SDA Tourney #6 [Bonus: DKC3! ... just kidding. ALL CLEAR]

Baron Dante

2010-04-26 08:41:19 am

It's a BIG HEAD!

Baron Dante - 104 - 2018456

After 50 tries -.- I'm so dead.

Worn_Traveler

2010-04-26 11:28:37 am

Formerly known as Skullboy

Quote from X:

Quote from Skullboy:

Skullboy - Level 13 - 102345
First play

you realise were playing on hyper mode?

We are? (looks at information). Guess so. Sorry. Scratch that time. I'll try to get something up later tonight.

neskamikaze

2010-04-26 01:17:20 pm

neskamikaze - 118 - 2206074

Anwonu

2010-04-26 04:41:05 pm

CHOKES

Anwonu - 123 - 2207464

Seriously, see the difference between 1st and 2nd >_>

neskamikaze

2010-04-26 05:13:21 pm

neskamikaze - 120 - 2226689

I don't think you wanted me to get anything done this week when you picked this game, it's addictive.

nXmaniac

2010-04-26 06:28:53 pm

107 - 2045200

Damn, this is hard but it's so addictive... Hyper mode is too cruel for me.

Attachment:

107.bmp

Anwonu

2010-04-26 07:40:35 pm

CHOKES

It's funny.. either I get bad scores, or kind of good ones.

Anwonu - 130 - 2229290

DiluteD

2010-04-26 09:07:42 pm

Diluted - 105 - 2026810

After about 20 attempts. Not my kind of game at all :/

neskamikaze

2010-04-26 09:40:54 pm

neskamikaze - 122 - 2253697

You have yourself a competitor, Anwonu.

mike89

Edit history:

mike89: 2010-04-26 09:49:15 pm

2010-04-26 09:42:11 pm

SEGA Junkie

mike89 - 123 - 2194244

Quote:

I don't think you wanted me to get anything done this week when you picked this game, it's addictive.

Yeah, I don't think I wanted myself to get anything done for five weeks Cheesy

PS I think you're using the SNES version but I'm pretty sure they're functionally identical so I don't really care.

Updating the scoreboard.

PS: anyone who hasn't already, go watch feasel's Zero run. It is amazing. I had no idea about driving straight over rocks like that o_O

Attachment:

Week 2 mike89.png

neskamikaze

2010-04-26 09:47:53 pm

Oh, yeah I am using the SNES version. Oh well. Even my subconscious emulator choices are Nintendo-biased.

Edit: And I just now noticed you're ranking by level. Why not go by score?

mike89

2010-04-26 10:13:29 pm

SEGA Junkie

mike89 - 152 - 2429052

neskamikaze: I'm ranking by level because the objective is survival, and the level is a direct function of how many blocks fall on the board (I think you gain a level every 10 pieces). This combined with the Hyper difficulty setting, means you should prioritise staying alive over getting the bonuses (I don't even know how you trigger some of them!)

Attachment:

Week 2 mike89.png

neskamikaze

2010-04-26 10:15:16 pm

Gotcha. I'm just a Tetris player by nature and am programmed for high score and big combos.

Baron Dante

Edit history:

Baron Dante: 2010-04-27 04:17:53 am

2010-04-27 03:13:36 am

It's a BIG HEAD!

Any tips on this game? I suck big time here.

Actually, how do you turn the pieces? Tongue

mike89

2010-04-27 04:36:01 am

SEGA Junkie

That'd be a good thing to know. Tongue

Only the A button turns the pieces, and as such I think you can only turn them in one direction... I'll write a more detailed post on strategy a bit later in the week.

Baron Dante

Edit history:

Baron Dante: 2010-04-27 05:32:23 am

2010-04-27 04:39:58 am

It's a BIG HEAD!

Thanks, I think I was button mashing trying to find the button, but never did... No wonder I'm doing badly... Hmm, now I have to find my A button on the keyboard for my Genesis Emu....

but no playing tonite, since today TPS will be the champion of Finland Hockey League! (I'ma go watch that)

EDIT: Ha-ha!
Baron Dante - 106 - 2036224

SMK

2010-04-27 06:19:52 pm

SMK - 2069350 - 105

I'll need to undo years of Tetris instincts to do any better than that

mike89

Edit history:

mike89: 2010-04-28 12:06:03 am

2010-04-27 11:55:03 pm

SEGA Junkie

mike89 - 157 - 2469056

Time for my strategy post. You wouldn't think there would be much to a puzzle game like this, but if you think ahead you can keep yourself out of trouble for long periods.

Basically, as you all know by now there's two ways you can decrease the amount of blocks sitting in the chute: either get a full row of six blocks, which will clear it, or make Pac-Man eat some ghosts. The bulk of the strategy, unsurprisingly, concerns what to do with the ghosts.

