Be Excellent To Each Other

Okay draw made and we have 6 games to play over the next 6 weeks.

The games are :

Week 1 : Pulstar [rom:pulstar]
Week 2 : Q-Bert [rom:qbert]
Week 3 : Roadblasters [rom:roadblst]
Week 4 : Wonderboy [rom:wboy]
Week 5 : Joust [rom:joust]
Week 6 : Track & Field [rom:trackfld]

There are two attachments to this thread , this first one is for anyone using Windows and is a copy of MAME32UI with the roms already loaded , just download , unzip the file somewhere on your machine and double click mameui32.exe to get started

The second one is just the roms - if you are using MAME on another device you'll need to download and install a version of MAME then unzip this file into the ROMS folder (*) - if your playing on another system you will also need to set the DIP switches for Track & Field to end after 1 round - you do this normally by pressing the TAB button in game and selecting the 3rd switch (if you get stuck let me know)

We'll play 1 game a week starting from Monday , you should post a screenshot of your score before midnight on Sunday for it to count
Top score gets 10 points , next highest gets 9 , etc etc - people posting the same score get the same amount of points

I've had a quick try of all the games using keyboard only and they are all workable however if you have a joypad you'll find them easier , if your joypad or stick has an auto-fire mode you should not use it.

When you start up the game you will normally get a few seconds with lots of static / interference on screen - this is normal and is exactly what you would see if you turned on the actual arcade machine - all games use the 5 key to insert a coin and the 1 key to start , controls are arrow keys and CTRL / ALT / SPACE although you can press [TAB] in the game to change these.

At the end of the game press [F12] to grab a screenshot , these are dropped into the /snap folder and you can upload them to the thread you should also include your score with <> around it so Grim...'s counter can pick it up

(*) For those interested , the 6 games also need two BIOS roms as well which are included , the total file size for all 6 games is 19.9MB which sounds really small until you realize that Pulstar and the NEOGEO rom to play it is 19.2MB

**** OVERALL SCORES ****

51 - Zaphod79
48 - Zen-chan
45 - YOG
38 - Joans
38 - AtrocityExhibition
30 - TheVision
21 - Ian Fairies
11 - Craster
3 - romanista

**** WEEK 1 SCORES ****
367940 - YOG -10
239650 - Zaphod79 - 9
175510 - Ian Fairies - 8
161470 - AtrocityExhibition - 7
147020 - Zen-chan - 6
132450 - TheVision - 5
107150 - Joans - 4
45970 - romanista -3

**** WEEK 2 SCORES ****
35335 - Joans - 10
30745 - TheVision - 9
27965 - Zaphod79 - 8
21730 - Ian Fairies - 7
12695 - YOG - 6
7850 - Zen-chan - 5
550 - Craster - 4
550 - AtrocityExhibition - 4

**** WEEK 3 SCORES ****
68135 - AtrocityExhibition - 10
36560 - Zen-Chan - 9
35200 - Joans - 8
31750 - Zaphod79 - 7
29360 - TheVision - 6
12580 - Yog - 5
3100 - Craster - 4

**** WEEK 4 SCORES ****
316550 - Zen-Chan - 10
189460 - Joans - 9
155560 - Zaphod79 - 8
101100 - Yog - 7
61280 - Ian Fairies - 6
36990 - TheVision - 5
25000 - AtrocityExhibition - 4
21280 - Craster - 3

**** WEEK 5 SCORES ****
83450 - Zen-Chan - 10
71150 - Zaphod79 - 9
65900 - Yog - 8
43350 - Joans - 7
38400 - AtrocityExhibition - 6
9500 - TheVision - 5

**** WEEK 6 SCORES ****
83930 - Zaphod79 - 10
64490 - Yog - 9
56360 - Zen-Chan - 8
50460 - AtrocityExhibition - 7

Woohoo!

Cheers zaphod, some cracking games in there too

I had some skills at Pulstar back in the day, wonder if they're still present and correct........

You can also record your runs by going to "File" and then "Play and Record Input". It'll create a tiny file in a folder called "inp", which you can watch by choosing "Playback Input". Could be helpful to share these for heavy memorisers like Pulstar...

