"Tut tut"...get it? Lit, Ross?
Anyhoo, here's my introductory tutorial post on Tutankham information and strategy. Let me make this very clear up front: I am not that good at this game...yet. There is a distinct lack of information on this game on teh intarwebz. I've reached out to others on MARP and the new TG forums, but those calls for help have gone largely unanswered. So here we are. I'm going to lay out what I know and as I get better and smarter I will update this thread. Hopefully other Tut players will weigh in and we can break this game. Everything I say, especially in this first post, should be prefaced with "To the best of my knowledge..." or "I think..." My plan is to make new posts as new information comes to light, instead of editing old posts.
What is Tutankham? Robotron meets Pac-Man meets whythefuckcanionlyshootleftandrighteq;lrkgj ar;g eqrgqe
Sorry. Let's move on.
Goal and ControlIn Tutankham, you control an explorer who raids the tombs of dead pharaohs, searching for treasure and fighting off enemies with your magical shitty laser and flash bombs. To progress through the game you must collect keys to open doors. The number and placement of keys and doors varies. The game is horizontally-scrolling and uses a combination of two joysticks (one 4-way for movement, one 2-way for firing) and one button (flash bomb). Once you're moving in a direction you will continue in that direction until you hit a wall or input a change in direction. Your laser only fires left and right, though killing enemies in vertical space is possible. The flash bomb kills all enemies on the screen. Enemies can also be "wiped" from the playing field by traveling horizontally to another section of the maze.
MAME originally mapped the 2-way firing joystick as buttons, meaning a player could fire in both directions simultaneously when playing in MAME. This is fixed in version 0.153. If you play in an older version of MAME, don't fire in both directions simultaneously pls.
There is a "radar" at the top of the screen that depicts which section of the maze you're in and where you and the enemies are currently located. It does not show the locations of keys, doors, or treasures. As you move around, any enemies that get stuck outside of the bracketed area in the radar will be wiped.
StagesThere are only 4 stage layouts in the game and these repeat in the same order, indefinitely. So, stages 5, 9, 13, etc. are all the same layout as Stage 1. There are significant differences in the later stages in terms of keys, timer, etc. and I'll explain those later. The basic layouts stay the same, however. How the game loops itself is a larger issue than just the physical layout, so I'll also discuss that later.
There is no known killscreen and the stage counter will show the full stage number beyond Stage 100 (though I haven't tested to see what happens at say, Stage 255 or 256). The score rolls over to 0 when reaching 1 million.
Here are the layouts of Stages 1 through 4. Keep in mind that later stages have more keys and doors.
ScoringPoints are scored by collecting treasures and keys, opening doors, killing enemies, and racking up the bonuses after finishing a stage. Bonus points are awarded in 2 ways: 1) time leftover after finishing a stage and 2) some stages have a fixed bonus for finishing.
TreasureEach stage contains numerous treasures. The point value of each treasure increases depending on how many you've already picked up. The first treasure is worth 500 points and the remaining progress through 1000, 1500, 2000, 3000, and 4000 points (provided there are 6 treasures in the current stage and you pick them all up). See the graphic below.
EnemiesThere are three classes of enemies: slow, not-as-slow, and fuck-you. Depending on the stage these enemies appear, in my interpretation, as snakes, birds, bats, gorgons, griffins, or stars. The more difficult the enemy the more points you are awarded for burning its face off with your magical shitty laser. The possible values are 20, 40, or 60 points. See the graphic below.
Keys and DoorsThe only way to progress through the game is to collect keys that open doors. Keys are always worth 500 points. Opening a door is worth 1000 points.
Timer and Stage BonusYou are awarded 80 points for every second left on the timer when you finish a stage. The fixed stage bonuses are little more complicated. Finishing Stage 1 nets you exactly 0 bonus points other than the timer bonus. Finishing Stage 5 (the repeat of Stage 1) will award you with 1000 points. This is because Stage 5 is actually more difficult than Stage 1. The maximum stage bonus is 6000 points, for finishing Stage 16.
