24 replies to this topic

[Jibbajaba]

Welcome to week 5 of the 5th season of the Atari Age NES High Score League!

This season is only going to be 10 weeks long, and will feature one game released each year between 1985 and 1994.

Here are the standings after 4 weeks of play:

starcry	        415
Jibbajaba	226
darthkur	209
mihcael	        110
atari2600land	107
doubleminor	90
roadrunner	87
arjak	        75
phaxda	        66
ClassicGMR	55
LarcenTyler	32
4Ks	        26
Herbarius	20

Week 3's first prize winner was starcry, who will be receiving a copy of R.C Pro-Am as a price! Congrats!

This week's game and the 1989 entry is going to be Marble Madness.

Title: Marble Madness
Developer: Rare Ltd.
Publisher: Milton Bradley
Released: February, 1989 (US)
Twin Galaxies High Score: 177,570 by Scott Kessler.





Tips:

None yet!

Chris

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Marble Madness Rankings

None yet!

Edited by Jibbajaba, Thu Feb 11, 2010 1:12 AM.

[Jibbajaba]

We're going to play this game for 2 weeks, so scores will not be due until Tuesday, February 23rd.

Chris

[starcry]

I love this game but really suck at it lol. 12580. 2 weeks eh. well I guess Ill have to get used to it. I still need the darth to please contact me about his prize, if enough time passes I may have to allow the random winner to choose I am not sure. I will speak to chris about it. This is an amazingly fun game guys so good luck, lets see some scores posted!!!

[Jibbajaba]

starcry, on Thu Feb 11, 2010 10:01 AM, said:

I love this game but really suck at it lol. 12580. 2 weeks eh. well I guess Ill have to get used to it. I still need the darth to please contact me about his prize, if enough time passes I may have to allow the random winner to choose I am not sure. I will speak to chris about it. This is an amazingly fun game guys so good luck, lets see some scores posted!!!

Darthkur actually posted in last week's thread saying that you can go ahead and pick someone else to give the prize to. Personally I think you should just hang on to it and give it out as a prize another week.

Speaking of prizes, PM me your shipping address so I can send you R.C. Pro-Am.

Chris

[roadrunner]

12,140

[LarcenTyler]

44,050

[darthkur]

44,090

I've always loved this game. I have it for several platforms.

[ClassicGMR]

26,200

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[roadrunner]

My new high score is 21,900

[starcry]

Great game really, I wish i was better at it, I just cant seem to do real well. *grins* but its fun!
14250 big score so uber lmao!

[thegoldenband]

Here's my latest score, at 50,750 53,570. Didn't beat the final level, but at least I made it there:



Marble Madness is one of my favorite games, and it's one of only two games* I can think of that I've beaten on three different platforms: NES, arcade (via MAME), and the Electronic Arts port for Genesis (I haven't beaten the Tengen version for Mega Drive yet, which is MUCH harder).

Though I haven't played the NES version in a while, I played the Genesis version (the one by Electronic Arts) quite a bit earlier this year. But I tried playing it today on the Dreamcast via NesterDC, and was getting flattened. Everything felt stiff, sluggish, and oversized. I got some decent scores in the high 40,000s, but a lot of that was luck -- I got a bunch of magic wands.

Then I switched over to Nestopia on my laptop, and even though it was awkward playing via the keyboard, I did quite a bit better -- my score was only slightly higher, but I "earned" the whole thing with nary a magic wand. The Dreamcast NES emulation has never seemed laggy, but maybe there's some weird issue going on with MM? Still, I'm wondering if I remembered the NES port more fondly than it deserves -- the control still feels really unresponsive and inconsistent, at least when compared to the Genesis ports.

*(The other one is Double Dragon, which I've beaten on the same three platforms.)

Edited by thegoldenband, Sat Feb 13, 2010 4:51 PM.

[Herbarius]

Two weeks is great, IMO... I wanted to suggest that anyway, as in one week I barely find enough time to play the game and get at least a half-decent score - especially when I didn't play the game ever before, and for me the Highscore Club always is an opportunity to get to know new games, especially as I missed out on a lot of NES "education".


Now to Marble Madness: When I start the game it asks me for 45 degree or 90 degree controls. Can I select whatever I like or do we have to select one of those specifically to be valid for the HSC? The opening post stated nothing about that.

[Jibbajaba]

Which ever control scheme feels better for you. Try out both and see which one nets you the highest score.

Chris

[Arjak]

25,410

I made it to the Silly Race, the farthest I've ever gotten, so I don't think I'm going to do much better than this.

