High Score Competition #166: Fast Lane

[yamatetsu]

High Score Competition Rules and Scoreboard

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Game Name :   Fast Lane
ROM Name  =     fastlane
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Settings:
   default : 3 lives / bonus lives 20k 100k 200k 400k 800k / difficulty medium

Controls:   
    4 way joystick, 'turbo' button, 'special weapon' button





Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Lane_%28video_game%29

KLOV: http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7761

Description from KLOV: You control a red sports car that attempts to avoid crashing head on with a blue truck. Drive through the maze to "eat up" the grass or asphalt. Complete the maze to advance to the next level. Avoid the trucks which will try to stop you.
Drive through the beach ladies to obtain powerups which will help you complete your level:

JUMP - Allows you to either jump over the other vehicle or jump on top of it.
SHOOT - Allows you to fire a bullet at the other vehicle.
ATTACK - Allows you to charge into the other vehicle.
FLASH - Allows you to stun the other vehicle from any distance.
? - Can either be OPTION which fires forwards or LINE which shoots vertically. Both also help you complete the maze.


Last day: Sunday, May 30 2015 midnight Pacific
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- Quest for the Bronze Joystick! The most successful competitor of each calendar year will possess & display the BYOAC Bronze Joystick Trophy. See this thread for details:The BYOAC Bronze Joystick.
Happy Gaming!


1st :   Mr_Numbers,      a couple of millions
         WakiMiko,           also a couple of millions
         yamatetsu,          another couple of millions

2nd :   ---

3rd :   ---

4th :   epetti,                508,120

5th :   popsicle,             370,780

6th :   JDFan,                158,440

7th :   harveybirdman,   130,120

8th :   jasonbar,            127,440

9th :   j.fitzenr,               94,140


Since there usually are 6 points to be distributed, the three first placed people each get 2.




edit : Added results to first post.

[WakiMiko]

Oh man what is this? Pacman meets Gradius meets Micro Machines

What I gathered from my first few games:

Collecting chicks advances your power meter and your killing potential. Unlike in Gradius, it does not loop back to the beginning.

Killing enemies makes a item box appear. First time touching opens it, 2nd time collects it.

W = Advances you to the next stage
B = Bonus points, no idea how its calculated though
1UP = Take a guess

Maybe there are more, I dunno.

142,260




Also thanks for picking a 4-way game, saves me the trouble of switching my stick for TGM and back 

[epetti]

Looks like modern Head-on or Crash.

[harveybirdman]

This game is the tits, thanks for choosing!

[harveybirdman]

First play 130,120. Waki and Yam are going to get out of my league soon but at least I don't feel bad posting this on one of my favorite little games.

[yamatetsu]

This game is the tits, thanks for choosing!

De nada. Seems to be a fun game.

Waki and Yam are going to get out of my league soon but at least I don't feel bad posting this on one of my favorite little games.

We shall both strive to make your prediction come true 

[popsicle]

142,060 166,760

I can't believe I've never seen this game before.

[harveybirdman]

My favorite thing I've ever done is on level 5 I jumped one truck and landed on the othher destroying it somehow instead of dying.

[JDFan]

Might as well get a score in -- 142,980 158,440
Interesting little game should get interesting by the end of the 2 weeks !!

[epetti]

Fun game. 142,940. Small increase. 159,480.

[jasonbar]

Miami Vice Head-On

127,440.

-Jason

[yamatetsu]

178,760

[yamatetsu]

The gods of the Holy Extra Box smiled upon me. 5 lives / first level.

You see the way the red car is heading ? Guess what happened immediately after the screenshot.

[WakiMiko]

Starting to dislike this game. 

It's easier to just grind the early levels over and over again instead of advancing to the later levels where you will lose your lives in no time, especially when it's a scrolling level and you cant even see which lane the enemies are on.

254,000

[yamatetsu]

Starting to dislike this game. 

That was fast 

264,780



Have tried playing it 'chronologically'. Absolutely HATE level 6. Now hate level 7 too.

[WakiMiko]

Grindtastic!

