High Score Competition #126 Bosconian

[Comtek]

Previous winners:

#001 thru #099 - For list of winners for those competitions  please refer to this link
#100: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: Winner - Gray_Area, Second - Tafoid
#101: Marvin's Maze: Winner - Kixfan, Second - Hammerfist
#102: Rally-X:  Winner - Tafoid, Second  djm858
#103: Lock 'N Chase:  Winner - Kixfan, Second - Jasonbar
#104: Space Fury: Winner - Gray_Area, Second - kixfan
#105: Pig Out: Winner - Kixfan, Second - Gray_Area
#106: Carnival: Winner - rick6668, Second - Kixfan
#107: Rastan: Winner - popsicle, Second - rick6668
#108: Peguin-Kun Wars Winner-dancawar, Second - Popsicle
#109: Blood Bros.* Winner - harveybirdman, Second - Jasonbar *scores reflect use of game features considered cheats
#110: Rabbit Punch: Winner - jasonbar, Second - mimic
#111: Alien Syndrome: Winner - mimic, Second Comtek
#112: Block Hole: Winner - Comtek, Second - idsane
#113: Pepper II: Winner - Comtek, Second - Kixfan
#114: Break Thru: Winner - jasonbar, Second - mimic
#115: Ninja Baseball Bat Man: Winner - mimic, Second - Tafoid
#116: Shao-lin's Road: Winner - mimic, Second - Kixfan
#117: Scramble: Winner - Kixfan, Second - jasonbar
#118: Lost Tomb: Winner: Jasonbar, Second: mimic
#119: Green Beret: Winner: LeapinLew, Second: popsicle
#120: Lady Killer: Winner: Comtek Second: Mimic
#121: Qix: Winner: Comtek Second: sorhp
#122: Halley's Comet: Winner: Jasonbar Second: Mimic
#123: Cyber-Lip: Winner: Jasonbar Second: epetti
#124: Lode Runner: Winner: JDFan Second: kixfan
#125:Snow Bros. - Nick & Tom: Winner: Comtek Second: JDFan


Competition #126 : Bosconian


High Score Competition #126 Bosconian
http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7196
ROM name: Bosco

default dip switch settings
Free ship at 20K, 70K and every 70K after that
Lives 3

Last day: Wednesday, October 23, 2013, midnight Pacific Time.


Bosconian




DESCRIPTION
Bosconian
Player spaceship stays at screen center, firing both to front and rear, surviving enemy fighters to destroy all green hexagonal enemy space stations by shooting their core or all six corners.

Game Play

This game is similar to Time Pilot and Sinistar in that your ship stays in the center of the screen. During flight, you must avoid stationary asteroids and mines. As you progress in levels, the green hexagonal enemy space stations begin to shoot missiles from their cores. When under enemy bases, enemy fighters can change direction at will.

The game features synthesized voice messages: "Blast Off!" start of round, "Alert! Alert!" enemy ships approaching, "Battle stations!" enemy formation attack, "Spy ship sighted" green triangular bonus enemy, and "Condition Red!" time-per level exceeded, enemy frenzy.


General Rules:
- One Credit, No Continues.
- Highest score wins.
- No savestates, savestate practices, etc. during the round.
- MAME INP recordings are encouraged but optional.
- A screenshot is required to enter a score (press F12 to save screenshot showing your final score) or take a photo of the game screen.
- If you're a MARP competitor on this title, keep in mind this is just a friendly competition among forum members, so maybe you shouldn't enter. However, if you're a forum member and this is a game you're good at and nobody knows about it, this is your time to shine!
- Even if you don't have a competitive score or if you don't *think* that you have a competitive score, please post it anyway to keep the thread fun & to give everybody a good sense of score ranges.
- Please make sure your scores are from games that take place during the competition period (no posting your best score from last year, etc.).
- Use of autofire or other non-standard hacks within MAME or your PC's OS are not allowed.  No program or other person or entity of any sort may manipulate your controls during your game.  Coaching & back-seat driving is fine as long as the party doesn't directly influence the game or controls.
- If you can beat any of the high scores from the previous competitions, you can submit your score to the BYOAC High Game Scoreboard.

[Comtek]

if someone wants to pretty the tread up please do I tried but but had it all messed up

[JDFan]

Here's a Link to a text copy of an adjusted post if you want to copy\paste it to the first link  ( https://www.dropbox.com/s/q1vo5rkmyak4unf/Bosconian.txt ) -- I added the screenshots and info links like I did for the last comp. and adjusted the description etc. -- It should be ready to copy\paste but you might want to preview it first just to make sure . (Just looked and seems notepad added some extra lines so it needs a bit of adjusting after pasting to remove the extra whitespace !)

