hcmffm

February 18

^ Pretty much the same here: I keep playing and step-by-step I get better but no new high scores. 😕 I'll keep trying...

February 18

Now, initial post contains the current scores and ranking for Minestorm.

Still 11 days for joining in and/or placing new Minestorm high scores...

February 11

16 hours ago, Mikey50 said:

151453

Happy to say my first Vectrex score

Great score, Mickey. Your expression "first Vectrex score" makes me a bit afraid of what's to come from your side. 😉

February 9

On 2/7/2024 at 8:35 AM, jgkspsx said:

Well, I'll add a low score so people can feel they beat somebody

38850

Great that my brother in mind has joined in! 😉 Play a bit more and you'll learn how to handle the various mine types. As TheCurlyBard pointed out, Brett's video at TwinGalaxies shows an elegant and efficient way of playing Minestorm.

February 5

1 hour ago, playvectrex said:

The Vectrex Game - Mine Storm - John Hall.pdf 835.02 kB · 0 downloads

Thank you, Brett, for posting the contents of John's webpage with Minestorm info. Now that I see the scheme behind the initial mines it's easy to understand and and makes completely sense. Last-not-least it explains why there are duplicate levels (e.g. 2 and 5). I wonder what a score you would have if you reached level 256...

February 5

5 hours ago, playvectrex said:

John Hall himself has a nice website with just the table you seek:
https://roadsidethoughts.com/vectrex/mine-storm.htm

(there's also a bit of history of Mine Storm there)

Thanks for the link, Brett. For some reason I don't know I can't see the webpages (Cloudflare blocks my request/IP).

2 hours ago, Madwindoman said:

383710. Minestorm. OG hardware and controller. Those invisible mines are tricky

Wow, that's good playing, Madwindowman, especially considering you play the buggy Minestorm version.

February 4

2 hours ago, TheCurlyBard said:

Nice going!

I find this also, long play sessions with no improvement, and then a casual play next time and suddenly I'm on fire.

That's just the way humans learn: Training, Pause, and then improved results. 😉

For a longer time I found level 4 pretty tough and was stuck. And I had much respect for the fireball mines (Level 3 in MS II). But if you shoot at the fireball mines with high frequency (without rotating!) they shouldn't be much of a problem. My personal feeling is that that level 5 and even some levels above are simple(r) (or at lest not much harder but that's just my impression).

BTW, is there something like a list of levels and mine combination (e.g. Level 1: Floating mines, only, Level 2: 1xMagnetic mine, Level 3: 1xFireball mine, Level 4: 1xMagnetic fireball mine, ...)?

February 4

Last night (Saturday) I played about 20 games but no new highscore. But this morning, in a short session the second game was a breakthrough 😁 :

148.795 - Minestorm II - Original hardware & controller

February 3

Getting closer to 100.000 pts...

90.855 - Minestorm II - Original hardware & controller

February 2

That's a high Minestorm score for a start, Madwindoman!

ATM, I try to find some minutes to play almost every day. I just played four games of Minestorm and second one was a success (at least for me 😃) :

81.360 - Minestorm II - Original hardware & controller

January 31

Level 6 - Minestorm II - 59195

I've played Minestorm a bit more and it's fun to see yourself getting better and better. O.k., my high score has improved just a trifle, but my average score during games is increasing.

January 28

Level 5 - Minestorm II - 52550

Today I've played Minestorm for about three quarters of an hour. Step by step my results got better but still far away from really good results. I've played on original hardware using my non-buzz Vectrex console with MineStorm II (Rev C) built-in. Until now, I've reached MineField 5. Brett (@playvectrex) set the bar very high - my first scores are pretty much the opposite. Perhaps this encourages other players to post their scores, too. Taking part is everything.

January 25

Great playing and great scores, Brett (@playvectrex). Again, you're the earlybird when it comes to Vectrex playing and competing. 😎 I'll try to find a bit time for playing Minestorm on the week-end - but my high scores won't be even a tenth of your last high score.

January 25

Not sure whether everyone has realized, already: First round of the Vectrex High Score Club has started, already. See Vectrex High Score Club Rules plus High Score Club - Feb 2023 Minestorm for more details. I'm looking forward to playing and ~~competing~~ comparing with other Vectrex players! 😀

January 24

Thank you for your info, @merman. Vectrex Academy is really something special and it's amazing what Peer and "his" students achieve in few months, only. I'd be interested to read your article. I assume RetroGamer is a paper magazine and not available online, right?

January 23

Vectrex enthusiast and digital archaeologist Peer has posted interesting info about the various Minestorm revisions in the Vectorgaming forum.

