Donkey Kong Pace

paulliadis

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Hank Chien started an interesting discussion over at the cadc forums regarding Donkey Kong pace. Here is a link http://www.classicarcadegaming.com/forums/index.php/topic,3883.0.html. I figured some of you Donkey Kong guys over here might be interested in reading about that. Or even, discuss it here.

I don't have an account over there because I think you have to be a direct descendant of the king or something to post there, so we could discuss it here.

I had a pretty good game going tonight, a "950K pace" through 4 levels. Of course it ended in an epic fail.
 
Thanks for posting that, Paul. In looking at the pace chart for a 115,000 Level 4 start (posted by up2ng), I think I might be onto something. The chart looks like this:

1.05M-1.1M Pace

  • 9000
    17500


    26500
    33500
    41500

    51000
    58500
    65500
    74000

    84000
    92500
    102500
    108500
    115000

I put the first two screens in bold. I've had a score above 9000 points on the first screen only a few times, but I routinely have more than 17,500 after the 2nd. I've had 17,000-18,500 points when I had only 6800-7400 on the first level. It makes me think that it might not be too hard for a 1M player to have 20,000-21,000 after the 2nd screen.

I hate standing around--it seems like there should be something useful to do instead. What I found is that you don't have to stand around on that rivet level (2nd screen) much at all. After clearing the left side rivets (other than the one to the right of the hammer) I get into Kong's cage on the left (opposite) side and do the "Jumping On Kong's Foot" deal as I'm waiting for the fireballs to get their act together. Then I head down for that left hammer.

What I mean by the fireballs "getting their act together" is that they're all out and any that are on the bottom level have come up and will then get to that 3rd girder where you can hammer them. There may be more collected at the top of the screen, but you'll get those when you get the top hammer. It takes some practice and a lot of dying until you start to get the right fireball timing & locations down.

Another benefit of left cage jumping is that, when I'm completing the rivet level and jumping on Kong's foot in the right side of his cage, there are usually only about 900-1200 bonus points left instead of 3000-4000. Then, even if there's a fireball coming up, I can usually still run the bonus points down to zero. I can get another 300-400 points with the bonus timer reading zero. There may be more points there too but I get pretty nervous pushing that too far.




donkeykong_killscreen.jpg


63b0efb77533391fb8faecbc80d5b203.jpg
 
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I'll have to give the left side kong foot thing a try.

Thanks for posting that, Paul. In looking at the pace chart for a 115,000 Level 4 start (posted by up2ng), I think I might be onto something. The chart looks like this:

1.05M-1.1M Pace

  • 9000
    17500


    26500
    33500
    41500

    51000
    58500
    65500
    74000

    84000
    92500
    102500
    108500
    115000

I put the first two screens in bold. I've had a score above 9000 points on the first screen only a few times, but I routinely have more than 17,500 after the 2nd. I've had 17,000-18,500 points when I had only 6800-7400 on the first level. It makes me think that it might not be too hard for a 1M player to have 20,000-21,000 after the 2nd screen.

I hate standing around--it seems like there should be something useful to do instead. What I found is that you don't have to stand around on that rivet level (2nd screen) much at all. After clearing the left side rivets (other than the one to the right of the hammer) I get into Kong's cage on the left (opposite) side and do the "Jumping On Kong's Foot" deal as I'm waiting for the fireballs to get their act together. Then I head down for that left hammer.

What I mean by the fireballs "getting their act together" is that they're all out and any that are on the bottom level have come up and will then get to that 3rd girder where you can hammer them. There may be more collected at the top of the screen, but you'll get those when you get the top hammer. It takes some practice and a lot of dying until you start to get the right fireball timing & locations down.

Another benefit of left cage jumping is that, when I'm completing the rivet level and jumping on Kong's foot in the right side of his cage, there are usually only about 900-1200 bonus points left instead of 3000-4000. Then, even if there's a fireball coming up, I can usually still run the bonus points down to zero. I can get another 300-400 points with the bonus timer reading zero. There may be more points there too but I get pretty nervous pushing that too far.




donkeykong_killscreen.jpg


63b0efb77533391fb8faecbc80d5b203.jpg
 
People will probably talk about him blabbing about the kill screen coming up for centuries. When we're all living in Star Trek ships they'll still be playing old video of that.
 
Yeah, I'm not good enough at DK to be worrying about paces. I just try to get as far as I can, as fast as I can. My high score is 222,100. I'll start worrying about paces if I someday reach the kill screen.

I did it through MAME and save states just to see how many points I'd get just going straight through without point pressing and using only the top hammer. I think it was about 800-850K if I remember correctly.
 
Id like to be a member at both but there site is god awful for usability. They got good dkjr players there though mark d world champ is there every know and then
 
I can usually be over 100k by the end of level 4 but from level 5 and on is when I start to lose steam. Once I hit level 5 I just try to clear boards. My high score is to date is 423,100 and that was at level 12.

The games where I worry about point pressing usually end in the mid 200,000s because increased risk = increased death. I don't even really care about getting the high score. I do want to reach a kill screen though.
 
I thought I'd give a little more explanation about "jumping on Kong's foot" in the left side of his cage to gain extra points. My apologies for the lousy quality of this video I made, but it gets the point across.

I started by trying to get in the 7,000-8,000 point range on the barrels (1st screen). I wound up with 7,800. On the rivet level, as they often do, the fireballs were lazy with most in the lower part of the screen. You'll see that as I headed up the left side and jumped on Kong's foot in that side of his cage. I was waiting for the fireballs to come up and get more aggressive. I've learned that you need to lure them down before you grab the left hammer to get more points.

