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What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2013 (Season 6)


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Once again, the new year is underway, and it's time to move from the old thread to the new. We're now in our sixth year of the gameplay tracker, and we'd love to see some new faces alongside our old stalwarts!

 

The basic idea is to post what games you played during each week, and for how long. You don't have to time it down to the minute (though some of us do), and estimates are acceptable. Then, at the end of the week, the statskeeper (that's me) totals everything up and we find out which games and platforms are seeing the most action.

 

Each week, we have top 10 lists for consoles and for individual games. We also have a separate top 10 list for games released on consoles before the NES (i.e. roughly the tail end of 1985). That way, arcade-style vintage gaming doesn't get totally lost in the shuffle of RPGs, collectathons, and other games that take 10+ hours to complete.

 

However, the #1 game for 2012 by a mile was -- once again! -- the quintessential old-school VCS game, so the old consoles are more than holding their own.

 

Guidelines:

 

1. Be sure to list the system, the name of the game, and the length of time you play. If the game has any alternate titles by which it's better known (i.e. Air Sea Battle vs. Target Fun), please list them. If you list multiple games, please group them by system.

 

2. Each week runs Monday through Sunday (at midnight), except the first and last week of the year. The deadline for posting stats is now 3:00 PM (EST) on Monday to allow for different time zones.

 

3. Playing on actual game consoles is preferred although emulators are certainly allowed. In some cases (homebrews in development) there is no alternative other than using an emulator.

 

4. Our cutoff year for consoles is 2000. That is, eligible consoles have to have been released (in the US) before 2000. This includes Dreamcast and N64, but excludes the most recent systems like PlayStation 2, XBox, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, et al. You're welcome to mention gameplay on those systems, but as of now they won't be added to the tracker.

 

5. Arcade games up to A.D. 2000 are permitted. So are emulated compilations of arcade games for modern systems, as long as they're not rewritten or otherwise massively "updated" versions. If you play 45 minutes of Robotron via Midway Arcade Treasures for the XBox, those 45 minutes are counted towards the arcade game. When you're playing arcade compilations, be sure to list each game separately (don't just put "Midway Arcade Treasures - 45 min.")

 

6. You don't just have to post a bare list of times -- comments, stories, gripes, and helpful hints are always encouraged! If you're struggling with a level, got a new high score, or have some thoughts about what's great or what stinks about a particular game...well, that's the kind of stuff that makes this fun to read.

 

Some things you can do to make the statskeeper's life a bit easier:

 

- If you post a big list of games, please consider alphabetizing them first (after grouping them by console).

 

- Posting your times in minutes, rather than hours + minutes, makes things a little simpler.

 

- Even if you don't know the exact time, it's better to post a specific number and say it's an estimate. If you say you posted a bunch of games for "between 20 minutes and an hour", I'll just average everything out to 40 minutes, but it'd be better to have a sense of which games you played more and which ones you played less.

 

- If there's room for confusion or ambiguity, anything you do to resolve that in advance is much appreciated. I know that Air Sea Battle = Target Fun, but I may not know that Soldiers of Fortune = Chaos Engine.

 

That about covers it. I've just posted the summary for 2012 (starting here), so those who like statistics are welcome to check that out.

 

One more thought:

 

If you haven't participated before, or if you did and got busy with other things, consider taking part in 2013! You may find that it has some interesting side effects -- I've found that keeping a log dramatically changes how I think about my own gaming, and mostly for the better. :)

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Well, as I mentioned in the 2012 thread - count me in ;)

 

I'm not gonna have time to play on the weekend, so I might as well give you my stats now. Most of the following are "test" runs I did on newly acquired games.

 

NES:

- Super Mario Bros (10 minutes)

- Tetris (20 minutes)

- Chip 'n Dale (15 minutes)

- Duck Tales (30 minutes)

 

If you feel like it, you can count 30 seconds each for Ice Hockey and Nintendo World Cup. Sports games... :skull: ugh... For Chip 'n Dale and Duck Tales, on the other hand, expect more gameplay time from me in the future. I kinda like those two.

