Thursday, March 4, 2021

History Lesson: Recalling the 1980s and my Relationship with Defender

I was asked to put together a "short" blurb for an upcoming book. Since it'll have to be abbreviated, I wanted to share it all with you. Because posterity. 

When I was a kid, I competed in the first video game championship across the state of Texas, called the "First Annual Texas Video Game Championships" and won the title of Texas State Defender Champion. (See below for details on the tournament)

Back then, there wasn't an internet, so gamers didn't know there were other championships happening in other places in the world. Just about every gas station and store had a couple of arcade machines, and leaving your initials on a high score was the only way we knew of to prove we were the best. We certainly didn't know about Twin Galaxies.

During the boom of arcade games in the 1980s, features were added to one game and then they would be added to others. Scoring was in games at first, and then High Scores were added. Those scores would last until the machine was turned off, so if you wanted to have the top position, you'd have to go back and set a high score again. 

Then Defender came out. It had the first high score that didn't erase when the machine was turned off. They even celebrated high scores to an unprecedented level in their "Hall of Fame" high score table. They had a "Today's Greatest" high score that was erased when the machine was turned off and the "All Time Greatest" high scores that were saved forever. Williams had added a set of batteries to the motherboard so the scores would be retained. To me, it was revelatory. 

When I saw that "All Time Greatest" score table, I came unglued. I could leave a mark on a machine forever. Of course Defender was insanely hard, with an average play time of a new user of something like 27 seconds, so it took quite a bit of time to get good enough to even get at the bottom of the high score table. But I was driven.

There were two Defender machines in walking distance from my house. One at 7-11 and one at a local hardware store. I spent a lot of time at both those locations, as you can imagine. The hardware store owner had a desire to keep kids off the streets, so he would give us rewards for setting our personal high scores. I'd show him my score on Defender, and he'd challenge me to hit a new one. The reward? A brand new $10 roll of quarters, which mostly went right back into his machines. 

My friends Keith and Marque were just as interested in Defender as me, so we were at those machines constantly. Eventually, we all got so good that we could play forever. The game has 256 levels and it flips back to level one once you get through them, so if you could get to 256, the only question was "How long can you stay awake, or interested?" To keep it shorter, one thing we'd do was try to see how far we could go on the first ship, and I eventually could roll the machine over (1,000,000 points) before player two could start. 

Then 7-11 announced they were doing a state-wide tournament and one of the machines was Defender. I told the manager of our 7-11 "I'm going to win that." She said "I know you will." The tournament was designed to take into account that games could be played for a LONG time, so you had to make the most points in a 10 minute timeframe. 

I did win, and it was because my playstyle had developed over time to make the most points possible as quickly as possible. All because my friends and I competed constantly to do exactly that.

I did a podcast with lots of detail about the championship here: https://kakebytes.com/2017/11/07/episode-2/

Fast forward to the days of King of Kong. Walter was on a whirlwind tour and came to Austin for the world premiere. He'd brought Steve there to make another attempt at the world record after the movie. He didn't do it, but it was so cool to see a master at work.


When the movie ended, Walter was giving away copies of his world record book. I approached him and introduced myself as Billy Joe Cain. He responded "You are the Defender champion of Texas! You won the First Annual Texas Videogame Championship. I did a sidebar of it in my book!" He yelled out to the audience, introducing me and telling everyone they needed to come get autographs. The book holders came down and I signed them. It was surreal. 

After that, I became his Austin ambassador, and hosted him for his Texas Trading Card Premiere at a local arcade. 

Great stuff about that here: http://www.brettweisswords.com/2013/01/

In 2013, I decided to make an attempt at a marathon world record. The "standing record," from the 1980s was 84 million, so that was my goal. It takes around an hour to collect 1 million points, so I was prepared to stay up for 84 hours. My friend Josh Jones got certified as a referee and we set out to go for it. He took a whole week off from work and family and committed to staying with me the entire time. Along the way, I connected with a Facebook group of arcade marathoners and Defender experts and we did a lot of research on that score and others from the "old days." The scores included descriptions of how long these scores took, not for posterity, but because they were such feats of stamina. Ultimately research showed the highest scores were impossible to reach given their estimates. I.e. players turned in fake scores. 84 hours of Defender? We also didn't know if these players slept or let others keep the game going while they went to the bathroom, etc. A lack of an official referee put the integrity of all the scores into question. After much deliberation, the groups I participated in came to the decision that the highest score that matched the expected rate of play was a guy named Dale Rees. He racked up 40 hours and had even built a leather handrest to keep his hand from getting injured. We still don't know if he had other players to keep things going, but I see him as the "real" marathon champion. 