January 23

1 hour ago, jgkspsx said:

We are only related alphabetically

What?! I thought we were at least brothers in mind?! Pretty disappointing after all those years.

January 22

Great to see that Vectrex HSC will start 1st of February. Minestorm as first game is definetely a good choice. Thank you very much for making the Vectrex HSC real, @TheCurlyBard.

EDIT: A minor issue in the rule topic:

The section "Emulation is will developed..." is displayed with a very tiny font:

Emulation is well developed, and easy to access have a look at some of these resources

Browser based emulator here: https://drsnuggles.github.io/jsvecx/?
ParaJVE is a good choice for windows if you don't mind running Java https://www.dosgamers.com/vectrex/vectrex-emulator-parajve
Many other options such as MAME, Retropie, PSP etc https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Vectrex_emulators

Perhaps you can check.

January 20

On 1/15/2024 at 2:57 AM, playvectrex said:

My advice to you is to not set your goals so high for your first vectrex project. ...

Signed. As you probably know, on the Vectrex the 6809 processor running at 1MHz doesn't perform just calculations but has to direct the elecronic beam, too. And drawing must happen quite often - otherwise screen will flicker due to low frame rate (you can see this in CleanSweep or in Flipper Pinball, for example). This limits down the number of vectors drawn on the Vectrex very much. And it's not easy to draw a human with a (very) limited number of vector, only, on the Vectrex. This might be even the reason why Spike, the mascot of the Vectrex, is a fictional figure and not a human.

Some games with animated humans that come to my mind:

- Vector Blade^*: Intro scene with human

- Get that beer^* (very playable and enjoyable platform game)

- Floor is lava^* (great game but simple human graphic)

- VecFu (Karate fighting)

^*Game can be played online via JSVec.

Good luck in your endevour, skeleboy, I'm nosey to see your first drafts or even results one day!

January 20

Great to see you here, @Doctor Snuggles. Actually, I wondered whether I should contact you because of your emulator and all the ROMs - very cool that you found here yourself. This massive number of ROMs is just great. It will take years till the Vectrex High Score Club has played all those titles.

5 hours ago, TheCurlyBard said:

... I think emulators are fine, and even in Malbans easy to install pitrex image, I can slow it down or use save states, so unless we demand full video proof it's going to be hard prove any score is real.

I drafted a first post, and I'll finish it this weekend. Was still thinking minestorm as it's so accessible. ...

Several people voted to include emulation and for that's fine, too. It's a fun competition, so hey, let's celebrate each single new player joining and avoid any hurdles that may keep people from joining in. Having that said I think differences in game versions should be mentioned and a binary that is supposed to be used when playing should be made available. But people should also be allowed to use the game version they have at hand. And this gives way to playing Minestorm as a first game - I think Minestorm really deserves to be played first.

5 hours ago, TheCurlyBard said:

...I'm assuming nobody minds if I submit scores? I don't consider myself the sole judge, I'd actually appreciate some help in spotting cheats

I'm not sure about other potential participants but I don't mind at all if you're both organisator and player in the Vectrex HSC, @TheCurlyBard. From my point of view, spotting cheats is almost impossible with just a written score or a screenshot. But we don't want video proof - that's for sure. I guess only thing you can do is pointing out that this is a fun competition and ask players to be fair and not to cheat.

January 17

5 hours ago, TheCurlyBard said:

@hcmffm ... I saw one the other day that noted downloads were available, but I'm not sure the author cared about consent or not.

Rule of thumb: If a retail version was or is available, the binary is illegal. Though, there are exceptions like some Fury Unlimited games or Scott Huggins 'Cavern Rescue' for example.

In the past and recent past, there had been various attempts to create a Vectrex game list. Not sure whether there is an up-to-date game list with the required info. Perhaps anyone else in the Vectrex scene (e.g. @50TBRD) might know.

January 16

8 hours ago, TheCurlyBard said:

Was playing Flipper last night, is there a bug with random scores? or did you just mean the ball is erratic. ...

My above "Random scores" means that ball in Flipper pinball is erratic and controlling the ball is pretty difficult.

8 hours ago, TheCurlyBard said:

... Is there a good list of the games that can be legitimately downloaded? We should mainly stick to these, but occasionally play a paid for homebrew also. Maybe with a vote, not much point picking it unless at least some of us have it. ...

All original GCE/MB games can be legitimately downloaded. With homebrew binaries you have to double-check and ask experienced people or the author of the game. Some binaries like "Omega Chase" float around without legal permission of the appropriate author.

