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.