By Phil Day
Last month saw a new Donkey Kong World Record set by Hank Chien, and a new Galaga world record set by Andrew Laidlaw. This interests me. So I interviewed them both. However, having done an article on Donkey Kong and Galaga last year I didn’t feel I needed to ask too much about why they played and how they played and so on, especially so considering both players have previous held these world record before, and I’m sure they’ve have already commented so much on those questions. So we talked about the future of their World records and the games in which they cored them on – both Donkey Kong and Galaga being as good as three decades old now. You’re probably thinking these games are doing well to still have an interested playing public. If so, you’d be right. Both titles are available on iPhone. Donkey Kong has had many incarnations into other games. And Galaga was revamped as Galaga Legions for the Xbox in 2008, and KLOV.com asked its readers to give their opinion on their favourite arcade games. Pac-man came in at number 1, followed by Galaga, then Donkey Kong. KLOV’s poll interested me, even more so having spoken to Chien and Laidlaw. Let me try and explain why.
Pac-Man, as a competitive game for international high scores, is dead. Billy Mitchell killed it in 1999 with a perfect score of 3,333,360 points. Since then another five people have equalled his score. But it can’t be beaten. Some have reached Mitchell’s score in less time than Mitchell, but i don’t think Mitchell ever tried to do it as fast as he could. And what does it really matter if someone does it quicker. They don’t’ get extra points. But those who have equalled his score are clearly as good as Mitchell at Pac-man. Nevertheless, we will ever see the score grow.
On the 19th March 2011 we may witness the death of Donkey Kong at Richie Knuclez arcadein New Jersey. Billy Mitchell, Steve Wiebe, Dean Saglio, and Hank Chien are, reportedly, all going to be there. Chien recently told me that he’d be there for sure, but he doesn’t think he’ll be trying to top his score. His score of 1,068,000 is 3,500 points higher than Wiebe’s, and 5,200 points higher than Mitchell’s. Saglio dosen’t have a score on the board for Donkey Kong ‘Hammer allowed’ (What are these other bogus tracks like no ‘hammer allowed’?), but Saglio does have a score of 1,136,400 points on Donkey Kong MAME (MAME is the acronym for ‘multiple arcade machine emulator’; software that allows home computers to run arcade games.) Saglio’s MAME score is 68,400 points above the Hank Chien’s. More interestingly both Chien and Weibe believe the MAME version of Donkey Kong is identical to the arcade game. If this is true, how does Saglio manage to get so many more points the top contenders? Who better to ask than Chien.
Chien talked to me about ‘point pressing’ in Donkey Kong. Spots in the game where a player can rack up points somewhat comfortably. He also explained that the most amount of point pressing is available on the most dangerous stages. Chien said:
“It’s all about the Barrel Board”
Barrel Boards? There are 22 stages in Donkey Kong – number 22 being the infamous ‘kill screen’ where the game simply shuts down. Within these 22 stages there are four different maps, or ‘boards’ as they are known. These boards have no official names, but they have become known as: The Barrel Board, Elevators, The Pie Factory, and Rivets. The names indicate a bit about their game play and each board plays quite differently. So much so that the donkey Kong World Record, according to Chien, seems to be coming down to who can squeeze the most points out of the barrel board – the most famous board - the board where we see Donkey Kong hurling barrels down at Jumpman (now known as Mario). Having spoken to Steve Sander and Steve Wiebe on this too, I’m sure they’d agree. I have seen a little of Mitchell’s game on the Barrel Board. I’ve watched his Jumpman jump three barrels then run down a ladder to jump them again. Because every time Kong releases a barrel the clock is counting down. There are a finite number of barrels being released. If you don’t jump the barrels, or smash them with the hammer, then you’re throwing points away. Unfortunately the barrels are random, very random. They don’t’ fall comfortably, and even with the predictability of the descending aliens in Space Invaders. Instead they behave like a pineapple being bowled down the stairs. So, for world champions like Chien, depending how the barrels behave will determine what chance he has of maximizing his best skills into a top score – luck plays a big part at World Record high scores for those few extra hundred points. The Twin Galaxies score board reflects this. Wiebe and Mitchell both have 99+% of Chien’s world record score. But Chien’s score is 93.9% of Saglio’s score. Still good, but in the Donkey Kong World Champion elite club it is arguably (easily arguably) along way away. Another way of looking at it is by comparing Chris Enright’s score to Chien’s. There is only 205,200 points between Enright (ranked at number 10) and Chien’s World Record score, remembering Saglio’s score is 68,400 points above Chien’s. But saglio’s is all on MAME, and Mitchell hasn’t been playing a full game for his Donkey Kong World Records. He get’s his scores with Jumpmen to spare, and walks away – legend. Maybe he won’t in March. Either way, every time a new World Record is set, it’s another nail in the coffin for Donkey Kong. But Galaga is different – kind of.
