Qix is too hard!

[Zobeid]

I've never been a Qix fanatic, but I always liked it.  I've just been playing it last night and today, and I'm flabbergasted by how hard the game is.  I don't remember it being this hard in the arcades.  Most of the classic coin-op games were pretty tough by today's standards, but this one is just kicking me all over the place.

The Qix itself is so fast and erratic. . .  Any time I draw a line in the game, there's a possibility that the Qix is going to strike me down.  Sometimes it hovers over my marker and follows me around the border, making it suicidal for me to try and draw any lines at all -- and impossible to avoid Sparx.  Other times, nearly as frustrating, the Qix will wander off to the other side of the screen, giving me a false sense of safety.  Then when I start to draw, the Qix leaps across the screen and strikes me down.

I have a hard time thinking of any other classic arcade game where I *often* lose two of my three lives before clearing the first screen.  It's particularly mind-boggling when I start to draw my first tiny box of the game, and the Qix leaps way over to hit me.

I went into configuration and tried to adjust the difficulty.  I extended the Sparx timer a bit, and I gave myself five lives, up from the default of three.  It didn't improve my scores at all.  If anything it seems to have angered the Qix and made it more aggressive.

The config screen has a bunch of other difficulty options, but there's no explanation of what they do.  They're just marked "DIFFICULTY 1", "DIFFICULTY 2", etc.   They all begin set to "1", which I would normally assume is the easy setting.  I checked a Qix manual online, didn't find any explanation there either.

Anybody have any suggestions?  Any tips?

[erictrumpet]

I dont know what those settings do, but I can tell you one of my strategies. By the way, I still have trouble getting to even the third board so this is perhaps not a very effective strategy, but I use it.

Rather than capture huge chunks of the board, I just do TINY boxes. I use the fast button and make them long thin rectangles. I try to create a "tower" to bisect the screen. Then once the gap is too small for Qix to pass through, I use the slow button to close off that whole side of the board. It goes all red and it's big points. Then I use a similar technique, now building sideways from the middle, to cut the remaining half into halves using long thin rectangles. Slow button to make the big chunk red when the time comes as before.

This strategy gets me higher points, but I can't say it has helped me much in terms of advancing levels. I usually die on the third board with about 40k+ points.

Eric.

[RayB]

I suspect Zobeid didn't know there was a "fast" button.   

[Zobeid]

I suspect Zobeid didn't know there was a "fast" button.   

You suspect wrong.  As noted before, I've been familiar with Qix since the "good old days".

I did find this strategy guide. . . .

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Qix/Walkthrough

Seems useful, though I think his understanding of how the score multiplier works is wrong.

The author seems to think it gives you a retro-active multiplier on the points you've already scored on that level where you split them.  My understanding is that it increments your multiplier for all future points scored for the rest of the game.

So, his strategy is to score as much of a playfield as possible, and then split the Qix.  My strategy is to split the Qix a couple of times (get the multiplier up to at least 3X) and then start scoring playfield area points.

Unfortunately, I have to get to level three before I can even start trying to split the Qix, and that's not something I can do reliably.   

[erictrumpet]

Qix is definitely one of those games that makes me shout and punch the cabinet when I lose.
Most other puzzle type games are boring because they are either too easy (Tetris) or too hard (most others).
Qix is great. I find myself at times thinking it is alive, and intelligently thwarting my efforts to capture the screen.

Eric.

[danny_galaga]

Qix is definitely one of those games that makes me shout and punch the cabinet when I lose.
Most other puzzle type games are boring because they are either too easy (Tetris) or too hard (most others).
Qix is great. I find myself at times thinking it is alive, and intelligently thwarting my efforts to capture the screen.

Eric.

wont you be punching the cab every time then? how do you win in qix?

[ark_ader]

I like the Miss World version.

It never fails to please.   

[erictrumpet]

By win I mean clear the board.

Eric.

[shardian]

I like the Miss World version.

It never fails to please.   

It at least encourages you to get really good at the game...

[Level42]

Pretty funny, if I remember correctly you had to push the button to go SLOW on the Atari 8-bit computer version. But I know there were two quite different QIX versions on those IIRC.

Indeed amazing with the little computer power they had in the days they could make you absolutely hate something like that because it seemed to outsmart you.

[ahofle]

I went into configuration and tried to adjust the difficulty.  I extended the Sparx timer a bit, and I gave myself five lives, up from the default of three.  It didn't improve my scores at all.  If anything it seems to have angered the Qix and made it more aggressive.

Too funny. 
I remember at the college arcade they had a Gals Panic machine (basically a nude version of Qix).  I would constantly see guys hitting the machine or shaking it by the joystick and cussing when they were denied their end-of-level "incentive". 

[Ummon]

I didn't like this game at all when I was a kid. This wasn't a video game. It was like a puzzle game, and I didn't much like those. I think most other kids didn't either, as I remember seeing it only at the skating rink, and don't think it lasted that long. I especially didn't like the seemingly conscious, and always angry, radio wave thingy. Of course, I wasn't quite correct back then, and I've come to somewhat like the game. Haven't played it in ages, though. Will have to and try out those strategies.

[ahofle]

I just played it last night and you are right.  I got ---my bottom--- kicked!