Mouth of Madness, Revisited

When you're level 80, you can top 1200k easily. Why 1200k? Because my vid a bit over 3 months ago got 1200k in a game, and that was considered high at the time.

Because I don't like playing repeat boards, and April Fool's is coming up, I'd like to have a bit of fun and give people a small challenge. Given that most players can get somewhere between 1m and 2m at lvl 80, and they wanted to figure out how to get those very high scores, I present the following:

NOTE: The following challenge involves cheating (use of speed hacks) to attain the highest theoretical score possible in a game (which can be reproduced in a normal ZB replay).

If you do proceed, I strongly recommend you do NOT save your scores (quit the game immediately after it says 'Zuma' at the end). This challenge is designed to discover the best ways to get high scores for a given board, not to get all the way to the top of the leaderboard.

Challenge: Find a way to get at least 10 5 million points on this board using any means necessary. (3 million for people for lvl 65 and below) You may slow down the game to help complete this challenge. If you do complete it, comment on this post with a link to the video.

Note on Game Slowdown: A separate program is used to do this; there is a link on one of the comments if you want it. Take note: You might have the reflexes of a pro player but you really need a strategy to complete this challenge. (TIP: you will need to set up double gaps on this board.)

Life's a Beach

Following the return from DCON 2011 the last weekend, a new board shows up. Feeling tired and worn from the long trip back home, I needed a break, but couldn't really get one.

I also realize that LSSP was going to be announced, which is the Large Scale Service Project in Virginia, where you're in a hotel and it's on a beach. Just wanted to point that out. Anyways...

TIP: Double gap on 6x/7x multiplier, Normal gap shots before that. The lower curve will roll slightly faster than usual due to its longer path; fruit is harder to get as a result. Consequently treasure chests appear a lot more often (around 1 every 8 games).

Getting double gaps on this board is tricky. For some tips on doing that on this board, see Sliding Gap Rule.

NOTE: Initially when you start the game after midnight today you start with a black screen. Using a debugger shows that the game didn't load a playable map, hence the black screen (and you can't use the reset button to quit either). Early April Fool's, perhaps? (Don't worry, I still have my joke to put over here later on this week.)

EDIT: Several users reported that the game DOES work in Safari. They did load another map b/c of this problem, but it's not the one in the Tiki Talk.

EDIT 2: This map is playable as of Apr 5, 2011.

Claw Game 2.0

Found this while driving back from LA.

It's a normal claw game, but they upped the prizes a bit. By attaching money to smaller prizes, they've increased the incentive to play by a lot.

Fun Fact: This game actually received a citation because one person considered it gambling, and it was temporarily removed, but was put back but there was no proof of it being luck only. It's nothing more than (considerably) raising the value of hard to grab stuffed animals.

DCON 2011

This is DCON 2011 (Cal-Nev-Ha DCON in Burbank). In three words: Informative, Fun, and Unforgettable. Featuring various workshops, performances, and lots of spirit.

Though it was fun, our team of eight people could not do much spirit wise, and my original thoughts about DCON were proven wrong here. I need to be back for another year to fully enjoy this.

Which is why I have decided to go for (the newly created) Tech Chair. And being the district committee sounds nice... I might go for that one.

This was our group of eight that represented our Circle K Club.

Full Album on Facebook (privacy set to 'everyone' and anyone can comment for up to two weeks after the event so that people in at DCON who don't have any mutual friends with me can see the entire album / comment.)

NOTE: If you know anyone in any of my pictures, feel free to tag them.

Happy Sad Board

(Drops two coins into the bucket)
I'm happy because there's a new board, and DCON is coming up this Friday. And...
(drops two more)
I'm sad because I was unable to make the top 3 in the leaderboard (I was off by around 100k), and because I didn't win treasurer position. (Erika will probably not be impressed with this statement.)*

And now our daily tip: The margin of hitting gap shots on the top is very small, even when firing two in rapid succession, so practice your timing. Here's a color coded guide on how to determine what color balls you will hit behind the gap. Or, you could wait for the bottom, but who doesn't?

Color Guide: If you fire two balls in quick succession without moving your mouse, it shows where the first and second balls will (at full speed) hit at 1:00 game time (red), 1:30 (yellow), and 2:00 (green), so plan accordingly.

This screen below I consider a happy/sad situation: Frog died but high score at the same time.

*This is a reference to my Circle K club, which does happy/sad coins. No relation to the game though, so keep playing on.

Secondary Job... in Rapping

I learned a lot of things from Mrs. Langone (my chemistry teacher) back in MCHS, but I never knew she had a second job... as a rapper.

NOTE: I did not record this video; another student did this.

Death by Curve Clear

Outtake: Death by Curve Clear

Curve Clear! 130k!
(Balls roll back to end)
FFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU-
("Failure.")

Lesson Learned: Don't spam curve clears on a board with a short trail.