Intelligentleman

Yeah! The constrained board is one thing, but those ghosts... It's questionable if it's worth eating them!

Ooo that's one I need to track down

Dang it... I wish I’d eaten, like, three more dots! 😂

Skiing is rad. One of my favorites.

Hee hee just wanted to beat rickster!

I have both and would gladly try both

Alright here’s my first attempt. 20,230

I love that we’re doing this in the run up to Shark week!

New personal best:

Once you get into the higher scores, the up/down motion WITH the dash button becomes clutch. That shark will turn on you quick, and you can't be lollygagging around when you approach.

Sound effects and music are great in this, too. Love the shark’s intro chime, his whooosh as he doubles back and even is groan when he sinks to the bottom in defeat. Also love the sound it makes when you eat a lobster.

Totally agree about the stop button. The fish is pretty responsive without it.

At that score, my strategy is to wait until the shark changes direction during his entrance pass before attempting to tail nip him. Helps prevent the deadly reversal.

That’s usually how I do it... but sometimes I’ll feel a little frisky and I’ll use a circular disc motion.

Ha ha! Awesome score regardless.

Emphasis added. That's why I like Maze-A-Tron! It's totally flawed, but remember, this was 1983, and not many games attempted to give you an experience that had a beginning, middle and end. I feel like it was a precursor to the more narrative-driven games of the NES era and beyond.

IntyFanMatt is right. In fact I might suggest practicing using it in the early stages. One thing that does annoy me though is that they mapped dash to the keypad, instead of one of the side buttons. That means you have to release disc before pushing dash. This is also where momentum comes into play, a la Space Hawk. Edit: one last thing... normally you could get around that with the dual controller approach, but if you select single player, the devs actually lock out the second controller.

I thought my son would love this game, but he has no patience for it. Or most Intellivision games. He's five, and the controllers hurt his hands. That said, they hurt mine, too. 😄

Here's a tip that always helps me. In the early goings, listen to the sound of the shark. That ominous fanfare that blares when he enters the screen. He will usually not change directions for at least the duration of that "chime." From there, every time he doubles back you will usually hear a "swoosh" sound. When you hear it, you'll have roughly the same amount of time as before. You can use that knowledge to safely position yourself for multiple strikes on its tail. Just watch out for a change in shark behavior somewhere around 30 - 40,000 k.

@mr_me and the rest of you never disappoint!

I just thought it was cool that the other fish could pass through the hit-box instead of just being insta-killed for touching the shark in any place.

You know what else is interesting? I'm pretty sure other fish can safely pass through the shark's tail hit-box, but they don't register a "hit" on the shark.

Yeah occasionally, after a narrow escape, my fish would accidentally clip the shark and I’d hear the “blip” sound as if I just ate something, but I could never figure out how it was happening. How about those weird times when you bite the sharks tail and it instantly spins around, but then you somehow manage to bite its face? Any of you ever encounter that? i don’t think you’re actually biting the head... more like a double bite on the tail that coincides with a reversal.

I’m coming for you guys... fun fact, I was so terrified of the shark as a kid in the late 80s that I didn’t even realize you could bite his tail until last October!

Yes! Thank you for keeping me honest, IntyFanMatt and mr_me!