Basically there's a temptation to just have one row of ghosts down the side and send Pac-Man down that side every time you get him. The problem with this is, you only have six rows, and by continually clearing that row you not only take it out of play, but the next one too, because all blocks are two rows wide. Add in to that the fact that if you've got only ghosts in that row, you're not clearing any rows, and you end up dying pretty quickly.

The secret to staying alive for long periods is to basically make an enclosed path for Pac-Man to go through. The screenshot of the game on the first page is actually a very good (if unrealistic) example of how you go about this.

As an example:

Code:

      
BGBBBB
BGGGBB
BBBGGG

So what I'll often do with my very first piece, if it has two ghosts in it, I'll lay it in a corner with the ghosts on the bottom and build ghosts into a pattern next to it. Note in particular how horizontal this pattern is: especially important is the two Bs in the middle of the third row, which allows me to use the fourth row to continue building if necessary. And once you clear out the ghosts, they do double duty: you can often get a line or two clear immediately afterwards!

If you can also enclose the top of the path on both sides, as shown above, you also mitigate an extra luck factor in this game: whether the Pac-Man faces left or right.

Now for some more examples:

Code:

      
B      
B  BBB
BB BBB

You've just cleared all the ghosts on the board, and your next piece is three ghosts. Where do you put it?

There's not really a wrong answer if your board is this low, but my personal preference would be to put it in the middle, so the two ghosts on the left hand side drop into the gap in the third row and the other one stays on row 4. This gives you a lot more flexibility with your remaining pieces compared to putting them in the row 2/3 gap, where you can practically only build up.

Another key point concerns whenever you get a 3-block piece. These are practically freebies, but you still want to use them well. Consider the following:

Code:

B     
BBGG  
BBGBB 
BBGBBB
GGGBBB

The best answer probably depends on when your next Pac-Man is coming up, but in general the best place to put this piece is not on the right hand side, but on top of the large stack of ghosts in row 3. Why? Because when you get your next Pac-Man, you'll not only clear that chain of ghosts, but you'll also get a couple of rows. As you can easily find out, having one row empty and lots of others reasonably high (especially if that row happens to be on one of the edges) can come back to hurt you if you get the wrong pieces.

Lastly, you have more time than you think you do. Note that the playing field is six blocks wide, and that the next block always appears in L formation initially. This means that, unless your edges are built up quite high (another reason why this is a bad idea!) you can either hold left, stay still or hold right and you have time to move and turn your piece.

About turning pieces: Pieces always rotate anticlockwise, so they go L, reverse L, 7, reverse 7. Let's say you are about to get a Pac-Man piece and he's at the top of the L, like so:

Code:

  <   
  BB  
    G 
    G 
    G 
    G 
BBBBBG
BBBBBG
BBBBBG

Noting that the stack of ghosts is in the second last row, you hold right as the piece drops. Now one of a few things will happen:
1) If you rotate the piece once, the Pac-Man will take out the high stack, but the Bs will drop onto the lower stack before Pac-Man can get to them. This locks out those three rows until you can clear the two above, or until you get a fairy; it's not an unrecoverable position, but it's certainly not ideal.
2) If you rotate the piece twice then it goes into the 7 position in rows 5 and 6... which means that it will drop one level and you won't be able to rotate it any more. This will put a B on top of the higher stack of ghosts, which is really bad. You can still recover from it if you build cleverly, but you only have four rows to play with (and you're especially in trouble if you get a lot of ghosts). To counteract this...
3) Once the block lands on row 5, move it one space to the left (to rows 4/5) and then rotate twice. The Pac-Man now eats both rows of ghosts and all is well.

Hope that clears things up for some people!

Updating the scoreboard.

mike89 - 157 - 2469056

Time for my strategy post. You wouldn't think there would be much to a puzzle game like this, but if you think ahead you can keep yourself out of trouble for long periods.

Basically, as you all know by now there's two ways you can decrease the amount of blocks sitting in the chute: either get a full row of six blocks, which will clear it, or make Pac-Man eat some ghosts. The bulk of the strategy, unsurprisingly, concerns what to do with the ghosts.

Basically there's a temptation to just have one row of ghosts down the side and send Pac-Man down that side every time you get him. The problem with this is, you only have six rows, and by continually clearing that row you not only take it out of play, but the [i]next[/i] one too, because all blocks are two rows wide. Add in to that the fact that if you've got only ghosts in that row, you're not clearing any rows, and you end up dying pretty quickly.

The secret to staying alive for long periods is to basically make an [i]enclosed path[/i] for Pac-Man to go through. The screenshot of the game on the first page is actually a very good (if unrealistic) example of how you go about this.

