NintendoAge 2016 Weekly Contests Presents: Lunar Pool
Hello everyone and welcome to the latest installment of the Weekly Contests! This week’s game is going to be Lunar Pool. Here are the rules:
The contest ends Sunday, 8/21/16 at 11 PM NA time. Your user name MUST be written or typed on a piece of paper and be in the picture for your score to be valid. The entire TV screen, or computer monitor if you are playing on an emulator, MUST be in the picture for the score to be valid. No partial screenshots will be considered or accepted. No screenshots by hitting "print screen" on a computer will be allowed. You must take a picture of your computer monitor. There may be instances where this will be acceptable, but it will be at the discretion of myself and the contest organizers. Also, the use of turbo controllers is forbidden, as well as any cheat codes, Game Genies, slow motion functions, or save states if playing on an emulator. Also, we will only be using NTSC systems for the contests. The use of PAL systems will NOT be allowed. Good luck everyone and have fun
Choose 1 Player Game
Start on Round 1
Do not change the friction. Leave it set at 032
No looping of the game allowed. Once the game goes back to Stage 1, you must stop and take your picture. Anyone suspected of playing the game beyond the first loop will have their score disqualified.
Play until Game Over
Take your picture on the Title Screen. Your score will be in the “Score” spot.
Highest score wins
Participation: 1000
GENRE: Sports
The contest ends Sunday, 8/21/16 at 11 PM NA time. Your user name MUST be written or typed on a piece of paper and be in the picture for your score to be valid. The entire TV screen, or computer monitor if you are playing on an emulator, MUST be in the picture for the score to be valid. No partial screenshots will be considered or accepted. No screenshots by hitting "print screen" on a computer will be allowed. You must take a picture of your computer monitor. There may be instances where this will be acceptable, but it will be at the discretion of myself and the contest organizers. Also, the use of turbo controllers is forbidden, as well as any cheat codes, Game Genies, slow motion functions, or save states if playing on an emulator. Also, we will only be using NTSC systems for the contests. The use of PAL systems will NOT be allowed. Good luck everyone and have fun
Comments
EDIT: I got over 900 points my last run. Yay. Still a far cry from participation.
(bert, feel free to edit this post when you get back)
Participation: 1350
That game is weird! I got to stage three with 1800 thanks to the score multiplier thingie. Not enough for participation yet but the nights still young
I've started to pick up a few tricks, this game is actually pretty interesting. i won't have much time to play this week but hopefully i can squeeze in a few more runs at it
Changing participation to 1000. Will edit rules later when not on my phone.
Oh sure after I make my post saying 1800 wasn't enough! And I didn't take a picture either! Haha
That game is weird! I got to stage three with 1800 thanks to the score multiplier thingie. Not enough for participation yet but the nights still young
I keep scratching on stage 3.
That game is weird! I got to stage three with 1800 thanks to the score multiplier thingie. Not enough for participation yet but the nights still young
I keep scratching on stage 3.
Yeah that's a tough table
You get some bonus if you play a perfect game as well, and it is easy to do so in quite a few of the tables.
You are awarded an amount of points per ball number multiplied by ratio, with bonus if you pull tricky shots that pocket more than one ball with a single shot.
I used to be good at the real thing back when I was 20, 16 years ago.
I've played one pool game, Championship Pool for SNES. And despite hours of effort I couldn't get close to beating it. So, probably a good omen for this week!
i played the hell out of virtua pool 3 featuring jeanette lee. that was a fun ass game for its day.
270,000 - game beaten
106,150 - stage 43
All shots mapped, some tested well over 10 times. The last few stages will be validated again tomorrow, but I am pretty sure they will be spot on. It is math after all.
Excel on the background with angles, vector length, force required for the shot, which ball it will hit and which balls it will drop. I am madly in love with vector math, even if it costs my sanity from time to time.
I will try to record the video tomorrow night, but worst case scenario, it will be posted till Saturday. This run took me well over 5 hours to complete.
