http://www.racketboy.com/retro/2009/11/ ... f-wor.html
2 in 1 month! Thanks to Doug and Ville for helping out - hope you enjoy...be sure to let us know what you think!
Racketboy.com Podcast #3 - Wizard of Wor Record Holders
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wizard of wor fan
- Newbie
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- Joined: Thu Nov 19, 2009 11:35 pm
Re: Racketboy.com Podcast #3 - Wizard of Wor Record Holders
Nice talking with you, David. My apologies for being a tad bit of a nervous nellie during the interview. I wanted to follow up with additional tidbits for anyone looking to lift their level of WoW play ...
Learn to keep the warrior in the same grid placement while being able to rock in 2 different directions via a light tap to the joystick (aka "rocking chair"). I wasn't able to do this while using the directional keyboard arrows when playing the MAME version.
Don't run all over the dungeons firing and such ... search for locations that allow you to funnel everything towards the warrior while remaining in the same grid.
The best board to learn the wizard's "tempo" is the arena. If a warrior hasn't been lost during the 1st 3 dungeons, and one makes it past the worluk, chances are you'll see the wizard. prior to the worluk, position the warrior just above the right side door, 2 grids to the left ... the row above the side door and below the top row. Shoot to the right ... 99.9% will funnel to the warrior that way. Once the last thorwor is taken out, immediately move inside the arena (the row below) to where there's 1 open grid below. Take out the worluk while traveling inside the arena if possible. Once the worluk is taken out, pay attention to how long it takes for the wizard appears. If you miss the wizard and need to move down a grid, make sure to get back to original position and pay close attention to the tempo and sounds ... one will learn to fire before or at the same time the wizard appears. If one does this over and over and over, they'll better understand the wizard's tempo, not to mention pick-up a tidbit on how to handle the wizard on subsequent dungeons.....................
Dungeons 5 & 6 can be easy if given the right maze, but, I truly feel dungeons 5, 6 and 7 are the hardest (besides the pit) due to how quickly everything starts moving at such a fast pace. Long corridor dungeons (MUCH better warrior positioning dungeons) start on dungeon 8. Once one makes it to 8, it won’t be long before they’re playing the pit … where warriors are lost. Taking out the pit w/o losing a warrior is like getting an eagle or back to back birdies in golf. Rare for me, but, it’ll still bring you back time and time again for a potential repeat performance.
Once one gets comfortable playing the game (1-player games), take out all opposing warriors and collect the points. Start attempting "bump" positioning when comfortable as it'll help achieve a breakout game .....
You need patience to play this game … otherwise you’re feeding quarters earlier than anticipated. The game is never the same, and there are no patterns (aka pacman) to memorize … this is the best part!
Good luck … hopefully this helps a few WoW newbie fans. Would like to see the game get to the next level, so good luck to anyone that gets bit by the wizard bug!
Doug
Learn to keep the warrior in the same grid placement while being able to rock in 2 different directions via a light tap to the joystick (aka "rocking chair"). I wasn't able to do this while using the directional keyboard arrows when playing the MAME version.
Don't run all over the dungeons firing and such ... search for locations that allow you to funnel everything towards the warrior while remaining in the same grid.
The best board to learn the wizard's "tempo" is the arena. If a warrior hasn't been lost during the 1st 3 dungeons, and one makes it past the worluk, chances are you'll see the wizard. prior to the worluk, position the warrior just above the right side door, 2 grids to the left ... the row above the side door and below the top row. Shoot to the right ... 99.9% will funnel to the warrior that way. Once the last thorwor is taken out, immediately move inside the arena (the row below) to where there's 1 open grid below. Take out the worluk while traveling inside the arena if possible. Once the worluk is taken out, pay attention to how long it takes for the wizard appears. If you miss the wizard and need to move down a grid, make sure to get back to original position and pay close attention to the tempo and sounds ... one will learn to fire before or at the same time the wizard appears. If one does this over and over and over, they'll better understand the wizard's tempo, not to mention pick-up a tidbit on how to handle the wizard on subsequent dungeons.....................
Dungeons 5 & 6 can be easy if given the right maze, but, I truly feel dungeons 5, 6 and 7 are the hardest (besides the pit) due to how quickly everything starts moving at such a fast pace. Long corridor dungeons (MUCH better warrior positioning dungeons) start on dungeon 8. Once one makes it to 8, it won’t be long before they’re playing the pit … where warriors are lost. Taking out the pit w/o losing a warrior is like getting an eagle or back to back birdies in golf. Rare for me, but, it’ll still bring you back time and time again for a potential repeat performance.
Once one gets comfortable playing the game (1-player games), take out all opposing warriors and collect the points. Start attempting "bump" positioning when comfortable as it'll help achieve a breakout game .....
You need patience to play this game … otherwise you’re feeding quarters earlier than anticipated. The game is never the same, and there are no patterns (aka pacman) to memorize … this is the best part!
