Super League 2023: Round 5 - Rainbow Islands & Gemini Wing

[lifeschool]

Rainbow Islands [lemon] [hol]
Gemini Wing [Lemon] [hol]

This round lasts 4 weeks, which means the voting for round 6 starts next week.

Rules:
The round starts 2nd April, and runs to Saturday, 29th April 2023.
Get the best score you can during this time-frame.
Write your score at the top, attach screenshots nearby.
Scores to be achieved without save-states, trainers, passwords, and cheats.
No continues or infinite score leeching.
Completion of the whole game awards the completion star.
Full rules and info are HERE.

Special Rules:
Gemini Wing - Maximum score is 999,999. If you are close to this, either make a video or show 2 screenshots -
one above 900k and another one where the score has wrapped, to get 999,999 and the star.
Gemini Wing - Take your final screenshot before the final boss appears (you will see Alien eggs), lives X1000.

Get the Game:
Rainbow Islands [ADF] - [WHDLoad] (direct link)
Gemini Wing [ADF] - [WHDLoad] (direct link)





Extras:
2018 R5 Rainbow Islands [Lemon] [EAB]
Lemon's Round 5 thread is here.
Super League Live Ladder!
Check out the C64 Games Competition at our sister site Lemon64.

Live League Table:


All new players are welcome at any time. Join us!

[mailman]

Gemini Wing - 108400

Rainbow Islands - 61310

[el_pasi]

Gemini Wing: 302,900
Rainbow Islands: 1,698,370

Gemini Wing was so sluggish, that eventually tried once with NTSC-tooltype. Got to level 6, but had only a few 50k scorebonuses. With over 20 attempts, I didn't see any 100k scorebonuses. Not totally sure, if I'll try to play that below average -shooter again
Played a lot Rainbow Islands too, and got to Doh's Island in latest attempt.

[lifeschool]

^ I would say that NTSC is the smoothest way to play this, with the music at the right speed etc.

[capehorn]

Died 2/3rds of the way up the final level

3,717,870

[lifeschool]

Wonderful to see players having a go at these two games.

I updated the ADF link for Rainbow Islands in the first post with a different crack, as the old one had issues on later levels.

I've also updated the rules for Gemini Wing. John pointed out that the score can be maxed to 999,999 at any point, if you are lucky, so like Beat Box there is now a fixed high score for Gemini Wing. Players getting close to the max score should record it on video, or take two images - one before, and one after the score loop.

The final boss of Gemini Wing is also a major issue with almost unlimited score leeching possible, and so players should take their final screenshot before (or as) the final boss appears. The game goes into an Aliens inspired egg room if you get that far, and the maps are on HOL.

[el_pasi]

Gemini Wing: 494,500

Decided to try to get at least get one 100k bonus somewhere. But no luck, still haven't seen any of those in the WHDLoad-installed version 1.1 I'm using.
But is it about luck or should I do something to have those 100k bonuses available instead of other bonuses?
Anyway, reached again sixth level, but didn't progress too far, so difficult level.

[john4p]

Originally Posted by el_pasi

But is it about luck or should I do something to have those 100k bonuses available instead of other bonuses?

It's pure luck.

Soon at the beginning there are four enemies that leave collectibles when you destroy them. If not at least one of them (better two) is a '10' just reset and try again. Not much fun but if you want a high score you have to end level 1 with a score of 400k+.

With the huge enemies carrying 5 items you can wait for their items to change. Also you can collect just e.g. the last three from their "item tail" if there's a 10 and wait for the rest to later maybe change into another 10 (you can collect the items without destroying the enemy).

[capehorn]

Rainbow Islands: 9,367,750

[el_pasi]

Originally Posted by john4p

It's pure luck.

Soon at the beginning there are four enemies that leave collectibles when you destroy them. If not at least one of them (better two) is a '10' just reset and try again. Not much fun but if you want a high score you have to end level 1 with a score of 400k+.

With the huge enemies carrying 5 items you can wait for their items to change. Also you can collect just e.g. the last three from their "item tail" if there's a 10 and wait for the rest to later maybe change into another 10 (you can collect the items without destroying the enemy).

Thanks john for confirming
Now I don't have to start messing around with adf-disks instead of using WHD-version.

[lifeschool]

Thanks John, yes good to know it's just pure luck.

Congrats capehorn ahead of winning the round. As the current 2nd place world record holder, it seems a done deal, but we'll see.

John re-posted a huge list of capehorns tips on Lemon if anyone is wanting to know how he does it. To be fair, the collecting things in order thing is beyond me, and needs the enemies to be memorised.

[el_pasi]

Gemini Wing: 812,600

Got more lucky (and eventually a few of those 100k bonuses) when playing with Amiga 1200 instead of Turbo Chameleon 64's Amiga-core

[lifeschool]

^ so close to the top score, but lots of time still to play these.

Capehorn, I sent you a PM. Can you help me with Koko's score please.

[john4p]

Originally Posted by lifeschool

Capehorn, I sent you a PM. Can you help me with Koko's score please.

By playing through the game with savestates I found out the max score is capped at 9,999,990 if you don't get the secret door in the final level 7 (and if you don't enter it).

You can only get 10M+ scores if you get the final secret door and finish the game through it.

[capehorn]

I said essentially the same in my PM to Lifeschool. It's hinted at in the end game message:



Edit to add: I think you have to enter all 7 secret doors rather than just the final one, to score more than 9,999,990. I think you get an automatic 50,000,000 bonus if you manage it.

[john4p]

Originally Posted by capehorn

Edit to add: I think you have to enter all 7 secret doors rather than just the final one, to score more than 9,999,990. I think you get an automatic 50,000,000 bonus if you manage it.

It's really just the last door to break 10M. I didn't get the level 5 door in this practice run but still had 14M in the end. When I left out the level 7 door it was 9999990.
But yes, in order to also get the 50M bonus you have to get and enter all doors.

edit: Because the best players have this option - the 50M bonus for all 7 doors - I agree with lifeschool's idea to remove the 9,999,990-cap and score kokoriko's effort 10M + 3,960,600 = 13,960,600.
That way we'll also avoid unnecessary ties.

[capehorn]

I think Rainbow Islands is thought of as having one of the best bonus/scoring systems of it's era, yet I think for the purposes of the competition Lifeschool probably has a point. With screenshot proof, we can add the lives bonus manually and take the score above 10m.

[lifeschool]

Thanks a lot for your help as always.

Lets go with actual scores.

If players can provide a screenshot of the final boss room to prove their score, and also a screenshot of the special bonus award screen, then this should count as their combined total score. Otherwise we will have drawn scores on the leaderboard, even if that player won a huge 20M bonus or something, and this seems unfair.

So in an effort to make the scores more fair, I've changed Koko's score to 13.9M.

[capehorn]

Rainbow Islands: 62,200,020

Glad to finally bank this score after several attempts, despite a graphical glitch on the endscreen!

Now I can finally move on to Gemini Wing which I've never played, and was a demo on the coverdisk of Amiga Format #2. I bought every AF issue from 3-60, and always wondered if I'd missed out of a cool demo! I guess I'll finally find out.

[Biscuit]

Gemini Wing - 189,900

Low starter. I didn't do well out of the bonuses. It has some tricky sections. Funny that the bosses are a lot easier than the levels so far.