[Comtek]

sweet that's what I was aiming for but ended up without a closing tag somewhere and the whole post was a link to the last competition
thanks again look forward to seeing your first score on this one
first attempt last night when I was testing I got 35000 roughly
another thing I noticed was continues also continue your score so please try and take snapshots when it shows how many ships were used

[JDFan]

sweet that's what I was aiming for but ended up without a closing tag somewhere and the whole post was a link to the last competition
thanks again look forward to seeing your first score on this one
first attempt last night when I was testing I got 35000 roughly
another thing I noticed was continues also continue your score so please try and take snapshots when it shows how many ships were used

Are you sure you weren't looking at the high score display when starting a continue ?? -- I just tried it and the continue did start where I died off (at 29K) but the score went back to 0. Also I don't see any screen that shows how many ships were used 

This one is going to take some getting used to as the ship controls are a bit strange at first (was using a keyboard and didn't realize at first that the ship can be moved on the diagonals - will also try on the bartop with the  8 way joystick which should help with controlling the ship movement.) 

[Comtek]

Here is the screen i'm talking about it's when u enter your name

[JDFan]

Hmm -- what Mame version are you using ?? -- on mine (Mame 0.149 under Mamui64) it shows this screen on the enter initials screen : Are you using the "bosco" rom or one of the others - Mine is using this listing:

[Comtek]

I am using the midway new version
I see the one you are using though and i'll use that so disregard my score above

[JDFan]

I am using the midway new version
I see the one you are using though and i'll use that so disregard my score above

LOL -- THat was the only one I hadn't checked yet and is also the only one that does continue the score -- guess they did that since it also shows the number of ships used. I just went with the other since you had listed the rom name as "bosco" in your original description not "boscomd" which is the midway version -- We can change it to which ever you want to use if you prefer the midway version -- just change the Rom name to match in the description if you want (they are all pretty similar but there are a few differences in the lay outs of the first few levels and the high score screen)

[Comtek]

we will leave it as is I hate when scores continue

[Comtek]

Here is my latest attempt with the right rom this time
74,900

[JDFan]

Not bad !! -- pretty close to my best so far 81,850 

[Comtek]

99,660

[JDFan]

Nice Score -- One more tiny question for you -- +I noticed when I went to play on an older version of MAME (0.139) on my bartop it defaulted to one extra ship at 10K, 50K and every 50K where my current MAME 0.149 defaulted to extra ships at 20K, 70K and every 70K -- So which setting should we be using just to keep it equal for everyone !  (not that it matters much at these low scores  ) 

[Comtek]

mine is saying at 20 and 70 and every 70 after that

[kixfan]

I'm at .140 and my default is 10k, 50k, every 50k.   Since there seems to be differences in the default settings between Mame releases, can we get an official dipswitch settings list?

Also, at my version of Mame if I leave the game running for a while 30+ minutes and return to play again, it reboots the game in Mame (like pressing F3).   Anyone else seeing this?    Not really a problem, just wondering if this is visible on other Mame versions.

Kixfan

[Comtek]

that must be what mine is doing I was wondering why high scores were disappearing
the default dip switches are 20K, 70K and every 70K after that

[JDFan]

Here's the defaults for the game in MAME 0.149 (though I did change the allow continue setting to NO so I do not have to wait the 20 seconds between games !! ) - Which I believe is the same settings Comtek is now using !

[Comtek]

yup everything looks the same thanks for the no continue tip

[mimic]

aaaaaah! CONDITION RED! CONDITION RED!

I'm going to have nightmares now!

[jasonbar]

Nevermind. My game was set on 10k & 50k free ships. Weird. Ignore this score submission.

-Jason


135,230 on first game, including 1 ship thrown away to see if mine explosions are indeed deadly. Yes, they are.

-J

[blashyrk]

My high-score : 98810

[mimic]

Unlike Jasonbar "wizard of shooters", I had to work on this one... 160780

[jasonbar]

Nevermind. My game was set on 10k & 50k free ships. Weird. Ignore my score submission.

-Jason

[JDFan]

Nevermind. My game was set on 10k & 50k free ships. Weird. Ignore my score submission.

-Jason

Yeah it seems they have changed the default settings to different values in different versions of Mame - which is why we had to post some clarifications on the settings to use 

[jasonbar]

Indeed. I use 115u2. :]

[kixfan]

Thought I'd throw my hat in the ring...

193,040

20/70/70+   :-)

I think it starts to repeat at 12.   It definitely gets tougher to go for the kill shot the further you go.   I realized I was leaving some points on the board by going with kill shot but I found it harder to get cleanly through the first 3 or 4 rounds.   

