Been playing a lot of Swimmer lately....

rcb5588

Active member
Joined
Apr 1, 2014
Messages
461
Reaction score
123
Location
New Hampshire
Ever since I got my machine up and running it's been my go-to game in my arcade. I can consistently get to 100k, so I finally feel like I'm starting to get better at it. There isn't too much about this game on KLOV, but what's everyone else's highest scores on theirs? I know the world record of like 92k stood from the early 80's until Steve W took it down with 150k a few years ago. So far my best is 128k, where I made it to level 5.2 (no extra life at the end). And dipswitches are set to what twin galaxies say they should be set to.

 

Attachments

  • IMG_5601a.jpg
    IMG_5601a.jpg
    188.8 KB · Views: 16
Nice to see you have it running. I presume this is the one you purchased from me ?

Nice to see it brought back.... it was improperly stored and completely neglected for 10+ years before I purchased it as part of a large lot. Glad to see it geting some love.
 
Very underrated game. Those are some great scores, I'm lucky to clear 50,000.

Interesting that the enemies in the first three screens of Swimmer were, cough, "borrowed" for the first three enemies in Mario Bros., a game which also blatantly borrowed from Joust. :)
 
Last edited:
Prove this conspiracy theory.

No theory, it's well known. 2-player simulataneous play. Defeat an enemy, get bonus (egg/coin). Also, Miyamoto admitted to seeing Joust and basing a lot of MB play on it, MB was originally a single player game. :)

As for the Swimmer enemies, they're turtles, crabs, flies, in that order. Mario Bros. copied the same enemies, same order, but Swimmer isn't as well-known as Joust so it's often under the radar.
 
Prove this conspiracy theory.

Sure, but I'll preface this by saying that I think the original assertion that the enemies in the first three levels of Swimmer were borrowed from Mario Bros. is flawed - it was the other way around.

In level 1 of Swimmer, the first enemy is a turtle. Level 1 of Mario Bros. has the Shellcreeper, which is also a turtle.

Swimmer's second level has crabs for opponents; Mario Bros.' second level has the Sidestepper, which is also a crab.

I have no clue what the third enemy is in Swimmer, though it definitely resembles a fly much like the Fighterfly in level 3 of Mario Bros.

Where I say that Swimmer borrowing from Mario Bros. was flawed boils down to release dates: Swimmer came out in 1982, Mario Bros. in 1983. If anything, Mario Bros. might have borrowed its initial enemies from Swimmer.

Now, I can see where Mario Bros. took some inspiration from Joust, which came out in 1982, a year ahead of Mario Bros. However, Joust 2 (1986) was basically a rework of Vs. Balloon Fight (1984), so it all came full-circle in the end. Well, except for Swimmer, which has some of the most annoying in-game music I've ever been subjected to.

Circle of life, man. Circle of life :D
 
Last edited:
Sure, but I'll preface this by saying that I think the original assertion that the enemies in the first three levels of Swimmer were borrowed from Mario Bros. is flawed - it was the other way around.

In level 1 of Swimmer, the first enemy is a turtle. Level 1 of Mario Bros. has the Shellcreeper, which is also a turtle.

Swimmer's second level has crabs for opponents; Mario Bros.' second level has the Sidestepper, which is also a crab.

I have no clue what the third enemy is in Swimmer, though it definitely resembles a fly much like the Fighterfly in level 3 of Mario Bros.

Where I say that Swimmer borrowing from Mario Bros. was flawed boils down to release dates: Swimmer came out in 1982, Mario Bros. in 1983. If anything, Mario Bros. might have borrowed its initial enemies from Swimmer.

Now, I can see where Mario Bros. took some inspiration from Joust, which came out in 1982, a year ahead of Mario Bros. However, Joust 2 (1986) was basically a rework of Vs. Balloon Fight (1984), so it all came full-circle in the end. Well, except for Swimmer, which has some of the most annoying in-game music I've ever been subjected to.

Circle of life, man. Circle of life :D

If you go back and read 80scoins comment he says the enemies were borrowed for Mario bros not from...

Interesting that the enemies in the first three screens were, cough, "borrowed" for the first three enemies in Mario Bros., a game which also blatantly borrowed from Joust.
 
Last edited:
So far my best is 128k, where I made it to level 5.2 (no extra life at the end).

Nice! Keep going. It's been years since I've played, but it might be 6.1 or so when I felt like it got just brutal.
 
Nice! Keep going. It's been years since I've played, but it might be 6.1 or so when I felt like it got just brutal.

Hey thanks Steve! I was able to get my score up to 142k and to level 5.4 (no bonus life at the end). I'm trying to figure out if the best approach is attempting to gain as many points as possible in levels 1-4, but ultimately loosing a few lives in doing so. Or just trying to safely make it through each level, passing up on the good stuff, but then inevitably having the game quickly end at the 5/6 level marks because of the ramped up difficulty. I've been trying both methods, but it's always tough to avoid the temptations of the high point fruits!

Funny, I've never heard about the Swimmer/Mario Bros thing, that's really interesting though. I like hearing about odd things like that.

 

Attachments

  • IMG_5623.jpg
    IMG_5623.jpg
    199.4 KB · Views: 4
Sweet. I don't think I have the video anymore but I'm guessing I died on 6-1 and was surprised by the speed increase of the board. Keep posting the progress, it'd be neat to see someone break 200k.
 
Sure, but I'll preface this by saying that I think the original assertion that the enemies in the first three levels of Swimmer were borrowed from Mario Bros. is flawed - it was the other way around.
I'm an idiot - that's what I meant. MB took the enemies from Swimmer. :p I wrote it correctly in the second post though.

80scoinops said:
As for the Swimmer enemies, they're turtles, crabs, flies, in that order. Mario Bros. copied the same enemies, same order, but Swimmer isn't as well-known as Joust so it's often under the radar.
 
Last edited:
I've taken a few months off from this as I have been super busy with work and also had some glitches on my board, so I had to send that in for some repairs.

Just got everything hooked back up the other day and was able to play a few games. Got my highest score ever at 149k (no extra life at the end) - 1,400 points shy of the world record. My game ended on level 5.3.

I had the pleasure of meeting Steve Wagner at Fun Spot this summer and was able to talk about Swimmer for a little bit.

I would some day like to get 200k, as Steve mentioned, it definitely seems doable.

I'll probably start filming my attempts in case I'm able to get over 150k so I can share with anyone who is interested.

Below is a picture of my score. Unfortunately I had lost the color red on my 4900 (hopefully it's just a bad transistor), so I'll be taking a look at that this weekend.

 
Back
Top Bottom