Juno First high score... WTF?!?!
Matt Osborn
That's been a goal of mine for quite some time now. My final
score was 1,065,320 (I got cocky after I broke the 1 mil mark
and lost a couple guys real quick).
So I thought I'd check out the high scores recorded by
Twin Galaxies to see if I had a respectable score...
there was one pathetic score and two ridiculously high scores.
How could someone get over 78 million on Juno First?!?!
I didn't time my game, but it had to have taken at least a half hour
(I made it to wave 38). At that rate it would take over a day
and a half to get a score of 78 million... how could anyone play
Juno First for that long? It's a demanding game... it's not like
you're just repeating Pac-Man patterns (not to belittle that...
that does take a great deal of concentration).
You'd have to be wired on methamphetamine to do that....
Was the "referee" chopping up lines of crank for the guy to
snort between waves? And who would stay up with this guy
and watch (and reliably count) as he rolled the score over 78 times?
Unless there is some scoring trick I don't know about....
The records just list a name and a town... nothing else.
If they can't back these up with some real info I think they
should just toss out these BS "records"....
Matt
Jeff Kinder
reading one of my gaming mags (probably Atari Age or something) but they had
a high score section of some Atari arcade games with the name, score, and
how long they played for.
I remember Missile Command was something like 48 or 50 hours! And Asteroids
was about that long too. Now I can see someone feeding them while they
play, but how do they go to the bathroom? :)
-jeff
Jeff Kinder
Site Creator / Moderator
The Dragon's Lair Project
jki...@dragons-lair-project.com
Site: www.dragons-lair-project.com
Chat: #lasergames on irc.EnterTheGame.com
"Matt Osborn" <osb...@alum.mit.edu> wrote in message
news:B48Jb.4771$6B....@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net...
PrksKtKt
Tec-9
Twin Galaxies has been tracking these scores for over 20 years now,
and some of the scores are truly incredible. There have been some
bogus scores in the scoreboard over the years, but I believe that all
of them have been weeded out. To get a score submitted today, they
guidelines are much more strict than they used to be. Check out the
book of world records they have, as it has some pretty crazy stories,
of the people who are able to acheive such high scores. There are a
few stories of people dozing off, and others where the game
malfunctioned or broke right before setting a new record. There are
many games that have specific settings (to limit extra men and
difficulty) and limit the "marathon" games. After LOTS of practice, I
took the world record on Spy Hunter, last summer.
-Mark
dwayne richard
the game only has 32 levels i believe before it wraps over. I also
recall you should be able to score 2-3 million an hour once you get
rolling. You can score points way faster by waiting for the ships to
appear then hitting the ship that gives you the short time of bonus.
Some screens are harder then other but everytime it repeats you can
crank up the points again. You get a ship every hundred thousand so
you can rack a few up.
I put up over three million and quit at the cge 02. It didn't take
long to score points. But you are right they played for over a day to
get the score.
dwayne
"Jeff Kinder" <jkinder@*takethisout*d-l-p.com> wrote in message news:<Q7qdnTUK4sk...@giganews.com>...
Derek Litton
play pretty much as long as I wanted. On a bet I played the game from
opening to closing at our local arcade, 12 hours and thought I must have
set a world record (wrong). I forgot my score but it was somewhere in
the 6-8 million point range. At Funspot 2 years ago I played a 2 hour
game and got just under a million so that comes out ot be about 500k per
hour which is about right. I checked the high score and the marathon
high score is 33 million plus! That means someone had to play 66
straight hours to achieve it. I don't see how that can be but I have
been told that it is true. Maybe people back in the day took a lot of
drugs to stay up that long...? :-)
Great score on Juno, does is roll over at 999,999?
Derek
Matt Osborn
>
> Derek
Yeah, which kinda ruins the whole high score save thing once you've mastered the game.... :(
Re-writing the code to add another couple digits to the scoring would be a challenge... the encryption is difficult to deal with and
there's really not any empty code space to play with.
Matt
Matt Osborn
> Twin Galaxies has been tracking these scores for over 20 years now,
> and some of the scores are truly incredible. There have been some
> bogus scores in the scoreboard over the years, but I believe that all
> of them have been weeded out. To get a score submitted today, they
> guidelines are much more strict than they used to be. Check out the
> book of world records they have, as it has some pretty crazy stories,
> of the people who are able to acheive such high scores. There are a
> few stories of people dozing off, and others where the game
> malfunctioned or broke right before setting a new record. There are
> many games that have specific settings (to limit extra men and
> difficulty) and limit the "marathon" games. After LOTS of practice, I
> took the world record on Spy Hunter, last summer.