Good luck … hopefully this helps a few WoW newbie fans. Would like to see the game get to the next level, so good luck to anyone that gets bit by the wizard bug!
Doug
Last edited by wizard of wor fan on Sat Nov 21, 2009 3:35 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Re: Racketboy.com Podcast #3 - Wizard of Wor Record Holders
I'll listen to it tomorrow at work. Really looking forward to it! 
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Jockelgockel
- Newbie
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- Joined: Sun Nov 22, 2009 6:26 pm
Re: Racketboy.com Podcast #3 - Wizard of Wor Record Holders
Hi there!
good work, finally something new on wow. nice...
i'm the stupid 3rd guy who crossed the 400'000 mark 2 days after ville with a slightly lower score and i have some questions for doug or anyone else who owns a cabinet version of wow, would be great if you could answer these:
it's about some bugs that the mame version has, i'm simply interested if they exist in the cabinet version as well:
1: when 2 worlings are by chance exactly at the same place at the same time, they become completely invisible even in your line of sight. if they both move towards you it happens that you just die without knowing the reason unless you watch the radar.
2: in the same situation it happens that your shots simply pass through them without doing any damage (which is usually lethal as your shot continues all the way to the next wall)
well, there are some variations of these bugs but i guess in general that's about it. i got curious when i heard you say that the game is perfect the way it is, that sounds like these bugs don't exist in the cabinet version... anyway, it doesn't happen often but when it does it's really annoying.
and about taking the world record to a new level: would you like to exchange tactics a bit? i guess most of ours are quite obvious in our input-files on twingalaxies.com or marp.retrogames.com and yours seem mostly similar - judging from the few levels i've seen you play on youtube - but who knows... maybe some improvements are possible. i'd be interested anyway ( of course i'm a bit selfish... learning tactics from the world record holder seems to be quite a good step towards a new highscore + a good reason to start playing wow a bit seriously again )
if not, no problem either...
once again, nice interviews! thanks all!!
edit: ah, there's actually one more bug, though not as annoying as the other ones: when a worling gets killed just after launching a shot at you, its shot is supposed to disappear as well... usually this is the case but very rarely it happens that it doesn't (which usually means certain death as well).
good work, finally something new on wow. nice...
i'm the stupid 3rd guy who crossed the 400'000 mark 2 days after ville with a slightly lower score and i have some questions for doug or anyone else who owns a cabinet version of wow, would be great if you could answer these:
it's about some bugs that the mame version has, i'm simply interested if they exist in the cabinet version as well:
1: when 2 worlings are by chance exactly at the same place at the same time, they become completely invisible even in your line of sight. if they both move towards you it happens that you just die without knowing the reason unless you watch the radar.
2: in the same situation it happens that your shots simply pass through them without doing any damage (which is usually lethal as your shot continues all the way to the next wall)
well, there are some variations of these bugs but i guess in general that's about it. i got curious when i heard you say that the game is perfect the way it is, that sounds like these bugs don't exist in the cabinet version... anyway, it doesn't happen often but when it does it's really annoying.
and about taking the world record to a new level: would you like to exchange tactics a bit? i guess most of ours are quite obvious in our input-files on twingalaxies.com or marp.retrogames.com and yours seem mostly similar - judging from the few levels i've seen you play on youtube - but who knows... maybe some improvements are possible. i'd be interested anyway ( of course i'm a bit selfish... learning tactics from the world record holder seems to be quite a good step towards a new highscore + a good reason to start playing wow a bit seriously again
)if not, no problem either...
once again, nice interviews! thanks all!!
edit: ah, there's actually one more bug, though not as annoying as the other ones: when a worling gets killed just after launching a shot at you, its shot is supposed to disappear as well... usually this is the case but very rarely it happens that it doesn't (which usually means certain death as well).
Re: Racketboy.com Podcast #3 - Wizard of Wor Record Holders
Finally got a chance to finish listening to this today while I was driving to and from jobs. Great interviews, as usual! I really enjoyed this and it was cool to get a chance to peek inside the minds of the Wizard of Wor record holders.
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wizard of wor fan
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- Joined: Thu Nov 19, 2009 11:35 pm
Re: Racketboy.com Podcast #3 - Wizard of Wor Record Holders
Hi Jakob -
Impressive score! Well done.
MAME uses the same ROM so you'll see those same flaws on the classic coin-op version. You've probably witnessed this as well, but, the game will also freeze (requiring reboot) on rare occasions when you fire and the bullet hits the wizard's grid as he's appearing.
This might sound odd, but, I kind of like the fact these flaws can be played/avoided by looking for the slight screen flicker when that oddity occurs (I'll go on the defensive for a few seconds when it's noticed or if a shot goes through anything, and then reposition), or by playing it safe during the early dungeons so the rare stray shots stay clear of the warrior.
