??? wins MRC T-Shirt challenge

On March 23rd we launched a Flash Game to celebrate the fact we had started to sell genuine MSX T-Shirts on our website, right here. At the time we promised to give the person who reached the highest score at a given time, would win a free MSX T-Shirt. That given time was just a couple of minutes ago, at 23:59 CET. As you can see in the final top 25, Palmpal has won this challenge with an amazing 5150 points, leaving 450 other contestants behind. However, as you can see in the reaction to this newspost, there are currently doubts about the way this high score was accomplished. The MRC admins are currently looking into the situation and will post a report on the frontpage as soon as a decision has been made on the matter.

Everybody who ordered a T-Shirt (as we speak, more than 150 MSX T-Shirts were sold!) will be contacted by e-mail to gather all information needed for shipment of the T-Shirt. We will try and contact everybody on the order-list personally within 2 weeks. Until that time you can still order a genuine MSX T-Shirt right here. We will notify you with a newspost when we are to close the opportunity to order MSX T-Shirts, make sure you order one in time, as it might take a while before they go back on sale afterwards.

Just in case you want more details: the T-Shirts we will be using are the Super Premium quality shirts of Fruit of the Loom. The MSX Logo will be printed on these blue T-Shirts by silk-screen. The shipping and packaging costs of the T-Shirts are built-up as follows:

If you are to collect the MSX T-Shirts at an MSX fair/meeting in the Netherlands, you don't have to add any shipping or packaging costs
If you live in the Netherlands, shipping costs are 2,- if you ordered 1 shirt and 3,- if you ordered more than 1 shirt
If you live in Europe, shipping costs are 2,55 if you ordered 1 shirt and 4,- if you ordered more than 1 shirt
If you live outside Europe, shipping costs are 3,55 if you ordered 1 shirt and 6,35 if you ordered more than 1 shirt

By the way, you can still decide whether the T-Shirts should carry the MSX Logo, the complete MSX2 Bootscreen or the complete MSX 2+/turboR bootscreen by voting on our current poll!

Relevant link: Shirts Y'all flashgame - Top 25

Comments (45)

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

01-06-2005, 00:55

so uh.. is that princess now saved or what?

By snout

Ascended (15187)

01-06-2005, 01:04

I guess we will never find out ^_^

By Sonic_aka_T

Enlighted (4130)

01-06-2005, 01:05

No, Mr. Blob was fired for repeatedly avoiding the bags of shirts, instead of trying to catch them. It is rumored he sold his family to support his drug-habit...

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

01-06-2005, 01:09

hm.. I think so... the princess looks happy ^_^
www.nataliedee.com/022003/princess.jpg

By Sonic_aka_T

Enlighted (4130)

01-06-2005, 01:17

didn't know you had such skills wolf!

By Paragon_Leon

Resident (37)

01-06-2005, 01:21

PalmPal has cheated big time.. i know how he did it as he probably used the same thing i did.
What gave it away were his convenient scores (at the end, always just 25 points above me) and just minutes before closing of the contest, a 'convenient' 200 margin. It is not humanly possible and way too implausible that he would get three needed highscores at the closing hour; the last one even with a 'safety margin'.

I explained in a response to the admin what happened exactly. I ordered my t-shirt months ago since i wasn't going to accept a free one like this anyway. At least i uncovered a fellow cheater.

By snout

Ascended (15187)

01-06-2005, 01:30

I'm currently browsing the serverlogs, more on this tomorrow. Still, euhm.. I think it's quite sad to cheat in a little joke-challenge as this. I mean, face it: the game we made was absolutely rediculous, it was just a nice excuse to give a free T-Shirt away and pay some extra attention to the fact we had some nice merchandize on sale. Whether there has been cheated or not doesn't really matter to me, the fact that I actually have to browse the serverlogs to check things out is truly disappointing. 'nuff said.

Nothing against Palmpal and Paragon, for that matter, but euhm... if we ever were to do a similar 'challenge', please don't do it again! ^_^

By poke-1,170

Paragon (1783)

01-06-2005, 01:54

=-_ WINNERS DON'T CHEAT, CHEATERS DON'T WIN _-=

By poke-1,170

Paragon (1783)

01-06-2005, 01:56

ermmm does the shirt realy glow in the dark as shown in the picture?
PLEASE SAY YES :X

By snout

Ascended (15187)

01-06-2005, 03:29

NO!

