07/09/14: This blog post was sent from the future!! The future where my blog posts don't suck quite as hard.
It's difficult finding motivation to write about every shitty Donkey Kong session I have, and even more difficult to try and make a shitty session of Donkey Kong worth reading about. And so, in an effort to make my blog entries more fun, I am giving this blog a makeover – it's a blogover.
This
EPIC
FUCKING
BLOG
POSTstarts now!
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PersonalMy Donkey Kong play can sometimes be a reflection of my life.
If my schedule is super hectic and all I want to do at the end of a day is relax, Donkey Kong too can become tedious, and as a result my play will be lackluster. If I'm on vacation and have a lot of free time – some of which I will spend playing Donkey Kong and some of which I will spend drinking and sleeping – than I will be more relaxed and as a result play looser/better. Thus, if I'm in limbo, somewhere between work and vacation, then it follows my Donkey Kong play will be somewhere between lackluster and first-rate.
With school coming to an end (I'm wrapping up my last 2 classes this Summer) I am obviously in many ways excited and relieved, yet the stresses of homework and exams are now being replaced with the stresses of the real world. I feel like I've earned the opportunity to just chill out for awhile, but surely any prospective employers will look down upon downtime. Therefore, as a sort of compromise, I have decided to enroll in grad school, but not begin my graduate studies until Winter. This break, from September through December, will give me the necessary time to decompress, however, it also has the potential to create great financial instability if I cannot find career-related work in the meantime. I need to find a job or an internship that is relevant to my degree so I can begin building a resume that features impressions beyond a former Donkey Kong world record. I need to get out there and market myself, and I fucking hate marketing myself. A whole lot of phony smiles and cover letters await me, and as a result, despite being more or less on vacation, I am not relaxed – I am in limbo.
In line with my personal state, my Donkey Kong play is also in limbo. It started with the Donkey Kong Open tournament, when I played for hours at roughly 1.1 million pace and got absolutely nowhere. I had thought all my max point-pressing attempts would make 1.1 tries significantly easier, and they did, or, it WAS easier, yet not over-pressing the barrels didn't keep me from getting my ass melted off on every pie factory.
“Fuck it!” I finally thought, “If I'm still subject to the whims of the pie factories then I really need to scale things back until I at least get a score on the board and secure my spot at the Kong Off.”
For now, my long-term Donkey Kong scoring goals have been put on hold.
Since this decision my sessions have greatly improved. Precisely, I've had two sessions each consisting of two games, with scores 2x500k and 2x800k. Yes, I've still to get a score on the board, but my head is in a much better place now. It used to be that playing at anything less than full bore felt like a waste of my time and ability. I wasn't interested in scoring 1.1 million or whatever, I wanted the big one. Now, in this state of limbo, I'm content to just play through a game at a medium pace and see what happens.
Just like I need to find a job to provide some financial support for my family and help build a future within my chosen career, I need to put up a score and secure my spot in the Kong Off 3.
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EducationalRecently I was asked why I often position myself to the right of the bottom hammer when setting up for the grab. Here's the answer:
http://www.twitch.tv/dwwnp/c/2541621The name of the video is “Fireballs are Scared of Me”, but in reality, fireballs are not scared of me, nor am I a magician or a practitioner of voodoo witchcraft. The video features a very particular circumstance wherein I have recognized and exploited a specific fireball “sub-routine”.
“Sub-routine my dick!” you say. “Lexmark science!” you say.
Well, you are entitled to think (wrongly
) whatever you want. I will present you with evidence to support my claim, and you can decide for yourself what makes up reality. Furthermore, I do not want this video to incite willy-nilly fireball jumping. I do not want Allen to start thinking he can jump fireballs whenever he pleases. Read and watch carefully, and judge for yourself whether it's worth further exploring this tactic and integrating it with your existing play.
Here's another video showing exploitation of essentially the same sub-routine.
http://www.twitch.tv/dwwnp/c/2541491Questions I can imagine people are having: one, How does this generate advantage? and two, Is the risk worth it?
One: advantage is gained by delaying the hammer grab. I believe these videos demonstrate clearly, that by delaying the hammer grab by just an extra half-second I am given the opportunity for an extra smash. Even if I miss the steer to claim the extra barrel, the opportunity was there. Had I been standing to the left of the hammer in either scenario I would have been too uncomfortable not to grab the hammer from the left – grab the hammer a half-second earlier – and missed out on the potential for an extra barrel as a result.
Two: the only risk associated with this tactic is in misreading the sub-routine; the sub-routine shown in these first two videos can be exploited 100% of the time. Look now at how I respond when I recognize the fireball as not fitting to the sub-routine shown in the first two videos.
http://www.twitch.tv/dwwnp/c/2541570Can you spot the fireball “tell” that made me adjust my positioning? Can you spot the “tell” that made me confident to jump towards the fireball in the first two videos?
I didn't know precisely how the fireball was going to behave after it deviated from the sub-routine shown in the first two videos. All I knew was that the fireball had become a potential threat, and that if I did not adjust my position and the fireball came charging back at me, I would stand a good chance of dying. In this case, everything worked out swimmingly and the extra delay before the hammer grab netted me extra smashes.
When discussing some of this on Twitch the other day, I was asked why I wouldn't just stand to the left except when I recognized the safe sub-routine. Here's the answer (but please keep in mind that this is an answer to why I play this way and not necessarily a response to why playing like this is best):
I want as much of my movement as possible to be focused towards the left, and specifically, towards Kong's ladder where I can intercept barrels and drastically reduce their time on the higher girders. This means I want to prevent the fireball from dictating my movement as much as possible. I don't want to put myself in a position where I have to react to the fireball when it may be unnecessary to do so. I want to give the fireballs as much time as possible to tell me their intentions. Watch here as I expertly
maximize a bottom hammer by standing my ground.
http://www.twitch.tv/dwwnp/c/2542134And here again, an example wherein I react to the fireball only after it has made its intentions clear (don't mind the anti-Pac-Man rant).
http://www.twitch.tv/dwwnp/c/2541546Guessing at fireball behavior can get you killed and preempting a possible fireball threat can lose you points. Don't do either, if you can help it.
These videos were all from one playing session – two games – hence I am not talking about corner case scenarios here. These situations come up, and if you can remain calm in the face of fire, your scores will rise. Additionally, jumping fireballs shows everyone just how large a bulge you're sporting. In the CAG world the importance of style points is often overlooked.
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ProfessionalWhen the rules governing how the Wild Card tournaments would feed the Kong Off Wild Card division were initially announced, I was less than pleased. As it was initially drawn up, the structure of the Wild Card tournaments had the potential to actually hurt players who were near the bottom of the top 12. I withdrew from the third Wild Card Tournament for exactly this reason. The way I saw it, the Wild Card division was getting out of control and taking away way too many of the privileges afforded to the top 12 players. I don't support affirmative action.
In the end though, Eric and John responded to feedback from the community and got it right (in my opinion) with the Donkey Kong Open tournament structure.
I never meant to be condescending to the efforts of Eric or John, they are a gift to the Donkey Kong community.
Thank you Eric and John. Thank you.
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Alright that's all I have for now, except for this one last feature of my blogover,...
The
Tip of the Day/Month/Whatever (imagine a booming echo): The moment you start believing the game is against you, the game will turn against you. As much as you possibly can, stop believing in randomness and blaming it for your deaths. Take ownership of your play and ask first, “How can I stop that from happening again?” and not “What the fuck was that bullshit!?”
Disclaimer: this particular Tip of the Day does not apply to levels 1 through 4; levels 1 through 4 ARE, in fact, total bullshit.
Until next time, may your largeness be huge.
