Damn ms clawful, I'm gonna have to play quite a bit tonight to beat that!

Nice job Clawful on breaking 200k!

I need to play some more, this game is definitely challenging

I'm thinking I'm going to try to get in 50 games of this too as I did for Bubble Bobble, its not as fun as that game, so a bit harder for me to play as much as I had with that one, but if I don't let it frustrate me too much, maybe get in 8-10 games a day, I should be good for that 50 by Sunday.

Damn this sounds like fun. I wish I had Wrecking Crew...maybe I'll participate next week.

Score Updated.

Wow! Nice game Miss C.! 0_o Quarter mil. mark is next!!!

**124,700** My new best....

Nice attempt. I like seeing someone show how they're improving, improvement is good, even in small increments, so long as you're moving ahead each game or few, then you're making progress that was worth the effort. Though I'm not sure if I can improve my score, if only phase 18 weren't so cheap, or should I say if Spike weren't so cheap, hate this character, always breaking ladder walls on me before I can climb them.

Thx Miss C., phase 14 with the big blob-o-ladders is giving me hell...

Take your time on that one, lure the wrench guys over to the longer ladders, waiting for each to get close, then climb down, forcing them to climb down it, then smash it to drop 'em, but most likely you'll only be able to get one at a time, if you can knock more than that off at once, that's pretty lucky. Concentrate on defeating them first, then when all is clear go for breaking all of the ladders. I usually start with the ladder on the furthest left, then take whatever is convenient at the time. 

Oh, a little something to get everyone started with an extra life, seems to be the same locations every time for each letter, just hit the walls in the order to spell out MARIO (haven't put in the effort to try to get this for the other stages yet, though I could just stage select to them and keep trying, if I get any of them I want to do it during the normal process of playing):


Looking over at Twin Galaxies at the scores for Wrecking Crew to see where I'd stand with mine, seen the couple scores for Wrecking Crew and Tom Votava, this guy is a god with some of these games, he's the one with that nearly 6 and a half million something on Bubble Bobble, holds the highest score for Wrecking Crew too, 914.100 points, crazy. Hey, but looks like most of us could knock Jennifer off easily enough. Thinking that I might at least be able to get a third of what the champ has on this, so my goal is to get over 300.000 points, I think I can do that.

Played 3 more games of this, managed to pass phase 18 once, with no lives left, thankfully after phase 19 (19 is kind of a bitch too) it gets a little easy for a few stages (phase 20 is a breeze, easiest stage since the very first one), allowing me to make it up to phase 24 (not the furthest I've gotten, 25 was, but phase 24 is really quite hard, takes a lot of backtracking and with Spike chasing you, well, per most games, I lost because of him...he's becoming one of my most hated foes on the NES very quickly). Update, 1 more attempt, got to phase 27, and beat my last highest score again. Another game after that, getting my second highest score, but one phase higher than last time.

Score 171.500 Phase 18:




Score 152.300 Phase 18:




Score 211.300 Phase 24 (just beat my top score again, and to think, if only I'd gotten more points on the bonus stages I would've blew my last highest score away):


Score 259.900 Phase 27 (blew all my other scores away, didn't catch it on the game over screen as I wanted, stupid camera decided it had to try to focus twice in a row instead of just taking the damn pic, totally missing my chance, but I wasn't going to pass on a score like this, and actually for once, I got through phase 18 without wasting any lives, only lost 1 life until I got to phase 27, not sure why, that stage looks easy, but I used up all of the rest of my lives here):


Score 253.100 Phase 28 (close but no cookie, but I did manage to get one phase further, also overall played an awesome game, managed to get all the way to phase 24 before having my first death, then lost my next 4 lives in phase 27, and last life in phase 28; got my pic at the game over but it came out really blurry, no choice but to settle with taking it later, actually I'm not going to make a big deal out of it, score is the important thing here, not rounds, but I have to display the round somehow for my records, this is good enough):

Please read, I think this is important:

