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Tapper World Record Crushed

Posted by simoniker on from the slurring-your-words dept.

Greg Erway writes "There's a story at Twin Galaxies about my recent record-beating Tapper high score. It took almost 16 straight hours to rack up 9,100,125 points and beat the previous arcade game record, set back in 1986 by Mike Ward." Many of you probably remember Midway's Budweiser-sponsored Tapper arcade machine, and the story estimates that Greg filled over 75,000 virtual beer glasses, as well as having to kill off 79 bartenders at the end of the game to actually get the game over screen.

19 comments

  1. Seems to be /.'ed anybody have a mirror? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    read above.

  2. wow by XO · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, congratulations there, Greg.

    I don't mean to detract from that awesome goal, but since you mention yourself that it's a lot more useful to use the 5-man Tapper score as the One To Beat .. doesn't it seem odd that the game would just reset back to the beginning difficulty and such when you hit lev 256? Just doesn't seem fair that if anyone can hit the 256 that it should even continue on.. that at that point perhaps it should become a -speed- contest .. now, let's see who can get to the game reset the fastest? :)

    --
    "Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
    1. Re:wow by CokeBear · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Thats why its called a "marathon". At that point, simply staying on your feet is an accomplishment. Never mind the fact that there are only a handful of people in the world who can hit 256.

      --
      Reality has a liberal bias
  3. Dang... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That game is hard.

  4. space dungeon by epine · · Score: 3, Informative


    When you roll over the level counter on Space Dungeon, it prints out the rhyme "you're the hero on level zero". I should know. That's where my undergraduate career ended. Level zero, 6,999,995 points.

    With a little help from my friends while I guzzled an omelette.

  5. tapper was great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    i spent many hours back in the 80's playing tapper, also another favourite was digger, a great modernish port was made and can be found here

  6. Why no interest here? by still_sick · · Score: 1

    I can't believe I'm old enough to say this, but... I think kids today are missing out. All the video games are flashy and awesome etc... But there's something to be said for the dead-simple games like Frogger, Pac-Man, or Tapper. Cross the road, Eat all the dots, Serve drinks, repeat forever. I'm willing to bet that 90% of the kiddies who read slashdot have never tried Tapper, or at least not seriously. You probably downloaded MAME, maybe tried it out, figured "This is stupid / boring!" then just quit... Of course this is understandable because the first few levels actually are stupid and boring. But that's missing the point! Video Games used to be all about the levels / score! There was no story, there was no "ending", you just played until you died. The point? To get to the higher level. Yes, we all realized it was just the same thing over and over again, it was the LEVEL that mattered. I beg you, for the good of your souls - grab MAME and the Tapper ROM and try to get to level 10. Go on, Try... Betcha can't. Any fool can pass the first 2, and with the reflexes you kids have today from Quake and shit I'm sure levels 3 and 4 are cake! But just bear with me and keep going. Have you tried getting to level 10? ... Have you failed miserably? ... Good. Now go re-read the article, it seems a little more impressive now, doesn't it?

    --
    ...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
    1. Re:Why no interest here? by PainKilleR-CE · · Score: 1

      I can't believe I'm old enough to say this, but... I think kids today are missing out. All the video games are flashy and awesome etc... But there's something to be said for the dead-simple games like Frogger, Pac-Man, or Tapper. Cross the road, Eat all the dots, Serve drinks, repeat forever. I'm willing to bet that 90% of the kiddies who read slashdot have never tried Tapper, or at least not seriously.

      I think that many people here may not have tried Tapper (because when it came out we couldn't get into bars to play it, which is why, as the article mentions, they made Root Beer Tapper), but most of us played Pac-Man, Frogger, Centipede, Missle Command, etc. if not on the arcade machines (hell, my Dentist had a free Pac-Man machine when I was a kid), then on our consoles at home (whether they were Atari or whatever). I have the Namco Museum disc for my GameCube, and play Dig-Dug, Pac-Man, and Galaga every once in a while, but for the most part I get my ass kicked, because those games are entirely about repeated plays. The more you play, the better you get at them, but most of us don't want to spend the time doing so, because it's just about how many levels and how many points you can get, and the levels don't change much.