Galaga deosn’t have the problem of a kill screen, or point pressing. And the stages are as good as identical, with the exception of challenging stages, but you can’t lose a life on a challenging stage, so they are no threat; the strategy to Galaga is quiet simple, Laidlaw puts it best:
“Stay alive”
I suppose you could say this about all video games. But Galaga has no real tricks to beating it. There are things that are good to know, they’re pretty obvious, you’d learn them within in minutes of play. Galaga is a more like Ten Pin Bowling that way. After a couple of throws you know not what to do. Don’t put it into the gutter o the left or the gutter on the right. Stay in the middle and hit the pins. Of course from there it can be fine tuned, which is what Laidlaw has done, but unlike Ten Pin Bowling (or Pac-Man) there is no perfect score.
Galaga is counting to some zero point crunch time (and if it is we have no idea where that end score is). But the problem with Galaga is Laildaw’s new score: 4,525,150 points. To equal his score you have to average about 900,000. But this is not quite true, you really need to average about 1.1 million over four men due to the advantage of ‘doubling up’ your ship (Galaga allows players to have tow ships joined. This doubles their fire-power, but it also doubles their size as a target for the enemy aliens). Laidlaw has laid down the law: A million points per double-up or don’t bother. I’m quite sure that someone can pass Laidlaw’s score. Laidlaw believes this too. The problem for that person will be dedication. Reaching 100,000 points on Galaga isn’t so easy for a new player. It doesn’t even seem to be so easy for older players of these games who know them so well. I don’t think the game is harder than other games, for example, I don’t think it is harder than Donkey Kong. Laidlaw is a good friend of Wiebe’s. Wiebe has suggested they teach each other on their expertise. Laidlaw thinks he could teach Wiebe how to play and win at Galaga, but doesn’t think Wiebe could teach him how to play and win at Donkey Kong – and Wiebe’s a teacher. Laidlaw believes they’re simply too different from each other, that the type of animal that is attracted to Donkey Kong is nothing like the type of animal that is attracted to Galaga. I have to admit, Donkey Kong torments me to no end. And then there is all that fiddly point pressing – I just couldn’t be bothered (and I’m hopeless at it). Laidlaw thinks that someone who has the skill-set to manage point pressing on ‘the barrel board’ should be comfortable with managing a Galaga stage with comfort. I agree, but something is keeping people at bay from putting up their scores on this popular game. For example, Donald Hayes and John McAllister. In my opinion, Hayes and McAllister are the top two classic arcade video game players in the world. And between them they rank on the top ten games listed on KLOV.com as follows:
1st: Pac-Man (Hayes)
29th Donkey Kong (Hayes)
5th Star Wars (Hayes)
10th Ms. Pac-Man (Hayes)
2nd Dig Dug (Hayes)
1st Asteroids (McAllister)
3rd Defender (McAllister)
2nd Tron (Hayes)
1st Centipede (Hayes)
Neither have a score on Tempest (it is ranked at the bottom with Centipede), nor do they have a score on Galaga Tournament. I don’t understand. Hayes has the world record on Centipede and can complete a perfect game of Pac-Man. McAllister has the world record on both Asteroids tournament setting and marathon, he also has the world record o Robotron: 2080. These guys could nail Galaga to the wall – I’m sure of it. What’s weirder is the popularity of Galaga – number two on KLOV’s list, and it is still being manufactured with Ms.Pac-Man by NAMCO. Yet it only has 12 submitted scores on Galaga Tournament. Yet all but one of the top ten Donkey Kong scores (from a total of 81) on the Twin Galaxies scoreboard was submitted within the past four years. What’s Galaga dying from? I hope not.
Pac-man is dead and buried, and I believe Donkey Kong is being bled to death by its top players, which is fair enough. People are out and out to destroy that game. But I’d hate to see such a popular and simple game like Galaga slowly die without the dignity it deserves.
Regardless, congratulations to Second Time Donkey Kong World Champion Hank Chien, and congratulations to Second Time Galaga World Champion Andrew Laidlaw.
