Atari 2600 / VCS - Amidar - NTSC - Game 1, Difficulty B (points) - 306,924 - Brian Tervo

NTSC - Game 1, Difficulty B (points)
Score Track	https://www.twingalaxies.com/scores.php?scores=2733
Rules	Please select Game 1 – 5 warriors, slowest speed. The Difficulty switch must be in the B position.
Submission Message	Video #1 0:00 - Both difficulty switches on B (see comment below) Video #1 0:45 - Cartridge shown Video #1 0:55 - Inserting cartridge and powering up (took a few tries) Video #1 2:47 - Start of game Video #5 1:04:20 - Final score of 306924 shown I think there is an error in the rules for this game. It says that we are to set the difficulty switch to B and that the game will start with 5 warriors on the slowest speed. In reality, you get 6 warriors on difficulty B and would need to have the difficulty on A for 5 warriors. I played my game on difficulty B which is consistent with previous submissions to this track.

There seems to be some bugs in the way this game keeps score.

While playing my game, I noticed the "ones" digit changing when I was catching chickens, which according to the manual, should score 100 points. It turns out each chicken is actually 99 points.

While watching parts of my video, I noticed it also shorts you points when filling boxes. You're supposed to get 50 points, but it usually gives you 47-48 points. The amount varies and is likely timing specific. The number of points I earn on each board varies even though I'm using the same pattern.

Another observation I made is that when you draw a line that completes two boxes, it only gives you points for one of the boxes. If I ever go back to this game in the future, I may try to improve my pattern to minimize the number of times this happens. My goal would likely be 1M (likely a rollover) which would take about 16 hours with my current pattern. An extra 50-100+ points per board could reduce the time required by hours.

Just to make sure it wasn't something weird going on with my cartridge or console, I watched other game play videos and am seeing the same scoring behavior on PAL, EMU, and other NTSC submissions.

Yes, the difficulty switches for this game are opposite from what they normally are. In this case, B is expert (start at level 3 with 6 enemies) and A is beginner (start at level 1 with 5 enemies).

The scoring in this game is quite inconsistent as you mentioned. The 50 points per box as mentioned in the manual is correct. The problem is with the horizontal sides. For example, if you start a game and color in the center-right box you start at by moving clockwise around it, you’ll get 55 points, but if you move counter-clockwise around it, you’ll get 54 (you only get 2 points for the bottom side, instead of 3). On the box below it, moving counter-clockwise gets you 60, but if you move clockwise, you’ll get 59 (you only get 2 points for the last top segment instead of 3). This pattern probably applies to every box and is likely even more inconsistent. Pictures #2-#4 on this page (http://www.ataricompendium.com/game_.../26amidar.html) show the same box colored in, with different scores. If the box is colored in moving clockwise, you’ll get 65 (minus the 7 for the 2 segments colored to reach it). If you move counter-clockwise, you’ll get 64, but if you move as fast as possible counter-clockwise around it, you might get as low as 62! So any pattern created to maximize scoring per box will depend on coloring every box in both directions to see which way each box will need to be colored.