End of month high scores - 30 April 2013

My top 5 scores since comeback:

1.    684,970    7 April 2013
2.    617,430   27 April 2013
3.    563,580   25 April 2013
4.    542,990   25 April 2013
5.    539,460   20 April 2013

Fastest Act clearance - 14 seconds
Fastest Act clearance with 10,000 bonus - 27 seconds

Top 5 official Twin Galaxies high scores:

1.   1,217,650    Paul Hornitzky   10 July 2012
2.   1,110,370    Rodney Day      13 August 1983
3.     809,990    Kevin Leisner     25 February 1983
4.     723,950    Frank Lupia        20 September 2008
5.     694,030    Paul Elia             31 March 1983

 

And according to its website:

 

Twin Galaxies is the officially recognised world-wide authority on all video game high scores and world-records. Since 1982, Twin Galaxies has been the official scorekeeper for the entire world, charged with the responsibility of validating the world records on all electronic games and preserving the integrity of the industry’s repository of gaming statistics. Twin Galaxies is the only score-tracking organization recognized by Guinness World Records to be the official authority on all video game world records and high scores.

 

So, officially, Robert Leaf’s score of just 800 achieved on 21 March 2004 ranks 90^th in the world according to Twin Galaxies’ 90-strong list.

 

I’m scratching my head to work out how anyone with (presumably) the regulation five Pengos can only manage to squash two sno-bees in the first Act, or get some other permutation of 800 points. Even harder to understand is how that person would think it was such a great effort it should be submitted for inclusion among the highest Pengo scores in the world.

 

But he did and it was - and good luck to you, Mr Leaf.

 

And a similar acknowledgement to Quinten Rowland who scored an equally curious 830 points on 3 May 2009 to come in at 89^th on the all-time world’s best list.

 

Officially, you’re both ahead of me!

One day wonder

Only managed one game today, and with the first Pengo down in Act 10, my expectations were reasonably low. As it was going along, I must say it was feeling a bit like ‘junk miles’ - for those of you who might have done any long distance running training.

 

Still, I was chasing the 10,000 bonuses quite aggressively and finished the first set in just over 200,000. The next set was slightly less productive and by the end of the third time around, I had one Pengo left with just over 500,000 on the clock.

 

That brave little Pengo made it all the way through to my nemesis - Act 13 - where I admit I was simply outplayed. But not before finishing with a score of 617,430.

 

Zackomba was photographing bits of the game and here is the score, taken just as I was eaten for the final time. You can probably make out my recorded high score too, which is where I clocked it before going on for another 30K or so. And yes, the multi-media's a bit primitive, but we'll work on it see how we can add some bells and whistles.

Back to work

Managed to fit in some games with another two 500K scores mixed in among a few fairly mediocre 200K and 300K efforts.

The highest score was 563,580 - where I lost my first three of four lives in a particularly vicious Act 13 in the third set (i.e. the third group of 16 Acts). Until then, it was shaping up as a reasonably productive effort and looking like I could easily beat my current high score of 684,970.

But that’s the frustration of Pengo. One minute you think you’re cruising - albeit I’m always ultra-cautious about Act 13. And then as you lose a life reasonably early in one of Acts 13 to 16, your risk of immediately losing another, and then another, increases exponentially as places to hide become fewer and fewer.

To top that off, I lost my final penguin in a silly error on Act 11 in the next (fourth) set.

What might have been.

The other 500K score was 542,990. That also could have been a little better had I not had to surrender my final penguin in Act 5 in the fourth set to enable what is delicately referred to in the Tour de France as a ‘nature break’. A shame those old machines don’t have pause buttons.

Apart from losing those three lives in Act 13 on the high scoring game, the lowlights of the session were losing a life in each of Acts 1 and 2 (in different games). I guess I was simply too careless in chasing the 10,000 bonus.

A highlight, though, was completing Act 6, with the 10,000 bonus, in 27 seconds. I don’t remember what my quickest time was in the old days for something like this, but for Act 6, this does seem especially quick. I’ll start making a note of it.

I do recall my fastest ever Act clearance back in 1983 was 10 seconds, which happened several times. Since the comeback, the quickest has been 14 seconds - probably reflecting the focus this time around on trying to line up the diamond blocks in the ‘easier’ Acts.

The Rules

So what will it take to get my high score officially recognised as the world’s best on the Pengo arcade game?

