Rick Carter's Iron-Man Q*Bert run

[philt80]

Rick Carter just finished a monumental 59 hour marathon playing Q*Bert at the Twin Galaxies Iron-Man competition in Ottumwa, IA.

His final score was 28,549,585 just a little under 5,000,000 from matching Rob Gerhardt's 1983 world record of 33,273,520

He played absolutely solid most of the game racking up points at an incredible pace only succumbing to exhaustion during the last 6 hours.

It has been absolutely amazing watching this guy play over the past few days. It is also insane to think someone in their late 40s can still pull off a marathon performance like this.

He took home the prized title of "Iron-Man" after Tim McVey's Nibbler machine flaked out the previous day.

Archived streams of his marathon game can be found here: http://www.twitch.tv/permafrostrick

 

[gozer5454]

Damn. That is insane. I couldn't even stay awake that long and this guy is busting Q-bert buts? Damn. Mad props to the guy.

 

[komodo]

Thanks for the update. I plan on going for the lunar lander world record one day. Not quite as demanding.

 

[chuchunesme]

I remember when I got my 3DO many years ago my friend and I played Need For Speed all day and night, in all I would say we played close to 25 hours and I was in my early 20's. I'm now 40 and no way I could do it again, I almost didn't make it that night on NFS so no way I could come close to this guys 50+ hours! Impressive!!

 

[Jeff F]

Wow... 59 hours at the age of almost 50? That's frickin' insane! I'm almost 42 and I have a hard time staying awake until 11pm on the weekends(yes, I'm usually the first one to bed in the family now).

Even without the record that performance is worthy of record-like praise!

 

[jethrokiller]

His final score was 28,549,585 just a little under 5,000,000 from matching Rob Gerhardt's 1983 world record of 33,273,520

http://www.twitch.tv/permafrostrick[/url]

But how can you know for sure the record is legit? That guy with the record lives here, how can you know for sure his score is real? Can't see how that was documented back in the day. His wife came by one day when I was having a yard sale, she noticed the games in my garage, I asked her about the qbert record and she said he dosen't talk about it.

 

[ArcadeMaze]

Yeah, 59 hours is a tough row to hoe at my age.

I watched Rick for a while and to me, he made it look effortless.


ArcadeMaze!

 

[joeycuda]

Was he wearing a diaper or a cath???

 

[D_Harris]

But how can you know for sure the record is legit? That guy with the record lives here, how can you know for sure his score is real? Can't see how that was documented back in the day. His wife came by one day when I was having a yard sale, she noticed the games in my garage, I asked her about the qbert record and she said he dosen't talk about it.

Probably because of guilt.

I remember how scores were submitted back then and all the B.S. that went into a lot of claimed scores. It is my honest belief that Rick Carter is the proven world record holder on Q*bert.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

 

[1500points]

I watched most of his game on and off in person.
Rick was collected and poised.
He was like a machine, it was amazing to watch someone with such intense focus for a long time.
I saw it first hand and still can't fathom how he could play so long.

Toward the end there were some points where it was clear exhausting was setting in. His speech was slurred a time or two and you could see his mental processing was delayed.

In just meeting Rick this weekend, he's gotta be one of the nicest guys in the serious gaming category.
Cheers!

 

[philt80]

But how can you know for sure the record is legit? That guy with the record lives here, how can you know for sure his score is real? Can't see how that was documented back in the day. His wife came by one day when I was having a yard sale, she noticed the games in my garage, I asked her about the qbert record and she said he dosen't talk about it.

That's another reason this score is so monumental...I don't think Rob ever did it again or came even close after his submitted score in '83, but I don't know him personally, so I don't know if he actually did it or not. That said, I doubt he could do it almost 30 years later in his late 40s...
Rick gave a world record performance either way last night....incredible.

Was he wearing a diaper or a cath???

He would take 5-10 minute breaks periodically to change clothes and use the bathroom...
He'd lose about 20-40 men depending on how long his break was, but he had so many in reserve it was insane. I think he acquired a total of something like 2050 bonus men(1 every 14,000).

Probably because of guilt.

I remember how scores were submitted back then and all the B.S. that went into a lot of claimed scores. It is my honest belief that Rick Carter is the proven world record holder on Q*bert.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

+1 Agreed...
George is the only one even close to him at this point. They were kicking around the idea of doing a tag team marathon on Q*Bert...Will be amazing to watch that one too.

 

[1500points]

All around this contest was amazing.

David Cruze played a game of perfection on TRON with NO BATHROOM breaks. 22 hrs, a set amount of men, and minimal liquid intake.

Greg Laue pulled off close to 40hrs on kicker.

Tim McVey was set to cruise past the billion on nibbler and had a processing glitch shift the play field.

Kelly Tharp was playing fast and furious on mousetrap until the coin door switch got bumped and reset the game.

Joel West was playing calm and cool on Frenzy.

All quite talented marathoners.

 

[Steve W]

I have a great appreciation for Rick's marathon style as well. He has a very workman like, 'leave me be' approach to it.

 

[trickman]

I had fun at the event. I watched Rick play on the stream first, and when I was in Ottumwa, I saw him play. He has phenomenal skill on that game. Congratulations to him for taking first in the Iron Man competition!

I met Kelly Tharp; he's cool. I met David Cruze as well. Really nice guy and phenomenal Tron player. It sucks that Tim's machine crapped out on him early. He was having one of the best runs he ever had on Nibbler. Played some doubles Berzerk with Joel West as well, which was a real treat!

 

[1500points]

Once he got rested up, it was interesting to hear his perception of what occurred.
Probably best told by him first hand but basically....

Toward the end he perceived the maze was normal at the bottom, like a pyramid.
the middle was a column
then the top was like tree branches and you had to figure out how to get up into the tree.
each maze was changing so he was waiting for "normal screens" that he knew how to do.

He mentioned one time that he couldn't believe they designed the game so you had to die to get one of the squares. he he he. trippy stuff.

 

[Torin]

"He would take 5-10 minute breaks periodically to change clothes and use the bathroom...
He'd lose about 20-40 men depending on how long his break was, but he had so many in reserve it was insane. I think he acquired a total of something like 2050 bonus men(1 every 14,000)."


Holy Crap.

 

[Steve W]

I watched the last 2 hours or so of Rick's game and he was fading fast (understandably). Once in awhile he'd play the beginning pattern of the board (mostly) correctly but would then change the wrong color or for some reason be averse to using a disc (George said he had that same issue with not noticing the disks as well late in the marathon). Amazing effort nonetheless, obviously.