Krunch

19,668

105,700

I was honestly awful at this.  I tried a fair bit but just didnt get enough consistency going.  I would have still needed a few hours to get good, I think.  I really was hoping to get the helicopter level.  Good game, but I guess I was just better at PW64

-404

Cool!  I'm gonna give this a go tonight!  Nice to see another contest posted, multi-platform was definitely the way to go I think

I play lots of Switch so I'm gonna keep doing that.  My wife and I have pretty much been playing Mario Party Superstars nonstop but theres lots of good stuff with high replay value so I just keep going back to it.  It would be nice to play some SNES favorites over the holidays especially Mario RPG maybe smw & dkc2 on co-op as well.  And more Gamecube, we've been playing that too, Gamecube has lots of oddball titles.  Game boy, N64, really anything - lots of stuff to replay and with a new appreciation I'm finding.  Cold-ass winter for the next few months makes it a good time to play at least

2 minutes ago, NESfiend said:

The problems with ncaa tourney style i

1) genres. Good luck to the poor soul who gets very high seeded tapeworm in a shooter week

2) some very good players dont participate much leading to high seeds that are actually favorites. Bert sampson was slated for like a 7 seed last year.

I agree.  I thought this setup was pretty good... I don't think the tournament structure itself is the reason for any apathy, that preceded the tournament.  I'll have to see the total end results to get a better idea, but it does seem like the effort applied in the tournament games correlates with the standings results.

2 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

You're probably right, since I was winging it in my head, in which case it would be two way tie for second maybe???

Damn.  If we have to tie from my perspective I was too damn greedy/rushed to put a proper placeholder up for QBert, is what it'll come down to for me.  Other than maybe being able to do better on Dk jr., or getting on the board for Batman Returns.

1 minute ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Yeah I think you got third with 15 points on two victories and Nesfiend got like 17 points...

Aren't I at 17 also?  It looks like I got 2nd in Code Name Viper for 8 and then 3rd in Dk for 6 plus my 3 from the previous weeks

2 minutes ago, docile tapeworm said:

Did I get third again?

@Reed Rothchild “third place Prince”

Three 3rd place finishes in the tournaments now. It’s like the bluest balls you can have it’s painful.

Did you notice there is no bonus after stage four? I would just milk the clock and hope the damn snatch traps would go down the chains with the fruit.

I never noticed that.  Damn, guess I just assumed you get the bonus.   I would have then just run out the clock and made sure to get both at least double and try for triples.  Those damn crocs just do not behave

12 minutes ago, docile tapeworm said:

69900

 

Damn that's a great score.  Well done to the tapewom

31 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

I'm wondering about Skinny and PII, and haven't heard from mbd in a while.  I'm assuming Wiz and Jamesrobot are no-shows...

Looks like no updates except from Skinny.  8:57 as im starting to write this.  I am totally fine with the standings as they are if thats whats to be.  @NESfiend I put in some time at the end but just couldnt quite steal the silver (thought it was gold until I checked just now).  Nicely played.  I could have done better on the -4 levels, seems like that has the highest ceiling.

Final hour.... I was able to make the requirement for Code Name Viper which honestly I'm thrilled about.  That stage was hard - but not horrible once I put it all together.  Still a bit of time to try to improve DK jr.  Is anyone sniping?

Stage 6, 53,850 (Code Name: Viper)

62,200 (DK Jr.)

On 11/30/2022 at 8:39 PM, PII said:

I was farming 3-1 as there is no need to ever stop and wait for what's-his-name to show up and change the colors and enemies get quite a bit worse on later level 3...

True, you can farm there as well.  Just jump back and forth.  On 2-1 I was mostly focused on farming whats-his-name along with the tile points.  Mainly just leading the snake up to the top and moving in a 2x2 square, sometimes expanding into a 3x3 square to be able to dip down amd get whats-his-name and avoid enemies on the lower-odds situation of them making it to the top.  It kinda pays to take your time in general really, the more points per level the better (as long as doing so doesnt zap your lives).

