Golden Era Game of the Week 4/24/04: Journey

Golden Era Game of the Week
http://www.gegotw.net/

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Golden Era Game of the Week 4/24/04: Journey

Post by Weehawk »

Golden Era Game of the Week

See introduction here

The Game: Journey

romname: journey

Reward: $100 (usd)

Deadline for submission to MARP: April 30, 2004 2359 hours GMT

Further Bounty: none

Comments: A true classic, but one you don't hear about much these days. This is also one of the first games I really enjoyed playing in MAME a few years ago, long before I knew about MARP.

While I'd be interested if someone could find a leech spot on this one, I'm really wanting to see who can get the farthest, so MARP Rule 2f will be in full effect for this challenge.

Use WolfMAME .81

An excellent textual treatise on this game is at:

http://db.gamefaqs.com/coinop/arcade/file/journey.txt
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Re: Golden Era Game of the Week 4/24/04: Journey

Post by BBH »

Weehawk wrote: An excellent textual treatise on this game is at:

http://db.gamefaqs.com/coinop/arcade/file/journey.txt
can't link directly to the FAQ, ya know. ;)

http://www.gamefaqs.com/coinop/arcade/game/3860.html

Also, a while back a Japanese player found a leeching spot on the drummer's stage. It involved just staying at one of the top corners and continually firing, the "enemy" patterns keep speeding up the longer you take, but eventually it gets to this point where they're just coming in a straight line so you can stay alive if you keep firing. At least I think that's how it went. I may still have the .inp, it was deleted off MARP shortly after it was uploaded.
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Post by destructor »

Yes. I found this place also. Must be banned? But what is the limit of this shooting leeching?
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Post by Weehawk »

destructor wrote:Yes. I found this place also. Must be banned? But what is the limit of this shooting leeching?
If I'm understanding the situation sufficiently, it will be obvious if someone is deliberately not making progress towards completing the level.

This would subject them to disqualification.
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Post by Weehawk »

Weehawk wrote:While I'd be interested if someone could find a leech spot on this one, I'm really wanting to see who can get the farthest, so MARP Rule 2f will be in full effect for this challenge.
Oh yeah, I saw this one coming.

It has been demonstrated to me that there are issues on 4 of the 5 stages that might conflict with rule 2f.

Time on the Neil Schon (guitar-left) stage is limited by his jet pack's fuel supply. On all the other stages it is possible to deliberately delay finishing the level in order to score more points. Probably doing this indefinitely is possible, though I haven't seen it yet.

How much is too much? Rule 2f reads:
Point or life leeching is strongly discouraged, and banned on some games, as described in the banned techniques list. You cannot continuously gain points without some degree of risk and you must keep moving to complete a level.
Determining the degree of risk being undertaken and at what point someone has significantly ceased "moving to complete a level" is somewhat subjective.

Rather than make a subjective judgement call in each case, I am going to arbitrarily assign an objective limit for the purposes of this challenge. If the programmers of the game had put a time limit on each stage we would not have this problem. I will do it for them. From what I've seen, 30 seconds should be more than sufficient to finish a stage if one is earnestly trying to complete it. I will allow 33.33 seconds just to make it a round number of 1000 frames. You have that much time in each stage to get the instrument, then that much time to escape with it. If you take longer than 1000 frames to do this on any of the 4 stages in question, your recording will be disqualified for consideration for the bounty. This is for the purposes my Golden Era Game of the Week only, and is not binding on MARP regulation play. Whether or not any recording is in compliance with MARP rule 2f will be subject to the community's scrutiny as usual.

The main advantages of this course is that it offers an objective criterion which can be applied without prejudice, and is the same for all competitors.

According to Gamefaqs, the difficulty does not increase after the fifth loop. I foresee this title being marathonable even without leeching.

In short: You must not take more than 30 seconds to complete a half-stage for this challenge
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Post by destructor »

30 seconds for each half-stage or for second half-stage?
Example: stage with drums: jumping on platforms without time limit (first half-stage) and next finish second half-stage with shooting in 30 seconds.
Yes?