 

Atari 2600:

- Atlantis (20 minutes)

- Circus Atari (10 minutes)

- Moon Patrol (15 minutes)

- Open Sesame (5 minutes)

- Pitfall (17 minutes... yeah, I screwed up shortly before the time ran out ;))

- Vanguard (10 minutes)

Edited by karokoenig
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Here are my times for this shortened past week (January 1st through 6th)...

 

Atari 2600:

Pac-Man 2 - 9 min.

Pac-Man 4K with intermissions - 28 min.

Super Mario 2600 - 67 min. in 2 sessions

 

Pac-Man 2 is a hack of Ms. Pac-Man where the structure of the first maze and the colors of the remaining mazes have been changed. Sadly, the enemy AI doesn't quite make it to keep up with the changes as the eyes don't always find their way home, and the fruits go through walls (they have to because there are no tunnels in the first maze!).

Pac-Man 4K with intermissions is exactly that. It adds intermissions but without the signature tune from the arcade. To keep it 4K, the startup tune has been reduced to one channel.

 

Super Mario 2600 is a port of Super Mario Bros. on the NES / arcade game written in Batari Basic. And it's a damn good one! Although the ROM posted has got only one world (divided into 8 sections) and some bugs, it's pretty playable, and the graphics and music are for the most part very well done... you can tell Mario and the turtles in an instant, and the correct tunes are playing when you expect them to... and unlike other homebrew ports, they are well adapted to the 2600's 2 channels and not out of tune. Of course there are simplifications of the game logic, but that's to be expected from a 2600 game, like there were simplifications in Sonic the Hedgehog from the Mega Drive / Genesis to the Master System / Game Gear. If you haven't checked this one out yet, you really should... it's hidden in the Batari Basic thread.

Edited by Kurt_Woloch
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My times for the week (Tuesday - Sunday):

 

NES:

Kung Fu - 10 min.

 

Genesis:

Davis Cup Tennis - 224 min.

Double Dragon III - 29 min.

Hardball III - 4 min.

Rampart - 48 min.

Shadow of the Beast II - 54 min.

Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade's Revenge - 340 min.

Super Battleship - 88 min.

 

Right after midnight on New Year's Day I beat Kung Fu for NES on a lark (thoughts here), as part of the new 2013 NintendoAge drive to beat all US releases. They succeeded in the 2012 quest, almost literally at the eleventh hour -- I think they had around two hours to spare -- so in 2013, they're adding in unlicensed games. This year they're not wasting any time -- they've already done about a third of the NES library!!

 

I contributed five victories to the NintendoAge effort in 2012, but in 2013 I'm planning to focus on Sega-16's quest to do the same thing for US licensed Genesis releases. This week I knocked out three games: Davis Cup Tennis, Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade's Revenge, and Double Dragon III (on which my second session started after midnight tonight, so some of the time will show up next week).

 

Thoughts on the latter two starting here, but not Davis Cup Tennis yet since I only finished the Davis Cup mode, and that only on Amateur difficulty, so I haven't yet beaten it to my own personal standard.

 

Otherwise I spent some time checking out Shadow of the Beast II, which seems less intuitive than the original, and Super Battleship, which was offputting at first but turned out to be a cute, minimalist strategy game. I managed to make it through the first set of naval missions and get a password, and I'll probably try to beat the game over the course of this week.

 

I also tried out Rampart, which seems like a very good port of the arcade game, but I wasn't quite able to clear Easy difficulty. Finally, I made a brief attempt to make sense of HardBall III, but I really think I need a manual for this one, as it's quite a confusing maze of options!

