616,300 - Night 10: He who hesitates

RSS Bot · February 12, 2010

So I couldn't quite get back up to yesterday's level of proficiency tonight. The main problem I am having is making dumb choices when I have to act quickly. For example, sometimes I realize I timed the springboard wrong, but I still try to climb the ladder. To further compund the error, I then try to climb back off the ladder. If you haven't played a whole lot of Donkey Kong, let me tell you something that is completely impossible: getting off the final ladder quick enough to avoid the springboards above level 3.

I mean it is physically impossible to get off that ladder in time to not die. There is a 0% chance of success. And yet I do it at least once a night. I sometimes don't understand how my brain works. I know going in that that is a way to die in the game. I know trying to climb off the ladder is pointless. I know the only chance of success at that point is to go on and hope for the best. And yet my brain is like "D'uh, I climb down now. Me am going to be champ!" Way to go brain.

Getting over dumb reactions like that is going to be almost as tough as not getting bored from playing the same game every night for a year. And that will be difficult, even when that game is a masterpiece like Donkey Kong. I'd wonder how Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe deal with it, but I secretly assume they are robots or cyborgs.

I think robots are more likely, because cyborgs have the whole "human brain" issue still getting in the way. But then, robots are unadaptable, and those guys have gone back and forth by besting their own playing multiple times. Hmmm. Maybe they're vampires.

Best score ever: 161,500

Best score today: 101,500 (yep, I got that one again).

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