Tapper World Record Crushed

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.

wow

[XO]

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? :)

Re:wow

[CokeBear]

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.

space dungeon

[epine]

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.

tapper was great

[Anonymous Coward]

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 [digger.org]

Why no interest here?

[still_sick]

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...

Re:Why no interest here?

[PainKilleR-CE]

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

Re:Why no interest here?

[ggambett]

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. [mrio-software.com]

Re:Why no interest here?

[TheLink]

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.

Crushed?

[Paradise Pete]

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.

Re:Crushed?

[still_sick]

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.

Re:Crushed?

[Paradise Pete]

You're right.

Re:Crushed?

[RedWizzard]

"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

Nice one

[JT131]

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.