Where to get the TG book?

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I've seen the Twin Galaxies book mentioned several times and as far as I could determine, there seem to be two versions; one for regular arcade games, and one for MAME and other emulator games. Is this correct? If so, how can I obtain a copy of the book that includes MAME scores?

Thanks.

-- Ben Jos Walbeehm (walbeehm@walbeehm.com), August 28, 1999

Answers

Ben , Go to this link for the Twin Galaxies Web-site , and look around : http://www.twingalaxies.com/libraryCampaign.html

This will give you the ISBN number of the book , which you can give to a retailer or library , and make an order. If you live in the U.S , it`ll be a lot easier to get the book. Hope this helps. ALEX

-- Alex Weir (alexweir@indigo.ie), August 28, 1999.


Thanks, Alex.

Yes, I had already found the TG site, and it can even be ordered online there (and, yes, I live in the US), but I was wondering if it also included emulator (MAME) scores, or if there was a separate version of the book for emulators?

Cheers, Ben Jos.

-- Ben Jos Walbeehm (walbeehm@walbeehm.com), August 28, 1999.


Ben, The book will include high scores on ( MAME ) games that have been set to TG settings. Therefore I think you`re in !! Keep on playing DK + CK , because as far as I know , Mr. Billy Mitchell , will soon be making an impact at MARP, as will Chris Ayra ( Mrs. Pac-Man + Berzerk World Record Holder ) , so be warned !!

Regards...ALEX

-- Alex Weir (alexweir@indigo.ie), August 28, 1999.


Ben, I've got a copy of the current TG Record Book and can tell you that it includes the entire gamut of video games from arcade to MAME to PC to console. It also has a section for pinball. Your scores on CK and DK are very impressive and I urge you to get in contact with Mark Longridge concerning getting your scores in the next edition of the book. I believe the deadline for submitting scores is coming up very soon (maybe a month or less), so get on with it! ;)

JoustGod

-- JoustGod (pinballwiz1@msn.com), August 28, 1999.


I think November is the dead-line for high score submissions , so yes , hurry up ! But to be sure , just send a mail to TG.

-- Alex Weir (alexweir@indigo.ie), August 28, 1999.


Thanks JoustGod. I am glad I'm good at at least one game. I am nowhere near your league.

Thanks Alex.

So does anyone know exactly *what* the TG settings are for CK? Are they the same as for DK? I sent an e-mail to Mark Longridge a while ago, but never got a reply...

Thanks again. Cheers, Ben Jos.

-- Ben Jos Walbeehm (walbeehm@walbeehm.com), August 28, 1999.


The settings would be 3 lives - extra at 10k, but odds are a score for Crazy Kong won't be taken no matter what. If you're going to try though, don't wait for Mark to reply (your PC will rust first). Send him a "ckong" recording, and make sure the level & score are in the title so he sees -

MAME Crazy Kong L=XX YYY,YYY

- BEFORE he deletes the message unread. With any luck he'll play it back out of curiousity, especially if you hit L=22.

Aqua

-- Aquatarkus (aquatarkus@digicron.com), August 28, 1999.


Thanks, Aqua. So the settings are slightly different from MAME's default (which is extra at 7000), but this really is only a technicality, because whether you get your one extra life at 7000, or 10000, or even 100000 should not make any difference to an experienced player.

I hope he'll accept CK scores, though, and at least he accepted my screenshot of a CK score of 343800 I submitted a long time ago. As I mentioned in another post, I don't think it's fair to call the US version of DK the "only" version because, like I said, I have never seen any DK in Europe. I have been living in the US for several years now, and I like the Americans, but sometimes it seems like they just ignore the rest of the world. If the US version of DK will be the only one accepted, then I don't think the TG book should be called the book of *world* records.

Anyway, I think the best way for me to solve all this is to just try to beat the top score on the US version of DK. :-)

Thanks. Cheers, Ben Jos.

-- Ben Jos Walbeehm (walbeehm@walbeehm.com), August 28, 1999.


Just to clear up a few things about Billy's world record on DK, he did have a higher score then what's in the book, actually close to 900K. Not sure why he settled with the 857K score that's in there already, but he did tell me personally, that 1M is possible. Unfortunately, there is no life beyond Level 22. A kill screen like 256 on Pacman. In fact, I believe this game will be included with the Pacman challenge of succesfully completing the split screen board and continuing past it as well to recieve $100,000 sponsored by TG and Ricky's World Famous Hot Sauce. It's vertually impossible unless you can complete a barrel board with 300 on the timer. Good Luck Ben.

Regards, Steve Krogman

-- stephen krogman (skrogman@concentric.net), August 30, 1999.


Looking at the TG settings list file, I notice the are only 130 games included. I wonder if, and how, this list could be extended to the load of games are now available for playing thanks to MAME (don't want to include variants and clones, but only the original ones). I don't know if there's a comittee that is in charge of determining each game settings, or we, as Marpers, could be entitled to suggest settings.

Could someome tell me about, before bothering Mark with silly questions...!?!?!

Thanx Cicca

-- Cicca (cicca@writeme.com), August 30, 1999.



Thanks, Steve.

