Ok, So I decided to look back at the photo's I've taken of my high scores since I began my quest. I took the data (scores and date, dip switch setting) and compiled a chart and some graphs. I haven't been keeping any data since I began streaming, but I could always reference my recording history if need be for future analysis.
I got my DK and Pac-Man cabs the day of Hurricane Sandy. I was able to play them for about 2 hours, before the power began to flicker, I immediately turned my new babies off. The power was out in my neighborhood for a week, due to a downed power-line in my backyard. The following Sunday the downed line was replaced with a tight-rope taught speed job.
November 5th begins the DK adventure, I played for about a week and a half on 5 man settings, followed shortly thereafter by my first CAG PCB issue (another lost week). I had now switched to 3 men and was in need of some motivation (lacked progress) around the 350K mark and went to the "end of the world party" at Knuckles arcade; I watched Hank play a complete game to the Kill-screen at around 930k, asking him questions the entire time (In retrospect, I can't believe he dealt with me so well, while playing). That night gave me the motivation to get back at it.
Around the end of January I had a few games where I had run over 200K on a first men and my confidence was beginning to grow. On january 26th and 27th I had two games just under 600K; 596600 on my first and only game of the 26th (New PB by over 100K) and then a 595400 on sunday the 27th. On january 31st, I awoke to no power in my house, I looked out back to see that the tight-rope had snapped in a wind storm during the night. I went to work and came home to find a replaced power line and a house filled with broken (surged) electronics. It would end up as a $900+ settlement with the power company and 3 month electrical upgrade in the house. For the next 3 weeks I had no DK, due to a blown monitor and fried PCB.
After 2+ weeks of DK jonesin' I went to Knuckles on a random Friday to play me some DK, I arrived to meet a small long haired gentlemen by the name of George Leutz, totally oblivious to who he was or what he was doing. By the end of the night, I had gone from DK to Q*bert watching, and promised George I would "return to talk your ear off" on Sunday. I watched over 13hrs that Sunday and made some amazing new friends, but more importantly, George motivated me in a way words can not describe. As a side note, my cab actually got fixed the Saturday during George's marathon, but I refused to play it until he finished his game.
I purchased my webcam the night after George's marathon and the rest is history!
I want to thank everyone who ever stopped by my stream and kept me company, you guys rule. Here is the summary data set
In this chart I plotted days played rather than days since first game. I did this to remove the error associated with the 3 week hiatus due to explosion. When I did this, I got a much different (higher) value for progress rate, nearly 52,600pts gained per high-score increase, on 3 man settings.
(CORRECTION: I noticed that because this chart only includes high-score data points, It would be unrealistic to assume that these were the only times I played. That being said the slope of the line (M value) is not in the units of pts/days played, but rather, Points gained/high score. In reality, all of the M values, in the first and third figures, are in the units of Points gained/New high-score; Basically it shows the average number of points gained each time my high score increased.)
Additional photos of every high score game and some first man personal bests can be seen in this folder , just make sure to sort the folder list by "oldest first"
http://s1083.photobucket.com/user/bilythekid_lvdc/library/dk%20progress