348,840

[j.fitzenr]

Just to get a score on the board to start.  Only given it about five spins - my brain doesn't quite accept the lack of changing direction, but I'm almost getting it. 

94140

[epetti]

How are you guys getting such high scores just in Stage 3? I look at yamatetsu's scores and the higher the score goes up the lower goes.

[Mr_Numbers]

115,040

[harveybirdman]

How are you guys getting such high scores just in Stage 3? I look at yamatetsu's scores and the higher the score goes up the lower goes.

Sacrificing thr time bonuses to blow up trucks a ton more and picking up the bonuses in spades I imagine.

[yamatetsu]

Like Waki said :

It's easier to just grind the early levels over and over again instead of advancing to the later levels where you will lose your lives in no time

Stay in level 1, don't finish it, collect babes, shoot the truck, collect the bonus, collect babes ... After some time a second truck will appear, things get a bit more interesting then. Sometime after that I think the trucks speed up, so the grinding won't work anymore, that's why I finished level 1 and got to level 3, otherwise I would have stayed in level 1 the whole time.

Playing the same level over and over again gets real old real fast, though.

[yamatetsu]

477,300

[WakiMiko]

You can just stay in stage 1 forever. Sometimes the 2nd car never even appears

At one point I had 8 lives.   

[yamatetsu]

10 lives was my max. Didn't do me much good, though.



One game, I had about 415,000 points, 8 lives left, then I accidentally finished the level  and got slaughtered in level 2.

[WakiMiko]

It's really weird, I played 2 games (first one got me that score, the 2nd one to confirm), and the second car did not appear. I don't get it. I checked my DIP switch settings and they are set to the defaults.

And yeah, finishing level 1 is a death sentence.

I say we skip this game

[yamatetsu]

That's weird. I always get company. It may take a while, but the second truck will appear eventually. Anyway, just to annoy you, my new score :

893,320

[WakiMiko]

What if we both counterstop it? 

[popsicle]

This game is broken from a scoring standpoint, it seems.  Grinding on level one isn't that much fun.

[yamatetsu]

Of course it is not much fun. But playing the game again and again just to miss the highscore is not much fun either 

So, what to do ? Scrapping the game would cost me probably two, perhaps even three points, which naturally I'm not thrilled about, since I've spent some time (and curses) to get this far.

Maybe end the game this Sunday, saving everyone one week of unfun ?

[harveybirdman]

Sorry for a buzz kill of a suggestion,  I just enjoy the game for what it is.

[yamatetsu]

What if we both counterstop it? 

If by 'counterstop' you mean getting a higher score than the game can handle, that would be an interesting situation. That one actually happened to me when I played Tetris in an arcade. Made more than a million points, discovered that the thing only could handle up to 999,999 points and got my score reset to zero. Great fun to play it again and get a score just shy of a million.

Sorry for a buzz kill of a suggestion,  I just enjoy the game for what it is.

No need to be sorry, the game is fun, it's not your fault that we play it in a different way than intended.

[popsicle]

If the goal was to see who could clear the most levels, that would be interesting.  As it stands, the game was picked according to the rules, high score is the goal, and we still have a week+.  There have been other examples of weird happenings (remember the glitch-y 'The End'?) and we toughed it out.  I'll do my best to grind to 3rd place and pick the next game
   

[JDFan]

If the goal was to see who could clear the most levels, that would be interesting.  As it stands, the game was picked according to the rules, high score is the goal, and we still have a week+.  There have been other examples of weird happenings (remember the glitch-y 'The End'?) and we toughed it out.  I'll do my best to grind to 3rd place and pick the next game
   

Maybe multiply the final score by the stage reached ??

[j.fitzenr]

It's sad I did enjoy this game a lot more playing 'straight' before the optimum grinding strat was figured out.  This is faaaarrr from the only game that loses plenty of charm when it's played optimally though.  I mean, Pac-Man has patterns, Berzerk you basically repeat four rooms until you screw it up.  I'm still really good at about 16-20 stars from Mario 64, and mediocre at the rest of the game.  I also used to be really good at the glitches that let you finish the game with only 16 stars instead of the normal 70.

