Donkey Kong Forum
Blogs => Player Blogs => Topic started by: ChrisP on January 26, 2013, 02:30:36 pm
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http://twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme (http://twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme)
I got my D2K/high score kit in December and I'm trying to get some decent scores on there.
I stopped playing D2K on MAME for a couple of weeks after having broken 200K a couple of times, and now I've started up again on the machine. After 8 attempts on the machine my best is only 155K. I appear to be bottlenecking around that area. I'm not sure what the problem is because I definitely "felt it" last month once I cracked through 200K. I guess I lost my momentum. Either that or the machine is different in some way I'm not conscious of.
I've played 6 full games of DK post-kit installation, the last two of which were top-hammer only. Best of those 6 was 682,000.
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Last night: began with some false starts at DK, then switched to D2K and beat the saved high of 155,000 with 163,800.
I switched back to DK and managed to play out a game: only 383,900 and I was running boards. Bleh, what a dumpster fire.
Was not in the zone.
However, I managed to bump into the elusive Invisible Ladder while playing D2K!
http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/1874657 (http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/1874657)
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Yesterday I plugged in my DK Jr. board and asked Mark to come by and look at a peculiarity in the gameplay. Since I've barely played any Junior I wasn't sure, I'd just noticed that one of the nitpickers on my machine flies lower than it does in the MAME version!
http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/1879615 (http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/1879615)
Not sure if it gets weirder down the line on later levels because I still suck way too bad at the game to get anywhere. ;D
Here's a shot of the ROMs. The bottom two are clearly not factory:
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Wow! Not gonna lie, that's actually pretty cool! I bet ya Mark would love to try his hand at that board!
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Well, Chris it would appear you have an unmamed official Nintendo DKJR Modification Kit! Awesome!
http://mamedev.org/source/src/mame/drivers/dkong.c (http://mamedev.org/source/src/mame/drivers/dkong.c)
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Donkey Kong Junior Notes
========================
DJR-03 Donkey Kong Modification Kits 02-23-83
--------------------------------------------------------------
Nintendo Service Department Bulletin # DJR-03 02-23-83
GAME: Donkey Kong Junior
SUBJECT: Play Time
It has come to our attention that play time on Donkey Kong
Junior is, in some cases, excessive, while in other cases
there is concern over the ability of players to learn the
game and thereby retain an interest in playing.
We are making available, through our Nintendo Distributors,
two EPROM change kits, designated DJR1-E and DJR1-P.
The E kit consists of four (4) chips and is an easier version
of the program. it presents the board sequence in a way which
familiarizes the players with the game faster. The board
order is vines, springboard, Mario's hideout and keys.
The P kit is a more difficult version consisting of two chips.
The order remains the same while more and faster
obstacles (snapjaws, nitpickers, etc.) are presented.
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E-Kit - roms
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Filename Label Type Loc/PCB CSum
----------- -------------- ------ ------- ---- --
2732.5Ae DJR1-C-5A e 2732 5A(CPU) 68E9
2764.5Be DJR1-C-5B e 2764 5B(CPU) B0CF
2764.5Ce DJR1-C-5C e 2764 5C(CPU) FC64
2764.5Ee DJR1-C-5E e 2764 5E(CPU) 7CC6
------------------------------------------------
P-Kit roms (Still looking for these, suffix is
more than likely P. :)
------------------------------------------------
Filename Label Type Loc/PCB CSum
----------- -------------- ------ ------- ---- --
empty --------- ---- 5A(CPU) ----
2764.5Bp DJR1-C-5B p 2764 5B(CPU) 1B58
2764.5Cp DJR1-C-5C p 2764 5C(CPU) F4FE
------------------------------------------------
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Cool, so he has one of the harder boards (?). It looked like the birds were significantly faster.
Edit: On second look, they look to maybe be the same speed.
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WOW! So this IS official??
And the MAME team is "still looking for these"?
Too bad I don't have a ROM burner. Damn, I would like to get this P-Kit to the MAME team and have them add it for posterity.
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Hah! I called it. ;)
I'm surprised that we don't see more of these out there.
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I've decided to record, but not stream, for a while.
I'm not sure if it's a coincidence, but I invariably do better when I'm "alone." I seem to be more capable of getting into the magical DK zone when it's just me and the machine. There's just something about the intimacy of it.
I guess it makes sense, because there's no way that the chat isn't at least something of a distraction, and when I start yammering with everybody I definitely lose focus. My brain doesn't want to have to produce words and play at the same time.
The annoying thing is that XSplit puts a big, ugly watermark on local recordings, but not on streams, even though when you stream you can tick a box that saves a local copy of the stream but without the watermark! So I had to set up a second Twitch account solely for "private" streaming so that I can uselessly stream to 0 viewers but get watermark-free recordings.
P.S. as of this post, Mitchell and I are tied at 38 for total post count, which is good, now I don't feel like I'm posting too much...
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I've decided to record, but not stream, for a while.
I'm not sure if it's a coincidence, but I invariably do better when I'm "alone." I seem to be more capable of getting into the magical DK zone when it's just me and the machine. There's just something about the intimacy of it.
I guess it makes sense, because there's no way that the chat isn't at least something of a distraction, and when I start yammering with everybody I definitely lose focus. My brain doesn't want to have to produce words and play at the same time.
The annoying thing is that XSplit puts a big, ugly watermark on local recordings, but not on streams, even though when you stream you can tick a box that saves a local copy of the stream but without the watermark! So I had to set up a second Twitch account solely for "private" streaming so that I can uselessly stream to 0 viewers but get watermark-free recordings.
P.S. as of this post, Mitchell and I are tied at 38 for total post count, which is good, now I don't feel like I'm posting too much...
For local recording i prefer flash media encoder to xsplit. mostly because you have more control over the output, limit time, size and what not, as well as no watermark or streaming requirement. You also get better quality video and audio.
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looks like a bootleg to me
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looks like a bootleg to me
It's an original Nintendo board. It's just had 2 ROM chips replaced.
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Haha, Chris. Post wars! Honestly, I swing back and forth from wanting to post more (since so much is still needed to get these forums up to date on all the info that is either lost or simply posted on other forums), to wanting to post less (simply because I am lazy). Eventually we will have this forum really loaded with well-organized info, and even now this place is turning into an awesome place!
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Ken, thanks for the tip on FMLE!
I am having such a better time with this than XSplit. I feel like I have more fine-tuning control over everything, I'm getting less frame-skipping and other BS, it's fine for a "single camera" thing like I'm doing with my DK games, and the program doesn't take an hour to start up (waiting for XSplit to start is torture). This is definitely the way to go.
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You should try FFSplit for streaming instead of XSplit
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I might have to stream a D2K 300K attempt in a bit... I am still weighing that option.
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OK, let's do this shizz.
In about 20 minutes I will be streaming D2K. The audio entertainment will be the director's commentary of King of Kong.
http://www.twitch.tv/ChrisP_Kreme (http://www.twitch.tv/ChrisP_Kreme)
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207,200!
Not 300, but not bad.
Thanks for watching, Mr. Staal!
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Just got kill screen #4!
Not streamed (recorded though), and I fell just short of my PB. but I'll take it.
I think I'll take a break until the tournament!
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Just got kill screen #4!
Not streamed (recorded though), and I fell just short of my PB. but I'll take it.
I think I'll take a break until the tournament!
Congratulations, Chris!
Don't take too long of a break, as you're currently only 4 kill screens ahead of me. ;)
Any details you can share with us on the game? Pace? 1 or 2-hammer? Deaths? Harrowing near-deaths where you reached into your bag of tricks and survived?
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So, like I said, I have had 4 kill screens in all: the first on MAME in December 2011, the second "live" at a nearby arcade in September 2012 (after dying on 1-1, which I've now mentioned here and there too many times and will stop mentioning it), the third on my machine about a month later in October, and now this one with the D2K/high save kit, which makes me happy, because now it's there forever.
I went with the same strategy I did for the other kill screen on my machine: start at million-point pace until the first death, then switch to top-hammer only.
My first death came on L6 conveyors and I said "what the heck, this run is so shallow at this point I might as well keep up the double-hammers for a while."
When I started 8-3, after a bad conveyor, I was only at 271K and decided that my pace was so bad (975K or so) that I might as well just run boards and try to get a 900K kill screen.
Nothing much else interesting to say. My conveyors were nasty (all 3 of my deaths were on conveyors - L6, L10, and L14), and my rivets were kind. I kept my last guy going for 47 screens so that's always nice.
I blew it on the kill screen. I wanted to do what Jeff did on his at the KO2, where he backjumped the first barrel before smashing it and the second and got 800 kill screen points (something that never even occurred to me as being possible until I saw him do it), and got so fixated on it that I didn't notice Kong throwing the last barrel! If I hadn't been screwing around I could have gotten THREE smashes for the super-elusive 1000 point kill screen. Oh well.
As it turned out, I only smashed the barrel I backjumped (because I forgot to steer the other one, like a bonehead), missed the wild barrel smash by a mile, and ended up with a 500 point kill screen. Tried to show off and got totally owned.
I'm looking forward to the tournament next month. At a Kong Off I know that I'd have no shot whatsoever of coming anywhere near the the top 5, even if I had a dedicated machine, but I think I'm right in the wheelhouse with the average level of skill in the wildcard field. I'll just have to break Ross's keyboard first.
EDIT: I changed "hands" to "keyboard." Even as a joke it just didn't sit right!
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Nice work Chris! That's an impressive number of Kill Screen games!
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And there he is, one of the top three guys I'm most afraid of in this... ;D
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Haha, well in all honesty I need to hop back on the DK train and play more...League of Legends has completely taken over my video game playing time...