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Here's the inaugural summary for 2013! We begin with a shortened Week 1, running from January 1-6. We logged 1502 minutes of eligible play, playing 23 games on a total of 4 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 399

2. Spider-man/X-Men: Arcade's Revenge (Genesis) - 340

3. Davis Cup Tennis (Genesis) - 224

4. Super Battleship (Genesis) - 88

5. Super Mario 2600 (Atari 2600) - 67

6. Shadow of the Beast II (Genesis) - 54

7. Suikoden (PlayStation) - 50

8. Rampart (Genesis) - 48

9. Duck Tales (NES/Famicom) - 30

10. Double Dragon III: The Arcade Game (Genesis) - 29

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 399

2. Super Mario 2600 (Atari 2600) - 67

3. Pac-Man 4K with intermissions (Atari 2600) - 28

4. Atlantis (Atari 2600) - 20

5. Pitfall (Atari 2600) - 17

6. Moon Patrol (Atari 2600) - 15

7. Circus Atari (Atari 2600) - 10

7. Vanguard (Atari 2600) - 10

9. Pac-Man 2 [Ms. Pac-Man hack] (Atari 2600) - 9

10. Open Sesame (Atari 2600) - 5

 

Top 10 systems:

 

Not enough entries for a top 10. (The Genesis would be #1 with 787 minutes, followed by the Atari 2600 with 580 minutes.)

 

Picking up right where it left off, last year's champion Kaboom resumes its position at #1.

 

Though our first week was a bit lean on system diversity, there's an interesting corollary: all ten spots on the pre-NES chart were captured by the same console, the Atari 2600! I'm not sure if that's happened before.

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Hooray for Christmas Break!

Back to work tomorrow.

 

Atari 2600

Combat- 5 minutes

Evil Magician Returns- 10 minutes

Gravitar- 5 minutes

Haunted House-10 minutes

Hunchy II- 9 minutes

Moonsweeper- 5 minutes

Pooyan- 5 minutes

Reindeer Rescue- 15 minutes

Star Voyager-8 minutes

Swoops- 10 minutes

Target Fun-10 minutes

Qb- 15 minutes

 

Atari 5200

Pac-Man- 10 minutes

Pole Position- 15 minutes

Super Breakout- 3 minutes

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Okay, another week, another list.

 

Atari 2600:

- Commando Raid: 10 minutes

- Miniature Golf: 10 minutes

- Reactor: 20 minutes (damn, I used to be better at this game when I was a kid...)

- Tomcat: 20 minutes (still not really getting the hang of this game, but making progress)

 

NES:

- Golf: 10 minutes

- Kabuki Quantum Fighter: 10 minutes

- Silent Service: 70 minutes

- Star Tropics: 35 minutes (Sweet game! Thanks to HVGN for the recommendation.)

- Tiger Heli: 5 minutes

 

Silent Service of all games, you may ask? Well, I got a crush on this game from my C64 days. I got the Silent Service cart relatively new, and I can't say that I am really happy with the translation to a console. But oh well... a war patrol now and then doesn't hurt :-).

Edited by karokoenig
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Here are my times for this week (January 7th through 13th)...

 

Arcade:

Donkey Kong 3 - 33 min.

Donkey Kong Jr. - 8 min.

 

Atari 2600:

Ballblazer Demo (WIP) - 2 min.

 

TI-99:

Buck Rogers (Sega Enterprises) - 10 min.

Hunt the Wumpus - 5 min.

TI Invaders - 10 min.

Munch Man - 5 min.

 

I've played quite a few games this week, although not for long...

 

I've played "Hunt the Wumpus" and "Buck Rogers" (the cartridge version) on the TI-99 meeting on Wednesday. In "TI Invaders" I wanted to know how far I get playing in PAL (which is slower than NTSC), and I reached Level 6. Then I played Munch Man to see how close it comes to the original. Don't remember how far I got there.

 

Then I replayed "Donkey Kong Jr." and "Donkey Kong 3". Nothing special to say here.

