HSC Season 15 Round 6: Rainbow Walker

[+therealbountybob]

Rainbow Walker

 

Rainbow Walker walked to victory and finally managed to win a HSC poll

 

Faily easy in the scheme of things, fun Q*Bert style hopping on the scrolling rainbow changing the squares' colours, complete each vertical row to lock it in. I read it might actually play better/faster on PAL than on NTSC - we need to check this out!

Download XEX, Atarimania Info

 

Bonus Games

Cloud Burst - this one's a goodie and it's crazy, and even more crazy as it has a Crazy difficulty setting on top of that! Start on the easiest level Beginner (speed 0) (I think it levels up)? Info

Cloud Hopper - this one might be too easy but we'll check it out

 

EXTRA BONUS: Keep on Koastin'

If you're feeling brave have a go on my Keep on Koastin' for an additional bonus point - It's the same idea as the bonus round - needs BASIC and remember it's a case of holding the stick to wait for each move, you should get the hang of it

 

 

Everyone welcome to join in, just post a score

Round closes on Sunday 15th April 10PM UK time

Edited April 11, 2018 by therealbountybob
Extra bonus game: Keep on Koastin'

[Gury]

Yuhuhu

 

Finally! One of my favourite games from childhood.

[RedThunder]

Cloud Hopper

986

Cloud Burst

2540

Rainbow Walker

3045

Edited April 4, 2018 by RedThunder

[graywest]

Rainbow Walker: 220100

 

A couple of hints:

 

Note that the game does END after 20 rounds, so make sure to grab as many points as you can before that. A good source of points (though somewhat risky) is to be aggressive about grabbing the lightning and whirlwind when they turn into numbers.

 

Don't blow off the bonus rounds - you'll need as many extra lives as you can get. A good bonus round will net you 3 extra lives, a fantastic bonus round will net you 4. I'd say that 5 extra lives is theoretically possible, but I've never done it.

 

Practice jumping diagonally. The skill won't be required for the first few rounds, but you'll definitely need it as you get up to rounds 10-20. Jumping diagonally while holding the button (to jump OVER a square) will also become a necessary skill as you reach the higher rounds.

 

I'd recommend that, in general, you always travel DOWN the rainbow, toward the bottom of the screen. The most frustrating part of the game is getting caught by the demon bird because he will erase all of your progress. Traveling down will avoid that issue. That said, once you reach the higher levels, you will have no choice but to travel UP to reach certain parts of the rainbow.

 

The mushroom is your friend. If you catch it, it will color in an entire column of the rainbow.

Edited April 4, 2018 by graywest

[+slx]

Cloud Hopper 194

Cloud Burst 1070

Rainbow Walker 18010 (obviously playing in a different league than greywest)

 

Always loved the music and the nice cloud graphics. It's easy to forget how spectacular those rainbow graphics were 35 years ago. So much nicer than Q*Bert!

[Gury]

231215

 

 

[jblenkle]

Rainbow Walker - 1,045

[+therealbountybob]

Good work graywest bonus point for the great hints too

 

If anyone has PAL and NTSC setups I would be interested in the comparison re speed / difficulty

[Deteacher]

Rainbow Walker: 32,323!

 

[carlsson]

Wouldn't changing video mode in Altirra be accurate enough? I believe I've put Rainbow Walker on my Atarimax cartridge so I could play it both on my NTSC 800 and my PAL 130XE. I'll see if I spot any difference, though my old high score is so embarrasingly low that I might not notice the difference before the game is over.

[graywest]

Good work graywest bonus point for the great hints too

 

If anyone has PAL and NTSC setups I would be interested in the comparison re speed / difficulty

 

Thanks! Looks like Gury is going to be some tough competition! I need to try again sometime soon.

[McKong]

Rainbow Walker 12560

[Gury]

Hi graywest, really nice tips for everyone. Don't bother with the score, take time and play for fun.

I like this game so I put more energy in it, but you or anybody else can beat this score.

 

Really good game with nice rainbow graphics and good music and sound.

[graywest]

Hi graywest, really nice tips for everyone. Don't bother with the score, take time and play for fun.

I like this game so I put more energy in it, but you or anybody else can beat this score.

 

Really good game with nice rainbow graphics and good music and sound.

 

Thanks! Agreed - this is a great game. Steve Coleman's games for Synapse (Rainbow Walker and Pharaoh's Curse) were two of my top favorites since I was a child.

 

Has anyone heard anything regarding Steve Coleman's whereabouts nowadays? Like interviews or anything like that? The only info I could locate was a list of game credits - looks like he continued to work in the games industry until the end of the SNES period. Just curious.

 

I tried again but didn't beat my last score. Here are a couple more gameplay hints:

 

There is no bonus round after completing the 20th rainbow. As far as I can tell, there is no "jackpot" score for winning the game, and you don't get a bonus for lives remaining. So whatever your score is when you jump on the last tile of the 20th rainbow is your final score.

 

When the baddies make an entrance, their tile will flash for a second or two. If you jump on that tile while they are entering the playfield, they will be smashed. If you're too far away from the flashing tile, but you're near a "freeze" tile, jump on the freeze tile first and then go stand on the flashing tile. The bad guy will be destroyed before he even has a chance to enter the playfield.

