43 replies to this topic

[Mister VCS]

Welcome back to the 2nd edition of the Intellivision High Score Club - Good luck and have fun!

You control Winky - the heroic adventurer who is off on an expedition to claim the treasures hidden in the dungeons.

Game Information

Game Name: Venture

Released by: Coleco, 1982

TwinGalaxies High Score: 165,520 by Troy Whelan

Settings: Skill level 3 - 1 Player

Contest ends on

Sunday, 04-24-2011 at 1:00 AM eastern.

Current High Scores

1. cparsley 1 rollover + 640,140 [+10]
1. thegoldenband 1 rollover + 595,040 [+10]
1. JacobZu7zu7 1 rollover + 370,140 [+10]
2. patbb 621,200 [+9]
3. IntellivisionDude/rgw825 380,300 [+8]
4. Chuck D. Head 244,430 [+6]
5. ed1475 155,700 [+4]
6. roadrunner 101,200 [+2]
7. cmart604 99,800 [+1]

Edited by Mister VCS, Sun Apr 24, 2011 8:25 AM.

[thegoldenband]

Given that I've never played this game for more than 15-20 minutes before at the most, and got this score on my first try, I'm going to guess that the Twin Galaxies high score is a bit of a joke!


(In case the image won't load or something: 167,900 points)

[thegoldenband]

Well, I played a few more games. First I made it to Level 8 for the first time, improving my score to 448,100:



Then I played some more, by which time I'd started to memorize the level layouts and, crucially, kept reminding myself where I would emerge after finishing a room (which is probably the most dangerous moment in the game). And after a couple attempts I made it to Level 9 -- and beyond:



That's not 595,040, but 1,595,040. Or at least I think so, because I wasn't keeping track of the exact math when the game rolled over (in the midst of awarding end-of-level bonus points), but in any event I rolled the game. After you beat Level 9, all the other levels have the same end-of-level message.

I don't remember whether Level 9 itself loops or not, or whether the game repeats the same three mazes and calls them each "Level 9". Either way, I played a couple more levels, the monsters got a little faster (I think), and after a couple sloppy bits from me, that was that.

So that's my entry. So far, anyway -- no doubt someone else can top it, and if they do I'll try to do the same in return. Not bad for an hour's play!

Edited by thegoldenband, Sun Apr 10, 2011 1:20 PM.

[revolutionika]

Couldnt you of waited until the contest was almost over to start playing?

[cmart604]

Holy crap Phil!! I was gonna say the first score of 168K was awesome. Well done you.
Wow. I'll be making sure to add a ridiculously tiny score to make sure I get my participant point! Lol.

[cparsley]

Well game 1 is over... on to game 2 (cheeky devil for starting it early... good on ya Mr VCS)

[JacobZu7zu7]

cparsley, on Mon Apr 11, 2011 9:03 AM, said:

Well game 1 is over... on to game 2 (cheeky devil for starting it early... good on ya Mr VCS)

Contest ends on Sunday, 04-24-2011


You have plenty of time sir!

Wish we was playing game 4... this game is easy on on levels. Very glad the new season has started.

Spread the word!

[thegoldenband]

Thanks, guys! But I want to say, I didn't have to pull off some Pinball Wizard-eque feat in order to get that score. Levels 1-6 are pretty easy if you know the layout, and if you've got a few spare lives by the time you hit Level 7, you're pretty much guaranteed to break half a million.

I haven't tried difficulty setting #4 but if it starts out as fast as Level 9, it'd be much harder to get past a couple hundred thousand -- it'd take a lot of good luck and twitchy reflexes.

By the way, I'm not 100% sure of this, but I think the bonus multiplier at the end of each level is adjusted downward if you fire too many shots.

[cparsley]

We got a problem here...

I pulled out Venture, played a game, and first the pic..



This score is rolled once, but the game does not roll the scoreboard at 1,000,000 points. It looks like (and unconfirmed at this point) that Coleco was way way too cheap when it came to memory allocations that it must of done the scoreboard in hexi-decimal as it looks like it rolls at about 655,350 (give or take a few points)... I try to determine that exact point.

On the game front, I guess I was incorrect to toss in the towel immediately, but damn those bat rooms (and yes, the game loops level 3 ad nuseum as level 9 (it does not do the 3 sets)

[thegoldenband]

cparsley, on Mon Apr 11, 2011 3:31 PM, said:

This score is rolled once, but the game does not roll the scoreboard at 1,000,000 points. It looks like (and unconfirmed at this point) that Coleco was way way too cheap when it came to memory allocations that it must of done the scoreboard in hexi-decimal as it looks like it rolls at about 655,350 (give or take a few points)... I try to determine that exact point.

