MAME Tournament Discussion Thread

[InsaneDavid]

Besides what has been said, can anyone explaine Mikie some more? KLOV does'nt really help, and I'm lost on what to do in the first room and how to earn points and advance.

Master reading the previous page in the thread and you can have this...



Okay, I read the link about how to play Mikie, but I've yet to figure out how to get any points aside from headbutting the teacher.

I've also not figured out how to get the kick button, but I'll get around to it.

Basically, I am supposed to collect the flashing hearts, but I run right through them. I have run around the room for 10 minutes running through flashing hearts trying to collect them, and I don't pick them up. Is this some kind of error?

No no no no no, the flashing hearts are not collectible. The normal hearts are. You want to go up to a desk where someone is sitting that has a heart behind them. Press the joystick (everyone okay with using that for controller direction in this thread?) repeatedly in the direction of the person at the desk and you'll begin to shove them aside until the fall off of their chair. Once they've moved you can get to where they were sitting and collect the heart behind them. The flashing hearts (that encircle the normal hearts) award you bonus points if you can pick up the normal heart when it has the flashing heart around it. Once you collect all the hearts you can exit the stage into the hallway and move to the next.

I don't understand the kick button problem, the second button doesn't make Mikie kick (I did the walkaround like was posted) but it DOES work to make Mikie open the doors once levels are cleared - always has from the start, so the button IS registering [properly]. It also works when throwing basketballs.

Sorry for the poorly created Legend of Zelda joke at everyone's expense. ;)

[SoulBlazer]

Oh, I get the game now, but I still suck at it. LOL

I thought the first screen was hard. The second one has you avoiding THREE guys! I can just imagine what the rest of the game is like!

[InsaneDavid]

Oh, I get the game now, but I still suck at it. LOL

I thought the first screen was hard. The second one has you avoiding THREE guys! I can just imagine what the rest of the game is like!

Just like the boss at the end of the second stage of the Sailormoon Another Story RPG (now that's a bad transition!) the game loosens up after that stage. You can press the second button when near a bin of basketballs and pick one up, then hit the second button again and throw it at an enemy. It's just like headbutting them, if you can hit them with a ball they'll be stunned for a moment. The advantage is you can hit them from across the room, the disadvantage is that there is a limited number of basketballs.

[fergojisan]

I wasn't going to join in on this, because I'm not that great at games. But I'm really glad I did. I'm having a lot of fun! I don't think I'll win anything, but that's not really the point for me.

I didn't really like the first game, but this week's games are pretty cool (Q*Bert rocks of course :D ). Now that I know what to do in Mikie, I can spend more time with it. And I wonder if the use of A Hard Day's Night went under the radar because the Beatles' copyrights changed hands that year (after all, the former owner sued SESAME STREET for their Letter B song. SESAME STREET!!).

But I digress. I'm looking forward to sticking around for all the games and having fun. It's been waaaaay too long since I've played games regularly. Thanks everyone!

[Quintracker]

I hate the 'classics', I can barely make 20k on qbert. Anyone have any tips?

[Dr. Morbis]

I hate the 'classics', I can barely make 20k on qbert. Anyone have any tips?
Get good at luring the coily snake to his death. Every time you do this it clears the board of enemies. Each disc represents an opportunity to do this. Use every one of them since you get 500pts for killing the snake, but a paltry 50ish for any unused discs.

[InsaneDavid]

I hate the 'classics', I can barely make 20k on qbert. Anyone have any tips?

Agree with Quintracker and play more Mikie. LOL

[Jibbajaba]

It's time for the MATCHUPS!!!

Starting next week, after Gapporin and I reveal the games for the week, you can issue challenges to other players. I will set up matchups according to challenges, and then pair up the players who were not involved in a challenge. Exciting stuff!

OK here are the matchups. These matchups are for BOTH games.

Queen of the Felines vs. Quintracker (The Q's battle over Q*Bert!!!)
Kamino vs. Cryomancer (Battle of the Basement!!!)
Flack vs hydr0x (Germans love Flack!!!)
Lady Jaye vs. NE146 (She's a lady, but he isn't a gentleman!!!)
AdamG vs InsaneDavid (Battle of those who use their first names in their DP nicks!!!)
DragonMaster Sam vs. Crush Crawfish (Can Sam summon enough Dragons to defeat Crush's evil horde of Crawdads???)

