[Youpi]

[Schwere Viper]

Don't Pull - 294670!

I should have suggested Sega's Pengo/Penta!
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Blog: Machines That Sing

[cake]

I found it difficult to be accurate with the controls in Don't Pull, which made it frustrating for me. My high score comes from an attempt in which I died with 1 enemy left, and then immediatley killed it on my next life, earning a 100000 time bonus. In the early levels there seems to be a tradeoff between collecting fruit for lives and scoring.

- cake: 91140
- cake: 241670


I'm getting the impression that I was no good at playing arcade games - for many of these games, it takes me a few goes to understand what is going on and what I should be doing, and in the arcades, I wouldn't have spent money to do that. I would have just played once, considered the game no good and moved on.

[Sniper Honeyviper]

[notbov]

Whoa, hold on there.

You're forgetting about the great Golden Tee explosion in the late 90s.

That reflects my experience; the arcade closest to me is entirely racers, fightmans, lightgun games and ticket games. They also put every game in there on sale every Christmas, which is just asking me to drop $1200 and save that poor twin Daytona cab or the MvC2 cab with a busted monitor.

At any rate, the nature of arcade games sort of appeals to me. The games, by and large, are beatable but the odds are stacked in the game's (and operator's) favor. I like that, that sort of spiteful challenge. Kind of like gambling, except there's always the chance I can bankrupt the house regardless of the cards dealt. It also says something that Neo-Geo games always have "How To Play" screens, whereas most games just have rolling demos, as if SNK knew the problem was there.
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[Loki Laufeyson]

even non-snk neogeo games have how to play screens. i wonder if it was a sony america-style edict or something.

here's my first score for don't pull

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[Sniper Honeyviper]

TODAY'S GAME IS: Shackled (Arcade)

A mysterious and unique Gauntlet-like from Data East, kind of like Gain Ground without the strategy element. Unlike Gauntlet, some actual thought went into making it.

Shoot cell doors to open them. There are friendly prisoners and enemy prisoners. Friendlies will grant you extra weapons (switch with button 2), tag along as options, and award life bonuses after reaching the exit. Enemy prisoners will drop coins when killed, which restore some life.

The best weapons are the ripple laser and the boomerang. The ripple eats through enemy shots, and the boomerang is extremely powerful. I can't recommend the grenade, it doesn't explode on contact. Each weapon setting has a different slot for powerups, meaning you'll need to switch around to allocate them. Avoid the blue skull item, it takes away all your powerups.

The Japanese version is known as Breywood. It has some confusing graphical elements and lacks Shackled's end-of-stage life bonuses, so I didn't select it. It's likely that Shackled was developed after, and intended as the "complete" version.

There's a secret exit in the first stage that warps you to the ending and credits, but it won't get you any points.



First: 12800

Best: 42700

Game has the only attract mode I know of that doesn't show any gameplay!

[Deets]

Fuck yeah shackled

First: 8120

[Bennett]

6410. I remain the dunce of the SBDN one-credit challenge.

[notbov]

My first run probably would made more sense if I knew you could shoot regular doors instead of needing keys for them.

1st:10500
Best:66700

Edit: And I reached on back to Gunbuster for the hell of it:

1st: 474600
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[Youpi]

Shackled
First:
- Youpi: 8490
Best:
- Youpi: 21860

Seems there's a lot of good ideas in this game if you can actually get far enough to see them.
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Twitter: @youpi

[Loki Laufeyson]

first:


i like this a lot
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[cake]

- cake: 8930

[Bennett]

Request: more games from Bally/Sente 1984-1985. Chicken Shift, for example.

[Loki Laufeyson]

[Sniper Honeyviper]

Sorry, Loki, I'm not going to pick Palamedes. It's too confusing and requires the memorization of far too many mahjong-like dice structures. Here's something along those lines, though:

TODAY'S GAME IS: Puchi Carat (Arcade, game settings = Player vs. COM, Middle Level)

A cutesy mashup of Breakout and Puyo Puyo from Taito, using dial controllers (or most likely the mouse, in our case).

The worst thing you can do in most situations is hit the ball from the paddle's edges. You'll lose a lot of time and have a really inaccurate shot. You want to aim for consistency in taking down all the gems in a single column, to drop huge chunks off the sides. Watch the attract mode's "how to play" demo for some good examples of this. The characters are different in how the attack gems sent by your opponent get sent down the table. Characters that receive fewer attacks don't necessarily have an advantage, since you won't be able to drop clusters as big. If the table is almost empty, it's sometimes advisable to intentionally miss the ball so a few rows will drop. Most of your score will come from end-of-match time bonuses, so it's best to be aggressive in single-player.




First: 82700, Pearl & Dearl

[Loki Laufeyson]

awww, it's not as complicated as the attract mode makes out. the best strategy is to just get six of the same dice in a row. never mind, picking puchi carat makes up for it.
this game, along with another taito game from about the same time, landmaker should have been prime candidates for one shot oavs. the arcade version uses paddles? i've only previously played the ps1 and ps2 ports D:
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[Bennett]

Nearly beat round 3, but she managed a spectacular comeback (helped, I think, by her ridiculously annoying voice)

[Sniper Honeyviper]

[cake]

- cake: 290, Perydot
- cake: 63380, Aqua

[Loki Laufeyson]

[Sniper Honeyviper]

Only two participants. Loki, why didn't you join in? :( Anyway, Bennett should be happy to see another Bally/Sente title.

