8 Attachment(s)
Uncle Jerky's Inferno Wave Guide
Take one part Robotron, one part Crystal Castles, then add a dash of Berzerk, Cloak & Dagger and Joust. Stir briskly with dual joysticks and then you've got my new favorite rare classic arcade find : Williams Inferno (1984).
The game has a great built in attract mode "tutorial" that reviews the gameplay, enemies and scoring :::
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKZ8...ature=youtu.be
Let's take a look at the first 50 waves :::
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The game has a classic Williams five wave cycle that doesn't kick in until Wave 6 :::
1 - Wave 6 ::: Generic Cyclops Wave (Mix of Dohrt, Zohrt and Mohrt's)
2 - Wave 7 ::: Boom Bird Wave
3 - Wave 8 ::: Cocoon Wave
4 - Wave 9 ::: Tankov Wave
5 - Wave 10 ::: (D)(Z)(M)ohrt Wave
+Repeat
The different mazes shuffle around through the first 20 waves on top of this repeating five wave cycle (Wave 6+). Then from Wave 21 forward you get the same five configurations :::
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Wave 21 - Cyclops
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Wave 22 - Boom Bird
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Wave 23 - Cocoon
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Wave 24 - Tankov
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Wave 25 - Dohrt
There are no Tankovs on Wave 1-3. Later Boom Bird and Cocoon waves are also Tankov-free. As for the other waves, you have to deal with 1-4 Tankovs that randomly spawn on the upper levels of the maze. You start off only having to face one Tankov. Then starting at Wave 9 you get two. Wave 14+ there are three, and finally from Wave 19 onwards its four Tankovs to deal with whether you like it or not. The trade off is that there are less enemies.
The Boom Birds are very similar to the Pterodactyl's from Joust. They can only be killed a certain way (from above but setting that up isn't so easy). They start out on some specific waves (7,12,17,22+), but if you hang around too long on any wave, even after you have killed initial ones, the Grand Lizard will dispatch more to come after you. When one or both of its eyes turn red, it is just about to spawn some Boom Birds. You only have to face one Boom Bird at first, but from Wave 12 forward its always a pair of them. Waste more time and a third will appear.
The 5th wave cycles through the three Cyclops enemy types in this order ::: Dohrt (Green), Zohrt (Red), Mohrt (Purple). After the Mohrt wave it goes back to the Dohrt wave and repeats. The first cycle of these waves runs from 21-35 (then 36-50 etc.).
If you can make your way into the Grand Lizard's mouth on any wave before the final enemy does or their soul is absorbed by you, then you get to face the Soul Wave, before you continue on to the next regular wave in the cycle. This is a "challenging stage" where you can gain up to 39,000 points bonus per wave (max 13 souls x 3000 points each), but it could cost you more than one life in the process. You get points for killing the souls too, which depends on the Cyclops types spawned at the start of the wave (Green Ball/Dohrt = 500, Red Ball/Zohrt = 700, and Purple Ball/Mohrt = 900 points). You usually gain an additional 10,000 points for shooting them. Bottom line is that this wave will earn you about 49,000 points, just shy of a free life :::
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Here's a look at some of the action from Waves 1-21 (with plenty of Soul Waves in between) :::
https://www.twingalaxies.com/showthre...hlight=inferno
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBZ1YDPmXpY
Here's the last game of my Holiday 2015 run up to Wave 26 :::
https://www.twingalaxies.com/showthre...400-David-Jury
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUTOH-kLipY
More to come...
* An actual Inferno arcade cab is a rare beast, so this review/guide is based on my MAME findings...