What arcade games would you play in a compo? Would you?

Given MAME and ROM availability, would you play in a compo? (ie: submit scores a few times over a fe

  • Yes, awesome, like the good old days

    Votes: 33 66.0%
  • Yes. awesome, only if its a game or two I really like

    Votes: 13 26.0%
  • No, don't care about measuring up against other people, or don't have time or whatever

    Votes: 4 8.0%

  • Total voters
    50

skeezix

Internal Development
Joined
Mar 11, 2003
Messages
8,070
Website
www.codejedi.com
Hey everyone,

I'm debating kicking off a game _PLAYING_ compo; we have developer compos here or there, but have we ever had a Player Compo? A compo that everyone can do (well, insomuch as arcade gaming compos require ROMs..). I am also tempted to wire up some of the recent DragonBox compo games to my system here as well, and have pure new games join into the fray as well ... but thats for another day.

You may have seen the Compo4All MAME I built a few weeks back (see this thread http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php/topic/12127-release-compo4all-mame-ladderscoreboard-competition-for-classic-arcade-games/page-1 ) but its not had a mass uptake yet (a core group of about 15 or 20 people really using it, plus a few more people occasionally using it.); I'm not sure if thats due to the limited game selection, or people being not so MAME-crazy as they used to be, life being busy, people not wanting to compete with each other, peoples play time bnot being near a wifi/network, .... any number of reasons.

But if we can get 50 or 100 people who would actually _PLAY_ in an arcade game compo, that would be outstanding. And I'll buy some prizes!

See the poll for the question of the hour :) Essentially, Compo4All ("C4A") just keeps a master high score table on my server, that you can see from the Pandora-side client or from a web browser; whenever you play the game in C4A MAME, with wifi up, it'll try to post your scores to the server. After a few weeks or a month, we can grab the final score tally and .. thats it, nice and easy; top 2 or 3 positions get a prize, say. (And yes, there would be some ways to cheat, but I'd hope in our small community, there'd be no Real Bastards.)

As to _which arcade game_ you might play .. we have to try and limit it to options that people should have ease of access to; originally I was thining the true classics, like Donkey Kong or Ms Pacman, but after running for a few weeks I'm starting to worry that true classics like those attract very passionate players.. which is to say, some very skilled players who would severely outclass average joe. Starting a compo where we can predict who wins on the first day isn't very fun, nor in the spirit here (compo-for-all, not compo-for-elite!) Games like Ms Pacman are easily legally gotten .. damned near everyone has bought a Namco or other emu pack for Dreamcast, PC, PS2, Xbox, etc .. or can head to a bargain bin to pick one up for $5.

But now I'm thinking something a little more exotic, a game or two that everyone might play, that is accessible, and yet also easily found. Arcade-here, something that MAME 0.106 supports, too.

(Supporting automated high scores for console and computer games is near-impossible.)

I'm just not sure if this idea for an actual compo on MAME can fly. I can definately see it for some of our homebrew games, but my goal here is to figure out feasability of a MAME compo.

jeff
 
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I like game playing compos - it gets me out of my comfort zone and playing things I would not normally consider. To that end, I'm not bothered about a prize or owt, just the chance to play stuff that others like.

D.
 
Microbes is not quite an arcade game, but it would be interesting to have global highscores for it too. These highscores are per level and per difficulty setting, so I don't know if your system can deal with that. If you would turn it into a real compo, you could make it so that the replay files are automatically uploaded, which makes it quite a bit harder to cheat...
 
Not sure we really need prizes every month, just the honour would be enough for me.

Perhaps real prizes once or twice a year, with a virtual prize like a small graphic of a golden / siver / bronze medal (or trophy) you could put in your sig.

For the all time score charts I'd have a think about limiting the number of entries per person (on each chart) to 3 as mentioned on the other thread.

For anyone wavering about getting involved then I'd say give it a whirl, it's really easy to set up & skeezix has done a great job adding online hiscore support to mame for Pandora. Come and join us at our little local arcade, there are only 6 games at the moment but they're all retro classics. :)

As for what new games to introduce to the arcade then I'd say stick to the classics as per the current lineup. I'd love to see Frogger, Scramble & Circus Charlie added to the mix as well.
 
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( with hope , even though I'm terrible at it ) Metal slug ?
 
For me, the best that can come out of this is finding new (to me) old games that are worth playing.  I can boot up game after game in an emulator, but unless there's a reason to play it, I'll add a credit, die quickly, then move on to the next in the list nine times out of ten.
 
Well, let me give you MY list of games I would compete in (and some of them I'd expect to be beaten like a drum, but I love them anyway)

The starred ones are ones I would particularly LOVE to compete in - and not because I'm necessarily good, but because I really love the games...although some of them I AM damn good at, those will be marked with two stars.  Total of 45 games on my list.

