Vectrex Tournament: Vector War XIII (28th Oct -4th Nov 2023)

[playvectrex]

Thanks again to Helmut for hosting Vector War XIII! The real winner is Jay Smith, who should be really proud to hear so many people STILL PLAY THE VECTREX 40 years later, and with passion <3

[scotthuggins]

That far exceeded what I expected. I got my Vectrex in 2001 and this is, by far, the most fun I've ever had with it or with any retro console I own. I finished 17th and I am thrilled with that considering some of the most talented players I've ever been around.....PERIOD....were in Vector War XIII. Many of you are either very gifted or you simply refuse to give up. LOL.

I discovered some serious gems that I otherwise would never have tried.

Helmut and Tony - thanks so, so very much for all you did for the competition. This event is special. Looking forward to VWXIV.

[playvectrex]

The reason I was holding back initially on the congrats was I wanted to check the score card.  The thing I thought would be messed up is still messed up.

The Soccer score!

Mozie won Soccer with Game 2 + 3 = 91 points, vs. Peer's 89 points. It shows #1 for Mozie, but listed as 88 points instead of 100. That would make six 1st place wins for Mozie, making him the definitive 1st place winner.

Can someone else confirm?

[thewhammy2000]

Sigh. Didn't get to or tried to play again for possibly better scores.
But still, the experience of others playing Vectrex games, old and new is great.
Thanks to those who noticed my play in such a short time, which was.
I'll try again another time, or do some more live plays somewhere.
That's life.

[Peer]

Had to read through all the posts from tonight first to catch up. Awesome tournament, what a week of fun! Congratulations to all winners, players, participants, contributors, and all their families! And of course a big thank you to Helmut for organizing and managing the event!!!

[fruktodlaren]

Nov 4, 2023 16:53:34 GMT -5 playvectrex said:

playvectrex - tee time - 31 (-19)

www.playvectrex.com/images/vwxiii

Absolutely amazing Tee Time score. If you have time after the war, can you draw a map how you placed your shots. I want to know how you did it.

[Vorkosigan]

Another Vector War success:

Although I just granted her an infinitesimal small amount of playtime, my daughter "Toph" declared that she is going to inherit my Vectrex. 😅

Maybe an argument to get more Vectrexes, cause we've got two more children: "We don't want an inheritance war among the children, dear!" 🤣

[Peer]

A bit more time now. There is something I wanted to add:

I found it absolutely amazing and enjoyable how enthusiastically the student games were played this year. My gratitude to you all for having them on the game list! I was there when the first ideas for these games came up, saw their code growing up, and observed with pleasure how the students worked on them and how the games evolved and came of age. It was more than great to see so many players now chasing new highscores and spending hours on these games. When I started teaching that classroom course many years ago, I did no have the faintest clue, that one day the student games would become an integral and appreciated part of a world-wide retro-gaming tournament like Vector War. For all this, a true and deep thank you from me goes to my students and to all you players out there!

[hcmffm]

Thank you all for your feedback, accolade, and even feelings. This is very motivating and encouraging for me. When organising a tournament like the Vector War, you have to cope with various things that you haven't forseen. And you have to decide how strict you play the rules. Many decisions to take and some decisions might not be understood at first glance. I try to act transparently, but this may not be always the case. E.g. jgkspsx might still wonder, why his Star Castle score isn't listed at all - reason is that score was under threshold score. 

This year, number of player increased by 50% compared to last year, which is really great. You may have noticed that there was a bit less interaction from my side with each single player - reason is that Vector War has gotten much larger. But I have the feeling that you players fill that gap nicely with good and sometimes funny comments and even easter eggs like nexus' Sovalou or funny reflections including teddy bears. Thank you for playing and thank you for your feedback, it was fun and exciting to organize the Vector War!

