+therealbountybob Posted August 23, 2015 Share Posted August 23, 2015 (edited) Beam Rider Superb shooter, set a new HSC record for a bonus point [scalak 48,188]. Destroy the waves of spaceships, then push up to launch a missile at the mother ship... remember to collect the extra life thingys and not shoot them Bonus Game: From Analog/Page 6 Magazines it's Paul Lay's Star Rider Downloads Beam Rider Fandal XEX Atarimania Info Full Info on the game Post #30 from ballyalley Star Rider Fandal XEX Info... Page 6 Issue #36 Full Info on the game Post #48 again from ballyalley Round closes Sunday 6th Sept 10am UK time Edited September 6, 2015 by therealbountybob Links to new info on the games Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+therealbountybob Posted August 23, 2015 Author Share Posted August 23, 2015 Whoa all these extra men that I used to shoot! Not sure I got any further but it's still a great game. 39,240 (Sector 15) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jk40001 Posted August 23, 2015 Share Posted August 23, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jblenkle Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 Beamrider - 31,612 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sleepy Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 First try: Sleeπ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHiNjide Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 Score for today: 39178 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHiNjide Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 Oh, and I tried Star Rider: 180 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+therealbountybob Posted August 24, 2015 Author Share Posted August 24, 2015 Score for today: 39178 Just 62 more and I can play again Oh, and I tried Star Rider: 180 Me too. Not bad for a quick blast eh? 185 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roadrunner Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 Star Rider 180 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+therealbountybob Posted August 25, 2015 Author Share Posted August 25, 2015 First Tables Beam Rider 1st therealbountybob (p) 39,240 12pts 2nd SHiNjide (p) 39,178 11pts 3rd jblenkle (n) 31,612 10pts 4th JK40001 (p) 18,210 9pts 5th Sleepy (p) 6,140 8pts Space Rider 1st therealbountybob (p) 185 3pts 2nd SHiNjide (p) 180 2pts 2nd roadrunner (n) 180 2pts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sikor Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHiNjide Posted August 26, 2015 Share Posted August 26, 2015 Just 62 more and I can play again Yeah, was close, but you can play again now! 49628 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted August 26, 2015 Share Posted August 26, 2015 The Origin of "Beamrider's" Attack Patterns Back in July of 2010, I rediscovered a Quicktime movie with Dave Rolfe (the programmer of "Beamrider"). He explains how he came up with the attack patterns for "Beamrider." Sometime before this, I had read an interview with (I think) Mr. Rolfe, that said the attack patterns were based on the letters of the alphabet. It turns out that was only a half-truth-- it didn't tell the whole (and better!) part of the story. I guess Dave didn't want to say the off-color complete story.According to the video on the "Intellivision Rocks" CD game compilation for the PC (released in 2001), Dave got the idea for the attack patterns from a Sam Kinison comedy routine. I was going to summarize what Dave says, but instead I transcribed the one minute fifty-one second interview. I removed most of the "ands" and the "uhs" because Dave speaks, almost, in one long run-on sentence. Here's the transcription "So, where would I get the attack patterns? Then I flashed onto some memory, and this is why it's useful to have an eclectic set of experiences (because you never know what you can draw from or who you can steal from). There's this, there was this, very raunchy comedian named Sam Kinison (who is subsequently dead, but you can go look up his tapes) and I'll give credit where credit is due. One of his particularly raunchy, uh, raunchy skits, involved explaining to men how to orally pleasure their women. The bottom line was that you were supposed to lick the alphabet, starting from A, B, C, D, E, F, G... and this would create the impression that you were very sophisticated and possibly even French. That you knew what you were doing.""I'm not sure about the application of this for the intended purpose, but I thought at least I could apply it to the attack patterns and say, 'Well, I'm gonna have these aliens trace the alphabet.' So I just went through the alphabet and said 'Okay, let's have, on the beams, the alien try to do the letter A.' So it would come down [Dave traces the letter out in the air], and then up and around, and how about the B. B. And then the C. And then the D. Go down the list trying to make the aliens do all the letters of the alphabet. Some of them, you know, worked better than others. When they were done they would just retreat to the top. So I created this list and then I threw in the numbers for good measure and a few others, the creative ones I could come up with, without borrowing from others. Then I just ran them all and I looked at them. Subjectively it worked. Some of them looked hard. Some of them looked easy. I started ordering them. I started eliminating the ones which I didn't like. I started putting in little bomb droppings, and it all eventually worked out and I had this series, the adequate number of attack patterns, all nicely laid-out thanks to Sam Kinison." Back when I first transcribed this video, I read the above first paragraph to my wife and she looked at me funny, shook her head back and forth, and then just said, "Hmm."I think in the other interview, the written interview that I read many years ago, that Dave went into a little more detail about the patterns, but I'm not sure. There are actually four videos on the "Intellivision Rocks" CD in all (I'm not transcribing anymore-- it takes too long). One video that is right before this one does explain that originally Dave wanted the aliens to use AI, but that another guy convinced him that players would like to learn the patterns and that they would think that was more fun. Eventually Dave agreed to this method.Pretty neat, huh? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McKong Posted August 26, 2015 Share Posted August 26, 2015 Thanks Bally, any stories and historical details to these games and their programmers is always worth a read. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
