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2022 VGS NES Weekly Contest - Road Runner!


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Events Team · Posted

Beep! Beep!

Players, get ready to speed up, get some bird seed and avoid a lunatic coyote bearing ACME equipment at Road Runner!

The rules for this week are very simple:

  • Play till you lose your first life or till you reach the end of stage 21
  • If you reach the end of stage 21, pause the game and take your picture before finishing the stage
  • If you roll you score, take a picture before roll over and after roll over
  • Highest score wins
  • Participation: 5,000
  • Genre: Arcade

The contest ends Sunday, 05/29/22 at 11 pm EST.  Your user name should be written or typed on a piece of paper and be in the picture for your score to be valid. For speed runs that require video, that is not required.  The entire TV screen, or computer monitor if you are playing on an emulator, MUST be in the picture for the score to be valid.  No partial screenshots will be considered or accepted.  No screenshots by hitting "print screen" on a computer will be allowed.  You must take a picture of your computer monitor.  There may be instances where this will be acceptable, but it will be at the discretion of myself and the contest organizers.  Also, the use of turbo controllers is forbidden, as well as any cheat codes, Game Genies, slow motion functions, or save states if playing on an emulator.  Also, we will only be using NTSC systems for the contests.  The use of PAL systems will NOT be allowed.  Good luck everyone and have fun.

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43,917 POINTS

20220524_190006.jpg.decfb6dfa38054ea0ff8513cd84edabe.jpg

Progress is being made here.  Almost through level 2 before dying...and this marks the first time I've ever been caught by the pogo stick 😛  Got the cars to hit Wile E. three times on level 1, so that helped.

Well that's better.  Made it to level 2, with a score well above participation level.  On one life the game is fairly short too, I may give this one a fair bit more time than I initially thought...

First time playing in a LONG time.  Didn't get very far, but I did get far enough for participation.  Obviously I'll try and improve sometime this week, but if I don't I've at least landed some points 😛

 

Edited by the_wizard_666
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Once again these are not official contest progress pics.

It took me 2 continues but I finally managed to clear this game.  One-life-contests really are great training.  I had heard somewhere or other that this game stops after level 21.  Well, it keeps going but it looks like after the 5th loop the program recycles loops 3 and 4.

On 3 continues I made it to the "end" of the 7th loop otherwise known as Level 28.

 

 

Edited by PII
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5 hours ago, mbd39 said:

6,619

People are getting 200k? I can barely break 10k in one life. Anyway, this is probably it for me.

A couple key tips:

1. Don't let Wile E. go offscreen.  It seems counter intuitive to not just go as quick as possible, but he gets a massive burst of speed that can be hard to dodge on narrow paths.  I keep him near the right edge so I have plenty of time.

2. You get a ton of points if you can knock him down.  The cars are probably the easiest to do it with, but there's other hazards that you can trick him into.  Not only do you get the points when he's hit, you get bonus points when/if you beat the level as well.

3. Try not to miss any bird seed unless absolutely necessary.  There's a 10k bonus after beating level 1 if you get all the seeds.  Not sure if this goes up every level, but free points are free points.

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2 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

A couple key tips:

1. Don't let Wile E. go offscreen.  It seems counter intuitive to not just go as quick as possible, but he gets a massive burst of speed that can be hard to dodge on narrow paths.  I keep him near the right edge so I have plenty of time.

2. You get a ton of points if you can knock him down.  The cars are probably the easiest to do it with, but there's other hazards that you can trick him into.  Not only do you get the points when he's hit, you get bonus points when/if you beat the level as well.

3. Try not to miss any bird seed unless absolutely necessary.  There's a 10k bonus after beating level 1 if you get all the seeds.  Not sure if this goes up every level, but free points are free points.

All good tips.  Also, if you have trouble collecting the bird seed try hitting it from above or below...

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10 hours ago, RH said:

So, why isn't this game on speedrun.com?!  Odd, I'm sure there are some but I couldn't find any speedruns for this game.

Well, when you have to argue about when to stop, that kind of takes the thrill out of a speed run.  How would you decide where to end a Road Runner speed run?  You could:

-Max out unique levels
-Max out level counter
-Max out or loop score counter
-Max out difficulty spike (assuming it does stop incrementing at some point)
-Max out all enemy types
-Rank #1 on the High Score Chart, thereby defeating the best default high score
-Insert your own answer here?!?

Edited by Dr. Morbis
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Just found: At the start of level 1 there's a sign that says "short cut."  If you go through the opening you warp to level 3.  Not much help for scoring, but for anyone wanting to practice the later bits, or just get through the game faster, it might help.  You also get a free man when you take it.

EDIT: On further plays, after resetting the game, it shows as "closed."  I'm wondering if that's a way to continue from where you left off?  I died on level 3, so that's entirely possible...

Edited by the_wizard_666
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38 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

-Insert your own answer here?!?

After level 20 it starts to repeat layouts..

After running out of lives you can hit start and then enter the shortcut that Wiz mentioned to warp back to the last level you were on for up to 3 continues..

@mbd39Getting caught on the sides can be a real pain.  Not sure there's any advice other than learn the turf, navigate an efficient route and avoid touching the sides that are trouble spots..

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Late era Atari Arcade games often gave you the option of starting on a later level to skip the slower stuff you're bored with, often with a point bonus so you're not missing all those points you'd get on the "easy" levels (think Tempest, Roadblasters, Star Wars, etc) so I'm not surprised they incorporated that in some manner into the home version of this game...

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Administrator · Posted
Just now, Dr. Morbis said:

Late era Atari Arcade games often gave you the option of starting on a later level to skip the slower stuff you're bored with, often with a point bonus so you're not missing all those points you'd get on the "easy" levels (think Tempest, Roadblasters, Star Wars, etc) so I'm not surprised they incorporated that in some manner into the home version of this game...

Trog had a similar mechanic, though taking the "bonus" points actually lowered your overall potential score, if I recall.

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1 minute ago, Gloves said:

Trog had a similar mechanic, though taking the "bonus" points actually lowered your overall potential score, if I recall.

Yeah, if you were going for absolute max score, you never want to skip any levels, but for a more casual gamer, having the option of skipping the slower levels can definitely look attractive...

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35 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

I'm just trying to figure out how you managed to get as far as you did @PII.  Three continues only got me to level 6 😛

Lol, Practice and lots of it.  A while back already I could consistently get to level 17 or so.  A couple days of 1 life training and suddenly hitting 20 / 21 doesn't seem too hard.  Now I'm seeing how far I can get on just the first string of lives.  So far: Level 14 is my best. 

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