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I blew it on the kill screen. I wanted to do what Jeff did on his at the KO2, where he backjumped the first barrel before smashing it and the second and got 800 kill screen points (something that never even occurred to me as being possible until I saw him do it), and got so fixated on it that I didn't notice Kong throwing the last barrel! If I hadn't been screwing around I could have gotten THREE smashes for the super-elusive 1000 point kill screen. Oh well.
As it turned out, I only smashed the barrel I backjumped (because I forgot to steer the other one, like a bonehead), missed the wild barrel smash by a mile, and ended up with a 500 point kill screen. Tried to show off and got totally owned.
I changed "hands" to "keyboard." Even as a joke it just didn't sit right![/i]
Don't feel bad Chris! That jump is not as easy as Jeff makes it look. Reason being you have to control the barrel to the left while you are in the midst of the backjump (to the right). That's a lot of jerking left/right.
Usually by the end of the game, I'm so tired (and celebrating so much) that I'll settle for the customary 700/400 points. Also, I don't want to pull a Vincent Lemay (try to get 800 points and end up with 100 points because of missing the backjump). If you want the extra 100, I'd actually suggest doing a forward jump/back smash (like we do with the top hammer) as it makes controlling that left barrel easier.
I've had probably 50-100 killscreens now, and I have yet to get 1000 points on the killscreen. That's probably AGAINST the odds but DK seems to screw me in every way possible.
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So what you're saying is, I got more points than Vincent on something he was attempting in Donkey Kong? Cool, you and I have that in common!
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As it turned out, I only smashed the barrel I backjumped (because I forgot to steer the other one, like a bonehead)
Haha, I actually did that exact thing on my first killscreen at the kong off and ended up with only 500 points (I didn't have a wild barrel coming though for a potential 1k). Fortunately, I got it right the second time.
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Point pressing the kill screen? Wow, SOME people are taking point pressing WAY too far ... ;)
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Chris, yeah maybe you got more than me ONE TIME on the kill screen, but I still got 800 points on the kill screen!! haha (the kill screen means everything to me, and I want to be the champion on that screen! lol). But yeah, I got 100 points, and I'm proud to say that I'm probably the only one that died on the kill screen before dying on the kill screen (... anyway, it works when I say it in my head!)
But Dean got 1,100 (I think, or maybe it was 1k) on the kill screen when he was practicing for the Kong Off (back jump + 2 regular barrels smash + a wild barrel). Maybe he didn't do the backjump, though, I don't remember.
For the moment, Dean has the record of points on the kill screen... and the bad thing about that is that it's pretty hard to do attempts on the most points on the kill screen... each attempt takes 1h20, I don't think it's worth it! haha.
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Actually Vincent, I got 0 points on my kill screen. My camcorder battery died, and I kinda went into a panic because I wanted to get the kill screen on tape...so I grabbed my phone and started taking video with my right hand...but when the time came to jump barrels I still had my phone in my hand and died trying to jump the first barrel. Here is the video:
First DK Kill Screen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kfgs_xFObpI#)
Looking back all I needed to do was move away from the oil can and then take my left hand off the controller and jump with my left hand...and I probably woulda been able to see the kill screen kick in. Oops.
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I figure the forum has been oiled up nicely, so I posted a link in the sidebar of my blog. Bring on the noobs!
Incidentally, if you wanna use the image I made, have at it.
Another quick blog update or two are coming soon...
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Awesome Chris! I like it! I'll put it up tomorrow. 8)
Thanks!
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It was just going to be text, but in that drawing Jumpman looks like he's saying "Point of order!" or "Consider THIS!" so I couldn't resist.
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Ditto! That is sweet Chris. It's very exciting having such a tight, well acquainted, and team-like community of Kong players that are able to pull their skills/knowledge together. Thanks for all your work you do on the blog as purely a labor of love (love... Donkey Kong!?... is that even possible?!!!!) ;) .
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No need to thank me, it's fun!
I think I drive a couple people crazy (one whose initials are DS) by not updating it more often, but I take that as the highest compliment.
I'd rather go slow but steady than burn out on it and move on.
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TOURNAMENT UPDATE: 6 games of running boards and I haven't even broken 400K. I want to play more but I've been up for 21 hours so I guess I'll follow my dumb brain's instructions to get some sleep and come at it again.
'
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This is going to be too long, but I'm gonna talk through my Donkey Kong hangover.
Obviously this tournament wasn't my finest hour. In fact, my performance was so weak that I would actually use the word "surprised" before "disappointed."
- I started a total of 21 games.
- I had 10 false starts (aborted before L5)
- Of my 11 full games, my top 3 were 647,700, 583,700, and 461,100
That's bad!
I chopped all of my streams into individual games. My total in-stream time was 10 hrs and 45 minutes. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I played longer than anybody else. Which makes my sub-par performance even more bewildering.
All I wanted from this tourney was to knock out a simple 850-875K kill screen. Based on the last tourney, I thought that might be good enough for top 3. And based on my results over the last year, I thought I could do it without incident.
Since my first MAME kill screen in December 2011 up until the start of the tournament, I'd played just under 30 full "top hammer only" games, and three of those were kill screens. So it seemed to be a roughly 1-in-10 proposition.
Yesterday showed otherwise! 11 full games and I came up way short. Oh well.
What was great about this tournament were all of the things I learned from it.
Lesson 1: I need to PRACTICE before one of these. On two occasions in 2012, I walked up to the machine and got a kill screen after not having touched the game in months, and made some erroneous conclusions because of it.
I'm going back to the more common-sense approach of erring on the side of preparation. I wasted all of the Friday night session just getting back into the swing of things (dying on springs, not "thinking right" on the rivets, etc.), and it continued when I started the afternoon session. I feel like I finally got all the rust knocked off right around the time I was starting to get fatigued. D'oh!
Lesson 2: Speaking of fatigue, mental factors aside, a long session on the arcade machine is actually *physically* exhausting! I'd never played for more than 2 or 3 hours at a time on the cab. By the end, my body (arms and back mostly) was actually more tired than my brain. Maybe I get into it too much, but when I'm completely tensing up my upper body and knocking the joystick left or right with all of my strength, it's almost like a workout.
Lesson 3: The field is becoming better and better, and I'm not. You know things are getting real when a one-day tournament, one that excludes the top 10 players, nonetheless produces six 900K+ scores. I mean, holy crap! So I'm going to need to decide whether I want to try to shape up and get serious again or let this game pass me by. (I could go either way on that, honestly. I don't know if I'm willing to put in the time and effort I'd need to get as good as even the medium-tier players of today.)
Lesson 4: I hate, hate, HATE the freaking pie factory!!! The fireballs on my machine just happened to schedule their Bottom Conveyor Dance Festival for March 16th. It was merciless. Even L3 pie factories were beastly, and my second-best play of the tournament came during one of them. I saw them coming and said "bite my crank, I'm NOT going to let you kill me like this again, and definitely not on L3":
The mythical double jump! (http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/2039072)
This was number one - the "play of the day" for me. I generally start panicking and do something stupid when a fireball climbs onto my girder, but I managed to remain calm and work through this situation. I definitely got lucky, but I think I took decent advantage of the luck:
Sassy bottom fireball (http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/2038786)
Thanks to everyone who stopped by to say good luck!
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Is anyone else having trouble with Twitch highlights and videos in general?
I'm getting no timecode on some of these. My first highlight there claims to be 24 seconds, but then it just keeps going after the highlighted part, and there's no time code or progress bar on the bottom.
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yeah i had trouble with highlight too, i wanted to chop it right after i entered initials but it just keeps going...
man i felt like i played way too much DK for one day but 11 games is pretty hardcore!
i know what you mean about the physical stress, after a few hours on the cab i had to switch to mame from the sofa, and i took a bath in muscle soak before my final session on the cab ;D
dont beat yourself up for underperforming...im super pleased with my result, but i was a single death away from finishing below you, DK is just one of those games...
8)
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Is anyone else having trouble with Twitch highlights and videos in general?
I'm getting no timecode on some of these. My first highlight there claims to be 24 seconds, but then it just keeps going after the highlighted part, and there's no time code or progress bar on the bottom.
Yes, I have had similar issues...if you upload them to youtube, they are no longer broken.
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ADDENDUM: My total streaming time (~11 hours) was topped by Ben and Phil. I may be missing someone else, I didn't check everyone.
I don't know how much "dead time" either of them had, but both of them streamed for more than 16 hours. Wow!
Perhaps somebody would be up for iron-manning the next one? Just playing straight through the entire 24 hours. It would be so miserable! I kind of want to do it!
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I have been getting curb-stomped by DK for weeks.
So this game right HYEAH (http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/b/382082654) felt like a soul massage from God.
619,700 14-6! (990K pace)
There's hope for a million after all.
Also, here's this:
http://donkeykongblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/back-to-back-benziger-snatches-another.html (http://donkeykongblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/back-to-back-benziger-snatches-another.html)
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I'm just going to put this out in the open as a confessional or whatever so that I can stop being neurotic about it:
It's possible that nobody has noticed this, but the idea that people have and aren't saying anything out of politeness is anxiety-inducing, so just in case it HAS been noticed, the "Edited" tag appears at the bottom of my posts a lot. Probably like 80% of them. I apologize if anyone finds it annoying, but I am completely obsessive about any and all text that comes out of my keyboard and can't leave anything alone. I edited manuscripts for a living for years and it broke my brain. If there is something that can be improved, or (god forbid) a typo, I am almost physically incapable of refraining from fixing it.
So there it is. I am a compulsive post-editor.
*deep sigh of relief*
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I'm just going to put this out in the open as a confessional or whatever so that I can stop being neurotic about it:
It's possible that nobody has noticed this, but the idea that people have and aren't saying anything out of politeness is anxiety-inducing, so just in case it HAS been noticed, the "Edited" tag appears at the bottom of my posts a lot. Probably like 80% of them. I apologize if anyone finds it annoying, but I am completely obsessive about any and all text that comes out of my keyboard and can't leave anything alone. I edited manuscripts for a living for years and it broke my brain. If there is something that can be improved, or (god forbid) a typo, I am almost physically incapable of refraining from fixing it.
