Donkey Kong Forum
Blogs => Player Blogs => Topic started by: twinxen on April 20, 2018, 10:47:05 am
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I'm a newcomer to the community and the game, so I decided to make a thread here to track my progress towards the kill screen and beyond. I started to watch some DK streamers on Twitch after the news of the recent scandal reached me - which in turn led me to this forum.
I've been trying my hand at this game since the end of last week, and it's been a lot of fun (and frustration) so far. Never made it past board 6-1 yet. ;D
My pb progress has been as follows:
2018-04-16: 66.9k
2018-04-17: 86.3k
2018-04-19: 107.3k
2018-04-19: 125.0k
2018-04-20: 141.4k
Whenever I improve my score I'll keep the INP files in this thread as a personal archive.
-twinxen
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That's great progress. you started the same time as me and you're a level ahead. I'll try to catch up this weekend ;D
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That's great progress. you started the same time as me and you're a level ahead. I'll try to catch up this weekend ;D
That's cool, I'm up for some friendly competition. :)
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cool my high score is 86200 5-1. Do you run boards or try to pick up some extra points ? your pace seems a bit higher than mine. I only "taunt" kong on the rivet board and run through the rest.
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cool my high score is 86200 5-1. Do you run boards or try to pick up some extra points ? your pace seems a bit higher than mine. I only "taunt" kong on the rivet board and run through the rest.
I mostly try to just complete boards at this point, but like you I leech DK on the rivet stage. Also I usually take the top hammer on barrels, the umbrella/purse on springs and both hammers on rivets - trying to gather extra points conservatively.
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ok that makes sense. I don't use any hammers on the barrels and skip the purse. I was thinking about getting the purse and leeching the springs and fireball on the elevator board.
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The best of luck to both of you. Know from the beginning that you can easily experience some plateaus that can feel tough to overcome but that is really the fun part that the game have such a bunch of “layers†that were not visible from the beginning.
Oh - and make sure to stream some of those games. Kreygasm
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I've been doing some practice with savestates today, espescially on springs - which improved my success rate there quite a lot.
Managed to eke out an improvement on yesterday's score too; I made it to 6-3 with 159.5k this time.
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166k pb today.
I was set for an easy 200k+ game, but once I started focusing on that I lost all objectivity and failed monumentally on things I didn't know was possible anymore. No matter, I will get it later.
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Nice work. I made it to 5-3 so in the race to the kill screen you kept your one level advantage. I scored 109,600 so your pace is better too. A friendly competition is going to push us both to our goal :D
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Great work, twinxen!
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Good luck mate. Get them!
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On day 12 of my DK adventure, got 196.6k @ 7-2. (completely panicked and let my intuition kill me on most of my deaths...if only I could stay cool and objective for once :-/)
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Kreygasm congrats! So close to 200k.
Keep. Going. Good
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Today's best game was 200.8k @ 7-3. Slowly but surely...
(https://i.imgur.com/nALYyqK.png)
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I literally have no idea what's happening right now, but I got a 283700 @ 9.2...
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Omg crushing it sir keep going pls
Kreygasm
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Cool stuff!
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Today's best game was 200.8k @ 7-3. Slowly but surely...
(https://i.imgur.com/nALYyqK.png)
Is Jeremy aware that a brash, young upstart is trying to muscle in on his charting empire? Kappa
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Really great accomplishments. I think I challenged the wrong person. FailFish
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I literally have no idea what's happening right now, but I got a 283700 @ 9.2...
GG! Some real progress there, man.
<popcorn>
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Love the data! I'll be following along
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Had a 254k run today that ended with a tumble down the elevator on 8-4.
Some reflections so far;
I'm doing relatively well on barrels (from level 5 where the barrels are easy to steer and the wild barrels are more predictable) and springs, but I can struggle a lot on the pie factory if I don't get a clean shot at the ladder. The rivets are maybe my worst level, where I am not good enough to improvise a pattern when going for the star is not the appropriate course of action. I should try to improve these by doing more savestate training.
I don't go for any extra points anymore as I don't feel it is a good use of my time right now - I would rather let the score always more or less reflect how far I made it in a run.
You should be able to clear any given board post level 4 at least 19/20 times on average to reach the kill screen fairly reliably it seems. That could take a while...
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I hear you man. I'm kind of in the same boat with similar scores. Fireballs/pies/belts can really put me in a bad spot. I get a little too ambitious and end up in a pickle before I know it.
You streaming?
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I hear you man. I'm kind of in the same boat with similar scores. Fireballs/pies/belts can really put me in a bad spot. I get a little too ambitious and end up in a pickle before I know it.
You streaming?
Yeah at twitch.tv/twinxen, although I can't play worth a damn for the time being it seems... :-/
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Watching, some of the progress by new players like flobeamer, and twinxen gives me an idea of how naturally bad I am at this game. Great job on the 283k game though. :)
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Got a 324.1k @ 10-2. It was a huge run where I didn't lose a man until lvl 8 somewhere I believe. It went south when the pressure built up, but at least I didn't fail a single spring.