If somebody wants to vote to end early, or whatever, go to town.  I'll do whatever, since I'm not competitive at all in this thing.  I'd vote 'yes' if people wanted to end early, but whatevers, if not I'll give it a few more spins.  Funny enough, since I haven't really gotten the hang of the level 1 grind and I've been 'running bad' recently, with most of my boxes being of the 'no points' variety my highest score (around 140k) was playing 'straight'!  Weird. 

Still a cool game, and still really oddly satisfying to jump-crush the bad guys, Bump 'n' Jump style.

[yamatetsu]

So, my vote is for keeping the schedule, then.

[dmckean]

You could add an honorable mention to whoever gets to the highest stage.

[yamatetsu]

Bad news. Reaching a million is not a good idea.



At a million, the score is reset to zero, after that point you suddenly get heaps of points, I think 10 times as much as before, at least every babe is now worth 5000 points.
So after one mil it's no problem to make another, and another. Sadly, the score display is not up to it.

Made 3,204,260.



As you can see, the display in the highscore table is off, there's no way to prove my 3 million 

I see no way of proving the score higher than one mil short of recording every game and then posting the vid. Which would take things a bit too far IMHO.

[j.fitzenr]

[WakiMiko]

Hahaha, very nice Yam.  That's exactly what I meant by counter stop (I think it's a Japanese term ), though I was hoping for the counter to actually stop and not roll over. So what do we do? I'm gonna try to grind the 1 million points later, but after that there really is no point to keep going for the reasons you pointed out.

Also did you actually go to stage 5 or is that due to the bug?

[yamatetsu]

So what do we do?

If you can do the mil, we've got a situation. If you don't, I win 

Also did you actually go to stage 5 or is that due to the bug?

Yep, I did go to level 5, but that was an accident. I got the extra that finishes the level, tried to avoid it, cut it too close, the car snagged on a corner and turned into the wrong lane. End of level 1.
At that point I had 7 lives or so and managed to get to level 5.

[epetti]

I think it's been mentioned, but a simple and more fun solution could be to make highest stage the win instead of score.

[WakiMiko]

If you can do the mil, we've got a situation. If you don't, I win 

Then I'm afraid we got a situation!!!! 



It takes a long time to reach 1 million. What a grind. Kept going until 3.5 million  before killing myself like 6 times in a row. Even downstacking on lives is a chore 



But I don't think this should count as a higher score than yours Yam, because its easily possible to just keep going forever.

I think it's been mentioned, but a simple and more fun solution could be to make highest stage the win instead of score.

Uhm that's a little unfair after Yam and me spent all this time grinding.

[yamatetsu]

Also, this is a high score challenge.

How about we do a shared first place, no second, then a third place ?

Waki : I hate you. 

[WakiMiko]

Or maybe give 2 points to everyone who can get a million, and no first and no second third place. Though I'm fine with your suggestion too 

I'm sorry but I will win this competition  Plz don't hate   

[yamatetsu]

I'm sorry but I will win this competition 

You will be sorry 

Plz don't hate   

Nah, this would be too boring without some stiff competition. It's part of the fun to anxiously check if one's score has been beaten 

[popsicle]

Oh my god I forgot to mention this... remember that 166,760 score I posted earlier?  It is actually 23,166,760.  You see, I rolled the score over 23 times and never left level 1.  It was a grueling nine hour game, it was.

[WakiMiko]

Nah, this would be too boring without some stiff competition. It's part of the fun to anxiously check if one's score has been beaten 

I thought I'd agree with you but then this happened:

Oh my god I forgot to mention this... remember that 166,760 score I posted earlier?  It is actually 23,166,760.  You see, I rolled the score over 23 times and never left level 1.  It was a grueling nine hour game, it was.

That's more competition than I can stomach. I'm done, Popsicle wins this game.

[j.fitzenr]

This ish got cray cray real fast.

From those screenies, it looks like after the first reset, the score counter at least in game displays the right score?  Or the right score -1mil? 

