weekly contest VGS Weekly Contest - Karate Champ

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

On 8/26/2020 at 9:08 PM, NESfiend said:

101,300 - looped it and cleared 100k! 

How many vases are you getting? 

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

On 8/26/2020 at 10:08 PM, NESfiend said:

101,300 - looped it and cleared 100k! 

 

Wow, great score!

[NESfiend | 1,514]

21 minutes ago, 0xDEAFC0DE said:

How many vases are you getting? 

I can hit the lowest ones with foot sweep on a somewhat consistent basis. I duck the ones you can hoping to get those. If I get a shot at those, I can usually get 1 or 2. If I don't get a chance at the lowest ones, its 0

 

Edited August 31, 2020 by NESfiend

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

4 minutes ago, NESfiend said:

I can hit the lowest ones with foot sweep on a somewhat consistent basis. I duck the ones you can hoping to get those. If I get a shot at those, I can usually get 1 or 2. If I don't get a chance at the lowest ones, its 0

 

It seems like the hit detection if off on the bonus rounds too. I don't think I hit more than two vases in one round.

 

   

[NESfiend | 1,514]

5 minutes ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

It seems like the hit detection if off on the bonus rounds too. I don't think I hit more than two vases in one round.

 

   

You have to press the button way early. When you land it on the lowest ones, it doesnt even look like your foot touches it. It's quick.

Edited August 31, 2020 by NESfiend

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

You have a very narrow window to hit the vase. And the distance needed depends on the attack used. I usually skip the high and the low ones and go for the two middle ones. 

[NESfiend | 1,514]

2 hours ago, 0xDEAFC0DE said:

You have a very narrow window to hit the vase. And the distance needed depends on the attack used. I usually skip the high and the low ones and go for the two middle ones. 

I have fallen apart with that since this afternoon. I hit like 2 last game. If it were 5, I would have vested bert

Edited August 31, 2020 by NESfiend

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

29 minutes ago, NESfiend said:

I have fallen apart with that since this afternoon. I hit like 2 last game. If it were 5, I would have vested bert

Yeah, I hardly ever scored more than 5. I was messing around with save states and it looks like it goes on forever (but I think it gets slightly faster over time). So that would be the key to really doing well.

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

Now that the competition is over I'll reveal my secrets. Fun fact that 89700 score I posted was from my first time ever playing the game (excluding a reset after the first round while I got used to the controls). The reason I did so well is I found this speed run (complete with input viewer).

As seen in the video, the strategy is to hold jump (A+B+Right) then in mid air switch to jumping back kick (B+Right). If this misses just mash B to punch. This will work most of the time and net you with ~80k.

Next two easy improvements are to intentionally lose a round while still scoring max points (I tend to lose the first round if I'm doing bad on time, otherwise lose the second), and only go for jumping back kicks (alternate between B+Right and A+Left).

Then, you want to start going for half points. I reverse engineered how the point system works and it seems like there is one pixel window for full points and 4 pixels either way scores half points (blocking is also possible and the pixel target moves depending on what stance they are in). However, the enemy tends to position themselves in that 1 pixel window to get full points on you. So, the trick is to jump then move a bit and finish with a jumping back kick. If that fails move a bit before performing then next jumping back kick. Repeat three times to get 1.5 points and finish off with the easier full point.

Unfortunately, I was not able to keep this up for the later levels without losing a lot of time, so I switch to only getting one half point per round.

EDIT: Weird twitch embed doesn't work (@Gloves). Clicking on the twitch logo does take you to the video though.
EDIT 2: For Gloves, I found that adding "&parent=www.videogamesage.com" to the end of the src url of the iframe element fixes the problem. Docs here: https://dev.twitch.tv/docs/embed/video-and-clips/

Edited August 31, 2020 by 0xDEAFC0DE

[mbd39 | 2,017]

7 minutes ago, 0xDEAFC0DE said:

Now that the competition is over I'll reveal my secrets. Fun fact that 89700 score I posted was from my first time ever playing the game (excluding a reset after the first round while I got used to the controls). The reason I did so well is I found this speed run (complete with input viewer).

As seen in the video, the strategy is to hold jump (A+B+Right) then in mid air switch to jumping back kick (B+Right). If this misses just mash B to punch. This will work most of the time and net you with ~80k.

Next two easy improvements are to intentionally lose a round while still scoring max points (I tend to lose the first round if I'm doing bad on time, otherwise lose the second), and only go for jumping back kicks (alternate between B+Right and A+Left).

