Who has made the most points in BDC?

But this is not true. It would be good if it were, because then points would be useful: we could have a lowest score competition etc. However, you get almost all the points for (1) killing the Black Knight and (2) completing rooms quickly, both of which reward skill. Getting a really low score would be as tedious an exercise as getting a high one -- just wait until the timer runs out or health is almost zero before finishing a level.

What I'm saying is that points that you HAVE to get (for taking out the black knight, etc, whatever you get with your inventory multiplier, etc) nonwithstanding, a lower score is better, because it means you had to shoot fewer enemies, get through the dungeon less times, and go through individual rooms less. It's like the same thing in a game of Street Fighter II: the guy with the highest score beating the game, while toughening it out, isn't as good as a guy who beat the game with a lower score. That's because the guy with the lower score didn't have to repeat taking on as many of the characters as the high score guy. Therefore, he actually is better at the game than the guy with the higher score.

I see what you mean regarding the BK million points, providing we are only comparing games where the BK was killed on Advanced (otherwise it is a huge penalty for doing something that is a real achievement).

However, you don't seem to be aware that both DC and BDC have timers for score. In BDC it is the health bar. If you finish a level with high health, you get thousands of points in bonuses. If you finish with low health you get a few hundred. I just tested this in BDC and it is definitely true. When I raced through the computer room on beginner, I got around 2,000 points of bonus. When I sat at the end for about 3 minutes to finish on very low health, I got 700 points and when I raced but deliberately got bitten to low health I got about 1,000 points. I'm not sure if it is linear in the health bar or not, but it rewards finishing rooms on low health (i.e. being painfully slow or getting bitten a lot). This is hardly good play. I would be deeply unimpressed by someone posting a low (winning) score for BDC. It is exactly the same problem as for DC. This is different to Street Fighter or Metroid or even the completion percentage on RtDC (where low might be impressive).

A *much* better scoring mechanism would be to minimise the number of deaths and/or rooms visited.

Interesting, I didn't know BDC had a bonus system..

Wait, I see what you are saying, but you are sort of saying 2 things. You are saying not only does time play in, but health as well? So sort of the ultimate combo is go really fast but have like no health when you get to the end?

The way it works is the more health you have the more points you get. Thus you get points for speed and not getting hurt because these things preserve your health (and both require skill). To get low points you would need to be slow and/or hurt a lot which is a bit lame. This wrecks the use of low score for BDC.

Not I got you. Hmm. so basically to get t hat "lowest" score, you have to do well (beat everything once) and crummy (lose health) at the same time. But, if you are tryiing to get the highest score, you have to do bad (lose each room until infinity) but get through as fast as possible with near full health. Maybe the common ground is a "middle score"?

Scores are only a true indication of skill for games that never end and force you into continuing on a path...

And I don't think DC and BDC fall into that category of 80s games. The only thing DC and BDC have in common with many 80s games is the score system and the fact that it was released in the 80s. DC doesn't end per se but you stop getting points after triple Adv. And BDC stops on Advanced. Both games let you park your butt between two levels and continually accumulate points.

In conclusion, the scoring system in DC and BDC doesn't necessarily show someone's true skill.

This post has been edited by Alaric Was Here on Apr 11 2008, 05:53 AM

Which makes me feel again, that removing the score in DC3 wasn't a big deal.

I got 2.072.119 in BDC in a normal play-through (1M from killing the final BK), with occasional dungeon visits, but no intentional repeats. That was 15 years ago, according to DD disk timestamp for the data file. I got a lot of points with some secret key combination, or some bug (see my previous posts, let's not go there again ). That makes me the king of so far

Man, that's a lot of points!

Btw, Johan, be careful about posting short posts. You don't want to jeopardize your status as the number one word-per-post member (see the word count discussion)

That's a lot of points indeed - from my straight-through run (which involved only a couple of dungeonings, I think, and no deaths)l that was worth about 1.3M. Or to be more precise, about 300k from the rooms and the 1M for completion. It didn't redo any rooms I don't think other than the dungeon itself and the basement.

So basically that means you must have racked up a cool 1.1M from re-tries, and/or `secret combos and bugs'. If it were all repeats, that would be the equivalent points based on my run of doing every room in every difficulty level three-and-a-bit times!

@lonerook - you should re-run your script and see what the current averages are - we have quite a few more users than we had back then.

Al right, siree. It's running as we speak. I'll post the results in that other thread.

EDIT: The word count is now done, and the results have been posted.

This post has been edited by lonerook on Jun 10 2008, 03:13 PM

My highest score while playing black and white Beyod Dark Castle is 2,242,360. You get about a million points for defeating the Black Knight on Advanced in BDC.

I started at Beginner, went on to Intermediate, went on to Advanced, and then had gotten about a million points for defeating the Black Knight.

There's a reason why I stopped at about that score. I had earned the maximum amount of every item except for lives and keys. You can get more than 99 keys and 99 lives, but it only indicates 99 at the bottom of the screen during normal game play. After defeating the Black Knight, it indicated that I had 168 keys.

My cousins gave me the Guiness Book of World Records two Christmases ago. It has an advertisement in it for The Guiness Book of Video Game World Records, which I haven't bought yet. I wonder if somebody would beat the East Tower on Advanced about a thousand times then the score would be 9,999,990 or more and with 999 or more keys. That would be a score I'd like to see in the Guiness Book of Video Game World Records. I don't know if Beyond Dark Castle is included in it.

I don't have Return to Dark Castle yet because I'm waiting for it to be released for the PC. Speaking of 99 lives, somebody typed that there's a maximum of 9 lives in Return to Dark Castle. It sounds difficult to me because of this.

This post has been edited by stathmk on Mar 15 2009, 08:53 AM

Actually, most people consider it easier.

Still, it's no less fun.

Actually, most people consider it easier.

Still, it's no less fun.

The reason for that is your lives regenerate to your current max whenever you return to the Great Hall/Ante Room/Ante Room II unlike DC/BDC where you must re-earn them yourself.