NESfiend

120,000 + 20,000 +4000 = 144,000 First run - this is going to be more challenging than I would have thought after a glance at the rules. Cool challenge

Curious what you and @Gaia Gensouki did for upgrade strategies. I was choosing all Rs, but only playing a couple days, I didnt mess around with all the letter and upgrade them each to see which is best in the end. When I went to check video for level 4 boss strat, the youtuber was going all Ls, but thats a sample size of 1

Bir-aye

138,330 Just got in from an out of town conference and gave this a shot. Its pretty good if you give it a few tries to get the hang of it. This is what I hoped section z would be when I bought it

I was in FL playing handheld on a switch with minimal time until Thursday. Didnt help, then I blew it but good on one run where I would have been at 92,900 if I hadnt blown it late on race 10. Pii earned it big time though. With all the moving parts, I found it really tough to put together 10 golds and didnt do it once in a lot of tries. Pii is going to put up a near perfect score most weeks in short challenges like this. Ill take nipping at his heals all day

91,600 with one second place finish on race 8. Donezo. Cant believe I didnt finish it one time. Congrats, @PII - a well deserved victory. Tough to go 10 straight for sure with the orange car boost madness

Another 90,900 with one second place finish. This is like my golf game. Even playing well, something eventually goes wrong.

Level 11 - 91,629 Back on the good ole top loader Second place on race 8. Ugh

Great rule set. These will be quick runs. Probably 10 min or so

87,250

That and if you walk a little ways ahead of the marching green turtle to create distance between you and him for when the red one comes back to life, the goomba would go too far off screen and stop following. Man, this makes me wonder if its possible to get 227 coins though. That red turtle going to waste seems like a missed opportunity marching 4 in. I actually thought you or someone else may find an extra coin somewhere and post it last minute Sunday. Too bad more people didn't dive into this pristine ruleset.

I think I actually get this now. I didn't think to manipulate the green turtle to reappear marching right (toward the goal) instead of left. I didn't think it was possible to get both non-flying goombas to the goal. Knowing now there is a way to march 4 in like you can march 5 in on 1-2. I kind of want to try that now. I was directing/walking with the green turtle to the goombas underneath the red turtle, letting him run into them, then taking the red shell with me. When green turtle runs into the goomba set, one goes with him toward the goal and the other goes the wrong way. The green turtle and one goomba march as I carried the red shell far enough ahead of them that when he blows up, I can hop on him again and go back to carrying him. The margins were too thin there to make it doable on a regular basis

Im confused. How were you getting the 4 coins end of 1-3? The green turtle would run into the 2 goombas sending one goomba in the wrong direction. Id let the green turtle and the other goomba march and grab the red shell. It would time out and shrink me on the march (sometimes twice), then Id have to grab it again and run it in with the green turtle and goomba marching. The flying goomba was the 4th. The getting shrunk and getting the red turtle again is where it always went to hell. Sounds like you had a different strat

I had 6-7 260s on 1-1 at least. Spent too much time on it in general. Did hit ONE 2:40 on 1-2 and at least 1, if not 2, 224s on 1-4. Something about the timing the last jump could shave off a second. A few times, when I jumped early and stretched out arching up and down into the box. That last second felt like it should have ticked and didnt. Cant really put it into words well and couldnt execute every time by any means. But everything else seemed the same about those runs. Just a perfectly timed hop at the end almost seemed to stretch it. 1-3, thats where I sucked. I only got all 4 enemies in a few times and found every way to screw it up. You did have one close call on Sunday night you didnt know about. With 220ish on the clock, I somehow had the two turtles and one goomba all marching toward the black area. I still dont know how that happened. Usually when the red shell times out and gets his legs back, he ends up facing left. Somehow that time it was going right and flying guy was flying around. In a split second brain blow up, I hopped on the red turtle to pick it up and blew up the sequence killing one of em. It occurred to me 2 seconds later all I had to do was let them all march, I was just so used to taking the red shell to the box with me. I doubt that would have beat you, but it seemed like a good pace to get pretty close. Drove me nuts all day. Crazy score - you earned it.

World 4 blew my mind as a kid. Id usually warp whistle through, but I warped to 4 and hung out there a lot. I also really loved world 5. Go down that rabbit hole if you haven't in a long time. My vote for the most fun world for sure. Also liked going to the island on 3 and doing the 100 lives trick there. I remember many times playing with the intent to whistle through, but playing through 2 for second warp whistle, 3 for 100 lives, 4 for big world and to get to 5, then skipping 6 and 7 to finish it off. 7 is a fun challenge if you never spent time on it. Arguably tougher than 8

Peer pressure works regardless of age. I shamed @PII into posting a score before Sunday. I challenge others to do the same. It will motivate people to keep playing and posting! As for jims inquiry, I play my nes most days for at least a little while at night, even if its only 20 minutes. It usually is for this contest or the beat every nes game every year thread, but def not always. Hadn't played smb3 in a long while, but thats because I wore it out early in life. This challenge is fun because just beating the game got too easy years ago. This makes for a totally new and different experience with an old classic

I had never seen or heard of a white mushroom house before reading the rules. Ive made it pop up like 50 times and its still blowing my mind seeing it. Did you all know about this phenomenon before now?

Would have been a pretty rough turnout for smb3 in week 1. Plenty of time for a deathless run from the skinny man. Now that the truck has been removed, all things are possible

Died on world 1 of SMB3? Must have been a lovely st patricks day in Florida

TOTAL COINS - 226 TIME REMAINING - 888 seconds left 1-1 - 59 coins (256 seconds left) 1-2 - 35 coins (239 seconds left) 1-4 - 45 coins (222 seconds left) 1-3 - 87 coins (171 seconds left)

I got 58 and Im pretty certain I didnt break any of the rules.

Practical and compelling do not go hand in hand. I agree its not practical. But compelling? We are all playing NES games 30 years after they came out. There is clearly a big nostalgia factor for NES players in 2024 and the hardware goes a long way in that respect. The carts and controllers score high in the nostalgia aspect. They are cool as hell. Perusing the shelves of carts and picking a game still gives me a lot of pleasure. That said, I have a flash cart and there are great uses for that too. And gameplay wise, it does make zero difference. I was against the whole idea, but a canadian fellow who runs this site encouraged it for the weekly contests and its great. At my age, I dont need to keep adding carts for filler. Shelves are plenty full. But if I try something on the flast cart and love it, I will grab the cart at a minimum and maybe a CIB copy. Its a free test run and you can load many games at once. For me, it creates excuses to go shopping for carts and boxes based on what really lands with me

Calling old participants like @mbd39and @Bearcat-Doug. Im sure pro am was played at some point back in the day. What was the rule set?

The rules for smb3 are at the end of bea's post homie. Most coins 1-1 thru 1-4. My kids had a massive fight over this thing, btw. This character could be a hit with the appropriate marketing.

Dont recall seeing any other 17 point games. Never played that one, but imagine its quite the bear Edit: quoted the wrong post. Talking about flight of the intruder