By Samor

Prophet (2225)

01-06-2005, 07:37

WHAT!

By BiFi

Enlighted (4348)

01-06-2005, 08:29

Wow... this many freaks... incredible

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

01-06-2005, 11:44

PalmPal has cheated big time.. i know how he did it as he probably used the same thing i did.

so you (#1 & #2) *both* cheated?

you do realise who's currently #3 eh?

By Paragon_Leon

Resident (37)

01-06-2005, 12:08

Depends on how you look at it..
since those scores are nigh on impossible (trust me... above 2900 it becomes humanly impossible to track and predict the fall), your serverlogs are looked at as well. And there is a trick to see how the scores were achieved... which i told the admins as well.
So... don't hold your breath.

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

01-06-2005, 12:16

I might know stuff about composing, sounddesign, a bit of gfx, and some basic.. but believe me when I say I know *nothing* about hacking/cheating and anything that's tech-stuff. btw.. in an attempt to beat 5150 yesterday I incidentally hit 3500 points.., so 2900++ is nothing shocking

By Paragon_Leon

Resident (37)

01-06-2005, 12:20

The point is...it wasn't achieved by hacking.

There's a utility. And i could simply post forum messages all the time pretending i discovered all sort of stuff along the way and how hard it was, etc. I could make it believable. But there is a way to see if the utility was used and that's looked at.

But you mention how you accidentally hit 3500.... Then you still need 1300 more points to get to your high-score.. and that's 1300 points of literally lightning-speed drops. It's simply not believable.

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

01-06-2005, 12:21

Actually, I had the impression that the difficulty-increase wasn't linear. I found there was a bottleneck around 2500..3500 but after that, things seemed to become relativily easier orso.. Nonetheless, recently the game seems harder than when I reached 4800 months ago.. more spasmic .. dunno why. But months ago I could reach 2500 blindfolded with both hands tied on my back while eating a banana and tapping polyrythmic patterns with my shoes .. now.. around 1600 things get harder already.., more spasmic..

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

01-06-2005, 12:24

iirc I went from 3475 to 3800some to 4300some to 4800some .. the tactic was mainly about surviving the 2500-3500 bottleneck with as many lives as possible because after 3500 you *will* loose lives!
If I reached 3200+ with ~9 lives then I had a fair chance to hit 4000++

By snout

Ascended (15187)

01-06-2005, 12:24

Trust me wolf_, the flashgame is still 100% the same as it was when we launched it.

By Paragon_Leon

Resident (37)

01-06-2005, 12:25

...which is one of those things i could state to make my score 'believable'.
There hasn't been a change. And that 'easier' ride after a certain point didn't happen. I played it then and it didn't happen. You can simply say that to 'explain' and inhuman score.

The key is the time that was spent to achieve the high-score.
That is what is looked at. A child can do the math then.

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

01-06-2005, 12:26

If that's so, then the game perhaps reacts on Windows-installs getting older/more messy?

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

01-06-2005, 12:28

paragon: if I played it today and hit 3500 orso while you sitting next to me.. would you believe me then?

By Paragon_Leon

Resident (37)

01-06-2005, 12:36

No, and now you give your 'false excuse' away by trying to adopt other explanations.

You get a life every 375 points. You start with 5 lives. You have a maximum of 10 lives by the time you reach 1875; a MAXIMUM of 13 by the time you're at 3000.
By that time, you lose one life for every 3 scores. Guaranteed. At that point you can't 'steer' your scoring or rely on human skill. Sometimes you lose several lives in a row. The chance of luck to get above 4000 is so slim, it's not believable.

I'd say shanzer is the only believable winner with 2950 points.

By Paragon_Leon

Resident (37)

01-06-2005, 12:37

Wolf... i'd say: make an AVI and post it. That'll do it.
But you keep referring to a score that's a good 1300 less of what you have as a high-score. And there has been no change in the game.

By Vincent van Dam

Hero (513)

01-06-2005, 12:38

Hm... I can't believe wolf_ cheated, it just doesn't match up...