 

Finally, I tried another version of Robert P's Ballblazer demo for the Atari 2600. It displays the checkerboard playfield with boarders and the goal posts. You can also see the other player in your view, though in some positions you get a distorted view of the other player when it should actually be invisible.

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My times for the week:

 

Sega Master System:

My Hero - 10 min.

 

Genesis:

Battle Squadron - 52 min.

Davis Cup Tennis - 61 min.

Double Dragon III - 39 min.

HardBall III - 58 min.

Rampart - 35 min.

Super Battleship - 824 min.

Sword of Sodan - 8 min.

Winter Challenge - 3 min.

Zany Golf - 10 min.

 

Obviously the bulk of my time was spent on Super Battleship, which I finally beat late on Friday night. Two of the missions in the middle of the game were ridiculous, but after that things got easier, and the last mission was mainly just time-intensive (rather than difficult).

 

I also replayed the Davis Cup event in Davis Cup Tennis on Professional difficulty, which isn't really harder so much as faster -- it wouldn't surprise me if game speed is the only thing that changes. If anything, though, I seemed to be playing better at the faster speed, perhaps because I had less time to think and simply had to react to my opponent's passing shots. In any event, my team had no trouble demolishing the competition, winning most sets 6-0 or 6-1, and only losing sets by forfeit (since I didn't bother playing doubles, and would forfeit the fifth match after clinching victory).

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Here's the summary for Week 2, running from January 7 - 13. We logged 1921 minutes of eligible play, playing 42 games on a total of 7 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Super Battleship (Genesis) - 824

2. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 423

3. Silent Service (NES/Famicom) - 70

4. Davis Cup Tennis (Genesis) - 61

5. HardBall III (Genesis) - 58

6. Battle Squadron (Genesis) - 52

7. Double Dragon III: The Arcade Game (Genesis) - 39

8. Rampart (Genesis) - 35

8. StarTropics (NES/Famicom) - 35

10. Donkey Kong 3 (Arcade) - 33

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 423

2. Donkey Kong 3 (Arcade) - 33

3. Reactor (Atari 2600) - 20

3. Tomcat (Atari 2600) - 20

5. Qb (Atari 2600) - 15

5. Reindeer Rescue (Atari 2600) - 15

5. Pole Position (Atari 5200) - 15

8. Air-Sea Battle (Atari 2600) - 10

8. Commando Raid (Atari 2600) - 10

8. Evil Magician Returns (Atari 2600) - 10

8. Haunted House (Atari 2600) - 10

8. Miniature Golf (Atari 2600) - 10

8. Swoops (Atari 2600) - 10

8. Pac-Man (Atari 5200) - 10

8. Buck Rogers (Sega Enterprises) (TI-99) - 10

8. TI Invaders (TI-99) - 10

 

Top 10 systems:

 

Not enough entries for a top 10. (The Genesis would be #1 with 1090 minutes, followed by the Atari 2600 with 592 minutes.)

 

It seems like this week's themes are boats and threes! -- that is, games about naval combat, and games that are the third entry in a series. And fittingly enough, we have three of each in our top 10, though I think it's a fair bet that Super Battleship will be yet another one-hit, one-week wonder...

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Not so much time to wiggle joysticks this week. Here's the numbers:

 

Atari 2600:

- Plaque Attack: 10 minutes

- Pitfall II: 25 minutes

- Galactic: 5 minutes

 

Galactic is a german ripoff cart, made by Goliath. It looks identical to Condor Attack (Ultravision), but I don't know if the latter isn't already a ripoff of something by itself. Oh... it sucks. Hard.

 

NES:

- Pinball: 10 minutes

- Battle of Olympus: 10 minutes

- Shadowgate: 10 minutes

- A Boy and his Blob: 5 minutes

 

A Boy and his Blob is a new addition to my (still tiny) NES collection. I only had time to testplay the cart for a few minutes, but it looks like an incredibly unique concept. David Crane at work there. I think I like it a lot already, but we'll see when I got some serious playtime for it.

