weekly contest VGS NES Weekly Contest - Quarth!

[Jeevan | 8,910]

4 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Holy shit... @Jeevan coming out of left field to knock me out of my silver spot!!!  I never got a chance to get back to this game and play for score this week, but I still need to beat the game for my personal list, and it looks like the best way to do that is to bank as many lives as possible to burn on the last couple levels.  Ergo.... you pretty much need to always play this game for score to bank as many lives as possible.  The game is incredibly flawed, but man, what potential...

Ya, i think if u can bank up 9 lives, then just coast after that and just do the minimal clearing u could probably easily beat it.  That will be the way i approach it anyway, probably this week since there is not a competition.

Also, sorry for knocking you out, but I got that pretty early in the week and figured it was good for 3rd at the very least.

[FireHazard51 | 2,043]

I barely played this game but thought it was fun but also that it would be a long game to play.  With my busy week I just never had the energy to play it.  And it looks like @Jeevancrushed it this week so nicely done.......I would of beat you if I tried 

[Jeevan | 8,910]

You should try it out this week @FireHazard51 IF you have time, it really is a fun game, grindy but fun.

[RH | 4,903]

1 hour ago, FireHazard51 said:

I barely played this game but thought it was fun but also that it would be a long game to play.  With my busy week I just never had the energy to play it.  And it looks like @Jeevancrushed it this week so nicely done.......I would of beat you if I tried 

 

1 hour ago, Jeevan said:

You should try it out this week @FireHazard51 IF you have time, it really is a fun game, grindy but fun.

After midnight last night, I looked up a speedrun. There's one video of someone beating it in 30 minutes. It feels grindy but I guess with fast tapping fingers and precision, this game isn't that long compared to most other NES titles.

Of course that player had a final score over 185k and was more than willing to startegically die to clear the busiest of levels.

Edited May 10, 2021 by RH

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

9 hours ago, mbd39 said:

What decides whether you get B or C? It's possible to get a bunch of C's in a row without a B in sight.

So when your clear 256 you get a B. When you clear 512 you get a C. When you clear 768 you get a B and so on. So generally you get Bs when you clear 256+512x blocks, and Cs when you clear 512x blocks (where x is an integer). But you can skip over a C appearing if you past the threshold for a C with the B powerup on screen, or you hit the B threshold when the C powerup is in delay mode. Skipping Cs doesn't make the Bs come sooner with respect of the number of blocks cleared. It just makes sure you don't skip over a B when the double C powerup is active for those 25 second. 

8 hours ago, Krunch said:

Hmm B's every 256 eh somehow this makes sense, when I was in my earlier runs I was focusing, arguably over-focusing, on just building up and clearing quantity, I seemed to get more pink blocks then?  I was probably also getting less x3's so less S and E's.... but meh.  This just seems like some under-sophisticated item/score system where the average naked-eye results fall around getting "enough" but when considering the huge score difference for B in conjunction with all the placements of possible rectangles it gets quickly and harshly skewed.  Hard to break?  Perhaps.  The mechanics are still really good in spite of it all... but I won't necessarily be building a Quarth collectibles shrine either.

I probably didn't describe it will enough but you can only get Bs every 512 blocks (see above). But that doesn't change the fact that the scoring system is indeed broken. 

2 hours ago, Jeevan said:

Ya, i think if u can bank up 9 lives, then just coast after that and just do the minimal clearing u could probably easily beat it.  That will be the way i approach it anyway, probably this week since there is not a competition.

You can actually get more than 9 lives. The game keeps track it just doesn't show them past 9 (just like the score when you get over 100k). But yes it's much easier the beat when playing for score. You get lives every 10k, so my 370k score got 37 lives which I assume I didn't even get close to using them all. 

[Jeevan | 8,910]

4 minutes ago, 0xDEAFC0DE said:

So when your clear 256 you get a B. When you clear 512 you get a C. When you clear 768 you get a B and so on. So generally you get Bs when you clear 256+512x blocks, and Cs when you clear 512x blocks (where x is an integer). But you can skip over a C appearing if you past the threshold for a C with the B powerup on screen, or you hit the B threshold when the C powerup is in delay mode. Skipping Cs doesn't make the Bs come sooner with respect of the number of blocks cleared. It just makes sure you don't skip over a B when the double C powerup is active for those 25 second. 

I probably didn't describe it will enough but you can only get Bs every 512 blocks (see above). But that doesn't change the fact that the scoring system is indeed broken. 

You can actually get more than 9 lives. The game keeps track it just doesn't show them past 9 (just like the score when you get over 100k). But yes it's much easier the beat when playing for score. You get lives every 10k, so my 370k score got 37 lives which I assume I didn't even get close to using them all. 

