This is an amendment to gb9's previous post on tournament settings.

Please respond to this post by listing any games that you can currently marathon (not including T&F, which has been designated as one round only) I will use skito's definition of marathon, wherein you reach x difficulty, where x is the hardest difficulty, and are able to progress with the same quality of play potentially indefinitely...

So far we have evidence of this kind of play on the following:

Joust

BombJack

Mr. Do

Q*Bert

Flicky

Galaga

Gyruss

Results will be tabulated from this post and will form the basis for a new vote. You need not make a long post, simply list the game and why it is currently too easy.

Q.T.Quazar, MARP Rules Coordinator

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), July 12, 2000

Answers

Games Which I Can Marathon:

Joust Mr. Do Bomb Jack Gauntlet (Intermediate Release 1) Gauntlet (Intermediate Release 2)

Games Which I Could Marathon In The Arcades Because Of Arcade Controls:

Defender Robotron

I haven't seen any evidence of Flicky being marathonable, this is a 'limited lives game'.

-- LordGaz (garyjlee@hotmail.com), July 12, 2000.

hmmm.....some more games......

Burger Time (someone had to mention it :( )

Bubble Bobble (unless I'm mistaken, this can be marathoned)

Time Pilot (once again, I could be mistaken; if so, my bad ;) )

Arkanoid (I'm REALLY not certain if it can, with the pink pills and all, so if an expert could explain, I would appreciate it)

That's all I can think of for now. I'll post again if I notice any others.

Sincerely,

J.D. Lowe

-- J.D. Lowe (jedidrunkenllama@hotmail.com), July 12, 2000.

Arkanoid terminates, as far as I know. That 's why I asked players to list only games that THEY could marathon, JD.

Bubble Bobble can sort of be marathoned, but it has a max score, so the point is moot. Burger Time has a max level, so it can't really be marathoned either, unless there's something I don't know about.

As far as Flicky goes, I consider it a marathon as the current high is what, like round 500+ or something?

I only wanted the players who can abuse these games to come forward witht he inforamtion, so we can be sure of our decision

Thank-you, Q.T.Quazar

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), July 12, 2000.

I suppose Bank Panic , Mat-Mania ( Exciting hour ), and Tapper.

AL

-- AL (alexweir@indigo.ie), July 12, 2000.

I don't see Flicky and Tapper as marathonable games, as they do progressively get harder. Just because someone can really kick butt on them doesn't mean it's marathoned...

-- Chris Parsley (cparsley1@hotmail.com), July 13, 2000.

truxton,gaplus.gradius,gradius2,vulcan venture,lifeforce---are also marathoned game.

-- Hisa-Chan (weavuspert@yahoo.co.jp), July 13, 2000.

No additions from me unfortunately but some comments on above mentioned games may assist.

Truxton has not even been finished with default settings on MARP so shouldn't be classified as marathonable yet since it isn't currently a victim of abuse.

Gradius & Lifeforce have a bonus life dip switch setting that can be set to only 1 life severely limiting ability to marathon.

I'm assuming everyone noted that QT only wants a list of games marathonable at the HARDEST difficulty conditions, not just on default.

Now I suppose Hisa-Chan will now prove me wrong by producing inp's of all the above games being clocked ad infinitum :-)

-- Tim Morrow (tjmorrow@bigpond.com), July 13, 2000.

I know Burgertime eventually reaches an insane difficulty (starting at level 28 I think) and has never to my knowledge been marathoned.

-- Zylquin (zylquin@hotmail.com), July 13, 2000.

Actually Tim, I DO want a list of games marathonable at default settings. The idea isn't to completely eliminate marathoning, it's to reduce the length of the marathons or at least make them more difficult.

However, I do only want game sthat are currently being marathoned, and I do appreciate the debate going on for the ones already on the list.

Hisa-Chan, if you're going to claim all of those games, you're going to have to start submitting scores for them to show that they are indeed marathonable. I don't imagine this will take you very long to prove, and you might as well play on TG or harder settings anyways, since they don't seem to be giving you much trouble.

I have seen no eveidence yet that BurgerTime is marathonable, and I wouldn't mind a bit of clarification on why people think Tapper is. Is this using same-level leeching? I would appreciate BeeJay's feedback on whether he thinks Gyruss is a mrathonable game, and should move to TG settings only, as he's probably the most experienced player on it at MARP. I don't think Time Pilot is marathonable either, but maybe someone could clarify?

