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SithOfSpades:
Where I have been:

Played a game or two of DK as a kid I am sure, although I had no particular attachment to it. Arcade games I played as a kid were Mario Bros, Pac-land, Vs. Super Mario Bros, NBA Jam, Street Fighter II, Morkat Kombat 1-3, and Killer Instinct 1-2. I am sure there were others, but those are the ones I remember. I probably put a handful of quarters into most of the classics in that era.

DK came back onto my radar through watching King of Kong (big surprise) around 2008. I remember thinking about getting a cabinet but didn't have the space. My wife was also not too keen on the idea (still isn't). I got MAME working on my computer, but it wasn't a great experience. I didn't play much more than a handful of games. In this time period, I did go watch Steve Wiebe play live in the Chicago area, and did get to play on a arcade machine.

Fast forward to July 2018. I start chatting with a co-worker and he mentions that he just bought a millipede arcade cabinet. I mention to him that I thought about getting a DK after watching King of Kong. I thought it would be neat to get a kill screen. We chat about the movie. About a week later, he tells me he got a DK machine too. I get the information for the guy he got his from and end up getting one too. On August 5, 2018 my quest for a kill screen begins in earnest with the delivery of my Donkey Kong arcade cabinet.

I have Double Donkey Kong board in an original Donkey Kong cabinet with Donkey Kong artwork. I really like the original DK artwork. It has been refurbished. That is my personal preference for what looks best.

When I first got my cabinet, my goal was a KS and maybe 1,000,000 points. However, I wanted to keep it casual and have fun. I started streaming mostly because my co-worker mentioned above was curious to see me play. We had a friendly competition at first, but I had outpaced him. I also found it valuable to watch my own play to find and correct consistent mistakes. This could have been done with just OBS, but I didn't really know how it worked at the start. I started submitting scores, because the forum began accepting DDK scores and I was starting to feel like a KS was getting close.

I achieved my goal of reaching the kill screen on 12/06/2018. I never really got tired of playing and didn't really feel like there was a grind element to it. I was also fairly lucky in that I didn't have any near misses. I had a game around 720K that I self died at 20-1 because I had to take my daughter to a birthday party. The next time I reached level 18, I made it to the KS. I have remained fairly lucky in this regard. I refined the same basic strategy and got 2 more PBs finally reaching 900K on 1/26/2019. I didn't get a near miss in that stretch either.

My generic approach during this phase was to play safe and get only top hammers in the barrel stages. Try and survive the pie stage. Take the most direct route in the elevator stage (only get the umbrella when forced by a stubborn fireball). Also, always return to the universal safe spot on long-long spring combinations. Try and survive the rivets stage.

After my first KS, I began getting the hat and umbrella on the elevator stages. I also will do some more advanced ladder climbs at the finish. This second thing I practiced and added because I think it is cool as hell. It is not a huge point source. Probably not really worth the risk and difficulty increase. I also make an effort to grab the top hammer efficiently and not waste too much time progressing up the barrel stage.

These minor tweaks got me to an 888K KS (double KS because I didn't listen to Jry) and then a 900K KS.

I believe my 900 K score was on the lower end of what I was capable of with that strategy. My reasons for this belief are that this game had some bad luck/play early leaving me on my last man at screen 8-1 with very low death points. There was certainly a long stretch (probably levels 9-17ish) where the pressure was fairly low, because I was in a mode with so little hope of a PB.  However, I was very nervous and cautious the last few levels. I also believe I have the ability to make it to the KS with men to sacrifice, because I have done it and I had a 650 K single man. I think I could make 920-930 K. Maybe even more with that strategy. However, I am playing mostly for my pleasure, and I don't want to grind out a bigger game with this strategy.

Where I am:

I have made the following changes to my strategy in order to pursue a 1 Million point game: I get the bottom hammer on all barrels levels except 2-1 and 3-1, I get the purse and leech the springs/fireball on 2-2 and 3-3. the reason I don't get the bottom hammer on levels 2 and 3 is to minimize the time I am exposed to type 2 wild barrels. This strategy has me finishing 2-1 before type 2 wild barrels are really in play. Type 2 wild barrels are often in play during most of the transition between bottom and top hammers in 3-1. I think the reduction in time exposed to the type 2 wild barrels in 3-1 gives enough safety to justify this choice. The barrel screens in level 4 have usually transitioned to type 3 wild barrel for the transition between bottom and top hammer, so might as well grab the bottom hammer and score points and wait out this time. I may also do pointless stuff in 1-1 like grouping on the 5th girder and 6th girder barrel leeches, because I like fun (low cost to reset the game). I also may do ridiculous stuff on 1-2 like trap a firefox in a rivet hole. Sometimes this seems like a good idea and always works out great when Wes does it. When I do it, the benefits are often marginal at best to me just sitting there pointlessly leeching it to make it look like there is value there. At any rate, it looks cool, so I will probably still shoe horn it in when it might make any ind of sense.

I feel like I am making good progress with this new strategy. I am starting to get 250K+ men with some regularity, so it feels like some practice and luck will get me there. Getting the bottom hammer makes the game much longer and more grueling. I have only reached the halfway board twice since making these changes (and one of those needs an asterisk because I played a strange start in order to get to level 5 and practice the "real" game). I have had sequences of beating the pace consistently over several levels, and instances where I continually lose pace over several levels. I may need a slightly lucky run to get to the million. The pies and rivets tend to be key. Also, I do think I may be too cautious on the barrels boards in the transition, but I don't really plan to up that aggression until I am sure I need it.

It has been a while since I got a PB, so I am considering trying to revert to my old safer strategy on my last man under certain circumstances. I am thinking about something like levels 10-15. Below 10, I might as well consider it practice and prepare for the next try. Above 16, lets get the 1 Million. Typing that feels dirty. I still don't really feel like it is a grind.