      It's certainly an impressive record, but it's a long read to really get a feel for it, and quite simply, the guy only stopped out of respect for the original record (and the people holding the event), he could've probably kept going until he passed out.

      Personally, I've had my fill of that type of gameplay, and whenever I really need a fix of it, I just load up the handful of ports to new systems that are available and get it out of my system. I prefer games with a definitive endpoint to give a sense of accomplishment (rather than beating some long-standing record by playing for 16 hours without pausing the game, which is a great accomplishment, but wouldn't be the same as finishing the game, which cannot be done here). As he even pointed out himself, the record was more about unification (of the records) and the real record to beat is at the 5-lives point, where you have a real proof of efficiency at the game. If you flip the level counter 3 times and still have close to 80 lives, the score is just a matter of where you choose to stop, rather than where you can actually get the game. It doesn't quite hit us the way, say, maximizing the score on Donkey Kong with it's kill screen does.

      --
      -PainKilleR-[CE]
    2. Re:Why no interest here? by ggambett · · Score: 1

      I agree with you. But let me point out something - all the RETAIL video games are flashy and awesome. We independent game developers just can't compete in special effects with, say, Doom III, so we have no choice but to concentrate in making fun and simple games, with emphasis in "fun".

      As a matter of fact, we are developing a game loosely based on Tapper. It's in alpha stage right now, but you can see an early screenshot here.

      --
      My website
    3. Re:Why no interest here? by TheLink · · Score: 1

      Hey I find it impressive. I mean 16 hours doing something. I was wondering about the loo break too - so you have to have enough lives to survive a loo break.

      I personally won't bother trying.

      BTW have you ever seen the various Quake Done Quick demos, or DOOM II done in Nightmare mode?

      Those are impressive too.

      --
  7. Crushed? by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 3, Funny

    Previous record: 9,068,625
    New Record: 9,100,175
    I don't mean to belit achievement, but that's not exactly the trouncing that "crushed" brings to mind.

    1. Re:Crushed? by still_sick · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, it is indeed "crushed".

      If you'd care to read the article, or for that matter the summary, you'd see that he had to kill off 79 extra lives to end his game after breaking the record.

      In other words - he 0wnz3rz this game. Whether he beat the old record by a thousand or ten million is irrelevant. The fact is that he could've beat the record by whatever number you'd care to mention - he just didn't see the need to bother.

      --
      ...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
    2. Re:Crushed? by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 2

      You're right.

    3. Re:Crushed? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You and the guy who posted the article misunderstood it:

      "He continues..."I've lost 30 or 40 easy" (meaning during the course of the game) and then says "I don't know what number I'm on...I've lost count". Perfectly understandable after nearly 16 hours of continuous game play. The nice thing about video tape is we can now go back and see that Greg killed off 79 men total which is exactly one half the number of men the game involved (3 starting men + 17 per million times 9 + one extra man for 9.02M + one for 9.08M = 158)."

      What that's saying is at that point, when he didn't know how many times he died, someone asked him how many men he had left. He had killed 79 to that point (the point at which he was intentionally dying.) and he had 158 men total that died. It doesn't say how many men he killed off intentionally (including the 3 he lost when he ran to the bathroom after 8 hours.) and how many he killed off actually in the course of gameplay.

    4. Re:Crushed? by RedWizzard · · Score: 1
      "Greg killed off 79 men total which is exactly one half the number of men the game involved"...

      It doesn't say how many men he killed off intentionally (including the 3 he lost when he ran to the bathroom after 8 hours.) and how many he killed off actually in the course of gameplay.

      I read it as saying he killed off 79 men during game play, leaving 79 men to be intentionally killed at the end. He is gaining men at twice the rate he is losing them, and as the game is not getting any harder he could play for as long as his body and mind hold out.
  8. Nice one by JT131 · · Score: 1

    Congrats Greg. And what a fine game Tapper is although 16 hours straight is much more than I could stand. Nevertheless, quite an impressive efford.