In other news:
Dr. Morbis vs. Mr. FoodMonster
Cmosfm vs. Hovoc
Robotriot vs. Scooterb23
Needle vs. DDCecil
Richter Belmount vs. Soulblazer
Fergojisan vs. Lord007
Cirrus vs. Tripppsk
Sothy vs. Slip81 (Battle of the Zeroes!!!)

Chris

[Crush Crawfish]

Well, I took everyone's advice and bought that adaptor, and I must say that it's a HUGE improvement over my previous pad (which coincidently just stopped working yesterday). I only wish I'd gotten it earlier--with a PS2 control, I beat my old Knights of the round score on my first try! @_@

Anyways, I like both this week's games. Once you figure it out, Mikie's a blast to play. Tough as nails, though. And I kinda suck at Q*bert, but it's still really fun. Gotta love luring Coily to his death! :evil:

[Quintracker]

Ok Queen of the Felines, how much meseta will it take to let me win? Or should I just offer my body? ;) LOL

[NE146]

I hate the 'classics', I can barely make 20k on qbert. Anyone have any tips?

Well I dunno if theres many good tips in these, but here they are anyway. From 2 seperate issues of Joystik.

http://www.atariage.com/forums/uploads/post-31-1115884750_thumb.jpg (http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=33599)http://www.atariage.com/forums/uploads/post-31-1115884786_thumb.jpg (http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=33600)http://www.atariage.com/forums/uploads/post-31-1115937883_thumb.jpg (http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=33634)http://www.atariage.com/forums/uploads/post-31-1115937895_thumb.jpg (http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=33635)


http://www.atariage.com/forums/uploads/post-31-1115938352_thumb.jpg (http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=33642)http://www.atariage.com/forums/uploads/post-31-1115938343_thumb.jpg (http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=33641)http://www.atariage.com/forums/uploads/post-31-1115938331_thumb.jpg (http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=33640)http://www.atariage.com/forums/uploads/post-31-1115938312_thumb.jpg (http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=33639)http://www.atariage.com/forums/uploads/post-31-1115938300_thumb.jpg (http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=33638)http://www.atariage.com/forums/uploads/post-31-1115938288_thumb.jpg (http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=33637)

[Quintracker]

Thanks NE146!

[Cirrus]

Wow, what a stand-up guy... showing the opponents your play-book. :) Some of those tips are really useful. Sadly, I barely realized that jumping onto the discs was why the snake was jumping off of the edge. Basically, the little guys jumping on the other sides of the blocks completely throw me off.

I get very confused by that.

[Queen Of The Felines]

Ok Queen of the Felines, how much meseta will it take to let me win? Or should I just offer my body? ;) LOL

Just stop posting pics in the Pub for a week and I'll give you 5000 bonus points. ;) LOL

Kristine

[Dr. Morbis]

You put me up against the guy who scored almost the exact same score as me last round, eh? (66,220 vs 66,000). What a weird coincidence ;)

I guess I'm going to have to turn it up a notch!

BTW, I think your scoreboard in the other thread should have two score columns: one for the most recent 2 games, and one for the cumulative score. That is, unless you will be posting the scores seperately in this thread for each game at the end of each week.

[hydr0x]

so, how's everybody doing at mikie?? i'm currently a little bit stuck at ~35k but i can see myself reach ~60k :)

[robotriot]

I gave up on Mikie and submited a very bad score, I just hate the game :P Qbert on the other hand is more my type of game ^^

[fergojisan]

so, how's everybody doing at mikie?? i'm currently a little bit stuck at ~35k but i can see myself reach ~60k :)

Words cannot express how angry Mikie is making me, so I quit at 11000. :P Not doing too good at Q*Bert either. I kept trying to use all the discs, but it was getting me killed too often. I'm just trying to get through the boards now, regardless of left discs.

