Hello everyone and welcome to the latest installment of the Weekly Contests!  This week’s game is going to be Lunar Pool.  Here are the rules:
 
 

• Choose 1 Player Game
• Start on Round 1
• Do not change the friction.  Leave it set at 032
• No looping of the game allowed.  Once the game goes back to Stage 1, you must stop and take your picture.  Anyone suspected of playing the game beyond the first loop will have their score disqualified.
• Play until Game Over
• Take your picture on the Title Screen.  Your score will be in the “Score” spot.
• Highest score wins
• Participation: 1000
• GENRE: Sports

 
 
The contest ends Sunday, 8/21/16 at 11 PM NA time.  Your user name MUST be written or typed on a piece of paper and be in the picture for your score to be valid.  The entire TV screen, or computer monitor if you are playing on an emulator, MUST be in the picture for the score to be valid.  No partial screenshots will be considered or accepted.  No screenshots by hitting "print screen" on a computer will be allowed.  You must take a picture of your computer monitor.  There may be instances where this will be acceptable, but it will be at the discretion of myself and the contest organizers.  Also, the use of turbo controllers is forbidden, as well as any cheat codes, Game Genies, slow motion functions, or save states if playing on an emulator.  Also, we will only be using NTSC systems for the contests.  The use of PAL systems will NOT be allowed.  Good luck everyone and have fun  

This is not a high scoring game. After a few attempts I made it to near the end of stage 3 with only one more ball left to sink and only got 810 points. No bonus points after each stage.

EDIT: I got over 900 points my last run. Yay. Still a far cry from participation.

OFFICIAL SCOREBOARD
Lunar Pool (Sports)
Place	Score	Username	Points
1	1,484,830	Bea_Iank	+11
2	48,630	mbd39	+10
3	41,920	Krunch	+9
4	21,130	bertsampson	+8
5	20,190	smick	+7
6	11,770	EgasKrad	+6
7	11,600	Jandrem	+5
8	10,980	Brock Landers	+4
Participation
9	10,690	Commander Santa	+3
10	10,470	SuperJimtendo	+3
11	9,330	arnpoly	+3
12	9,220	barrelsAndRivets	+3
13	5,180	Zaam	+3
14	3,840	skinnygrinny	+3
15	3,450	JamesRobot	+3
16	1,770	Ferris Bueller	+3
17	1,630	Seppatoni	+3
18	1,360	laddersandcakes	+3

(bert, feel free to edit this post when you get back)

I predict a record low number of participating scores this contest. I can't even get participation.

Changing participation to 1000. Will edit rules later when not on my phone.

SCORE: 10470
Participation: 1350



That game is weird! I got to stage three with 1800 thanks to the score multiplier thingie. Not enough for participation yet but the nights still young 

I've started to pick up a few tricks, this game is actually pretty interesting. i won't have much time to play this week but hopefully i can squeeze in a few more runs at it

Oh sure after I make my post saying 1800 wasn't enough! And I didn't take a picture either! Haha 
 

I keep scratching on stage 3.  


 

Yeah that's a tough table
 

Trick is to keep the ratio high. I am at 33,150 at stage 17 right now.
You get some bonus if you play a perfect game as well, and it is easy to do so in quite a few of the tables.
You are awarded an amount of points per ball number multiplied by ratio, with bonus if you pull tricky shots that pocket more than one ball with a single shot.

I used to be good at the real thing back when I was 20, 16 years ago.  

I've played one pool game, Championship Pool for SNES. And despite hours of effort I couldn't get close to beating it. So, probably a good omen for this week!

i played the hell out of virtua pool 3 featuring jeanette lee. that was a fun ass game for its day.

 

My best score so far is 2,520 after a bunch of attempts. I expect people who don't play a lot of billiards games to have a tough time.

Well its a good thing the sports title was determined long ago. I'll spend my 2 hours on this and give up (probably, maybe I'll end up liking it)

1,484,830 - game beaten, sanity nowhere to be found
270,000 - game beaten
106,150 - stage 43


All shots mapped, some tested well over 10 times. The last few stages will be validated again tomorrow, but I am pretty sure they will be spot on. It is math after all.
Excel on the background with angles, vector length, force required for the shot, which ball it will hit and which balls it will drop. I am madly in love with vector math, even if it costs my sanity from time to time.
I will try to record the video tomorrow night, but worst case scenario, it will be posted till Saturday. This run took me well over 5 hours to complete.
I love pool and I am good to handle round things, but after this week, I won't want to see this game again for a good while.  

This game is nothing but ye old high school vector math. It is annoyingly easy. The bulk of my score came from the first 20 stages where I tried to keep the ratio high. After that I just lazed around trying to beat the game, since I had 99 lives to spare.
During the week I will post the best angles, speed and vector length to use in the first 10 stages to level things a bit around here.
I am definitely good when it comes to dealing with balls.
Figures. It seems that the local female player is better at handling balls than the local men.  
It is not exactly fair, either. I have far more experience at that as well.  

48,630


 

My score is like an anthill in front of Mt. Everest here. But this is my best attempt after a bunch of tries today.

seriously. That and Virtual Pool Hall were played all the time on my old PC
 

Rate management will be far more important for the high score than going the distance here.
Rate goes up to 50 and then resets. Each perfect game is worth 1,500 points.
Keeping your rate high and trying to land the higher numbered balls later will be important to score high in this week.

Your advice is basically "hit all the balls into the pockets and don't miss." I'll have to try that instead of my usual strategy which involves missing shots most of the time.

 

Pretty much, yes.
Do note that there is no element of random when doing the shoots, so it is possible to memorize the shots to perfect all the tables, or at least the very few first ones to score big.
In theory, it is possible to memorize all the best shots for the max score for all 60 tables in the game and run a perfect game. But I don't think there is enough time to do that in a week's timespan.

Edit:
Ok, small correction. Rate goes up to 99 and doesn't reset.

1,360

Here's my baby participation score for now. Goo-goo-ga-ga. 

Updated my score. I have beaten the game. I could have scored over 300,000 but I just lazed around trying to beat it instead after stage 20.

Score updated on page 1. this game is made by pony inc. no wonder i'm enjoying it


my strategy of whacking the balls as hard as possible, like a skateboarder trying a rail for the first time, is paying off in getting combo shots and raising the rate consistently!

Championship Pool on NES is secretly one of the hardest games on the entire console, so it's no surprise it's that hard on SNES too.  I am betting you will have better luck on Lunar Pool this week, should you choose to put in effort.