Do you happen to know which level Billy Mitchell reached when he got his world record?

The last level (150m on DK (100m on CK); the rivets one) is really impossible to do the regular way. Even if there were no fireballs, taking the shortest possible route to get all the rivets won't do it. You can only get 4 or 5 rivets this way and then time will have run out on you. As I mentioned somewhere else, once I had found this out, I spent quite some money looking for secret exits on the rivets level (like the "jumping through the floor" on the barrel level on CK), but I never found one. And if nobody else knows of one, then I guess the only way to find out if there are any is by taking a ROM dump, disassembling it, and reading the source code. I may actually start doing that one day. Unless the programmers are kind enough to reveal all the secrets they put in. Or maybe they don't even know; an exit might be the result of a bug and never have been put in intentionally. My guess is that that is the case with the extremely rare exit appearing on CK's 50m (the conveyor belt level).

But you are correct that on DK (without the existence of the "jumping through the floor" exit), the barrel level already is close to impossible. And one would to have to finish it not once, but even three times in order to get to the impossible rivets level. Did Billy ever make it past a barrel level on L=22?

As for 1M points, based on the highest score I ever got on CK (654300 for 88 levels (4 levels each for L=01 through L=22), and taking into account that the first 12 levels (through L=03) offer less points (because of the timer starting at less than 8000), and taking into account that on L=22 there aren't many points to be earned (because of the reduced timer, the time bonus there will be between 3600 and 4000 points), taking into account that the barrel levels on DK offer more points than on CK (because of the higher barrel frequency), taking into account that the barrel levels occur more often on DK than on CK (which is important, since, usually, the barrel level is the most rewarding as far as points are concerned (unless you are lucky on the rivets level)), then extrapolating that to 122 levels on DK, I think I agree that 1M points is possible, but it is very hard. Even apart from the (most important) fact that you have to live that long, I think you'll have to have a lot of luck as far as the amount of barrels and fireballs you get to smash (and also hoping you get 800 points lots of times for the fireballs and the special barrels (the ones that turn into fireballs)), and you'll probably have to do some point leaching to get there. With the limited amount of hammers, leaching isn't very rewarding, though (usually only 100 points at a time, which is reduced by the bonus timer counting down). The only way to leach that offers some nice points is one that you can only do a limited amount of times, too, and I used that strategy on CK a few times: Get as many points you can get on the barrel level until time runs out and kills you. Then do the same thing with your next life, etc.. Like I said, you can only do this a limited amount of times (4, although the 4th won't be very effective if you do it on L=22), and it will make it very much harder, because accidental deaths will even further reduce the number of times you can do it.

I guess that the strategy of maximising the amount of points earned on each level requires a different way of playing, much like the patterns to eat all the ghosts on Pacman. (Not that I know too much about Pacman, but I've played it a few times, and I've read a lot about it.) From what I've read, though, it *is* possible to finish a split screen on Pacman (isn't there an inp on MARP in which somebody does it?), but of course it's like playing with a blindfold on. Another thing is that, as long as your pattern on Pacman doesn't change, neither will the ghosts' patterns; CK and DK have more randomness to them, so it doesn't look like there is one pattern on CK and DK that will always give you (close) the maximum number of points on a level. Well, at least you won't have to play continuously for over 6 hours to reach the end on CK or DK; if I remember correctly, my record of 654300 on CK took about 1 hour and 20 minutes, so the end on DK should be reachable well within 2 hours.

Just some thoughts...

Cheers, Ben Jos.

-- Ben Jos Walbeehm (walbeehm@walbeehm.com), August 30, 1999.


Cicca,

Well, on one of his pages, Mark *does* say one should e-mail him for games not listed there. From what I've heard, and from personal experience, there's not much chance of him actually replying, though.

Ben Jos.

-- Ben Jos Walbeehm (walbeehm@walbeehm.com), August 30, 1999.


Just for clarity's sake: When I said "Anyway, I think the best way for me to solve all this is to just try to beat the top score on the US version of DK.", I meant the top score on MARP. At this point, DK is too new for me to hope to even get anywhere near Billy Mitchell's world record. Well... I do *hope*, but I am trying to be realistic. :- )

Ben Jos.

-- Ben Jos Walbeehm (walbeehm@walbeehm.com), August 30, 1999.


L=22.

When I first got the TG book, I decided I absolutely had to know if the game ended on L=22 like the story of Billy Mitchell's amazing run claimed. As I lack the ability to predict the springs on DK US, along with a few other key abilities needed to do it on 3+1 lives, I played with the cheat search to set the game to infinite lives. Sure enough, on the first Barrel stage of L=22 you get about 800 time units - just enough to make it to the second ladder but not enough to get all the way up it. I used several lives to be sure I was getting as far as possible on the "kill screen". If you can not do the fall through the floor trick on DK US, and I don't expect you can, there is no way to pass it's L=22 Barrels.

Even with my screewups it didn't take much more than 2 hours.

I honestly think the barrier to DK is L=4+ elevators ... if the rythm pattern to the springs is solved the rest of the game should fall.

Aqua

-- Aquatarkus (aquatarkus@digicron.com), August 30, 1999.


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