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Golden Era Game of the Week 8/19/06: The End (Stern)

Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 9:46 pm
by Weehawk
Golden Era Game of the Week

See introduction here

The Game: The End (Stern)

romname: theends

Screenshot:
ImageImageImage
(click to see current MARP scores)


Reward: $50 (usd)

Deadline for submission to MARP: August 25, 2006 2359 hours GMT

Further Bounty: $100 for exceeding 50,000 points this week {Edit - Claimed by sikraiken 8/19/06}

A game that combines the typical danger of losing lives, with the possibility of losing the game by having too many blocks stolen, similar to Rip Off or King and Balloon, but in those games it doesn't matter how many lives you lose. When the space bugs have stolen enough block to spell out "END", the game is over.

We'll use the Stern version this week since that's probably what the U.S. players were playing in the Golden Era.

Also, while I realized that this had been used for Robert Mruczek's Monthly MAME Challenge at TG, I didn't realize it had been so recently, March 2006. They wound up using the Konami version, ROMset "theend". Another good reason for us to use Stern. The TG thread:

http://www.twingalaxies.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6891

Pages on the game:

http://thelittons.net/homearcade/TheEnd/

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1371333

Bit of a different gimmick in the flyer here:

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But anyway, they're wrong. This is "The End"


Random prize: One player exceeding 25,000 points, selected randomly from those who do, will receive a vintage tabletop Zaxxon game from 1983:

Image Image

Use WolfMAME .106

On Deck game: The Three Stooges

Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 11:27 pm
by The_Pro
I let Perry Rogers know about this weeks challenge. He said he might submit something if he can get access to a computer with MAME.

Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 11:31 pm
by Weehawk
The_Pro wrote:I let Perry Rogers know about this weeks challenge. He said he might submit something if he can get access to a computer with MAME.
Cool. Invite him to post any words of wisdom or interesting tidbits about the game he might care to share.

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 12:36 am
by Zhorik
Weehawk wrote:
The_Pro wrote:I let Perry Rogers know about this weeks challenge. He said he might submit something if he can get access to a computer with MAME.
Cool. Invite him to post any words of wisdom or interesting tidbits about the game he might care to share.
Isn't he in software development? He should be able to sort out MAME in a week.

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 12:40 am
by Weehawk
Zhorik wrote:
Weehawk wrote:
The_Pro wrote:I let Perry Rogers know about this weeks challenge. He said he might submit something if he can get access to a computer with MAME.
Cool. Invite him to post any words of wisdom or interesting tidbits about the game he might care to share.
Isn't he in software development? He should be able to sort out MAME in a week.
Yeah, God forbid he should actually take a computer that he aleady has access to and put MAME on it.

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 12:59 am
by The_Pro
Well he just said that he was planning a visit to a friends house and he'd try to submit from there, could mean a whole host of things. I don't doubt he could figure out MAME without problems.

I know that for some people (not Perry), having MAME on their computer is blasphemy.

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 1:32 am
by Chad
never really understood that B word being used unless you own the rights to these games and want to be greedy. MAME keeps alive things that are dead, it's Blasphemous not to keep games available for everyone to play. 2cents over.

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 4:21 am
by Marco Marocco
Really nice random - prize this week :D
Only two words for noticing that The End (Stern) is a game very different from The End (Konami) and that's for speed, for position of the blocks, for score and so one

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 8:34 am
by sampras
What's the chance time?

Some sort of bug gave me infinite lives?

See at the INP attached :?

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 5:16 pm
by sikraiken
Tips/Stuff:

Once there are 51 dots assembled to spell "END", the next screen you play will be chance time.

If you have lives remaining after finishing any chance time level, one will be taken away. If you finish a chance time level with no lives, it will roll back and give you 255 lives (I assume, 8 bit counter..?). (Does the PCB work differently? It would make sense that since the level is called "Chance Time," that after you complete it, it would GIVE you an extra life, not take away one.)

When there are only 7(? this is how many I counted) dots left for the enemies to assemble in "END", the game will keep making a short musical tone to signify you are near the end (no pun intended).

The yellow (fast) enemies never fire. Take advantage of this.

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 5:16 pm
by Weehawk
Well, des won't get everything this week.

sikraiken has claimed the further bounty by submitting the following inp scoring 51,880.

For the sake of the bonus points, until MARP is operational you may submit scores exceeding this to this thread as attachments. If your score is lower, please wait until MARP is up to submit, unless you have something of particular interest to share with the members.

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 5:36 pm
by sikraiken
I edited my post (two posts above this one) for tips/stuff. Also, MARP is working again.

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 5:58 pm
by sampras
Great job!!!

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 6:12 pm
by sikraiken
sampras wrote:Great job!!!
Thanks Sampras. :)

If anyone wants to watch another replay I made earlier today as well... http://www.sikraiken.com/sik-theends49800.zip

You can only imagine how much I flipped out by missing the 50K by one shot. :D

Also, I thought getting only three dots placed on the first screen without any deaths was pretty cool: http://www.sikraiken.com/sik-theends3dots.zip

The rest of the run was terrible (I was still trying to figure out exactly what I should do), but I'd like to see someone get less than three without dying on the first screen.

Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:38 pm
by Weehawk
Sunday's bonus points to sikraiken.