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GAF's iOS Weekly Challenge: HARD LINES

Kills are really really valuable when you have a high multiplier. I died before I hit 400K so my multiplier wasn't nearly as high as it was pre-death, and I didn't get a red pill, I saw that there was a buncha seconds left and just went into kill mode cutting off every line in sight. Game finished, next thing I know I got to 479K after all the chaos. Kills in the late game are definitely underrated. They're underrated throughout the whole game, but especially late :p
 

Fuu

Formerly Alaluef (not Aladuf)
-Pyromaniac- said:
Kills are really really valuable when you have a high multiplier. I died before I hit 400K so my multiplier wasn't nearly as high as it was pre-death, and I didn't get a red pill, I saw that there was a buncha seconds left and just went into kill mode cutting off every line in sight. Game finished, next thing I know I got to 479K after all the chaos. Kills in the late game are definitely underrated. They're underrated throughout the whole game, but especially late :p
:eek: I was under the impression a huge score like that was only possible if you didn't die even once. That actually gives me some hope, lol. I'm still not sure after what multiplier number I should start make killing a priority though.
 
When you hit 85-100 it's time to start taking killing more seriously. Obviously get any pills you can possibly grab because not only will it increase your multiplier more but also increase the chance a red one will come, but if you can't get em then just go nuts killing. It's easy to get a lot of kills at a rapid pace when you're going really fast, especially when 2+ lines are travelling near eachother, cutting them both off at once is satisfying.
 

jlevel13

Member
Fuu said:
I feel like I'm skillful enough at this point but instead of having fun retrying like before I feel like I'm wasting my time waiting for the luck fairy to come.

There's definitely a skill involved to getting a higher score, but there's a lot of patience needed too, patience for the randomness of the drops to work in your favor. I agree with you completely. Luck is a good term for it, because I feel like the odds for good drops are really stacked against you. It's usually only one game every 30-60 minutes I've been putting in, that I really feel like I have a chance to score good (over 200,000). That's why I think the default survival mode is better than deadline, because while it's still random, there isn't that artificial 3 minute time limit screwing you over.
 

numble

Member
Dash Kappei said:
What app? Imgur app isn't on the appstore anymore. Are there others? :O that would made my life a lot easier.

I don't think the game is randome any more than the others we did (less so than mr.Ninja, I reckon). I only had 2 red dots in match I plaued a few moments ago and nontheless I posted my all time highscore:
I guess the dev took off imgurfree and replaced it with imgur mobile. I don't know if it's worth the money.

I don't think FKF was random at all. You had to make the exact same kicks, they just ordered them differently within every 10 or so (you had to make the same 10 kicks every 10 kicks, but they were ordered differently).

I think randomness is best demonstrated if your scores are wildly different from one game to the next--that means you're waiting for a lucky round. Here, you are lucky based on where the dots are dropped and if you get red dots. Of course there still is skill involved, just like there was some skill in Mr. Ninja.
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
GAF's iOS Weekly Challenge: HARD LINES DAY 3

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-Hard Lines on iTunes (Universal app, $0.99/€0.79/£0.69) 



Only the TOP 20 scores for Day 3 (well, I gotta work too sometimes, eh)
Yay, we've soundly beaten Mr.Ninja's number of Gaffers in the challenge (which was 74) with 92 current players! Our eyes are more and more onto FKF's contest now (probably utterly impossible but hey ;)

Remember, these scores might be from a few hours ago!
Any score mistakenly validated during the week will be wiped out for the final results on Day7.

