High Score Challenge - S22 - Round 7 - Challenger

[KarateEd]

Stardot high score challenge
Season Twenty Two: Round Seven
Challenger chosen by Fwibbler

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RULES
Round Six starts at 9pm on Monday the 1st of April and ends at 9pm on Monday the 15th of April
The aim is to score as many points as possible
Post scores and screenshots/photographs in this thread
The rules are here
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DISK IMAGE
http://www.bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=2394
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INSTRUCTIONS

To get the game started on the right foot:
Use <SPACE> to speed up the irritating writing of instructions.
On the 2nd screen press I for instructions
Press R to reset the keys to your flavour as most of you will want to do that
Finally the Inviso setting comes up twice, just set it to the same key and it will be fine
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SCORING
Points will be awarded using the following formula.
points = (YS / BS * 50) + ((NOP - YP + 1) * (50 / NOP))
YS = Your Score
BS = Best Score
NOP = Number of Players
YP = Your Position
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HIGH SCORE TABLE

table.png (9.67 KiB) Viewed 34 times

Link to Overall High Score Table...http://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=28296

Thanks to Galax for the Mode 7 fonts.

Well, this is just so full of action, don't you think?......Ed ...........
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[KarateEd]

Here's a small score to get us started........

[FourthStone]

Nope... can't see myself playing this one much.

Score: 3930

[Venger]

I didn't have very high hopes when I first loaded the game up. It's not THAT bad though. The controls are very twitchy, but the collision detection is pretty good. I don't know about getting the 200th level though, as level 3 is the furthest I've gotten so far (the starting point in level 3 is pretty sadistic).

There does seem to be a bug that occurs when you get more than 1000 fuel; for some reason the fuel read nearly 21000 and then I died moments later for no reason. When I reappeared on the next life, my fuel was down to 50 again.

[MatthewThompson]

Starter score - never seen this one before.

[fwibbler]

This is my first go at this (well second as you can see).
I think it may be a game of stamina, but we'll see...

[Cybershark]

Season Twenty Two: Round Seven
Challenger chosen by Fwibbler

Oo-er! I hope that's not a space shuttle

[KarateEd]

Season Twenty Two: Round Seven
Challenger chosen by Fwibbler

Oo-er! I hope that's not a space shuttle

Mid explosion rocket

[maniacminer]

First go. Feels quite shitty, but, once I had redefined the keys to something more useable, I got a much better score and it was a more bearable experience damn, the drawing out of everything, holding SPACE does speed it up somewhat, I guess the programmer was really pleased with that effect...

[Rod C]

Yes, it's a shame about the intro presentation but the games pretty good after the steep learning curve. My main gripe is the twitchiness of the movement controls when you need to make a tight manoeuvre.

[MatthewThompson]

A little bit better.

[fwibbler]

On a side note, I wonder what happened to John Walsh the programmer of this game...
Its not bad for an early eighties game and yet he doesn't seem to have done anything else.

[Rod C]

Getting a better feel for this game now. Oh, looking back at the instructions I realize that I haven't used inviso yet. Better give it a try.

[Venger]

Good luck on level 4 with extremely tight openings to fly through and no fuel in sight...

[KarateEd]

A tad better.....

[fwibbler]

You're not wrong about level 4 Venger, it finished me off in short order!

[KarateEd]

Got to screen 3 this time.....

[Rod C]

Twitched my last life away on the first move!

[KarateEd]

Got a bit further on the next screen......

[Venger]

I don't really see much scope for a significantly higher score due to the nature of level 4. What was Joe the Lion thinking when he decided to not put any fuel anywhere near the start? As far as I can see, you're pretty knackered (unless someone can figure out the warp feature).

[KarateEd]

Yeh, ran out of fuel almost immediately. I guess you can't get fancy and the first order of business is to try to find a stash of fuel which will keep the points down, increase risk of getting nailed by a rocket and generally screw you over which ever way you try to play it......

[Venger]

I've stumbled across a walkthrough on YouTube. It seems to be a slightly different version of the game though, as the scoring is higher in this version (you get 53 points for shooting a rocket, instead of 20). It doesn't look as "twitchy" as the version we're playing either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kz4FPXG_dE

[Rod C]

I've stumbled across a walkthrough on YouTube. It seems to be a slightly different version of the game though, as the scoring is higher in this version (you get 53 points for shooting a rocket, instead of 20). It doesn't look as "twitchy" as the version we're playing either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kz4FPXG_dE

I had a look back at the bbcmicro.co.uk download page and the Mastertronic version is there on the same page. I had a try with it and the score builds up at twice the rate so the extra lives are much easier to reach. As for twitchiness it's hard to tell, maybe a bit better?

