HSC Season 5 Week 42: Oystron

[Ze_ro]

Important Note: This weeks competition is over and no further scores will be accepted.

 

The oysters are coming! The oysters are coming! Quick, jump into your space ship and defend the colony! Collect the pearls they drop so you can create a bomb to fend off the Oystron! The fate of the human race is in your hands... if you fail, everyone will become slaves to the oysters!

 

 

Game Information

• Game Name: Oystron
• Released By: Imagic, 1983
• Left Difficulty: B / Novice - Bounce Against Side of Screen
• Right Difficulty: NTSC / PAL Switch, your choice (A = NTSC, B = PAL)
• Game Mode: Game 1 - Beginner
• Chosen By: Mister VCS & toymailman

Post your scores right here in this thread, and I will add them to the list. Remember to play the game with the recommended game mode and difficulty settings as shown above so that your scores will be consistent with everyone elses. The deadline for posting scores is Wednesday July 2nd at 1:00 AM (CST).

 

Current High Scores 47,530 (Thomas Jentzsch) [+11] 28,510 (aftermac) [+10] 19,020 (Impaler_26) [+9] 18,200 (SpiceWare) [+8] 14,880 (toymailman) [+7] 14,340 (Deteacher) [+6] 11,340 (Kurt_Woloch) [+5] 10,370 (LaserHawk) [+4] 5490 (theking21083) [+3] 3050 (cosmosiss) [+2] Best Tips Thomas Jentzsch [+2] Challenges None TwinGalaxies Top 3 99,990 (Christian L Keilback) 4,990 (David B Yancey) (Game 1, Difficulty B)

Current Standings Deteacher [400] toymailman [360] keilbaca [225] aftermac [200] Captain Beard [167] SpiceWare [163] Impaler_26 [160] Kurt_Woloch [155] theking21083 [139] homerwannabee [90] Nathan Strum [88] PressureCooker2600 [87] phaxda [83] StanJr [75] Gemini [75] rheffera [65] Mister VCS [64] LarcenTyler [56] shadow460 [48] midnight magicman [46] godzillajoe [45] Recycled [44] Bentley Bear! [44] the 5th ghost [42] DarthCalvin [36] Blackjack [35] Christophero Sly [35] darthkur [29] Rom Hunter [23] jjd [22] opeygon [21] ed1475 [19] Butterwasp [18] jimdandy75 [17] Shannon [15] cosmosiss [14] doctorclu [13] tremoloman2006 [12] RJ [12] theKLT [12] lucifershalo [12] Artlover [9] atariwarrior [9] Dauber [9] atari2600land [8] vintagegamecrazy [8] Vectorman0 [7] Krytol [7] keitaro [7] iangamer [7] lonewolfette9847 [6] Goochman [6] Omegamatrix [6] Phantom [5] chuckwalla [5] Nognir [5] MrBeefy [5] Elerach [3] Crazy Climber [3] SeaGtGruff [3] hrecker [2] gospeedde [2] Snider-man [2] EricDeLee [1] Whickeycolumbus [1] jboypacman [1] paddleperson [1] [d2f]Iggy*SJB [1] HatNJ [1] KaeruYojimbo [1]

 

Scoring Points in Oystron

• Space Oysters (each hit): 10 points
  
• Enemies (formation destroyed): 30 points
  
• Oystron (killed with a bomb): 1530 points + (no. of bombs left)x100 points
  
• You win an extra ship every 4,000 points. From 75,000 to 99,990 points there are no extra ships.

 

Hints and Tips

• This seems to be a good strategy: stay on the right part of the playfield, off the pearls zone, shooting left and right. Collect pearls here and when you've enough of them, rush down and complete an entire row.
  
• There's only a kind of enemy (except the Oystron itself) that can jump from a row to another; however, they will never jump on a row already occupied by something else. So when these enemies come out, busy rows are usually a safe place to stay.

The Manual
As always, you really should read the manual. Strangely, AtariAge doesn't list a manual for this game, but a text copy is available along with the ROM download. Here are the hints it provides:
Deteacher
My tip for destroying the Oystron...Quickly get in the same row as him, drop a bomb and move left one space. Both times I met up with him in this game, he walked right onto it.
Thomas Jentzsch
Some tips: - Play defensivly and take your time to score! - Stay right of the center during normal game play, move left during warp mode. - Concentrate on a few rows only. 3 or 4 rows in normal play, 2 rows during warp mode. - Try to avoid single, dropped pearls, especially in later rounds. They will eventually create those big rectangles which move your pearls arround. Instead try to put pearls in one row only. - Defend your pearl row(s) against enemies. - You can't score more than 6 bombs. Enemies give more points and are reliable killed with less risk. So shoot as many enemies as possible instead of creating more pearl rows than 6.