As an example:
[code]      
BGBBBB
BGGGBB
BBBGGG[/code]

So what I'll often do with my very first piece, if it has two ghosts in it, I'll lay it in a corner with the ghosts on the bottom and build ghosts into a pattern next to it. Note in particular how horizontal this pattern is: especially important is the two Bs in the middle of the third row, which allows me to use the fourth row to continue building if necessary. And once you clear out the ghosts, they do double duty: you can often get a line or two clear immediately afterwards!

If you can also enclose the top of the path on both sides, as shown above, you also mitigate an extra luck factor in this game: whether the Pac-Man faces left or right.

Now for some more examples:

[code]      
B      
B  BBB
BB BBB[/code]

You've just cleared all the ghosts on the board, and your next piece is three ghosts. Where do you put it?

There's not really a wrong answer if your board is this low, but my personal preference would be to put it in the middle, so the two ghosts on the left hand side drop into the gap in the third row and the other one stays on row 4. This gives you a lot more flexibility with your remaining pieces compared to putting them in the row 2/3 gap, where you can practically only build up.

Another key point concerns whenever you get a 3-block piece. These are practically freebies, but you still want to use them well. Consider the following:

[code]B     
BBGG  
BBGBB 
BBGBBB
GGGBBB[/code]

The best answer probably depends on when your next Pac-Man is coming up, but in general the best place to put this piece is not on the right hand side, but on top of the large stack of ghosts in row 3. Why? Because when you get your next Pac-Man, you'll not only clear that chain of ghosts, but you'll also get a couple of rows. As you can easily find out, having one row empty and lots of others reasonably high (especially if that row happens to be on one of the edges) can come back to hurt you if you get the wrong pieces.

Lastly, [i]you have more time than you think you do[/i]. Note that the playing field is six blocks wide, and that the next block always appears in L formation initially. This means that, unless your edges are built up quite high (another reason why this is a bad idea!) you can either hold left, stay still or hold right and you have time to move and turn your piece.

About turning pieces: Pieces always rotate anticlockwise, so they go L, reverse L, 7, reverse 7. Let's say you are about to get a Pac-Man piece and he's at the top of the L, like so:

[code]  <   
  BB  
    G 
    G 
    G 
    G 
BBBBBG
BBBBBG
BBBBBG[/code]

Noting that the stack of ghosts is in the second last row, you hold right as the piece drops. Now one of a few things will happen:
1) If you rotate the piece once, the Pac-Man will take out the high stack, but the Bs will drop onto the lower stack before Pac-Man can get to them. This locks out those three rows until you can clear the two above, or until you get a fairy; it's not an unrecoverable position, but it's certainly not ideal.
2) If you rotate the piece [i]twice[/i] then it goes into the 7 position in rows 5 and 6... which means that it will drop one level and you won't be able to rotate it any more. This will put a B on top of the higher stack of ghosts, which is really bad. You can still recover from it if you build cleverly, but you only have four rows to play with (and you're especially in trouble if you get a lot of ghosts). To counteract this...
3) Once the block lands on row 5, move it one space to the left (to rows 4/5) and [i]then[/i] rotate twice. The Pac-Man now eats both rows of ghosts and all is well.

Hope that clears things up for some people!

Updating the scoreboard.

DoubleThink

2010-04-28 01:51:18 am

There's a word for that

I think this might be the most unintuitive game I have ever tried to play in my life

DiluteD

2010-04-28 04:01:03 am

Quote from DoubleThink:

I think this might be the most unintuitive game I have ever tried to play in my life

^this

Worn_Traveler

2010-04-28 06:35:12 am

Formerly known as Skullboy

OK. Now I'm playing on Hyper
Skullboy - 103 - 2,005,809
I've always been better at Puyo Puyo then Tetris, so this week is a challenge.

feasel

2010-04-28 07:20:00 am

difficult and stupidly random

Mike89: I'm confused by your strategy post. It seems like you're using the word "row" when you mean to say "column", except for a few places where "row" actually does mean "row". I think.

I actually found some time to play the game this morning. And apparently i really blow at it.

feasel - 103 - 2014400

That's after 45 minutes of attempts that can best be described as "nasty, brutish, and short".

Much like last week, i won't really get a chance to work on the game until the weekend. And, also like last week, i expect to jump in at the last minute with some very low numbers.

X

2010-04-28 12:05:46 pm

destroy them with lazers

just played about 40 minutes and I cant beat my own shitty score. im bad at this

for anyone else whose feeling my pain

SMK

2010-04-28 05:44:19 pm

SMK - 111 - 2136401

Thanks for the strategy post mike!

nXmaniac

2010-04-28 07:04:54 pm

Here's a very stupid question but I guess it won't hurt trying: can we use the in-game pause?