If that's true, looks like you guys gotta keep competing up to AT LEAST 10(11)mil to see what happens.   And if that works, we're moving on to the billions!   I want you guys to break this game so hard that the graphics start glitching, the score goes negative, and if this were the actual cab the PCB explodes.  GRIND GRIND BREAK THE GAME. 

Honestly I think it's up to the million club to decide how to continue, unless they think it's better to vote. (Which I don't unless they decide that they each get 117 points or something)  Despite how weird this is, it's kinda impressive that these guys can completely break a game within a few days.  The scary thing to ponder; what if FOUR people end up hitting a mil?   Anybody remember the scoring system from Who's Line is it Anyway?

I think it's been mentioned, but a simple and more fun solution could be to make highest stage the win instead of score.

My first thought was maybe the million club could compete for first by doing that, but that almost amounts to learning a whole new game, in a sense... and I bet these two would easily roll over the level count too with a reasonable amount of practice anyway.  If that happened, the sheer futility of the exercise would make me cry, and I'm not even a part of it!

I seriously can't even imagine how mind-numbing it must be to have a game strat down like that where you can basically grind indefinitely.  Like your main enemies become sleep and power-outages.  That's gotta suck.

[yamatetsu]

That's more competition than I can stomach. I'm done, Popsicle wins this game.

Nope, he doesn't. He was just joking.

Waki and myself are obviously done with the game. The question is : Does anybody else want to do the Fast Lane Million Points Grind^tm ? Also, we need a third place so that someone can choose the next game.

[epetti]

230,980. Stage 6. I find I have to leave stage 1 once 2 trucks appear which is around 45,000 points. I get off 2 as fast as I can. Then I stay on 3 until the truck turns around and starts heading the same direction as you. After that I just try to survive. Don't know how you guys manage to stay on Stage 1 forever.

[yamatetsu]

Don't know how you guys manage to stay on Stage 1 forever.

Black magic. Waki and I meet at a full moon in a public park and sacrifice a goat. Or a hamster. Whatever comes handy.

.
.
.

You just keep playing. If you die, you'll only have do deal with one truck again. Until the second one arrives, you hopefully make enough points for a new life or get an 1up-extra. Rinse and repeat.  If you practice it a lot, you'll get better at avoiding both trucks, thus making more points on one life. Also try to have an extra ready at all times, so that you can kill what you cannot avoid. After that, immediately go for the babes again to refresh the extra. Keep in mind that as long as the line/extra thingy works, you cannot collect babes. Me, I like the flash extra best.

[WakiMiko]

Nope, he doesn't. He was just joking.

So was I 

You just keep playing. If you die, you'll only have do deal with one truck again. Until the second one arrives, you hopefully make enough points for a new life or get an 1up-extra. Rinse and repeat.  If you practice it a lot, you'll get better at avoiding both trucks, thus making more points on one life. Also try to have an extra ready at all times, so that you can kill what you cannot avoid. After that, immediately go for the babes again to refresh the extra. Keep in mind that as long as the line/extra thingy works, you cannot collect babes. Me, I like the flash extra best.

That!

Also, when you destroy both trucks with the same extra (Attack or Line, doesn't really matter for Flash), the first truck will have time to recover while the destroy animation for the second truck plays, so don't be surprised when it starts moving earlier than expected.

I also found a little bug that can boost your score a little. If you destroy a truck while driving over the dirt/grass (the stuff you have to collect to clear the level) with the turbo button held down, sometimes the score counter will keep increasing quite fast while the destroy animation plays, even though you are not actually collecting dirt. Gives you around ~4k points IIRC. It's kinda luck depended though and works about 25% of the time. Doesn't hurt to try though!

[yamatetsu]

Nope, he doesn't. He was just joking.

So was I 

Duh !

I also found a little bug that can boost your score a little. If you destroy a truck while driving over the dirt/grass (the stuff you have to collect to clear the level) with the turbo button held down, sometimes the score counter will keep increasing quite fast while the destroy animation plays, even though you are not actually collecting dirt. Gives you around ~4k points IIRC. It's kinda luck depended though and works about 25% of the time. Doesn't hurt to try though!

Are you sure that it's a bug ? The line extra collects dirt too, so even if you are on a clean lane, your counter still goes up if the extra cleans one.