#Current Results TOP 20 - 92 players total (score holders listed as Game Center profiles)


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•Challenge's Times:

#STARTS September 1st, 02:00 (AM) GMT Update: it's ON!
#ENDS: September 8th, 00:05 (AM) GMT

Current GMT / World Time
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Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
Gaspode_T said:
The dev said he tried to register here, if any mod is reading this please approve him!
Well, I've also sent them an email the other day but they've never replied :(

Also yay you're right Pyro, I've made it into the cut off :D
Btw, I love how I've been doing worse and worse with every challenge :p disappointing one was
FKF, I know I could have made it into the top10 there if only I had the time to actually play the damn game for more than a couple of tries a day :/

Edit: also, Numble is steadily climbing the spots :D
 

jlevel13

Member
I just broke 300,000 (by 115 points!), so I'm pretty pleased, but also slightly annoyed as I killed myself stupidly at 285,000 with almost a minute left, and when I re-spawned I was so flustered I was barely able to do anything with the remaining time. Still, 8th place out of almost 15,000 players is a pretty good feeling.

It seems to me that pyro's advice to focus a little more on killing lines has pushed my game up a bit & just playing more I've gotten a little more consistent at making very sharp (tight), fast, accurate turns (using swipe).
 
jlevel13 said:
I just broke 300,000 (by 115 points!), so I'm pretty pleased, but also slightly annoyed as I killed myself stupidly at 285,000 with almost a minute left, and when I re-spawned I was so flustered I was barely able to do anything with the remaining time. Still, 8th place out of almost 15,000 players is a pretty good feeling.

It seems to me that pyro's advice to focus a little more on killing lines has pushed my game up a bit & just playing more I've gotten a little more consistent at making very sharp (tight), fast, accurate turns (using swipe).
lol nice, by the time this is over GAF users could make up the top 10 in the world, save the number 1 spot that is.
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
-Pyromaniac- said:
I played a game earlier where my multiplier was at like 150 but I couldn't do anything with it and then I died. What a waste.
Holy shit 150?! My top is around 65x and by the time I'm in the end zone EVERY FUCKIN TIME I die like an idiot and step back to 30x
 

Gaspode_T

Member
He is contacted, hopefully his account gets approved by the end of this too!

They had a fun papercraft thing as a sort of apology when the earliest version of Hard Lines had a bad bug during an update, I can't seem to find it but they are a small indie dev so don't expect to be handed wads of cash or something LOL
 

Fuu

Formerly Alaluef (not Aladuf)
jlevel13 said:
There's definitely a skill involved to getting a higher score, but there's a lot of patience needed too, patience for the randomness of the drops to work in your favor. I agree with you completely. Luck is a good term for it, because I feel like the odds for good drops are really stacked against you. It's usually only one game every 30-60 minutes I've been putting in, that I really feel like I have a chance to score good (over 200,000). That's why I think the default survival mode is better than deadline, because while it's still random, there isn't that artificial 3 minute time limit screwing you over.
Ah yeah, my considerations were almost exclusive to deadline mode. I haven't played survival more than some minutes but I feel that the random drops aspect wouldn't matter as much as it does here because, as long as you can keep going, the 10 seconds it takes to go from left to right of the stage (in a straight line) to get some scattered pills wouldn't be so painfully crucial to the end result.

-Pyromaniac- said:
I played a game earlier where my multiplier was at like 150 but I couldn't do anything with it and then I died. What a waste.
You're on another league by now, lol. I'm almost expecting one of your next posts to include a score over 1 million or at least over 500/600k.
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
Gaspode_T said:
He is contacted, hopefully his account gets approved by the end of this too!

They had a fun papercraft thing as a sort of apology when the earliest version of Hard Lines had a bad bug during an update, I can't seem to find it but they are a small indie dev so don't expect to be handed wads of cash or something LOL

You mean he's no putting up a 64 iPad2 3G for the prizepot?! o_O
Mods, I disapproved of his approving

LOL, silly, I'd be just happy to have him over here and see what he thinks of the stuff I've putted together for his game :)

Thanks Gaspode!
 
I kinda want to bow out of this challenge. I was playing it for like an hour last night, and I just can't get into it. The controls are rage inducing. I'm pretty sure Wario is right about the turny controls being the best, but I just can' t get used to them, and swipe and tappy are too frustratingly imprecise. Ugh.
 