Last month saw a new Donkey Kong World Record set by Hank Chien, and a new Galaga world record set by Andrew Laidlaw. This interests me. So I interviewed them both. However, having done an article on Donkey Kong and Galaga last year I didn’t feel I needed to ask too much about why they played and how they played and so on, especially so considering both players have previous held these world record before, and I’m sure they’ve have already commented so much on those questions. So we talked about the future of their World records and the games in which they cored them on – both Donkey Kong and Galaga being as good as three decades old now. You’re probably thinking these games are doing well to still have an interested playing public. If so, you’d be right. Both titles are available on iPhone. Donkey Kong has had many incarnations into other games. And Galaga was revamped as Galaga Legions for the Xbox in 2008, and KLOV.com asked its readers to give their opinion on their favourite arcade games. Pac-man came in at number 1, followed by Galaga, then Donkey Kong. KLOV’s poll interested me, even more so having spoken to Chien and Laidlaw. Let me try and explain why.
Pac-Man, as a competitive game for international high scores, is dead. Billy Mitchell killed it in 1999 with a perfect score of 3,333,360 points. Since then another five people have equalled his score. But it can’t be beaten. Some have reached Mitchell’s score in less time than Mitchell, but i don’t think Mitchell ever tried to do it as fast as he could. And what does it really matter if someone does it quicker. They don’t’ get extra points. But those who have equalled his score are clearly as good as Mitchell at Pac-man. Nevertheless, we will ever see the score grow.
On the 19th March 2011 we may witness the death of Donkey Kong at Richie Knuclez arcadein New Jersey. Billy Mitchell, Steve Wiebe, Dean Saglio, and Hank Chien are, reportedly, all going to be there. Chien recently told me that he’d be there for sure, but he doesn’t think he’ll be trying to top his score. His score of 1,068,000 is 3,500 points higher than Wiebe’s, and 5,200 points higher than Mitchell’s. Saglio dosen’t have a score on the board for Donkey Kong ‘Hammer allowed’ (What are these other bogus tracks like no ‘hammer allowed’?), but Saglio does have a score of 1,136,400 points on Donkey Kong MAME (MAME is the acronym for ‘multiple arcade machine emulator’; software that allows home computers to run arcade games.) Saglio’s MAME score is 68,400 points above the Hank Chien’s. More interestingly both Chien and Weibe believe the MAME version of Donkey Kong is identical to the arcade game. If this is true, how does Saglio manage to get so many more points the top contenders? Who better to ask than Chien.
Chien talked to me about ‘point pressing’ in Donkey Kong. Spots in the game where a player can rack up points somewhat comfortably. He also explained that the most amount of point pressing is available on the most dangerous stages. Chien said:
“It’s all about the Barrel Board”
Barrel Boards? There are 22 stages in Donkey Kong – number 22 being the infamous ‘kill screen’ where the game simply shuts down. Within these 22 stages there are four different maps, or ‘boards’ as they are known. These boards have no official names, but they have become known as: The Barrel Board, Elevators, The Pie Factory, and Rivets. The names indicate a bit about their game play and each board plays quite differently. So much so that the donkey Kong World Record, according to Chien, seems to be coming down to who can squeeze the most points out of the barrel board – the most famous board - the board where we see Donkey Kong hurling barrels down at Jumpman (now known as Mario). Having spoken to Steve Sander and Steve Wiebe on this too, I’m sure they’d agree. I have seen a little of Mitchell’s game on the Barrel Board. I’ve watched his Jumpman jump three barrels then run down a ladder to jump them again. Because every time Kong releases a barrel the clock is counting down. There are a finite number of barrels being released. If you don’t jump the barrels, or smash them with the hammer, then you’re throwing points away. Unfortunately the barrels are random, very random. They don’t’ fall comfortably, and even with the predictability of the descending aliens in Space Invaders. Instead they behave like a pineapple being bowled down the stairs. So, for world champions like Chien, depending how the barrels behave will determine what chance he has of maximizing his best skills into a top score – luck plays a big part at World Record high scores for those few extra hundred points. The Twin Galaxies score board reflects this. Wiebe and Mitchell both have 99+% of Chien’s world record score. But Chien’s score is 93.9% of Saglio’s score. Still good, but in the Donkey Kong World Champion elite club it is arguably (easily arguably) along way away. Another way of looking at it is by comparing Chris Enright’s score to Chien’s. There is only 205,200 points between Enright (ranked at number 10) and Chien’s World Record score, remembering Saglio’s score is 68,400 points above Chien’s. But saglio’s is all on MAME, and Mitchell hasn’t been playing a full game for his Donkey Kong World Records. He get’s his scores with Jumpmen to spare, and walks away – legend. Maybe he won’t in March. Either way, every time a new World Record is set, it’s another nail in the coffin for Donkey Kong. But Galaga is different – kind of.
