator setup with a reasonable controller.

Next month will be an official release, and we'll generally favour those. Feel free to suggest one in game request thread.

Also, early score from me

11258 on og hardware and controller via pitrex

March 3

Hey everyone, I just wanted to point out that @hcmffm is a co-organiser of the Vectrex High Score club. He's already contributed a lot in the form of all the artwork, the spreadsheet the scores are tracked on and a wealth of experience with organising competitions. I really should have made this clearer sooner, I wouldn't want to take credit for all of his work here!

He has moderator access in this subforum the same as I, and any rules queries etc can be directed to @hcmffm or myself.

Give him a big thanks for making this awesome club happen!

March 3

On 3/1/2024 at 2:31 AM, Mikey50 said:

curley beard its still february can I still post this score??

188048

Hello, yes that's fine as I didn't really state which midnight the submissions will close. We'll update the rules with a timezone for future months though!

Nice score!

March 2

On 3/1/2024 at 10:55 AM, Doctor Snuggles said:

You can direct link a rom like this:
https://drsnuggles.github.io/jsvecx/?rom=http://binarystarsoftware.com/bin/GWSL_v102_FREE.BIN

... and as i just found this somehow triggers the display readme function.
Will bugfix this soon, meanwhile please click right mouse button to skip text.

That's awesome, I'm assuming I can use a local file url as well? It's currently my primary debugging tool so would be good to skip a step in my "pipeline"

February 26

Round 2 - March 2024 - Galaxy Wars / Space Launcher

Status:

This second round is now over. Thank you to everyone who took part, and congrats on all the great scrores!

Final scores & ranking:

1st playvectrex 103,002

2nd cheeko 93,454

3rd jbrodack 74,164

4th Darrin9999 71,780

5th Vorkosigan 68,104

6th hcmffm 52,956

7th TheCurlyBard 35,678

8th Lord Innit 35,188

9th jgkspsx 30,566

10th Doctor Snuggles 10,844

Welcome!

Galaxy Wars / Space Launcher (or just Galaxy Wars SL) is an interesting take on the shooter genre where you take control of the projectile directly, well two actually as Galaxy Wars / Space Launcher is a mash up of two games, alternating between boards. It's possible to choose to play just one of the games or the other, but for these scores we will be alternating.

GalaxyWars-klein.png.8942d6db04c3561e8def99631cb0f866.png

Purchase

You can buy a copy from the creator on ebay, currently on sale just for us!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204698465728

Download

This game is available for free - thank you, Chris Malcolm (Binarystar)!

http://www.binarystarsoftware.com/?p=691

The most straightforward way to play would be DrSnuggles online emulator:

https://drsnuggles.github.io/jsvecx/?rom=http://binarystarsoftware.com/bin/GWSL_v102_FREE.BIN

Manual/Tips

https://vectrex.fandom.com/wiki/Galaxy_Wars_:_Space_Launcher

Galaxy Wars rewards maximum points for a UFO if you destroy the slightly brighter one next, if you hit another by mistake though the bonus is gone for the rest of this level. As noted by @Lord Innit this does seem worth going for.

Space Launcher also rewards different points for landing in different docking stations, it still seems like the time bonus is the best reward so far.

Settings

Default settings, i.e. Galaxy Wars SL with 3 lives

February 26

2 hours ago, scalpel said:

Just a question: did you communicate in the Vectrex Facebook pages about this HSC ? Could be nice to have more players

I have, a couple of time and got a few likes but not much of a noticeable response to be honest, perhaps if some of you guy's would comment on it it would prompt the algorithm? I'm not entirely sure if I'm on soft ban for some reason, so be interested if people can see what's on the end of that link for them

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Vectrex.Fans.Unite/permalink/1489324781798868/

@Vorkosigan I've not found it the most enjoyable game either if I'm honest, I just picked it because we've all played it at least once. I got better than I ever would have, and learnt a lot from playvectrex's video! Perhaps you'll enjoy Galaxy Wars SL better?

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