Donkey Kong Bottom Hammer Strategy

paulliadis

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Hey all you Donkey Kong players out there, what are your strategies in regards to the bottom hammer on the barrel level?

I'm still in the early levels, so I figure strategy might change while the game progresses.

Do you all bother with the first hammer at all?

Do you wait for extra barrels to appear on screen before grabbing the hammer?

Do you go up a bit then backtrack down to the lower hammer once some barrels have appeared?

I've found that on level one, it doesn't gain me much by grabbing the hammer right away, as there aren't enough barrels present on screen to smash. I have had some luck with traveling a few ladders up, then back tracking back down to the lower hammer once the first blue barrel appears. I've achieved a decent 7,500 points this way.

Anyhow, just interested how some of you do it.

Paul
 
You want to wait til there are as many barrels as possible, but ulitmately, the fireball dictates when I grab it. When the fireball comes up the ladder, grab the hammer.
 
You want to wait til there are as many barrels as possible, but ulitmately, the fireball dictates when I grab it. When the fireball comes up the ladder, grab the hammer.

So, you stay on the lower level and wait? Makes sense. Also, I would imagine "the fireball comes up the ladder, grab the hammer" is more a matter of safety than anything else!
 
Until your game is over 100,000 points I wouldn't even think about messing with it. Once you've got the 3rd elevator beat and can consistently clear some levels without dying, then it might be worth messing with.

What I do is try to wait for the fireball to come up before I grab it so that I can try to get the 500 or 800 points there. Or, if the first blue barrel comes down before the fireball comes up, I'll typically grab it then.

Here's some gameplay (ignore the sound it was for a friendly scratch DJ competition).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZJ_A6cnvZw&feature=feedu

I missed a ton of points on that particular go round but you get the picture.
 
In my opinion, the only real reason to get it is if your pressing for points. My high score, which isn't that great is around 25x,xxx. I've never bothered with the bottom hammer. I'd wait until your more proficient to bother with it. Then prepare for an adjustment as it changes the nature of the levels quite a bit.
 
Thanks for all the good advice guys. I'm only around 50k right now after a week of having perfected the pattern on the rivet screen.

I can clear most of the screens pretty well, but Pie Factory is kicking my butt.

I was getting distracted last night with the lower hammer, though, and will take everybody's advice and not worry about it for now.
 
Until your game is over 100,000 points I wouldn't even think about messing with it. Once you've got the 3rd elevator beat and can consistently clear some levels without dying, then it might be worth messing with.

What I do is try to wait for the fireball to come up before I grab it so that I can try to get the 500 or 800 points there. Or, if the first blue barrel comes down before the fireball comes up, I'll typically grab it then.

Here's some gameplay (ignore the sound it was for a friendly scratch DJ competition).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZJ_A6cnvZw&feature=feedu

I missed a ton of points on that particular go round but you get the picture.

Thanks for posting the video jamburglar. What you did there is pretty close to what I had been doing.
 
Here's a couple good videos for level 1-1, maximizing points. Unfortunately, a couple of the videos, they ran out of time at the top just before clearing it:




Note, they were all done on MAME, but the same strategy works on the arcade. I wouldn't recommend try it much though, until you are better at the game. I think the highest I've done is 9500 on 1-1...Heck, sometimes I don't even have what they got by the end of the rivet board!
 
I'm at 185K right now and I never grab it, all I try to do is crush levels.
I'm not good enough yet to try and point press with the exception of the early rivet levels doing the jump next to DK at the top.
Mainly I just want to move through as many levels as I can.:)
 
No wonder I haven't made it past the first level this week. I wait on the first hammer girder and jump multiple barrels for a while, then grab the hammer. Problem is, I never get up to the next level because of hanging around so long. Something always gets me on or before I mount the ladder. Love this game.
 
There was a thread before about seeing how many points you could get on the first frame. I think I've gotten around 8K, but there are guys who can get over 10K.

I guess you can approach the game in a few ways:

1. Point press (including waiting for barrels and grabbing that 1st hammer).
2. Get through each frame ASAP.
3. Combination (point press on certain frames, rush through others).

For me personally, I go with option 2 so I don't bother with the first hammer. I made it to the kill screen through MAME (save states, no point pressing) to see how many points I'd get and, if I remember correctly, it was around 700K-800K. This would mean the record holders are point pressing 200K-300K points (insane).

