Shotgun Ninja

[tim]

Complicated answer really. The short reply is that after the high score hosting site got hacked, the owner of the server upgraded their MySQL software. Now it requires some fiddling with the code to get the high scores working again.

And high scores in GM are always hacked due to encryption limitations of the engine itself, so don't worry about the scores too much.

[mikade]

I see, I see.
Damn hackers.
But thanks for the explanation.

It's a pity. Now I'll never know whether or not I'm decent or whether I suck. Have managed a hi-score of 230652, to date.

Ah well. Makes me lose my incentive to try get reallllly good, but at least I can still enjoy the game.

[tim]

score name
568007 lecarl
354197 Hussell
279446 Derek
278316 Zecks
256262 bik
252786 emil
250826 RandomPassersby
249290 dont
248137 kopekat
242412 Koojav
240584 Emi
240103 thusly
238173 Pitarr
237958 Sergenth
233942 Exuno
231826 jckido
228279 whocares
228063 TimW
227976 dale
227580 tatu
224586 mike
223714 epiclolz
223377 DDX
221541 alan
220292 Pyrocat
220132 NKL
220103 ads
219918 emilcan
219354 bisse
218576 funrt

[mikade]

Thanks! So I guess I'm somewhere around the middle then. The top two scores are the haxx0red ones, right? No way a score that high can be possible unless I'm seriously missing some kind of scoring mechanic like "Don't kill anybody on ANY level", etc.

[tim]

I don't care that much about high scores really, so I never bothered to find out if the scores are real or not. But you might be able to find a playthrough video by lecarl somewhere on YouTube. (if it exists)

cactus could fix the high score tables for all of his previously-released games (and checking to see if the scores are real), or spend time to make new stuff, but I'm quite sure he can't do both.

I personally blame Mark Overmars for making it difficult to implement high scores properly with the Game Maker engine.

[Akhiloth]

This game teaches us a very valuable lesson.
Never
EVER
paycut a ninja.

[legendarycake]

I've always liked the way you can't REALLY see your bullet, they just explode if you aim correctly. music is cool too. though, I haven't got past level 3 ;~;

[hussell]

May 16, 2009 0:24:09 GMT -5 mikade said:

Thanks! So I guess I'm somewhere around the middle then. The top two scores are the haxx0red ones, right? No way a score that high can be possible unless I'm seriously missing some kind of scoring mechanic like "Don't kill anybody on ANY level", etc.

Hi. I'm the holder of the second-highest score, and claim (boldly) that I got it without hacking. The main trick is that the points you get for killing enemies is modified by the number of shotgun shells and grenades you use. The higher the ratio of enemies killed to ammo used, the bigger the bonus. So if you kill lots of enemies with a grenade, you get more points than if you kill them one at a time with the shotgun. Better yet, enemies that fall into bottomless pits count towards your kill total without using any ammo. There are a couple of levels where you can wait for most of the enemies to walk off the edge by themselves.

Beyond that, it's just a matter of getting as many bonuses as possible: kill everything, collect all the ammo, and do it all in as little time as possible. With enough practice, you can get a score over 300,000 every time.

As for the first place score, it could have been hacked, I suppose, but I had assumed it was someone like me who figured out these tricks before the levels were changed and new enemies added. I assumed the new enemies made it much more difficult to achieve a high kill-to-ammo ratio. (Not certain, since I only started playing later.)

Have fun trying to beat my score!

[mikade]

Jun 19, 2009 20:27:18 GMT -5 hussell said:

May 16, 2009 0:24:09 GMT -5 mikade said:

Thanks! So I guess I'm somewhere around the middle then. The top two scores are the haxx0red ones, right? No way a score that high can be possible unless I'm seriously missing some kind of scoring mechanic like "Don't kill anybody on ANY level", etc.

Hi. I'm the holder of the second-highest score, and claim (boldly) that I got it without hacking. The main trick is that the points you get for killing enemies is modified by the number of shotgun shells and grenades you use. The higher the ratio of enemies killed to ammo used, the bigger the bonus. So if you kill lots of enemies with a grenade, you get more points than if you kill them one at a time with the shotgun. Better yet, enemies that fall into bottomless pits count towards your kill total without using any ammo. There are a couple of levels where you can wait for most of the enemies to walk off the edge by themselves.

Beyond that, it's just a matter of getting as many bonuses as possible: kill everything, collect all the ammo, and do it all in as little time as possible. With enough practice, you can get a score over 300,000 every time.

As for the first place score, it could have been hacked, I suppose, but I had assumed it was someone like me who figured out these tricks before the levels were changed and new enemies added. I assumed the new enemies made it much more difficult to achieve a high kill-to-ammo ratio. (Not certain, since I only started playing later.)

Have fun trying to beat my score!

Hussel, thanks for your post.

I had assumed that the penalty of having a poor time score (by waiting for enemies to walk off bottomless pits, and collecting every powerup) would outweigh the possible benefits, but after reading your post, it seems that maybe that isn't so.

I'll try a few more runs of the game and see if I can get my score up by going for as many multiple-kills as possible.

[tim]

In regards to the high score issue, I spent some time today restoring and mirroring the high score table for Seizuredome.

freeware.remakes.org/cactus/seizure/highscore.php

I could get the rest of the high score tables up as well (including Shotgun Ninja), but I need to find out if you guys want it back or not, and whether cactus is keen on the idea of having the tables hosted on another site.

[dillon]

Hello Mr. Cactus, I've been a long time Gamemaker (GM4, maybe earlier), but have recently taken a nice break. Anyway, upon restarting I'm diving into a C64 nostalgia platformer, and naturally played Shotgun Ninja again for inspiration. I was wondering if I might be able to get the GM file to see how a few things were done. If not, that's understandable... it would be disastrous if it were to fall into the wrong hands.

Great games all around, keep up the good work!

-Dillon

[shadree]

I just finished the game. It's pretty cool. I like the old skool graphics except I can't tell what the main baddies are supposed to be.

My favourite part of this game is hanging on the ceiling and raining death from above.

I'm a bit disappointed there's no ending especially after having no way of shipping the intro. I expected a large graphic - like the ninja standing atop the wreckage.