The following is reproduced from the Twin Galaxies website - www.twingalaxies.com. There’s a few other bits and pieces, but this seems to be the crux of it.

First, the settings of the Pengo arcade game machine must be as follows:

Dip Switch Bank A:
1-2 = Closed
3 = Closed/Open [Upright/Cocktail]
4-5 = Closed
6 = Open
7 = Closed
8 = Open

Dip Switch Bank B:
1-2 = Closed
3-4 = Open
5-6 = Closed
7-8 = Open

The above Dip Switches, when properly designated, will give the following Twin Galaxies Tournament Settings, used for this title;
5 Pengos
Bonus Pengo @ 30,000
Normal Play
Medium Difficulty

And secondly, to submit a valid score, it is necessary to make a full uninterrupted recording of the entire game - from switching on the machine to entering one's initials at the end of the game:

You MUST record your entire game, starting from before you power on your console to the point where you enter your name in (if appropriate). It is very important to record this to prevent the disqualification of your record attempt. In general, use the following as the basis for starting but note that you must check for any machine-specific rules also.

You should record at least 5 seconds of “dead-air” before powering on your machine. Dead-air is simply the “nothing” that exists before powering on. Power on the game system and allow the machine to boot normally. If the system is cartridge-based and a cartridge must be inserted in order to start the system, have your game cartridge already inserted. For more modern systems with ejectable media (CDs or DVDs for example), please boot the game system without the media inserted (for some systems this is a requirement). In this case, once the system is on and fully booted up, insert your game disc, and boot the game. Proceed through the menu structure of the game (if applicable) at a leisurely pace, setting up the game as per the rules of the variation.

Play your game from start to finish, and once you have achieved your score, be sure to allow the game to show all closing scenes, menus, and input your initials if prompted by the game.

So there it is.

The recording requirement might be a bit of a problem for the public machine I've been using, but when I start getting a few more decent scores, I’m sure we can work something out.

And the requirement for six Pengos - rather than the four I’ve always played with - is very enticing. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game with that many Pengos.

Looks like I might have to have a chat with the very friendly and (hopefully!) understanding people at the museum and see what they can do.

Thanks Zackomba!

A brief shout-out to my middle son - the brains behind the name for this blog.

I'd mentioned to him I was thinking about starting it (my first, as most readers will probably have gathered by now) and was looking for a catchy name or, frankly, any name that was remotely relevant that had Pengo in it.

As a player or observer of far too many games over the first 10 years of his life, I had a feeling he’d have some ideas about gaming-related concepts that I could adapt or just plagiarise for the purpose.

So when I explained this particular concept, he immediately came out with ‘PengoQuest’ - which captures precisely the essence of this almost mythical journey.

 

And I thought it just sounded kinda cool, too.
 

He's also offered to spruce up the design of the name on this template Google blog design, and so long as it doesn't interfere with him getting all his homework done, we'll see what he comes up with.
 

Good job, JB.

Pengo redux

As luck would have it, my re-acquaintance with Pengo after so many years was the result of pursuing another gaming experience – minecraft.

The Powerhouse Museum is one of Sydney’s biggest. Its focus is science, technology and design. It gets its name from its location within a cavernous converted power station about a 10 minute walk from Haymarket, at the southern boundary of Sydney’s rectangular CBD. For those who’ve not been here, the harbour, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House are at the northern end of the CBD.

 

In early March 2013, the Museum advertised a weekend of seminars and activities for kids. Among these were some two hour minecraft sessions for those aged 8-12. Two of my three boys were minecraft aficionados and in that age group. So we booked in and along we went.

 

It had been a few years since I’d been to the Powerhouse, and then only to see a special exhibition on Star Wars paraphernalia. It was one of those places I’d made a mental note to spend some time exploring one day, but that opportunity never really came up. So I was glad for an excuse to get along.

 

We arrived quite early and wandered around some of the exhibits in the rest of the museum until we came across four table top / cocktail-style video gaming machines. A couple of them were being played. I noticed that one of the games was Galaga. It soon became apparent that the machines were multi-game and carried a menu of what seemed to be around 10-15 different games – all from the early to mid-1980’s.

 

Just as quickly, I spotted that one of the games in the menu was Pengo.

 

As I sat down to play (no coins were necessary – the games were free), that familiar Popcorn music score rang out and away we went. It was obvious I was very, very rusty. But it was also obvious that those months of continuous play back in 1983 had worked to hard-wire the game into my brain, and I managed to clock up a score of over 100,000 on my first attempt.