BTW,I was busy cursing at the red ball thingy and missed taking the picture of the Game Over screen. Since Q*Bert has Top 20 fake scores when you start it up, is it okay to submit the high score screen as our screen shot? Please? :(

I'm going to have to get started early this week. My wife and I are going away for our anniversary (which was yesterday, but work was mandatory :angry: )this weekend. We're hitting flea markets and diners on Sat and Sun. yay! :-P

[DDCecil]

BTW,I was busy cursing at the red ball thingy and missed taking the picture of the Game Over screen. Since Q*Bert has Top 20 fake scores when you start it up, is it okay to submit the high score screen as our screen shot? Please? :(

I hope so, because that's what I did. I did have some lower scores on it, but they were from earlier playthroughs. I think I did pretty good on Mikie. I like it more than Q*Bert! If I'm wrong for liking Mikie over Q*Bert, I don't want to be right :)

[Mr.FoodMonster]

Well Dr.M if it makes you feel any better, I know for a fact you totally beat my ass in Q*Bert. Mikie, I dont know, I think I got a decent score with that...

[SoulBlazer]

I suck at both games this week. :(

Oh well. Here's hoping next week is better. :)

[Needle]

After everything was said and done, I think I actually had another good week! Of course I know my opponent this week is no pushover (still angry at myself for losing that Smash TV scoreboard a few weeks ago, hehe) but I think I managed to keep it competitive.

Good luck to everyone in the final hours of competition :D

[hydr0x]

i just gave up and submitted my score, <20k on Q*bert which is really bad i think, i just don't like the game, i could make 30-40k i guess, but i don't enjoy it so i just stopped

Mikie on the other hand got me a nice score, if Flack can keep up with me on that one he wins the round, if he doesn't get the game, he loses :D

[DragonMaster Sam]

Well, I pretty much stunk at Q*Bert, but it was fun while it lasted. As for Mikie, I did way better than I expected to. If Jibbajaba posts our scores, you'll all be amazed at how much I was able to amass.

[Cryomancer]

I really AM gonna get last place. I suck at videogames. I need to summon my NES-era self, maybe he'd do better, heh.

[Lady Jaye]

I don't think I'll fare any better than you...

[Queen Of The Felines]

I think I kicked ass on Q*Bert, don't know how well I did on Mikie though. Guess I'll find out tomorrow. :)

Kristine

[SoulBlazer]

Well, after a couple more hours of gameplay, I was able to boost my scores for both games and finally said 'enough with it' and e-mailed my scores in.

Don't want to say quite yet what they are, but I think for both games they are only in the 'average' range.

Mikie I just suck at. I never could get past the locker room screen. :embarrassed:

As for QBert, the 3rd Board got me. I HATE those puzzles that require you to carefully watch where you jump while also avoiding all of the enemies coming down at you......

Here's hoping for a good shooter or side scroller next week. :D

[scooterb23]

Got my scores in...

Mikie I was bad at, I made it into the 2nd room, but no further (my best score came on a game where I kept screwing up in the first room, and finally got to the second on my last life).

Q*Bert, honestly, I played one of my best games ever, actually making it to level 3 for the first time ever. So it may not win, but I'm very proud of my Q*Bert score :D

[Dr. Morbis]

As for Mikie, I did way better than I expected to. If Jibbajaba posts our scores, you'll all be amazed at how much I was able to amass.
Did you top 200k? For Mikie, I spent most of my time in the first classroom: I would get the PERFECT bonus points and then headbutt the living daylights out of that stupid teacher till time ran out. At 800pts a pop, it's pretty lucrative at building a high score really fast.

[InsaneDavid]

so, how's everybody doing at mikie?? i'm currently a little bit stuck at ~35k but i can see myself reach ~60k :)

I got a hair over 150k, but I expect at least a few scores over that point.

[Quintracker]

I think I kicked ass on Q*Bert, don't know how well I did on Mikie though. Guess I'll find out tomorrow. :)

Kristine


I'm going to lose! :( I sucked at Mikie, but was decent at Q*Bert (even though I hate that game).


Did you top 200k? For Mikie, I spent most of my time in the first classroom: I would get the PERFECT bonus points and then headbutt the living daylights out of that stupid teacher till time ran out. At 800pts a pop, it's pretty lucrative at building a high score really fast.

