So, I've been back to grinding this game for the last couple of days and just wanted to share a couple of observations.
First, the 10810 (which should actually be called the 10910) is not the fastest possible intro. If the spring is released a couple of compression animations sooner, there is a 9600 intro. It gets the ball to your left paddle in 19 seconds, as opposed to 22, and one of the possible shots you can take from is one that can be shot onto the bumper for a couple bounces. It nets 22xxx points is roughly the same time. Granted far more difficult.
But tbh, I think even this strategy will no longer work. Put simply, the slot machine bonus on the top page is key. A couple days ago, I got half a second behind my record. 500 attempts later though, and I'm not getting close again. On Game B, the 3 minute record is a perfect example of why it's going to be necessary to essentially get the God run.
So there is some good news. If the ball is released at the spring's maximum point, the ball bounces in such a way that it will land on the left bumper (not 100%. there is an alternative bounce it does. I suspect this has to do with alternating possibilities dictated by odd and even frames). There is a frame available with the left paddle that gives you a clean shot to the right loop. You hit and the roulette starts.
The roulette has three possibilities. All 3's, all 7's or all penguins. The 3's and 7's stand for seconds the bonus will last. The screen turns red instead of blue, and the middle safety bumper appears. This will last 3 or 7 seconds long. The penguins though, enable the bonus indefinitely AND, the most important part, it doubles all the points you get while it is active. The only two things that will deactivate the bonus is if you drop below via the left channel, or if you spin the roulette wheel again by getting the right-side loop.
So the new real strategy is this. Shoot at maximum spring location, use left paddle to get the roulette going. Get 3 penguins as fast as you can. Then proceed to get points, ideally through some great combination of the three ways to do so. (Heck if anyone can replicate the GOD BOUNCE my WR does now, with the bonus, would net 60k+ points).
The what sucks though, is that, given there isnt some other factor, the roulette wheel has a 1/27 chance of being all three penguins. You got less than a 4% chance of getting all the penguins, and very easy to mess up after the fact still.
Additionally, Game B is no different in this regard. Game B contains all the same patterns, just every thing is sped up, which makes the first shot you need to do a little bit tighter.
In any case, I'm going to try for it for a bit. If anyone can get it, they should definitely be able to get a WR that would incredibly difficult to overcome.
Wow, awesome observation and thanks for sharing! I always assumed the 10910 intro is what would give you the most gains and always disregarded the slots (out of 100 some runs only got it a few times).
So the alternative path you get sometimes from maximum spring position can also be used to launch the ball in the right loop. On the alternative path, it looks similar, but the ball will end up moving along the right paddle. You can't get the ball in the right loop with the right paddle with this intro, but the ball will roll down the paddle and bounce on the left one. One of the positions the ball bounces onto the left paddle will allow you to launch in the right loop. Should save a few a resets if you can get that one too.
It's my opinion the 10910 intro or the 9600 probably both have some scenario where you could also put in the right loop quickly, but likely have to TAS it out to make a route with it and wouldn't be easy and consistent as the one described above. But yea, it's a grind now, just trying not to mess up the run once you finally get the bonus activated (did it twice last night). Such is life.
I did a little bit of debugging for this game Kappa So... "Penguin / 7 / 3" thing cycle trough by using frame counter and other checks, but here is the catch: Frame counter stops in this game when ball doesn't move. Also frame counter goes up on tittle screen, but fortunately you can buffer title screen in this game. Also, seems like inputs doesn't affect ball bounces what so ever. So you can hold "Start" and Reset the game while holding start - that's gonna buffer tittle screen. Then, after ball stops on top of spring, frame counter gonna stop at the same value (73). Then you can fully charge the spring and let go it at any moment. It doesn't matter when you let go it because frame counter doesn't proceed further while ball doesn't move. After that ball gonna do exactly the same bounce every time and you just need only ~4 frame perfect paddle swings. First swing to send the ball trough that thing to start those penguins cycle and 3 to get the penguins. If you do all 4 swings frame perfectly (basically it only matters when you start holding the button) then ball gonna bounce in the same way every time and penguins gonna be on the same cycle every time. So basically only 4 frame perfect inputs required to get the bonus every time. Further more, maybe there some way to get 2 penguins with only one swing with lucky bounces. Maybe, one day, someone gonna find setup for getting all 3 penguins with 1 swing. If so, then you only need 2 frame perfect paddle swings to get bonus every time Kappa
So it's more than possible to manipulate the bonus and 4 frame perfect inputs are much better than 4% chance if you rely on random bounces.
I did some runs with this strat. It's not that hard actually. Only first 2 inputs have to be frame perfect. Second 2 inputs have some room for errors. However, what's really hard - it's to get ball in that 1000 points gap after getting penguins. Any help on how to do that?
I try to predominantly use the left paddle. Right paddle, at least anecdotally, seems to have more potential to end up in a few places that you don't particularly want it to go. With the left paddle, you are more likely to hit the button that counts up to 1000. That's particularly useful, especially when you are struggling to get the ball stuck in the 1000 point passage. I don't have great advice for it to be honest. IMO, it might be worth putting the ball through the top left passage (and reset any points the button has accumulated) in order to increase your chances of getting stuck up there. I tend to prefer trying to get it stuck in the passage through the bottom, if only for the sake of keeping the ball moving to allow me to take more paddle shots.
That's a great intro you got there. If you can do that consistently enough to get the bonus frequently enough, you are bound to get a great bounce up there eventually. Without the bonus, I've seen 30k points accumulated on series of bounces, and naturally if something like that occured post bonus, you could be looking at 60k-70k points in something like a minute or so.