8 hours ago, TheCurlyBard said:

... I'll draft up some rules and start a new thread this week

Vectrex High Score Club is progressing and in sight. Great, @TheCurlyBard!

PS: I'm tempted to suggest to use the Vectorgaming Forum for the new Vectrex High Score Club, but I guess you prefer to use this AtariAge board for various reasons (activity, familiarity, forum limitations, ...).

January 16

On 1/14/2024 at 10:55 PM, jgkspsx said:

There's also a lot more fun homebrew than there is fun retail library. Not that the retail library isn't mostly fun but Starhawk and Heads Up make up a significant percentage of the retail library 😅

Signed. The homebrew library is multiple times larger than the library of original Vectrex titles which consists of less than 30 games in total. And not all original titles are good and playable games.

Some of the problems in the original games:

Armor Attack: Cheating possible. Version provided by Malban solves this problem.

Blitz!: Game is not very appealing. Once you know have learnt how to win playing is a chore.

Berzerk: Bug leads to insane fast robots. Berzerk Debugged solves this problem.

Clean Sweep: Difficulty doesn't increase but decrease at some level. Can be marathoned by good players

Dark Tower: Once you know the solution next game is a child's play. Variant of Dark Tower sold by Sean Kelly solves this problem.

Heads Up: Game is not very appealing. Once you have found out how to win playing is a chore.

Flipper pinball: Random scores: A lot of luck and little skills are required

MineStorm: Many versions around. Level 13 bug.

Star Castle: Can be marathoned by good players

Star Hawk: Can be played for hours by good players

Note:

This doesn't mean that above games must not be used in a high score club which basically should be fun - I just want to point out that there are known problems.

January 14

In the meantime I had a look at the Lynx High Score Club pages here in the forum. In those examples of working and alive highscore clubs you can find a lot of info that will help to setup a VECTREX High Score Club: Rules, initial posts/phase where people had decided on a game, and so on. And with @Mikey50 and @jgkspsx there are at least two persons who can give advice for setting up a new club, @TheCurlyBard. E.g. I guess the organisator of a High Score Club has to be able to edit his/her forum posts (e.g. for editing rules or high score tables) even a longer time after initial posting.

BTW, syncing the choice of Vectrex game for month of November with the game list of the Vector War might be a good idea: People play once and can score for both the Vector War and the Vectrex High Score Club.

January 13

Original games and homebrew

MineStorm, Scramble, and Solar Quest are really good titles. As you might know, the yearly Vector War is organized by me. So I'd say I have some experience regarding competition and questions regarding hardware and software. In the Vector War, both original titles and homebrew is played. I'd say 95% of the players in the Vector War own a flashable cartridge and thus can play any binary. But Vector War players are much of enthusiasts and I guess you cannot assume that everyone owns a flashable cartridge.

Perhaps you have to categories which take place in parallel or sequential: One competition/category/scoring with original titles, only, and one competition/category/scoring with homebrew, only, or both original games plus homebrew games. Including/excluding limited/commercial homebrew like Vyrzon, Crush of Lucifer, and many more is another question. All in all you have to make assumptions. Setting requirements low allows for a large number of players but much limits the spectrum of games. Higher requirements (flashable cartridge) will exclude occassional players and Vectrex fans but I'd say if a player is really interested he/she purchases a flashable cartridge.

Emulation

A word on software emulators and PiTrex: From my point of view you should exclude software emulators and PiTrex for several reasons: Games are not 100% identical (e.g. speed) plus often you even have the possibility to stop a game and or make it slower or faster. From what I've learnt recently, this even applies for games played on PiTrex but you may check.

Score submission

Last-not-least you have to clarify how highscores are submitted and proofed. In Vector War we use screenshots for that but some games give you a hard to take a screenshot and there is room for cheating. BTW, there is always room for cheating e.g. by modifying binaries or screenshots so I'd rather count on the fairness of the players (this is what I do in the Vector War). Some people may laugh about this - but as said before there is always room for cheating and video proof including display of original hardware and person (in order to proof that not several people play under the same name) would be a real overkill. FAIK, Twin Galaxies does such things but I think this not what you should go for in a Vectrex highscore club.

Fun playing and comparing or tough competition?

All in all it much depends on what you want and what you focus on in the Vectrex Highscore club:

A fun competition with as many players as possible or a competition with really comparable results which might be even considered as world records (because they are played on original and thus comparable hardware and conditions). Personally, I'd go for a (more or less) fun competition with few rules regarding software and hardware, only. That's just my 2 cents - looking at other highscore clubs (e.g. organized by Mikey50) and sharing experience is a good idea.

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