 

--Zero

[Ze_ro]

The manual mentions some way to "start the game near the end of the level with a load of bombs"... Anyone know what the trick to this is? In any case, it's almost certainly against the rules here...

 

By the way, I'm planning to run the season up to 50 weeks, and then restart the scoring for Season 6... so nine more weeks remaining (Including this one).

 

--Zero

[Captain Beard]

By the way, I'm planning to run the season up to 50 weeks, and then restart the scoring for Season 6... so nine more weeks remaining (Including this one).

Excellent!

I was wondering when we were gonna start a new season.

[Recycled]

shoot, I'll have to get in on this one as well.

 

This is a great game.

[aftermac]

By the way, I'm planning to run the season up to 50 weeks, and then restart the scoring for Season 6... so nine more weeks remaining (Including this one).

 

--Zero

 

Aw, man... I was only 200 points out of first place, too!

 

Looks like I've got 9 weeks to make up 25 points on keilbaca... Unless he forgets to turn on his Atari, this doesn't look like my week.

 

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the clean start!

Edited June 25, 2008 by aftermac

[Impaler_26]

I love this game though i totally suck at it!!!

 

First entry:

 

3,660.

[LaserHawk]

LaserHawk now will engage the Oysters!!

 

Cool game, gotta work harder at it....

[LaserHawk]

 

 

Ooops.....LaserHawk forgot to include screenshot!

 

LaserHawk must try again to make score bigger!

[Impaler_26]

Minor improvement...

 

6,650.

[keilbaca]

I'm looking forward for the clean start also, so this time I can keep up with the front runners the whole season instead of coming in partly through.

 

It'll take me a while to get as good as I used to, but I'm hoping to get the max score again. Its been a *long* time.

[+SpiceWare]

6,730

[Impaler_26]

10,430.

[Deteacher]

13,130.

 

My tip for destroying the Oystron...Quickly get in the same row as him, drop a bomb and move left one space. Both times I met up with him in this game, he walked right onto it.

 

It takes a little getting used to, but this is a really fun game. Good choice!

[aftermac]

11,740

 

Holy epileptic seizure, Batman! Those bright flashing lights between waves make my head hurt.

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

13370

[aftermac]

15,890

 

This game gets tough when the "collect zone" starts scrolling.

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

This game gets tough when the "collect zone" starts scrolling.

Indeed.

 

BTW: I think, I sometimes get killed by a pearl. Did this ever happen to you too?

[aftermac]

This game gets tough when the "collect zone" starts scrolling.

Indeed.

 

BTW: I think, I sometimes get killed by a pearl. Did this ever happen to you too?

 

Now that you mention it, that might have happened to me once. I moved the ship down a row to collect what I thought was a pearl, but I got killed. I was watching another part of the screen at the time (because I was sure that was a pearl), so I just brushed it off and figured I was mistaken.

[LaserHawk]

Ahhaaa!!!

 

LaserHawk returns with more quarters!

 

10,370

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not that they're doing Lasehawk much good...... (LOL)

[aftermac]

19,010

 

Could have done better, but I lost a life when a pearl bounced off the left wall and turned into an enemy.

 

[theking21083]

First game: 5,490

[Deteacher]

14,340. Getting better.

 

I stumbled on the trick to starting the game at the end of level 1 with 5 bombs. I played a few games that way and I found that it actually hurt my final score. In essence, I was losing about 3,000 points because I was skipping the first (and easiest) level. If anything, you can use the trick to get some practice on the higher levels. Then when you start over, you will have some practice under your belt.

[toymailman]

Here's my first entry. Once I figured out what to do in the game (hadn't read the manual before) it was a very fun game. This one will get play time beyong the HSC for me.

 

14,880

 

[aftermac]

21,090

 

Bump.

 

Other than the headache inducing flashing lights, my only complaint about this game is that the waves are really loooong. Other than that it is really growing on me.

 

[cosmosiss]

3050.

 

I don't think I fully understrand this game yet. Quite fun though.