DrMooCowz

Thanks! I'm fairly certain I could've rolled the score if I had more time. I wasn't perfect by any means, but I was only making 0-2 mistakes on cavern 2, and never messing up cavern 1. The extra lives could've kept this going perpetually.

Conquest of Mars: 350340! It was a shame I had to end the game since I was coming close to the deadline, but I more or less had the pattern figured out on Cavern 2 and had a full complement of lives before I forced myself to game over here.

Venture Reloaded: 562900 This BETTER hold! Gonna do some more Conquest of Mars since I'm right on the line for that and don't feel good about it!

alright, one last attempt at Venture Reloaded to see if I can get above the line and survive this!

Conquest of Mars: 104300 Venture Reloaded: 321500

The thing I don't like about having 2 strikes is you HAVE to do really well in 3 games to move on. Luckily, these particular games, I have a chance and don't want to fold if I knew one of them was hopeless. Beamrider: 87246 Conquest of Mars: 67960 Venture Reloaded: 313200

Improvement, but won't be good enough. Looking like at least 2 strikes for the first round. 108090

*takes a peek at the scores* dang it! Off to play some Vanguard. Sky Jinks can suck it at this point and fine with a strike there! 😅

Vanguard: 105120 - solid run Sky Jinks: 2:18.97 - took a looooong time to finally get a no crash run, just to still be below the X currently Gremlins: 346090 - something clicked for me and had an amazing run

Congrats again, @kermit73! And thank you again @Vocelli for all the work you do in running the season! It's an under appreciated job! Alright, let's try to figure out how to pick only two for each category. Favorite These are chalky answers, because they're Activision, but I can't deny it. - Seaquest - Beamrider Most Surprising - Conquest of Mars - a lot more to this than I was expecting and enjoyed it! - Venture Reloaded - given I did not like Venture some other time we played, this was a nice surprise at how much more polished this was and actually liked playing it! Worst For the most part, I don't think there were any complete duds to me this season. Still need to pick two, though! - Raft Rider - M.A.D. - rather just play Atlantis!

Frostbite! The finale! I can't tell you how thrilled I was that this game was naturally the last pick from the wheel that was deciding what was next (except Beamrider, which I forced in to correspond with the High Score Club). This is my favorite 2600 game and the only one where I actually did convince my parents to let me send in a photo to get the patch when I was kid! I had 100% confidence that I would get the 40,000 points required with my PB in the game being 383,470. The plan was simple, make sure I get the 40,000 and spend the rest of the stream seeing if I can top my PB. This was a victory lap of sorts. 😀 I had a good time, as always, when I played this one. Sadly, I did not top my PB, but got 340,000ish as my best for the night. I'm very happy I finally got to do all of this (except 1,000,000 point Laser Blast!), as it was something I've wanted to do for many years, way before streaming was a thing for me. I will eventually do another post to maybe rank what I thought was the most difficult and most fun, that kind of thing. Will be a nice summary and wrap up on this journey! Thanks everyone who watched me at any point and thanks to anyone who's read this forum thread! I legit hope this will be a nice guide for someone who's thought about doing this challenge themselves and hope sharing my experiences are helpful to you! Goal: 40,000 Final Score: 312,760 Date Completed: 2023-01-18 Time: 1 stream at ~28m (1 attempt) Next Game: Fin!

Tennis! Riding high in confidence that this was final night of streaming this challenge and knowing my favorite 2600 game, Frostbite, was after this one, I very much underestimated how difficult this one was going to be! With Ice Hockey also being a "defeat the computer" scenario, I thought I would breeze through Tennis. As it turns out, this was a huge pain! The button is only used for serving and returning the ball is automatic, assuming you're in position to return it. The computer needs to be tested for PEDs in this game! Eventually, I sort of figured out how to do more sharp angles that may or may not work out, but it was a grind and I barely pulled this one off! Took over an hour to complete one set. I definitely underestimated this one, especially with thinking about trying to beat my PB on Frostbite! Incidentally, I never saw in the manual about earning the patch, so I'm not sure where the info comes from on the patches page. I just trusted it was correct! Goal: Win one set vs Computer Final Score: 6-4 Date Completed: 2023-01-18 Time: 1 stream at ~1h 3m (1 attempt) Next Game: Frostbite