I just had a crack at Pulstar.

To say I'm 'a bit rusty' would be understatement of the year.

Still holds up as a good fucking shooter that game though.

Gotta love the music, as well. Stage 2's is lovely.

Yeah this really was one of my favourite MAME games back in the day (I certainly never saw a real one), I remember when the Neo Geo stuff first got added to MAME, getting hold of the BIOS files and all that malarkey.

Fortunately they always ran well due to the 68000/Z80 processor architecture even on the slow PCs of the time, whereas the 68020/030 based games and particularly the custom hardware based stuff (Midway games like MK1/2 and Killer Instinct, and those early 3D driving games spring to mind) had to wait for PCs to catch up a bit (or a lot, in some cases).

The Neo Geo games probably account for a fair few of my all time favourites.

Okay so week 1 we're starting with Pulstar

Klov page here : http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detai ... me_id=9151



Controls:

Joystick: 8-way
Buttons: 2 [Fire|Drone Control]

What does the second button actually do - I haven't really grasped it after a couple quick games, other than one time it made my option do a smartbomb suicide.

What version of MAME is the one that you've put for download, only.. I've got several different versions on my PC yet none of them seem to want to play Pulstar?

**Edit** Ignore me, I've downloaded it anyway. Thanks!

The main thing with Pulsar is getting a compatible Neogeo bios rom to go with it - FYI i just downloaded the latest version of MAMEUI which is 0.146



I assume its just the same as R-Type so its release or 'call back' your power up

First credit: 146,490

Only got to the bit just before the st2 boss, but I'll get stuck into this tomorrow. You don't actually release your 'Force' pod in this one, but you can use it as a smart bomb by holding A and B (I think that's how you do it, anywho), which may come in handy in the more cramped sections where it's harder to keep your eye on everything.

<132450> on my first go and just to get a score on the board.

How do you take screenshots in MAME, again? Was it F12?

Yep, F12 and they end up in the "snap" folder.

Cheers! Durr, I'd actually already taken one. Old habit, maybe.

first sues with kids running around 23,020.. not really worth screenshot... (how do i take a screenshot in this mame version, normally i just you the internal apple function)

On any version of MAME for Mac or PC it should be the F12 key to grab a screenshot

That should be saved as a .png file and droped into the /snaps folder under MAME which you can then attach to your post.

Is Grim... going to be kind enough to sort out a counter for us?

thanx all, not really sure if i have time for another game, maybe i should put it on my iPad for the holidays

mmm , my best game went lost because it's fn=f12 on mabook than i guess.., anyway this is only a bit under.. i suck], brest is 48k

Only managed around the 150K mark up to now, I'm sure I used to better than this.....

Had a few games of this, got to midway through Level 2 a couple times.

129'120

Only had a quick go today. St2 boss battered me. You need a decent amount of speed-ups to be able to avoid his bouncing around.

206,610

My first real go and typical of this type of game got to this bit with my first life , lost it and then lost the others very quickly



<126970>

First of all, can I nominate Zaphod for Excellent Member of the Month for organising this and having an easy, ready to play upload for the thickos like me. Everything pre-loaded, couple of clicks and I'm playing Pulstar. Awesome. I'm sure he wouldn't mind me mentioning he even sent me a PM to see if I was ok to get it started. God bless that man.

Anyway, Pulstar. I'm shit at it.

<55210>

Yes, I've never played it before but I'll get better after a few goes despite the keyboard handicap. I'll fuck you all over bitches. All of you. 'cept those that are better than me.

Fucking shit performance but my thumb is fucking killing me OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHY CAN'T WE HAVE AUTOFIRE.

I'd like to play more and take down the second boss, but the impending RSI says no.

<161470>

Ahem...

There are a few reason for it

1) There was no autofire back on the arcade games
2) It breaks some games (in this batch Track & Field and Joust are totally different games with Autofire)
3) In a lot of ways it still feels like 'cheating' to me
4) I wanted the games to all be playable in the same way with the keyboard - and although some games allow an autofire button mapped others do not

You'll end up with RSI on some of the games anyway so its just your bodies way of telling you its time to take a break ;-)

<51990>
I'm not sure I anticipate doing any better.