It was also streamed live, so thanks to those who tuned in. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/255390126
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Wowzers
Get em
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Kreygasm
Keep going good, sir! Making great progress!
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You should submit that score it's really good. That's 166 on the high score list.
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You should submit that score it's really good. That's 166 on the high score list.
This!
If you haven't already :)
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The day before my 4 week anniversary of playing DK I got a 376.6k run @ 11-5. I lost the three last lives on the last two boards, which was unbelievably disappointing - but that happens whenever I think I will get a massive game and I lose some focus.
It was streamed and the VOD is at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/259454671?collection=C2Z3sEuTKxUGsQ (last game in the video)
I rarely have games go over 300k, but my average is going up all the time - and that is probably a better indicator of progress anyway.
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GG! and Kongrats on new PB. Mr. Awesome would be jealous. <Roy>
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Broke 400k today with a 410.4k @ 12-4. My deaths were pretty evenly spaced out at levels 3, 6, 9 and 12. Definitely had more than my fair share of luck on this run, with one of the rivet boards being the biggest Houdini operation I have pulled yet. On the other hand, in terms of numbers of boards, I made it over half way to the kill screen for the first time.
Streamed, VOD at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/260192495 (last game of the vid)
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GG! Congrats on new PB.
too bad I was stuck at work during stream.
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gg. I have to catch your stream sometime. I've only made it to 6-5 but I feel a breakout game coming soon.
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427.5k today. 300k+ on one man, but two deaths on 12-6 ended the run for me.
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457.9k @ 13-3.
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Nice games! Your progress is impressive. Congrats on new PB!
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Almost on the month after I installed MAME I broke 500k today (533.1k @ 14-6), which feels like a big milestone. I will be more preoccupied IRL for a while, with buying a new apartment and a higher workload at my workplace. I will still get in some games every evening and try to improve, or at least make sure I don't regress.
The INP was submitted this time and can be found here: https://donkeykongforum.net/index.php?topic=364.msg35625#msg35625
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That is some crazy fast progress mate. You're a natural!
500k is a huge milestone, it shows you are playing at a killscreen-capable level. Just need the stars to align and its yours!
Don't stop now!
:)
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Nice score! Congrats
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That is some crazy fast progress mate. You're a natural!
500k is a huge milestone, it shows you are playing at a killscreen-capable level. Just need the stars to align and its yours!
Don't stop now!
:)
Thanks for the encouraging words, but I am not thinking about a KS quite yet. In fact I felt the stars aligned pretty neatly on this run, which I will ballpark as a 1/100. A KS would be maybe 1% of this kind of run again, so 1/10,000? I need to up my consistency quite considerably before I have a realistic shot - but whether it takes one month or one year from now, I am determined to get it.
I have no intention of stopping, in fact I am enjoying working on my skills and getting better bit by bit, and the emerging features and complexity of this game is what I find so appealing. It is something I can't imagine the original developers ever envisioned.
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It's been ten days since my last update, so I thought I would write something again.
Since my last update I have gotten a 583.7k, and today a 670k, so I am getting closer. But how close really?
Since the beginning of the month I have kept the information about my deaths per game in a database, from which a lot of statistics can be deduced. For example my daily success rates with trendlines (based on almost 3000 boards in total);
(https://i.imgur.com/OCqN5MC.png)
All the trendlines are positive, but clearly my rivets are both my worst part of the game, and also improving too slowly - so I should add some effort there.
The next thing I could do is to export my weekly average from the last week (05/21-today) which are as follows;
5+ barrels: 89.79%
5+ pies: 87.78%
4+ springs: 94.37%
5+ rivets: 81%
Plugging these numbers into my progress calculator (a simple binomial calculation) I get a 0.158% chance of a killscreen, or 1 in 631. (as long as I have a deathless start)
In actuality I think the odds are better than this now, because I have had some very concrete improvements in my game just during the last week - and once you pass 90% success rates, even a small percentage point increase will have a big impact on the total KS probability. It may still be months away though, but things are still going in the right direction!
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That chart...those stats...
(https://i.imgur.com/HvnBSdx.png)
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A couple of days ago I got a random Crazy Kong killscreen. I just wanted a break from DK and played the game a little, I think the killscreen was within my first ten quarters, possibly five.
I also learned the game as I played it, my first death in the KS run was on the level 3 pies, but later on I realised that if you wait long enough - no more pies will spawn, making the levels trivial to complete. The spring boards also seemed to miss every third spring, making these boards trivial as well. The rivets seemed to play the same as DK though.
Once I got to level 10 or so with only one death, I decided to just go for the KS - and the run can be found here https://donkeykongforum.net/index.php?topic=662.msg35765;topicseen#msg35765.
I doubt I will touch this game again.
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later on I realised that if you wait long enough - no more pies will spawn, making the levels trivial to complete. The spring boards also seemed to miss every third spring, making these boards trivial as well.
This is good intel. Thanks for sharing.
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Once I believe its three pies get "stuck" in the oil can/fire in the middle no more pies will spawn unless you go down to the bottom conveyor. You can also go immediately up the opposite ladder as well when a pie spawns on say the left side if you immediately run up the right ladder you will make it every time but you need to be quick.
Dan