And on left-guitar stage I can shoot until end of fuel. Yes?
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Post by Weehawk »

30 seconds for each half-stage or for second half-stage?
I meant each half stage, but I didn't think about it taking longer than 30 seconds to jump on all the drums.
Example: stage with drums: jumping on platforms without time limit (first half-stage) and next finish second half-stage with shooting in 30 seconds.
Yes?
On that stage, yes. Feel free to jump on all the drums. No need for a time limit.
And on left-guitar stage I can shoot until end of fuel. Yes?
Yes, heck I even did that in my poor recording.
:wink:
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Post by destructor »

Weehawk wrote:
30 seconds for each half-stage or for second half-stage?
I meant each half stage, but I didn't think about it taking longer than 30 seconds to jump on all the drums.
It is possible and if you destroy all drums (left only one) then you get special bonus 1k!
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Post by Ian Sutton »

I believe the game does get faster on later levels. Once you get past level 5 it goes 3, 4, 5, 3, 4, 5 etc. The one with the gates you have to move through speeds up. Also the gravity increases on the bouncy drum level and decreases on the jump up the screen level. The others seem to be the same.

Does the 30 second timer apply to the jetpack level also? The reason I ask is I already played a game with some leeching on this level (recent top score on marp also violates the rule here). I thought it would be ok because there is a timer on that one. Also it's possible to legitimately take longer than 33 seconds to complete the bouncy drum level. This has a de facto timer on it as well because the drums disappear. Also you get bonus points by only leaving one drum left (which can take longer than 33 seconds)

This is obviously problematic. Why can't you just say no endless leeching tricks and leave it up to your discretion? This system works for other games on marp.
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Post by Weehawk »

Ian wrote:Does the 30 second timer apply to the jetpack level also?
Weehawk wrote:It has been demonstrated to me that there are issues on 4 of the 5 stages that might conflict with rule 2f.

Time on the Neil Schon (guitar-left) stage is limited by his jet pack's fuel supply. On all the other stages it is possible to deliberately delay finishing the level in order to score more points.
Ian wrote:Also it's possible to legitimately take longer than 33 seconds to complete the bouncy drum level.
See post above.
Ian wrote:This is obviously problematic.
You are welcome to not play. Problem solved.
Ian wrote:Why can't you just say no endless leeching tricks and leave it up to your discretion?
Weehawk wrote:How much is too much? Rule 2f reads:
Point or life leeching is strongly discouraged, and banned on some games, as described in the banned techniques list. You cannot continuously gain points without some degree of risk and you must keep moving to complete a level.
Determining the degree of risk being undertaken and at what point someone has significantly ceased "moving to complete a level" is somewhat subjective.

Rather than make a subjective judgement call in each case, I am going to arbitrarily assign an objective limit for the purposes of this challenge.
Ian wrote:This system works for other games on marp.
That system doesn't exist.
Weehawk wrote:Rule 2f reads:
Point or life leeching is strongly discouraged, and banned on some games, as described in the banned techniques list. You cannot continuously gain points without some degree of risk and you must keep moving to complete a level.
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Post by Ian Sutton »

Cool, if there's no limit on the bouncy and jet pack stages then my recording is fine. Thanks for clearing that up.
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Post by Weehawk »

Ian Sutton wrote:Cool, if there's no limit on the bouncy and jet pack stages then my recording is fine. Thanks for clearing that up.
Look forward to seeing it.

Be warned. I've seen some other good ones privately already.

:wink:
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Post by destructor »

Ian Sutton wrote:recent top score on marp also violates the rule here.
When I upload this score here was not rules. But OK, I delete my score (my all scores for journey).
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Post by Weehawk »

destructor wrote:
Ian Sutton wrote:recent top score on marp also violates the rule here.
When I upload this score here was not rules. But OK, I delete my score (my all scores for journey).
Ian was talking about the Neil Schon (left guitar stage).

As I explained there is no issue here that I can see.
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Post by destructor »

No problem. My scores were poor :wink:

Some info for players:

40k =~ 4min 45sec =~ 1Wave
100k =~ 11min 53sec
200k =~ 23min 45sec =~ finish first 5 Waves
500k =~ 59min 23 sec
1mln =~ 1h 58min 45sec

Good luck. :D
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