Kurt_Woloch

OK, since the times haven't been calculated yet, though I'm a bit late, here are my times for last week... Galaxian (Atari 8-bit)... 80 minutes. Yes, that's all. In addition to that, I played some browser games (Kapiland, Restaurant City, Falschparken, Wakka Wakka, most of them on Facebook) which are all beyond the scope of this thread. Besides that, I'm questioning myself what all this gaming is for. Maybe I'm completely fed up with gaming for now. You may have noticed that I didn't post anything else in this forum over the last week, and I also stopped reading and responding to other forums I was a regular in. I'm currently trying to get my life in order and do the things that are really important, more important than gaming... like checking the mail properly and not only putting it onto one big heap. There was one case that stirred me up where I got sent a game cartridge, but it was sent registered, so I only got a notification in the mail that I had to fetch it at the post office... and this notification landed on a big heap with all the other stuff I should have noticed, and stayed there for about two weeks. Finally the sender of the cartridge asked me if I got it yet, because someone else in my country had got it before, but it was sent to him one week later. That was the turning point for me, when I thought it can't go on this way. So if you don't hear anything from me... that's what happened.

Here's my best so far... 11940. I first tired to emulate this with MESS, but that emulator doesn't seem to work too well, it has got a lot of graphical glitches here. The score line on the bottom is invisible, your shot, until engages, is displayed much too high on screen, and you're unable to shoot some of the formation members unless in flight. Seems like there's a lot of graphical trickery going on in order to get the game as colorful as it is.

OK, here are my times for this week: Laser Gates (2600)... 40 minutes Mappy (Arcade)... 34 minutes Duck (2600)... 8 minutes RAM Defender (2600)... 1 minute I don't know if "Duck" is actually supposed to be a game... the binary (DUCK.BIN) was posted in the thread about the new Stella release in order to test a bug with RAM expansion... I think it's supposed to be a variation on "Adventure" with different rooms. It's a bit weird in its current state, however... sometimes the paths are inconsistent in that if you leave a room and go to another, and then go the same way back, you find yourself in a different room than the one you came from. Also, the last room on the left wraps around, that is, if you try to leave it on the left side, you reappear on the right of the same room. Apart from the classic games, I also have played some "modern" games. I spent many hours with a German browser game called "Kapiland" where you play the boss of a company whose job it is to produce and sell different goods in different qualities. I won't list the times for that because this is beyond the scope of this thread.

Here's my best so far... 39474. I made it to the 3rd tunnel. What's supposed to be so hard about this one? I don't find it that much harder than the previous two.

OK, here are my times for this week: Mouse Trap (Colecovision) 305 minutes Gyruss (Atari 8-bit) 99 minutes Krull (Arcade) 54 minutes Jr. Pac-Man (7800) 46 minutes Mouse Trap (Arcade) 34 minutes Air Raiders (2600) 18 minutes Mouse Trap (2600) 6 minutes Q*Bert (2600) 5 minutes (in 2 sessions) Melbourne Tatty (2600) 2 minutes CTetris4a (Atari 8-bit) 2 minutes Circus Galacticus (2600) 2 minutes BiFröst (2600) 2 minutes RAMVaders (2600) 2 minutes RAM Racer (2600) 1 minute Gingerbread man (2600) 1 minute RAM Combat (2600) 1 minute Some notes to this: The games I played longer than 40 minutes all were HSC games again. Mouse Trap (Colecovision) was a single session. After starting that game, I noticed that it doesn't get harder after Round 5, so I figured I should be able to roll it. I finally made that, but only after 5 hours of playing. After that, I played the Arcade and 2600 versions of it as well for a comparison, mainly because I couldn't imagine it could also be that easy to roll in the arcade... and it isn't. In the original Arcade version of Mouse Trap, the player is slower than on the Colecovision, and also there's 6 cats instead of 5 on the CV. So it's actually much harder. Gyruss was a second session in which I tried to improve on my previous score. I made that, but sadly didn't properly take a screenshot, so I finally didn't register the actual score of over 130000 points (I don't quite remember how much exactly it was), but only close to 120000 which I reached in a subsequent game. Then there are several games I only played for 1 or 2 minutes to see what they're like, but they were not attractive to me to play them any longer. These are all new homebrews which where posted on the forums here in the last weeks. Oh, and Q*bert was only played to test out the Stella Emulator, because Stella has a bug with this game where, if you press RESET and there are still players on screen, some parts of those players keep hanging in mid-air. This is caused by the Reset button causing the screen not to sync for a split-second. I had some PM's with a developer of Stella to fix this error.

