Considering that this warp is like the Spanish Inquisition, which no one expects, I totally didn't take a picture of my highscore at entering stage 11.  
Let this be a a fair warning to the other players. Don't get distracted at the start of stage 11.
 

LOL, I like the reference.

You could take a picture of your score at stage 6 after the warp, exceptionally.
 

Too late now. I had already grabbed some stuff and completed a few runs by the time I understood what happened and why I was having this deja-vu feeling.
Oh well, it is fair enough. It was my second time playing it. I guess I will just beat it out of spite this Sunday.

Also, there are warps forward and not only backwards, so I think the rule change must reflect that only warps backward are disallowed.

I know there is a warp to level 10 in level 7. I assume that's how you've made it to level 11 so soon.

I think I somehow took it, even though I recall playing a bit of stage 8 as well.
I am pretty sure I played stage 7 end room, actually. So I don't exactly know how I ended up in stage 10, but I am sure I didn't play stage 9.
Edit: Ah, I see now, checking this strategy guide. I got the crystal ball on stage 7, and that leads you straight to stage 10.
I guess I won't be playing stage 8 and 9 so soon, as you need crystal balls to get the best ending. And the best ending is what I will aim for in my run for this week.

...

Here's some more helpful stuff:

Apparently you get an 'E' coin and extra life for every 40 gold coins. So grab as many gold coins as you can.

The enemy transformations are based on how many times you jump.

https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/...

I modified the rule so only backwarp are forbidden, makes more sense that way.

This might be the most underrated game on the NES. I'm fascinated by it. I can't stop playing it.

Ironsword > Mighty Bomb Jack (kidding).


Yeah, this game is totally underrated, not that it should be on top 10 list but there's definitely some depth to it that you won't see without playing it for a while. I use to play that game on a 110 in 1 multicart when I was young, always loved it.

123,420


Not proud of this score, but I keep dying in horridly simple ways.



 

This is a fun game. Fairly entertaining, but I am fairly mad at what happened last night.
I will definitely give it another fair shot tonight to crush it, see it driven before me and hear the lamentation of it's women.

442,470

Not by how many times you jump, by how many times you press the a button.
So you can manipulate the enemy spawn by jumping once and pressing a the desired number of times during the jump. It is much quicker this way.
 

135060

3,449,070 - GDV 79 - Game crushed, driven before me and the lamentations of it's women were heard.

Again a low GDV, no idea why. I missed only three 50K bonus, and I stopped bothering with bombs around stage 7. It seems that if you enter a secret area before collecting all the bombs, you are no longer eligible for the 10K bonus.
I have no idea how Rdrunner got such high GDV nor how that impacts on the final score tally. I am not up to figure it out tonight either.  

Ended with a very low GDV as I didn't focus too much on getting the 10K bomb bonus from every section nor too much in getting the 50K bonus at the end area. Instead I focused in surviving and gathering all that was needed for the best ending.
I will try to improve this Sunday. I suspect that a GDV over 80 or 90 might incur into extra tally bonuses at the end of the game, which would explain RDRunner's massive score.

Daaaaaaaaamn Bea

Wow! Haven't had much time this week, but I come back to being able to "choose your enemy", GDV and scores in the millions. This game is really easy yet very complex. Don't know if I'll have enough time to get in a proper score. I thought my initial screwing around score of around 500k was good enough.

What's GDV?

It is sort of a % completion for the game.
I have noticed that it goes up as you get the 10K bonus from picking the bombs in a section in the proper area and by getting the end room lit bomb bonus. 23 lit bombs increases it the most, it seems.
I didn't get too many of either of those, so my final GDV was below 80.

A high GDV seems to add points quickly at the end of the game if it is past a certain threshold, one that I haven't hit. But I intend to figure out that threshold this Sunday.

500k is good enough. You don't need a higher score than that.

Here's what GDV is according to the strategywiki:

"Game Deviation Value (GDV)This is a grade that you receive upon completing the game that evaluates your performance. While it is intended to be out of 100%, the lowest you can score is 47%, and the highest is 99%. Your GDV is determined by your score, how many S coins you find, and how many stages you clear. The more thorough you are in the game's completion, the higher your GDV will be."


 

It is definitely not only game completion, as I have beaten all the stage sans 8 and 9, that have to be missed in order to get the first crystal ball, and gotten both crystal balls and didn't miss a single S coin.
Yet my final GDV was only 79.

It says that GDV is also determined by score. You said that you missed out on some bonuses so your score could have been higher.
 

Well, I will put my debugging skills to use this Sunday and figure out how it is actually calculated by the game. Then I will update Strategy wiki with that info.

Gave it a shot

790,260