MatchIt and clones (mahjongg) scoring system

[Alessandro.S]

Hi all,

I finally managed to beat Nell last night - meaning I got to level 6-3 on sichuana, clone of matchit, and cleared the board.

The game ends there, you enter your initials, and then it awards you a free game re-initializing your new score to zero.

The scoring system is simple - you get two points for each couple of tiles you match, plus bonus points at the end of each board - two bonus points for each unused help (pressing the "Help" button shows you a pair of matching tiles when you're not deadlocked).

I scored 2258, using the Help button only once IIRC, then entered my initials, and abandoned the next game.
Since I was still ~400pts below the record I was... puzzled about how that could be

The current standing record by EsseKappa is the sum of the 18 boards (3 boards per level) PLUS all the points he scored in the next awarded free game (I had to fire up my Windows XP VMWare image, download mame 0.57b, join the roms from matchit and sichuana into a single zip and only *then* I was able to watch his replay, with -nosound... puff !).

My question: is it supposed to be like this ? Because I replayed my own game then continued it scoring another 1538 before getting deadlocked - which would have been 3796 total - but I'm not sure that's the way it was meant to be.

So - is the total score supposed to be the sum of all games before a deadlock ?

Thanks... --alessandro

[Phil Lamat]

I gonna watch Essekappa replay soon.
But first feeling is that you're right : if there are additional points made with an extra game, I also think we mustn't count them (like we generally do with other games where we can win extra games, like "ladybug" or "frogs").

If you're right and anybody else is against, I will edit rules and reduce Essekappa's score (which is ? did he use any help like you ?)

Oh, by the way, sichuan has nothing to do with mahjong, except it uses mahjong tiles like many other games (like shanghai)

[Alessandro.S]

Alright - EsseKappa scored 2252, as per attachment.

If the scores are to be corrected, then there's a few of them that surpass the maximum of 2260 (which on matchit is lower, as there are fewer helps per board, hence a lower bonus) on the different clones.

It's arguable that given the maximum points reachable perhaps it's slightly more interesting to keep cumulative scores until a deadlock kills the player - but then again you enter marathon mode. I don't know, and am leaving the final judgement to the more experienced MARP mods here.

EsseKappa's initials at end of game

sich0000.png (10.8 KiB) Viewed 2370 times

[Phil Lamat]

Forum was down the other day, so I just edited your desc.
Now for a more complete thought :
after watching inputs, I see that there isn't any bonus game/credit when you finish a loop, and you're just able to go on playing after entering initials, till a lock up or a time out.

So I see no reason to limit the game to 1 loop, and ESC after a loop completion.
Because then we should get some ties at 2260 (even if I see 2240 on the parent rom for German Krol, who also ESC after 1st loop completion) ; and I'm curious on two points :
1-maybe game finish afte 2nd loop ?
2-maybe game maxes out at 9999 ?

Only one way to know ...
go on playing