1942

Arkanoid

Berzerk

Bomb Jack

Bosconian *

Burger Time

Centipede *

City Connection **

Crazy Climber **

Defender

Dig Dug **

Donkey Kong *

Donkey Kong Jr. *

Drift Out

Frogger **

Galaga **

Galaxian *

Gaplus *

Gorf *

Green Beret (Rush N' Attack)

Gyruss **

Joust *

Jr. Pac-Man *

Mad Gear

Mega Zone

Millipede *

Missile Command *

Moon Cresta

Moon Patrol **

Mr. Do! *

Ms. Pac-Man **

New Rally X **

Nibbler *

Pang *

Pac-Man *

Qix *

Rally X **

Rolling Thunder

Sinistar *

Space Invaders *

Super Pac-Man **

Time Pilot *

Time Pilot '84 **

Wizard of Wor **

Yie-Ar Kung Fu *
 
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Shoot'em ups. Japanese ones. Ideal target for scoring comparison :)
Yeah this.. :)

*snip*... ... ... 

Gorf *

... ... ...*snip*

How many times can you loop through this game?

I used to get pretty good on this myself, able to shoot the spiraling craft in single hits also the end level craft in one nicely timed shot.

An old fav of mine
 
Battlezone? Works really well if you redefine keys (up/down on d-pad for left track, Y/X buttons for right track, whatever you fancy for fire) A vector game for sure!

Maybe a spread of genres is fairest, rather than an outright highest in one game (though a champion sig for any one game would appease egos ;) )

Well, let me give you MY list of games I would compete in

Millipede *

Mr. Do! *

Space Invaders *
Mr Dooooooooo!
How come you haven't dipped your toes in it yet?

I'll second Millipede.

Might be worth noting which games people find suit the Pandora's D-Pad really well - some are really unsuited to it, I find Targ (which hardly anyone is likely to rule at, or even know) really suited to it, I'm sure there are plenty of others.
 
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Check the main threead as well, but I've added Pulstar (shmup) and Bubble Bobble (platformer) now as well.

So we are already supporting:

http://skeezix.wallednetworks.com:13001/links_1

 Game   Last Month      Current Month So Far    All Time
Donkey Kong     here    here    here
Ms. Pacman      here    here    here
Bubble Bobble   here    here    here
Galaxian        here    here    here
Space Invaders  here    here    here
Pulstar         here    here    here
Mr. Do!         here    here    here
Flying Shark    here    here    here
 

I would like to add some more various..

- Super Sprint (top down racing)

- Outrun (3d racing)

- Metal Slug (run and gun)

- Magical Drop 3 (throw ED a bone ;) But this may be complex, due to how many scores it keeps

- Gauntlet (top down dungeon romp)

- Black Tiger (platform run and gun)

- King of Dragons or Knights of Round or AD&D or something .. (beat'em'up)

- Willow (really fun platform run and gun)

- Tempest (do vector games show up well on pandora with MAME? Asteroids is hard to see..) .. how do you describe Tempest in 2 words? Tunnel shmup?

- Time Pilot or Gyruss (rotation shmup)

- Tempest or Qix or other puzzler

- Gladiator (?) for horizontal.. another hard to describe one ;)

- Centipede say .. I dont' care fo rit myself, but it is a classic :)

- Star Wars (nuff said)

- TRON (nuff said)

- Street Fighter 2 (vanila or rainbow) say (fighting), or perhaps Samurai Shodown..

As you can see, I'd like all the genres represented; shmup, racing, beat'em'ups, and classics..

jeff
 
I plan on playing some more.  Thanks for adding stuff and strategizing on how to make this better for the community.
 
Tempest looks pretty good, as it has color vector graphics, so it displays fairly good, but I would recommend we steer clear of those games like Tempest, Tron, Super Sprint, Centipede etc., that require special controllers to play as intended. I know everyone will be playing with the same handicap, but I personally don't care to play any of those games unless I can use proper controls, as it would be more of a fight to play the game, than fighting fellow gamers.

A ton of great games have been mentioned. Rolling Thunder, Scramble, Time Pilot, Frogger, damn I could go on all night. To many great games to suggest. Gauntlet is cool, but you can add extra life with each new credit, so I'm not sure a game like that would work, but I'm open to it(if adding credits can be disabled after start up).

I'm cool with the prize pool, but only if it's not a burden for you(Jeff). I agree with Mr_Loon, I'm cool with just bragging rights, but I wouldn't turn down a cool(cheap) prize.

I'm heading to set up Bubble Bobble and Pulstar right now. I'm not really to good at Pulstar, but I'm a BB veterian, so be on the look out ;)

Chris
 
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