Almost forgot - organisation hasn't ended, yet:

Heads Up Soccer - correct points?
There's still some discussion on the points for Heads Up which is good. My "score card" (Excel) contains tables that can be seen in the official high score list but there are also intermediate tables which are hidden and normally cannot be seen. Here's is a highscore list with all interim tables. Brett (playvectrex ) and John (mozie), please have a look at that full highscore list and check yourself. To me this looks all fine but I'll have a third look in the next hours.

Prizes for Winners
Winners 1-3 have won prizes. Winner 1 may choose first, then winner 2 and winner 3 last. I'll send you a mail, soon.

Random prizes / Prize lottery

All qualified players except winner 1-3 can win one of the random prizes (see initial post). Random prizes will be chosen in a prize lottery. Prize lottery will take place in the next 1-2 weeks. Please make sure that you peek in to the forum every now and then to check whether you are one of the winners. Alternatively, you can bookmark this topic. If you did win a prize and you haven't contacted me me we will get back to you and you'll get a PM and later an e-mail.

Old prizes - still not sent out

Last not least a not so shiny thing: Various prizes from previous Vector Wars haven't been sent out, yet. In most cases, I'm the culprit - shame on me and sorry for that.

- Bloxorz for Len

- T-Shirts for Winners 1-3 of Vector War XI and XII.

- Games of Packrat Video Games for Vector War XII for Winners and Random prize winners

All these prizes are not forgotten and be sure that you'll get them in the coming months. Bloxorz is a special case and I cannot make a statement, here. Please get back to me if you expect a prize which isn't listed above. Same applies for key rings - my understanding is that by now I've sent out all keyrings to people or contact them via PM. Please note that I'm not talking about Vector War XIII prizes, here.

- o -

[nexus6]

Thank you for organizing this great competition. As every year, it was great fun and there were some amazing scores to marvel at. But I'll go mad if the soccer- and the pinballgame are included again in the next competition >_<

[fruktodlaren]

Nov 5, 2023 5:38:41 GMT -5 hcmffm said:

...Games of Packrat Video Games for Vector War XII for Winners...

I can report that my third prize was claimed, chosen and delivered about 8 months ago or so.
It irrelevant, but if anyone wonders what two games I choose from the Packrar library, I went with Revector and VeCaves (regular non-LED version).

[Peer]

Nov 5, 2023 5:38:41 GMT -5 hcmffm said:

Random prizes / Prize lottery

All qualified players except winner 1-3 can win one of the random prizes (see initial post).

Please exclude me from the random prize lottery. Good luck to all

[playvectrex]

Thanks for sharing the excel calculations, I think we can simplify it.

The rule for qualification is: "Heads up Soccer (Win, Game 2 and Game 3)"

Which I read to mean, to qualify you must play both Game 2 and Game 3 and Win, i.e. have more points than the opposing team.

So right off the bat you can remove the single scores where players didn't play both games. They are invalid.

That leaves:

40 49 - peer
23 28 - playvectrex
14 20 - Vorkosigan
46 45 - mozie
8 12 - Vorksosigan

Game 2 and 3 scores must be added before being ranked!

89 - peer
51 - playvectrex
34 - Vorkosigan
91 - mozie
20 - fruktodlaren

100 - Mozie is 1st
72 - Peer 2nd
46 - playvectrex 3rd
25 - Vorkosigan 4th
9 - fruktodlaren 5th

[retroclassicsuk]

That was fun even if I didn't get enough time to play. Congrats to the winners, you guys are on another level

Thanks for all the organization and the donations of prizes

We are lucky to be able to continue to have new games to play constantly

I already new Steve had done a great job but spending more time with Vyrzon took my appreciation to another level

Count and Cavern Rescue were new to me but both were great games

I've learned in the last week I need to play more and enjoy the uniqueness of what we have

Thanks and all the best

[fruktodlaren]

Which reminds me that I should give normal mode in Cavern Rescue a spin tonight. The vectrex is still standing on the kitchen table, so why shouldn't I?