So there it is. I am a compulsive post-editor.
*deep sigh of relief*
You won't hear a peep out of me, as I'm a somewhat regular offender myself.
For the record, I don't find it the least bit annoying. On a few occasions, I've read your original message, then returned to the thread after a new reply had been posted. If I notice the "Last Edit" tag, I'll review your post to see if I can figure out what was modified. It's a mental exercise I can't resist. Sometimes I can spot the change easily. Other times not so much, either because the difference is subtle, or too many hours had passed since I read it the first time.
By the way, I'm probably guilty of mismatched verb tenses in the preceding paragraph, but I tend to let those go.
EDIT: I didn't actually change anything. I just wanted to edit my reply as a show of solidarity. :)
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Haha. No problem, Chris. I do the same thing, but I only ever really put the big 'EDIT:' at the bottom of my posts if the actual content has been changed significantly and it has been a while since I originally posted that particular post. Otherwise, for typos and very-quick-content-changes-after-I-just-posted fixes are not outright declared or made obvious. Editing, in the way in which you use it, is not annoying to me at all and is perfectly acceptable.
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This could sort of apply to arcade machines in general, but it's certainly true of Donkey Kong.
Has anyone ever felt that it was extremely inefficient, in a system-design sense, to dedicate not one but two buttons (or any buttons at all), complete with all the physics and wiring thereto, solely for the purpose of starting the game?
You could put your quarter in and just as easily hit "Jump", or wiggle the joystick, to start the game. Doing it that way you'd both streamline the design and save a significant amount in manufacturing and maintenance costs. Consider all of the electrical and mechanical parts (and the resulting potential complications) that you're introducing to the system with those impractical and superfluous buttons.
I guess the psychology of it was considered (or determined to be) profitable enough to justify the extra investment. After all, everything about the design of these things is exploiting psychology in one way or another. There's definitely a feeling of power/agency in pressing a specific button that does nothing but start the game. It also had to be idiot-proof and extremely straightforward/user-friendly to someone unfamiliar with such a machine.
I guess I answered my own question...
Another question, almost a more important one, what's the point of a two-player game of the "alternating" style, given that the players' individual games are 100% compartmentalized and in no way affect one another? Why not just play two one-player games back to back? Having to alternate is just obnoxious! Actually, a two-player game between any two members of this group is kind of a funny proposition: you'd play for a half hour or so, then get a totally unpredictable break of anywhere between 30 seconds to an hour!
Have any of you tried that with one another at some point, just to annoy yourselves?
The two player thing is, no doubt, psychological too, and must have become "industry standard" for a reason. That one I can't answer myself and I'd be interested in knowing the reason.
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i like the way two player DK games alternate, makes it a more interactive back/forth contest between players...not that iv ever played one, my mates think my cab is awesome but 5 mins playing and they're like 'fuck this stupid game, does it play anything else?' ;D
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Well, we're talking 1981 where most all games were alternating two-player. About the design, the cost for 2-buttons and the wire was pretty small to the over all design/construction.
But, this did make me start thinking, what was the first video to offer 2-player? Not 2 players at the same time, just the standard alternating 2-player game. Then, before looking thinking about it too long, I realize this was proabbly adapted from pinball, which would allow up to four players in an alternating method.
But, for the most part, remembering how it was back then, it made sense. Everyone wanted to play, so you didn't want to wait for someone's game to finish, when you can get your turn a lot fast to play these game after each man/ship was lost.
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About the design, the cost for 2-buttons and the wire was pretty small to the over all design/construction.
For any one individual machine yes, but I'm thinking on scale. For tens of thousands of machines the cost would add up. I suppose you could pass that into the sales price though.
I do think there is something to be said for the consideration that adding those buttons just adds more parts that have the potential to break/malfunction, which is something that any arcade operator would be looking to avoid.
But, for the most part, remembering how it was back then, it made sense. Everyone wanted to play, so you didn't want to wait for someone's game to finish, when you can get your turn a lot fast to play these game after each man/ship was lost.
That does make sense.
The social/competitive element is also enhanced by the alternating. There could also be an argument that it makes the game as a contest more suspenseful.
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Chris, back when my best DK score was about 300k, my friend Alex and I would play 2 player at Dave and Busters. It was pretty fun, because, at the time, Alex's best was about 220k, so it allowed us a chance to watch each others games and see what the other was doing that we could improve on. We were able to eat and drink all the while as well. It also allowed us to get used to playing while another person watches. Looking back (I definitely didn't realize this then), but watching each other play and focusing just as much on the other's game as our own game probably helped us each to learn to be ok with playing longer games -which would eventually come in the future, once we could get 500k+ on our own games.
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Last 2-player game of DK I played was with Brian Kuh at Funspot 5 years ago or so. ;D Some games lend better to 2-player games than others. Games like Centipede/Millipede are really fun that way. DK, not so much for me.
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I'm kinda glad that I am not qualified for KO3. I almost wouldn't even want a dedicated machine. Way too much going on!
And it's not like I would have the slightest glint of a chance against The Big Five (Hank, Dean, Jeff, Vincent, Wiebe) anyway. Not individually, and certainly not as a group, and I would probably need to get superlucky to beat any of the other 7 as well.
What I'm hoping is that while I'm there I can get a verified top 15 on the scoreboard for DK Junior (787,400+) and top 5 (200K+) on D2K. Really my only chance to make the board on either of those if I don't want to cough up a hundy or so.
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Not just anybody can sport my new avatar.
Drinkers of HATERADE need not apply.
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Sweet, I just got to use the Hank Chien Funspot Double-Cross.
Today my siblings were hanging out, and my in-laws were hanging out. But I wanted to hang out by myself and play Donkey Kong.
So I told my siblings I was going to be with my in-laws, and my in-laws that I was going to be with my siblings.
And here we are! Thanks Dr. Kong!
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So I told my siblings I was going to be with my in-laws, and my in-laws that I was going to be with my siblings.
Great use! I approve.
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I am up and running with a new streaming machine. Now my channel is in 30fps, rather than 15. And this machine can walk and chew gum at the same time. Yay!
I can actually stream MAME now without dropping frames. Maybe it's time to go back for my Junior killscreen, in public this time.
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Oh my god. I apologize to everybody who was in my stream tonight. You could hear that fan blowing on the mic THE WHOLE TIME!
I thought it was just when I was sitting directly in front of it, not the entirety of the time I was playing.
That was a totally unnecessary assault on your ears.
To say nothing of my incessant yammering. I was a real moonbat.
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Not at all man, you were hilarious and fun to watch.
You vent and spit wrath at the game well.
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Actually, I had to highlight one thing from tonight, because it's sort of nuts.
Some of you may remember a couple months back I posted a highlight giving an example of Super Happy Fun Time:
http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/1921900 (http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/1921900)
Tonight, at one point in a game, almost exactly the same situation unfolded. And when I say almost exactly, I mean almost exactly. And not just in the game! There are like 20 different parallels here, I thought it was kind of neat.
http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/2554190 (http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/2554190)
This one, however, has a very different ending! :D
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Nice highlights, Chris. Despite the diametrically opposite outcomes, both clips were thoroughly entertaining!
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That second clip didn't load with sound a couple times, at least for me, that's weird.
Doesn't really get its point across without sound.
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That second clip didn't load with sound a couple times, at least for me, that's weird.
Doesn't really get its point across without sound.
I had no sound issues with either clip. Agreed, the commentary complements the mayhem.
Here's a random observation. Replacing just one letter changes the title of your streaming session to:
Donkey Kong: Quest for SHFT Game
Perhaps the powers that govern DK randomness misread the title, and generously provided you with what they thought you wanted. ;)
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It was fking ridiculous of me not to go to California Extreme this year.
I live 45 minutes away.
I didn't even think about it until the last few weeks, and by the time came where I needed to start seriously thinking about it, it was too late and I'd made other plans.
I knew Eric was going, but I didn't know Ken, George, Richie, etc. were gonna be there too. I didn't realize it was gonna be a party!
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Man. I need to find some motivation somehow.
At the time I got my first kill screen on December 28th 2011, I believed I was the 23rd to do it. (In reality I was 30-somethingth, but I didn't know that because I was going by the TG boards, which were missing a bunch).
Getting a kill screen was a lot more interesting to me on the day that I did it. It felt like a bigger achievement.
Back then, the prospect of going for a million was downright exciting. As of that date, only six players had broken a million, and three of them did it in MAME. I thought, "wow, if I get an arcade machine and do this, I could be the fourth!" I started looking for one, and found it pretty quick.
My timing for making a run at this game really couldn't have been worse.
Two days after I got my kill screen and started considering the push for a million (12/30/11), Dave got it.
And then the floodgates opened!
Now, a year and a half later, we're pushing two dozen million-point players, and the kill screeners list has almost doubled since I got onto it.
As things stand now, I'm twice as good a player as I was in 12/11, but I have about a tenth of the motivation. I just don't have the fire anymore. I go for three to four month stretches without touching the game, and when I finally flop onto that stool, I play shittily and sloppily and don't really try.
I felt pretty puffed up at the end of 2011, but nowadays I'm sucking hind tit and I know it. I can't keep up with you monsters!
It's interesting to think that if I'd started playing a year earlier, everything would have been different. I very well might have been the fourth or fifth arcade million (I would have been trying a lot harder to improve and make attempts), and it would have been a biggish deal when I got it, qualifying me for KO2. Now, when it comes, it'll just be a "me too," underneath a stack of other millions, and won't qualify me for jack. ;D
Personally, a goal becomes less and less attractive to me the more people that have achieved it, whereas others seem to thrive in a more pressure cooker-type environment.