This includes the big list of scores

My final achievement was a 32.5 hour play session (33,644,725 points in 32.35hrs), streamed live on Twitch (they deleted it, grr), which ended because my wrists completely gave out.  My friend that became a referee with Recordsetter.com was joined online by hundreds of people, including Todd Rogers, who became my sensei thanks to his marathon experience. He stayed on with me almost the entire time, tracking my score by the hour AND giving me tips. Ultimately, it was because the playboard is at an angle that wasn't built for a 33 hour session (remember the 27 seconds comment above?). They still hurt but every time I feel those aches I think to myself... "TOTALLY worth it." I should have done more preparation, but it was kinda cool to just jump back in and go for it. 

One synopsis

I wrote a series of detailed blogs describing the world record journey

There's more on the main page

Walter's a hero and a visionary. He captured the gestalt of a whole generation that lived and played through the golden age of arcades. I am proud to call him a friend.

THANK YOU, WALTER!!!!

_______________________

BONUS MATERIAL

Facebook Page for the First Annual Texas Videogame Championship. Resources, images, etc.

Description from the Facebook page:

First Annual Texas Video Game Championships

In 1982, the Southland Corporation launched an historic video game championship across the state of Texas called the First Annual Texas Video Game Championships. Almost every 7-11 had a small arcade within it, so they took advantage of those assets and challenged their customers to set a high score on the machines in their stores. The competition was based around Pac Man, Tempest, and Defender, some of the most popular and complicated games at the time. The grand prize for each game was a new arcade game cabinet of the machine itself.

Each store collected high scores by having an employee verify the score and write it down. If a store did not have one of the three games, they would take scores for another game.

The highest scorers per game were sent to area competitions where the games were played in three 10 minute rounds. This was the method from here on out. Those scores were added together to determine who was the winner. The winner progressed to Regional competition, where the process was repeated.

At the Regional level, there were far less players, and the winners on each machine continued onto the State level.

The State Tournament was in Dallas on one entire floor of a hotel. The Southland Corporation brought in all of their arcade games from a 30-50 mile radius and filled the hall with hundreds of arcade games. They were all set to free play. Guests and the public were actually outnumbered by the machines. They even had Dallas Cowboys at the show taking pictures and signing autographs. [It was the biggest arcade game collection I have ever seen to this date. bjc]

The challengers competed on a stage in front of media, friends, and family. Each game winner was crowned, and then those winners were asked to compete on three never before seen games for the title of Texas Video Game Champion.

The three games were then played, with the same methodology, and the overall winner was crowned.

The competition was co-sponsored by Dr. Pepper.

The Defender winner, Billy Cain, received a Defender windbreaker, a Defender baseball cap, a Dr. Pepper beach towel, and was supposed to win a new Defender arcade machine, but they were no longer producing them. The representative from the Southland corporation offered to provide a used one from their stores, but Cain informed them that there was a sequel to Defender currently being produced, Stargate, and they provided him a brand new Stargate shipped to his house in the original shipping container.

The Tempest winner, 11-year old Alex Dubler, received a full-sized Tempest arcade game, along with tons of T-Shirts, a case of Dr. Pepper, and several caps. 

Monday, December 23, 2013

Resogun: First Impressions from a Defender Addict


Since I'm a Defender nut, a couple of people have asked me what I think of Resogun, which is a game that is very similar to Defender, yet has enough differences to make it pretty damn cool for this generation of consoles. 

[Read more about my recent Defender world record attempt.]


VERSUS?




Resogun has all the sexy graphics you could want. Really. It's beautiful and it runs at a super high frame rate so you never have that "slow down" Defender did. Although the slow down was a pretty cool part of Defender that you could use to your advantage, it's something that would NOT work on a console game nowadays. 


Plus Big Ol' Bosses!

My shorthand description of Resogun would be that it's a mix of Defender (save the humans) meets Robotron (2 stick control) meets Galaga (pattern flying enemies) meets Star Castle (some rotating inside bosses) meets R-Type (bullet walls, etc.). 

These are all great games that taste great together.


When I first started playing, I made the assumption there would be some sort of training or tutorial. NOPE. My friend Luke walked me through it, so it should have made sense as he talked while I played. NOPE. I had to figure it out on my own.


WTF is happening here?

Wow. This is starting to remind me of something. The good old days in the arcade. New machine. No instructions, just a high score table. I get it. 

All of the games this one pulls from pretty much drop you in the shit and hope you figure it out. Oh yes, I can recognize that type of game, no doubt.

Beat your head against the wall until you break through it. 

After playing for an hour, I think I finally get it. There are a LOT of things you have to think about all at the same time, and you only truly succeed when you can get to a point where you're NOT thinking about them. You are reacting to them AND predicting them. 

Kind of like Zen

Kind of like Defender. 