I considered 'leeching' for points on the first screen, but that seemed too cheap. That and I've spent so much time over at Twin Galaxies I've kinda adopted their rules LOL

[hydr0x]

As for Mikie, I did way better than I expected to. If Jibbajaba posts our scores, you'll all be amazed at how much I was able to amass.
Did you top 200k? For Mikie, I spent most of my time in the first classroom: I would get the PERFECT bonus points and then headbutt the living daylights out of that stupid teacher till time ran out. At 800pts a pop, it's pretty lucrative at building a high score really fast.

yep, i used that method too, but i only made <100k with it

[Lord007]

Damn, I didn't even think of just continually headbutting the teacher! I couldn't get past the 2nd room so my score is REALLY low...like ~25k. I think I did ok in Q*Bert though...

[NE146]

*phew*.. glad that's over.

Let's just say farewell to Mikie! Let no one mistake that for a 'classic' game. But it was indeed the contest that made it fun and interesting as I would have never played that game for more than 2 minutes otherwise. :D

And yeah I milked the first screen on it... wasn't all that high though and certainly not 200k @_@

[Lady Jaye]

It'll be a miracle if I win my matchup against you... my own high scores were puny (and I didn't even realize about the idea of continuing to head-butt the teacher in the first level until time up... Doh!

[SoulBlazer]

I also realized that you could 'linger' in the first room, but that seemed cheap to me. Still, it was allowed in the rules.

My foe this week has'nt posted yet, but as I said my scores for both games were just average -- I got about 90k in Mikie and 45k for QBert. Hopefully good enough to win.

And yeah, I'll be happy if I never play Mikie again the rest of my life. LOL What a crappy, hard game.....no wonder I never heard of it before and why there's no home console port. :D

As for QBert, as much as I liked the game, I never was that huge a fan of it, nor very good at it.

Congrats to everyone who got the high scores. :)

[fergojisan]

Hey guys, I've got a free afternoon, I'm ready to play something new & get the bad taste of Mikie out of my mouth. Erm, that didn't sound good. Let's see the new picks! :-P

[Jibbajaba]

Hey guys, I've got a free afternoon, I'm ready to play something new & get the bad taste of Mikie out of my mouth. Erm, that didn't sound good. Let's see the new picks! :-P

OK, Dr. Pushy!!!

Chris

[Jibbajaba]

OK cranky people, I've posted my pick for the week.

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=673444#673444

:D

Chris

[hydr0x]

OK cranky people, I've posted my pick for the week.

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=673444#673444

:D

Chris

and what about the scores :evil:

[fergojisan]

Okay, I guess I'll challenge Kamino. He's the only one in my division who did worse than I did last week (not sure yet about this week, the scores I can wait for LOL ). Plus, Kamino is a MAME noob. I choose you Kamino!

/me high fives Kamino

Dr. Pushy

[Crush Crawfish]

I think I did pretty terrible this week. :/ I got about 30K in Mikie and 12K in Q-bert. Oh well, I hope I do better this week.

Solomon's Key looks good. I've heard lots of good things about it.

Oh, and Mikie rocks, regardless of what anyone says! :D

[Gapporin]

My pick has been posted as well. Yay!

@ Jibbajaba: I wanna see the scores! *poke poke*

[Jibbajaba]

I will post the scores tonight or tommorow morning. I was waiting because I gave someone an extension until noon today (pacific time) to turn in a score. Unfortunately they didn't. We have therfore lost two participants in the MAME league. Sothy and Slip81 have been dismissed for failing to submit one or more scores two weeks in a row. Sothy was already in the overflow pool, but Slip81 was in the Carmack division. Slip81's place in the Carmack division will be taken by Queen of the Felines. Changes will be reflected in the new standings which I will upload when I get home from work.

And just to answer the question before it gets asked, if AdamG and Tripppsk are still in the overflow pool at the end of the regular season, I will stick each of them into a conference before determining playoff eligibility.

Fergojisan, you will take on Kamino this week!!! If there are any other challenges, I will accept them until Wednesday morning, at which time I will post all matchups.