So, I'm curious: does the fact that so many more big scores are going up nowadays make the rest of you want to try harder, or, like me, just wanna say "meh, whatever"?
Judging by the last year and a half, it seems to be the former. Though, obviously, qualifying for the Kong Offs is a major factor in all this.
Having said all this, if I had to choose between having a big score on a smaller leaderboard (which didn't happen), or the increase in the community's size and vibrancy (which did happen), I'd take the community in a second. I'm happy with how it turned out. The community is proving to be more of a reward to me than the game ever was.
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This goes out to Brian Allen, Chris Icenhour, and Martin Laing:
RACE TO 900K!
Let's do it, suckas!
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What an obnoxious rut I'm in!
If DK ended at L15 I would killscreen 4 out of 5 games.
If it ended at L18 I would never get there.
And pace doesn't seem to make much of a difference, between 850 and 950.
I hit a 70%-75% wall, over and over.
Though I could probably stand to dump games where I've lost two guys by the end of L5 rivets, rather than waste the next hour running them out...
Confucius say: never enter desert with half-tank of gas.
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Dropping it for a month, until the tourney, I think.
At a certain point of too much DK (which is an extremely low threshold for me, seriously like 10 games a week is apparently "too much"), my brain gets lazy and goes into autopilot. It just stops seeing situations that require creative solutions, I play impatiently and pushily, etc.
It seems like I can either be rusty but super-attentive, or warmed up but dull as a butter knife. Very, very tiny window where I'm both warmed up AND attentive. I'm junk now, so I'm outta here.
Hopefully I'll be cutting back on the forum/stream-hanging too! :D
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That's a pretty accurate analysis of how I react to being subjected to various lengths of time playing DK. Too much and I go on tilt and swear at the machine and stuff, to little and I make more dumb mistakes...there's a sweet spot where you're in the zone, making all the necessary moves automatically...leaving your brain free to look ahead for traps and get out of difficult scenarios you otherwise would have died in.
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First quarter drop of the tourney and I got 694,100.
This is bad, and possibly good, and bad.
Bad because it's obnoxiously close to 700K.
Possibly good because I kept my last man going for 48 boards, which might hold up for last man bounty. Jon McKinnell got the bounty with 45 boards in #2. Of course, Mike G. got 68 first man in the first tourney, and Ben annihilated the first man in #3, so I'm not holding my breath, but we'll see.
Bad because I missed my best score in the last tourney by... get ready for this... 2,700 points!
Vincent, you and I now have a special bond (no homo).
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I've never made a news post involving myself on my blog, and it may never happen again, so I figured I would take this rare opportunity.
http://donkeykongblog.blogspot.com/2013/08/halway-point-of-wildcard-qualifier-2.html (http://donkeykongblog.blogspot.com/2013/08/halway-point-of-wildcard-qualifier-2.html)
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Link is jacked for me.
Anyways good shit Chris!. Proud of ya buddy.
Now quit writing and get back in there. A whole 'nother day of action.
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Oops, fixed it.
Thanks.
Tomorrow I'll go for a big one.
I really needed to do laundry and stuff this weekend, so I took the rest of the day off!
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Re - my new sig:
After my kill screen on Saturday I realized that my previous three games (as in, actual quarter-drops, not "full games minus restarts") had all been big.
I did 710,800 on 7/26, then 903,700 on my next quarter two days later, then I didn't touch the machine until the tourney, then I did 694,100 on my first start of the tourney.
The next day I got up, hit the service switch to test my mic levels (killing off the guy at 600 points), then started my stream and got 893,100.
After that of course I had a non-stop stream of horseshit for about 15 games (Sunday was a nightmare), but I was certainly running with the ball there for a few games!
At first I thought it was just pretty cool, but then I thought about it more tonight and realized that 3,200,000 points in 4 sequential games is probably a record. Granted, it's a "record" that I invented only when I realized I had it, and several players could beat it without much difficulty if they set out with the intention to beat it, but DKF is the land of novelty world records, so I'm gonna claim this one! 8)
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I think that's cool Chris, and not an easy accomplishment, the $1 World Record. It has a nice ring to it...
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I think that's cool Chris, and not an easy accomplishment, the $1 World Record. It has a nice ring to it...
Another DK killscreener gets pied.
I was fond of the conveyor pie icon, and miss it already.
As Tooter Turtle might say:
"Help Mr. Wizard! I don't want to be a Spring Jumper anymore!"
Too arcane a reference for some of you younger guys? 8)
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The good thing about my record is that even though Hank, Dean, Vincent (etc.) could beat it, it would take like 8 hours, so it would be a boring, pointless, pain in the ass to beat.
Feeling pretty good about this one. ;D
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http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/2880632 (http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/2880632)
Opinions: is there a way out of this?
EDIT: I played through the inp and made a savestate right when I get on the ladder, to see if I could survive a YOLO. Check if out, especially if you like stammering: http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/2880923 (http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/2880923)
tl;dw: I was right to wait on the ladder, as I did in the actual run. Waiting opens up the piemageddon Pandora's Box, but the risk of just YOLOing onto the conveyor, with the fireballs where they are, is most definitely a "could be dead" because the fireballs have the drop on me and can decide to break right, and they've got me if they do. Best not to jump into CBDs if you can help it, even if you do have to face Pandora's Box! I like my chances much, much better waiting them out, as opposed to just going for it on the conveyor and hoping it turns out okay. At the time I started up the ladder, the situation wasn't dangerous yet, let alone desperate, so no need to insist on a super-risky free pass.
When I assert that DK is not marathonable, this screen is what I'm talking about...
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So, this MIGHT suck.
I ordered a custom Donkey Blog t-shirt from CafePress on October 30th. It was shipped on 11/2, which is fine, but the estimated delivery (via FedEx) is 11/15. Obviously I'll be in Denver by then.
Apparently FedEx delivers by horse and buggy (and it's one horse). For almost $40 altogether, I would expect that this could be delivered to me in some amount of time less than half a month, but I was naive.
I'm hoping they're just being safe with that delivery date...
Otherwise I guess my option is to print the logo out on a piece of paper and tape it to a black t-shirt??
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I wouldn't worry Chris. If it eases your nerves at all, I ordered a shirt from them also...and the est delivery date was like 2 weeks from the day I ordered it...but it arrived in like 3 or 4 days from what I remember...so you should be fine hopefully.
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I think it SHOULD be coming tomorrow or Wednesday, based on what I see on the tracking thing. They handed it off to the USPS and it is on the way to my local post office now.
But Veteran's Day is not helping.
I'm curious to see how many people are going to show up with custom shirts!
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I'm curious to see how many people are going to show up with custom shirts!
I know of four so far (you, me, Corey, Jeff H). Hope you'll let me swap with you.
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I'm curious to see how many people are going to show up with custom shirts!
I know of four so far (you, me, Corey, Jeff H). Hope you'll let me swap with you.
Count me in...
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Opinions: is there a way out of this?
I like my chances much, much better waiting them out, as opposed to just going for it on the conveyor and hoping it turns out okay.
I'm a bit late chiming in on this clip, but I just had a chance to check it out. I agree, this is a tough spot on the conveyor screen, and you were correct not to proceed up onto the conveyor right away due to the timing of how fast the fireballs made it down onto the conveyor.
A couple of things I might have done slightly differently -- first, I'll sometimes try to be slightly "aggressive" about trying to hang out on the top rung of that ladder just a hair longer, trying to wait for that pie to clear and watching to see if the fireballs move out of the way to try for a "delayed free pass" or even a "delayed hammer grab" depending on the situation. Although, in this case I probably would not have done that.
Once retreating back to the bottom, in this particular case I probably would not have drifted towards the bottom right corner like what happens in the video for pretty much the exact reason that happens. I know that might seem a bit results-oriented, and maybe it is, but I think I would tend to try moving a step or two to the left to about where the purse is to leave myself with more options. When this sort of thing happens, you really do have to quickly take inventory of which direction the conveyor is moving and whether or not it is going to switch directions soon (take a quick peek up to Kong's position and direction of motion). What you want to try to do is to plan an escape where the direction of the conveyor will be helping you instead of hindering you as in the case of what happened here. This can be a little counterintuitive in cases like this where there are two fireballs on the left side, but in a way you sort of want to be working your way to the left here.
One of the things you can try to look for visually happens right at the beginning of the sequence at around 0:10 into your clip, right around the time that you reach the bottom of the ladder. The rightmost fireball on the bottom conveyor, moving towards the right, passes beyond the top of the left inner bottom ladder. For me, again somewhat counterintuitively, this is often a trigger for me to begin moving to the left from Jumpman's current position. The position of the 2nd fireball complicates this decision considerably in this case since it could potentially continue to the right and down the left inner bottom ladder. Because of this, I'd probably be just inching a small amount to the left, near to where the purse was located until something changes. But, the first fireball passing beyond that spot is significant due to some of the subtle fireball behavior tendencies in the game. First, fireballs move faster to the right than they do to the left. Second, fireballs climb ladders while moving to the right, but not while moving to the left (unless they just rebounded off of an edge). So, the likelihood of that fireball doubling back and decending down that left inner bottom ladder has significantly reduced, while the possibility of continuing to the right half of the screen and eventually decending either of the right side bottom ladders has raised. IF the fireball movements were exactly as seen in this clip (which of course they wouldn't be as soon as game inputs are changed), I could see myself possibly climbing up the far left bottom ladder at around 0:19 and then possibly escaping from there. It would go about like this:
0:09 -- begin climbing the ladder. See the fireballs decending towards the conveyor and the pie coming out, preparing to climb back down if the fireballs don't do something very favorable right away.
