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High Score Competition (March: The Mine)


arcadeshopper

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On 1/1/2021 at 1:20 AM, mizapf said:

Just for curiosity's sake - try playing it with the European version (50Hz) now.

nice experiment for today, 2nd of january. To have a close reference, first I played 60hz, and did 87000, (MAME, 60hz) better than my highest score in the compo.

Then I played the EU version, and after 4-5 games, I reached 93700 (MAME, 50hz). Well, topping my best NTSC score was harder than I thought. Indeed, the PAL version is a bit easier, but less easier than I expected. The main reason are the yellow TIEs. I hit them taking advantage of their entrance pattern, and apparently the change in speed coused me trouble. I lost many more ships than I use to loose in NTSC. On the other hand, white birds in PAL are clearly easier: in NTSC they are so fast that I can fight only avoiding their attacks and shooting randomly as fast as I can; in PAL their movement is perceptibly slower, so I manage to aim and shoot.

For this latter reason, I have to say that I enjoyed the game more on the PAL version. Hopefully I will soon try playing on my real PAL TI, to see if it's different with a joystick and... the real iron sensation ?

 

sc-87k-MAME-60hz.png

sc-93k-MAME-50hz.png

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Here is everyone's Astro Fighter score for December, 2020:

 

MarkSetGo        - 109,500
Count9929A       -  74,700
PixelPedant      -  64,300
Globeron         -  57,600
Vorticon         -  51,900
Old CS1          -  45,800
Sometimes99er    -  36,600
JBlenkle         -  36,400

 

This was a great pick and there was a good discussion about GROM / Assembly Lang / Cartridge distribution, etc.  I'm impressed by the amount of knowledge in this group.

 

Thank you everyone for participating! 

 

I'll post the January 2021 title by the end of the day.

 

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11 minutes ago, MarkSetGo said:

I am choosing a game that I remember playing with neighbor friends.  We bounced off the walls when any of us got to a new level.

 

My neighbor had a different platform (I think it was Intellivision).  The TI-version looks pretty good.

 

minerlogo2.jpg.e2e2e58d0b8c4cd0083c53fdcb82053f.jpg

 

Here is the BIN:

min2049G.BIN 20.39 kB · 1 download

 

Here is the EN manual:

(Eng)-(Manual)-(Miner_2049er)-(1983)-(from_TigerVision)-(single_pages).pdf 9.34 MB · 2 downloads

 

Put on your hard hats and claim the mines for 'yerself!

 

 

Hi Mark,

Not sure if we need to change to another game as in September 2015 we had a

Miner2049'er competition (I love the game!), see link:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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23 minutes ago, globeron said:

 

Hi Mark,

Not sure if we need to change to another game as in September 2015 we had a

Miner2049'er competition (I love the game!), see link:

 

Good catch.  I didn't think to check the thread.  I'll pick something else. 

 

I'll use the 'search topic' feature to make sure my next pick was not already played. 

 

The first post in this topic has a hole for 2020.  It might be nice to update that post as the official list of games that have already been picked.

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Ah, interesting.  I'd barely played this in the last 30 years, since I always thought of it as a two player game.  So I never really played it on my own, except to pop it in out of nostalgia. 

 

But there's nothing obliging one to play both ships.  You can just ignore one. Pretty dumb it took me this long to consider that.

 

Guess we'll see how far the game can be taken. 

 

Seems like we're still missing a manual scan for it.  No recollection as to whether I ever had a manual for it. Those DataBiotics manuals often weren't much to look at, though.

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I think it does work single player. 

 

You just ignore the second player ship.  Or you could try to play both at once, if you feel like being crazy :P

 

But nothing obliges you to.  The players each have a separate pool of lives.

 

And actually, you can even play the one ship, then play the other ship when the first ship's lives run out. 

 

I'm just completely rethinking this game and its possibilities, now.  Since I'd always thought of it as two-player. 

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6 hours ago, globeron said:

Not sure if we need to change to another game as in September 2015 we had a

Miner2049'er competition (I love the game!), see link:

 

Hmm, if we're going for a new game every month, we'll have had them all soon. If I remember correctly, Centipede was twice (and I won both ? ).

 

This brings back my idea of another competition (in parallel to this one) where we're playing the same games every year, like a championship. We could have different leagues like "classic pre-1982", "third-party", or "post-2000". You'll get a score for your result (winner = 12 points, follow-up = 10 points etc.) which you have to defend every year (like the Tennis ATP ranking).

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37 minutes ago, mizapf said:

Hmm, if we're going for a new game every month, we'll have had them all soon

I think there are plenty of games, if we run out of "modules", or newly created modules, then we can start with the Extended Basic converted "modules" which runs much faster now.  PS. I am still trying to beat my own Munch-Man score (and found back a card...with a score higher than in this competition) and trying to beat the highest score I saw in one of the older magazines (somewhere posted earlier in this forum).

 

The card is from 1983-1985 period 

16098473304894941265724426735505.thumb.jpg.940080a4350706b1fdcb1fe9b50f36a4.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by globeron
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5 hours ago, pixelpedant said:

Ah, interesting.  I'd barely played this in the last 30 years, since I always thought of it as a two player game.  So I never really played it on my own, except to pop it in out of nostalgia. 

 

But there's nothing obliging one to play both ships.  You can just ignore one. Pretty dumb it took me this long to consider that.

 

Guess we'll see how far the game can be taken. 

 

Seems like we're still missing a manual scan for it.  No recollection as to whether I ever had a manual for it. Those DataBiotics manuals often weren't much to look at, though.

 

I vaguely remember seeing a black and white kind of manual for it before.

 

Seems we need a new skill to play with 2x hands in 1 go!

 

 

16098477019581586425479154473019.jpg

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10 hours ago, pixelpedant said:

[...]

Seems like we're still missing a manual scan for it.  No recollection as to whether I ever had a manual for it. Those DataBiotics manuals often weren't much to look at, though.

If you need, I've scanned it :)

 

Edited by ti99iuc
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3 hours ago, ti99iuc said:

If you need, I've scanned it :)

Nice!  For ease of access to those here, here is that scan:

 

Black Hole.pdf

 

And an image of the cart:

 

658784_blackholecart.thumb.jpg.0c68f550afacfed72db9bb430bde1775.jpg

 

Note as well that (as is often the case) there is a pre-DataBiotics disk version of the game, called Guardian, which looks like this on the title screen:

 

image.png.891f8fdff61c1bb1e43868930ea94ff2.png

 

Otherwise almost identical though, save for some very minor tweaks, it seems to me.

 

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Except it doesn't seem like such an "option" actually exists. 

 

At least not in my DBT Black Hole cart. 

 

Manual says

Quote

Elther joystick 1 or joystick 2 may be used to control ship 1 or ship 2

 

But I'm pretty sure that's not true.  And Joystick 1 always controls Ship 1, while Joystick 2 always controls Ship 2.

 

I think DBT was a little mixed up about the details.

 

It's worth noting that played as a single player game, it is possible to safely switch between the two ships at any time by pressing 'P' to give one ship "protection" (turns off hit detection) and begin playing the other one (which will lose protection as soon as you fire).

 

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3 minutes ago, jblenkle said:

So what the heck game are we playing? Miner 2049er, Black Hole or JetPac?

Hi guys....I wanted to apologize to everyone.  I didn't realize the "no repeat" rule, so that eliminates "Miner 2049" and "JetPac".  Black Hole has the 2-player issue.

 

I will look for a new game right now.......

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