TODAY'S GAME IS: Night Stocker (Arcade)

The first hybrid driving/lightgun game, predating Lucky & Wild by six years. A sequel in name only to Stocker, an overhead driver that was featured in Scorsese's The Color of Money. Interestingly, the hardware was an elaborate, unauthorized conversion kit for Ms. Pac-Man that used swappable game PCBs. I guess they were banking on the game's common availability in 80's arcades.

Set up the controls like this:

- Lightgun & fire button go to the mouse
- Dial 2 Analog Dec = left turn key
- Dial 2 Analog Inc = right turn key

Collect gems with the electrified dealie on the hood to replenish ammo (warning: can be destroyed). If you run out of ammo, it's game over. Avoid pits and orange mines, the latter of which can be shot. Once you reach the end of a driving sequence, you'll begin a shootout with the tiny little men in a base. If you shoot them all without getting hit, a huge bonus will be awarded. You can't get any more ammo during this sequence, so make sure you don't burn through it too fast. This very quickly becomes a problem once the plentiful and fast UFO enemies show up.



First: 107400

I noticed that the car is red on the title screen, but yellow in-game!

[cake]

- cake: 6350

This feels pretty post-apocalyptic... I'm glad we haven't had a nuclear war yet as I don't think I would be able to survive..

[Bennett]

Night Stocker

First: 25000

Thanks for picking another Sente game! Never heard of this one before.

[Sniper Honeyviper]

Gonna leave this up for a second day to get more participants.

[Schwere Viper]

Big post to make up for missing three days in a row!

Shackled: 9100!



Puchi Carat: 107080!



Night Stocker: 69500


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[Sniper Honeyviper]

By recommendation!

TODAY'S GAME IS: Gladiator (Arcade)

A crunchy, fiercely intimate autoscrolling fighter from Taito's American division, who also brought us Qix.

You control your shield with the joystick, and have three heights of sword slash, each assigned to a button (1 = lowest, 3 = highest). Enemy attacks can be dispersed with the sword or the shield. The shield will eventually break to half size from overuse, but new shields can be collected by knocking them out of the air, and it's still much safer for normal pre-duel attacks. In duels, you want to directly block a sword slash and then immediately parry on a different height, to ensure that you'll hit your enemy. If you see a blue orb, slash it: it'll kill all enemies on screen, as well as a previously invisible spider(?).

The attract mode shows a trick for forming a temporary all-heights shield, but I haven't figured it out.



First: 117700 (not counting a test play to figure out the controls)

[Deets]

[Bennett]

I requested this but I had never played it before. Big fan of Great Swordsman though.

So I got 34900, which was pretty poor. Might come back for a 'best' score later.

[Schwere Viper]

40000! Glad about that, given I'm quite bad at this.
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[cake]

- cake: 7800

i'm disheartened

[Sniper Honeyviper]

TODAY'S GAME IS: Jaki Crush (SFC/SNES)

The last and least well known of Naxat Soft's pinball series, this time with a demonic Asian theme. No passwords, obviously.

The only real tip I can give is to be cautious with the flippers, you can easily whack the ball downwards into oblivion with their undersides. If you clear a bonus stage, the ball will change color and grant a multiplier, but they're far more difficult than in Alien/Devil Crush.




First: 14657700!

[Schwere Viper]

2062200!



I like pinball, but it doesn't seem to like me much :<
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Blog: Machines That Sing

[Sniper Honeyviper]

For the record, my huge score was mostly due to two gigantic jackpots I somehow obtained, rather than my survival and bonus stage skills.

[cake]

- cake: 322400

a game which realises that simulations don't have to limit themselves to reality.
i think i'd play this quite a bit if it was one of the 6 cartridges i owned.

[Sniper Honeyviper]

Some non-video pinball scores from a recent trip. I don't expect any other entries for these, but here they are.

Who Dunnit (Bally Midway, 1995): 1,989,602,840 - Game allows continuing with score retention. You can either earn them through play or put in more credits. I only did the former.

Klondike (Williams, 1971): 33910 - An entirely electro-mechanical machine that was amazingly in perfect working order. Scoring relies too heavily on a slot machine that's very hard to manipulate, though. Many previous players had carved their initials and scores into the wooden sides! It's the only pinball I've played where trapping is impossible--was it considered cheating back then? Luvcraft would know about this.

Is Stern still the only pinball manufacturer left? Thought a new one formed recently.

[Sniper Honeyviper]

TODAY'S GAME IS: Demon's World/Horror Story (Arcade)

A heavily Makaimura-inspired, autoscrolling run-n-gun from Toaplan.

Horror Story has a different set of levels. We will be playing Demon's World.



PROTIP: You can double jump. I'm so glad I figured this out quickly. It won't work after the apex of your jump, though.

You can touch the bells an unlimited number of times for bonus points before they scroll away. Enemies can also be safely jumped on for damage. The best weapons are the blue ">" and the 3-way shot. The ">" is the only weapon with autofire. Collecting four Ps will allow you to take an extra hit. If you see a yellow balloon, grab it, they're necessary to get over some gaps.

First: 150600

[Loki Laufeyson]

[Sniper Honeyviper]

Thanks for letting me know about Demon's World, I added a note to the post.

[Deets]

[Sniper Honeyviper]

Yeah, I was able to try Stern's Spider-Man pinball recently. The presentation is great, but the table is rather terribly designed. Hitting Sandman at the upper middle will 90% of the time send the ball in an impossible line straight down the middle, guided by a magnet.

However, it's the only pinball I've seen with a Spanish language option!