Tempest-- (AKA, Clay and Zonn beating each other's brains out)

> >It's just a glorified "continue"-- the problem is that Atari didn't
> >reset the score to zero when the next player buys in.
>
> I'm sure that was on purpose!
>
Well, duh! :-) It encourages people to continue games because they
*can* get a higher score by picking up where they left off than by
starting from scratch. It *is* an advantage to continue-- that's part
of the design to get quarters!

> I've have always allowed family and friends to start where I left off
> in order to beat the high current high score, it doesn't help in the
> least.
>
You saying that with a straight-face? Play a game up to level 20
starting at level one. Deliberately kill yourself off. Record the
score. Now just continue the game at the highest possible level and
play to level 20 (you must complete at least one wave to secure the
bonus). Deliberately kill yourself off. Which score is higher? In my
experience it's always the bonus score. Continuing from the previous
game most definately helps my score.

> When playing Tempest in the arcades I managed to score in the 900,000
> a few times, I'm currently no where near that good! But I've played
> with people better!
>
That actually brings up a good point. What's the highest score anyone's
seen in Tempest? I should probably check out the data format for the
Rev.3 Tempest ROMs, but the Rev.1 ROMs only store three bytes of BCD
digits for the score-- that's a max of 999999...

> As a matter of fact, forget the week. Tonight, go ahead and put the
> game into the, start on any level mode, and tells us your highest
> achievable score using your so called "cheat" technique!
>
Oh, yeah, like I have the time or attention-span to do that. I've got
new PCB's in to play with!

> You won't beat others on this list. (If you were able beat the expert
> Tempest players on this list, you would know how Tempest works, and we
> wouldn't be having this conversation! ;^) ;^)
>
That's it buddy-- code patch in the Tempest Multigame... Not saving any
high-scores with the letter 'Z' in them... (j/k ;-)

Let's say a "decent" player plays a single game on Tempest and sets the
high score with 300,000. Let's say I play a game (starting at level 9,
or level 1, doesn't matter to me) and crap out around 169,000. Now
then, let's say I spend the next X hours and step my score up to
400,000. Wow! I'm a more skilled player 'cause my score is higher!
Bzzzzt. Wrong. It's just BFFI...

The "catch" is the fact that with unlimited quarters you can just keep
trying and trying and trying until you get past a particularly hard
level. You get a huge score that supposedly means you're a better
player, but in reality you just bought your score. There should be a
point's per credit metric or something...

(Other games deal with this particular "problem" by resetting the score
on a continued game, or showing the number of continues in the high
score list, or showing the max level reached in the list, or the level
the started on, etc...)

I'd be more impressed with a player that started on level one and played
through to level 60 with a score of 400,000 than a player that started
(his/her "N th" game) on level 58, played to level 65 and finished with
500,000... (I'm making these numbers up, dunno if they make numerical
sense WRT Tempest)

But then again I've *always* thought of "continues" as cheating. ;-)

-Clay
Received on Wed May 26 18:21:24 1999