Edited by karokoenig
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Here are my times for this week (January 14th through 20th):

 

Arcade:

Circus Charlie - 21 min.

Tutankham - 3 min.

 

Atari 2600:

D.K. VCS - 8 min.

Tutankham - 173 min. in 2 sessions

 

Intellivision:

Tutankham - 250 min. in 5 sessions

 

NES:

Burger TIme - 24 min.

Donkey Kong Jr. - 8 min.

Ice Climber - 10 min.

Mario Bros. - 5 min.

Super Mario Bros. - 18 min.

 

PC (non-eligible):

Mari0 - 20 min.

 

I started off the week by playing some more Tutankham on the 2600 and finally made it through the end of the 4th maze, after which the game restarts with the 1st maze, but with the enemies appearing more frequently.

 

Then I tried some NES games. Burgertime is really much harder than the arcade version in that the enemies move faster. Donkey Kong Jr. is a reasonably well representation of the arcade game, having all four screens, but is a bit easier to play.

 

Ice Climber was the pack-in game when the NES appeared in Austria in late 1987. And I don't think I need to say anything about Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros.

 

Then I played the Intellivision version of Tutankham which basically contains the original arcade mazes, but is simplified a bit. The first thing you'll notice is that it moves much slower than the original version. But it's still hard since the enemies often outrun you, although they have somewhat weaker AI in that they only change direction when they bump into something. This creates some safe zones where the enemies will never get because they are unreachable for their AI. Contrary to the Atari 2600 version, you can score considerably more points by shooting enemies, and it's possible to shoot the same enemy multiple times by hitting its explosion again, which will start the explosion cycle from the start. Sadly, the steering is somewhat imprecise so that you don't always go where you want to.

 

I also briefly tried the original arcade version of Tutankham to compare it to the Intellivision version.

 

Today I tried the newest version of D.K. VCS, which is basically a new port of Donkey Kong which is much truer to the arcade than Coleco's attempt. However, the enemies are not quite there yet.

 

Then I tried a free PC game called Mari0, which is basically a 1:1 port of Super Mario Bros., but Mario now has a portal gun which is able to create blue and orange portals. If Mario or an enemy runs or jumps into one side of the portal, they come out on the other side. You can also play this game over the Internet with up to 4 simultaneous players.

 

Lastly, I tried the original version of Circus Charlie after someone asked about any home versions in a thread here on Atariage. Checking out all the screens didn't take too long because you can select which stage you want to play before each level.

Edited by Kurt_Woloch
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My times for the week:

 

2600:

 

Snoopy and the red baron - 1hr

Army of darkness - 20min

 

7800:

 

Pole position II - 15min

Motor psycho - 20min

Donkey kong jr - 5min

Ms pacman - 20min

Planet smashers - 30min

Food fight - 45min

Ballblazer - 5min

Water ski - 15min

Failsafe - 40min

centipede - 10

 

Jag:

 

Ultra vortek - 20min

Myst - 15min

Duckie egg - 30min

Degz - 5min

Slam Racer Demo - 10min

Jagmania - 15min

Pitfall the mayan adventure - 35min

 

Lynx:

 

Zaku - 20min

Blue lightning - 30min

Crystal mines II - 20min

 

Game gear:

 

Tom and jerry the movie - 5min

Sonic - 30min

Sonic 2 - 10min

Taz escape from mars - 5min

 

NES:

 

Isolated Warrior - 15min

Super mario bros - 10min

Gauntlet II - 25min

Teenage mutant ninja turtles II - 12min

 

SNES:

 

Bubsy - 20min

 

Flashback 4:

 

Space invaders - 10min

Save mary - 4min

 

Atari paddle plug n play:

 

Pong arcade - 10min

Super breakout - 7min

canyon bomber - 2min

night driver - 1min

Street racer - 3min

Demons to diamonds - 10min

 

Amiga:

 

