carlsson Posted December 1, 2021 Author Share Posted December 1, 2021 (edited) Cool, I'll add the extra minutes for next week as well. Yes, the main point of the tracker is to count how long you play each game in order to put together top lists and yearly total stats. Some of us use stop watches to get down to exact number of minutes, some make estimates which is just as fine. Edit: I suppose the word "actually" in the thread title origins from this more precise reporting, a bit like your financial data is "actually" confirmed once you have filed them to IRS. No other similarities assumed. Edited December 1, 2021 by carlsson 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+thegoldenband Posted December 1, 2021 Share Posted December 1, 2021 I wonder if any future scholars in the field of (ahem) ludology will find the information in this thread useful? The sample size is small but the time period large! BTW I just write down the time when I start playing, and then when I stop (or just do the calculation in my head and write the number of minutes). Many a piece of junk mail has gone on to have a second life as a record of my gameplay! 5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted December 1, 2021 Author Share Posted December 1, 2021 Yeah, it will turn out that Kaboom! was the most important Activision game at least for the first 20 years of their existence. Sure, that might be the case even without the tracker. 2 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+thegoldenband Posted December 2, 2021 Share Posted December 2, 2021 "Well, I think so." 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oyamafamily Posted December 5, 2021 Share Posted December 5, 2021 ATARI 2600 Asteroids - 122 minutes Combat - 7 minutes Fantastic Voyage - 135 minutes Galaxian - 16 minutes Pac-Man - 5 minutes Road Runner (for HSC) - 25 minutes ATARI 8-BIT Fantastic Voyage - 92 minutes EVIDENCE OF THE WEEK: My Fantastic Voyage gameplay footage on Atari 8-BIT, Default Game Variation 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+neogeo1982 Posted December 5, 2021 Share Posted December 5, 2021 Atari Jaguar Kings of Edom - 600mins (full run pictured) Protector Se - 35min Atari Lynx Zaku - 150min (pictured) T-Tris - 100min Centipede - 30min Critter Championship - 50min Unseen - 30min Qix - 30min Atari 2600 Centipede - 45min Dark Caverns - 30min Yars' Return - 20min Sabateur - 20min Pitfall - 20min Man I feel dirty having played a single game that long this week. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Pendleton Posted December 5, 2021 Share Posted December 5, 2021 After a few weeks of not much on old side, I have gone back to old side but without a lot of focus. My old Japanese launch Dreamcast doesn't seem to give me a perfect image with the OSSC on any combination of settings, but I discovered that my new pink Sakura Taisen Dreamcast does. I wasn't planning on using it as my primary Dreamcast since it's kind of rare and I can't play Xeno Crisis on it since it's a VA2, but I might as well if it gives me a better picture. It's also way more quiet than my launch Dreamcast, which sounds like a damn drill or electric screwdriver or something whenever the laser seeks. Saturn After Burner II - 20 Hanagumi Taisen Columns - 131 How much did I pay for this? Like 300~400 yen? Yeah, that's looking to be the best 300~400 yen I've ever spent. Normally Columns is something I can't wait to run away from as soon as I can, but not with this game's VS mode thing. I looked for this game's relatively uncommon Dreamcast sequel in Akiba for the past few months, but I gave up and ordered it online and it will be here today. Sonic 3 & Knuckles - 165 Thunder Force AC - 25 Thunder Force V - 39 Dreamcast Ikaruga - 30 Karous - 89 Here is the last Dreamcast game. It's okay, I guess. The graphics are kind of dull and mostly just exist and the music volume is way too quiet to really hear it. Apparently there's something going on with its ultra-edgy story and whatever, but since it's all done through textboxes at the bottom of the screen with no voice acting, I've no idea what's going on since I'm not going to stop paying attention to the massive walls of enemy shots to read the text boxes. Not too expensive and probably cheaper and easier to find than the NAOMI cartridge, assuming you even have a NAOMI, so definitely try it if you need a bland shooter for Dreamcast. Power Stone 2 - 19 SGGG - 75 It's the famous Sega simulation. This game is technically not great at all, novelty is the only real reason to play it, and you'll probably lose interest very quickly