19 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Speaking of Q*bert, I checked the Mexican Runner's NES Mania list and he rated it 9.5 out of 10 in difficulty and it took him 16+ hours to beat - and he's an incredible gamer!  So yeah, I'm gonna have to double down on my "don't have time" comment and shelve that game for a good long while...

Yeah for me Q Bert was fairly tough even though Ive played it a fair bit but accordings to the constraints of the contest the best thing was to farm on 2-1 and then coast the rest from there - which isnt too easy, you can lose lives easily on the 3-1 and onward levels. Anyway I basically was aiming to get 1st and got too greedy, had lots of chances to get a mid 70's score but kept going for the big one, when I pulled the 70K I was like alright but then was surprised you had one higher.  With an hour left, a high level of fatigue, and some other stuff I wanted to do I had to sacrifice the chance for 2nd.  Tough go around.  But at least I got 3 pts going in and these final games are more heavily weighted.  DK jr is pretty fun... I have a cocktail arcade machine of it so ive always liked that one.

70,130

And sorry to ask this @BeaIank, in Q*Bert do we have to get to level 4-1 for our score to be valid?

4 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Yeah, well I used Ripple the whole time on Life Force and I just learned that killing certain enemies quicker with lasers gets you more points.  Oh wells... like you said, to my own detriment...  I was just focused on getting the no-death run, so at least I accomplished that...

That's good at least, there's still time anyway for some improvement.  I'm not playing Life Force at all - I'm horrendous at shooters.  In this instance getting 4th is unrealistic and I need all the time I can get on Q*Bert.  I have a good approach and I'm pretty good but I'm just !*@&ing up a lot, I need to actually put a proper run together.

12 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Yeah @Krunch, it's not so bad doing save state practice for a tournament competition with others when I guess everyone has the whole internet available to them; I would just never do it for a personal NES achievement myself, on principle.  If other people want to do it, more power to them.

I actually didn't even look at any Life Force videos on how to point press, so my posted no-death run is the natural score a person would get just playing through the game and shooting as much stuff as possible.  I see that @mbd39 blew my score away, so I can only assume there are some great strategies out there for scumming extra points out of Life Force.  I'm expecting @docile tapeworm to have a killer score in his pocket too, but I'm okay with third or fourth, depending on who else comes out of the woodwork.

Anyway, to each his own...

I do understand that for yourself.  I think it improves a person's overall skills for all games to try to play that way some of the time or most of the time.  I often find myself playing that same way, just straight as it's made, which sometimes works, and sometimes it's to my detriment - often I fall into the trap of being too focused on getting really good at early point pressing and not nailing the long game (Mario 3, Battletoads, maybe even Q*Bert) or on lesser games I'm kinda bumbling through and sometimes tiring myself out or boring myself in the process.  Boring is what I want to avoid most of all.  There's certain games where I just don't have the moxie to go through the ringer that many times.

I just don't agree that save states shouldn't be used nor do I agree that they should be treated like a forbidden thing, what we're doing in this competition is pushing the limits of the game with the rulesets clearly stated on what constitutes an eligible run, pushing our own individual player limits too, and for some games I would argue that VGS is slightly meta-competing with the rest of the internet.  Practice is practice - experience that you gained based on practicing from a specific save state is nebulously just more practice in your arsenal to be prepared for a real run, and actually pull the run off.  Call it "ghost practice."  

It would be like (example) if I was really really good at point pressing in all levels of Adventure Island because I had it as a kid - BUT lets say my older brother always beat lets say 3-2 for me because I find it oddly difficult (except one time when I did it, just to make it equivalent to a save state).  And so I had a ton of pre-existing practice on everything before and after 3-2.  If I then play the contest, beat the early levels and manage to squeak through 3-2, then get an insane score because I'm just that good at all of Adventure Island due to my pre-existing practice, is that illegitimate?  What if the same scenario happens with someone I know beating 3-2 for me every time, except neither of us had played the game until the contest week started?  Illegitimate also?