Swipe is my shit, but that might be an ipad thing. Not sure which is best for iphone/ipod touch.

Dash Kappei said:
Holy shit 150?! My top is around 65x and by the time I'm in the end zone EVERY FUCKIN TIME I die like an idiot and step back to 30x
lol I'm at that point where I can't even believe that you guys aren't getting higher scores, maybe I've just become a bit of a robot at it but getting 200-300K seems like a given every game now.

I'm not confident though, last day of the challenge Wario or numble or someone will come out of nowhere with a score of like 6 billion.
 

Brazil

Living in the shadow of Amaz
176k and I'm officially very satisfied with myself.

Could've been a lot better if I hadn't died at about 100k though.
 

Fuu

Formerly Alaluef (not Aladuf)
I liked swipe the best when I played on the iPad. I use tappy on the iPhone but I'd probably be using turny if I didn't suck so bad at it (too late to change now though, tapping different areas of the screen became second nature after so much playtime).
 

Gaspode_T

Member
If you get good at using Turny you can download Deflex by Jeff Minter and Enjoy It A Lot, because that game only has turny and nothing else as far as I know.

It's pretty intuitive to me...left side turns left, right side turns right depending on direction you are going. Turning around is just two consecutive taps. Oh and you don't have to tap near your line or anything, just in the bottom left and right corners is fine.
 

Fuu

Formerly Alaluef (not Aladuf)
I think I'll give turny another chance, thumb-age not wanting to cover the screen so often is definitely a plus. I have a semi-masochist relationship with this game now, lol, I think I'll only be able to stop trying after the GAF challenge is over.
 
Fuu said:
I think I'll give turny another chance, thumb-age not wanting to cover the screen so often is definitely a plus. I have a semi-masochist relationship with this game now, lol, I think I'll only be able to stop trying after the GAF challenge is over.
it is only when you give up and stop caring your true skill will come.
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
GAF's iOS Weekly Challenge: HARD LINES DAY 4

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-Hard Lines on iTunes (Universal app, $0.99/€0.79/£0.69) 



Back to the über-complete scores table for Day 4!
Yay, we've soundly beaten Mr.Ninja's number of Gaffers in the challenge (which was 74) with 94 current players! Our eyes are more and more onto FKF's 109 total now! ...utterly impossible but hey ;)

Remember, these scores might be from a few hours ago!
Any score mistakenly validated during the week will be wiped out for the final results on Day7.

#Current Results 94 players total (score holders listed as Game Center profiles)


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•Challenge's Times:

#STARTS September 1st, 02:00 (AM) GMT Update: it's ON!
#ENDS: September 8th, 00:05 (AM) GMT

Current GMT / World Time
t1315440300z0.png
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
Ugh, dream shattered... I've been kicked off the Top20 already :(

Jayayess1190 said:
How about next time we give prizes to those at the bottom instead of the top?

LMAO, co-signed! :D

Although I kinda do already: the raffle! ;) considering that both myself and the in-prize spot guys don't get to participate... And next challenge I'm gonna up the raffle prizepot as well, if I manage to snag enough swag for the top scorers then I'll put maybe 3 codes for the raffle instead of just one. How does that sound?rp
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
I new it! i knew he'd be rising and rising till...
HOLY COW, NUMBLE IS THIRD NOW! o_O
370k

If only there was such a thing as iOS pro gaming! :D
Congrats mate, amazing

Still 2 days and 5 hours to go ;)
 

numble

Member
I had a game where I got like 3 reds late in the game. I also died with about a minute to go. But it's very unlikely to happen again, so people above me don't need to worry.
 
numble said:
I had a game where I got like 3 reds late in the game. I also died with about a minute to go. But it's very unlikely to happen again, so people above me don't need to worry.
I'm getting opposite luck. I've had games with multipliers so high that I could EASILY reach 500-600K, and not a single red pill pops up.
 