Next, a 3rd fireball drops into the middle structure making any chance for a free pass much more risky. Begin climbing back down.
0:10 -- Fireballs reverse and begin moving to the right. Climb to the bottom of the ladder and wait.
0:11 -- One fireball has crossed over the top of the left inner bottom ladder. Take a quick step left. Watch the OTHER fireball.
Next, both fireballs are moving left and have moved back to the left of the top of the left inner bottom ladder. Go back to the right and prepare to begin climbing the same ladder again.
0:12 -- The fireballs are splitting. One has again moved right of the top of the left inner bottom ladder and the other has gone left toward the edge of the screen. Move left to the center of the screen and begin to evaluate the possibility of climbing up the left inner bottom ladder between the two fireballs -- the presence of two MORE fireballs on the center structure near the left side prize need to be watched very carefully now.
0:13 -- The fireball has moved left again -- "Mirror" this by moving right again, looking to climb up the right inner bottom ladder. Again, watch the two OTHER fireballs above.
0:14 -- Similar situation to 0:12 in that the fireballs are splitting again. However, this situation is actually somewhat improved due to the OTHER two fireballs moving to the right side of the center structure. Again, move left to the center of the screen, anticipating starting up the left inner bottom ladder. Note that the direction of the conveyor is now reversing.
0:15 -- Unfortunately, the fireball is drifting back to the left and so we must move back towards the right to somewhere around the position of the prize again. The location of the 3rd fireball up on the center structure is problematic again.
Next, that 3rd fireball is decending to the conveyor. This is now a huge problem and chances of survival are low. It's time for a split second decision. Based on the position of the three fireballs, it would appear that bailing out to the right corner is now preferable -- however, with the conveyor moving in that direction and the tendency of fireballs to drift to the right, that could be just as dangerous as all of our other (poor) options. Believe it or not, we CAN justify running LEFT at this juncture. Let's assume we decide to run left again, at least to the center of the screen to leave our options open for as long as possible.
0:16 -- Still inching left, hoping that middle fireball doesn't climb down the left inner bottom ladder right now.
0:17 -- Luckily, the fireball has passed over the ladder and has joined up with the 3rd fireball centrally. At this point I am now running left, beyond the inner ladder and towards the outer ladder.
0:18 -- A lucky break, two fireballs decend the two inner ladders just as we begin climbing up the left outer bottom ladder.
0:19 -- Another pie comes out, delaying our ascent. While waiting for the pie to pass, a quick check up to Kong's position shows us that we should have enough time to drift to the left side center structure ladder before the next reversal if we are not delayed any further. The third fireball, which could have caused problems from it's position on the conveyor towards the right side of the screen, has just reversed back to the right. It could still get us from there, but the chances are low and it's time to get aggressive and go for the escape.
0:20 -- We have reached the conveyor just behind a pie. The fireballs have now caused a new interesting puzzle. We are getting chased from behind so there's no going back down. The 3rd fireball is now going back UP the right side of the center structure, which could potentially hinder our escape up the left side. We need to quickly think of a Plan B, just in case. We can now try to work our way to the hammer. Notice that the fireball climbing up the far right side back up to the conveyor level could beat us to that position, especially if we have to deal with the reversal before we get there. We can also prepare ourselves to climb back DOWN the left inner bottom ladder, again, being mindful of the pies during the reversal.
0:21 -- Gameplay ends here so it's unclear what could have happened from there. Given all of the choices, I'd probably risk climbing up the left side center structure ladder at this point and hope for the best.
Anyways, even though we think of these sorts of situations as "screwings", these are the sorts of puzzles that the game presents us with that make it both fun and challenging -- the replay value is very high due to these sorts of scenarios. The key when something like this happens is to not panic and immediately have a positive attitude that you WILL make it through the screen and begin to work on finding the "best" solution. Based on both knowledge and experience it is possible to get a better "feel" for how to deal with these situations and players should actively take each opportunity that something like this comes up to work on improving their game instead of just giving up.
When a "survival" situation like this comes up, the "best" solution is the one that constantly gives the player the highest probability of survival. Probabilities are constantly at play in this game. There are certain probabilities for a fireball to reverse at a reversal point, to climb down a ladder in a given situation, for a fireball to travel a certain distance (skipping over some number of decision points), and so on. It's important to execute the maneuver that gives the player the best probability for survival right up until the end.
I see deaths occur all of the time when panic at the last moment prevents the player from making the "best" decision. Suppose a fireball is chasing you and you continue running and you steer a barrel right down onto your head. Well, let's think, if you had simply stopped just before the ladder, there might be a 50% chance that the fireball will reverse before getting to you (assuming it has to cross a decision point) -- and yet by steering a barrel into your face you have a 75% chance of death. Or, you could jump towards the ladder and let go of the controls, perhaps getting yourself to another decision point for that fireball so now it has 2 chances to reverse and let you off the hook -- but at the same time you've now introduced a 25% chance that the barrel comes down the ladder on its own and kills you. Or, you could try turning around and jumping over the fireball -- which has some other survival rate in that given situation. In moments like that when there is no 100% survival solution, it's important to avoid panic and continue to find the "best" solution during that split second when it still matters what you do.
Pie factory and rivet situations are often like this, only more complex. The "best" solution is usually less clear and open for debate. But screwings DO become less deadly with more experience so it is clear that some solutions are indeed better than others, even if we don't always know what they are.
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Well, here's my most exciting play of the tournament so far. I don't think it's gonna get any better than this:
http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/3773156 (http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/3773156)
Also, later in the day I taunted the shoutbox, and it delivered swift and severe punishment:
http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/3773112 (http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/3773112)
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Also, later in the day I taunted the shoutbox, and it delivered swift and severe punishment:
http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/3773112 (http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/c/3773112)
Shoutboxing yourself is hardcore. Shoutpuku.
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(Moved from another thread, where I realized it didn't belong)
It's part of a bigger train of thought, but I'm actually pretty firmly "anti-growth" when it comes to CAG/DK. I don't think it would work at a significantly larger size, and the social aspect would suffer.
A few new players here and there are always welcome, but actual, serious, exponential growth would break it. Competitive classic arcade gaming is not scalable.
The classic gaming community survives and is awesome *because* it's small. At a couple hundred participants, we're still hovering in the range of "Dunbar's number", meaning that everybody knows everybody, and how they relate to everybody else. There's an intimacy and a personality to it that you just don't get in bigger arenas.
If you get too many big scores on the board, a big score itself starts to become kind of meaningless. Imagine a DK scoreboard where 70th place is 1,107,300 and 71st is 1,107,200, and it's two guys who've never even spoken to each other. Does the idea of that kind of huge, impersonal competition pool make anyone else say "yuck?"
Or imagine how much different (and not-as-good) Allen's stream would be if it had hundreds of viewers and as much chat as one of the big Twitch channels. The whole appeal is that it's the same two dozen or so regulars, the majority of whom know each other, hanging out together and having some laughs.
I would say that the size of competitive CAG is just about optimal, right where it is, because it allows for an actual community - that is, a group where almost every individual is meaningfully interlinked. If it gets much bigger, it loses that. I don't wanna lose that. Especially since I don't see any benefit.
Luckily I think CAG will stay about this size, because if the hobby were ever going to become exponentially more popular, it would have already happened (if our bi-annual documentaries and jillions of news clips, articles, L33t Lounge streams, and everything else hasn't been able to do it, what will?)
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I don't think you have anything to worry about. Exponential growth already happened with KoK. I have no idea what would have to happen to cause that to happen again but it's just not likely. There's nothing wrong with a niche hobby being niche. The people who want to turn it into a mainstream thing with profitable businesses around it are just delusional as far as I'm concerned.
With that said I think the hobby could still be improved so the people involved can have more fun and get more out of it:
- Having more and varied competitions both live and online
- Have a professional scoreboard that is relevant and accepted by the members of the community
- Have more unbiased, correct historical data online to attract new members to the community
I'd love to see something like a "Circuit" of events taking place on an annual basis where players earn points towards an annual championship. If we could elevate the competition side of the hobby like pinball has it http://papa.org/circuit-2013-14/standings/ (http://papa.org/circuit-2013-14/standings/) then I think we'd get more people involved in the community instead of just sticking to themselves in their basement.
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I'd love to see something like a "Circuit" of events taking place on an annual basis where players earn points towards an annual championship. If we could elevate the competition side of the hobby like pinball has it http://papa.org/circuit-2013-14/standings/ (http://papa.org/circuit-2013-14/standings/) then I think we'd get more people involved in the community instead of just sticking to themselves in their basement.
I remember Richie talking about how he wanted to do this with TG before it got to the point where it is at now. I think when Barcade had their tourney back in March of 2013, that was going to be the first leg of the tour counting towards a year end event like the points system you mention. It never materialized though which is a shame.
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http://donkeykongblog.blogspot.com/2014/09/new-world-record-robbie-lakeman-finally.html (http://donkeykongblog.blogspot.com/2014/09/new-world-record-robbie-lakeman-finally.html)
Sweet, I did it!
Being the one to break a "new world champion" announcement was the last big item on my Donkey Blog bucket list, and I was able to make it happen thanks to Robbie and Hank making sure I had first crack at the news. This was a lot of fun, I appreciate it.
I was away from the computer all day Friday, then came home and realized what was going on. I stayed up writing my blog post and as soon as it was up I informed Kotaku. I would have gone to "plan B" if they were unresponsive, but I figured that they'd run something, and that if they did, it would spread from there. Looks like that strategy worked. :D
Not that this needed my help. It really doesn't take some special talent or connections or "status" to get something like this moving through the gaming news sites. If it's cool, tip it off, and it'll pretty much take care of itself from there. Anybody can do it.
