We're gonna need a montage

League continues. I went up in the standings after the first week, down after the second, up after the third, and I lucked into going up slightly last time because I got extra points due to my score on WHO dunnit being greater than the 2nd and 3rd place players. I also decided to go way out on a limb and register for PAPA in August... I'm going to go for one day, mostly to play, but also to see how I do in a real tournament setting.

However, I'm starting to run up against my inconsistency as a player. I haven't really competed against similarly skilled players in at least 25 years... not since my days in the UCLA game room between classes and playing Blackout with me mates in the old King George V Pub between dart games. Since then, I've mostly played alone and I've been focusing on touring each game's features rather than scoring boffo points. Being an irregular player wasn't really a problem, because if I goofed up I'd just play another game until I was satisfied.

But with all this competitive playing I'm doing lately, I'm suddenly motivated to improve ma skillz. So like Little Mac before me I have to go into training.

I started by watching some videos by this guy Leo Something-or-other. Unfortunately, there was very little useful information... they're geared mostly towards the novice player, with just a few advanced tricks.

A more helpful resource has been ipdb's playing skills pages. Novice and intermediate were pretty obvious, so I started trying out the advanced skills. I did the Chill Manuever last week during a league game on Jack*Bot so I can at least do that, even if I can't necessarily do it reliably (and it's hard to practice because none of my home games have a post). I've done the Bounce Pass and Hold Pass, so those are a matter of learning to use them consistently in play. The one thing I did learn is something I don't think they list (but Leo shows): Passing the ball between flippers by holding the ball then quickly flipping so the ball goes up the inlane then back down with enough velocity to bounce to the next flipper. I practiced for a while with the glass off so I could try it multiple times, and I've gotten reasonably good at it.

The thing I really need to work on is shaking the machine to influence the ball, something I've never done much. I'm trying to work on the Up Push when the ball is in the slingshots and nudging when the ball is near the in/outlanes. Yesterday I nudged when the ball was past the switch in the outlane, but today I was doing it before it hit the switch... still too late to do anything, but I'm doing it earlier. I'm also not positive that I'm doing it in the right direction. It helps that I haven't hooked up the tilt on Doctor Who, though shaking the machine in any way causes the Dalek Dome to move around since it's not screwed down.

Finally, I've started keeping track of my scores so I can try to see trends, hopefully improvements. I used to keep a list of my high scores when I was a kid... I still have them, in fact... I think the high score on Quicksilver is from that list.

Now I'm going to fade out in my montage... If you fade out, it seems like more time has passed in a montage. Montage!