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[JacobZu7zu7]

1st try ... Won it, whooo! I dunno if that's my best score ever but it's a snazzy start
It's also my first score for the NES HSC. This is as close as I'm gonna get to feeling like
Jimmy in the movie "The Wizard"

104,110


1 major tip, in the last level. You need to make your Marble jump over the platform... to
another platform, just to be able to finish it.

I forget how many levels the game has, about ... uh... 5 so that would be the 5th level after the *everything you know is wrong** one.

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[lost child]

I recently wrote a small tool that will translate mouse input into simulated keystrokes on the computer keyboard. I wrote it specifically to play Marble Madness in FCEUltra. However, the tool allows for many games, previously controlled by a gamepad or computer keyboard, to be played with the mouse. (I use a Logitech Marble Mouse and Marble Madness seems a bit closer to the arcade experience.)

I don't know if the HSC has a rule against this sort of tool. If anyone is interested in trying it out, I can give more information and post a link to the download.

[ClassicGMR]

lost child, on Fri Feb 19, 2010 10:23 PM, said:

I recently wrote a small tool that will translate mouse input into simulated keystrokes on the computer keyboard. I wrote it specifically to play Marble Madness in FCEUltra. However, the tool allows for many games, previously controlled by a gamepad or computer keyboard, to be played with the mouse. (I use a Logitech Marble Mouse and Marble Madness seems a bit closer to the arcade experience.)

I don't know if the HSC has a rule against this sort of tool. If anyone is interested in trying it out, I can give more information and post a link to the download.

I think we'd all be interested in trying that even if we can't use it in the HSC competitions! Better controls in our everyday gaming is always a plus. Could you show me the link so I can try it out?

[lost child]

4NM (Beta)

Download: http://games4noah.sitesled.com/4NM.zip
Youtube:

You'll need to define D-Pad controls, in your emulator, to the cursor keys. (Controlled with Mouse X,Y Axis)
Set Button A and B to the "C" and "X" keys on your keyboard. (Controlled with Mouse Button 1 and 2)

Unzip the file and run 4NM.exe. A small white box with crosshairs will appear. Drag this box somewhere over the top of your emulator window. Pressing the "Spacebar" on your keyboard will toggle the tool on/off. Pressing "TAB" will close the tool.

4NM is very sensitive to mouse input. This is especially evident while inputting your name in Marble Madness. Here, use slow and steady movements for the best results. The sensitivity doesn't seem to be problematic during gameplay.

Known Bugs:
In the archive is a file called nomousy.exe. This is used to hide the mouse cursor while the tool is in use. Although 4NM has been written to show the mouse again when it is shut down, I've found that this sometimes doesn't work with zSNES (and possibly other emulators). Should the cursor not reappear on shut down, simply run nomousy.exe and it will reappear. Optionally, the player can eliminate the chance of this altogether by renaming or deleting the nomousy.exe. When doing so, the cursor arrow will remain visible (and look ugly) during gameplay.

When the tool is on, a black pixel will still be present in the top left corner. This isn't horribly distracting, but I have ideas/plans to rework the tool so it will no longer be present.

Button A and Button B are controlled using the left and right mouse buttons. Some emulators have functions mapped to these controls (Nestopia toggles on/off the title bar when the right-mouse button is clicked). I would suggest using FCEUltra while testing with 4NM.

...

4NM is still in early beta. Eventually it will be released (along with my other 4Noah game accessibility tools) for use with headtrackers. I have plans to add options to redefine simulated keystrokes and tweak sensitivity. Feedback is welcome.

For the curious, 4Noah is a set of accessibility tools that reduce the number of controls needed to play games. A game like Super Mario Bros can be played using one button!

[ClassicGMR]

Video looks nice! I'll have to give it a shot this weekend.

Sorry to derail the HSC thread! *runs away to hide*

[darthkur]

46,370

I can't ever seem to get past that final board.

[Jibbajaba]

I do not think it would be fair to use that mouse control patch in the HSC. Those who are playing the game on the actual hardware do not have that option.

And NES HSC threads can always be derailed as long as it is because of good conversation, so don't even worry about it ClassicGMR.

Chris

[LarcenTyler]

49,690

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[Jibbajaba]

Just about 1 more day to go on this one. Don't forget to submit your score before bed tomorrow night.

Chris

[Herbarius]

Damn, time's almost up again, and I've got no score. Just didn't find the time to play. Well, I guess I could have found plenty of time if I had tried harder but... I don't know, maybe it's just because I don't like the game very much.

[Jibbajaba]

Here are the final standings for Marble Madness:

JacobZu7zu7	110
thegoldenband	56
LarcenTyler	48
darthkur	45
ClassicGMR	25
Arjak	        24
roadrunner	21
starcry  	14

I can't believe I forgot to submit a score this week.

Edited by Jibbajaba, Thu Feb 25, 2010 9:07 PM.