> -Mark
Yes, I can see someone mastering the game and being able to play ad nauseum...
but I have a hard time believing someone would play for over a day.
What bothers me about these particular scores is the lack of details... not even a date.
Unfortunately there's no setting to limit the extra men on Juno First,
so you can't have a non-marathon game category. I always play with
the default difficulty setting... maybe I'll try the hardest and see how that plays.
Matt
RayB
your score based on your roll-ed over score, and not the "real" score. I too
rolled it over back in the day. It took me roughly a half hour too, to get
it to about 1,063,000. And because of this, my score was entered into the
high-score table as "63,000" (not the highest score in the list! DOH!)
The game DOES have patterns to the enemy waves, and once you learn them,
it's just a matter of not making mistakes, so I can truly believe that with
lots of practice someone could play for hours. So that Twin Galaxies score
is definitely believable.
"Derek Litton" <de...@ll.mit.edu> wrote in message
news:1lhJb.724997$Tr4.1832124@attbi_s03...
Derek Litton
Thanks,
Derek
http://arcade.thelittons.net/
Mark
verification method? All scores today must be video taped including
the initials entry and the settings screen. Some games allow you to
build up incredible amounts of extra guys like q-bert(I've played
that-same game- for an entire week, with plenty of extras to go when
I arrived the next morning--I even played it for a day with my foot
once). The star wars marathon record is just over 300mil-thats almost
60hours of play. Check the date on the scores. Good luck. Mark
Derek Litton
How long did you play before you gave up each day on Q*Bert to play for
a full week? Unless I am off on my 500k per hour you would get ~36 free
Qberts per hour. If you played 12 hours a day that would be 432 extra
Berts. I am sure there is a limit depending on how big the register is
and I am assuming that number to be 255 with an 8 bit register. Not
moving Q*bert on the top of the screen you die and restart the screen in
about 30 seconds (unless there is somethign I am missing). So with no
limit to free guys that would be 216 minutes or about 3.5 hours. Does
this sound way off? Anyone know if there is a limit to the number of
reserve QBerts? Incredible you could play for a full week while resting,
just wondering how you did it...
Thanks,
Derek
Dan Coogan
Nice to see you are still alive and kickin -- I've got a Q*bert and I'm no
where near as good -- my best is in the 50K scoring range.
I'm still playing Gravitar though, and am able to complete the entire 4
universes most times I attempt it. best game is 3.6 million (about 10
hours to play that game)
http://www.cooganphoto.com/gravitar/
Check out the Gravitar site if you haven't been there in a while.
best,
Dan
Derek Litton wrote:
--
Dan Coogan
Coogan Photographic / Phoenix, AZ
Web: http://www.CooganPhoto.com
Web: http://www.DanCoogan.com
Represented by Black Inc.
Web: http://www.blackinc.com
"Photography With A Vision"
Derek Litton
Awesome score! Does the game end after the 4th Universe or does it start over at Universe 1 with increased difficulty? You know, of the few games I have sold I miss Gravitar the most. Glad it went to a good home.
Take care,
Derek
Dan Coogan
The game starts over for all the planets -- except the the Red Planet (the snake, or the tunnel -- what ever people want to call it) -- it remains impossible (and impassible) starting at 9 seconds -- so I just avoid it all together -- though I've made with the start time of 17 seconds -- that is tough to do.
I need to finish those screen captures for the planets in the 1st and 3rd solar systems -- that will make the site a lot more complete, but I've only got so much energy.
And yes, the game went to a good home -- Twin Galaxies recorded my game
on 9/28/03 -- here's the write up I did on my 3.2 million point game:
http://www.twingalaxies.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=10840&highlight=#10840
Tom Lavier
and think that some of them where you would have to play for days on end are
truly unbelievable. I wonder if they're holdover records from when the
verification process might not have been as stringent as they are today.
-Tom
--
http://www.romsbytom.com
EPROM Programming Service
"RayB" <art...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:bQhJb.14123$Vl6.3...@news20.bellglobal.com...
Mark
For that week, I arrived just before opening(8:00), played till
close(12pm-1am?)and I won't rule out playing before and after hours a
little bit each day. Q-bert doesn't have a limit to extra guys(at
least I've never seen the extras reset). There's obviously a pattern
to the game that becomes mind numbing after a few hours. I still have
rough spots on my hands from gripping the joystick. Twin Galaxies
tracks scores for regular q-bert games allowing only 5men, and
marathon is as long as your game is still going-this allows for breaks
as needed-provided your game is still going when you return.