OK, here's my best so far... 19. I have to admit that I don't like this game very much.

OK, here's my best so far... 76190.

OK, here are the songs I somehow associate with arcades and arcade games. I'll sort them by year (the year I would assign it to, that is... not necessarily the year in which it came out). I also often connect songs to a specific game: 1979-1980: I was made for loving you-Kiss (one game which was a cross between Breakout and an electronic pinball game) Knock on wood-Amii Stewart (Galaxian) Funkytown-Lipps Inc. (Galaxian) Matador-Garland Jeffreys (Galaxian) Oh Susie-Secret Service (Galaxian) Stop the cavalry-Jona Lewie (Pac Man) Miss you-The Rolling Stones Kid Dynamo-The Buggles (Moon Cresta) 1983: Mr. Roboto-Styx (TRON, Berzerk) Vamos a la playa-Righiera Das Blech-Spliff (Missile Command) B-Bu-Buffalo Gals-Malcolm McLaren & the World's famous Supreme Team (Missile Command) Sad songs (say so much)-Elton John (Cannon ball) Living on Video-Trans-X 1984: One night in Bangkok-Murray Head (various fighting games like Kung-Fu Master, Shao-Lin's Road, Yie ar Kung Fu, Karate King) Walking on the Chinese wall-Philip Bailey (various fighting games... see above) 1985: Woodpeckers from Space-Video Kids Happy song-Boney M. Everybody have fun tonight-Wang Chung (various pinball machines) Disco band-Scotch Everything she wants-Wham! Love kills-Freddie Mercury Solid-Ashford & Simpson (Marble Madness, also sounds similar with all the synth brass) When the rain begins to fall-Jermaine Jackson & Pia Zadora (Marble Madness) Shout-Tears for Fears (Marble Madness) Let's dance tonight-Pia Zadora (Track & Field, Mario Bros.) Fire and ice-Marietta We built this city-Starship (Marble Madness) 1986: Geil-Bruce & Bongo Nothing's gonna stop us now-Starship (Marble Madness) 1989: Especially for you-Kylie Minogue & Jason Donovan Angel of Harlem-U2 (Golden Axe) The road to hell-Chris Rea (Golden Axe) You may wonder why there are many songs from certain years, but none from others... well... those were the "top arcade years" in my mind, the years where the games somehow also were connected with music... In 1979, I first got to know video games (I was 7 years old back then), also in 1979 and 1980 (actually up to early 1981), groundbreaking games like Galaxian and Pac Man came out. In those years, I also remember there was background music in the arcades, either from a tape or from a jukebox. After mid-1981, there was a steady stream of new games, but somehow they were not that spectacular, and somehow they didn't attach to the music I heard back then, and somehow I can't remember having heard any music in the arcades at that time, except for the music of the games themselves. In 1984, I sometimes went to the arcades with some friends, and my interests shifted a bit from arcade games (at that time, I already had video and computer games at home) to music. The games also became more sophisticated, so that I could make a connection between their topics (and more detailed graphics and better sound) and the music again. Especially Marble Madness made a big impact on me back then... it's one of my favorite arcade games ever. In mid-1986, my interests shifted towards music even more, so an exception was only 1989 when I visited the arcades again with some friends a few times, and somehow the songs that were current back then stuck in my head as being "connected" to those visits.

OK... seems like I'm the first one to actually post a score here. And.... (drum roll) I ROLLED IT!!! This actually is a game that isn't too hard... and it doesn't get harder after round 5 (yes, I played it on Skill 2). Alas, after that the music also doesn't change, and the music playing from round 5 on is pretty silly! (I'm sure I'll dream of it tonight!) It took me about 38 minutes and 30 seconds to beat the game. Here are two screenshots... before and after the roll. Since each piece of cheese is worth 90 points, there was nothing in between. I'll give you some hints here: - Don't save on bones too much. The time they last doesn't get shorter during the game, and you won't need more than 4 of them on each screen in order to complete it. - The eagle (or whatever bird it is) seems to somewhat home in on you, in that it checks where you are every 2-3 seconds and then changes its direction to one of 8 that leads roughly towards you. If the eagle is coming, stay near the edge of the screen. Chances are it will take a direction towards the edge of the screen and fly over it before it's able to turn around again. And once it's over the edge of the screen, it's gone! - Unlike Pac-Man, the cats here don't seem to chase you, rather they take pretty random paths. By the way, I didn't use the doors... that feature just makes the game confusing. I think you're better off by keeping one maze layout and memorizing it somewhat.