I still have a lot of fun playing. I do show some frustration in my stream from time to time. Most of the frustration is that I have a lot of external factors that leave me in situations where I really only have time for 1 game. If I have trouble getting a start, now I have 2 hours left to play. What do I do with that? This is the most frustrating thing. Not that the game is frustrating me, but that I can't really play long enough to pound out 3-4 attempts in a row. It is very rare lately for me to sit down in a situation where I don't have some time pressure to get a start in the next 30 minutes or risk having a game where I have to quit playing deep in. I have had to quit a 720K game when I still didn't have a KS. When I was pressing for the 900K, I got stuck in a spot where I had to quit a game where I was at level 12-1 with 450K and no deaths. I never did replicate that type of opening. The time pressure was bad, but not nearly as bad when my target games were going to be 2-2.5 hours. Now it can really be frustrating.

Where I am going:

I want to put up a score high enough that I believe <Billy> has never beaten it. I am putting this number at 1,070,000. I think I have the ability to work toward this as a reasonable goal. I will probably keep playing to 1.1 million or higher as long as I am having fun. I am less sure if that is inside my ability, but I think my trajectory makes it seem reasonable. I think I am closer to the beginning of my DK journey than the end.

At some point, I want to start mixing in some DK Jr. play. I am currently awful. I have probably played 10-20 games total, and the basics of safe play escape me. I am hopeful I can steal strategies from BarraNZ or other streamers now that interest there has picked up slightly. Really, only some dedicated play will help though. This will almost certainly come after the 1 million DK. A kill screen, then 1 million point game, and beat you know who are the goal for that too.

I want to say that even though beating someone might be my goal from time to time, I realize there is a difference between optimizing and executing strategies and developing strategies. I am not saying that because I beat so and so's score I am better than that person. I am better, but for completely different reasons  :P.

Hardware odds and ends:

I would like to make some upgrades to my streaming/playing set up and have started working in that direction.

My desired final state would be a set up similar to Wes's with my current DDK board and my cabinet being a stock Donkey Kong arcade machine. I would also like to be able to stream direct capture from either without too much shuffling stuff around. I would like to use my webcam to show my inputs while I play. I also want to get Remix for DDK.

I am waiting for the Mr. Video guys to call my number. I have the remix kit for my DDK board. I have acquired a Donkey Kong TKG-3 PCB (untested probably doesn't work).

The easiest thing I can do next on this front is test the TKG-3. This has a much different connection than my DDK board. I will have to figure how to get this connected in order to test it. When it doesn't work, I will have to figure out how to fix it or see if it is hopeless. I worked in a physics lab as an undergrad and I have done my fair share of soldering and circuit tinkering (been a while though). I hope this is a fun side project. I have to get some of the stuff for this, as my old stuff is lost/broken. The only working thing I could only find was a multimeter. I am hoping I get lucky and it just works. I plan to test the board this weekend and hope I don't destroy anything important.

I need to install the remix kit, but I may wait until I get the million. I don't want to leave myself without a working board for too long. If the TKG-3 works out, I will speed this up.

In order to complete this set up, I need a CRT of some kind for the DDK remix board (probably try and get a nice PVM), a power supply, some place to put these things (I don't want them just sitting out because I have small kids and pets), and some joystick and buttons. I would like to build something to house the joystick and buttons that will give the same form factor as the DK cabinet and build a small box to put the PCB and power supply in. I would like to set myself up a work space in the basement for light wood work and circuit stuff. We will see how it goes.

That is all for now. I know the first one was a long one.

NWnike:
Sith, you know I like watching your stream. My main question is "How do you have the time to stream as much as you do without the wife getting mad?" My wife got mad just because I was watching your stream! Good luck reaching your milestones. You can do it!

SithOfSpades:
I asked my wife and she said she does get mad, it is ridiculous how much I play. She said I should see the fact that you asked this question as proof that it has gotten out of hand. Also, funny is that my primary rant is about not enough time to play. She doesn't know about that because she would never read my enormous post.

I liken it to the boiling frog parablehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog. I actually play much fewer games of Donkey Kong than I did when I first started. The time spent is a lot more, but the game count is way down.

I do try and play more when she or the 6 year old is asleep. Which probably helps also. I used to have the cabinet in the dining room and we used to have on stream arguments about it and how much I play quite a bit.

NWnike:
Ok, first allow me to clarify: I don't think you are playing too much. It was just as a married man, (25 years in November) I know, I mean KNOW, that my wife would never stop complaining about how much I was playing if that was me. However, I wish  I could play that much. She already thinks I play too much and thinks I'm  "obsessed." I do practice some on the switch but mostly when I'm home and she's not. I did mention that I would like to have my own cabinet and whoo! That did not go over well at all.

SithOfSpades:
I don't really have another side hobby right now. I tend to focus on one thing at a time. I am not out playing golf all day Saturday or going out after work for drinks. I think that has a lot to do with it. I am at work, playing DK, or spending time with the family.

I continue to feel like I am due for some breakout games. Over the last week I have had multiple times where I have had 1st men over 300 K. Unfortunately, I have been really having a lot of clustered deaths in almost every game. I think I am ready in the sense that I know how to execute things, but I am having a mental block in that I don't really believe I am going to get the 1 million. I will bust through, but this last run of games had been frustratingly close in some ways.

I am going to have more time to play over the next week. I am trying not to set my expectations too high, since I know that is highly likely to lead to massive frustration. I think that if I can just stay calm and execute, I have a good chance to break though this wall at like the 400 K level that I seem to be stuck at lately. I feel like once I hit a game like that, it will just be a matter of time.

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