I wound up with 18,200 (7,800 + 10,400 on the rivets) and could have had about 300 more points with the bonus timer at zero, but I've also died that way. So I just ended the screen.

(click the video title or click twice on the image below to goto YouTube to view full screen)



The previously listed pace for getting 1M+ has 9000 on the first screen which isn't easy, but a total of only 17,500 by the end of the rivet level (8,500 points). I recall having well over 11,000 points on the rivets when the fireballs and hammered fireball points went my way.

1.05M-1.1M Pace

  • 9000
    17500
I really think there are a lot more points to be had on the rivets via left cage jumping. It takes a number of tries (and deaths) to figure out when you should and shouldn't do this and to get the fireball timing/position right.

Hank Chien got 10,300 (!!!) on his first screen during his successful world's record attempt. That's 2500 points more than I had in the video above. Even giving up the extra 300 points or so as I did, he'd have wound up with a whopping 21,500 points after the first two screens--well ahead of the 17,500 pace listed above.

Surely this is nothing new--there are so many great DK players who've studied the game for decades. But left AND right cage jumping have helped my scores by a few thousand points.
 
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I thought I'd give a little more explanation about "jumping on Kong's foot" in the left side of his cage to gain extra points. My apologies for the lousy quality of this video I made, but it gets the point across.

I started by trying to get in the 7,000-8,000 point range on the barrels (1st screen). I wound up with 7,800. On the rivet level, as they often do, the fireballs were lazy with most in the lower part of the screen. You'll see that as I headed up the left side and jumped on Kong's foot in that side of his cage. I was waiting for the fireballs to come up and get more aggressive. I've learned that you need to lure them down before you grab the left hammer to get more points.

I wound up with 18,200 (7,800 + 10,400 on the rivets) and could have had about 300 more points with the bonus timer at zero, but I've also died that way. So I just ended the screen.

(click the video title or click twice on the image below to goto YouTube to view full screen)



The previously listed pace for getting 1M+ has 9000 on the first screen which isn't easy, but a total of only 17,500 by the end of the rivet level (8,500 points). I recall having well over 11,000 points on the rivets when the fireballs and hammered fireball points went my way.

1.05M-1.1M Pace

  • 9000
    17500
I really think there are a lot more points to be had on the rivets via left cage jumping. It takes a number of tries (and deaths) to figure out when you should and shouldn't do this and to get the fireball timing/position right.

Hank Chien got 10,300 (!!!) on his first screen during his successful world's record attempt. That's 2500 points more than I had in the video above. Even giving up the extra 300 points or so as I did, he'd have wound up with a whopping 21,500 points after the first two screens--well ahead of the 17,500 pace listed above.

Surely this is nothing new--there are so many great DK players who've studied the game for decades. But left AND right cage jumping have helped my scores by a few thousand points.

Thanks for posting this. It's pretty much how I imagined it from your description. Also, the fireballs behaved themselves pretty well there. I'll have to give it a try tonight.
 
Good post Racetech. FYI I usually leach a few hundred points by jumping near the fireball on the bottom girder. You may give up getting some 300pt double barrel jumps by doing this though. Sometimes you can do both. I typically get between 7000 and 8000 on the first board this way and if I agressively go after double barrel jumps I'll get more but also die more.
 
Good post Racetech. FYI I usually leach a few hundred points by jumping near the fireball on the bottom girder. You may give up getting some 300pt double barrel jumps by doing this though. Sometimes you can do both. I typically get between 7000 and 8000 on the first board this way and if I agressively go after double barrel jumps I'll get more but also die more.

I actually gave up on jumping near the fireball on the bottom level. 400 is about the most you can get (200-300 is more common), but you also give up some other points--sometimes even more. With all that time spent down there, you can't run up to a higher level and jump barrel groups instead and follow them down. Sometimes, you get a group of 3 to jump which shows that you got 800 points, but it only awards you 500 points. I've been really lucky a few times and have followed a 3 group down 3 girder levels for 1500 points. That happened in my high score for the 1st barrel level of 9,900 points.

In the video, I wasn't very lucky; the barrels weren't coming down fast and weren't controllable yet--very common as you know early in the 1st screen. Before, when I used to jump near the fireballs, I wound up restarting way too much-I'd die because of unfavorable barrel groupings and wild barrel attacks. The real problem is that I'm just not anywhere near the barrel skill levels yet of the Wiebes and Chiens.

Thanks for posting this. It's pretty much how I imagined it from your description. Also, the fireballs behaved themselves pretty well there. I'll have to give it a try tonight.

There are lots of permutations of what to do with various fireball behaviors. It felt counterintuitive to run down like I did before getting the hammers, but I figured out it's worth it in the end by watching Wiebe. If you don't, the fireballs will stay away from you and you'll be in considerable peril getting that last rivet.

Let me know how it goes-I just came back up after a game... only had 6,300 points after the 1st screen but wound up with 16,000 after the 2nd, a 9,700 point rivet level.
 
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Update:

After some further refinements to left cage jumping, I was able to score 12,800 points on the 2nd screen (1st rivets). With (only) 7300 on the first screen (barrels) I went into the 3rd screen (elevators) with 20,100 points. If Hank Chien would have played the barrels (and gotten his 10,300 points), I'd have had 23,100 points after just two screens.

After the 4th screen, I had a score of 44,500 points. The bad news was that as I fumbled to get a photo of that screen with my cell phone, I not only failed to get that photo but I also lost a life. Ack. Ah well... trying again...
 
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