Private Eye! This was one of the last few that was a big question mark to me on difficult it might be. This was also the last cartridge I needed to complete my "Activision patch set" for my collection. So, that being said, I have very little experience playing this game. I do recall playing it once in the High Score Club, but don't remember any details about it. The manual said I needed to solve Case 3 to earn the patch and had some details on how to solve the case. Needed to get the comb and verify it at the barbershop, find the necklace and verify at the gem store, then finally arrest La Fiend and get him back to the police station. All of this in under 4 minutes! I struggled early on this and couldn't make heads or tail of how the map layout worked and I DEFINITELY did NOT understand the vague map that game with the manual. It took a long time to just give up on trying to make it make sense. I think it was around attempt 11 or so that I decided to make my own map for this game! I did several "attempts" to just make my map and make sense of it and know where every path actually went. I've attached a picture of it. Feel free to ignore the Phantasy Star IV and Tecmo Super Bowl speedrun stuff. You start at the police station on the map. Does this map make sense to you? Once I finally had that all hashed out, it was time to decide on the path I wanted to use and execute it all fast enough to complete it in under 4 minutes. I think it was 3-4 attempts with "full knowledge" before I managed to put it altogether and have a successful run! I did not care about my score and trying to capture every criminal, since it was irrelevant to "solving the case". This was a grind and felt it was necessary to make your own map. Very happy to be a "Super Sleuth". With all of this being said, there ONLY TWO GAMES LEFT! I WILL be completing this challenge on my Wednesday stream! Tennis next and ending with my favorite, Frostbite! Will likely go for my personal PB on Frostbite since the patch score will be easy for me. Goal: Solve case 3 Final Score: Solved! Also: 94,433 and 2 seconds to spare! Date Completed: 2023-01-15 Time: 1 stream at ~1h 45m (25 attempts) Next Game: Tennis (final 2 games next stream!)

Keystone Kapers! Probably like a lot of 2600 fans, I played this one a lot as a kid. I wasn't sure what I thought of the points goal on this game, as I was usually more interested in seeing "what's next" for what changed in the level. More shopping carts? More radios? How fast can these things move around? A lot of this game is judging when to use the elevator (usually guessing wrong! ). My particular attempt at this went very poorly early on and almost reset. Lots of dumb mistakes. However, I persisted just to see how it played out. Did well enough to get the patch on the first attempt and a proud member of the Billy Club! This is a highly recommended game for anyone to play! Goal: 35,000 Final Score: 56,550 Date Completed: 2023-01-15 Time: 1 stream at ~24m (1 attempt) Next Game: Private Eye

Freeway! Pretty cool take on the "Why did the chicken cross the road?" joke. Easy to see some Frogger inspiration in here, too. I played this game off and on as a kid. Definitely more fun 2 player to have the head to head competition going. I had pretty high confidence I would get this in very few tries. While I technically did it, I barely did it for both games 3 and 7! So, maybe the mark of 20 or more for those games was right on! To back up a little, the manual said get "at least 20 on Game 3 or Game 7". As per my style through most of this challenge, I did both. Game 3 and 7 are the same traffic pattern, but game 7 has variable speed on the vehicles. Without much issue, I'm a member of the Save the Chicken Foundation! Goal: Game 3, 20 or more. Game 7, 20 or more Final Score: Game 3: 20 | Game 7: 20 Date Completed: 2023-01-15 Time: 1 stream at ~4m 30m (1 attempt for each game) Next Game: Keystone Kapers

ICE HOCKEY BY ACTIVISION! After a shirt change to the Ice Hockey shirt (was legit sweating after Decathlon), was ready to take this one on! Pretty simple on getting the patch on this one. Win a game! Although I did find it interesting that this was the first manual that I read that did NOT mention taking a picture of the TV to send it in, but rather have a witness to sign your letter with the score as proof of you defeating the computer. I'm wondering if this was the first game to have a patch available and the thought of a photo wasn't there yet? But, as they say in hockey... let's do that hockey! I was not too worried about this one. Wheel, snipe, celly boys! Forecheck, backcheck, paycheck boys! Had a bit of concerns early on when the computer was hanging in there and had a the lead a few times, but a few adjustments on how to beat the defense, I knocked this out on the first attempt and now a member of the All-Star Hockey Team! Although, I may not have gotten this one, as no one in chat was willing to say they witnessed me defeating the computer. I think this game is a lot more fun with 2-players. Goal: Beat the computer Final Score: 11-7 (no defense!) Date Completed: 2023-01-15 Time: 1 stream at ~4m (1 attempt) Next Game: Freeway