Considering you only need 14k for an extra guy, building them up is
pretty easy; for every 1.4mil=100 extras; easily allowing sufficient
time to sleep eat etc. 500k per hour sounds a little low, depending
on getting max points each level, green guys, purple snake and jump
pads used wisely.
The old games rule. I also reclaimed my Star Wars record back in May
at Funspot. TG did throw out the old scores for this one, so I was
able to take it for only 3.9mil(6 shield, no replacement and hard
setting). My score at the same settings back in 1986 was 16.9mil(and
evidently, someone else claimed 32mil on those settings, but the score
was assumed bogus/wrong settings--no proof--and disqualified. I have
a goal to top the 32mil someday, but I just don't have that kind of
time to a game anymore.
Derek Litton <de...@ll.mit.edu> wrote in message news:<Z6jJb.731643$Fm2.635000@attbi_s04>...
Chris Hardy
> > Great score on Juno, does is roll over at 999,999?
> >
> > Derek
I've been able to clock up 3 million in a lunchtime(ish), but you run
into other problems at that point.
The game only has 16 actual levels before it reverts back to the speed
of level 1 BUT increases the difficulty up a notch.
The other catch is that the game doesn't roll over at level 99, so if
you can proficiently play at level 99 then you can play forever as it
never changes.
Lets say that it's not as easy as just running through the earlier
levels where you get a breather on the easier bits :)
>
> Yeah, which kinda ruins the whole high score save thing once you've mastered the game.... :(
When a friend and I were playing with my SOHS code installed we used
to try and get as close as possible to a million to knock the other
person off the top of the highscore table.
>
> Re-writing the code to add another couple digits to the scoring would be a challenge... the encryption is difficult to deal with and
> there's really not any empty code space to play with.
Actually, I spent a weekend doing the modifications to make it wrap at
10 million. Took quite a while to find all the places where code mods
were necessary but it seems to work well, and also incorporates the
SOHS code.
I'm going to be setting up a site soon where you can buy
pre-programmed roms or in a kit form with NVRAM chips. (keep an eye on
www.junofirst.com or email me)
Unfortunately most of the code roms needed changes.. I think about 3
in total are required.
Chris Hardy
Junofirst emu Author
www.junofirst.com
Matt Osborn
> The game only has 16 actual levels before it reverts back to the speed
> of level 1 BUT increases the difficulty up a notch.
>
> The other catch is that the game doesn't roll over at level 99, so if
> you can proficiently play at level 99 then you can play forever as it
> never changes.
> Lets say that it's not as easy as just running through the earlier
> levels where you get a breather on the easier bits :)
Cool... I've got a new goal to aim for, level 99! :)
Does it matter what difficulty the dip switches are set for,
or is the difficulty of level 99 the same regardless?
> > Re-writing the code to add another couple digits to the scoring would be a challenge...
>> the encryption is difficult to deal with and there's really not any empty code space to play with.
>
> Actually, I spent a weekend doing the modifications to make it wrap at
> 10 million. Took quite a while to find all the places where code mods
> were necessary but it seems to work well, and also incorporates the
> SOHS code.
>
> I'm going to be setting up a site soon where you can buy
> pre-programmed roms or in a kit form with NVRAM chips. (keep an eye on
> www.junofirst.com or email me)
Excellent. But why does it roll over at 10 mil now? Wouldn't an additional
byte for the scores buy you two more digits? Ah, nevermind... I get it...
you must have made better use of existing bytes and reclaimed the space
that is wasted by the least significant digit (which is always zero).
Matt
Chris Hardy
Yep.. I think it's about level 13 or something. Not fun to be stuck there
> Does it matter what difficulty the dip switches are set for,
> or is the difficulty of level 99 the same regardless?
I think the game effectively steps you up the difficulty every time you
loop, kind of like changing the dips every time.
So really you are just starting a few loops late if you set it harder.
> Excellent. But why does it roll over at 10 mil now? Wouldn't an
additional
> byte for the scores buy you two more digits?
Yes, but MUCH more pain.
> Ah, nevermind... I get it...
> you must have made better use of existing bytes and reclaimed the space
> that is wasted by the least significant digit (which is always zero).
I see a litte light bulb over your head. It's flashing :)
I got the idea from someone else who did the same thing with another game..
Easier than trying to shift bytes around
Chris