I have a couple of other requests concerning e-mails. Please do not submit your scores by replying to an e-mail of mine. Because of the way G-Mail is set up, it makes it harder for me to find your message if you do it that way. Also, I'll ask again that you please type out your DP NICKNAME, and scores in the body of your message. I'm getting tired of having to look up your e-mail address in my contacts list to figure out who you are, and I am getting equally tired of having to download and unzip your attatchment in order to get your scores. I'm sorry if I sound like a jerk, but please remember that I have to go through 22 e-mail messages, so the easier it is for me to get the inormation I need out of them, the better. Lastly, please include both scores in the same e-mail.

Hope everyone is still having fun!

Chris

[hydr0x]

gapporins link doesn't work

if you don't know how to get the rom, here's how you do it:

go to www.playagain.net

Click on Jeux / M.A.M.E.

click on "Rechercher un jeu / Find a game"

input "Pnickies"

then download pnickj.zip at the bottom of the site

[Richter Belmount]

am in the only one that kicked arse at mikie? >_> yes im a konami fanboy

[NE146]

gapporins link doesn't work

if you don't know how to get the rom, here's how you do it:

go to www.playagain.net

Click on Jeux / M.A.M.E.

click on "Rechercher un jeu / Find a game"

input "Pnickies"

then download pnickj.zip at the bottom of the site

Or here.. I'll just post it...

http://www.users.uswest.net/~userid946/pnickj.zip

[Jibbajaba]

am in the only one that kicked arse at mikie? >_> yes im a konami fanboy

You might want to hold off on that kind of talk until I post the scores.

Chris

[Queen Of The Felines]

BURN! LOL

Kristine

[Cirrus]

JibbaJaba sent out an email looking for more feedback about this competition, asking if we would be interested in more of these tournaments, maybe more than once a year. I would definitely be interested. We get to play more games, and even though the MAME club works well for that, too, this forces us to play the games. I, for one, would never have played Mikie more than 20 seconds if not for this. (And I'm glad I did!)

One possible idea: if everyone involved could pick one game per season. I think that would be a great idea. I know that Jibbajaba and Gapporin get a kick out of picking out the games (and they have done a good job!) but it would be a nice touch.

[Jibbajaba]

JibbaJaba sent out an email looking for more feedback about this competition, asking if we would be interested in more of these tournaments, maybe more than once a year. I would definitely be interested. We get to play more games, and even though the MAME club works well for that, too, this forces us to play the games. I, for one, would never have played Mikie more than 20 seconds if not for this. (And I'm glad I did!)

One possible idea: if everyone involved could pick one game per season. I think that would be a great idea. I know that Jibbajaba and Gapporin get a kick out of picking out the games (and they have done a good job!) but it would be a nice touch.

If we held a regular league, then I would be much more inclined to let you guys pick games. Since this is a tournament with material goods on the line, I wanted to make the playing field as level as possible, and having people's favorite games in the tourney make that difficult to do.

What I am thinking of doing (assumming the DP management does not object) is the following:

We would have a regular ongoing DP MAME League. People would be members of the league just as people are members of this mini-league/championship.

I would have "Open" events, where anyone on DP can pay a small meseta entry fee and play in the tourney. All league events would have no "regular season" and would be a modified double-elimination exactly like the playoffs for this league. The winners would split (unequally, of course) whatever meseta was taken in through the entry fees.

I would also have "invitational" tournaments (for league members only) where there would be no entry fee, and meseta along with possible material items would be given out as prizes. Depending on the number of people who participated in the league, the Championships would ideally be invitational.

The league would have player rankings based on players performances through all of the league events. In order to be a ranked player you would have to be a member of the league, and not just someone who played in the opens. If a player entered one of the open tournaments and played well, then they would be invited to join the league. (Think PGA golf here). When the league started, anyone who wanted to join would be able to, but the same rule that applies now would apply then: habitual failiure to submit scores would mean dismissal from the league.

I don't know. This sounds like the coolest freakin idea ever to me, but I don't know how others feel. I would be willing to do this even if we don't get a lot of people signing up. If the people who do participate are having fun then it will gain in popularity.