OK, here's my best so far... 21450.JRPAC_78_02.bmp

Hmmm... now I only have to find an image of the Extended Basic cartridge which, seemingly, is needed to load most of the games on those disks. I mean, I do own this cartridge, but I currently have no means of transferring it to the PC... or at least no means I know of.

OK, I've improved my best now to... 117600.. Here are a few tips: - Try not to let the enemies come near you. If they do, they may drop a bomb on you and you're toast before you can dodge it. - When the three bouncing things (with the extra weapon in the middle if you don't have it yet) appear, try to take them out while flying past them. Don't stop or they may kill you with a quickly launched bomb. If you don't get all three on first try, you've got enough time to try again, but wait until the sky has cleared somewhat so that you can clearly see any bombs coming towards you. If on first try you picked up the extra weapon, wait until it has activated before you try again. - The three bouncing things don't come out if, after all of the formations have passed, less than, I think, 4 enemies are left in the middle. Since the bouncing things give huge bonus points, you should avoid that case. - Killing a formation before it settles also gives a huge bonus. However, in this version, "settles" apparently means an earlier point in time than you may think. You may end up destroying the whole formation and still not get the bonus. - If the last enemy you destroy is one coming out of the middle after all the formations have passed, you also get a bonus. You won't get a bonus if it's one of the enemies in the last formation while they are still settling (but too late to give you a bonus for clearing the whole formation). So these last points basically mean that for big points, you should either kill a formation in time to get a bonus for it, or intentionally leave over some of the enemies so that there enough left to give you the three bouncing things and the bonus points at the end of the wave. This is harder than you think because in this version of Gyruss, the collision detection of your shots is rather generous, meaning you could easily destroy all of the enemies in the middle before you mean to while shooting at other targets.

I did a pretty extensive test on the Gameboy with different brands of batteries back in the early 90's... here are some of the times I remember: NiCd batteries (500 mAh): 595 minutes Zinc-Carbon batteries: Philips extra: 1085 minutes Varta Super: 1123 minutes (or something like that) Varta Super dry: 1173 minutes Philips super: 1230 minutes Alkaline batteries: Ucar Alkaline (rebranded Energizer later on): 1950 minutes Philips Alkaline: about 2300 minutes Varta Alkaline: about 2600 minutes Duracell: about 2770 minutes Some manufacturers increased their battery running time over time... I think the last set of Duracells I tested lasted close to 3000 minutes or even a bit over that. I think I also measured how much current the consoles were drawing... I think the Gameboy drew about 50-60 mA, and the Game Gear drew 265 mA, if memory serves me right. I never tested the Game Gear with non-rechargeable batteries, though... only used rechargeable ones in that.

OK... these are my times for this week, again all of them were or are HSC games: Elevator Action (Arcade) 86 minutes (in 2 sessions) Gyruss (Atari 8-bit) 43 minutes Scramble (Arcade) 30 minutes Super Cobra (2600) 9 minutes (I didn't particularly like this one) Venture (Colecovision) 6 (don't like this one either)

OK, here's my best so far: 22940. Here are some tips: - If there are some targets which you can shoot (not bomb) because they're not obstructed, shoot them as soon as you can to get them out of the way. - On the 2nd stage with the saucers, choose a level just above the highest mountaintops and stay there. Here you will have a higher chance of hitting the saucers because here's where they remain for a bit longer than on other heights while they turn around. Also, you can more easily drop bombs on the ground targets, but you will never hit a mountain. Also, on that height the saucers can only come from the top, not from the bottom, so it's easier to dodge those saucers which you didn't take out before they reach the left side of the screen. - On the 3rd stage, I think it's best to dive below the highest mountains. The fireballs will never fly lower than the highest mountain is, and again, that way it's easier to take out the ground targets. However, from time to time you have to rise a bit in order to avoid the highest mountaintops, but do that as quickly as possible in order not to get hit by a fireball. - On the 4th stage, the rockets ignite in regular intervals, one after the other. You can use this in timing when it's safe to fly over a rocket. As previously stated, try to take out all ground targets that are not obstructed. For the remaining ones, fly as high as possible, and fly over the highest positioned rockets as fast as possible.

