It's a Knockout! 2015/16: Qualifying Round - SWIV

[Graham Humphrey]

It's a Knockout! 2015/16: Qualifying Round - SWIV

Starts: 00:01 November 29 Finishes: 23:59 December 12

Rules

Rules are available here. Super League rules are here.

Post a picture of your score here with the score written underneath. Enter as often as you like.

You must play as the helicopter in one-player mode only.

Tied scores will be separated by whoever submitted their score first.

No cheating (including save states) - anyone caught cheating gets disqualified.

Here's how the qualifying system works:

Between 9-13 people enter: 8 people qualify.
Between 14-17 people enter: 12 people qualify.
18+ people enter: 16 people qualify.

Remember you have to enter this round to have any chance of playing later on - but please only enter if you feel you will be able to commit to playing the full tournament (this is important, too many people who qualify and then don't take part in the later rounds which spoils the competition).

Have fun and feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Downloads

- ADF
- WHDLoad-installed
- CD32 compilation ISO containing all Knockout games

Extras

- Lemon thread
- Super League Round 1 threads: EAB, Lemon

[blade002]

Anyone can enter?

[Graham Humphrey]

Yes, at this stage it's open to everybody.

[blade002]

Cool bananas Nice choice this time around, a game with some meat to it

[Harry]

710.250

I wont put much effort in the knockout this time, as I am rubbish at the last 3 games.

[Shatterhand]

347900 - Playing with the chopper


EDIT:
Deleted stupid question that was already answered

[Shatterhand]

598,650


A few different things on this would make me change my feelings about it from "Above Averagey" to "Pretty good". The drop on the framerate when the screen gets crowded is really near gamebreaking. The game gets borderline unplayable at those spots. Bullet visibility already isn't all that good (At least there's a sound warning you a bullet was fired, then my eyes go all over screen "WHERE? WHERE?"), but when the framerate drops, it's like I can barely understand what the hell is happening on screen.

It would be eons better if the game actually slowed down instead of having such a heavy frameskipping. Slowdowns don't make a game unplayable, low framerate does.

And while I find the SFX On this really extremely cool (the stereo works really greatly here), the lack of a music playing through the game is really a big shame.

Other than that, the game is really enjoyable and fun to play. It plays a lot like older shmups like Slap Fight, which is not a bad thing at all. The OOOMPH the explosions have are really cool. It has a cool 2 players option, the weapons are balanced (and while you lose power when dying, there's no "Die and it's game over" syndrome) and it's generally a fun game to play. But the framerate drops are really too damn annoying.

EDIT: What are the stars on the score panel, besides the life counter?

[jPV]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

EDIT: What are the stars on the score panel, besides the life counter?

They are continues, which aren't allowed to be used in the compo. Be careful with the fire button to not use them when you've lost your lives.

[john1979]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

The drop on the framerate when the screen gets crowded is really near gamebreaking.

It stays fairly smooth if you run the game on an A500/600 configuration from floppy. On A1200 with WHDload it runs really poorly.

[Shatterhand]

Not using continues at all, but they reset the score anyway, it wouldn't be wise to use them

I am running the game from A600 using WHDLoad. Unfortunately I have no other way to run it.

I remember the framerate did drop when playing on my old computer 20+years ago, and Ronald Pieket even mentions it on his interview with Codetapper, but I really don't remember when it happened. It doesn't too often, but often enough to be a problem.

[Shatterhand]

I also played Sillkworm yesterday, after playing Swiv.

It's overall a much better game. Maybe because it was designed by arcade developers, the level design on that one is way better than on Swiv. It also has framerate drops, but it's a lot more acceptable than on Swiv.

I checked out Swiv on the C64, just saw a video of it, it also looked to be a better game than the AMiga version.

[Shatterhand]

821,190

Now give my that 1st spot please, sir. At least for now



Played 5 games on my A600, got really annoyed by basically only dying when the framerate goes shitty. Remebered what John1979 said, tried the game under emulation, TADA, shit framerate is gone, the game is a lot more playable, hence, a lot more enjoyable too.

Now I can squeeze my chopper between bullets when the screen gets crowded, instead of just moving randomly and hoping for the best while I can't see what the heck is happening.

And on my 2nd try playing on WINUAE (the 1st one ended in a rage quit after I got a shield at the same time I DIED, then got back to life WITH THE SHIELD ON.. wtf, talk about an annoying bug ), I easily beat my previous score.

The boss I had died before now was possible to be beaten (Still a pain in the ass when all cannons are shooting *AND* choppers are coming down to shoot you). Now I need to know better what comes after the 60% mark in the game, but I feel I can beat it.

EDIT: This annoying framerate drop, along with games NOT supporting 2 buttons on WHDLoad when they were supposed to made my mind: I'll go for the gotek solution first, instead of getting a fast ram upgrade and playing everything from HD.

[Shatterhand]

I am reading the original thread.. as I didn't play the League Round, there are lots of nice tips there.

I was already suspecting the game had some kind of rank system on it, as sometimes enemies take more bullets than normal to die, and at least once I saw one enemy who doesn't usually shoot, shooting like hell at me. There are clearly stuff that only happens if you kill certain enemies very quickly, and the star weapon, while very cool to see it in action, is very unuseful for most of the game since you can't do proper damage with it.

I am getting more and more respect for this game the more I play it.

[capehorn]

333,590

[Graham Humphrey]

Not a great attempt. Improvement very much required - I'll kick myself if I miss out on qualifying, with Lotus 3 and SWOS after this I might have half a chance of going far if I can get past this...



163,330

[el_pasi]

120330
Not very good comparing to others, but I'm happy enough of this score

[mailman]

532,660

[Graham Humphrey]

Welcome aboard el_pasi! Hope you stick around for more action

As people may have seen, thanks to earok's wonderful work, there's now a CD32 compilation of all the Knockout games, with all games chosen from a menu. So if you fancy playing via a console, go and download it via the link in the original post, and there's an article with details here.

[Graham Humphrey]

We're now half way through this round. 11 players so far but hopefully there'll be more to come

[vagrant]

570,390
Good to see some new players

I noticed some corrupt screens that weren't there when we played before (winuae / whd). Seems winuae has lost some compatibilty in recent versions. Doesn't affect gameplay in any case.