Aha, that makes a lot of sense. As you can tell from my post above, I had a vague idea that something funny was going on, but couldn't get a fix on exactly what. I would've thought I had more than 650k when it rolled, but apparently not -- I guess I just assumed I'd gotten some huge end-of-cycle bonus or something.

One option would be to calculate it as number of rollovers + final displayed score, so this would be our current leaderboard:

thegoldenband - 1 rollover + 595,040
cparsley - 1 rollover + 469,640

That way we avoid the math weirdness, though we should also check to make sure that nothing else strange is happening in the rollover. Hopefully it's a strict mod(655360) operation.

The bat rooms are nasty, but if you go in prepared and with guns ("guns") blazing you can usually hold them off.

Edited by thegoldenband, Mon Apr 11, 2011 7:26 PM.

[thegoldenband]

Just tried it out, and it looks like mod(655360). I had 638,400 points, was awarded a bonus of 144,000 points at the end of Level 9. Those two numbers add up to 782,400, but the resulting score display was 127,040, which is 782,400 minus 655,360.

So, add 655,360 per rollover, which makes my true high score 1,250,400, and cparsley's 1,125,000.

Edited by thegoldenband, Mon Apr 11, 2011 8:56 PM.

[JacobZu7zu7]

Is it too late to switch to game 4?

Or... when I roll this game, will I have to keep playing? Or do I stop after it rolls?

[Mister VCS]

JacobZu7zu7, on Tue Apr 12, 2011 12:12 AM, said:

Is it too late to switch to game 4?

Or... when I roll this game, will I have to keep playing? Or do I stop after it rolls?

Everyone who rolls the score will be tied for the first place (screenshots before and after rolling the score please).

[cparsley]

something to be placed here soon (maybe)

Edited by cparsley, Tue Apr 12, 2011 5:38 AM.

[thegoldenband]

Mister VCS, on Tue Apr 12, 2011 12:23 AM, said:

Everyone who rolls the score will be tied for the first place (screenshots before and after rolling the score please).

If all rollovers are ties, then you don't really need a "before" shot -- you can tell whether someone's made it past Level 9 based on the treasure collection screen, and it'd be pretty tough to fill that up without rolling the score.

Edited by thegoldenband, Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:54 AM.

[cparsley]

Not really, you can go slow, take your time, only get a 2 or 3x bonus instead of the 8s u are probably piling up, and can easily finish 9 under 655k-ish. I dont see how to make a shot just before flipping and right after lol

[cparsley]

on a more important part, time to take a TG record, we need to videotape it to bring that WR home to Intelli-age (AtariAge, but only better)

[IntellivisionDude]

Man i suck at this game, my score is too embarrassing to post. I'm ashamed of myself.

[IntellivisionDude]

Ok i did a lot better on my 3rd game in. Went from about 14,000 to 380,300 in one game.

There's still room for improvement. I still suck at it though.

[cmart604]

IntellivisionDude, on Wed Apr 13, 2011 9:14 AM, said:

Ok i did a lot better on my 3rd game in. Went from about 14,000 to 380,300 in one game.

There's still room for improvement. I still suck at it though.

P1090258.JPG

Your first score sounds about right for what I'm expecting to score.

[Chuck D. Head]

Wow! I suck. 166,000. I do fine shooting and evading enemies inside the rooms. I keep dying by getting hung up on the walls and getting ht by the moving walls of death or when leaving a room, I run into an enemy instantly with no chance to evade. I'll try again tomorrow.

[cparsley]

Chuck in that case

A) Go in the top left room in (1,4,7) last, as that is the only room where in the inner walls kill. In addition enter via the top or bottom to give you space to get the diamond ALSO exit that way

[roadrunner]

101,900

Not too good, but at least this version is more fun than the 2600 and Colecovision versions.

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[ed1475]

155700

[JacobZu7zu7]

I like the Atari 2600 version better, "almost everything"... except I like the graphics much better on this Venture.

Normally I been choosing Intellivision versions over 2600's BUT,
I think THIS Ventures "flailing music" takes away the tension, also not having to worry about that face coming at you kills a lot of the challenge.

2600's sound effects and challenge make me enjoy it I think.

I did enjoy playing the last row of levels though! Pretty dangerous... but where's the killer face that should be chasing me? I took forever a couple times in the rooms and yet it didn't show up!


566,200

On my 2nd try...

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