As for someone saying they're using save states and then still posting on an emulator and that looking bad, I think that's borderline an accusation on anyone who emulates, which is not in the spirit of the contest.  Mods decide if someone's cheating, cheaters have been ousted before, it's surprisingly swift and easy to spot.  It's been previously established (because dra600n used to bring up this issue ALL THE TIME on NA) that you'd pretty much have to be a total loser to cheat in an honor system contest with no money and purposefully few prizes outside of prestige, and that it would feel worse for the cheater than how much it affects the cheated (especially because in some cases leaderboard points can be changed in time), so it's kind of its own life punishment to get caught doing that.  Plus they get banned. If that's not enough then I'm not really sure.  

As for me, I emulate when I don't have the game.  Which is about 75 percent of the time I'd say, though I used to own the game almost every time.  That's a money thing for me.  Sometimes I use save states - like Batman Returns, where I still didnt get good enough, sadly.  Sometimes I practice on both emulator and real NES depending on comfort.  Powerpaks/Everdrives can probably be used to the same degree I'm sure, so we need to have every game to play every game?  Not for me.  I'm a CIB guy - its too expensive to keep all of them or try to get all of them, I like having a streamlined collection of games I really love.  I don't chase loose carts to fulfil this part of my leisure time.  I really just think this is a new age of gaming & technology and trying to shun, scorn or stifle certain methods of practice doesn't end up being the best mindset in terms of having fun or breaking new ground of improvement.

1 hour ago, NESfiend said:

I think I may have screwed myself out of a point with the batarangs. I had all 9 for organ grinder and used them. Finished him off that run with a full box of health in reserve. I dont think you get points for hits with those. 

Damn this also stings to read

53 minutes ago, PII said:

Sounds like this week is gonna be like a middle school dance.  All the boys are gonna play Q*Bert and all the girls are gonna play Lifeforce... ︎

No way im getting top 4 in Life force, so yes ill be on the grind qbert side.  I just played a bit but im not playing that good tonight.  Good warmup still.  Devious ruleset

1 hour ago, docile tapeworm said:

Ya Batman returns is kinda tough. I still fell like the controls are fickle. taking some hits cause he wouldn’t slide. taking some hits cause Batman is facing the wrong way even though i mashed the d pad to turn him, taking some hits because now Batman just standing there while I’m hitting “b”. Plus the hit detection feels sloppy. 
 

qbert is insane I know I won’t touch it as I can’t compete with good players. I will be putting some effort into life force.

good luck brother!

Yeah they are a bit loose, kinda odd, not necessarily really bad.  The sliding was inaccurate sometimes, and I was trying to use slide to finish enemies when they have 1 HP left, because you are essentially awarded double points for the last HP on each guy.  It wasnt bad but sometimes the sliding just makes you slip and so even if its not a complete miss it can lead you down a bad path.  

The special move which I really tried to limit, I just used it to 1-hit the two gun guys surrounding the electric floor, it also wasnt super easy to pull off, so on lots of runs that part was expensive for health cause I might spend health to fail the special, then usually get hit and then have to use special again sometimes.  Although sometimes I would just outright flub the special, do something else and not spend health, but still.

10 hours ago, docile tapeworm said:

It’s actually crazy to think about how perfectly bad the gameplay scenarios where that led up to the failure

Thats crazy you got right to the end...I'm almost glad I didnt get that far.  I actually spent a fair bit of time on the game but obviously I needed more, I started on Saturday and just couldnt get far enough and I knew with 3 hours left that even if I got to 5-1 that my score might not hold up, and it would have been awful at that point to do it again.  Even getting all the health drops I was losing just enough along the way to not make it through.  Didnt even get a chance at the Organ Grinder.  Ah well... I got a fluke point for Pro Wrestling at least and now I'm just gonna ignore Life Force and start in on Qbert now.  Deadly hard game in its own right though