ZeldaFreak

My Secret Santa was @SNESNESCUBE64, and he did great! He got me a triforce coin bank, which honestly I'm probably just gonna use as a display piece since it looks REALLY nice, as well as a brand new copy of Super Mario RPG for the Switch! Really excited to play that since I haven't played the original in a very long time. Thanks bud!

Firstly, Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all have a good one But secondly, quick reminder that tomorrow will be the last day to submit new scores, so get 'em submitted while you can!

I'm glad Nugfish mentioned his brother's strategy, because I had way more luck that way than with his strategy, first time I felt like I could somewhat consistently get strikes. After many hours of experimenting both today and yesterday, what I ended up settling on was using the Speed Zone ball, max curve, standing a bit to the left of the center, aiming the top of the red line either just slightly right, or slightly left of the center pin. Which side was better seemed to depend on the oil, so a lot of the time you still just had to flip a coin and try one or the other and hope you got lucky. I also tried to aim for the green in both the power and accuracy bars, I would've gone for max power every time since that's one less variable you have to worry about, but it seemed more inconsistent that way, it either really worked or REALLY didn't work. Aiming for the green in both meant that even if you guess wrong on whether or not aiming for the right or left of the center pin was best, you'd still usually at least be able to get a spare, so it seemed to be a little bit safer. I actually did manage to shoot one 300 when the oil wasn't feeling too cruel which I'm quite proud of, haha. Anyway fuck this game I'm moving on to PGA since it sounds like @the_wizard_666's almost done with Wrestlemania.

Any luck @Splain? I tried to figure out the strategy Nugfish was talking about for the past hour or so and honestly I feel like I'm doing even worse now so I dunno. All I know is I do not enjoy this game, haha. Been trying to find that magic spot where Nugfish's strategy gets me a strike and I can't seem to figure it out, so I dunno if I misinterpreted what he said and I'm just doing it wrong, or if it's a VERY particular spot where it works.

OK, yeah if that 7mil pic was a fair bit after the ball initially got stuck then I wouldn't count it, sorry.

Well, do you recall what your score was at when the ball was first locked? If your 7 million score was around the time it first got locked then yeah, I would allow it so long as you have the photo.

Nope. That, Brunswick and PGA European Tour are the last three.

OK, I'll have to try that out. I'll let @Splain make the call on whether or not you have to get 1st place in a tournament before continuing to play though, don't want to waste time on either a tournament or a skins game if the other ends up being what you need to play for it to be considered "beaten."

I updated the ruleset, for this contest and all future contests, to just blanket not allow in-game exploits/glitches that allow you to increase your score/progress in a way that wasn't intended, figured that'd be simpler. Feel free to give your opinions on this change though, as I know not everyone would agree with that decision and I'd be curious to know everyone's thoughts on the matter.

@NESfiend @RH So, these contests don't have any explicit rules against in-game exploits, since under normal circumstances, I'd be inclined to allow them. You discovered a way to up your score faster/more efficiently than you'd normally be able to, more power to you. However... yeah, I'm gonna have to go ahead and say doing this isn't allowed, scores using this method won't be counted towards the leaderboard. The fact that once the glitch happens, you can literally just sit there and do nothing, and wait for the score to slowly climb pushes it over the edge for me. That ruins both the fun, and the point of this contest. Sorry guys! @NESfiend I'll still count your 5.5 mil score since that was acquired prior to abusing the glitch, but @RH if you're putting all your eggs in to that basket, well... time to get some more practice in! I actually think from this point forward, I will probably go ahead and add to the ruleset that you aren't allowed to abuse an in-game exploit like this to up your score, if it completely dodges the need to actually PLAY the game. I'll say in the future, if anyone discovers any exploits like this, ask me about it first before assuming that I'll allow it. Can always PM me if you don't want other people to discover it.

It's just because (from what I've played so far, anyway) it feels almost completely random. I figure out a way to get a strike, and think "Cool, OK, that worked. Let me try that again." Then I try it again and something completely different happens. Even if I line up the next shot the exact same way, hit the accuracy and power meters on the exact same spots, it's impossible to predict what's actually going to happen. So it feels like skill is barely even a factor at play, it's just random chance. I understand not ALLOWING you to hit the same shot over and over and over again is in theory good, but at least doing that requires some amount of skill and timing to actually line it back up and hit the meters in the exact same place again (since if you're even SLIGHTLY off with either of the meters, the result will be completely different most of the time.) Doing it this way leads to it just feeling totally random which I never enjoy in any game. Plus honestly I think I just don't like bowling games in general since the gameplay is just... I dunno. It's just so basic. Nothing about it is engaging to me in any way, haha. So for me it's a combination of boring + frustrating. If it was one or the other I'd be fine, it's the fact that it's both that is already making me REALLY not enjoy this one. Not to mention I generally prefer games which I can beat, ones that actually have an ending of some sort over something like this. The wrestling ones I honestly didn't mind at all, I had some legitimate fun with those, this is just... yeah. Plus I don't generally go out of my way to play bad games so I haven't actually played very many to be fair, haha. I know there was infinitely worse games than this out there, it's just that of the ones I'VE played, this one's pretty shit. For skins games, if they don't ever end (I got to frame 12 and by that point just assumed it was kind of endless) it says at the beginning when you boot one up that $250,000 are on the line. If they are indeed endless (sounds like they are based on what you said) the win condition could be to get to $250,000 before any of the other players do. That at least feels like it'd have more potential to be fun compared to getting 1st in a tournament if nothing else, haha.

