Hey, so I was trying to complete some runs of this game, but some of these categories are actually extremely hard, and really close to being impossible. Child difficulty is really easy and simple, but it's really hard to get past more than 3 levels in any of the other categories. 10 levels is just ridiculous and not really suited for a competitive speedrun. I think 10 levels shouldn't be a category, and longer categories should either be 3, or 5 (even tho that is still a lot, it's more feasible to do in a speedrun rather than 10 levels.)

The other option is that I actually suck at this game, but I honestly feel the game is just really hard. Anyway, what do you think?

The thing is, I havent found very much info on this game, and there are alot of things im still figuring out with it. I agree though, I think I should get rid of it, ive just look at other atari categories like sky diver and learned from them, tried to do things that seemed like something people wanted, but it is just a really really weird game. Ill get rid of 10, Cuz I think that one is really hard too. I really appreciate the feedback!

I also just added a 3 level category, I think thats alot more balanced, and 5 can feel more like a bonus if someone feels up to it, hows that sound?

Sounds good. Yeah, there isn't much info about it on the internet, but I gave it a lot of tries and the best I got on Slow was 5 levels, and losing 2 lives in between, so imagine how insane the other 2 difficulties are. It seems it's mostly random, I didn't found a consistent way of clearing the board so far. Sometimes it works a way, sometimes it doesn't. But yeah, 5 should be quite the challenge, but it definitely looks more possible with some grind than completing 10 levels. Thanks!

I got 3 levels medium pretty easy, i think i can get it on fast too. ill try that in a little. My strat has been starting with the tiny blocks, and trying to go between cuz sometimes you can get 2 at once. also long blinking ones cuz they disappear in one hit, it saves alot of time!

there is something im figuring out with the bars that touch the middle, idk if those take out lives but you can let some touch the middle and move on, how many im still putting my finger on cuz i read the manual and I dont see specifics, maybe ill read it over again

Yeah, the "2 blocks at once" trick works pretty well. The thing is that the flashing bars spawn at random, and the bars also grow randomly, so two can grow really fast in two opposite sides of the board, and it makes it really hard to control them.

The thing with the middle is that if the bars touch the middle you can only destroy them if they flash/blink, but again the blinking is random, so you can wait the whole timer and the bar might not blink, and then you lose a live. And if both sides touch the middle then you are basically screwed.

Also if the level ends with bars in the middle it counts as a lose, since you lose a live.

Yeah, and sometimes, with this 3 level fast speed run I finished, I had two complete bars blocking me from 1 small bar, but thankfully both occurrences the blocking bar closest would start blinking, id kill it and it would give me access

What I meant is that each level is completed when you clear every single line, which is why it's so hard.

In your 3 levels run on medium you didn't actually "win" any of the levels, you lost a live on every single one of them. That's what I meant as in why it's so hard.

I mean, should we allow "losing" a level as part of the speedrun? Cause what I was doing was to try to clear 100% every single board (without losing lives). I thought that was what you were supposed to do. But given you did lose on the levels. Should we allow it or not?

!!!!! Oh, it didn't look like I was losing any levels cuz it kept giving me the points and it felt like the difficulties got harder as I went, it didn't say what level I was on or anything, I should probably get rid of the 3 level run, but know I know now that you get 3 lives

But 3 is still doable, I've done it without touching bars on a couple difficulties either way

I like 1, 3, 5 level subcategories to the four major categories. The other option would be fastest to X amount of points, which could be sorta fun, but relies almost ENTIRELY on RNG with the flashing bars.

You might want to include information about which exact game mode should be used, considering there are 8 game modes and the even numbered ones are two player modes. Child is 1, Slow is 3, Medium is 5 and Fast is 7.