By snout

Ascended (15187)

01-06-2005, 12:43

I can't believe anyone cheated on a challenge as silly as this. But, we're working on a nice way out ^_^.

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

01-06-2005, 13:01

oh come on, 2950 is ridiculous

while I was playing more regulary, 2950 was less than my *average*, for the simple reason that the game wasn't difficult at all below 2000 points, I never got below 2500 and tops were between 3200 and 4800

By Paragon_Leon

Resident (37)

01-06-2005, 13:09

ha! Convenient.
Tops between 3200 and 4800... So now you figured you should mention your high-score to make it more believable?
Come on..

The point is, it's not humanly possible. You MIGHT touch on 3000, but a LOW 3000.
IF you make 3500, that is an unbelievable fluke and not something you get 'all the time'. And now you want to claim that you got high-scores 'anywhere between 3200 and 4800'.. Kind of a big gap for an incredibly bigger fluke.

That's the point; it is not believable and it doesn't get any more so if you just SAY you made it. I'll believe it when i see a real-time avi or something. Come on, there's tons of methods you can use to prove it beyond doubt like that (video, phone-video, you name it). That's what you need to back up the score. Not just saying you got high-scores between 3200 and 4800. I got those too. And if i would have said the very same things you say now, would you have believed me?

That's what i mean..

By snout

Ascended (15187)

01-06-2005, 13:17

And here's the solution. Live with it :P

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

01-06-2005, 13:26

http://quor-toth.balpol.tudelft.nl/~mvs/3425.png
http://quor-toth.balpol.tudelft.nl/~mvs/wolf3425.mp3

I 'incidentally' hit 3425, and recorded the *sound* of it with soundforge.. I dunno how to record an AVI of it.. :)

Note that I could've done a bit better, but the game ran a tiny bit sloppy because soundforge was recording in the background and emule was busy as well.. and I'm running 98se which ran all night already (98 isn't know for stability after making long hours). So Blob-movement wasn't like for x=0 to 100 step 1, but more like step 5 :)

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

01-06-2005, 13:52

Blobgate!

quor-toth.balpol.tudelft.nl/~mvs/princess2.jpg

By Paragon_Leon

Resident (37)

01-06-2005, 14:06

First things first: now people can hear that your shirts fall a lot slower. Even when playing on a pc chompfull of spyware and other slowing factors, you can get a high 2900..

Second: the music isn't slowed down with the utility i mentioned.

Third: still no video?

Don't wanna be a whiner, but i can already hear your comment at Bussum: "This version goes a lot faster!"..."My blob was different! Really!"....

By Paragon_Leon

Resident (37)

01-06-2005, 14:11

Oh...I forgot....

Fourth: your high-score was 4800....not 3425... 'Just' a mere 1400 more. At top speed.

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

01-06-2005, 14:21

I mentioned the fast shirt dropping ages ago in some topic to Alex directly, he didn't mention anything special about it iirc. I also mentioned a bug about random speed-ups now and then.. but these moments are very rare, I recorded that btw and as far as I could inteprete Alex' answer the fast speed appeared to be a bug.. don't hold me on that tho.

Nonetheless, I played the gme without doing anything special.. if the game acts random on different systems then there shouldn't be a game+challenge anyway because the conditions differ.

(btw, my system: AMD xp2000)

It's time to invite Alex here for a decent reply.

btw.. pure gamewise-thinking, the faster version looks like nonsense, no-one should design a game like that.

By Paragon_Leon

Resident (37)

01-06-2005, 14:30

Of course there should be a direct contest if conditions differ! That way you can see who has the most skill under similar conditions. Or don't you want to lose your 'preferable-conditions-score' ?

I played it on a spyware-infected slower pc as well and got scores in the 2800 reign that way. Without that, i was lucky to get to 2300.

That is it, really. And like i said; you can claim all sorts of things - even bugs. But that doesn't make it more believable. No-one else got it, so the claim goes unfounded.

It all comes down to how believable something is, now that an exploit has been reported (by me). And you constantly shift to a standpoint that conveniently 'explains' your highscore without you SHOWING actual proof. And yes, yes.. i know...3400.... But we're talking about those 'constant scores between 3200 and 4800', remember? You don't come up with proof that you didn't use the exploit. That's what I'm trying to say here. And simply claiming something in response doesn't exactly make it more believable. I can also claim lots of things.

