What I propose is this: if you accidentally grab the hammer, you still have one chance to save the game by killing your guy before the hammer expires, though if you smash anything, it's game over (because at that point you'll have
gained points by use of the hammer, which I think is a better place to draw the line, and keeps this from being a slippery slope).
i think its a cool aspect of the track. I like the danger of jumping near hammers
Under my proposed rule, that aspect would still be there. It would still be dangerous, since the current life would need to be sacrificed immediately, just not
excessively dangerous the way it is now!
I think that the "no hammer challenge" should really be thought of more as the "no hammer *smashes* challenge", because IMO, that's ultimately the core of what the variant is about - it's about not being able to protect yourself with the hammer. Swinging the hammer around for a few seconds while you look for a place to die doesn't do anything in your favor. The board will just be a do-over (or not, if it's your last life), same as if you'd died by running into a firefox or falling through a rivet hole.
DQ'ing the whole game just because of a hammer grab is really overdoing it. Weird stuff happens, and I don't just mean mental mistakes. If a player is on a major tear, like 700K on their second man, and they drop something that accidentally whacks their jump button at the wrong time, or the cat hits it, or whatever, does it really make sense to invalidate the whole performance?
Yes, it's unlikely, but talking about this stuff now keeps awkward situations from arising later!
As Ross said while watching me last night, after my megaderp: "play this out to the killscreen and all ass will break loose."
With Donkey Kong the "spirit of the game" is that you get a few chances to screw up and still forge ahead. Only four screw-ups, but there really isn't any equivalent, in any other play variant, for totally invalidating an entire run. The requirement that 1-1 be completed in order for a 1-1 score to count is the closest comparison, but that's very different, in the sense that having to complete the board actually dictates what kind of scores are possible. Not having to finish can be exploited, and would change the strategy, so there can actually be a material difference in the outcome.
Grabbbing a hammer, immediately suiciding, and replaying the board though? That's no different than just dying some other way and replaying it. I've made much, much dumber mistakes in Donkey Kong than the one I made in the game against Tim, and I was appropriately penalized for them with a loss of a single life. I would say "DQ" is a disproportionate penalty for an in-game mistake.
Maybe i would feel different if id had a big game ruined by a hammer grab,
Ha! Trust me. "Everything is fine as it is" is a very easy thing to say for people who this has never happened to! When your nasty moment comes, you're instantly gonna start rethinking this thread...
