Golden Era Game of the Week 7/10/04: Kram

[Weehawk]

Golden Era Game of the Week

See introduction here

The Game: Kram

romname: kram

Screenshot:
(click to see current MARP scores)

Reward: $50 (usd)

Deadline for submission to MARP: July 16, 2004 2359 hours GMT

Further Bounties: none

Comments: Thought about breaking down and doing a maze game this week. The only one I ever put any time into in the arcade was Pac-Man, and only because it was so phenomenally popular when it was new. Don't really know if this one qualifies as "maze", but it looked interesting and I thought we'd give it a whirl.

I actually spent more time playing this than any of the Golden Era Games of the Week in quite a while. I enjoyed it. It will be interesting to see what strategies others come up with for playing the levels I played...and beyond. I played some with infinite lives just to see what was ahead, and some of the levels not too far ahead of where I got get really tough.

Note well: To start the game you must press F1 five times (more if you do it too fast) to get through the language selection screen and play the game. Pressing F3 once will do it, but that doesn't get recorded and your inp would not pass that screen on playback.

Use WolfMAME .83 or .84

[sawys]

I used Wolf 83 and not wolf 80 like my upload appears !!
I will try to beat my score tomorrow

[QRS]

I used Wolf 83 and not wolf 80 like my upload appears !!
I will try to beat my score tomorrow

You can always edit your description for the uploads and tell us that

[Weehawk]

I used Wolf 83 and not wolf 80 like my upload appears !!
I will try to beat my score tomorrow

You can always edit your description for the uploads and tell us that

He can change the version when he edits, can't he?

Anyway, it played with .80 so I confirmed it, noting that it was recorded with .83 for GEGOTW purposes.

[QRS]

He can change the version when he edits, can't he?

Yes he can, and so can I MWAHAHA ehhhr.. changed it to 083

[Weehawk]

OK, Tommi's changed the whole perspective on this one.

I hadn't realized in my own play that the skulls never get faster than Kram in a straight horizontal or vertical line. They only really get fast going diagonally and he minimizes this. They still come amazingly close on some occasions, and on some occasions he gets the last target just before it looks like they've got him. Also there are times when he is cut off and has to make a heroic cutback move to avoid them.

He still hasn't quite proven marathonability. He doesn't quit voluntarily, as a matter of fact he gets down to his last man well before the final score in both his uploads. Also, we don't know what the score and extra men are going to do at ten million.

But if he can do this in a few days, someone with practice could probably last for hours on a single life.

For the purposes of this week's GEGOTW I will impose a ten million point limit. I do NOT want anyone having to play for 8 hours for the sake of the bounty. If more than one player exceeds ten million points the prize will go to whomever reached ten million in the shortest time. Judging by Tommi's games this would appear to be in the three hour range. I'd use an hour time limit like in previous games, but I must admit I'm curious as to what happens at ten million.

And boy am I sucking at next week's game...

[The TJT]

Hi John,

Well, you wanted to see different tactics at Kram...My inps should be worth the money
I think my scores are safe, players not being able to copycat my tactics in 49 hours. Yet, tactics handed on a silver plate, who knows later on.
It's not only about right tactics, there is skill involved too.

I think Kram is not marathonable:

First of all, it is not easy to do that circling tactic succesfully. If it was easy, I surely wouldn't loose any of krams doing it. You can try it with infinite lives cheat. If you let skulls too close, they can get you without you doing any mistake. If keep them too far, they change direction and things get busy. You must time your moves right, or they follow you immediately and catch you. Not allways easy to see if your path will be cut or not.

I think skulls get little faster even so far as at million points. Not sure if they get really faster....maybe they only start with maximum speed sooner.
If you don't catch those floating points quickly, skulls just seem to get faster speed untill they are pretty deadly. When they move diagonally,at their fast speed, they can cut you off pretty easy. Not sure how fast they can get, nobody lived to tell...

Walls mess up their circling, and half of the levels start with walls. You can do starting patterns at those wall-levels. Yet same patterns don't work at 1M that worked at 400k, because of increased speed of skulls.
Don't forget slow skulls that can mess your circling.

You get bonus krams at 30k,60,120,240,480,960,1 920 etc...

Some earlyish levels are pretty tough, because at some levels those brown points like to float in the center. And if you don't catch points fast, skulls come at you with thunder and lightning...

I played the game pretty much in five days. It was interesting to figure out totally new Kram tactics and improve my playing skills. Pretty happy with my scores now. Not going to try improve them further, not even sure if it's possible. I thought before yesterday that 700k will be enough, and Million too hard to get. Untill a breakthrough game occurred.

Thanks,

TJT

[Weehawk]

Results:
1st: TJT
2nd: Sampras
3rd: Sawys@jvrm.net

Quantum leap performance by Tommi.

And congratulations on first place in T8 Zektor also.

[The TJT]

Pot o' gold received, Thank you

Tommi