[KarateEd]

I've stumbled across a walkthrough on YouTube. It seems to be a slightly different version of the game though, as the scoring is higher in this version (you get 53 points for shooting a rocket, instead of 20). It doesn't look as "twitchy" as the version we're playing either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kz4FPXG_dE

I had a look back at the bbcmicro.co.uk download page and the Mastertronic version is there on the same page. I had a try with it and the score builds up at twice the rate so the extra lives are much easier to reach. As for twitchiness it's hard to tell, maybe a bit better?

Yes, I saw the other game there too but Fwibbler was pretty specific on which one he wanted........so we're stuck with it.

[fwibbler]

Didn't want to make it too easy.
No, seriously, I didn't know there was a difference between them.

[KarateEd]

Didn't want to make it too easy.
No, seriously, I didn't know there was a difference between them.

I think you would have to play both to know that anyway so it's all good......

[KarateEd]

Well, starting to get up there. There are sure very few fuels to help the cause on level 4, isn't there.......

[Rod C]

I don't really see much scope for a significantly higher score due to the nature of level 4. What was Joe the Lion thinking when he decided to not put any fuel anywhere near the start? As far as I can see, you're pretty knackered (unless someone can figure out the warp feature).

I managed to warp and it looks like this but animated in a hypnotic kind of way.

I was on level 3 and it jumped me ahead bypassing level 4 to the dogfight which was a very unnerving experience. Fortunately, I used BeebEm's save state feature before the dogfight and was able to play around with it until I beat the challenge. This started in a crazy frenzied onslaught then settled into a reasonable sequence which went on forever with long stretches of nothing at all happening, just waiting for the remaining enemies to reappear. Very strange! After that it went to level 5 which is the same as level 1 but with a few different enemies as seen in the dogfight. I took it through to level 8 which is level 4 with more enemies and got past 30K, so it is, in theory, possible to get those higher scores but I don't think I could get it in a normal game.


Anyway, here's my latest. No warping or cheating in this one!

[Venger]

I don't really see much scope for a significantly higher score due to the nature of level 4. What was Joe the Lion thinking when he decided to not put any fuel anywhere near the start? As far as I can see, you're pretty knackered (unless someone can figure out the warp feature).

I managed to warp and it looks like this but animated in a hypnotic kind of way.

Warp.PNG

I was on level 3 and it jumped me ahead bypassing level 4 to the dogfight which was a very unnerving experience. Fortunately, I used BeebEm's save state feature before the dogfight and was able to play around with it until I beat the challenge. This started in a crazy frenzied onslaught then settled into a reasonable sequence which went on forever with long stretches of nothing at all happening, just waiting for the remaining enemies to reappear. Very strange! After that it went to level 5 which is the same as level 1 but with a few different enemies as seen in the dogfight. I took it through to level 8 which is level 4 with more enemies and got past 30K, so it is, in theory, possible to get those higher scores but I don't think I could get it in a normal game.


Anyway, here's my latest. No warping or cheating in this one!


15130.PNG

My guess is that it must be to do with the letters that fly around occasionally (after all, they do make up the word "WARP"). I've never been able to collect them all though and I don't think you can shoot them. Am I right?

[KarateEd]

I don't really see much scope for a significantly higher score due to the nature of level 4. What was Joe the Lion thinking when he decided to not put any fuel anywhere near the start? As far as I can see, you're pretty knackered (unless someone can figure out the warp feature).

I managed to warp and it looks like this but animated in a hypnotic kind of way.

Warp.PNG

I was on level 3 and it jumped me ahead bypassing level 4 to the dogfight which was a very unnerving experience. Fortunately, I used BeebEm's save state feature before the dogfight and was able to play around with it until I beat the challenge. This started in a crazy frenzied onslaught then settled into a reasonable sequence which went on forever with long stretches of nothing at all happening, just waiting for the remaining enemies to reappear. Very strange! After that it went to level 5 which is the same as level 1 but with a few different enemies as seen in the dogfight. I took it through to level 8 which is level 4 with more enemies and got past 30K, so it is, in theory, possible to get those higher scores but I don't think I could get it in a normal game.


Anyway, here's my latest. No warping or cheating in this one!


15130.PNG

My guess is that it must be to do with the letters that fly around occasionally (after all, they do make up the word "WARP"). I've never been able to collect them all though and I don't think you can shoot them. Am I right?

I have a feeling you have to 'run over them' in the proper order? I didn't see anything in the instructions that said what you do.