I might look at getting a blog site online outlining single player tactics ... it'll take a while to figure everything out. The site will definitely allow comments for other tactics to be added. There's no doubt I'd like to see the bar raised ... a lot more fun than seeing a score sit idle for a while. Although, that 2 player score John & Josh compiled on the 2-payer, 3-warrior setting may stand forever ... 1,303,300 scored at a live event is flat out sick. It would be pretty cool if the two of us, Ville, David Yuen, John and Josh could map the different effective dungeon tactics. It doesn't matter who sees it. One still needs to be able to play a very tough game.
I'll post something if anything goes up online in the future.
Good luck to you...
Doug
Impressive score! Well done.
MAME uses the same ROM so you'll see those same flaws on the classic coin-op version. You've probably witnessed this as well, but, the game will also freeze (requiring reboot) on rare occasions when you fire and the bullet hits the wizard's grid as he's appearing.
This might sound odd, but, I kind of like the fact these flaws can be played/avoided by looking for the slight screen flicker when that oddity occurs (I'll go on the defensive for a few seconds when it's noticed or if a shot goes through anything, and then reposition), or by playing it safe during the early dungeons so the rare stray shots stay clear of the warrior.
I might look at getting a blog site online outlining single player tactics ... it'll take a while to figure everything out. The site will definitely allow comments for other tactics to be added. There's no doubt I'd like to see the bar raised ... a lot more fun than seeing a score sit idle for a while. Although, that 2 player score John & Josh compiled on the 2-payer, 3-warrior setting may stand forever ... 1,303,300 scored at a live event is flat out sick. It would be pretty cool if the two of us, Ville, David Yuen, John and Josh could map the different effective dungeon tactics. It doesn't matter who sees it. One still needs to be able to play a very tough game.
I'll post something if anything goes up online in the future.
Good luck to you...
Doug
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fastbilly1
- Site Admin
- Posts: 13775
- Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:08 pm
Re: Racketboy.com Podcast #3 - Wizard of Wor Record Holders
Doug if that goes I live Id love to read it. WoW is one of my favorite old arcade games and I think it is a shame that it doesnt get the recognition that it deserves. Please keep us informed.
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Jockelgockel
- Newbie
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- Joined: Sun Nov 22, 2009 6:26 pm
Re: Racketboy.com Podcast #3 - Wizard of Wor Record Holders
Hi Doug!
thanks for the reply!
well, actually it never happened to me but i've seen it in one of ville's replays...seems a little bit annoying
strange, i don't think i've ever seen (or noticed) this flickering. but i'll keep my eyes open for it...thanks!
that sounds great actually! i always found it a bit annoying that there weren't any videos of the coin-op world records, i really would like to know if you use the same tactics as us or some different ones. of course ville and i would provide our tactics too... hope to see this blog soon!!
enjoy!
thanks for the reply!
You've probably witnessed this as well, but, the game will also freeze (requiring reboot) on rare occasions when you fire and the bullet hits the wizard's grid as he's appearing.
well, actually it never happened to me but i've seen it in one of ville's replays...seems a little bit annoying
This might sound odd, but, I kind of like the fact these flaws can be played/avoided by looking for the slight screen flicker when that oddity occurs (I'll go on the defensive for a few seconds when it's noticed or if a shot goes through anything, and then reposition), or by playing it safe during the early dungeons so the rare stray shots stay clear of the warrior.
strange, i don't think i've ever seen (or noticed) this flickering. but i'll keep my eyes open for it...thanks!
It would be pretty cool if the two of us, Ville, David Yuen, John and Josh could map the different effective dungeon tactics.
that sounds great actually! i always found it a bit annoying that there weren't any videos of the coin-op world records, i really would like to know if you use the same tactics as us or some different ones. of course ville and i would provide our tactics too... hope to see this blog soon!!
enjoy!
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wizard of wor fan
- Newbie
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Thu Nov 19, 2009 11:35 pm
Re: Racketboy.com Podcast #3 - Wizard of Wor Record Holders
Finshed up earlier today ... here's a site to reference for Wizard of Wor strategy:
http://wizard-of-wor-fan.blogspot.com/
Bring it!
Happy Holidays,
Doug
http://wizard-of-wor-fan.blogspot.com/
Bring it!
Happy Holidays,
Doug
Re: Racketboy.com Podcast #3 - Wizard of Wor Record Holders
wizard of wor fan wrote:Finshed up earlier today ... here's a site to reference for Wizard of Wor strategy:
http://wizard-of-wor-fan.blogspot.com/
Bring it!
Happy Holidays,
Doug
Wow, Doug this site is really cool - I'm glad we got these creative juices flowing!
If you go through Twin Galaxies you may be able to get in touch with the other WoW record holders...
Best of luck with this taking off. Very niche, but still impressive!