Just found something that I thought awesomely useful, a hammer item. I first came across this during one of my earlier games, while in phase 15, but when it appeared I had just dropped down a floor and was already about the break my last row of walls, it was inconveniently out of reach, I wondered what it was for, I thought mere bonus points like everything else that was seemingly randomly popping out from certain bombs. Just found this hammer again, this time in phase 4, I grabbed it, wasn't sure what it did at first, Mario was flashing and the music changed, I knew immediately that he ran faster, but then also I noticed that every brick you hit takes only 1 hit to knock down, nice. More curious about this I paused the game and looked back in Twin Galaxies because I remember glimpsing something mentioned about a magic hammer when I was there checking the scores before, here's what it says:

"Special Rules: This variation is set at 5 LIVES ONLY! Your scoring attempt ends when you die for a 5th time. You may start on ANY Phase you desire to. [Push A or B at title screen to level select] If you hit Select for ANY reason during game play, your scoring attempt ends there. [This kills the game and brings you to the title screen. There should be no need as if you mess up, a fireball or enemy will kill you in due time.] Using the Magic Hammer to float across a gap is BANNED!"

Oh, I can float too! How the hell do I do that, falls off ledges a few times trying it, wtf. Then next time start hammering while I'm walking off the ledge, hmm, it did something, Mario kinda floated but I still fell. Tries again, okay, I see, was able to float across a gap, only 1 block's width, but hey, that's pretty cool. What I wonder, with this being part of the normal functions of the game, why the hell is it not allowed from that site? no codes are being used, no game genie, so what the hell, how can something legit, not be legit. But I also wonder, does it mean that even getting this hammer legit, or getting it is okay, you just can't use it to hover? Because I really could care less about the hover ability, kinda risky anyway being that I can't get it to work every time, seems to require good timing, but the extra speed and power sure would give the game a big boost in fun. What do you guys think, is the hammer allowable, and if is, partial with being able to walk faster and hit harder, or full with all the benefits?

Looked it up in a faq over at Gamefaqs, only for phase 4 since that's where I found it, didn't look any further than that, didn't fully understand what the person was saying, took me several tries to get it, and I ended up doing it completely different from what the faq writer said anyway. I blew up the first bomb as I usually do, and entire row of walls falls, then moved up to the next floor, hit several of the walls there (3 of them once each), then smashed the left bomb, it blew up the row as well as the bomb on the right, moments later the hammer appears where the right bomb was. Its not how I was told to do it, but its how I remember moving when I'd accidently grabbed it the first time. If the hammer is allowable, I think everyone should at least know the same as to where at least this one is since it seems to be the earliest point that you can get one, that way we're all playing on even ground. Oh, you keep the power of the hammer for every phase thereafter too, until you die, then you lose it and go back to normal speed and power.

I'm having some trouble with this game, got the rom for temporary.. Does anybody have a manual scanned in? I can't figure out what the whip is for?.. and how to go through doors? can the little guys be defeated? I got like 50,xxxish but then i hit select, lol... pissed me off so bad that I had to quit for a while. I will get a high score in this game (might not get 1-3, but I am bound determined to get a score about 2xx,xxx... this game is pretty cool (even if i can't figure out how to play it in its entirety)

The manual scan is on this site, its clear enough read for the most part, but the manual don't tell you everything, such as about the bonus point items, didn't see anything on that hammer either. Whip...what whip? And no, sadly you can't enter doors, these are to lure enemies into, once an enemy wander into one, they become a blue silhouette and can't harm you while like this as they are now in the background. This game could've had some really great gameplay possibilities if these doors had been put to more use, for Mario to be able to go through them.As for defeating the baddies, you can either trap them between something where they can't get out, or trap them by dropping an oil drum onto them, experiment a bit, you'll find some methods that work for you.

Miss Clawful,why are you taking a picture of a bunch of games you've done? Just posting the best score you got would not be enough? And it's not urgent to post immediately another score if you beat it, you can wait to see what people will do. No?

About that super hammer you're talking about, as long as it's an usual item of the game, I don't know why it would be cheating, except if you can use it in a tricky-glitchy way to make more points easily, which seems to not be the case reading your experiments. Thanks to let the rest of the people know about it, that's a fair and generous way of acting towards your rivals.

By the way, great score, I was gonna take a chance at this contest, but I might get discouraged before trying it intensively.

See this is something i was talking about! If she wants to post her scores let her post how many scores as she freaken wants, and yes ur gonna get discourgaged, like seriously i posted a post about just leaving ppl alone, once again im not trying to be a dick or anything!!! Megan has been doing my contest since the start, if she wants to post let her post as many scores as she wants everything counts!!! If for the fun Factor

Jeremy.