Decathlon! Well known for being a joystick breaker for many over the years! If you haven't played, basically you need to waggle the joystick back and forth VERY rapidly and press the fire button for whatever action it might be for the particular event. For most of these games, I've been using a 6-button Genesis controller. I knew that had no chance of working for this game, so I initially busted out the ol' CX-40. After just semi-casually trying this out after Starmaster, it became VERY clear that I didn't have what it takes to maintain a 1000 point average per event to get the 10,000 points needed to get the gold patch. What I DID remember was that I own a Track 'n Field controller that consists of 3 buttons: left, right, and fire. Literally perfect for Decathlon and also plays better to my strengths. At the same time, I also do have diagnosed carpal tunnel and I needed to be careful playing stuff like this. Before the 2nd stream of this game, I did plenty of stretching and tried to stay hydrated in anticipation. After a run and some practice with the TnF controller, it seemed like it was more plausible and something I was capable of doing. Stream 1, I got in the ballpark with a score of 9,956. Pretty good, but not good enough! Stream 2, I decided if I had an early event where I got like... 910 or lower, I was going to reset to try to conserve energy. It's a big ask to make up the points and I didn't want to gamble too much. So, on the magical run where I finally pulled it off, here's the points breakdown on each event! 100m - 1091 - 9.94s Long Jump - 958 - 7.68m Shot Put - 978 - 18.34m High Jump - 1025 - 2.2m (3rd attempt, clutch!) 400m - 1069 - 44.7s 110m Hurdles - 852 - 14.84s Discus - 1015 - 58.46m Pole Vault - 1005 - 4.8m Javelin - 996 - 80.68m 1500m - 1019 - 3:38.4s Total: 10008! HAD to get 1011 on the 1500m to pull it off for the patch, and got just enough! This particular attempt was the first of the day where I actually did the 400m. Everything else was a reset on high jump or sooner. Riding on high on the victory, I took my place on the podium and was very happy to earn the Gold Decathlon patch! Goal: 8,600 (bronze), 9,000 (silver), 10,000 (gold) Final Score: 10,008 Date Completed: 2023-01-15 Time: 2 streams at a painful ~3h 10m (11 attempts) Next Game: Ice Hockey

213275 I really liked this one as a kid. I was cruising and then got into a bit of trouble and still shook on how quickly my lives disappeared!

218650 Squashed my PB quite nicely.

Starmaster! This is one of those games that I never gave it the time of day when I was a kid. Definitely not a "pick up and play" kind of game. I do remember watching my brother play Star Raiders and never fully understanding it with custom pad that game used. But, I've always assumed Starmaster was Activision's answer to compete with Star Raiders. Lots of manual reading that technically happened on the Jan 8th stream (this came up sooner with the wheel, but technical issues the retrotink made me delay playing it). So, I was mostly ready to dive in and give this game its first real play for me. There are four patches for the game to achieve and here's the breakdown on all of them! Game 1 / Ensign This was my first foray into the game on figuring out what I was doing. The game was a lot more straight forward than I thought after reading the manual. Use the B&W/Color switch on the console to pull up the map, choose a spot that has dots, dodge meteors, destroy enemies, repeat. So, it all clicked pretty quickly on the basic flow of the game. I never docked at a station to refuel/repair and got the main patch, Order of the Supreme Starmaster on the first attempt with a score of 3960! Game 2 / Leader Confidence was decent after getting the first game completed. More of the same on this one, just with more enemies and things a bit faster. I do remember going to a base just to see how the docking thing worked and not necessarily that I needed it. Again, first attempt and I squeaked by with a score of 5708! Game 3 / Wing Commander Here's where things got a LOT more difficult. I experienced my first base being destroyed. I recalled the manual saying that's a loss of points and it also seemed like no matter what I was doing, a base was going to get destroyed. It also was not clear of a base gets attacked by enemies that were just orthogonally adjacent and/or diagonal to the base. The manual nor the "2nd manual" really clarified. But what WAS clear after clarifying the math... The goal is 7600. Base score of 5700, 23 enemies to destroy (2300), -500 if a base gets destroyed. So, working with 8000 points at the maximum means that if a base gets destroyed, best you can do is 7500 (and obviously 7500 < 7600). It took quite a bit of grinding and some luck to find a "route", as well as being super quick to destroy enemies and warping to the next sector to pull this off. But on my 22nd attempt, I finally pulled off a run where a base did not get destroyed and finished with a 7812! Definitely the most difficult of the 4 games! Game 4 / Starmaster Fastest difficulty yet and 31 enemies to destroy. Based on knowing the math from game 3, I immediate did the math for this one, too! Goal of 9000. Base score of 6900 + 3100 (31 enemies) = 10000. So, this told me that I can afford to let one base get destroyed, but not two! So, a bit more breathing room. Honestly, I don't think you can complete this one without having a base get destroyed. The number of enemies is too thick! The problem with this one was more about lack of dodging meteors and enemy fire. Once I pulled a decent run, it was not too much of an issue to finish. Got a score of 9170 and completed the 4th patch for this game! Overall, glad I finally gave this game a chance and have an appreciation for what it pulled off in 1982. Probably not a game I'm eager to come back and play any time soon, but glad to be in the Order of the Supreme Starmaster and earning the extra chevrons! Goal: Defeat all 4 games/missions (Game 1/Ensign - 3800, Game 2/Leader - 5700, Game 3/Wing Commander - 7600, Game 4/Starmaster - 9000) Final Score: All 4 games/missions defeated (Game 1 - 3960 [1 attempt], Game 2 - 5708 [1 attempt], Game 3 - 7812 [22 attempts], Game 4 - 9170 [5 attempts]) Date Completed: 2023-01-11 Time: 1 stream at ~3h 24m Next Game: Decathlon (if you know, you know on this one! Bonus pic!)