| Stage | | Timer Length | | # of Keys | | # of Treasures | | Finishing Bonus |
| Stage 1 | | 60 | | 1 | | 3 | | 0 |
| Stage 2 | | 90 | | 2 | | 6 | | 1000 |
| Stage 3 | | 140 | | 2 | | 6 | | 2000 |
| Stage 4 | | 140 | | 2 | | 6 | | 5000 |
| Stage 5 | | 60 | | 2 | | 3 | | 1000 |
| Stage 6 | | 120 | | 3 | | 6 | | 2000 |
| Stage 7 | | 160 | | 3 | | 6 | | 3000 |
| Stage 8 | | 160 | | 3 | | 6 | | 5000 |
| Stage 9 | | 60 | | 2 | | 3 | | 2000 |
| Stage 10 | | 120 | | 3 | | 6 | | 3000 |
| Stage 11 | | 160 | | 3 | | 6 | | 4000 |
| Stage 12 | | 180 | | 4 | | 6 | | 5000 |
| Stage 13 | | 60 | | 2 | | 3 | | 3000 |
| Stage 14 | | 120 | | 3 | | 6 | | 4000 |
| Stage 15 | | 160 | | 3 | | 6 | | 5000 |
| Stage 16 | | 180 | | 4 | | 6 | | 6000 |
oh my god shut up with the charts how do i play the gameI don't know. Maybe you could contribute something useful instead of being so negative all the time? Don't be a Brian Allen.
What do I need to be aware of?1. Radar2. Difficulty Level
3. Swarms
4. Long Start vs. Short Start
5. Safe Spots
1. RadarVirtually useless. Don't watch it unless you're checking it for wiped enemies.
2. Difficulty LevelOne of the big mysteries I was unable to to solve in my research was how the different difficulty settings work within the game. There are 4 settings that can be set with the DIPs. The arcade manual lists these settings as "1 (easy), 2, 3, and 4 (hard)." MAME lists them as "Easy, Normal, Hard, and Hardest." While that's pretty straightforward, different versions of MAME set the default difficulty differently. It also appears that "Normal" and "Hard" might be reversed in MAME. You can read all about it in the following threads:
Tutankham - Backwards DIPs? (MARP)Tutankham Settings? (TG)Ok, so even if all that gets sorted out...what does "difficulty" mean? As far as I can tell it only relates to the speed of the enemies. The enemies are clearly faster at the beginning of the game if set to "Hardest" than if the game is set to "Easy." I mentioned to Ross Benziger that I thought maybe the difficulties only related to the Stages themselves. If, for example, you started the game on "Easy" than Stage 1 would be "Easy," Stage 2 would be "Normal," Stage 3 would be "Hard" and Stage 4+ would max out on "Hardest." Then, for example, if you started a game on "Normal" then every difficulty would be offset by 1...meaning Stage 2 would become "Hard" and Stage 3+ would max out on "Hardest." Ross correctly pointed out that there may be more than 4 internal difficulties and I've changed my thinking. So why mention it? It turns out that the "Easy"/1 and "Hardest"/4 difficulty settings are probably the correct extremes in internal difficulty...meaning that they're always the easiest and hardest difficulties a player will see. The catch is that it seems there are a total of 6 internal difficulty levels.
Before I lay out how I believe those 6 difficulties progress I should note that I'm still not sure how each difficulty affects the enemy speed. Each of the three enemy classes seem to be constrained to certain speeds: snakes are always the slowest and bats/stars are the fastest and even the fastest snake will never be as fast as the slowest bat. So maybe on "Easy" all the enemies are locked in to their slowest speeds and on "Hardest" they're locked in to their fastest speed. The difficulties in between might be a result of different combinations of the enemies' respective speeds.
I played around with the MAME debugger and it appears that the DIPs only govern the difficulty settings for the first 8 stages. Beyond that the game enters a preset loop that is the same regardless of the initial difficulty level. Below is a table of how I believe the progression works. Difficulty 1 is easiest, 6 is hardest.