BBH suggested adding Nova 2001 to the list, and I agree.

That's all for now, Q.T.Quazar

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), July 13, 2000.

Sorry for taking so long to get back at this; I've been distracted by crbaloon. I've just been looking for games in general; trying to push the real experts to explain in this thread.

When I did the above post, I wasn't thinking "Go forever", in a sense, but more along the lines of "Easy Lives", like Arkanoid with pink pills, Bubble Bobble for EXTEND, and Burger Time because it's pure evil. All I know is that in D2K, people were complaining about no 5 men rule for Burger Time, so I thought I might as well throw it into the fray.

As for Time Pilot and Tapper, I am not an expert, but I remember Alex Weir and BeeJay mentioning in the D2K msg board about a level that never ends; I could be mistaken, so I apologize :) Perhaps if we can drag Alex away from Hyper Sports, we can have this verified. And for Time Pilot, I can barely remember Ben Jos talking with BeeJay about that game in mIRC, and how after a certain point the difficulty pretty much stays the same; we will probably have to wait until this can be marathoned, though. Once again, if one of them could verify this, it would be appreciated, and it wouldn't make me look like a complete idiot.

Sincerely,

J.D. Lowe

-- J.D. Lowe (jedidrunkenllama@hotmail.com), July 13, 2000.

1) Robotron 2) Defender 3) Stargate 4) Joust 5) Q*bert 6) Galaga (this one I have been working on for some time now. I disscussed this with Walter about using some kind of tournament settings with this game to make it a little more challenging and interesting. I've come up with a "TG Tournament Setting" that I'm waiting response from Walter to see if it will be added like the ones already in there (robotorn, joust, defender, ect). This game is bordorline when talking about marathon. You can't play it for 24 hours like robotron, but I've managed to play galagatf for 10 hrs and just think if there were a cut off point to avoid a marathon, it would make the game rather interesting.

Steve Krogman

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), July 13, 2000.

Hmm ok i have some coments on some of the games we are talking about..

Arkanoid: This game is no marathon game for sure, cause the game ends at level 34! (I finished the game in our local arcade 1 hour ago so i know LOL) And the game doesn4t loop...

Burgertime:I4m no expert on this game, but i know that it will become EVIL as JD says it on later levels.. AND there is also a killscreen on that game I have been told.. (please verify this all of you Burgertime experts.. cause i have not been there..)

Joust:This is a marathon game for sure! (Not for me hehe) But i think there are only a few people that can marathon joust forever..But it is still a marathon game...

Bombjack: This game has no end, no timelimit, and the game will not be harder after hmm say stage 30 something.. If you are good at this game you can play almost fvrever... and Lord Gaz has proven to us that the hardest settings is not enough! I know with a little practice, that i can do it myself on the hardest settings..

Gyruss: This is another marathon game.. I can play almost forever on this game even on TG settings (I have not tried harder settings than that..) You only need some practice to learn the patterns of this game, and then you are off to play for a long time I can tell..The only reason that i have not uploaded any scores for this game, is that it takes forever to beat Beejays 5mil.. (About 5 hours) and i have tried two times with about 800k, and i feel that I have no time to play it again, just to get another maybe.. 1.5 mil..and then again 2.5mil and so on...

Mr DO: I know that people can play a long time on this one, but i didn4t know it was a marathongame.. no coments from me!

Qbert:This game is easy to marathon when you have played it a lot i think.. I have played for hours on this game (With default settings) on the arcade..

Gauntlet:This one is extreamly easy to play forever on! (at least it was back in 1985 on default settings) No comments, i can do a marathon game on this..

Bubble Bobble: There is a max score......

Flicky: Never played it..

Galaga: No marathon game for me, but there are at least two guys on MARP that can play it for at least 10 hours..

Nova2001:BBH has proven that this is a marathongame..

No more coments from me..

Just my opinions..

Regards

QRS

-- QRS (qrs@telia.com), July 13, 2000.

