Vectrex Tournament: Vector War IX (26th Oct - 2nd Nov 2019)

[arquillos]

@malban, about the Berzerk fix!!! It would be awesome!

Also...Would you fix some annoyances:

- Bug: In later levels the robots shoots pass through the walls
- Improvement: When a robot explode going though a wall or when two (or more robots) collide and explodes the player score gets incremented! Wrong behaviour? (The Arcade version also has this behaviour???)
- Bug: From time to time a robot appears trapped inside a box

[Peer]

Oct 27, 2019 7:41:56 GMT -5 Malban said:

First scores of mine.

VecMan 36.

Half of the deaths are due to my joystick going down instead of left, or vice/versa.

Dunno if I'd have gotton further though, I died around 10 times on 36 - it's possible, but you defenitly need luck :-).

Perhaps a secondary score ranking? In between I had Max lives = 17/17 :-)...

Level 36? Congratulations, and yep, that one is a bit tougher

Helmut, I hope it is ok to give some general hints?

The sequence and the layouts of the levels are deterministic. Selecting a specific starting level in the initial menu allows you to closely observe and train for a specific level.

Each ghost has its own strategy of chasing Vec-Man, and that strategy is fixed and will not change. The ghosts all have different brightnesses and thus can be identified and told apart. Please read the section on brightness calibration of the Vectrex console in the Vec-Man manual. Spoiler: the names of the ghosts might be a hint to their individual behavior. It pays of the observe who of them is the dumbest and who is the smartest or most aggressive.

Also, observe the movements of the pills. In each level, not only the ghosts, by also the pills follow a certain strategy. That strategy can be just random movements, but there are also several other possibilities. All the pills follow the same strategy, but their strategy can vary from level to level. Once you know a bit about their current behavior, you can use that to your advantage.

As for everything else, blame it on the level generator heuristics

And blame it on all those beta testers demanding a more challenging game play than in the previous versions

Really great to see so many people playing Vec-Man

Cheers to you all!

Peer

PS: The secondary score of how many bonus lives were achieved is a nice idea, but currently hard to track.

[8-Bit Waves]

Star Trek - 46000




Dark Tower - 63300

[Malban]

@peer:

I learned to appreciate the "homing" extra :-)

New Scores: VecMan 63
- it gets sort of time consuming to do a new high score here :-).

Oh, talk about time consuming: StarTrek "maxed"

And Frontier "maxed"...

I think with that I qualified... I'll take a vectrex break now...

Cheers

Malban

[VectorX]

Oct 27, 2019 9:29:17 GMT -5 arquillos said:

- Bug: From time to time a robot appears trapped inside a box

That's the way its been ever since the arcade original. It's just placement and a challenge to get a bonus by destroying them all at the end of that maze. It's harder to do on this version because you could be in line with the robot near the exit and Evil Otto will still just float over it, rather than plowing through it like on the original (although sometimes it can be done anyway).

In regards to Mine Storm, I suggest everyone who hasn't played it yet to play the original, NOT M. Storm II. Once the first score was put in I was wondering if it should be allowed, then when Brett said II was easier I finally remembered that I played it once on an emulator years ago and it was definitely easier than the original M. Storm.   I'm not going to ask for scores to be redone though, as this is still a learning process even after all these years, like discovering the safe spot in Armor Attack and asking people to be honest and not use that exploit.

I'd also let the Hyper Chase entry requirement stand for now and just be changed for later contests. After all, the rules and score minimums have already been posted, so I suggest it just be left unless Helmut has other ideas.

[arquillos]

One update:

Nazare-Dark Tower - 49925


And one Berzerk World Record

Berzerk - 436410
This happens when using VecMulti + Berzerk ROM (not when playing with original cartrdge)...Sorry Malban...you have to try harder  

NOTE: This Berzerk score is real but due to a bug...so NO, it doesn´t count, but I won Malban  

[arquillos]

@vectorx...How can I play another MineStorm version? I have a MB console with MineStorm II installed.
I tried to play any MineStrom version with the VecMulti without luck...Any Idea?

[8-Bit Waves]

I didn't read all of the Minestorm posts prior to setting my score. I played Minestorm II because I thought that was the legit version of the game. :/ Is it safe to say if you can get 150,000 on MS II then you can get it on 1 as well? If not can we agree on a different score for Minestorm I (125k? max).

Anyway... here is my Minestorm submission. Best I've ever done! Don't take this away from me!