playermissile Posted August 27, 2015 Share Posted August 27, 2015 6170. I think I'm still shooting the extra life thingies. I tried running into stuff and got killed. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHiNjide Posted August 27, 2015 Share Posted August 27, 2015 6170. I think I'm still shooting the extra life thingies. I tried running into stuff and got killed. The extra lifes looks like your own ship, just smaler. Look out for a small orange spaceship. When you shoot it, it turns into a little red wreck. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+therealbountybob Posted August 27, 2015 Author Share Posted August 27, 2015 Forgot to say well done SHiNJide, you've beaten Scalak's HSC record... but... 57,002 (19) Very interesting about the attack patterns (!) yes they work out nicely. Some good stuff for a mention on your next pod cast playermissile That movement must have taken some coding. For RampRage I had a table of attributes e.g. move towards/away player X/Y +/- speed strength runaway pull/push go over/under playfields /explode etc. Beam Rider is really good and very intense but despite this you can still seem to avoid stuff - just about Wonder if there are any other baddies; we'll see if anyone gets to Sector 20+ eh? No improvement on Space Rider - need to work out how to get the suckers more often. Post scores as you play guys, it's more fun that way jblenkle / playermissile / sleepy if you guys want to add some suggestions to the play list they might feature in the next poll Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted August 27, 2015 Share Posted August 27, 2015 No improvement on Space Rider - need to work out how to get the suckers more often. I'm going to have to play "Star Rider" in PAL mode, I think. The game is quite hard on NTSC systems. You really have to lead your shots. Maybe it is meant to play that way, but it sure makes the game difficult and takes some of the fun out of it. Hopefully I'll get used to it. My high score for "Star Rider" so far is pretty low: Star Rider - 75 (NTSC, Real Hardware, 130XE) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted August 27, 2015 Share Posted August 27, 2015 Post scores as you play guys, it's more fun that way Posting high scores as the game progresses, but I usually wait until the last minute to really dig into a game. I haven't played "Beamrider" yet this round (or even this year, I don't think) so this "taunt" (of sorts) got me ready for a quick game. I gave it one go and took a screen capture of how miserably that I played the game. I forgot how long a game takes to play this game (this one game took about 15 minutes). Beamrider 10,570 (Sector 10) (NTSC, Altirra Emulator) Hopefully I'll play some more of this game tomorrow. My highest score ever for "Beamrider" (not played this round, so it doesn't count here) was reached on March 26, 2009. I managed to reach Sector 18 and get 40,358 points (just barely enough to get a patch in the 80s). I'd love to beat that score this round. The manual says "The restrictor field is 99 levels deep." That's 99 levels. I wonder what happens when I player (of incredible skill!) gets that far in the game? The manual says that no new baddies appear after Sector 14. What's the highest level people here have reached? I've topped out at Sector 18. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+therealbountybob Posted August 28, 2015 Author Share Posted August 28, 2015 Latest Tables Beam Rider 1st therealbountybob (p) 57,002 12+1pts # 2nd SHiNjide (p) 49,628 11pts 3rd jblenkle (n) 31,612 10pts 4th JK40001 (p) 18,210 9pts 5th ballyalley (n) 10,570 8pts 6th playermissile (n) 6,170 7pts 7th Sleepy (p) 6,140 6pts 8th Sikor (p) 2,056 5pts# New HSC Record bonus point Space Rider 1st therealbountybob (p) 185 4pts 2nd SHiNjide (p) 180 3pts 2nd roadrunner (n) 180 3pts 4th ballyalley (n) 75 1pt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
playermissile Posted August 30, 2015 Share Posted August 30, 2015 The extra lifes looks like your own ship, just smaler. Look out for a small orange spaceship. When you shoot it, it turns into a little red wreck. Thanks! Got up to 12028 now that I'm not destroying my bonus ships. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHiNjide Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 I'm a little worried. Yesterday I wanted to play a little, but my Atari crashed 4 times with Beamrider. I downloaded the XEX again and tried it with that, but it crashed again. I hope that my Atari has no defect. Maybe it was just too hot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McKong Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 Beam Rider 34500 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McKong Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 Score from Mrs. McKong 7548 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHiNjide Posted September 1, 2015 Share Posted September 1, 2015 ARRRR! For a good score, it's so important to take the mother ship down. Unfortunately, I'm so bad at it. Yesterday I came to zone 19, but still had 1000 points less than my high score, because I miss mother ship to often. I need to practice that! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.