Karnovj is one of 4 arcade games I own. On my actual arcade machine I've played and completed it several times on the easy setting. I once bumped the setting up to normal and found that the normal method I use to kill the last boss doesn't work. Basically you could shoot him with the boomerang and he would die. On the normal setting the boomerang wasn't enough (maybe he needs more shots).

I was excited when I found that MAME emulates karnovj, so I tried it out. No matter what game difficulty setting I try in the dip switch settings, I can't finish it. The level 9 wizard just doesn't seem to die. I turned on cheats and found that he will die if you have triple fire and you pump a hell of a lot of shots into him. My conclusions/questions are:

1. Does anyone know how to complete karnovj in MAME? If so how? 2. I believe that the dip switch difficulty setting doesn't work properly because I can easily finish it on easy setting on my arcade machine but not in MAME. Can anyone confirm this?

I've boned up over the last week and can now produce great recordings of karnovj (maxing the score to 999,999 blowing away the current high scores) but I don't want to upload until I can actually produce a recording that polishes off the final wizard.

Any help appreciated.

-- Tim Morrow (tjmorrow@bigpond.com), September 18, 1999

Answers

Tim,

a Couple of Things

1) I've completed Karnov on Mame. It is possible 2) I don't know how you could kill him with a boomarang since you loose all your special firing when you enter the last room (to kill the wizard) 3) I'm wondering how is it possible to get 999,999. I remember clearing the game with a score around 680,000. I also got to the last level and failed to kill the boss but got a score around 750,000

Cheers Flop

-- Flop (jondun@microsoft.com), September 21, 1999.

Flop, Thanks for replying. Unfortunately you didn't exactly indicate how you killed the last boss so it is not much help to me - can you please explain, I'm very interested. Secondly, did you complete karnov or karnovj - I was asking about karnovj? I've finished karnov with score 999999 uploaded the recording today with comments - just wait for a day (how long does it take?) and you can try it out - it will show you how I did it. Karnovj is harder to get 999999 because you have less enemies in the game but I have done it (but not finished the last boss). Thirdly, I'm claiming that the dip switch settings aren't being emulated correctly since it doesn't play like either the arcade version I played in the late 80's nor like on my arcade machine at home where the last boss takes just a boomerang. Fourthly, if you download my recording it comes with a description of how to use the boomerang on the final boss. Check it out and let me know what you think. I'm more than happy to discuss strategy etc if you are interested. Basically I know of 2 ways to get 999999: 1. As in my recording, get to stage 9 without losing too many lives and then do some points leaching. 2. An easier method is to repeat the water level adnauseum, killing the two TRex's just as the time runs out. You get heaps of K's every time you repeat. Do this until you reach your last life and then continue on with the game.

Finally, how come your fantastic scores aren't recorded - I'd love to see them!!! If they are recorded and I've been looking in the wrong place, let me know.

Cheers, -- Tim

-- Tim Morrow (tjmorrow@bigpond.com), September 22, 1999.