It was one lucky game. I have been getting around 350, 000. Why can't I get 3 ccherries?

I think I'd rather have 3 bells as it advances the multiplier. I think I've found a way to consistently get out of the toilet without using the left side loop. Problem is the bumpers on the next level seem determined to keep me down there. I swear this game penalizes you for making great precision shots. I've made so many great ones tonight and often my reward is to have said shot ricochet off a bumper and getting thrown down to a lower playfield or in the gutter.

That's what worries me. I may have the high score for now, but any of you guys could still knock me off with one solid run. At least this isn't the finals or I wouldn't be able to sleep until it's over.

Tier 1 - 4,953,430



I took too long taking the picture so I had to drain the ball in a new game, clumsy me.

I doubt I'm going to improve on this, but hey, we've got an extra day so why not try? I agree with gutsman on the "luck" involved in this game. It takes skill, but the floaty ball physics also seem to make things unpredictable. The fact that you can hit the plunger at max and have the ball land somewhere different on every try alone proves that they're off.

It was soo satisfying getting a maxed out bonus counter and the x5 multiplier when I lost my first ball.  That tally up takes like a minute and a half.

Tier 2 - 6,453,740

Here is my score for the tourney.  As everyone else said, this game takes a lot of luck, especially because you can't bump the table (which is infuriating).  I had 6M+ on my first ball, and just tanked the second two, including the last one which went down the drain without me even having a chance to hit it with a flipper (went straight down the right side all the way down). 
 

I think I'm done playing. Just had a run of 3.6 million and I multiple instances where I got absolutely hosed. This was THE run for me as I just missed out on a 5x multiplier with multiball. I was one shot away. I was also one shot away from getting multiball again and actually made several great shots to get out of the toilet but the bumpers kept throwing the ball back down there with the deathblow being that the bumper dropped it back down to the toilet right into that slot. The ball physics in this game are terrible.

Oh and I did find a shot to dig out of the toilet without the loop. What you want to do is aim it where your ball just passes above those targets on that right side.

I sincerely hope this game is never played in a tournament again as I feel that luck is too much of a determining factor with this game and when it comes to potentially winning prizes,I want my fate to rest solely on my gaming skills and not simply where the ball does or doesn't bounce.

This weeks contest ends tomorrow not tonight, correct?

Yep. Tomorrow at 11:00 pm NA time.

Awesome, I'm not sure how much time I will have tomorrow but at least it is some more time. I'll try and get an updated score posted tonight

Score updated ... in tragedy.

I soft-locked the game.

I had just unlocked multiball on the top screen and I had both balls drop down the right gate at the same time. The top ball fired back out and in the process I guess it pushed the bottom ball down to where the game doesn't recognize it and it can't shoot back up. When I realized what happened I tried to put the other ball back down the chute to try and dislodge it but I lost the ball to the screen below, so now the screen doesn't move since there's still a ball on the screen and the ball is just stuck jiggling down at the bottom of the chute. It's been running for 20 minutes or so and it's not going anywhere. This sucks.

I was still on my FIRST BALL. (Well I did have several Shoot Again chances.) I had to leave for dinner for a few hours so I paused the game while we were gone and when I came back I got to play for all of 30 seconds before this happened. What a letdown.

I know there has been a lot of chat in the thread about this game being awfully luck based, and I do agree with all that. But this bout of bad luck really takes the cake! This also exposes some problems without having a darn table tilt feature!

Even though I have potentially left millions of the points on the table, there's no way I can continue this run from here. I still improved my top score by a little bit so it will have to do. I'm done with this game. If having the game lock up on me prevents me from making it to the finals, well, I might have to punt my Rollerball cart!

Damn, that stinks arnpoly.

You broke the old world record (that makes 3 people this week) - and you didn't even get to finish with your first ball!

Hoping to hit 1, 000, 00 before time runs out. Tier 3
692, 810

*Score Updated*

Great scores everyone! I'll give this a few more tries tonight before I go to bed. If I can't climb out of the Tier 2 cellar tonight then most likely I'm conceding defeat as I will only have about an hour and a half of play time tomorrow (if that) which I doubt gives me enough time to put up anything worthwhile.

EDIT: I'm done. I don't want to play this game anymore. I'm so sick of it and it's bs I may never play it again. I tried. I had a few promising runs,but I had a bad break (or several) in every one of them. I tip my hat to each of you,but I have no idea how you managed these scores other than just having the good fortune of being able to keep your ball(s) on the top screen. I sure as hell didn't. Mine loved to find their way down to the toilet to go die.

Good luck to everyone still fighting for a finals berth and good luck to everyone who makes the finals. With my luck I'm sure the game chosen will be something I can absolutely crush and/or Luke will reveal that he's giving out more of those custom tourney carts which I desperately wanted to win last tourney. Would not surprise me.

Some day we'll have a tournament where all the games selected I'm really good at. Some day.....

Geez now I'm worried that beating the world record is not going to be good enough in my tier!

I find that keeping your balls out of the toilet is one of life's more valuable talents... though keeping them "on top" sounds like it increases the odds of testicular torsion...

Now my balls hurt. Thanks Nathan! Haha

Looks like I'll have to give this game one more shot tonight to prevent myself from getting eliminated. The outlanes are the bane of me, just like in actual pinball. Grats to everyone on the amazing scores. Not sure how you guys are doing that, especially with no way to nudge the machine.

This happened to me again last night. Did you have the multi ball in play on the same screen when it crashed? Both times the game froze up on me was right after the multi ball got released and they had both been in play on the same screen for about 15 seconds.

I had multiball but the balls weren't on the same screen when the game crashed.

What emulator were you using?

Nestopia never had any issues, and I almost certainly had that same scenario at some point in the game.

The underlying game must trigger something in memory that breaks certain emulators.

The one I'm using is jnes. I've tried downloading the game from two different sites, so I'm guessing it's an emulator issue of some sort. I'm not that familiar with them so I don't know what could potentially be wrong.

I dont know much about jnes, but I gather that Nestopia  and FCEUX are the "go to" emulators for more accurate emulation.

I'm using NESbox for emulation. Has some minor sound issues but it works for me. Was the first time it ever crashed on me.

This is the only game I've ever had an issue with. It did the same thing to me during the weekly contest a little over a year ago. It only seems to freeze up when the multi ball is on the same screen, but there have been several times where I had extended multi ball runs without an issue.