So with these new details explained, what are people's opinions? I am totally open to suggestions and criticisms.

Chris

[Cirrus]

Well, I think that sounds like a pretty good idea. Would invitations be based on scores in the open league, or by actually submitting scores regularly and on time?

Anyway, sounds pretty interesting. I hope that this will get more people interested in our MAME Club here. I suppose that having us choose games to play might overlap a bit with that, which might be a concern. Maybe a voting process (or random game submissions) might help that a bit.

[SoulBlazer]

Great, Richter was my foe last week. :roll: I hope his score was'nt as good as he bragged, cause I only got about 90k on Mikie, despite my best efforts.

Here's hoping the scores are up soon. ;)

[AB Positive]

Since she's no longer in my division, and since I love challenging my friends...

I challenge QoF! OH NOES!

-AG

[AB Positive]

I have a couple of other requests concerning e-mails. Please do not submit your scores by replying to an e-mail of mine. Because of the way G-Mail is set up, it makes it harder for me to find your message if you do it that way. Also, I'll ask again that you please type out your DP NICKNAME, and scores in the body of your message. I'm getting tired of having to look up your e-mail address in my contacts list to figure out who you are, and I am getting equally tired of having to download and unzip your attatchment in order to get your scores. I'm sorry if I sound like a jerk, but please remember that I have to go through 22 e-mail messages, so the easier it is for me to get the inormation I need out of them, the better. Lastly, please include both scores in the same e-mail.

Hope everyone is still having fun!

Chris


... oops :embarrassed:

-AG

[Richter Belmount]

nah i was kiddin , i got far but was mediocre =P >.> , i did make it to the cheerleader once.

[Quintracker]

So with these new details explained, what are people's opinions? I am totally open to suggestions and criticisms.

Chris


I think the whole league thing is a great idea and I'd be first in line to join. Since you asked I've got a little constructive criticism. It would be nice if updates are posted at the same time every week, like what the next game(s) will be, updated league standings, etc. Also, a little more clarification on rules might be needed, like leeching. The only reason I thought to bring this up is because of Mikie. It's a grey area though, so whatever you decide will be A-OK with me :P

[Jibbajaba]

I dont know if anyone noticed or not, but I posted the scores and latest standings in the stickied thread. I'm just going to keep updating the same standings sheet, so it will always be in that same post.

@Quin: This is sort of a learn-as-I-go process, so it isn't very refined at the moment. Things will become more regular as the bugs get worked out.

Chris

[Lady Jaye]

Well, I was kinda crushed in last week's matchup... Overkilled by almost 100,000 points for each game! O_O

At least, I was not the worst player in the gang, but still...

[SoulBlazer]

Well, I was feeling pretty good. My scores were good enough -- sixth highest in the league for each game -- to allow me to go 3-0 and have the sixth highest (again) overall highest score of all the players.

Then I tried the two games for this week and my heart sank.

At least with last weeks games you could develop a pattern for Mikie and earn points -- as much as I disliked the game -- and QBert I knew and liked.

The first game is a Japanese Tetris like game I've never even heard of, much less played, and which seems to have some weird pattern for making lines that I could'nt find right away. I'll have to look the game up online tonight when I get home from work.

The other game -- Solomon's Key? It brought back nightmares of me trying the game on the NES back when I was a wee little kid and not being able to get anywhere with it. Sure enough, the arcade version seems to be the same way. I still suck at it after all these years.

If anyone wants to share how to play, hints, and tips for both games, I'll promise to return the favor in thne future. ;)

Right now, though, it looks like I'm in for a rough week. Oh well, we all can't have great weeks. :D

[Lady Jaye]

Hey, maybe I'll do okay this time! :P

Oh, and I challenge you, SoulBlazer!

[SoulBlazer]

Ah, the lovely lady has thrown down the gauntlet!

Well, if the mods say it's okay, I accept. :D

I beat you in baseball and I know I can beat you here as well. :evil:

[Jibbajaba]

Solomon's Key really isn't that tough. You just have to think through how to get past certain rooms. That's what makes the game fun. This game is easily on my top ten list of best games all time. It has action and puzzle elements together. Good stuff.