Wario64

works for Gamestop (lol)
I feel like I'm gonna be bumped out of the top 3, lol. I haven't had much luck after getting my high score
 

mrkgoo

Member
Not really feeling this mode. Feels like it's all down to the series of random placements of the dots.

So infuriating when random stuff happens that you know is going to kills your score.
 
It's all about knowing when to reset early on. There are some games that start off iffy in the first 15-20 seconds where you could save yourself 2 minutes if you know when to identify those types of matches.

I feel like you only need to get lucky to reach the 500K+ scores. I seem to be able to get 200-400K consistently but getting above that is getting hard unless you hit the right notes.
 

mrkgoo

Member
-Pyromaniac- said:
It's all about knowing when to reset early on. There are some games that start off iffy in the first 15-20 seconds where you could save yourself 2 minutes if you know when to identify those types of matches.

I feel like you only need to get lucky to reach the 500K+ scores. I seem to be able to get 200-400K consistently but getting above that is getting hard unless you hit the right notes.

I know what you mean.

It's kinds of funny how certain games will addict me in its 'restart mechanic', whereas others infuriate me.

angry birds I don't mind restarting. cut the rope annoys me.

Sometimes it has to do with how fast you can pause and restart, and how convenient the buttons are placed.

But games that rely on this 'mechanic' can be really hit or miss. Hard lines isn't a miss because there are other modes.
 

Gaspode_T

Member
-Pyromaniac- said:
I did it again god damnit. 176 multiplier and effed it up.

I am trying to figure out why sometimes it feels like I'm going faster even with a low-ish multiplier, maybe more kills make you move faster? Overanalyzing maybe?? :)

It's so fun to turn around lines by 1 pixel, pretty epic moments when multiplier gets around 100! I keep choking or not getting lucky with red dots when I get high multiplier. If you have super high multiplier and get lucky enough to have 2 or 3 red dots in a row 2 million might be possible??
 
Would take more dots than 2 or 3 for sure. You'd probably need around 6 of them in the late game to get anywhere near that, maybe even 10.
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
New top20 in a couple of hours, probably less.

About the supposed über-randomness of the game, I don't think so. You need to know when to reset early on, after that it's all game; it's like Poker, you gotta play with your cards and you can still win some if you're served bad but it's important to know when to fold. I mean, just read what Numble wrote about his highscore.
Also, how could -Pyromaniac- consistently score >300k on the Today leaderboard. What I mean is that in the end you always have the top spots filled by people who deserve them, so it doesn't change much if there's randomness involved.
 

Gaspode_T

Member
For those who are good at this game you really need to try to play Pinball FX2 if you have 360 or Zen Pinball/Marvel Pinball if you have PS3...sort of needing to pay attention to multiple things at once is a skill that will help you a lot with pinball!
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
Gaspode_T said:
For those who are good at this game you really need to try to play Pinball FX2 if you have 360 or Zen Pinball/Marvel Pinball if you have PS3...sort of needing to pay attention to multiple things at once is a skill that will help you a lot with pinball!
I have both but Pinball Hall of Fame Collection is sooooooo MUCH better.
I have triple dipped it (x360, ps3, Wii for both the Gottlieb and Williams edition) and I can't wsit for the 3ds sku coming out this month. I'll also get Marvel Pinball for 3ds, Zen Studios' games are definitely good but Farsight Studios are on a league of their own, imo.
 

Gaspode_T

Member
Dash Kappei said:
I have both but Pinball Hall of Fame Collection is sooooooo MUCH better.
I have triple dipped it (x360, ps3, Wii for both the Gottlieb and Williams edition) and I can't wsit for the 3ds sku coming out this month. I'll also get Marvel Pinball for 3ds, Zen Studios' games are definitely good but Farsight Studios are on a league of their own, imo.

The Hall of Fame games are more realistic in some ways but they can be way more frustrating to play unless you are very masochistic. The Pinball FX games are more like a Geo Wars version of Pinball or something :) I wish they would release a Games on Demand version of Hall of Fame, screw inserting the disc every time...
 
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