International ninja rabbits - 6min

It came from the desert - 20min

Ogre - 3min

another world - 10min

Wild cup soccer - 45 min

Cabal - 5min

total carnage - 10min

Benefactor - 15min

Lionheart - 20min

Soccer kid - 10min

R-type - 7min

Flashback - 15min

Lost vikings - 25min

Brutal sports football - 20min

 

Pc:

 

8bit killer - 4hrs

they came from verminest - 45min

Endless forms most beutiful - 20min

Abbaye des morts - 10min

Insane joyriding in a jet powered bathtub through hyperspace - 20min

Super nova - 20min

Doomed dungeon - 36min

Seaquest Remake - 25min

7 minutes - 7min

 

 

Due to flooding i had the week off and got alot of gaming in :)

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Flashback 4:

 

Atari paddle plug n play:

 

I'll count these under the Atari 2600. What's "Pong arcade", is that unique to the Plug N Play?

 

Pc:

 

8bit killer - 4hrs

they came from verminest - 45min

Endless forms most beutiful - 20min

Abbaye des morts - 10min

Insane joyriding in a jet powered bathtub through hyperspace - 20min

Super nova - 20min

Doomed dungeon - 36min

Seaquest Remake - 25min

7 minutes - 7min

 

I'm assuming none of these are running under DOS, Windows 95 or 98, and thus aren't eligible -- right?

 

Due to flooding i had the week off and got alot of gaming in :)

 

Nice one! :)

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My times for the week:

 

Atari 2600:

Donkey Kong VCS WIP - 3 min.

 

NES:

Elevator Action - 3 min.

 

Genesis:

Dino Land - 10 min.

Shadow of the Beast II - 687 min.

Tony LaRussa Baseball - 550 min.

 

Beat Shadow of the Beast II on Easier and Normal modes, but haven't yet tamed Ridiculous, which lives up to its name. For now I've given up on that, and focused on getting my team (Boston) to the playoffs in Tony LaRussa Baseball, which I'm beating for the Sega-16 challenge. I won my division in the 13-game short season, 12-1, and now will take on Chicago in the ALCS.

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Here's the summary for Week 3, running from January 14 - 20. We logged 3276 minutes of eligible play, playing 77 games on a total of 13 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Shadow of the Beast II (Genesis) - 687

2. Tony La Russa Baseball (Genesis) - 550

3. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 483

4. Tutankham (Intellivision) - 250

5. Tutankham (Atari 2600) - 173

6. Snoopy and the Red Baron (Atari 2600) - 60

7. Wild Cup Soccer (Amiga) - 45

7. Food Fight (Atari 7800) - 45

9. Failsafe (Atari 7800) - 40

10. Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure (Atari Jaguar) - 35

10. BurgerTime (ColecoVision) - 35

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 483

2. Tutankham (Intellivision) - 250

3. Tutankham (Atari 2600) - 173

4. Snoopy and the Red Baron (Atari 2600) - 60

5. Wild Cup Soccer (Amiga) - 45

5. Food Fight (Atari 7800) - 45

7. Failsafe (Atari 7800) - 40

8. BurgerTime (ColecoVision) - 35

9. Planet Smashers (Atari 7800) - 30

10. Lost Vikings (Amiga) - 25

10. Pitfall II (Atari 2600) - 25

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. Genesis (1247)

2. Atari 2600 (834)

3. Intellivision (250)

4. Amiga (211)

5. Atari 7800 (205)

6. NES/Famicom (165)

7. Atari Jaguar (125)

8. Atari Lynx (70)

9. ColecoVision (60)

10. Game Gear (50)

 

This week Electronic Arts' offerings for the Genesis top the charts, as the punishingly difficult Shadow of the Beast II is trailed by the ridiculously easy Tony La Russa Baseball. Meanwhile, the seldom-seen Amiga rockets to the #4 position in the charts, and the evergreen Kaboom rules the pre-NES charts, with a score that passes 500K in an early salvo towards the 999,999 mark!

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