Galaga deosn’t have the problem of a kill screen, or point pressing. And the stages are as good as identical, with the exception of challenging stages, but you can’t lose a life on a challenging stage, so they are no threat; the strategy to Galaga is quiet simple, Laidlaw puts it best:
“Stay alive”
I suppose you could say this about all video games. But Galaga has no real tricks to beating it. There are things that are good to know, they’re pretty obvious, you’d learn them within in minutes of play. Galaga is a more like Ten Pin Bowling that way. After a couple of throws you know not what to do. Don’t put it into the gutter o the left or the gutter on the right. Stay in the middle and hit the pins. Of course from there it can be fine tuned, which is what Laidlaw has done, but unlike Ten Pin Bowling (or Pac-Man) there is no perfect score.
Galaga is counting to some zero point crunch time (and if it is we have no idea where that end score is). But the problem with Galaga is Laildaw’s new score: 4,525,150 points. To equal his score you have to average about 900,000. But this is not quite true, you really need to average about 1.1 million over four men due to the advantage of ‘doubling up’ your ship (Galaga allows players to have tow ships joined. This doubles their fire-power, but it also doubles their size as a target for the enemy aliens). Laidlaw has laid down the law: A million points per double-up or don’t bother. I’m quite sure that someone can pass Laidlaw’s score. Laidlaw believes this too. The problem for that person will be dedication. Reaching 100,000 points on Galaga isn’t so easy for a new player. It doesn’t even seem to be so easy for older players of these games who know them so well. I don’t think the game is harder than other games, for example, I don’t think it is harder than Donkey Kong. Laidlaw is a good friend of Wiebe’s. Wiebe has suggested they teach each other on their expertise. Laidlaw thinks he could teach Wiebe how to play and win at Galaga, but doesn’t think Wiebe could teach him how to play and win at Donkey Kong – and Wiebe’s a teacher. Laidlaw believes they’re simply too different from each other, that the type of animal that is attracted to Donkey Kong is nothing like the type of animal that is attracted to Galaga. I have to admit, Donkey Kong torments me to no end. And then there is all that fiddly point pressing – I just couldn’t be bothered (and I’m hopeless at it). Laidlaw thinks that someone who has the skill-set to manage point pressing on ‘the barrel board’ should be comfortable with managing a Galaga stage with comfort. I agree, but something is keeping people at bay from putting up their scores on this popular game. For example, Donald Hayes and John McAllister. In my opinion, Hayes and McAllister are the top two classic arcade video game players in the world. And between them they rank on the top ten games listed on KLOV.com as follows:
1st: Pac-Man (Hayes)
29th Donkey Kong (Hayes)
5th Star Wars (Hayes)
10th Ms. Pac-Man (Hayes)
2nd Dig Dug (Hayes)
1st Asteroids (McAllister)
3rd Defender (McAllister)
2nd Tron (Hayes)
1st Centipede (Hayes)
Neither have a score on Tempest (it is ranked at the bottom with Centipede), nor do they have a score on Galaga Tournament. I don’t understand. Hayes has the world record on Centipede and can complete a perfect game of Pac-Man. McAllister has the world record on both Asteroids tournament setting and marathon, he also has the world record o Robotron: 2080. These guys could nail Galaga to the wall – I’m sure of it. What’s weirder is the popularity of Galaga – number two on KLOV’s list, and it is still being manufactured with Ms.Pac-Man by NAMCO. Yet it only has 12 submitted scores on Galaga Tournament. Yet all but one of the top ten Donkey Kong scores (from a total of 81) on the Twin Galaxies scoreboard was submitted within the past four years. What’s Galaga dying from? I hope not.
Regardless, congratulations to Second Time Donkey Kong World Champion Hank Chien, and congratulations to Second Time Galaga World Champion Andrew Laidlaw.
HIGH SCORE INITIALIZED.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, I'd love to see some competition on Galaga as well. There is an exquisite sort of elegance to it.
NintendoLegend,
ReplyDeleteI think you're the one for the job. Double-up, and keep firing.
Phil