By mau_rizio

Resident (49)

01-06-2005, 15:00

perhapse a stupid question but why you cheated?
To show how good you are on cheating a flash game or to win a 10euro t-shirt?
And what would you do for an higher prize?

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

01-06-2005, 15:04

3200-4800 isn't a constant region of scores.. I said my average was over 2950 .. and that was about right. sometimes 2500, 2600, sometimes 3400, 3500.. I've hit 4000+ 3 times iirc. (you know math-A ? there's that clock-model for statistics that leaves out the peaks of a range of numbers, dunno how it's called anymore)

btw.. in a contest the conditions should always be the same for everyone, what's the point in this not being the case? Let's join the Olympics, I will run 100m, others will run 5000m.. the winner is the one who firsts finishes.. yay ^_^

if I were to cheat, don't you think I'd 'cheated' 5200 in the last minute before the deadline?

I suggest we wait for technical comments from Alex...

By snout

Ascended (15187)

01-06-2005, 15:22

do you guys take everything in life this serious? I'll try and explain one more time....

The flashgame was one big joke, developed by Alex, who had never created any games before, nor did he do a lot of flash-coding. The purpose wasn't to create a bugfree state-of-the-art game (come on! just look at the gfx, gameplay, storyline and music ), it was just a nice way of giving a free T-Shirt away and paying some extra attention to the fact MSX T-Shirts were on sale at the MRC. That's all. We're talking about a silly competition here that should give everyone a laugh. I think it's truly disappointing that it ends up in people breaking the encryption algorythm (although that one was detected pretty soon), people cheating, people accusing people of cheating, and people actually seriously discussing how well or badly-developed this game was. As for the latter: trust me, it wasn't very well developed .

As there is a solution to this 'problem' already, which gives the 4 people with the highest scores the opportunity to win the T-Shirt under the same circumstances, I suggest you leave the topic from here on... for what it's worth: I agree with Vincent, I don't see Wolf_ as someone who'd cheat on a challenge like this.

~ sigh

By Paragon_Leon

Resident (37)

01-06-2005, 16:00

I agree that the solution is great and no, i don't take it too seriously. Just responding, i suppose.
And to answer the other question: I ordered the t-shirt before i tried out the utility. So that should answer any question.

By Alex Ganzeveld

Expert (89)

01-06-2005, 17:25

Man, you guys know more about this frickin game than I do.

About 2900 being impossible: even I could do it.

The bottleneck: there should be one. Mr. Blob moves at a FIXED + VARIABLE rate of pixels. The variable rate stops incrementing at a given number of points.

Wolf contacted me about the bug and about the fact that the game suddenly was a lot faster. My guess is that, seen the fact that Wolf probably runs a lot of design tools, it's Wolf's config. For example: Flash (the app) slows the game down big time. Maybe he was rendering stuff wile he was playing the game or something, dunno, but Wolf's okay, ole, ole. (And he's Mr. Blob's biggest fan!)

By snout

Ascended (15187)

01-06-2005, 17:27

... I still wonder how he got his hands on pictures of the princess, tho...

By flyguille

Prophet (3031)

01-06-2005, 17:46

come on guys, i tried to play the game on my slowly P1 200mhz win win98se and no video card 3d aceleration.....

the games is fast i not reached more than 2350 iirc

ony you get less FPS and makes more hard the gameplay.

so, what you have in background are not excuses.

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

01-06-2005, 18:37

I never do something that could be related to timing while I'm rendering something, or running another app that's processing something. When I have apps in the background then they're harmless apps, doing nothing when not activated. I'm not much of a multitasker, except leeching and mIRC. ^_^

But the simple question to Alex: check those links from me, that 3425 session, and listen to the mp3: is this the correct speed? Because the speed-issue seems to be the root of all evil

By BiFi

Enlighted (4348)

01-06-2005, 18:55

hmz... it seems I should've played it on my P200MMX for a higher score...

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10135)

01-06-2005, 19:04

now, I don't know anything about flash-programming, but is there a timer in the game? Like some timer that *always* updates the coordinates at say 50fps regardless of the display (can be less frames if you've a lame videocard).

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