I love pool and I am good to handle round things, but after this week, I won't want to see this game again for a good while.
This game is nothing but ye old high school vector math. It is annoyingly easy. The bulk of my score came from the first 20 stages where I tried to keep the ratio high. After that I just lazed around trying to beat the game, since I had 99 lives to spare.
During the week I will post the best angles, speed and vector length to use in the first 10 stages to level things a bit around here.
I am definitely good when it comes to dealing with balls.
Figures. It seems that the local female player is better at handling balls than the local men.
It is not exactly fair, either. I have far more experience at that as well.
I've played one pool game, Championship Pool for SNES. And despite hours of effort I couldn't get close to beating it. So, probably a good omen for this week!
i played the hell out of virtua pool 3 featuring jeanette lee. that was a fun ass game for its day.
seriously. That and Virtual Pool Hall were played all the time on my old PC
Rate management will be far more important for the high score than going the distance here.
Rate goes up to 50 and then resets. Each perfect game is worth 1,500 points.
Keeping your rate high and trying to land the higher numbered balls later will be important to score high in this week.
Rate management will be far more important for the high score than going the distance here.
Rate goes up to 50 and the resets. Each perfect game is worth 1,500 points.
Keeping your rate high and trying to land the higher numbered balls later will be important to score high in this week.
Your advice is basically "hit all the balls into the pockets and don't miss." I'll have to try that instead of my usual strategy which involves missing shots most of the time.
Rate management will be far more important for the high score than going the distance here.
Rate goes up to 50 and the resets. Each perfect game is worth 1,500 points.
Keeping your rate high and trying to land the higher numbered balls later will be important to score high in this week.
Your advice is basically "hit all the balls into the pockets and don't miss." I'll have to try that instead of my usual strategy which involves missing shots most of the time.
Pretty much, yes.
Do note that there is no element of random when doing the shoots, so it is possible to memorize the shots to perfect all the tables, or at least the very few first ones to score big.
In theory, it is possible to memorize all the best shots for the max score for all 60 tables in the game and run a perfect game. But I don't think there is enough time to do that in a week's timespan.
Edit:
Ok, small correction. Rate goes up to 99 and doesn't reset.
Here's my baby participation score for now. Goo-goo-ga-ga.
my strategy of whacking the balls as hard as possible, like a skateboarder trying a rail for the first time, is paying off in getting combo shots and raising the rate consistently!
I've played one pool game, Championship Pool for SNES. And despite hours of effort I couldn't get close to beating it. So, probably a good omen for this week!
Championship Pool on NES is secretly one of the hardest games on the entire console, so it's no surprise it's that hard on SNES too. I am betting you will have better luck on Lunar Pool this week, should you choose to put in effort.
100,000+ points at the start of stage 9.
1 million and over is doable. I will try to achieve that and record a video of the feat during the course of the week.
Edit:
1 million is "doable"... with at least 43 perfect games and keeping your ratio at 99 for at least 30 games. I will need more training, a lot of math to calculate the angles and the velocity needed for each shot to achieve that consistently and video proof because one can't just claim a score like that with a single still shot.
Excel will be a very handy tool for this week. The fun for the week just began.
9,220
Mapped most shots up to stage 44 and as expected, it gets you up to 1,000,0000 points.
Tomorrow I will revalidate the shots I mapped, map the ones I didn't get enough data on and map the last 16 stages of the game.
Wednesday or Thursday I will record the video and post the score in a valid picture, along with the video.
Mapped most shots up to stage 44 and as expected, it gets you up to 1,000,0000 points.
Tomorrow I will revalidate the shots I mapped, map the ones I didn't get enough data on and map the last 16 stages of the game.
Wednesday or Thursday I will record the video and post the score in a valid picture, along with the video.
The math geek part of me can't wait to see this!
7,650
I'm definitely going to have to get a copy of this game. I'm having fun with this when I have the time.