if you hate pre-2002 Sega for whatever reason, but if you do love pre-2002 Sega, YOU MUST PLAY IT. I have too many RPGs to play right now, so I'll work on this one slowly. Soulcalibur - 22 Sonic Adventure 2 - 7 Xeno Crisis - 28 Genesis/MD Slap Fight MD - 20 Arcade Out Run - 11 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted December 5, 2021 Author Share Posted December 5, 2021 Late Sunday afternoon session at the end of the HSC round: Atari 8-bit: Mega Blaster - 21 min. MegaGun - 6 min. MegaMania - 20 min. Megalegs - 13 min. I wonder if MegaGun requires paddles or a trackball in order to be fully playable. Also Mega Blaster is perfectly doable until level 5 when all hell breaks loose, making you lose 7-8 lives in quick succession. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atarian7 Posted December 6, 2021 Share Posted December 6, 2021 Atari 2600 Asteroids - 35 minutes Galaxian - 77 minutes Hunchy II - 29 minutes Solar Fox - 70 minutes 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jgkspsx Posted December 6, 2021 Share Posted December 6, 2021 Here’s my report for the week: Master System: Power Strike - 35 minutes Mark III: Aleste - 25 minutes Yes, they’re almost the same game, but there are a few changes. Lynx: Critter Championship - 65 minutes T-Tris: 85 minutes at least. As my lack of progress continued I kind of lost track of time. game.com: Mortal Kombat Trilogy - 20 minutes. I even did a fatality. Lost to Shao Khan. The Lost World: Jurassic Park - 20 minutes. Played as the bad guy. Found three of the stegosaur eggs, died like a chump as usual. Channel F: Hockey (built in) - 25 minutes Videocart 1 (Tic Tac Toe) - 15 minutes. Won a few matches, tied most, only lost the last one on purpose to get this special post-Thanksgiving message: Tabletop: Epoch Dracula - 60 minutes. LCD handheld: Pooyan - 20 minutes. Gakken did so much better with a friggin LCD game than Konami themselves did on the 2600. Atari 7800: Ms Pac Man - 75 minutes. Four questions define the whole experience: “why didn’t she turn?” “why did she turn???” “why didn’t I turn??” “why did I turn????” Atari 2600: Gyruss - 25 minutes. Graphically rough but I really enjoy the way it plays. Galaxian - 175 minutes for high score challenge. Asteroids - 65 minutes for the high score challenge. Crystal Castles - 45 minutes for the Evercade high score challenge. NES/Famicom: Crisisforce - 45 minutes. More like an Aleste game than Star Soldier is. It never lets you feel powerless for very long if at all. Star Soldier - 20 minutes. I don’t hate it. Hector ‘87 - 25 minutes. I do kind of hate it. Section Z - 20 minutes. City Connection - 60 minutes for an Evercade group high score challenge. Genesis: Alter Ego: Dreamwalker - 50 minutes. Beat the game. Is it the only Windows Phone game to be ported to the Mega Drive…? Tom Mason’s Dinosaurs for Hire - 25 minutes. Vectrex: Minestorm - 25 minutes. Half with a broken joystick and half with a fixed one. Turbografx/PCE: Space Harrier - 20 minutes. Märchen Maze - 15 minutes Zipang - 15 minutes. Challenging password system… 5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agb Posted December 6, 2021 Share Posted December 6, 2021 Atari 2600 Asteroids 15 HSC Eggomania 71 good score of 148,822 Galaxian 23 HSC Kaboom 40 Road Runner 7 HSC Solar Fox 135 All fun. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digdugnate Posted December 6, 2021 Share Posted December 6, 2021 No times recorded for the Classic Tracker this last week. 2 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+thegoldenband Posted December 6, 2021 Share Posted December 6, 2021 My time for the week: MC-10: Gargoyle Castle - 103 min. Beat another text adventure with my other half. This one went quicker than it might have: a couple of lucky guesses saved us an hour or so of banging our heads against a wall. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGameCollector Posted December 7, 2021 Share Posted December 7, 2021 I spent the second half of the week mostly mixing audio but still played a bit the first few days. Faxanadu for NES - 163 minutes The Great Waldo Search for SNES - 17 minutes Ms. Pac-Man for Genesis - 44 minutes Pilotwings for SNES - 83 minutes Sonic Spinball for Genesis - 44 minutes Super Mario World for SNES - 179 minutes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for NES - 85 minutes Progress Faxanadu - played through the whole game The Great Waldo Search - beat all 3 modes in 17 minutes because it's too easy Ms. Pac-Man for Genesis - Beat Strange mazes on Easy with Pac-Booster always on. Beat my last score record