 

The game was the standard three penguins to start, with one bonus at 30,000. The difficulty level felt like the conventional ‘medium’.
 

In the few weeks since, I’ve managed to play about once a week and when I soon started scoring quite consistently in the 300’s and 400’s, I decided to record all my scores over 500,000.

 

On Sunday 7 April, I passed that mark for the first time in 30 years.

 

It was a score of 684,970.

 

The interesting thing about this one was that it reminded me that the game score recorder ‘clocks’ at a number substantially less than 1,000,000. That is, the score recorder doesn’t reach 999,990 or whatever, and then go back to zero when the next sno-bee is killed, or the next block is crunched. The ones I played all those years ago consistently clocked at a very strange score of around 650,000+. This one ‘clocked’ at 654,990. So to calculate the total score, I needed to add that to the score that appeared at the end of the game. This means that it’s only the 654,990 score that appears as the high score on the machine - not the actual high score of 684,970.

 

In the small number of times I’ve played since, I’ve fallen a little short of that sort of number. But having been there once, I can feel that it’s only a matter of time before I get there again, and again and again.

 

One week later, on Sunday 14 April, I scored 534,410.

 

And last weekend, on Saturday 20 April, the best I managed was 539,460.

 

On the current Twin Galaxies league table of the all-time best Pengo scores, these three scores alone would rank sixth, seventh and eighth. Of course, there are rules about official high scores that I will go into a bit later on.

 

But for the moment, after only about six or seven weeks of sporadic play, I really feel as if I’m still just warming up.

My early Pengo life

To begin at the beginning.

 

So far as I can see, Twin Galaxies - among other things - is acknowledged as the arbiter and keeper of video game high scores. For Pengo, the TG website tells us that the current world record high score is 1,217,650 - set on 10 July 2012 by Paul Hornitzky. It seems that Paul - like me - is a resident of Sydney, Australia, although I can't find any information about the location of the machine where he set that mark.

 

Paul's effort last July broke one of the longest standing high score records in video gaming. The previous best was apparently set in a ten-pin bowling centre in Canberra on 13 August 1983 by Rodney Day. Rodney's score of 1,110,370 had officially stood as the world's best for almost 30 years.

 

August 1983 also happened to be the time when I first became acquainted with those feisty little penguins and drawn in by the lure of aligning those three diamond blocks. It was during some down time in Tamworth, New South Wales, before I was due to start my arts/law degree at the ANU in Canberra in early 1984. Pengo was one of three table-top, or cocktail cabinet, machines in a local (now, sadly, defunct) club in Australia's country music capital. The other two machines were Moon Patrol and the ubiquitous Galaga.

After a few weeks, I started becoming quite expert at Moon Patrol, and in doing so, came to know the chap of roughly my age who spent equally long periods of time playing Pengo. He was as inept on the few occasions that he played Moon Patrol as I was on the few occasions I tried my hand at Pengo. But as I started spending more and more time figuring out Pengo, I too saw the light. Our 2-player Pengo games often went for 2-3 hours at a time.

As the weeks and months passed, we had both amassed several 1,000,000+ scores (me, about 5-10 of them) and had heard about a US gaming magazine - "Joystick" - which was reporting an 'official' high score substantially less than those we were posting.

The machines we were playing started with three penguins, with only one bonus penguin - at 30,000. I don't know what difficulty level it was set on, but I'd be surprised (given some other versions I'd played since) if it was anything other than the original factory 'medium' setting.

Unlike Rodney in Canberra, we never had the presence of mind to record our highest scores. We were just happy enough with challenging ourselves, the very cheap entertainment it gave us, and the looks of disbelief on the faces of those who came to watch (I thought at the time it was disbelief at how good we were - but maybe they just couldn't believe how long they had to wait to get a damn game!).

But all things must pass.

While I occasionally returned to the game wherever I could find one in Canberra or on trips to Sydney in the next couple of years, life intervened. And of course, the chances of ever stumbling upon another Pengo machine after three decades (not that I was looking) were lower than crunching every (non-diamond) block in a particular frame - which my colleague and I tried many times to do, just to see if we could.

Until about six weeks ago when - fittingly - in a Sydney museum, this quest for 1,217,650 (or, more correctly, 1,217,660) began.
 

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog.  It chronicles my quest to break the world record on the Sega video game - "Pengo".  Wish me luck!!