Golden Era Game of the Week 11/13/04: Guzzler

[Weehawk]

Golden Era Game of the Week

See introduction here

The Game: Guzzler

romname: guzzler

Screenshot:
(click to see current MARP scores)

Reward: $50 (usd)

Deadline for submission to MARP: November 19, 2004 2359 hours GMT

Further Bounty: none

Never heard of this one before MAME.

Enjoyed playing it this week even though I've never been a huge fan of maze games. Felt like I was getting better and making progress and could have continued.

Use WolfMAME .88

[Weehawk]

Announcement:

A player has encountered a glitch in this game.

Finishing Round 8 at 125,750 points, he killed the last flame. Immediately the score became garbage characters:



As his finishing bonus clicked off, the last five digits of the score became real numbers again (but not the correct ones) and the hundred thousands digit remained garbage. He was also awarded countless extra men:



In the hopes that this is a rare occurrence, I think it best to consider the game invalid after garbage enters the score.

As long as it doesn't happen very often I don't think it will spoil competition on the game.

Please report any further findings along these lines by posting here or by private message to me.

[awesome]

I would have posted it here origionally but just now was finally able to start posting to the forum (some problem with the Forum Barry helped fix for me.)

It was really cool playing out to around round 25. It was hard to estimate score. Usually I spelled Guzzler each round and ended up getting around 30k each bonus alone. The score seemed to roll quicker than that though. I'm guessing I at least played until 500k - 800k before just hitting Esc to quit. I died a bunch of times on Round 25 (same as 14 if I remember right) and believe me I figured out that if you don't play those levels correctly your gonna die ALOT!!! Lots of luck getting there without a bug though.

Luckily I beat the score at the point this game screwed up and already posted it at MARP. At the time I ran into this bug, it was my first time over 100k.

[awesome]

Oh. And the bonus started much higher on later rounds but clicked off at 500 per click (unlike normal 100 per click). Not sure if that is normal or part of the glitch.

[Weehawk]

I died a bunch of times on Round 25 (same as 14 if I remember right) and believe me I figured out that if you don't play those levels correctly your gonna die ALOT!!!

Yeah, 25 and 14 are the same layout. Tough to get into the bottom or top section and kill the flames once your puddles are gone.

Oh. And the bonus started much higher on later rounds but clicked off at 500 per click (unlike normal 100 per click). Not sure if that is normal or part of the glitch.

Yeah, that starts at Round 15 I think.

[Weehawk]

Results;
1st: Ian Sutton
2nd: Greg Erway
3rd: tar

Another amazing first for Ian. Well, this time probably not many of the other players had played the game before either. I know Greg hadn't.

Looking at the totals...the only two people with a mathematical chance at taking third place from SJK (from below) are destructor, who would need to get all four remaning first places and for SJK to get nothing, and Sampras who would need three out of the four and to place in the third, again with SJK getting nothing...so it looks like the top three are all but locked.

With only four weeks remaining, Don will have a tough time overtaking Ian, but perhaps he will have an experience advantage over Ian on Gravitar.

Some of the MARP regulars are already looking ahead to QB3 and getting pretty good at it.

[awesome]

I agree with Ian on this one. This game is definatly marathonable. I can see that I'm at that level already if I didn't make stupid mistakes. I was sometimes easily going 150k on a man and then just losing a bunch doing stupid stuff all in a row. At 150k your getting more points then needed for the extra man.

I will continue to play this one. It's a great game. And from what I see, it can be bought fairly cheaply.

Thanks for introducing me to this game.

Congrats Ian. Nice score. Wish you can been posting scores all along like I did so we could have pressured each other. I'm sure I could have done a lot better if I had known I needed to (for more time than the last hour).

Is there a rule that requires posting a score to MARP within a specific period of time (for this competitions rules anyways)? If so I haven't seen any. I guess waiting to the last minute is a good move. Just seems more fun to see how people progress instead of just seeing their best effort at the end.

[QRS]

Just seems more fun to see how people progress instead of just seeing their best effort at the end.

That is the true spirit of competition in my opinion. During the last two years many people at MARP tend to go into hiding their scores though... and that is one of the reasons I don't really like these tourneys anymore.

Many players don't understand that even if you show your inp and player can learn.. you can do the same! Anyway, just my two cents.

[Weehawk]

I will continue to play this one. It's a great game. And from what I see, it can be bought fairly cheaply.

Well, there certainly wouldn't be much demand, to drive the price up. On the other hand, I'd be surprised if it was that easy to find.

