KnightRider Posted July 13, 2021 Share Posted July 13, 2021 It looks like I've been a member of this board since 2018, but I've mostly used this website to occasionally look up game information. I don't even recall registering, which is a clear sign that I'm... Confirmed greybeard, circa 1972. We recieved a VCS either Christmas of '80 or '81. I'll forego any more personal history, unless someone has specific questions about the time period, or the games we played. At any rate, these past few years I've noticed I've lost patience with recent games I've been playing, and delved into emulation as getting ahold of hardware isn't exactly in my budget (fixed income). Stella, on a unix-like system, and it seems to run well enough to feel authentic. Immediately I noticed I was having one hell of a good time playing these old games, much more fun than I should be having. My wife was a little concerned, to say the least, until I sat her butt down and she had a similar revelation. After looking up information on these games and so forth, we found out activision and imagic both had rewards set up for high scores. Patches, and medals, and so on. So I had the ridiculous idea of trying to attain those scores and "earn" those patches, obviously just bragging rights as that whole process is very defunct. All right, a few questions: High Score Club: Looks like it was started in 2005 or earlier, which means everyone has played to death I imagine all the great titles I had in mind. Recent topics include homebrews and rare games, on the face of it. Do the classics still come up, or is that a lost cause for me? Improving: I'd really like to get better, not at any particular one game, but in general. I started working on pacman and ms pacman, galaxian, and a few others. While I seem to improve a little here and there, I still hit a "wall" so to speak at some point. I can barely get past the 2nd or 3rd maze on the pacman games, for instance. Any other older folks out there try to improve, and did you have success? How did you do it, just practice a lot, or study methods? That's it for now, more questions later if we get some discussion going. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Al_Nafuur Posted July 13, 2021 Share Posted July 13, 2021 You can also play the PlusROM enhanced highscore ROMs here: https://highscore.firmaplus.de/ you can use the javatari emulator links of the games to play and send your score to the HSC board via the PlusROM functions. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+KaeruYojimbo Posted July 13, 2021 Share Posted July 13, 2021 6 hours ago, KnightRider said: High Score Club: Looks like it was started in 2005 or earlier, which means everyone has played to death I imagine all the great titles I had in mind. Recent topics include homebrews and rare games, on the face of it. Do the classics still come up, or is that a lost cause for me? Several favorites have been played many times over the years. They follow a general rule of waiting at least 2 or 3 seasons before replaying a game and sometimes they will play different variations to mix things up. 6 hours ago, KnightRider said: Improving: I'd really like to get better, not at any particular one game, but in general. I started working on pacman and ms pacman, galaxian, and a few others. While I seem to improve a little here and there, I still hit a "wall" so to speak at some point. I can barely get past the 2nd or 3rd maze on the pacman games, for instance. Any other older folks out there try to improve, and did you have success? How did you do it, just practice a lot, or study methods? I haven't played "competitively" for years (I've been trying to teach myself not to care as much about my score and just have fun playing the game), but lots of repetition and paying attentions to patterns in the game were a big part of getting better. The High Score Club can be a resource. Since it's a friendly competition, players are usually pretty open to sharing tips. Try searching through the HSC for the games you want to get better at. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+KaeruYojimbo Posted July 13, 2021 Share Posted July 13, 2021 6 hours ago, KnightRider said: After looking up information on these games and so forth, we found out activision and imagic both had rewards set up for high scores. Patches, and medals, and so on. So I had the ridiculous idea of trying to attain those scores and "earn" those patches, obviously just bragging rights as that whole process is very defunct. I don't think it's happened for a couple of years, but there used to be a Summer Patch Challenge that took place here in the forums where players would post patch-worthy scores to see who could earn the most patches over the summer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+D Train Posted July 13, 2021 Share Posted July 13, 2021 (edited) 16 hours ago, KnightRider said: activision and imagic both had rewards set up for high scores. Patches, and medals, and so on. So I had the ridiculous idea of trying to attain those scores and "earn" those patches, obviously just bragging rights as that whole process is very defunct. you might be interested in watching @ZeroPage Homebrew on twitch; james is in the process of going for all of the patches and documenting his progress. it's a good show and there's a nice community in the chat there. hmmmn. trying to link to the twitch page, but it's not working and now I can't delete the link... Edited July 13, 2021 by D Train typos! 