How I feel when I play Defender

In fact, it's more like Defender than any of the previous Defender-like games. And that's a damn good thing, because there really hasn't been anything like Defender in a LONG time. Maybe ever, including all of the "ports" of Defender. 

Top level thoughts at this point:
  • Graphics are fantastic. Never any slowdown. Amazing feel.
  • I hate the multiplier. It forces me into a playstyle that feels more like I am "playing" the multiplier more than the game.
  • Collecting humans feels more like a way to earn extreme powerups rather than an integral part of the game.
  • I love the circular use of the planet.
  • I love the top and bottom boundaries.
  • I like all of the audio clips telling me what is happening. I would love it if I could turn off "voice" and only hear SFX. Human lost? Please give me a SFX. Etcetera.

Three selectable ships?!? Oh yes.

I played a two player game online. It was nice! I want two player co-op on the same screen. Not sure how to do it, but I'm sick of online multiplayer only games. 

Now, I have to get a PS4, but Christmas dealt me two car repairs, so I'll be playing Resogun at my friends' houses for now. Bummer.

Sunday, December 8, 2013

The Attempt, Final Thoughts And Results (Defender World Record Saga - Part Five Of Five)


What was I thinking?

This year, Josh Jones and I decided to make a marathon record on Defender a reality. 

On Friday night (November 15th, 2013), Josh and I were up pretty late getting the machine wired up with cameras and the laptop set up with the online streaming. We didn't get it perfect, but it was getting late, so Josh said he'd get it set up. I went to sleep. 

Saturday morning (November 16, 2013), I was supposed to get up at 9:30am and get started at 10am. Well, I got up at 7:30am and I could not convince myself to go back to bed. It was like Christmas! I checked on Facebook and saw that Josh had posted that he had gotten the stream up and working, so I figured... let's get started. 

FINALLY, I GET TO PLAY
My marathon record team mentors all had suggested that I should get started as SOON as possible after I awakened, so I went and told Josh that I was ready to start. He wanted to get breakfast and shower! WHAT?!? We worked out a plan so I could get started at 8:30am, and I started rolling. 

My wife, Jacque, had spent weeks putting things together behind the scenes to surprise me with all sorts of cool things. Almost immediately after beginning, events began to unfold that I was not expecting. Friends and family members came by, phone calls of support came in, and a local television station sent over a reporter to do a piece!
Still Standing. That's my son, Matt sitting. :)

As the day began, it was me against the machine with Josh in the room. He and I were certain that we were going to make the 80 million distance. No problem. Most of my thoughts surrounded how much faster than 80 hours could I complete this? 

I was recording scores that were higher than one million an hour in all of my regular play, so I was hoping to get finished well before Tuesday evening.

Just into the first day, my friend Jenny Bendel came over and at some point started calling out the wave completions. This started out funny and cool, but as the game reached the end, it was something that actually grounded me quite a bit and made it feel like I was REALLY saving the world. Seriously

Yes, sensei
THE DETAILS
These numbers were collected by my new sensei Todd Rogers during play, while he watched over the interwebz. THANK YOU TODD!!

Started at   --- All times are noted in EST time.--
830am[CST]/ 
 930a[EST]      0 11.16.2013  
1023a   1,000,000 1hr  (53m)
1116    2,000,000 2hrs (53m)
1210p   3,000,000 3hrs (55m)
 108p   4,000,000 4hrs (58m)
 2xx    5,000,000 5hrs  [
 3xx    6,000,000 6hrs  [ I was watching not tracking time]
 4xx    7,000,000 7hrs  [
 558p   8,465,600 8.4hrs
 650p  10,000,000 9hrs  (52m)
 745p  11,000,000 10hrs (55m)
 830p  12,000,000 11hrs (45m)**Fastest 1 million
 922p  13,000,000 12hrs (52m)
1025p  14,000,000 13hrs (1h 3m)
1125p  15,000,000 14hrs (1h)
1218a  16,000,000 15hrs (52m) < 11.17.2013 EST Sunday>
 114a  17,000,000 16hrs (56m)
 213a  18,000,000 17hrs (59m)
 314a  19,000,000 18hrs (1h 1m)
 416a  20,000,000 19hrs (1h 2m)
 518a  21,000,000 20hrs (1h 2m)
 618a  22,000,000 21hrs (1h) **Playing sloppily
 724a  23,000,000 22hrs (1h 6m)
 829a  24,000,000 23hrs (1h 5m)
 933a  25,000,000 << 1Day(1h 3m)
1039a  26,000,000 25hrs (1h 6m)
Bio break =
loss of ships