OK... here's my best so far... 99900. (Not intentional!) I was always a fan of that game... for me it was one of the "killer apps" when I bought a Commodore 64... the Atari 2600 and the TI-99 (the systems I had) just couldn't do this. OK, actually, the 2600 also got a very respectable port of Gyruss (considering its limitations). The C-64 version is even better than the Atari 8-bit one, having a higher resolution and more colors on the screen. On the downside, on the C-64 the sprites start to flicker if there are many of them on the screen at once (most notably during the "Chance stage" and while the formation is forming). On the other hand, the C-64 version is missing the drum track due to the C-64 only having 3 sound generators. While the manual lists the music being by J. S. Bach, it's actually based on a version by the Group "Sky" called "Toccata". This in-game music, actually, for me was one of the best in-game pieces used at the time (Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway started a few months after that). The arcade version, by the way, plays the same music, but using more voices (I think the arcade board contains 4 sound generators for a total of 12 voice and 4 noise channels).

Here's my best so far... 5200. I have to admit that I didn't play this game for too long because I don't like it very much.

Well, here's my best so far... 1400. Sorry, but this is just frustrating. I don't like this one.

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OK, here's my best so far... 13700. Here's an effective tactic on how to avoid dying as long as you're in an elevator: The enemies will always first draw, and then (after about a second) shoot at you. If you go down with the elevator to a level where an enemy is (or multiple enemies are), the enemy will draw as soon as the lower plate of your elevator reaches about the height of his face. You can use that to your advantage by reversing your elevator at that point, so that the enemy will still shoot, but not hit you. After his shot has missed, he won't shoot again for some seconds, during which time you can easily go down again and kill him without being in danger of being killed by him.

By the way, with this game Stella exhibits a programming glitch: if you push F2 to reset the game while a game is still in progress, sometimes sprites (players) keep "hanging" on the screen although they are not supposed to be visible anymore, but they stay there until they get overwritten by another character being displayed in this place.

OK, here are my times for the past week (all HSC games this week): Q*Bert (2600) 233 minutes (in 3 sessions) Bosconian (Arcade) 222 minutes (in 3 sessions) River Raid (Atari 8-bit) 40 minutes Mario Bros. (7800) 37 minutes

OK, here's my best so far... 88760 (as shown on the upper high score line). The first thing that occured to me here is the low framerate, which reminds me a bit of the Colecovision versions of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. I suppose they didn't make it to rewrite the display list in each frame. Of course the arcade original has a smooth 60 Hz framerate. Then the animation of the turtles are a bit comical since they somehow seem to dance around erratically. And of course you have to get a feeling for this version and its somewhat incorrect implementation of physics - not that the arcade version was 100% accurate, but this one here is even more questionable, with the pests, when they reach the bottom pipe, jumping straight into the air and then sideways. Also, it seems that here you are a bit faster going left and right when jumping than when running (similar to Miner 2049er on the Atari 2600), which also wasn't the case in the arcade version. I've played the C-64 version of this for a long time (the one by Atarisoft which I'm not even sure if it was ever really released, not the one by Ocean), and I have to say that they did a better job on the C-64, in my opinion. The sounds sound better (unless you have one of those slightly buggy sound chips which sometimes switches off one of the voices without it having been requested by the CPU, which in this case means you lose part of the sound effects, because Atarisoft here chose to leave all sound channels on and then only vary the frequency!), and the animation also looks better, even showing a smooth framerate. On the other hand, if more than 8 objects appear on the screen there, all of them start to flicker! But all in all, it's an enjoyable version, and at least Mario looks like Mario. Mario_Brothers__1988___Atari__03.bmp

Hmmm... I always wondered if there is a pattern that would allow you to complete the board in such a case, or if there isn't one.

This is my best so far... 39790.