The Games

I’m tracking my progress on each game via an Excel spreadsheet. A snapshot of the first version is shown below. I’ve created some fairly arbitrary colour-coded levels to show my progress on each game – RED means I’m under 35% of the way to achieving 100k, ORANGE means I’m under 75% and YELLOW means I’m on the ‘home straight’ so to speak.

The games include some of the most beloved arcade classics such as Pac-Man, Centipede, Phoenix and Mr Do! There are also a few personal favourites in the form of Dig Dug, Zoo Keeper and Mario Bros, and finally a few games that I’ve rarely invested any time into such as Contra, Pitfall II and Dragon Spirit – I truly have no idea how easy or hard it will be to achieve my target score on these games!

The Challenge

100,000 points. In the world of gaming it doesn’t sound like a lot does it? However if you look at the Golden Age of arcade gaming from the late 70’s to the mid-80’s, a score of over 100k on most games was quite a challenge. It’s rarely a record-breaking score, but for an average gamer like myself a score of this magnitude on games like Donkey Kong and Pac-Man would represent a significant achievement. While not showing a mastery of the games, it will show an understanding of the game mechanics beyond the ability of a casual player.

So the challenge I’ve set myself is to focus on 40 games, a mixture of bona fide arcade classics, personal favourites and a few more leftfield choices. The aim is to gradually improve at these titles until I can achieve the magic 6-figure high score. I’ll be sharing my progress here with pictures, gameplay videos, tips for fellow gamers and occasional diversions on to related (and unrelated) topics.