**Wave 0 Potty break -8 men (1 min) 

1144a  27,000,000 26hrs (1h 5m)
1246p  28,000,000 27hrs (1h 2m)
 144p  29,000,000 28hrs (58m) {Losing men where its visable}
 256p  30,000,000 29hrs (1h 13m) {struggling to keep men * wave 256 saved him}

3:01p Wave 0 Potty break

 404p  31,000,000 30hrs (1h 8m) recovered men
 509p  32,000,000 31hrs (1h 5m) * 530p low on men again
 614p  33,000,000 32hrs (1h 5m)

 705p  33,644,725 32.35hrs << FINAL SCORE >>>>

Tracking the time for each million is a great way to judge how long the entire 80 million will take. I was trying to get way ahead by beating a million an hour all the way through to shave time off the end. Anything would have helped. 

I don't even remember two potty breaks. I thought there was just one. Shows what I can remember.


Focus, grasshopper, and
take it easy on the buttons
Todd, whom I started calling my sensei, came to my rescue through the final hours by reminding me (over and over) to focus on the game. He was totally right about my play around the 30 million point. I started struggling and never caught up. Just too mentally exhausted and, although I didn't know it, my hands / wrists were not working worth a damn.

Apparently I need to take it easier on the buttons if I'm going to try this again. Each and every move should be purposeful. No finger wiggling between waves, either. It all adds up to tendon damage over that much time.

After 32.35 hours of continual play, I was defeated by the machine. The entire experience was completely unreal. 

FINAL THOUGHTS
This was the best gaming experience of my entire life, bar none. The support and seriousness with which everyone treated it was absolutely phenomenal

Thank you all!

The fact that we hit our charity's funding goal is just amazing. Now I have to start shipping out some rewards!! 

I am writing this on December 8, 2013. My wrists still hurt. I can still feel the stiffness in my trapezoids. My back is in good shape; I was crazy about posture. 

My son made origami numbers to indicate the million
count, which does not appear in the game
because there aren't enough digits
"THIS" WORLD RECORD DETAILS
World Marathon Record Score on Defender: 33,644,725 at www.Recordsetter.comIt is also listed there as the longest marathon on Defender and the most points on Defender.

Here is the criteria of this submission: it is the Highest score on Defender that has been Verified, Refereed, Publicly Viewable, and was witnessed by multiple record keeping entities. 

PLUS you can watch it online any time at www.twitch.tv/billyjoecainlive.

HUGE DISCLAIMER: I understand that there are higher scores on Defender at other scoring entities. This is just where things stand right now with Record Setter.
The man, the myth,
THE Walter Day

HISTORICAL RECORDS
Since the beginning of arcade gaming, THE place to have your records tracked has been Twin Galaxies. They have kept and managed records since the 1980s. They have been included in many movies and documentaries, such as King of Kong and Chasing Ghosts. Please look up the MAN himself, Walter Day, because HE is the true champion of video game records. His legacy cannot be underestimated. And he is one of the nicest people I have EVER met.

The mystery and mystique of those records and record holders has spawned a whole subculture of arcade record attempts as well as people that question those old scores. 

Many scores from "back in the day" have been questioned for decades and in some cases have now been matched or beaten and are now being recognized for the accomplishments that they had always been


Not enough of these
Some records have been completely debunked as well. 

The issue comes down to one question: how do you authenticate a record that was never physically "recorded?" The answer is YOU CAN'T! This makes weird controversy and winds up hurting people's feelings. I have been surprised by this in many ways, and I'm still wrapping my head around it.

For me, all I can say is that the score I set is viewable and was refereed. It does not matter to ME if my score is the highest in the record books; it is the highest score I have ever recorded. 


Copyrighted by Video Games
Dale is the MAN!
So who knows if those scores in the 1980s were real? Who cares if they weren't? Not me. 

I'm SURE an 80 million score is possible. Did those gamers really push the limits of human endurance and pull it off? Seems plausible to me. We were all young and full of piss and vinegar. If I'd have tried this in the 1980s, I'd bet I could have played 80 hours. At least I want to believe it.

The one historical score that has the most "proof" is the one of Dale Rees. He logged in a 40 hour score of 42,335,225. Truly epic. 

I think I might be able to pull that off once my hands get better. Who knows? Can 80 hours be done? Let's see who can get there first... again(?). 


THIS WAS AN EPIC EXPERIENCE! THANK YOU ALL!!
First order of business - post marathon? Vegan Pecan Sandies!

Want to read each part? Well, here's your chance!

PART ONE: WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT DEFENDER?
PART TWO: WHAT *IS* DEFENDER?
PART THREE: NON-GAMING-RELATED PREPARATION
PART FOUR: SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL PREPARATION
PART FIVE: THE ATTEMPT, FINAL THOUGHTS AND RESULTS