Oh, i know, im just saying realistically if u can't game the game with your b scoring trick i think there is a chance if u get 9+ lives you should be able to beat the game.  I dont know, i made it to level 9 but not with 9 lives so maybe i am just thinking you can......the more lives the better for sure.

**edit**  what i mean is, if i were to get to 9 lives, i would basically just try and keep it clear as quick as possible to get through the game to beat it

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

1 minute ago, Jeevan said:

Oh, i know, im just saying realistically if u can't game the game with your b scoring trick i think there is a chance if u get 9+ lives you should be able to beat the game.  I dont know, i made it to level 9 but not with 9 lives so maybe i am just thinking you can......the more lives the better for sure.

Additionally you can try practicing the later levels from the start screen so you die less on them. And don't get discouraged when you can't beat the game from them, because I too needed extra lives. 

[Jeevan | 8,910]

its all fairly random tho correct?  Like I never really seen the levels look similar, unless i was just too drained to really remember it......But is the level build random?  It's not like i knew exactly what was coming up ever.....

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

Yes the levels are built randomly. It's just practicing keeping up with the speed of the scrolling. The key is to make the most use out of the clearing animation which stops the scrolling. I never got this good, but I looked at the speedrun for some inspiration.

 

[MegaMan52 | 2,443]

Can't wait for the Antarctic Adventure and Rad Racer II contests.

Edited May 10, 2021 by MegaMan52

[SuperJimtendo | 1,121]

13 hours ago, NESfiend said:

 

@BeaIank @guillavoie @Jeevan - can we get a break week thread to discuss what people are or are not playing, increases in productivity, depression, etc during the off time? Im sure @SuperJimtendo would draw some shit

 

A separate break week nonsense thread could be a fun time. 

[Krunch | 303]

@0xDEAFC0DE yah so it’s sequential eh, I thought maybe it was a chance every time, which arguably might be better than a static sequence anyways.  I hate to call anything broken these days but maybe it is broken as a high score game, but not necessarily as a progression game

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

Yeah, broken is probably a bit hyperbolic. Unbalanced, would be more accurate. The main problem is when playing for score B powerups are way too many points. Therefore it makes it trivial to get enough lives if you know what you're doing.

[mbd39 | 2,020]

11 minutes ago, 0xDEAFC0DE said:

Yeah, broken is probably a bit hyperbolic. Unbalanced, would be more accurate. The main problem is when playing for score B powerups are way too many points. Therefore it makes it trivial to get enough lives if you know what you're doing.

But would average player not analyzing the code be able to figure out how the powerups work? They mostly seem random.

 

 

[Krunch | 303]

^Thats the thing, at the naked eye glance it doesn’t seem too bad but under the microscope the points seem broken on an atomic level.  Knowing all this we can totally see why competitive Quarth would favour speedruns

[mbd39 | 2,020]

Quarth surprised me. I didn't spend much time with other games this year, only going for participation. But Quarth kept me coming back.

 

[NESfiend | 1,515]

@Dr. Morbis was 100% right when he said all the potential in rhe world with some bad execution. I can give it a pass for being too slow for too long before it gets challenging. Really came to like playing at all phases. Scoring system is asinine. More/Smaller point bonuses and variations on combo points, so many ways to make it interesting. Anything but a single point per block plus the randomly placed 15k bonus. 

[Jeevan | 8,910]

1 hour ago, NESfiend said:

@Dr. Morbis was 100% right when he said all the potential in rhe world with some bad execution. I can give it a pass for being too slow for too long before it gets challenging. Really came to like playing at all phases. Scoring system is asinine. More/Smaller point bonuses and variations on combo points, so many ways to make it interesting. Anything but a single point per block plus the randomly placed 15k bonus. 

IDK what you all are talking about, I enjoyed it

too bad friggin deafcode participated

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

4 hours ago, mbd39 said:

But would average player not analyzing the code be able to figure out how the powerups work? They mostly seem random.

That is true. But even without knowing how the powerups work, the Bs come frequently enough that they are still score the bulk of the points. Knowing how they work just makes it worse. 

[NESfiend | 1,515]

1 hour ago, Jeevan said:

IDK what you all are talking about, I enjoyed it

too bad friggin deafcode participated

Dont get me wrong. I really did end up enjoying it. Its a really cool game, just seems like there wasnt mucu thought put into scoring 

[Jeevan | 8,910]

Just now, NESfiend said:

Dont get me wrong. I really did end up enjoying it. Its a really cool game, just seems like there wasnt mucu thought put into scoring 

are the remakes/ports different i wonder? 

[Krunch | 303]

2 hours ago, Jeevan said:

are the remakes/ports different i wonder? 

I read that in the USA game boy release you can store your powerups.  That’s half the fix right there so someone musta noticed some of this stuff.