Then, you want to start going for half points. I reverse engineered how the point system works and it seems like there is one pixel window for full points and 4 pixels either way scores half points (blocking is also possible and the pixel target moves depending on what stance they are in). However, the enemy tends to position themselves in that 1 pixel window to get full points on you. So, the trick is to jump then move a bit and finish with a jumping back kick. If that fails move a bit before performing then next jumping back kick. Repeat three times to get 1.5 points and finish off with the easier full point.

Unfortunately, I was not able to keep this up for the later levels without losing a lot of time, so I switch to only getting one half point per round.

EDIT: Weird twitch embed doesn't work (@Gloves). Clicking on the twitch logo does take you to the video though.

 

So you approached this like a puzzle game. No wonder you did so well.

 

[Gloves | 11,761]

Thanks for the report re: twitch. I'll see that it gets fixed.

[guillavoie | 1,208]

This week's contest all come down to one existential question : who's the real Karate Champ of VGS?

After one full week of mental sufferings, a master Judan have risen before our incredulous eyes : @0xDEAFC0DE!!! Our winner is already known for his incredible talents at breaking puzzle games, but could he also be a Beat Em Up master? This could be the case, but what is also plausible is that Karate Champ is tricking us with its fighting parade, and at its core is simply a Puzzle playing the tough and rough. 0xDEAFC0DE's winning strategy seems to point in that direction, as @mbd39 wisely observed. Congratulations for the win 0xDEAFC0DE, and also congrats for helping @Gloves polishing the site by troubleshooting the embedding Twitch video problem. That counts for two wins in my book.

Competition was tensed for the top ranks this week,  as VGS 2019 NES Champion @bertsampson grabbed the Kyudan title with an impressive score of 110,100, followed closely by rising star @NESfiend with 108,800 who earned him the Hachidan title. NESfiend had a real good shot at besting the Human Cyborg this week. He revealed his thoughts in a post-contest interview, claiming that he 'was just a couple vases away'. Out of the 100k club but still in the heat of the battle, we have three fighters that gave performances worthy of their black belt. 2019 contest icons collectors @8bitdontquit got his Nanadan with a score of 89,300, while @Gaia Gensouki karateka's skills earned him the Rokudan title. Michael (mbd39) finishes this board of honor with a score of 59,400, good for a Godan belt. All the rest of you only gets a white belt!

Thanks to everyone playing and posting in the contest thread, and keep an eye for next week contest as we're playing the highly appraised shooter, crazy fun, best of the NES game The Guardian Legend!

 

[NESfiend | 1,514]

Pretty pumped to have finally hit my first podium after like 10 4th place finishes. Never thought the first time would be on a game I had never played before. Still can't believe I was only 1300 from bert. Wish I could have got one more good run in. But it'll just make it that much sweeter when I crack top 2 at some point. 

[guillavoie | 1,208]

17 minutes ago, NESfiend said:

Pretty pumped to have finally hit my first podium after like 10 4th place finishes. Never thought the first time would be on a game I had never played before. Still can't believe I was only 1300 from bert. Wish I could have got one more good run in. But it'll just make it that much sweeter when I crack top 2 at some point. 

I have the feeling you're not far away of getting your first win, I'm cheering for you to do it before the end of the season!

[mbd39 | 2,017]

I'm happy with 6th since I didn't put in a lot of effort. I looped the game once on Sunday and that was enough for me.

I'm glad that others found enjoyment in this game. The controls were definitely not as bad as I was expecting. It was more the bad hitboxes that killed it for me. But it looks like the challenge is dealing with the hitboxes and figuring out which moves to use when.

By coincidence I've also been playing Yie Ar Kung Fu for a NES contest on Atari Age, another early one on one fighter. I think that Yie Ar plays better, but it has similar hitbox issues. Fans of Karate Champ should check it out. Just make sure it's ROM version 1.4. Version 1.2 is broken, you can stun lock everyone with repeated jump kicks until they die.

 

 

 

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

I'm surprised that I made the top 8. I wish I had more time to have given it a solid effort since I probably could have at least looped it with some practice.

[BeaIank | 1,617]

Final scoreboard posted.

Congratulations to @0xDEAFC0DE for taking the win on this week, figuring out how to out karate @bertsampson and @NESfiend.
Once more, thank you all for participating.