as well as getting further without using any continues. Pilotwings - Played through the whole game Sonic Spinball - Played through the whole game Super Mario World - Played through the whole game getting all 96 exits Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Played through the whole game, used save states at beginnings of levels or rooms as necessary 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skippy B. Coyote Posted December 7, 2021 Share Posted December 7, 2021 (edited) Another fun week for gaming around here this week! The majority of my gaming time was spent finishing my playthrough of Metro 2033 Redux and then doing a full playthrough the sequel of Metro: Last Light Redux on the Switch, and I really enjoyed both of them! They're very atmospheric and story driven first-person shooters with no small amount of horror, in the forms of both horrific monsters and some humans who may be even worse than the monsters, and it was definitely a gaming experience that'll stick with me for a good long time. The real gaming highlight of the week though was playing one of my all time favorite Atari 2600 games for the High Score Club: Road Runner! There's no way I couldn't love a game where the coyote always wins in the end, and Road Runner is just an exceptionally fun, polished, and challenging late release for the 2600. After no small amount of practice I finally beat level 4 for the first time and scored over 100K points... and then accidentally snapped my joystick just seconds into level 5, which promptly ended my high score run even though I still had two lives left to spare With that little problem in mind, today I put down the money to have RetroGameBoyz build me a custom Atari 2600 themed single button version of his Atari/Commodore arcade stick ( https://retrogameboyz.com/products/commodore-64-atari-2600-arcade-stick-with-push-up-to-jump-button-mold-injection-case ) so hopefully in a month or so I should get a nice responsive joystick in the mail that I won't be able to break. In the meantime I'll try to be gentle on my last surviving CX-40 Ineligible (All Nintendo Switch) Metro 2033 Redux - 595 minutes Metro: Last Light Redux - 965 minutes Arcade Thunder Force AC - 15 minutes Atari 2600 Asteroids - 29 minutes Galaxian - 30 minutes Road Runner - 225 minutes RealSports Boxing - 9 minutes Total Video Game Play Time This Week 1,868 minutes (31 hours 8 minutes) [308 minutes eligible] Individual System Play Times This Week Nintendo Switch: 1,560 minutes Atari 2600: 293 minutes Arcade: 15 minutes Edited December 7, 2021 by Skippy B. Coyote 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted December 7, 2021 Author Share Posted December 7, 2021 Here's the summary for Week 48, running from Nov 29 - Dec 5. We logged 5236 minutes of eligible play, playing 79 games on a total of 19 systems. Top 10: 1. Kings of Edom (Atari Jaguar) - 600 min. 2. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 405 min. 3. Galaxian (Atari 2600) - 321 min. (#2) 4. Asteroids (Atari 2600) - 266 min. (#1) 5. Road Runner (Atari 2600) - 257 min. 6. T-tris (Atari Lynx) - 185 min. 7. Super Mario World (SNES) - 179 min. 8. Sonic 3 & Knuckles (Sega Saturn) - 165 min. 9. Faxanadu (NES/Famicom) - 163 min. 10. Zaku (Atari Lynx) - 150 min. Pre-NES top 10: 1. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 405 min. (PN#8) 2. Galaxian (Atari 2600) - 321 min. (PN#2) 3. Asteroids (Atari 2600) - 266 min. (PN#1) 4. Road Runner (Atari 2600) - 257 min. 5. Fantastic Voyage (Atari 2600) - 135 min. (PN#3) 6. Gargoyle Castle (TRS-80 MC-10) - 103 min. 7. Fantastic Voyage (Atari 8-bit) - 92 min. 8. Ms. Pac-Man (Atari 7800) - 75 min. (PN#10) 9. Eggomania (Atari 2600) - 71 min. 10. Dracula (Epoch tabletop) (Handheld/Tabletop) - 60 min. Top 10 systems: 1. Atari 2600 (1750) (#2) 2. Atari Jaguar (700) (#7) 3. Atari Lynx (540) (#1) 4. NES/Famicom (418) (#3) 5. Sega Saturn (380) (#9) 6. SNES (279) 7. Dreamcast (270) 8. Genesis (223) (#5) 9. Atari 8-bit (152) 10. TRS-80 MC-10 (103) Kings of Edom not only becomes the most played game this week, despite several combined HSC efforts. It also becomes member #470 on the 1000 Minute Club with a total of 1420 minutes so far. That makes it 8 games for the Atari Jaguar with more than 1000 minutes in the bag. Solar Fox is in overall 2nd place and pre-NES #1 thanks to minutes carrying over from last week, while Galaxian and Asteroids are multi-player games. Quite obviously the Atari 2600 becomes the most played system with a total of 6 participants and 1750 minutes, with the Jaguar and Lynx in the runner-up positions. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jgkspsx Posted December 7, 2021 Share Posted December 7, 2021 1 hour ago, carlsson said: Quite obviously the Atari 2600 becomes the most played system with a total of 6 participants and 1750 minutes, with the Jaguar and Lynx in the runner-up positions. Weird. You would think this was an Atari forum or something! Congratulations to @phoboz and @Songbird (am I leaving out artists and music composers?) for one of the fastest thousand minute club entries ever! 2 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted December 7, 2021 Author Share Posted December 7, 2021 Yes, that is true. Kings of Edom debuted in the tracker in week 43 with 720 min, then in weeks 47 and 48 scored 100 and 600 mins respectively to reach this milestone. Sure there may happen that a game goes from nothing to 1000+ min in the same week but for dynamic growth it is quite fast. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+neogeo1982 Posted December 8, 2021 Share Posted December 8, 2021 1 hour ago, carlsson said: Kings of Edom I think because of how this title is constructed. You cannot just pick up and play for 20 minutes at a time. It requires a significant time investment on each playthrough in one sitting to make any progress. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoboz Posted December 10, 2021 Share Posted December 10, 2021 (edited) On 12/8/2021 at 1:05 AM, neogeo1982 said: I think because of how this title is constructed. You cannot just pick up and play for 20 minutes at a time. It requires a significant time investment on each playthrough in one sitting to make any progress. That is true, as you can see in this video it takes some time to complete a full run: https://m.twitch.tv/videos/1212797955 This only gives you the "bad" ending, if you are going for the "good" ending you better be prepared to spend several hours more (to find all the crowns) However, if you are not good at this game, or simply unlucky it might end after 10-20 minutes. Edited December 10, 2021 by phoboz 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
high voltage Posted December 10, 2021 Share Posted December 10, 2021 (edited) Played Spike's Peak VCS (Xonox) for 1 hour. Excellent game. Edited December 10, 2021 by high voltage 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Pendleton Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 (edited) Lots of stuff this time, mostly here due to some testing of various mini consoles. Saturn Thunder Force II MD - 16 Dreamcast Hanagumi Taisen Columns 2 - 336 Karous - 16 PC Engine CD Akumajou Dracula X Chi no Rondo - 31 Force Gear - 4 Gate of Thunder - 21 Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire - 17 Twinbee Returns - 2 Valis - 10 (estimate) Valis II - 3 (estimate) Valis III - 3 (estimate) PC Engine Gradius - 13 R-Type (US) - 4 Soldier Blade - 69 Soldier Blade Special Caravan Stage - 2 SuperGrafx Daimakaimura - 7 Genesis/MD Contra The Hard Corps - 12 Gaiares - 14 Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - 7 Sonic 3 & Knuckles - 50 Thunder Force III - 11 32X Tempo - 11 Edited December 12, 2021 by Steven Pendleton 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted December 12, 2021 Author Share Posted December 12, 2021 Atari 2600: Bowling - 10 min. Atari 8-bit: Lone Raider - 10 min. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onlyinajeep Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 (edited) First time submitter. I came across this thread early in the week, started keeping track of time....now, seeing the time, I'm not sure this is information I want to quantitize Played CoCo shamus for a HS contest, just had to play the other versions for comparison. I had only previously played the VIC-20 port, it's still my favorite. Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer 2 Shamus - 200 min. Popcorn - 25 min. Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer 3 Gate Crasher - 12 minutes Commodore PET (via emulation) PETSCII Zombie Lemmings - 44 min. Commodore VIC-20 Shamus - 26 min. Atari 8-bit Shamus - 20 min Pac-Man - 10 min Commodore 64 Shamus - 20 min TI99/4a Shamus - 30 min Atari ST Arkanoid - 30 min Edited December 12, 2021 by onlyinajeep 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+neogeo1982 Posted December 12, 2021 Share Posted December 12, 2021 8 minutes ago, onlyinajeep said: I'm not sure this is information I want to quantitize Nothing wrong with letting loose with some gaming sometimes. It could be worse... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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