 

Using the freeze tiles to your advantage will also help you get points from the lightning and whirlwind. Wait near the freeze tile until the lightning/whirlwind changes into a point value. Hit the freeze tile, and then go grab the points!

[McKong]

Rainbow walker 29290

Edited April 6, 2018 by McKong

[carlsson]

Rainbow Walker - 21515 pts

 

I can now reveal my previous high score on this game, which was 2615 pts on the same amount of minutes played!!! So I effectively multiplied my score per second of gameplay by a factor of 8.

 

I will be the first to admit that Graywest's hints made all the difference for me, from understanding the game mechanics to the importance of bonus rounds. Obviously reading the original instructions might have helped me as well, but who reads instructions for an action game?!

 

Edit: Hmm, a bit peculiar. After a few rounds in demo mode which doesn't count the score, the high score has slowly increased to 22449 pts despite I haven't played again. Besides I don't know if that even is a possible score, assuming other scores end on a 5 or 0. I wonder if that is as it should, if my 130XE is to blame or if the XEX has some strange bug. Better record your scores right after playing, not waiting 20 minutes for the "interest rate" to have improved it.

Edited April 6, 2018 by carlsson

[jblenkle]

Rainbow Walker - 1,360

[graywest]

Cloud Burst: 18540

 

Cloud Hopper: 792

 

Cloud Burst is fantastic. I'd never played this one before, but I really enjoy it. Wait until the level where the fog rolls in!

 

Cloud Hopper is okay. I just think it needs a little something EXTRA to elevate the gameplay. It is competently programmed, though.

Edited April 7, 2018 by graywest

[+therealbountybob]

Rainbow Walker - 21515 pts

 

I can now reveal my previous high score on this game, which was 2615 pts on the same amount of minutes played!!! So I effectively multiplied my score per second of gameplay by a factor of 8.

 

I will be the first to admit that Graywest's hints made all the difference for me, from understanding the game mechanics to the importance of bonus rounds. Obviously reading the original instructions might have helped me as well, but who reads instructions for an action game?!

 

Edit: Hmm, a bit peculiar. After a few rounds in demo mode which doesn't count the score, the high score has slowly increased to 22449 pts despite I haven't played again. Besides I don't know if that even is a possible score, assuming other scores end on a 5 or 0. I wonder if that is as it should, if my 130XE is to blame or if the XEX has some strange bug. Better record your scores right after playing, not waiting 20 minutes for the "interest rate" to have improved it.

235,771 - I thought it might have been 100 less

I remembered completing Rainbow Walker in the past and have done again (on my first go), but it was great to play it again. You can amass too many lives on the bonus rounds, usually 3 or 4 each time. The best bonus round score I had is 4,760 anyone top this?

 

Cloudburst is another pet favourite of mine - it's quick to play.

Beginner 6,810

Bot played Cloud Hopper yet.

This should work out about right for this shortended round. The next poll will start tomorrow - McKong will be relieved that DK Jr made the cut

[+therealbountybob]

Cloud Burst is fantastic. I'd never played this one before, but I really enjoy it. Wait until the level where the fog rolls in!

 

Cloud Hopper is okay. I just think it needs a little something EXTRA to elevate the gameplay. It is competently programmed, though.

Glad you like it, did you get the fog on beginner? - if so that's great and the game does go through the levels as I thought

[carlsson]

Ok, I tried another version from Homesoft and it has the same behavior about high score "interest" if you don't play for a while. It is unlikely two crackers would introduce the exact same bug, so unless it is my machine that is faulty, I'll consider the original version to suffer from this as well. Of course I should try Altirra before confirming.

 

Edit: Ok, I tested the supplied XEX in Altirra, three different settings on emulation: PAL 130XE, PAL 800 and NTSC 800. In all three, the demo mode slowly and randomly increases the current highscore, plus that the displayed highscore always is a bit lower than the score was when you died but the latter is not so strange as this game reduces the score for you if you do bad moves, so you can find yourself having a higher score mid-level than close to the end.

Edited April 7, 2018 by carlsson

[carlsson]

Rainbow Walker - 35875 pts

[graywest]

Glad you like it, did you get the fog on beginner? - if so that's great and the game does go through the levels as I thought

 

Yes, I started out on beginner - the fog began after five(?) or so levels had passed.

Edited April 7, 2018 by graywest

[graywest]

I will be the first to admit that Graywest's hints made all the difference for me, from understanding the game mechanics to the importance of bonus rounds. Obviously reading the original instructions might have helped me as well, but who reads instructions for an action game?!

 

Sometimes it's more fun to play without the instructions! I first played Rainbow Walker (and a lot of other 8-bit Atari games) on a series of pirated disks that I got from a friend of the family. There was a huge selection of games, but NONE of them had any instructions. Some of these took me quite awhile to figure out as an eight-year-old.

 

For the longest time, I had no idea that you could even COMPLETE a rainbow. I thought the object of the game was just to smash the other creatures.

 

I also had Star Raiders, and imagine my surprise when I learned that you could use the KEYBOARD to hyperwarp around the galaxy and fight evil alien ships. Prior to that discovery, I thought it was a pretty boring game about shooting the occasional asteroid from a standstill.

[carlsson]

Bonus games:

 

Cloudburst - 2470 pts

 

Cloud Hopper - 654 pts