Minestorm II - 150,000+

[VectorX]

EDIT: this was in regards to arquillos's post, Limitzer just barely posted before I did.



Not really. I don't know much about the VecMulti. If you already put up a score though, like I stated earlier, Helmut should probably just let it stand this time.

[8-Bit Waves]

Oct 27, 2019 11:58:19 GMT -5 arquillos said:

One update:

Nazare-Dark Tower - 49925


And one Berzerk World Record

Berzerk - 436410
This happens when using VecMulti + Berzerk ROM (not when playing with original cartrdge)...Sorry Malban...you have to try harder  

NOTE: This Berzerk score is real but due to a bug...so NO, it doesn´t count, but I won Malban  

It is not necessarily a VecMulti issue. I had it happen on a regular multi-cart last night. I posted about it on VFU. My fake score is higher than yours btw...

[arquillos]

Oct 27, 2019 12:25:23 GMT -5 8-Bit Waves said:

Oct 27, 2019 11:58:19 GMT -5 arquillos said:

It is not necessarily a VecMulti issue. I had it happen on a regular multi-cart last night. I posted about it on VFU. My fake score is higher than yours btw...

Ohh! So we could start another contest: Weird Berzerk fake scores

[VectorX]

I never knew about that until we had it a couple of years ago and then it started happening to me! I never played Berzerk that much because I didn't think it was a very good port.

[playvectrex]

When we play Berzerk on the original cartridge, and get an insanely high score due to the bugs present, is that allowed as long as the game ends? I just got 608613 I suppose it's also possible to not be aware that the game glitched and gave you a slightly higher score.


playvectrex-berzerk-608613.jpg

[hcmffm]

Hmm, looks like some decisions have to be made.

Minestorm versions
Minestorm was played in Vector War 5 and 6. When choosing Minestorm for a Vector War it was clear that various versions are around. I think there are at least three official versions: Minestorm U.S., Minestorm MB, and Minestorm II. Results are only comparable if the same version is played. Next question is which version to play and whether this version is available to everyone.

Scores for Minestorm have been submitted, already. Vector has just begung but I think for this year's Vector War it's too late, already. So: In this year's Vector War I'll consider all Minestorm scores as valid highscores. If you have Minestorm II at hand, you can play that one which seems to be easier than other Minestorm versions.

Berzerk versions

This evening I played Berzerk three times. All three games were above 5.000 points with three or four lives left. Then, the game went berzerk and a random score was displayed. Sure enough those random scores are invalid. This happened to me not once but three times in a row. I think with the normal Berzerk game you can reach a score up to 5.000 and a bit more but not really high scores with 8000 or more points. Or you must be very lucky and I don't like lucky games much. Here, I'd suggest to let everyone play Berzerk II or Berzerk Debugged. AFAIK, Berzerk II and Berzerk Debugged are the same versions.

@all: I don't want to start a big discussion but would like to hear other voices before deciding, here.

Malban : You've reached a highscore of 12220. Which version of Berzerk did you play?

Star Trek/Star Ship
Star Trek/Star Ship was played in Vector War 2, 3, and 5. From what I remember one of the two versions was easier to play but I don't remember which. Perhaps someone reading this knows or can find out. Here, I tend to accept scores of both Star Trek and Star Ship.

[playvectrex]

Oct 27, 2019 12:21:30 GMT -5 8-Bit Waves said:

I didn't read all of the Minestorm posts prior to setting my score. I played Minestorm II because I thought that was the legit version of the game. :/ Is it safe to say if you can get 150,000 on MS II then you can get it on 1 as well? If not can we agree on a different score for Minestorm I (125k? max).

I would say it's not as easy to get 150,000 on the original Minestorm I because the levels 1-13 are much more challenging.  That said, my first score that I had to redo due to lack of nazare code was 365,227.  But that's the point, the max should be a great challenge.  Second time around my arm was fatigued and I got 113225 (partially also due to redoing 6 games!).  If you are pretty good at Minestorm I, Minestorm II is a cake walk to 150,000.  And to rack up your score on Minestorm II, you can easily afford to die multiple times on some of the higher levels on purpose.  Minestorm II was included in the official ROM download though, so it should stand as a valid score   I would like to see how high I can get on Minestorm II though... I had max lives when I reached 150k.  If you are interested, I can take a video of my Minestorm strategy after the contest ;-)  I honestly don't mind sharing... it's a physically hard game without strategy anyway.