This is already one of the worst games I've ever played in my life. I thought Ogre Battle was bad, Jesus. That was just in a genre I don't like, but at least the game itself wasn't horrible.

Attitude done, indeed damn near identical to ECW in many ways. MEANT to get it done like a couple days ago, but had the worst bout of sleep deprivation I've had in a long time so that kinda made it hard to work up the motivation to keep playing for a little while there, haha. So next I'm gonna do Brunswick since @Splain asked about it, then I'll circle back around to Wrestlemania if that's not still done, then finally PGA if that also isn't done.

Good enough for me! Rule updated

We'll see I guess, haha. I don't generally test score rolling so I was just making a safe guess in case it does roll over at that amount, obviously if it doesn't then I'll update the rule for that.

Done, was about ready to do that before you pinged me actually. .........Grinch is kicking your guys' asses, step it up fellas! Haha.

"Shoot the ramp, aim for the targets, and light up "SANTA" for big points. If you're skilled enough you can even unlock multiball!" Is about as good as you're gonna get as far as I can tell, I'm afraid!

As always, I'm pretty lenient about this so I'll still count this score, but please do not forget: "When you submit your score, make sure your VGS username is visible somewhere within view of the photo/screenshot of your score. It could be a slip of paper with your VGS username written down on it, or a text document displaying your VGS username. Use whatever method you like, so long as your username is clearly visible alongside your score."

I figure a lot of you guys will be throughout the holiday season, so I'm hoping to help with that by rapid-firing through some of these last few games.

no And yeah, when we were planning out these badges, I did point out "Hey, uh... the actual Survivor show took 12 years to get to 25, I dunno that we're ever gonna make it to that point, or even 10 honestly" haha. But hey, if VGS is still around in the 2300s, it's there for when we need it.

I did that once ...Damnit, I'm reminded of how much more I wanted to do with this track. Maybe I should finally finish it, 3 years later, haha.

Gloves: Done Alriiight, figured I might as well go ahead and get this over with... Firstly, I know I had the Helping Hand badge (Still quite proud of that one, haha. Only badge I really care about that much.) Then the proof for several different badges is in my posts in this thread, so I'll do a few at once here: All the Bingo 2020 badges Merch buyer badge VGS subscriber badge in... I believe it would've been the bronze tier? Whichever tier you'd get for The Gear Upgrade subscription, at any rate. NES Contest 2020 participant badge Homebrew Leaderboard participant badge Blogger Badge Halloween 2021 Bingo participant badge For these contest badges, I'm not sure if winning means you get both the winner and participant badges, but I'll assume you do: Valentine's Day 2022 Contest participant & winner badges Independence Day 2022 Contest participant & winner badges, I was literally the only person who participated in this contest, so does that technically make these the two rarest badges on the site? Food for thought, haha. Game Night 25+ participation badge, I know this one to be true seeing as how I'm the staff member responsible for managing game nights, haha. In fact I've participated in exactly 43. I've participated in both of the two games of Survivor hosted here, so the Survivor 1+ participation badge. I'm getting tired of digging through old threads so I'll go ahead and just say refer to my signature, hopefully that's proof enough, haha. I've also definitely participated in over 10 games of Werewolf, so the Werewolf 10+ participation badge. (Not gonna link to 10 individual games I've participated in, can go check out the Werewolf club if proof for that is really needed.) Haven't done 25 games yet seeing as how we're not at 25 yet, but I'll get there! Apparently there's not a charm for the 2020 Beat Every Gameboy Game thread but I did participate in that a little so haha. I also definitely at one point most certainly owned over 25 amiibo, but I don't anymore so eh, badge is whatever, up to you if you'd want to count that. I could probably go back and find some old pics of them for proof but I don't really care that much, haha. Phew. OK. I THINK that's everything.

I wasn't aware either until I made that post actually.

All good, thanks for keeping us posted! And yeah, we've got this in the bag.

I'm about to crash, but I'm thinking I should be able to complete WWF Attitude sometime tomorrow (@ZeldaFan042 just so he's aware. Hopefully you're not too too far in to the game, if you are... sorry man )