The blog post wasn't all that it could have been and was lacking in detail. There's more I would have liked to do (visually in particular, but dicking around with things in Photoshop takes forever). I was under mega time pressure and very tired. It got the job done!
For those who would question announcing a new world record before any due diligence had been performed on the score, I'd say this: we're now in the age of streaming and Facebook. You really can't wait for an authenticating body to verify a score anymore. Unless the player keeps it on total lockdown and it's known to only him and the ref, the word will be on the street long before the score becomes "official," so you might as well get it out there. (Allen was already newsflashing this one before the replay was even half over! FailFish)
I will be compiling a list of all the Robbie coverage (though I think Corey might already be doing that?)
Perhaps Robbie will get more substantial face-time in something in the coming weeks. I wouldn't necessarily hold my breath though, since this is the era of "copy/paste and slightly rewrite what everyone else is posting, no time for depth because everybody just skims now anyway". We'll see if this catches the right person's eye at the right time, but you never know. Wait and see.
Ultimately, I think most of us with our priorities straight are on the same page that any media attention is just icing on the classic gaming cake. Kind of a thrill for a few minutes, but the community, and all the things that come with it, are about 10,000x more gratifying and fun and lasting than any of that ever ends up being. :)
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Im glad it worked out the way it did. When Hank and I talked we concluded that it was different since TG wasn't accepting submissions and we wanted to get it out there. So we agreed to keep silent and replay the game later that day. And we wanted you to be the first to report it since you deserve it. It was a long day, I barely slept, and i had to work that evening. The TV set up was a quick thing i threw together and figured it would be enough to get people hyped up. Even if it was <Billy> VHS quality. I was worried that you were going to miss it and i was telling everyone to contact you right away lol. Seeing my name and face in these articles has been crazy for me I've barely left my computer trying to keep up with everything and it looks like its starting to slow down. There is some potential to be on the local news here in AZ and if anything happens with that I'll post it. Hank was on FOX and other stations because they are local to him, so we will see where the story goes. Im going to Richies next weekend for his KOA premiere and it could be my only public appearance as the current record holder so I'm just going to enjoy it and see what happens afterwards. Thank you all again for being supportive. I just finished typing for an article for the International Business Times and made sure to promote DKF and the community. Hopefully that will be included after they edit it and it will gain some more interest to newcomers.
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There is some potential to be on the local news here in AZ and if anything happens with that I'll post it. Hank was on FOX and other stations because they are local to him, so we will see where the story goes. I just finished typing for an article for the International Business Times and made sure to promote DKF and the community. Hopefully that will be included after they edit it and it will gain some more interest to newcomers.
Kreygasm
It's slowing down, but not by too much! I was just Googling your name and it's pretty unreal how many pages of results this is getting.
http://psntrophies.biz/?p=15711 (http://psntrophies.biz/?p=15711)
wht da fk?
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Hahahaha wht da
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I've decided to rotate DK, DK Jr. and DK3, going for the 1M trifecta.
So, that'll be my stream for the next few weeks if anybody wants to watch <Kuh>.
Though, I must admit that much of the time I actually prefer it when I have zero viewers. My rage is ridiculous and embarrasses me. ;D I listen to myself later sometimes and I'm like, "my god, I sound so serious! The way I'm carrying on, it's as if the game attacked my loved ones..."
But I need to stream my attempts because if I bink my millions I'll have to upload them anyway.
Anyway, feel free to stop by, or not stop by...
Basically the real reason I'm doing this is so that I can practice DK for the final DKO, and take a break from the punishment with the other two games. I would like to get my 1M either by then or during the event. I think I'm ready to move on from DK for the foreseeable future, but I can't until I get that done!
I also wanted to briefly mention some things about Donkey Blog. I have not updated since Robbie broke the record in September, and there have been at least 4 or 5 posts that seemed like they ought to have been made since then (DKO#4, DKO#5, Dean's Big Bang Theory cameo, Mark getting a 1.13, the Sam Rowe articles, Allen KSing, etcetera, etcetera).
It was impossible to even have so much as a thought about the blog for the six to eight weeks surrounding my wedding (which happened on October 17th), as I was extremely occupied with that. Since then, for whatever reason, I've been running into a massive psychological and motivational wall when I try to work on it.
I could pound out a solid 4,000 words here about the blog and how I feel about it and my goals (or lack thereof) for it, and the role I see it playing (or not playing) nowadays, but the short of it is, I'm planning, shall we say, a shift in focus pretty soon. The blog isn't going anywhere, because it has been and continues to be (shockingly) successful, on many levels, during the three and a half years that it's been around, but I have to confess that my interest in it is waning (just as competitive DK in general seems to be waning). It's just not pulling at me anymore.
I will do at least a few more "news style" posts (the next one I'm working on now will be an overlong, clumsy clusterfuck of all kinds of stuff) but after that, I'm not sure. We'll see where things go.
-
Best of luck in your quest for the trifecta badge, Chris. I have no clue as to why you are going to play Jr. willingly, but each to their own <stirpot> :D
I'll definitely check out your stream as I've become mildly interested in DK3, so wouldn't mind picking up some tips.
Get them!
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My DK brain wasn't working, and I was making retarded joystick mistakes and was as bored as ever by the game and its standard bullshit, so I switched to DK3.
I got 827,500, and I figured out some adjustments for the Hard version, so I should probably get my trifecta-piece back on my next session. Kappa
-
Right on cue, I have now entered that weird phase on a game that always seems to appear where I'm just short of my goal, and I have everything I need, but I start stupidly, egregiously, and confusingly sabotaging myself. Mistakes so bad and stupid that I almost can't believe what I'm seeing. As if I'm TRYING to lose.
This is the most "fun" part of all...
-
Right on cue, I have now entered that weird phase on a game that always seems to appear where I'm just short of my goal, and I have everything I need, but I start stupidly, egregiously, and confusingly sabotaging myself. Mistakes so bad and stupid that I almost can't believe what I'm seeing. As if I'm TRYING to lose.
Very true. I inexplicably do the same thing.
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OK, done with DK3 (again). Gimme my trifecta-piece back! <thefinger>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbYYNyz12x0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbYYNyz12x0)
Twitch muted the last 20 minutes of my stream, which is totally inexplicable because there was no music of any kind playing, so I just put the game on YouTube because I explain the settings at the end (1h 4m) and that might be necessary to someone.
-
Nice, good score mate!
-
While I was at it, I figured I'd put a 1.7M (Easy) on MARP (http://replay.marpirc.net/r/dkong3) before I go back to toiling in the DK mines.
A certain somebody flapped his lips about my gameplay one too many times in my stream the other night and I felt that his score could stand to move down a notch. Kappa
-
Big time congrats on getting that million on Donkey Kong 3!
One piece of advice on your game play. First off, your shooting is much better than your score. I think it's because of you shooting the upper top right worm on what you call the "Green board." It's a bad technique in my opinion.
I am not too sure why, but it doesn't seem to be working for you. Maybe you were having a bad day though. There are 3 options to use that I have seen people use that does seem to work OK.
Option 1: Don't shoot any worm, and just focus on Donkey Kong.
Option 2: Shoot the worm on the bottom top platform to the left of you.
Option 3: Shoot the worm on the bottom top platform to the right of you.
I use option 3, but to be honest the first two options actually might be better than how I do it. But the difference in terms of rate of success between the three is not that great in my opinion.
Edit: Also, congrats on beating Brian Allen. Well be interesting to see if he responds with a higher score or not. If not, than Brian Allen will be chumpatized! <Roy>
-
got em! haha i have a feeling i know who that certain somebody is
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Kongrats! Sorry I wasn't there to narrate your vicory. Kappa
-
I'd love to see something like a "Circuit" of events taking place on an annual basis where players earn points towards an annual championship. If we could elevate the competition side of the hobby like pinball has it http://papa.org/circuit-2013-14/standings/ (http://papa.org/circuit-2013-14/standings/) then I think we'd get more people involved in the community instead of just sticking to themselves in their basement.
I remember Richie talking about how he wanted to do this with TG before it got to the point where it is at now. I think when Barcade had their tourney back in March of 2013, that was going to be the first leg of the tour counting towards a year end event like the points system you mention. It never materialized though which is a shame.
I think this would be rad. Unfortunately, I don't know if it's feasible. A lot of the pin guys have FU money and can afford to travel more, as well as owning/lending games, and having the cash to keep them in tip-top shape. I don't know that many public places have a) enough games b) enough games in good shape for something like this to work. I'm also not really sure where the prize money comes from in pinball, it always seems like way more than makes sense. Perhaps they have a benefactor of some sort.
Also trifecta Kreygasm
-
I'd love to see something like a "Circuit" of events taking place on an annual basis where players earn points towards an annual championship. If we could elevate the competition side of the hobby like pinball has it http://papa.org/circuit-2013-14/standings/ (http://papa.org/circuit-2013-14/standings/) then I think we'd get more people involved in the community instead of just sticking to themselves in their basement.
I remember Richie talking about how he wanted to do this with TG before it got to the point where it is at now. I think when Barcade had their tourney back in March of 2013, that was going to be the first leg of the tour counting towards a year end event like the points system you mention. It never materialized though which is a shame.
I think this would be rad. Unfortunately, I don't know if it's feasible. A lot of the pin guys have FU money and can afford to travel more, as well as owning/lending games, and having the cash to keep them in tip-top shape. I don't know that many public places have a) enough games b) enough games in good shape for something like this to work. I'm also not really sure where the prize money comes from in pinball, it always seems like way more than makes sense. Perhaps they have a benefactor of some sort. But if any part of CAG is going to go to the next level it's a great blueprint to follow. Unfortunately they had a lot better grassroots/organization before taking to streaming, whereas we've kinda done it in reverse.
Also trifecta Kreygasm
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One piece of advice on your game play. First off, your shooting is much better than your score.