Scores updated in the first post - if you can squeeze another 3300 points you'll overtake Mr Fairies :-)

Ok then <107150>

NOOOOOO!

I do realise I pissed and moaned about this on the last BEEX MAME challenge and my same basic points still stand so I won't labour them.......

....... too much!

It's really very, very different to mash a fire button on a gamepad (I'm using a wired 360 pad) to mashing a fire button on an arcade cabinet. I can tap away at an arcade cabinet (or indeed an arcade stick) all day and night, but not a gamepad, it's a totally different thing.

As for breaking 'some games', since the BEEX MAME challenges are basically run on a gentleman's basis - (i.e. we're trusting the participants not to fuck around with MAME in the fifty billion different ways we could do to get a fake highscore, including undetectably using autofire where we're not supposed to) - it'd be easy enough to say, 'autofire OK for shooter A but not OK for sports game B'. (And yes of course you can 'break' Track N Field with autofire.)

I stopped playing Pulstar before not because I wanted to, but because it was making my hand hurt. There's no advantage to be gained by using autofire in that game, as it explicitly shows you when you're tapping fast enough to achieve 'max power', and I can quite easily do it manually, but only to a point

I think this is discrimination against fucked old Isle of Man residents, and will be lobbying my MP, if I had one, accordingly.

I hit most things with a half-charge anyway, TBH. Tapping faster for more of a spread doesn't seem to make an appreciable difference to your actual stopping power. Maybe I'm wrong about that, though...

Had another go, still couldn't get off level 2!

Probably won't have time at weekend, so my final score is 147020

It might be worth trying to start with the other stages, too. 3 and 4 are probably harder, but they might be better for scoring.

Ed: actually, nah, st4 is a pretty brutal place to start with no speed or weapons.

Finally beat the bastard st2 boss! It was the bouncing around that kept getting me. As he starts moving, get over him to the top-right area of the screen and you should be fine. I didn't get very far into st3, though. Took out a few of the opening waves, got killed and couldn't recover.

<247,300>

Remember to <> your scores for the, um, counter?

Oh aye, ta'!

Ooohhh well done! I'll have another go at the weekend, and cheers for the tip

Unfortunately the 'fuel' that kept me playing Space Invaders/Nemesis/etc until 3am in the morning during the last BEEX MAME challenge is now fucking illegal, and I don't play old-fashioned skill games well when pissed

Stupid fucking laws.

You were using performance-enhancing drugs? In our gentlemanly contest of skill and wits? Will we be requiring screenshots and urine samples?

Viagra?

Oops. Actually, you want to go under him and then to the top-right. I think his little bouncing pattern is the same every time, and his first move is towards the top-left, which is where you'd be if you tried to go over him.

Ed: yeah, starting from the centre-right, he bounces off the top-left ceiling, then the middle-left, the floor, and then returns to his starting position. Kinda like a kite or diamond shape. After that, he'll stick out a fin and shoot lasers from each of the points on it, and then fire out a homing R-Type laser, which will change direction when you're parallel with it. He should be dead before he gets to do much else.

Also, the little blue stars he shoots can be absorbed by your pod (but not the crescents), so there isn't actually too much to dodge.

Managed to get a bit further into st3 this time. Nice level. Has lots of Salamander references, and a battleship halfway through that's very reminiscent of the one from X-Multiply. Checkpoint was brutal, though - I was presumably seconds away from the boss when I lost my first life, and was taken back to before the battleship even showed up.

<269,620>

Believe me, to play Space Invaders until 3am in the morning, you need drugs of some sort.

<144130>

<175510>

FUCK!

I was banking on second place this week.

TO THE MAME-GAME-PAD-O-TRON!

If I get crippling RSI, I'm blaming you.

Got to stage 4 this time. Didn't last long, natch.

<367,940>



It's a very doable game, though. I might try for a 1CC over the next few weeks, but I'm finding it harder to stick with one game lately.