Week 2 Summary

Time for a look at how I’ve got on over the last week...

I only managed to reach 100k on one game, Shao-lin’s Road, but last night came agonisingly close to crossing Taito’s Zoo Keeper off the list. Hopefully I can beat that score of 98,420 very soon.

There was some decent progress on other games, with more moving from red to orange status – I now have over 35k on 75% of the games. Significant increases this week include nearly 30k on Return of the Invaders and boosts of over 10k on Centipede, Donkey Kong Jr and Rally-X, not to mention the previously reported updates on Amidar and Donkey Kong.

This week’s aim is to pass the 100k mark on both Amidar and Zoo Keeper, recording a gameplay video for both, and it would be nice to push some more of those red status games into orange...

Mario Moving Higher

Further progress has been made on two Nintendo games from my list that feature early incarnations of Mario. Firstly I’ve now pushed my Donkey Kong score up to 87,300. I reached the third elevator screen for the first time and spectacularly failed to time my climb up the ladder to complete the level. More practice of that is certainly required! Secondly I’ve also made further progress on Mario Bros, pushing my score beyond 90k for the first time.

I wish I could report similar progress on the other Nintendo game, Donkey Kong Jr. Although I have increased my score beyond 27k I’m still struggling to get to grips with this game – I thought the original Donkey Kong was one of the hardest games ever made but there are so many ways to die in the sequel it’s untrue!

One Down, 39 To Go!

Well, I was intending to record all my achievements and upload them to YouTube, but this one just kind of happened! The first game to be checked off the list is Konami’s Shao-lin’s Road with a score of 126,400. I’d played a few games and got scores around 60-70k as you can see from the photo below, but suddenly everything seemed to click and I racked up nearly 90,000 points before losing a life. From there reaching my target score was inevitable.

Clearly this isn’t the most challenging of games to get 100k on since it only took a few attempts, but if you’re looking for gameplay tips then the best advice I can give is that eliminating enemies with a flying kick gives 500 points rather than the 200 you get for a standing kick. You can also rack up more points for killing multiple enemies with one hit. On the later stages I found it easier if you head to the top level of the screen - these areas are usually smaller and less enemies spawn there, plus you only have to worry about them jumping up to that level rather than landing on you from above.

Amidar Analysis

Over the last couple of days I’ve been working on boosting my score on Amidar. If you’re not familiar with the game then there’s an amusing write-up of it at Classic Gaming that is well worth a read.

One of the best ways to improve your score on this game is via the bonus stages. After each level there is the opportunity to earn 5,000 points by guiding a pig down the correct path from the top of the screen to get to the bananas at the bottom. Yes, I know how silly that sounds! Anyway, correctly guessing the path in real time is nigh-on impossible as you only get a short amount of time before the pig starts it’s way down the maze automatically.

After having a few plays of the game and taking photos of each bonus maze I discovered that each layout remains static from game to game. By backtracking from the bottom of the maze to the top it is possible to work out the correct path for each bonus round, so I did this for the first three bonus rounds and now have a small ‘cheat sheet’ handy whilst playing the game!

The other way to significantly boost your score is to fill in all four corners of each maze, which allows you to temporarily catch the enemies much like collecting a power pill in Pac-Man. Just like Pac-Man each enemy caught increases a multiplier, with 200 points for the first, 400 for the second and so on. With at least five enemies on each screen, that’s a lot of points to be had. Unlike Pac-Man however, the enemies don’t run away from you when you turn the tables on them. Instead they carry on the same path as normal. Since both the player and enemies move at the same speed, chasing after them is futile, so the best approach is to fill the fourth corner in just as the majority of your foes are approaching you. They will carry on heading towards you and effectively become lambs to the slaughter!

Putting these tactics into practice has already seen a massive improvement in my score as you can see below, and I expect to reach 100,000 points within my next few attempts...