I also forgot to mention that the mini-prize for this game will be a copy of Solomon's Key for the NES.

Chris

[Flack]

I had a pretty good run this round in Q*Bert. Of course, if you've looked at my profile (click below), that's to be expected. :evil: I never beat the first level of Mikie, and to make matters worse I couldn't FTP back into the house and retrieve my screen shot. Oh well, this week is comeback time!

[Dr. Morbis]

Man, the arcade version of Solomon's Key is weird. First, the music is vastly inferior to the NES version. Secondly, it seems to randomly skip levels and just hop around various rooms from the home version. The only way you can tell how far you've gotten is the round number in the bottom right that keeps track of how many rooms you've been too. It is a great game though.

Damn, NE146 you beat my Q*bert score. I'm glad you weren't my opponent. You also got an amazing score at Galaga so I have no choice but to assume that your a ringer at the oldschool titles!

[Quintracker]

Scooter, I challenge you!

[InsaneDavid]

I'll be stupid and challenge the only undefeated player in the Meier Division - DragonMaster Sam.

[SoulBlazer]

Well, I had a chance to sink some time into both games tonight.

Pnickles is.....a lot like Colums. Some of the pieces have stars in them. No matter how big a color block that you make, you need to have TWO of the stars in that block for it to 'clear' and earn you points. You earn extra if you can get three stars at the same time. Making the color block as big as possible before laying down the second star and clearing helps your points.

At first the game is easy and it goes slow. It's not long, however, before the pieces come down FAST.....and I mean LIGHTING fast. @_@ After that happened you have no time to juggle the pieces around to make combos, and the screen fills up very quick. My best score so far is 25k.

Solomons Key.....well, I can't say I'm a fan of this game, as opposed to Pnickles, which is warming on me. The game is quite hard.

Since we're going for points, it seems the best thing to do is just to make a beline for the exit as fast as possible. Don't bother with the faries unless they are on your way, don't both with the items.....if you can clear the screen quickly, you can earn about 7-9k in points. Pratice and knowing how to clear the screens will defentily help. So far the best score I've gotten is around 20k. The NES walkthrough for the game won't help, also, as the screens are being shown in different order.

Best of luck to everyone. If you're like me and prefer a good old fashioned shooter or action game and suck at puzzlers, you're in for a rough week. LOL

[Quintracker]

Pnickles is crazy hard for me, but I don't like puzzlers. Solomon's Key looks to be a good one to practice at. Great choices guys!

[Lady Jaye]

Tried downloading Solomon's Key -- got a "Cannot connect to server" error message.

[hydr0x]

Tried downloading Solomon's Key -- got a "Cannot connect to server" error message.

just go to www.playagain.net (like you did for the other game) and search for this one, should be readily available

[hydr0x]

wow, just played my first round of pnickies, what a great game, thx Gapporin for letting us know :)

it get's really fast sometimes though, how far did everyone else come? i reached lvl 27 on this first try

[Needle]

It seems that in Pnickies, the blocks get faster until you reach a level with a multiple of ten, and then you get a reprieve, with the blocks slowing down a little bit. I can't tell if the speed of the blocks is continuously rising and advancement allows you to slow them down, or if it's a very specific, level-set thing. It would be interesting though if the block speed is determined with your own ability to score fast. That would allow high-scoring players to have more "slow block time" and increase their longetivity. However I doubt this is the case.

If that wasn't bad enough, they actually start throwing new colors into the mix. Somewhere around Level 30 they start dropping cyan blocks, and around level 45 they throw pink blocks in too. By then the action is so lightning fast and there are so many different colors, it seems nearly impossible to get much further.

Sometimes the blocks move down so quickly, that there is no time to move them left or right, even if you hold down the left or right buttons. Slightly frustrating. The game does adhere to a "loose stick" method though, where you have a fraction of a second to move the piece on the pile before it locks into place.

After two games I feel like I've already probably achieved my maximum score based on pure skill level, so I'm not sure how much more time I'll be investing in it.

[scooterb23]

Scooter, I challenge you!

Bring it on, boy.

:P