I wonder if we'll eventually be moving pver to a new board. I hope not, because that would hurt participation even more. But this board does go down a lot.
 

Sorry Barrels, for what it's worth. i shouldn't be , this being a competition and all but i legitimately feel bad .

That's my impression, and in one of the threads, Bea was directly replied to about just this topic. I'd hate to think a sudden 503 error (which are becoming more and more frequent since the changeover) prevents a player from submitting a score.

... and take Skinny's ban, for example. While temporary, it was only because the existing mods were unaware of the scope of the moderator "bug" he encountered. That speaks a lot to the tedious nature and lack of control and confidence in the current software. Once they realized how superficial the bug was, his account was restored. Had the ban persisted, and it was a pivotal week, as a strong player it would really ravage the outcome.

We'll simply have to move, else go down with the ship. It sounds like Bea is ready and willing to relaunch the contests on the new site, so we'll just have to wait and see. Maybe we can allow a bi-directional/ multi-site contest during the transition?

lolwut? I'm legitimately the shittiest video game player in these contests. And I genuinely mean that, and I don't lose sleep over it.

I am only in these contests to get myself out of my comfort zone and play games I otherwise wouldn't touch. For example, I've owned Pac Mania for years (and completed my loose Tengen set over 5 years ago) and had never played it. Of course, I emulated this week, but that was due to chaos at home.

I grew up playing and loving StarTropics but had never really given the sequel a chance. Now I can say I did. These contests are amazing.

Do not feel bad good sir. I feel a bit bad being in the top 4 because I legitimately don't belong there, hah.
 

I don't know what high score strat everyone was using, but if you start on level 4 and then not eat any power pellets it will force the red pill. You can rack up huge points with the red pill as long as you don't die.

I should have put more time into this game.

Exactly what I did. However, I didn't think you needed to abstain from power pellets; I'm pretty sure I was consistently getting them after collecting the fruit and moving around sufficiently, even if I got a power pellet. However, I could be wrong.

And yes, so long as you didn't die you could rack up serious points (7600/per after the first two ghosts). I don't know if you realized this, but it carries over to the next level as well so long as you don't die!

I was also able to consistently get a red pellet on level 6 as well (first stairs), though it took a bit longer to generate.

I just tried and it gave me a green pill because I ate a power pellet. Don't eat them and you always get the red one.

 

For all that is worth, I will give the contest a run over the new forum.
It will be a last huzzah for it. If we get participation (aka, at least 5 or 6 people post scores every week), it will be staying.
Otherwise, I cannot promise it will survive 2021.

For now I got a crazy tournament to plan. I have zero idea how I will run it.

good to know, guess I wasn't paying enough attention.

But yeah, once I started getting red pellets consistently it drastically altered scores.
 

If at first level you eat a power pellet right away before the fruit appears, a red bonus will show up instead of green after you eat the fruit, if you don't die you can rack points quick.. Can't wait for tournament details

I didn't figure out how to force the red pill on the first level. That's good to know. It's probably better points-wise to start on the first level with that information.