[mimic]

Not too much improvement over Kixfan's score, but good enough for the moment.
204,830

[Comtek]

I can barely break the 100k mark
great scores guys

[ranmoor]

has anyone had the problem where extra lives are not awarded after 20k & 70k after the first game played ... ??

it seems to be a random fault as it does not seem to do it everyday i play but most times i get awarded the extra lives on the first game but then when i play again i dont get them it just continues past the score with no extra lives 

tried this on both bosco and boscmd romset and noticed the same ...

is there some sort of condition im not aware off where you wouldnt get the extra lives ??

Cheers ..

[ranmoor]

if i reset the game via the dipswitches after every game it seems to work ok .. bit strange bit never mind 

[kixfan]

has anyone had the problem where extra lives are not awarded after 20k & 70k after the first game played ... ??

it seems to be a random fault as it does not seem to do it everyday i play but most times i get awarded the extra lives on the first game but then when i play again i dont get them it just continues past the score with no extra lives 

tried this on both bosco and boscmd romset and noticed the same ...

is there some sort of condition im not aware off where you wouldnt get the extra lives ??

Cheers ..

This game seems to have some issues after it runs for a while.   I have been resetting after each game to keep it from flaking out.

[ranmoor]

has anyone had the problem where extra lives are not awarded after 20k & 70k after the first game played ... ??

it seems to be a random fault as it does not seem to do it everyday i play but most times i get awarded the extra lives on the first game but then when i play again i dont get them it just continues past the score with no extra lives 

tried this on both bosco and boscmd romset and noticed the same ...

is there some sort of condition im not aware off where you wouldnt get the extra lives ??

Cheers ..

This game seems to have some issues after it runs for a while.   I have been resetting after each game to keep it from flaking out.

Yeah seems to work ok after reset ... Cheers ..

[actionless]

Hey guys,

Im having issues with Bosconian too, was wondering if anyone else had seen this? been googling all day but cant find anyother mention. The games boots up fine (Mame 0.139), I add a coin and the game sais "push start to play". When I push start the score changes to "5ffffffff" and the game freezes (but the stars in the background continue moving). Ive tried all the different versions and i get the same thing, tried changing the dip switches, no change.  I tried remapping my panels buttons to see if that helped, no joy 

Anyone else seen or heard of this?

[Kier]

I am horrible at this game, and I just wanted you all to know this.

[mimic]

I am horrible at this game, and I just wanted you all to know this.

Take a picture of your score and give us an idea of what "horrible" is. Most likely you need some practice and some research on how to score some extra points (take a look at the attract mode, *wink*, *wink*) . My score is after maybe 15 games tops and that's spread out over several days (although I had an idea how to play that game.)

Btw a lot of new posters chimed-in, on this competition.

[Cynicaster]

251,790

[jdbailey1206]

I am horrible at this game, and I just wanted you all to know this.

   Don't feel bad Kier.  I was playing this last night while watching television with my wife and only got 20,895.  I found I got more points over the course of my practice runs by being more tactical then just ramming through the levels.  Gonna try again tonight.  Good luck and keep trying.

[kixfan]

Nice score Cynicaster.   

I WAS going to post MY 1st place score but you beat me to it.   I guess I will have to settle for 2nd, for now!   

232,510

Level 14 is pretty insane.   The bases are placed next to each other in pods of 2 or 3.   I went from start to finish using kill shots.   I can probably gain 15-20k if I do the first few rounds for points.

[Cynicaster]

Level 14 is pretty insane.   The bases are placed next to each other in pods of 2 or 3.   I went from start to finish using kill shots.   I can probably gain 15-20k if I do the first few rounds for points.

Yeah, there’s definitely a risk/reward mechanic at play in Bosconian.  It’s tempting to squeeze out all the points possible by going after the individual pods of the stations, but I find that once you get a few levels into the game, the “condition red” thing starts happening so quickly that the best bet is to just shoot the pods that are within “line of sight” then go for the kill shot and move on to the next base.  With all of the attacking formations, mines, rocks, bullets, and missiles, you can waste a lot of time simply trying to get to the opposite side of a base alive, then once you get there, you still need to land hits on the pods, which might take a few tries.  Before you know it, you’ve got a condition red alarm going off, with surviving bases sitting untouched on the other end of the map. 

This game gets pretty darn hectic after level 10 or so; sometimes it gets so twitchy that I feel like I’m going to inadvertently rip my joystick right out of the panel.  Really fun though.  I think Bosconian might be one of the most underrated games of the era, as I’d never even heard of it until fairly recently.