Yeah, I'm taking pics of every single game I play, very important to me, think of it as a gaming diary, as with everything I beat, I log down all of my records, but while I'm not beating any game here, I'm playing for some sort of accomplishment, score, so like games beaten, every game played where I'm trying to beat a high score, get logged down, and if possible, a picture taken. I don't see many people posting on any of these, aside from myself, there's only been less than a handful, look at some of the earlier contests and compare...they were kinda empty, you have plenty of chances to post, regardless of how many score I put up, can't wait for other people to somehow get motivated to post theirs.

And don't feel discouraged, its only a game, if other people's scores seem impossible to beat, well, focus on your own scores, work on improving your game, the results, if given enough time and practice can be quite surprising. I haven't won any of these yet, sure I got some points for whatever places that I ranked in, but, take Bubble Bobble for example, I didn't win, I wanted to, but someone else was just slightly better than me, no big deal, because the whole time I was trying, and I was giving my all on that one, I managed to improve dramatically at that game and I had a blast playing it. For me, that's what its about, while I'm participating in these contests, giving my all, I'm improving my gaming skills.

Don't complain, its spoiling the fun, post your scores, show us what you got.

As for the hammer thing, fine and all if I had an advantage and not shared, but what kind of challenge would that be? The more fair the game is played the better it is for all. Also, even though a contest, I'm still willing to help out in any way that I could, a few pointers don't hurt my place in this, afterall you'd still be the one to have to get through it.

One more game for today, this time I took advantage of the magic hammer, from phase 4 til my first death in phase 18, while it didn't really help me in way of surviving, because I'd already been able to get farther without it before my first death, it sure did speed things up, the game went quicker, therefore wasn't boring crawl speed, well, until I died.

Score 263.700 Phase 28 (new high score):

yeah i got the hammer one time but i didnt realize it made me faster at the time..

megan your going crazy on these contests, but im not worried. it will be a long road to that first place prize....

Well i may not be able to win this but i can help with the hammer. In phase 6, where the 4 bottom bombs are set up like a square....as soon as u enter the stage blow up the bottom-right, bottom-left, and top-left bombs in that order and the hammer will show up...

I think I'll give this one a shot when I get some time (if that ever happens ). Looks fun.

OBSTACLE OVERCOME!!! DIE LVL 14!!!  **158,300**
Thank u for the pointers Miss C.!!!

You're welcome! Glad to see you whooped that stage. You're getting better I can see, points are quite a bit higher than last time, I'm sure you'll get over 2 hundred thousand points soon. And I see you found a hammer on another stage, cool.

I haven't played any games of this yet today, maybe late tonight or the wee hours of the morning, try to get in another 5 games at least, hoping to pass 300.000 points, but not sure about getting past phase 28, if I have the hammer by that point, I may stand a chance with the extra speed, but either way, don't think I'm going to be getting through that phase any time soon.

Gave it 4 more games off and on through the evening, beat my highest score again, wasn't easy. Still can't get past phase 28, still struggling on phase 27. Found a few more magic hammers, it seems for most phases, if you hit just 2 bombs (doesn't seem to matter which 2 so long as they aren't the prize one) and nothing else gets destroyed, on that 3rd bomb, which has to be the prize bomb, you'll get the hammer, seems to work like this on most phases I tried it on (phase 22 is the last place I was able to get the hammer, if anyone else happens to make it there the prize bomb is the upper right one). Think I'm going to give this just 1 more try and call it quits, starting to feel monotonous, wouldn't be able to last as I had with Bubble Bobble, so I'll stop at 25 games, can't see me getting that 300.000 that I was thinking of aiming at getting, so whatever my next score is will be the final regardless of what I get.

Score 219.000 Phase 28:




Score 188.400 Phase 24 (did really poorly this time, was getting kinda bored of it all):




Score 255.100 Phase 27:




Score 270.000 Phase 27 (my top score):

Nice! I have 21-27 down, got thru in 1 man....need to work on 15-20.

Sounds like you're catching up to me. Looking to win this one huh? I encourage it, go for it!

Wow. This game is really neat! Last night was the first time I've played it, and I managed to make it to Phase 12 with 104,000. Looks like I have a lot of learning/catching up to do on this one.