3 ms·

True, games like Robotron: 2084 and Space Dungeon are on another level difficulty-wise. Great games, too.

by evo_9 4y ago

joezydeco 4y ago
It wasn't discovered until recently but Robotron will actually ratchet down the difficulty level, silently, if it sees that the player is struggling on the first wave.
- evo_9 4y ago
  Can you share a link going into this? My college roommate dissessembled the ROM and examined it extensively. We played on Level 10 constantly and had friends over (with the machine set to Level 10 - default was 3, 'normal' arcade difficulty was 5). The level never seemed to be easier when we had non-'pros' over (we routinly exceed 2.5 million even on Level 10). My roommate went on to work at Bally Williams directly under Eugene Jarvis (who wrote Defender, Stargate and Robotron, amoung others), who I met at my buddies wedding. Anyway, this is news to me, and likely my buddy that dissembled the rom off the arcade machine. My friend went on to write the engine for World Crusin; if you hold down the view 1 and 3 button at the same time it will bring up the thank you page on the arcade machine; my name is the second on the page. Funny side note: the reason my room-mate got onto Eugene's team was because Eugene saw him playing Robotron at lunch on the company machine. After watching him he approached him and they became fast friends. Eugene told him he'd never seen anyone play at the level my roommate demonstrated; that's when he mentioned we played on Level 10 and typically exceed 2million. He was shocked.
  - joezydeco 4y ago
    One source: http://www.classicarcadegaming.com/forums/index.php?topic=5967.0 http://www.classicarcadegaming.com/forums/index.php?topic=59... Was your friend Eric Pribyl?
    - evo_9 4y ago
      No Scott Posch, he and Eugene split out of Williams and started Raw Thrills but then things kinda went south, I lost touch with him as did Eugene (I think?) but I could Be mistaken on that point.
      - joezydeco 4y ago
        Ah ok. FYI I should have referenced the dissassembly that Scott and Sean did, you can see the actual algorithm better. Start here http://seanriddle.com/robomame.asm http://seanriddle.com/robomame.asm and jump to the player start routine at $2B0B.

True, games like Robotron: 2084 and Space Dungeon are on another level difficulty-wise. Great games, too.

by evo_9 4y ago

True, games like Robotron: 2084 and Space Dungeon are on another level difficulty-wise. Great games, too.

It wasn't discovered until recently but Robotron will actually ratchet down the difficulty level, silently, if it sees that the player is struggling on the first wave.

evo_9 4y ago
Can you share a link going into this? My college roommate dissessembled the ROM and examined it extensively. We played on Level 10 constantly and had friends over (with the machine set to Level 10 - default was 3, 'normal' arcade difficulty was 5). The level never seemed to be easier when we had non-'pros' over (we routinly exceed 2.5 million even on Level 10). My roommate went on to work at Bally Williams directly under Eugene Jarvis (who wrote Defender, Stargate and Robotron, amoung others), who I met at my buddies wedding. Anyway, this is news to me, and likely my buddy that dissembled the rom off the arcade machine. My friend went on to write the engine for World Crusin; if you hold down the view 1 and 3 button at the same time it will bring up the thank you page on the arcade machine; my name is the second on the page. Funny side note: the reason my room-mate got onto Eugene's team was because Eugene saw him playing Robotron at lunch on the company machine. After watching him he approached him and they became fast friends. Eugene told him he'd never seen anyone play at the level my roommate demonstrated; that's when he mentioned we played on Level 10 and typically exceed 2million. He was shocked.
- joezydeco 4y ago
  One source: http://www.classicarcadegaming.com/forums/index.php?topic=5967.0 http://www.classicarcadegaming.com/forums/index.php?topic=59... Was your friend Eric Pribyl?
  - evo_9 4y ago
    No Scott Posch, he and Eugene split out of Williams and started Raw Thrills but then things kinda went south, I lost touch with him as did Eugene (I think?) but I could Be mistaken on that point.
    - joezydeco 4y ago
      Ah ok. FYI I should have referenced the dissassembly that Scott and Sean did, you can see the actual algorithm better. Start here http://seanriddle.com/robomame.asm http://seanriddle.com/robomame.asm and jump to the player start routine at $2B0B.