I would have to agree. I think I have a knack for this game for whatever reason and should be able to get at least 2M.
I think it's because of you shooting the upper top right worm on what you call the "Green board." It's a bad technique in my opinion.
It probably is. My standard strategy for the level 30+ green boards is to simply avoid the worms and shoot around them. However, I found that my usual strategy wasn't working on Hard because he slips so fast and throws coconuts in such tighter intervals that working around the worms was taking too much time. So freezing that right worm was a quick "patch" to my strategy while I figure out a better, more permanent approach.
I don't like Ben's technique of shooting the worm on the lower platform and standing on him because I get too nervous about the worm unfreezing, me not noticing, and dying. But there are plenty of other ways to play those boards so I'll figure something out.
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One piece of advice on your game play. First off, your shooting is much better than your score.
I would have to agree. I think I have a knack for this game for whatever reason and should be able to get at least 2M.
I think it's because of you shooting the upper top right worm on what you call the "Green board." It's a bad technique in my opinion.
It probably is. My standard strategy for the level 30+ green boards is to simply avoid the worms and shoot around them. However, I found that my usual strategy wasn't working on Hard because he slips so fast and throws coconuts in such tighter intervals that working around the worms was taking too much time. So freezing that right worm was a quick "patch" to my strategy while I figure out a better, more permanent approach.
I don't like Ben's technique of shooting the worm on the lower platform and standing on him because I get too nervous about the worm unfreezing, me not noticing, and dying. But there are plenty of other ways to play those boards so I'll figure something out.
Than shoot the worm just to the left of you. If the worm unfreezes he goes to the left of you, and you'll have time to notice him coming back.
-
I hear sometimes that you don't die on barrel boards unless you screw up. Personally, I don't think that's anywhere close to true, and a situation came up tonight that I think is a good example.
I'm interested in opinions about whether or not this was avoidable:
http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/v/10243740 (http://www.twitch.tv/chrisp_kreme/v/10243740)
In my opinion, it was a screwing. It happened on L4, but by the time this situation arose it had been 33 seconds, so this could just as easily have happened on a "regular" barrel.
So, am I right or wrong here??
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>:(
I had a similar scenario occur at KO5 while attempting to simply "run boards", wild barrels can almost always delay you to the point where a firey fk-stick comes into play and the screen becomes an impasse. I am definitely in the camp who believes Kong can end this game at anytime (besides the springs <Kuh> ), the compounding effect can take things from safe to excessive at a moments notice.
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I think this could have been avoided. Why would you flee in the direction you know the fireball is going to be coming up anyway?
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I think this could have been avoided. Why would you flee in the direction you know the fireball is going to be coming up anyway?
(http://s3.postimg.org/89hknu7ab/pax88.jpg)
Kappa
Just kidding Wes ;)
I would go with screwing, while theoretically every death could be considered our own fault we tend to do what we feel is the right thing in a certain situation.
To be fair he went right because the wild was released before the fireball climbed and its only natural to expect it to be a single wild, at this point the right side is clear of danger whereas the left is occupied with barrels that could be steered unnecessarily, not to mention nobody wants to jump barrels on the 2nd girder under Donkey Kongs bomb zone.. its only when the second wild is released that the fireball decides to come up (at this point he's already committed to the right) and then of course a 3rd consecutive wild is added to the fray.
This is a pretty good example of when DK can trick us into thinking one option is "the best route" and then immediately punishes us for it. I would have done the same, and I'm fairly certain a high percentage of the best players would have too.
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Here are the things that I noticed that you did wrong in that situation:
- At 0:30 you should have steered the barrel down the middle ladder but instead you chose to smash the incoming barrel as soon as possible. You are going to get that smash no matter what so there is no need to rush getting it. Steering the barrel first and then smashing would have made climbing up after the hammer ends much easier.
- You missed an opportunity to climb at 0:37 after the hammer ended.
- After the hammer ended at 0:39 you should have steered the barrel down the short left ladder to reduce the number of individual barrel groups you need to jump. You also had an opportunity to steer the barrel down the middle ladder immediately after that, but you didn't attempt either of these steers. If you would have gotten both of them you would have only had a single barrel group to jump instead of three.
- Like Wes said, you ran towards the fire and could have instead kept much more distance between you and the fire.
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While technically survivable as has been pointed out by others, in the context of a normal million point pace two hammer strategy, this is a pretty horrendous spot. There are plenty of other similar situations that involve the fireball climbing up the middle ladder at exactly the wrong time in the midst of other barrel traffic and wild barrels, etc that can just get super nasty. There is no doubt that adding the second hammer to one's game after a normal kill screen is achieved adds a significant amount of risk to their game.
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I think the most "obvious" way would have been to run left through the space between the first and second wild barrels, and hopefully steered the blue down for a double in the process.
But I generally err on the side of letting stuff just clear out rather than make super-aggressive moves unless I know I have to. The fireball hooked onto the ladder at pretty much the exact moment I'd committed to staying to the right to wait out the hail of wild barrels.
As for the suggestion I climb up the middle immediately after the hammer ended, I dunno. I would have begun the climb when the second wild barrel was already hitting the second girder and it seems there wasn't enough time (?), plus there was a barrel coming on the third girder. Again, maybe *possible* to get it done with perfect timing, but very aggressive! I consider that middle ladder off-limits when I see a wild barrel anywhere above me because one of the wild barrel "tracks" goes right through it.
I like Adam's thinking here (and not just because he says "screwing" ;D ) There is risk in the alternative suggestions, and it seems like counting on the fireball NOT climbing exactly when it did was actually the least-risky option.
One of the things that drives me crazy about this game is that you could have lived if you'd done it differently, but the way you did it isn't necessarily wrong either. :)
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I wouldn't have tried to run through the space between the two wild barrels, but any of my suggestions would have been good.
Climbing up the ladder was definitely safe without requiring any kind of special timing, the wild barrel would have bounced to the left of you even if you didn't reach the top of the ladder before it arrived. The hit boxes on the wild barrels are very generous. You can play around with this for yourself from a savestate. Position yourself on a L5 barrel screen exactly where the ladder is and wait for kong to throw a wild barrel. If you are at the top of the ladder then even if you don't move at all from your position the wild barrel will miss you, it's only if you climb a little bit down the ladder that the wild barrel will hit you. In your case you were to the left of the ladder when kong released the wild barrel giving you even more time. You could have probably only been halfway up the ladder when the wild barrel arrives and still not get hit from it.
If you consider the middle ladder off-limits when there are wild barrels you are seriously restricting your options. I climb the middle ladder all the time when there are wild barrels and I would definitely recommend doing the same.
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OK Jeff, I'll mess with that thanks.
Anything I can do to get off of that second girder as quickly as possible when it's necessary, such as times like this, is something to work on. I do a lot of screwing around down there.
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Cheat: Internal difficulty 30!
(Newer MAMEs only)
- Create a cheat_temp directory in your MAME folder
- Create the following file in a text editor:
<mamecheat version="1">
<cheat desc="Internal Difficulty 30">
<script state="run">
<action>maincpu.mb@0399=00</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@039D=1E</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@2D1B=01</action>
</script>
</cheat>
</mamecheat>
- save that as dkong.xml in your cheat_temp folder
- run MAME from the command line as:
mame dkong -cheat -cheatpath cheat_temp
- Hit tab, go to Cheat and turn the cheat on.
- Drop a credit and start.
Good times.
Thanks to Sock Master for posting the memory locations in the shoutbox!
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Re: internal difficulty cheat
I tried adjusting the barrel rate and found this one to be pretty enjoyable - survival is more manageable and you can still practice all sorts of barrel evasion maneuvers
<mamecheat version="1">
<cheat desc="Internal Difficulty 30">
<script state="run">
<action>maincpu.mb@0399=00</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@039D=1E</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@2D1B=05</action>
</script>
</cheat>
</mamecheat>
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Honestly, I love the absolute-maximum barrel release speed. ;D
Utter barrel hell, and as a result, timer hell!
It's hard enough so that you will rarely clear 1-1, but still leaves juuuuust enough wiggle room to be survivable if you are both good and lucky!
Playing this sorta takes an experienced player back to what DK feels like to someone playing for the first time. Uncontrollable chaos that doesn't last a minute and is absolute brutality.
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Love it. Kreygasm
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Hahaha wow that is pretty fun. Impossible to get to the top hammer
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Some stats and thinking from my play during the Race to 1 Million event!
STATS
Total coins dropped: 105 (76 arcade; 29 MAME)
Total games aborted: 83 (68 pre-5-1; 15 5-1+)
Total games played to completion: 22 (16 arcade; 6 MAME) --NOTE: in at least half a dozen of these "complete" games, I was on my last man so early that I carelessly goofed off with it, so they could arguably be put into the "aborted" category. It's possible I really only played 15 or so games all the way out.--
Best scores (400K or better):
2015/08/13 605,000 14-5
2015/08/16 524,400 12-6
2015/08/12 496,600 12-4
2015/08/31 482,100 12-1
2015/08/25 467,900 11-6
2015/08/31 442,600 11-3
2015/08/31 434,700 11-1 (MAME)
2015/08/31 434,600 11-3
2015/08/15 405,100 10-3
Total contest days: 23 (8/9 through 8/31)
Number of days with at least one coin-drop: 14 (did not play on 9 of the 23 days)
Total gameplay time: 35 hours (Total recording time was 36 hours, 38 minutes, but I played the "difficulty 30" hack during one of those streams for 1 hour and 10 minutes, and I'll round it down another half hour or so for yammering between/after games.
Average gameplay time per contest day: (35 hours divided by 23 days) 1.52 hours
MAME savestate practice time: only 2-3 hours over the length of the contest
ANALYSIS
Some might laugh at these stats, and how diligent I was about keeping them. Heck, I'm laughing too.