[WakiMiko]

Yeah pretty sure it's a bug because it doesnt always happen and you are not actually cleaning dirt but still getting points for it. It's not like the line/option extra.

[yamatetsu]

The scoreboard.

1st :   WakiMiko,          a couple of millions
         yamatetsu,         also a couple of millions

2nd :   ---

3rd :   epetti,                230,980

4th :   popsicle,             166,760

5th :   JDFan,                158,440

6th :   harveybirdman,   130,120

7th :   jasonbar,            127,440

8th :   Mr_Numbers,      115,040

9th :   j.fitzenr,               94,140

[popsicle]

370,780

I accidentally got a 'w' on level 1, so most of this score was attained on level 3.

[epetti]

508,120. It starts getting progressively faster even after you die. And for some reason no second truck appeared on my first life.

[Mr_Numbers]

159,620

[tomstewdevine]

Well I stepped away for a bit and sold my arcade and bam, you guys broke the game, nice work, when i played i had a terrible score, Nice to see that Yam and Waki outplayed the programmers.

[Mr_Numbers]

10,023,180

It won't even show first two digits of my score at this point.

Like someone else stated my round 1 never had the second truck appear which made things a breeze.  At around 630k the truck became dumb and wouldn't even come into the two inner lanes.  This mean I could stay in the inner most lane collecting roller girls, bonuses and only leaving to avoid the dreaded "W".  I would've continued playing and broke the game (or tried) but got distracted by the wife and accidentally hit a "W".  At this point I had around 25+ lives and made it to stage 8 which seems impossible to beat.

[pbj]

I don't really care for this one, but at least it's on CoinOps.

[epetti]

So with three first places (and possibly more in the last few days) who picks the next game?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[JDFan]

So with three first places (and possibly more in the last few days) who picks the next game?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Make a list of all those tied and use a random number generator to select the person who chooses ( www.random.org ) has a generator that you just put in the number of contestants and press a button and it will select a winning number for you.

[WakiMiko]

Make a list of all those tied and use a random number generator to select the person who chooses ( www.random.org ) has a generator that you just put in the number of contestants and press a button and it will select a winning number for you.

Maybe ask the winners if they even want to pick a new game first, because I sure as hell don't 

At the moment it looks like we are going to have 3 first places. If it stays that way I think everyone should get 2 points. Places 1-3 normally get 6 points in total, so 2 points seems fair.

[yamatetsu]

Maybe ask the winners if they even want to pick a new game first, because I sure as hell don't 

Ditto.

That would (at this moment) make Mr_Numbers the Chooser Of The Next Game. If he doesn't want to do it either, I say we go for the highest runner-up to the mil.

At the moment it looks like we are going to have 3 first places. If it stays that way I think everyone should get 2 points. Places 1-3 normally get 6 points in total, so 2 points seems fair.

Agreed.

[Mr_Numbers]

I'll pick a new game, give me an hour or so and I'll post a new thread for it.

[yamatetsu]

Oi ! This compo isn't even finished ! There are a few hours left for, say, popsicle to make the million too !

[Mr_Numbers]

Oh I thought it was done, I'll wait my bad.

[yamatetsu]

Ten hours left. Countdown running.

[popsicle]

I'm not going to waste my time grinding level one here tonight.  So, all ppl that got 1 mill+ will get 2 points, or only the first three that posted?  Who makes these rules, anyway   

[yamatetsu]

1st :   Mr_Numbers,      a couple of millions
         WakiMiko,           also a couple of millions
         yamatetsu,          another couple of millions

2nd :   ---

3rd :   ---

4th :   epetti,                508,120

5th :   popsicle,             370,780

6th :   JDFan,                158,440

7th :   harveybirdman,   130,120

8th :   jasonbar,            127,440

9th :   j.fitzenr,               94,140


Since there usually are 6 points to be distributed, the three first placed people each get 2.

Mr_Numbers agreed to choose the next game, so it's his turn now.

[yamatetsu]

Unofficial overall score table.

[Mr_Numbers]

New game posted:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,145698.0.html