The TG record is a little over 3 million by Massimo Gaspari. Knock yourself out.

Is there a rule that requires posting a score to MARP within a specific period of time (for this competitions rules anyways)?

For general MARP submissions, no.

For tournaments, players are required to submit their recordings within 48 hours of making them in order to encourage early submission, but this is merely documented by the time which was set on the player's computer when he made the recording, so it can't really be enforced on anyone who would be dishonest about it.

I therefore decided not to impose any such restriction on GEGOTW entries, except for the week's deadline, of course.

Just seems more fun to see how people progress instead of just seeing their best effort at the end.

Yeah, that's how most of us feel, but it's hard to convince some of the players to give up the competitive advantage of keeping their tactics and score secret from their opponents.

I have been thinking about something along the lines of the suggestion made by MJS in this post:

viewtopic.php?p=31687#31687

But rather than place such pressure on the entry of initials, I've been wondering if perhaps Barry could put a feature in WolfMAME whereby a player starting a recording could enter a validation code which would be recorded in the inp file in some manner not terribly easily altered.

For example if the first day of the tournament was Monday, the coordinator might announce that Monday's validation code would be "lobo". A player recording on Monday could include something like -validation "lobo" in his command line starting the recording. The code could change daily if that was preferred, and players would be required to submit in a timely manner based on when the code indicates the recording was done. Just an idea.

Phil Lamat is trying out giving a bonus point on days 2 and 4 of the currently running WCC. This seems to be encouraging players to submit on these days at least.

Suggestions are always welcome.

[dbh]

With only four weeks remaining, Don will have a tough time overtaking Ian, but perhaps he will have an experience advantage over Ian on Gravitar.

I didn't have a chance to play hardly at all this week. Robert M. from TG is visiting Funspot so I was up there last Saturday and Wednesday and I'm heading there tomorrow. I've also been busy preparing for two major table tennis tournaments, one of which is next weekend right after Thanksgiving. I doubt I'll get a chance to play Gravitar much this week since I'm driving down to Baltimore Wednesday morning for the tournament and to visit relatives.

[awesome]

Well, there certainly wouldn't be much demand, to drive the price up. On the other hand, I'd be surprised if it was that easy to find.

I've seen a few past occurances on record of these going for $100 - $200. And I've heard a number of times that the boardsets are dirt cheap.

I've got over 40 arcade machines in my collection now. Thus no more room. But this game intrested me enough I might be willing to part with something to make space for it! I'm heading on a 12 hour drive tomorrow to visit TNT Amusments. Maybe I'll ask if they have one somewhere in the back.

[Ian Sutton]

Congrats Ian. Nice score.

Thanks.

Wish you can been posting scores all along like I did so we could have pressured each other. I'm sure I could have done a lot better if I had known I needed to (for more time than the last hour).

Is there a rule that requires posting a score to MARP within a specific period of time (for this competitions rules anyways)? If so I haven't seen any. I guess waiting to the last minute is a good move. Just seems more fun to see how people progress instead of just seeing their best effort at the end.

This has been discussed before. Personally I don't feel the least bit bad about waiting and submitting as late as possible. I just do the best I can in the time I have available and if someone else does better, congrats! But in this case I actually uploaded my scores within 15 minutes of making them.

[MJS]

I have been thinking about something along the lines of the suggestion made by MJS in this post:

viewtopic.php?p=31687#31687

But rather than place such pressure on the entry of initials, I've been wondering if perhaps Barry could put a feature in WolfMAME whereby a player starting a recording could enter a validation code which would be recorded in the inp file in some manner not terribly easily altered.

The point is to get readable information from the player. Entering specific initials was the first thing that came to mind, and everyone will understand how to do it (which is good).

Using a customized version of MAME that asks for a password as you suggest is not better in my opinion, because: 1) it is not as easy; and 2) it is hack-prone.

I haven't investigated, but the "initials" suggestion seems more secure. At least the job of hacking an old recording will vary from one game to another, making it a lot harder for someone (a cheater) to submit an old recording.

[Weehawk]

Using a customized version of MAME that asks for a password as you suggest is not better in my opinion, because: 1) it is not as easy;

I think it would be easier.

and 2) it is hack-prone.

True, but I'm guessing no one would be willing to go to too much trouble to hack an inp just to be able to submit their recordings later.

[Chad]

if someone can hack an old recording, they can certainly chop of the end of the inp where the initials entry starts and resubmit the intials where ever and when ever they want. the intials is good but doesn't stop someone who can hack old records.