However, I DID spend 35 hours actually playing the game. So spending a little extra time to ensure data points were collected will help me spend the NEXT 35 hours playing smarter, not harder. And crunching stats/numbers is part of the fun. :)
First of all, my ability to maintain pace looks fine. Every game that went past 400K was pretty much where I needed to be, with a few exceptions, such as my highest-scoring game (the 605K) which was probably about 10K below pace. That was a relatively early game though, and my efficiency improved dramatically as the event went on and I got sharper. Efficiency fades quickly when falling out of practice, and might be the last thing to come back!
One issue that these stats show that I clearly need to do something about is abandoning games early. Seeing that I aborted 83 out of 105 coins (68 of those before Level 5) is pretty eye-opening. I need to either keep going despite early deaths, or find some way to make myself care more and play better during the early levels. I'm burning a staggering amount of time just trying to get a game started.
It has long been true for me that I flat-out do not enjoy playing Donkey Kong until Level 9 or so. I find levels 1 through 6 or so almost intolerably tedious, and the dragon I'm chasing is the "high" that begins to set in about one hour deep, when I'm on the open highway, things are flowing smoothly from one board to the next, and that feeling of trepidation and stultifying apathy that characterizes the early game fades into an excited, hungry, dizzy, confident aggression.
So, if I find the first 25 boards or so "intolerably tedious" (I do) and only start enjoying myself later, but I'm spending over 80% of my coin-drops trying, and failing, to get through those first 25 boards, then it's no wonder I've been semi-retired from DK for almost four years! I think, for a while, I just need to experiment with forbidding myself from restarting, even if I get murder-barreled on L3.
OTHER NOTES
I was playing poorly for much of this contest. Having said that, on games when I WAS playing well, my luck would turn, suddenly and brutally, right around the halfway point. It happened again and again. The 524,400 game, in particular, was stolen from me by screwings on a pie factory and rivets, and a semi-screwing where a barrel board fireball climbed as the hammer was expiring (I had exactly one smash to get it, but on the last swing turned away to reposition myself). The expiring-hammer-fireball-climb is my nemesis, and it bedeviled me throughout the contest.
To sum up, it was a whole lot of early-game shitty play, but then, when I survived long enough to actually get one going, mid-game shitty luck.
Without a doubt though, I am better at the game than I was when the event started. And I am finally getting used to what a full-length two-hammer game actually feels like.
We'll see if I can make this happen during the next DKO.
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Wow nice stats Chris! I like that kind of stuff lol.
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Hey Chris,
It's great that you are starting to get back into playing again here and there and it would be fun if you continue to document your own personal "million point march" here in blog form as you make progress.
Here are some thoughts for you regarding playing out more games.
First, if your scoring goal is just to cross 1M and you feel like that represents something less than your current max score, then realize that you do have some wiggle room and can consciously "dump" some points here and there strategically in an effort to improve your percentage of "good" games (move towards less risk on the risk/reward scale in some predetermined ways).
Next, try to make the "start" part of the fun for you mentally -- break it down into mini-thresholds for each level and see how you are doing, do little things like counting your jumps on 2-2 while you leach the fireball -- try to get to 30 jumps before 3000 on the Timer and see how you are doing when the timer reaches 3000 -- try to get to 60 jumps before finishing the screen (which would yield 7500+ points), etc. These little invented "mini-games" are a way to trick your mind out of the numb monotony of early restarts.
At the same time, create a strategy of less risk on early boards if you really want to restart games less often -- but I would not recommend going to the extreme of just running boards for a 90,000 point start. Achieving a "good" start can put you in a very positive mental state leading into Level 5+ because you feel like you are already ahead of pace and now you don't need to make up ground or take unnecessary risks later in the game -- you will feel like you can coast and make safer decisions which will enable you to have a better shot at finishing.
For players shooting for 1M who want a higher percentage of successful but decent starts, I would recommend the following:
1-1: Use a simple and safe two hammer strategy with no crazy 1-1 shenanigans and shoot for 7500 to 8000 points.
2-1: NO HAMMER on this one. Trust me, you'll thank me later.
2-2: DO go through the full leaching process, especially early in your session. Shoot for 7500.
3-1: On this one, if possible (if the fireball stays down), I would recommend a delayed bottom hammer strategy. Once you are used to playing this screen for a bit, avoiding the wild barrels will be easier if you are located on the 2nd girder than if you are on the 4th or 5th girder. The idea here is that if you can delay your hammer grab AND get a "good" bottom hammer (9 or 10 smashes), and take your time climbing up through the transition, you can sometimes approach the top hammer after the internal difficulty has switched over to Level 5 (eliminating the wild barrel risk while trying to grab the top hammer). If you have a lot of smashes with the bottom hammer, this internal difficulty switch will occur with approximately 3500 remaining on the timer. If you have less smashes it will be more like 3200. If you have to, stand in the (somewhat) safe area between the two left side ladders on the 4th girder and literally just steer barrels away from you for several ticks until the timer gets under these thresholds before proceeding up for the top hammer. Not dying on this screen is more important than points scored.
3-2: I highly recommend NEVER taking the free pass here. This screen is just too easy and the potential for increased points by grabbing the bottom hammer on this particular pie factory (with the slower timer) is just to great to pass up imo, and this will get you more in the flow for playing out future pie factory screens later in the game.
3-3: DO go for all 3 prizes. Optionally do NOT bother with leeching on this screen.
4-1 and 4-3: This is definitely a spot where you SHOULD take the bottom hammer. The strategy here is that by the time your bottom hammer has run out, you should pretty much already be at internal difficulty Level 5, making the top section of the screen much safer. With a decent (9 or 10 smashes) bottom hammer the switch should occur in the 5800 - 6000 range on the timer -- with a particularly poor bottom hammer it might occur as late as 5500.
4-4: In my opinion, it will be a mistake to skip the first two prizes on any elevator screen. These easy points will help you maintain proper pace.
(Example: 16,000 -- 38,000 -- 71,000 -- 115,000)
With these tactics, shoot for a starting score in the range of 115,000 - 120,000+. I would build pace charts beginning with 115,000. In my experience, being somewhat "ahead" of pace early in the game will help you to relax later in the game and can be a nice cushion when dealing with fatigue late in the game.
Notes: NO grouping at all on barrel screens for Levels 1 - 4. For a 1M score, it should be mostly unnecessary to do grouping on Level 5+ as well, although I will often use a "minimal grouping" strategy while I am waiting for a better setup for my top hammer. Do not neglect top hammer efficiency -- if you go through the trouble to almost always get yourself 7 - 8 smashes with the top hammer (without taking any crazy risks to do so), your scoring efficiency will pretty much automatically put you over 1M pace without having to worry about any grouping.
Regarding early deaths: I DO recommend playing out games if you die once on either Level 3 or Level 4 IF you can determine that you scored a reasonable amount of points with your lost man AND you were ahead your own personal benchmarks for the early levels.
Good luck!
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Hi ChrisP and all,
I had a silly idea. I don't know if anyone's done this before so feel free to discard it.
In a lot of games where the speed progresses, it's always nice to play at just that point where you are at your limit of decision assessment and reaction time. When you're playing at your breaking limit, you eventually get the hang of it and then next time your limit is a bit higher.
Some games, that next speed increase is too much and you hit a wall and get stuck.
In other cases, sometimes it helps to just practice in slow motion, where you have extra time to process all the things that are happening on the screen, and then they become second nature/automatic that they can be coped with at their full speed.
I made up a few MAME cheats for Donkey Kong.
Slow down 25%, Slow down 12%, Speed up 12%, Speed up 25%.
The game still runs exactly the same.. all these do is make the game occasionally run two frames per video frame, or one frame per two video frames. In effect it's just a simple time stretch or time compression - to practice with more time to make decisions, or cranking it up to improve reflexes.. That was the idea anyway.
<cheat desc="Slowdown 25%">
<script state="run">
<action>maincpu.mb@0072=3a</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@0073=00</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@0074=74</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@0075=cd</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@0076=c8</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@0077=3f</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@0078=28</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@0079=58</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fc8=3c</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fc9=e6</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fca=03</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fcb=32</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fcc=00</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fcd=74</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fce=c9</action>
</script>
</cheat>
<cheat desc="Slowdown 12%">
<script state="run">
<action>maincpu.mb@0072=3a</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@0073=00</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@0074=74</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@0075=cd</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@0076=c8</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@0077=3f</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@0078=28</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@0079=58</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fc8=3c</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fc9=e6</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fca=07</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fcb=32</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fcc=00</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fcd=74</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fce=c9</action>
</script>
</cheat>
<cheat desc="Speedup 12%">
<script state="run">
<action>maincpu.mb@00d2=c3</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@00d3=cf</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@00d4=3f</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fcf=3a</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd0=01</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd1=74</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd2=3c</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd3=e6</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd4=07</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd5=32</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd6=01</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd7=74</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd8=ca</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd9=72</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fda=00</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fdb=fd</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fdc=e1</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fdd=dd</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fde=e1</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fdf=c3</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fe0=d6</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fe1=00</action>
</script>
</cheat>
<cheat desc="Speedup 25%">
<script state="run">
<action>maincpu.mb@00d2=c3</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@00d3=cf</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@00d4=3f</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fcf=3a</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd0=01</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd1=74</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd2=3c</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd3=e6</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd4=03</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd5=32</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd6=01</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd7=74</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd8=ca</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fd9=72</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fda=00</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fdb=fd</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fdc=e1</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fdd=dd</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fde=e1</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fdf=c3</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fe0=d6</action>
<action>maincpu.mb@3fe1=00</action>
</script>
</cheat>
edit: MAME cheats are new to me and these seem to stay active even if you turn them back off..? Not sure how to make them properly turn back off short of a restart.