| Stage | | "Easy" | | "Normal" | | "Hard" | | "Hardest" |
| Stage 1 | | 1 | | 1 | | 1 | | 6 |
| Stage 2 | | 1 | | 3 | | 2 | | 6 |
| Stage 3 | | 2 | | 4 | | 3 | | 6 |
| Stage 4 | | 2 | | 5 | | 4 | | 6 |
| Stage 5 | | 4 | | 6 | | 4 | | 6 |
| Stage 6 | | 4 | | 6 | | 5 | | 6 |
| Stage 7 | | 6 | | 6 | | 6 | | 6 |
| Stage 8 | | 6 | | 6 | | 6 | | 6 |
| Stage 9 | | 5 | | 5 | | 5 | | 5 |
| Stage 10 | | 3 | | 3 | | 3 | | 3 |
| Stage 11 | | 3 | | 3 | | 3 | | 3 |
| Stage 12 | | 6 | | 6 | | 6 | | 6 |
| Stage 13 | | 6 | | 6 | | 6 | | 6 |
| Stage 14 | | 6 | | 6 | | 6 | | 6 |
| Stage 15 | | 6 | | 6 | | 6 | | 6 |
| Stage 16 | | 6 | | 6 | | 6 | | 6 |
| Stage 17 | | 1 | | 1 | | 1 | | 1 |
| Stage 18 | | 1 | | 1 | | 1 | | 1 |
| Stage 19 | | 1 | | 1 | | 1 | | 1 |
| Stage 20 | | 4 | | 4 | | 4 | | 4 |
| Stage 21 | | 3 | | 3 | | 3 | | 3 |
| Stage 22 | | 2 | | 2 | | 2 | | 2 |
| Stage 23 | | 2 | | 2 | | 2 | | 2 |
| Stage 24 | | 5 | | 5 | | 5 | | 5 |
Two things to point out here: 1) The difficulty progression from Stage 9 to Stage 24 is the same regardless of DIPs. This same progression loops itself after Stage 24. 2) I feel this is evidence that the "Normal" and "Hard" difficulties are backwards in MAME. Notice how the progression to the hardest difficulty (6) happens sooner on the "Normal" setting.
The progression of those internal difficulties jives pretty well with my observations with MAME, as well as with
this TG post by
"artz" that is over a decade old (assuming he started out on the hardest setting):
One thing I noticed about the game in the later stages is that the monster speeds slow down quite considerably throughout the game. A few months ago, with cheats on, I went all the way thru stage 39 to test this theory. Here are the breakdown of the monster speeds:
1-8 fast
9-11 slow
12-16 fast
17-27 slow
28-32 fast
33-39 slow
3. SwarmsEnemies will normally spawn from their hideouts with every tick of the timer. However, every 16 ticks a "swarm" will occur where up to 8 enemies will spawn very quickly. The number of enemies that spawn in a swarm depends on how many are already active on the screen. If there is only 1 enemy present, then 7 will spawn in the swarm. If 4 are present, then 4 will spawn in the swarm...etc, etc.
The most important thing to remember about swarms is that they are governed by a timer and that timer CARRIES OVER into the next stage. If a swarm is 2 ticks away from happening when you finish a stage, it will happen 2 ticks into the next stage. Although they are always 16 ticks apart, I think there is a separate swarm near the end of Stage 2 that is independent of and does not affect the overall swarm timer.
It is crucial that you are aware of the timer, know when swarms are going to happen, and can position yourself safely to deal with them.
4. Long Start vs. Short StartThis is something I have not seen mentioned in any way in all the old posts and brief FAQs I've found on the game. The more I played the game the more I began to notice that the very first timer tick on Stage 1, from 60 to 59, would happen at different rates. Sometimes that tick to 59 would happen immediately, sometimes not until I had rounded the first corner. Each timer tick should be ~2 seconds, or 128 frames. So wtf.
I played around with the MAME debugger and discovered that the internal timer that governs the on-screen timer actually starts running as soon as the game is loaded in MAME. Every time that timer rolls to a certain value the on-screen timer ticks down. If you start a game just as that internal timer rolls over, you can short yourself an entire tick. This seems like a minor issue, but it has 2 repercussions:
1) A shorter timer means you'll have less bonus time at the end of the stage. Not a whole of points to lose, but points are points!
2) Keeping track of the swarm timer becomes slightly more complicated. At least for me. I'm not great at doing math on-fly, in my head. If I can manage to start a game with the full "60" value in the timer, that makes it easier to keep track of the 16 ticks between swarms without worrying that it's going to happen in some weird fraction of a tick.
The good news is that the attract mode loops in sync with this internal timer, so you can use visual and audio cues in the attract mode to make sure you always start a game at the same time and get the better "Long Start." This should work on arcade; not just MAME. And if you frown on that kind of pre-game tomfoolery, then get stuffed.
5. Safe SpotsOh god I'm not ready for this part yet and this post is so long already. I'm still having trouble with Stage 4, so I have a lot to learn in this regard...and will save it for a future post that I will make in a couple of days.
That's all for now. Hope this provided some good introductory info and inspires some people to play and dig into this game!