I'd rather try to get to the kill screen and get 800K points than try to point press and get 800K points that way. I don't know. I guess it doesn't matter. I'm just trying to break 300K at this point. :)
 
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That first video looked questionable near the end Mario climbs up the ladder and that fire guy looks like he killed him. Then the screen glitches out and he keeps going.
 
There was a thread before about seeing how many points you could get on the first frame. I think I've gotten around 8K, but there are guys who can get over 10K.

I guess you can approach the game in a few ways:

1. Point press (including waiting for barrels and grabbing that 1st hammer).
2. Get through each frame ASAP.
3. Combination (point press on certain frames, rush through others).

For me personally, I go with option 2 so I don't bother with the first hammer. I made it to the kill screen through MAME (save states, no point pressing) to see how many points I'd get and, if I remember correctly, it was around 700K-800K. This would mean the record holders are point pressing 200K-300K points (insane).

I'd rather try to get to the kill screen and get 800K points than try to point press and get 800K points that way. I don't know. I guess it doesn't matter. I'm just trying to break 300K at this point. :)

I'd say I've been doing option #3. I just started trying to point press the barrel levels yesterday. Not great results. I think I'll stop doing that.

I'd like to hit 100K points by the end of the month. We'll see how much I get to play.
 
I'd say I've been doing option #3. I just started trying to point press the barrel levels yesterday. Not great results. I think I'll stop doing that.

I'd like to hit 100K points by the end of the month. We'll see how much I get to play.

Yeah, just keep practicing. It took me a couple of months before I hit 100K. Once you can get through the 3rd elevators (which you need to do to get to 100K unless you point press a lot) and master those springs, it's just a matter of avoiding fireballs and random barrels to keep increasing your score. The death of me has really been the fireballs in the pie factory and random barrels. I think part of the reason is that I'm trying to rush through each frame which can be reckless.

Here's a video Richie made to show how to get past the 3rd elevators:

 
I'm only at 160K so I don't even think about point pressing yet. That video helped me with the 3rd elevator. This is definitiely my most played game.
 
No wonder I haven't made it past the first level this week. I wait on the first hammer girder and jump multiple barrels for a while, then grab the hammer. Problem is, I never get up to the next level because of hanging around so long. Something always gets me on or before I mount the ladder. Love this game.

If you run as fast as possible up to the second hammer grab that, and use it smash your way to upper right hand corner of the level, your chances of success go WAY up. This is because the main difficulty is dealing with all the barrel contingencies. Grabbing the bottom hammer probably doubles the difficulty of the barrel board.

My high score is just under 400k and when I try to point press I usually mess up the flow of my game. I mean, it's great to finish level 1 and have close to 20k points, but that doesn't really help when you die on level 3 because you're so focused on point pressing that you make risky mistakes and get killed. The games I get good scores on are the ones where I just stay focused on staying alive and clearing the boards.

Also, once you can consistently get around 200,000 points per game, you're skill level has risen to the point where grabbing that bottom hammer isn't quite as dangerous as it once was. You know how to control barrels, where to stand, when to jump certain barrel configurations, when to retreat, etc.
 
If you run as fast as possible up to the second hammer grab that, and use it smash your way to upper right hand corner of the level, your chances of success go WAY up. This is because the main difficulty is dealing with all the barrel contingencies. Grabbing the bottom hammer probably doubles the difficulty of the barrel board.


Best advice for most novices, better to get farther in the game and get experienced than point press early levels only to die on early levels...IMO of course.
 
Thanks for posting the video jamburglar. What you did there is pretty close to what I had been doing.

Yeah, that sort of gameplay is not typically what I do. I was just trying to time my game to fit with the audio so I did some point pressing. Sometimes I'll pointpress on the first and second level because, if you die, who cares, but other time I just ignore the score and try to get as far as possible. Ironically, I usually get a higher score when I ignore the points.
 
These are things that I thought about (ignoring the score, just get as far as possible, most likely get a better score that way), but it's nice to have to reinforced by more experienced players. Helps me gain my focus, I think. I was trying some really crazy stuff yesterday on board 1, over a thousand points here or there.
 
This is the only level board I have been to in 3 years:

P2190462.jpg


Last time I got past the rivets board, I was in Vegas, playing DK on a dedicated machine in the Luxor game room.
 
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