Pressure Cooker! I love this game! I like to say this game is Overcooked way before Overcooked was a game (and I love Overcooked, too). This game just triggers the right endorphins in my brain and is very satisfying to play. Constant chaos, a constantly changing list in my head of what ingredients I want next, and truly some pressure on executing it all before it falls apart! I had 100% confidence I would get this on the first try based on how much I've played this over the years. If you're trying this one out for the first try, do not expect this to be your typical result. 😄 As expected, I did nail this on the first try and played it as far as I could. Proud to be in the Short-Order Squad! Goal: 45,000 Final Score: 129,570 Date Completed: 2023-01-08 Time: 1 stream at ~30m (1 attempt) Next Game: Starmaster

Stampede! This is a game I've played quite a bit, especially when I was very young. I had high confidence to get this one very quickly. That was quickly shot down as I remembered you simply can not rope all the calves as quickly as you can. I did quickly figure out there's a rotation on the color/speed of the cattle and when the stationary one spawns in a row. This game is more about lane management and picking your spots on when to progress a row to the skull/stationary calve/next grouping. There is something oddly relaxing about playing this game, with spurts of chaos as you desperately try to get to the top or bottom to prevent the calves from getting behind you. 3,000 points turned out to be a decent mark to not be a pushover for the patch. Getting to 10,000 is definitely a challenge as the manual suggests. I put up a poll in chat if I should go for 10,000 or go on to the next game. The next game vote was the winner and happily joining the Trail Drive! Goal: 3,000 Final Score: 3,358 Date Completed: 2023-01-08 Time: 1 stream at ~39m (7 attempts) Next Game: Pressure Cooker

Skiing! Oh boy, I didn't see this one coming to smack me down! This started in the same stream as Kaboom, Spider Fighter, and Barnstorming. Riding high on what I thought was going to be super difficult in Barnstorming, Skiiing blindsided me on how difficult this was going be to get the patch! Requirements seemed straight forward enough. Play game 3, and get less than 28.2 seconds. Similar to Sky Jinks, Grand Prix, Barnstorming, etc, did not think much of it and was expecting a similar experience. As it turns out, you can NOT really turn your skiis at all if you want to have any chance at beating this time! The first stream of this, I did 100 attempts before retiring for the day! Day 2, it eventually clicked a bit better on how to steer without turning your skis. But even then, your lines to navigate between the gates has to be damn near perfect. It actually has some elements/feel of speedrunning games where you need to execute things extremely well. After 151 grueling attempts, I finally got a time under 28.2 seconds! Happy to be an Official Member of the Activision Ski Team! Goal: Game 3 - < 28.2 seconds Final Score: 28.11 seconds Date Completed: 2023-01-08 Time: 2 stream at ~1h 43m (151 attempts) Next Game: Stampede

Mr Yo-Yo: 90800 Conquest of Mars: 39850 Both of these are really cool! The escape on CoM was not expected and I really like the concept. Mr Yo-Yo, simple controls and scales in difficulty properly. Awesome!

I JUST played Seaquest last week for my Activision patch challenge. Guess I'm playing it again and have a PB to go against.