Here is the current list of games under consideration for TG-only or harder difficulty settings. Joust BombJack Mr. Do Q*Bert Flicky Galaga Defender Stargate Robotron Gauntlet Nova 2001 Bank Panic Exciting Hour

Tentative Flicky Burger Time Time Pilot Tapper Gyruss truxton gaplus gradius gradius2 vulcan venture lifeforce Just FYI. Keep posting please.
Q.T.Quazar

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), July 13, 2000.

Flicky should be on the second list, not both, and I sincerely apologize for my total lack of formatting skills. (Please don't send me any e-mails about formatting posts properly; I do know how, I just screwed up)

Thanx, Q.T.Quazar

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), July 13, 2000.

robotron should be a 5 lives only game BUT i am stressing it should be left off this list since there are no inps that get beyond wave 99 with defaults, let alone getting passed 255. I have never seen this in the arcades though i'm sure it could be done since i did it in the apple// version, but i'd like to see it accomplished and recorded with mame before we assume it can be.

-- Chad (churritz@cts.com), July 14, 2000.

I know it's an obscure game, but Brain can be marathoned. My recording goes through the game several times (it only has three levels) and it never gets harder. Doing any better in that game would just be an exercise in boredom.

Cheers, Brian McLean

-- Brian McLean (bmclean84@hotmail.com), July 14, 2000.

Yes, Nova 2001 is very marathonable. I think the score maxes out at 9,999,990, but I lack the patience to do it...

Yie-Ar Kung Fu can be marathoned if you have the patterns down too, but I've had difficulty getting past 2nd Tonfun. Since nobody's been able to keep going on it for too long I think it should be left alone for now.

As for Mat Mania / Exciting Hour... I'm all for reducing the length of games, but how? I'm not 100% sure but I think even on Hardest difficulty, once you have "the pattern" down you can just keep going until you eventually screw up. Remember, you have only one "life" on the game, once you're pinned that's it.

-- BBH (lordbbh@aol.com), July 14, 2000.

Myabe we should add Chiller to the list also?? I mean Joustgoods recording is a long one I can tell...

Cheers

QRS

-- QRS (qrs@telia.com), July 14, 2000.

Scramble is another 'play until you screw up' game. There is nothing new to it after round 4.

-- LordGaz (garyjlee@hotmail.com), July 14, 2000.

Tis but a shame you asked this about MAME. I'm including games that would be if using decent arcade controls even though I can't currently with the keyboard so they can be included for future proofing this concept:

Gyruss: You asked if this is maranathonable and should be moved to TG only settings? We used TG settings for T1 and my 5.2 million score was a "give up with 23 lives stacked up" so even on TG settings it's still a marathon game. I'll try a game later today on the absolute hardest settings and see if I can still handle it or whether it's just totally stupid and pointless playing at that level.

Galaga: What's your definition of marathonable. This game stops issuing extra lives after 1 million so although you can play long games on it you cannot play indefinitely (mind you sleep prevents this on other games as well).

Time Pilot: Definitely marathonable on default settings. Probably will be eventually on TG settings as well given time and a decent controller.

Tapper: We saw 2.3 million at the D2K before it got removed and both Alex and I agree with very little more practice this game is maranothable on the TG settings that were used at D2K. Our current scores of just under 1 million were 2= hour games already and in my case was only over because of a Windows GPF.

Juno First: Although I haven't done it yet, this is definitely a maranothable game on default settings (18 million was my PB back in the arcades with around 40+ lives in reserve).

Bomb Jack: Yup, marathonable on all settings - with enough practice.

Bank Panic: As Alex already said this one is maranothable.

Commando: Again not with keyboard but with arcade controls definitely.

Exed Exes: With 2 skilled players absolutely.... but then that doesn't count for MARP currently.

Xevious: Yes, although max score is 10 million so maybe a moot point.

MotoRace/ZippyRace: Yup.

Nova2001: Yup

Road Fighter: Yup

Robotron: With decent controls... yup.

Joust: Back in the good old days.... yup.

Time Pilot '84: Yup - with decent controls.

That will do from me..... some of these may have already been mentioned but I haven't read all the rest of the responses.

BeeJay.

-- BeeJay (mamester@i4free.co.nz), July 14, 2000.

>truxton,gaplus.gradius,gradius2,vulcan venture,lifeforce---are also marathoned game
anysome, now other Team2ch's guys prove the endress of all them.
thanks all members.


-- Novice@Team2ch (weavuspert@yahoo.co.jp), March 11, 2002.