forums.marpirc.net

http://marp.retrogames.com/inp/a/a/f/an ... olf128.zip

Input shows that most levels can be leeched.
Infinitely ? I don't know, looks like the power bar on the left forces scroll down only when full, which can be very long.

Someone with some knowledge of the game ? Chad maybe ?
It is the same on hard ?

Hi,

well first of all i think there may be a mistake in the mode of the input you are mentioning : it shouldn't be pzbowl-sm, which is the vs mode. This inp was made on puzzle mode, which is the other one on marp.

Anyway, i played this game one year ago, and i can confirm what you explained : after launching the special attack the level stops scrolling down and you can play on and on, without even trying to finish the level. I don't know if this comes from a bug or uncorrect emulation, and if it existed in previous versions of the rom.

The versus mode is not concerned by this problem, and offers no leeching possibilities as far as i know.

Ok I've moved Antares input from pzlbowl-sm to pzlbowl.
Pat, it would be fine to rename "pzlbowl-sm" to "pzlbowl-vs" to avoid any future confusion (I don't see any mention of any "story mode" though, only "vs cpu" in selection).

For the bug (?) it would be cool to find a solution.
Maybe simply forbid any special attack ?
As I said, I don't know the game, what do you think GNU ?

All three puzzle modes (easy-normal-hard) have this problem.

Baning the special attack from this mode would solve the problem.
It would also make the game way harder, probably impossible to finish.

The case is also discussed on French forum :
http://www.arcadehits.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=6285

According to his comment, Skito, the previous leader on this game, must have found out the problem too.
Here is what he says : "...there's lots of (PMP) point maximization potential. normal difficulty, round 22"
So i guess the previous versions of the rom were also affected by this "bug" (or wrong emulation) as he recorded on tgmame70.

My theory is that it's just simply a poorly written Puzzle Bobble ripoff...

All right i think i found something interesting, the "bug" only happens when you use the following characters : Amless, Dyena, Syanon.
It seems like their special attack (which is the same) starts it. Maybe we could just ban those characters ?

Very interesting ...
Need more testing, but yes, banning those characters would be a solution

Another one is changing the scoring.
I thought about that :
score = 10x(rounds clear) - (number of special attacks thrown)

Thsi would make leeching useless.
Antares would have 260-something.
Players who have finished the game : 300-something.
And the funny thing :
if someone manage to finish the game without using any special attack, he would get 300 !
A perfect bowling score

For info, Pat have made these changes :
pzlbowl-sm -> pzlbowl-vs
"Puzzle De Bowling (Japan) [Story Mode]" -> "Puzzle De Bowling (Japan) [vs]"

Another one is changing the scoring.
I thought about that :
score = 10x(rounds clear) - (number of special attacks thrown)

Thsi would make leeching useless.
Antares would have 260-something.
Players who have finished the game : 300-something.
And the funny thing :
if someone manage to finish the game without using any special attack, he would get 300 !
A perfect bowling score

Sounds good, but i think it would change the original gameplay, and it would give complicated replays (if you have to watch carefuly and count every special attack, it can be really boring i guess).
Whereas you can have a normal play using the good characters (9 out of 12). The only thing to look after while replaying would be the character choice.

I perfectly agree with you, I was just giving the idea I got just before you discover the character stuff.
I gonna have a look to see, if we ban those 3 characters, how many inputs (with Antares one) would be no receivable.

Eh eh, at first sight MANy players used one of the 3 :
#1st : 7940050 Antares (100%) AMLESS
#2nd : 2747800 Skito (29%) SYANON
#3rd : 2220850 PioT@jvrm.net (20%) SYANON
#4th : 2078950 Wonder@jvrm.net (16%) SYANON
#5th : 1878700 LeClaqueurFou@jvrm.net (12%) AMLESS
#6th : 1339150 Metrackle (7%) UMEDA
#7th : 1171850 Jump@jvrm.net (6%) SYANON
#8th : 1136750 Ray Atkinson (5%)
#9th : 1048200 Abbe (4%)
#10th : 654150 RobbyS (2%)
#11th : 566500 MD@Team7us (1%)
#12th : 445900 gameboy9 (1%)
#13th : 436750 Donut (1%)
#14th : 335200 Chika (1%)
#15th : 328650 Damon (0%)
#16th : 301900 jo sang il (0%)

Found somewhere on the net, but no mention about the bug :

There are three kinds of special powers, depending on which character you play:
1. Roll a giant ball down the lane to clear a whole colum of pins about 3 pins wide.
2. Change the color of a whole column of pins (3 wide) to all orange.
3. Roll a dynamite ball that will destroy a triangular area of pins that's about 5 wide at the base.

To use the specials, the "SPECIAL" meter has to be full, and hold DOWN on the joystick before rolling the ball.

How about just stating that players must make every effort to finish the stage as quickly as possible after using a special? Would be much simpler than trying to change a scoring system that isn't the problem.

mahlemiut wrote:as quickly as possible

And what is your definition of "as quickly as possible" ?
30s ? 3 mn ? 10 mn ?
all is quick comparing to infinite time you can get after special attack.

Yes in this case scoring combined with bug IS the problem : the guy throwing 3 or 4 pins more than an other one will get more points.
When there is a time limit, you can say everybody can throw as much pins as he want in the same time.
Here you can't compare ...

Chad took advantage of this with 2.7M and only round 22, while among guys who finished the game Piot leeched very few points in some stages to get 2.2M and beat Wonder's 2M.

I know all pbobble-like develop some kind of leeching, but with limited time it's still fair competition. Here not

NOTE :
I've tried without special attack, stage 5 is almost impossible ;
so disabling special would be too hard imo