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted July 13, 2021 Share Posted July 13, 2021 5 minutes ago, D Train said: you might be interested in watching @ZeroPage Homebrew on twitch; james is in the process of going for all of the patches and documenting his progress. it's a good show and there's a nice community in the chat there. Thanks @D Train! On ZPH we got the first patch score for Dolphin just the other day which brings us up to 23/43 Activision Patches and we've also achieved 7/12 of the Homebrew Patches. We have ZERO out of the 9 Imagic patches because... the scores you need to get are insane. Watch Us Here: Twitch (LIVE): https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew YouTube Archives: https://www.youtube.com/c/ZeroPageHomebrew/videos - James 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KnightRider Posted July 14, 2021 Author Share Posted July 14, 2021 Great info guys, appreciate it. I'll see what I can find as far as tips in the HSC threads. 7 hours ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said: ...which brings us up to 23/43 Activision Patches and we've also achieved 7/12 of the Homebrew Patches. We have ZERO out of the 9 Imagic patches because... the scores you need to get are insane. Nice, it looks like I wasn't the only knucklehead with the idea. James, do you have your progress tracked on a spreadsheet / blog / thread on atariage I could peek at? I plan on creating a sheet for myself with "company set" goals for the rewards and personal goals for the ones without any official reward in place. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariSphinx Posted July 14, 2021 Share Posted July 14, 2021 On 7/13/2021 at 12:32 AM, KnightRider said: Improving: I'd really like to get better, not at any particular one game, but in general. I started working on pacman and ms pacman, galaxian, and a few others. While I seem to improve a little here and there, I still hit a "wall" so to speak at some point. I can barely get past the 2nd or 3rd maze on the pacman games, for instance. Any other older folks out there try to improve, and did you have success? How did you do it, just practice a lot, or study methods? One thing for me that makes a difference is the controller. I play way better with a joystick versus a keyboard or d-pad although many can do very well with the latter controllers. Depends on what you are used to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CapitanClassic Posted July 14, 2021 Share Posted July 14, 2021 13 hours ago, KnightRider said: Great info guys, appreciate it. I'll see what I can find as far as tips in the HSC threads. Nice, it looks like I wasn't the only knucklehead with the idea. James, do you have your progress tracked on a spreadsheet / blog / thread on atariage I could peek at? I plan on creating a sheet for myself with "company set" goals for the rewards and personal goals for the ones without any official reward in place. ZPH has all the patch achievements in the top post of their upcoming/archived streams thread. https://atariage.com/forums/topic/276956-zeropage-homebrew-twitch-stream/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted July 14, 2021 Share Posted July 14, 2021 13 hours ago, KnightRider said: Nice, it looks like I wasn't the only knucklehead with the idea. James, do you have your progress tracked on a spreadsheet / blog / thread on atariage I could peek at? I plan on creating a sheet for myself with "company set" goals for the rewards and personal goals for the ones without any official reward in place. 23 minutes ago, CapitanClassic said: ZPH has all the patch achievements in the top post of their upcoming/archived streams thread. https://atariage.com/forums/topic/276956-zeropage-homebrew-twitch-stream/ Just like @CapitanClassic posted, I have them all on that link, just make sure you click on the hidden areas for more information. I have every single Homebrew/Activision/Imagic patch listed there with the points/score you need to get and also the date I achieved them. You can also cross reference that to the show date when I achieved the score and watch how I did it if you're stuck on strategy for a game. Good luck, it's a ton of fun trying to get all the patches! - James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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