Donkey Kong just KEEPS kicking my a$$!!!

[Paul Olson]

One of the guys I was watching play Crazy Kong at Richie's did the same thing...I figured it was just a quirk of his Anyway, you won't get more than 300 for regular barrels. It's not programmed to. The blue barrels are the only ones that'll give you 300, 500 or 800, like a fireball or pie.

I just assumed he did that as a habit just in case the hammer goes away at the last second.

 

[CrazyKongFan]

I just assumed he did that as a habit just in case the hammer goes away at the last second.

Could be...he did it every single time though, including on the kill screen

 

[LeeB99]

I usually point-press on the first level because if you die you can just start over. I tend to get between 16-18k for the first level. After that I play it safe on the point pressing.

Don't you mean 16 to 18K on the first TWO boards? I don't think that it is possible to get much more than 9K on the first screen alone. Funny to hear about the guy on the Crazy Kong machine. Since it has NO BEARING on the actual points awarded for the "normal" barrels, my guess is that it is just out of habit. Anyone who is good enough to reach the kill screen should be able to know when their hammer is about to go away...

Lee

Edit: you said first LEVEL and not first "board", so i guess that is what you meant. I have been able to get in the 16K range without the benefit of knowing the "joystick" jump trick, but that is on a good game. I agree about being more aggressive on the first level, as you can just let your existing men die...

Also, another interesting thing. Since i didn't know about how to use the joystick press during jumps, I came up with my own strategy at the beginning of the first level. I hide behind the oil barrel, with just my nose showing from behind, jump to the right over the barrel when it gets to the bottom of the screen and the score a couple more points jumping away from the fireball when it jumps out of the flaming barrel. Funny how you come up with your own little strategies when you don't know how other people do theirs...

 

[CrazyKongFan]

Don't you mean 16 to 18K on the first TWO boards? I don't think that it is possible to get much more than 9K on the first screen alone.

FYI: TG tracks level 1-1 for DK and the top score is over 13K (at least in MAME). Combination of a crazy amount of point pressing, and some luck on the blue barrel/fireball smashes.

 

[Racetech]

Thanks for all the tips. I had been going right up against DK, just one pixel away. Doing that, you don't have to push the joystick in order to get the bonus. But, as noted, you will sometimes bump the joystick too far and die from "touching" him. I suppose that pushing the joystick either left or right mid-jump is a habit that you have to learn so that it becomes "automatic".

Also, thanks a BUNCH for the tip regarding pushing the jump button to trick the fireballs. I had noticed that Chien was doing this on the barrel boards, but couldn't figure out why. He would push the button repeatedly as the hammer was striking a barrel. When i tried this, the point value for ALL of the busted barrels never went over 300. I suppose he was doing this out of habit from the rivets boards?

Hitting the jump button on the barrel levels often makes a barrel take the next ladder down. I suspect Chien does this when point pressing to lure barrels to the hammer or just to keep them in managable groups. I'm not sure it'll save his life if the hammer goes away, but that's an interesting suggestion--although it wouldn't explain why he does it with lots of hammer time left (hammer time... can't touch dis? nevermind).

Wiebe jumps a LOT on the barrel levels when he's nowhere near a barrel--again I'm sure to lure them down the ladders. These guys aren't just guessing; they're taking in the big picture and getting those barrels to go where they want and separating barrels that are too far apart to jump and too close to deal with other than using the backwards jump. They are so calm when wild barrels come down; they usually go after them for points with the hammer. I do that only rarely--those nasty little changes in direction sometimes let them sneak under the hammer.

Today, my DK inflicted its cruelty on me. I had 200,000 and hadn't lost a life. I finished with only 220,000. Ack. Wild barrels just rained down on me, one after another--three in a row in rapid fire, then a barrel later, two more. Then it did something similar on the next try. *sigh* Two deaths just to clear one measley barrel board. Then I got trapped by fireballs on the rivets. Ok, that was brain fade, maybe from the bombing I took on the barrels. So my best of 276,000 remains my best. But I keep learning lessons and I've only been playing for a month. I know you can't develop conditioned responses as fast as you'd like. It just takes time.

I do know that I won't be any threat to Wiebe or Chien anytime soon. Probably never will but I do have a lot of fun playing DK! That's the important thing, right?