High score games with an end

[DRW]

O.k., this is not a game suggestion thread, so don't worry. Instead, I just want to know how common the following types of games were:

Do you know of any arcade or arcade-like high score games that actually have an ending and don't loop around until you die?

I'm talking about games like "Paperboy" where you have a small number of levels and where it's about score, but where the game ends at a specific point.
In "Paperboy"'s case, the game ends when you finish seven days: Monday to Sunday. The game doesn't loop back to Monday, but ends with "Paperboy retires in glory."

What other games like these exist from back then?

What I'm not talking about:

Games with an unintentional kill screen, like "Pac-Man" or "Donkey Kong".

Games that have a good length to begin with. Stuff like "Contra" or "Final Fight" doesn't count. Those games are actual full-length playthrough games, not primarily high score games.
The same counts for games like "Nuts & Milk" that might be short, but which has the huge number of 50 different levels.

[tepples]

So arcade games or arcade-style games that 1. keep score, 2. don't loop (or don't hold a score across a loop), 3. don't "have a good length" (whatever that means), and 4. were published "back then".

Depending on how you define "back then", Dance Dance Revolution ought to count, as its goal is to get a high grade across a set of three songs. Grade is based on the ratio of points to possible points (perfect +2, great +1, good +0, poor -4, miss -8).

[DRW]

don't "have a good length" (whatever that means)

It means: "Super Mario Bros." is already too long. I'm talking about games with the length of "Donkey Kong" or something like that.

Depending on how you define "back then"

I was talking more about the time of the NES.

And yes, I know, I didn't mention that in the first post: I'm thinking more about "typical" games where you have a character on the screen that you move around in a world.
Games like "Dance Dance Revolution" are too different from all the "typical" stuff to even do a comparison.
"Tetris" would also be one of the candidates for such a non-standard game.
Same goes for games like "Double Dribble" where you play one game and either win or lose and that's it.

I'm talking about these games where you would expect it to loop, but then it actually ends. Like if you played the four levels of "Donkey Kong" once, then you see the scene where Mario rescues Pauline. And then, instead of continuing in level 1 on a higher difficulty, it's over. You win. Insert quarter for next game.

And I'd like to know if this was a specific idea for "Paperboy" or if there were a bunch of these games.

[ccovell]

Why does this feel more and more like a dBASE search query?


I'm afraid not a lot of us here are that encyclopedic.

[tepples]

Would a homebrew missile defense game that counts score and ends after 35 waves (5 for each of 7 days) count?

[dougeff]

I don't consider 50 levels long. That seems like a normal amount for a non-looping arcade game. Gauntlet had 100 levels. Pac-man has 255 levels.

How about Kung-fu master. That's a short game.

[tepples]

Perhaps in the arcade era, if the machine kicked a skilled player off for the "crime" of finishing all the content, the player would have felt cheated and not played again. This is why games either looped or became longer: to extract more quarters even from skilled players.

[Dwedit]

Street Fighter II comes to mind. 11 fights, and the game's finished. But the high score table is still big here.

[Drew Sebastino]

Just look at a dozen or so shoot em ups. Some of them show the credits on the second loop though.

[DRW]

Why does this feel more and more like a dBASE search query?

Bcause I cannot use an actual database query. What am I supposed to look for? Typing high score game that don't loop into Google surely doesn't produce any useful results.

Would a homebrew missile defense game that counts score and ends after 35 waves (5 for each of 7 days) count?

Since it's not a game suggestion thread about games that I might want to play, but more about research, a homebrew game doesn't really help me with analyzing the real situation from that time.

I don't consider 50 levels long. That seems like a normal amount for a non-looping arcade game.

But 50 levels implies completion in some way. Having four to seven short levels and then the game ending, this isn't expected.

Gauntlet had 100 levels.

And no end.

Pac-man has 255 levels.

Wrong. "Pac-Man" has one level. And this one loops with increasing difficulty. Also, the 255 is a glitch that I explicitly excluded in my first post. "Pac-Man" was not supposed to end. "Paperboy" was.

How about Kung-fu master. That's a short game.

I don't know about the arcade version, but the NES version loops back to the start when you clear the fifth level. But yes, if this game doesn't loop, then it would be the perfect example of what I'm looking for.

Perhaps in the arcade era, if the machine kicked a skilled player off for the "crime" of finishing all the content, the player would have felt cheated and not played again. This is why games either looped or became longer: to extract more quarters even from skilled players.

Possible. That's why I'm asking. If the answer turns out to be that "Paperboy" was indeed the only game to do this, then I have my answer.

Street Fighter II comes to mind. 11 fights, and the game's finished. But the high score table is still big here.

I would rather consider "Street Fighter II" as a full length game, as far as this can even be decided in a game where there aren't really classic levels. But from the playthrough vs. high score standpoint, the game is clearly built up like a playthrough game. When you beat M. Bison, you wouldn't expect the game to go into a new iteration with harder opponents. You actually expect the credits.

Also, high scores mean nothing in "Street Fighter II". Sure, they're there, but the acual focus was multiplayer and mastering your skills. Nobody cared that a punch gives you so many points and a Ha-Do-Ken so many.
Besides, the high score table is useless anyway. If you lose, you keep your score. So, the one who beat Bison after 10 matches has more points than the one who won every single round.

Just look at a dozen or so shoot em ups. Some of them show the credits on the second loop though.

The word "loop" in your statement already defeats the original intention of my question, don't you think?

[rainwarrior]

O.k., this is not a game suggestion thread, so don't worry. Instead, I just want to know how common the following types of games were

As far as I can tell this follows the exact formula of all your "game suggestion" threads.

Anyhow, a lot of fighting games have an ending and a high score, e.g. Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat 3, etc.

Rampage is another one I can think of.

[Drew Sebastino]

The word "loop" in your statement already defeats the original intention of my question, don't you think?

I meant that some of them don't loop, and that it shows the credits once you beat it.

[DRW]

As far as I can tell this follows the exact formula of all your "game suggestion" threads.

Yeah, and as far as I can tell, your answers follow the exact same "didn't read the question and therefore suggested games that are already excluded" formula that I encounter so often when I ask these kinds of questions:

fighting games

We already dealt with fighting games. They are not about the highscore. And even if they were: "Street Fighter II" is clearly the fighting game equivalent of "Super Mario Bros.", not the fighting game equivalent of "Donkey Kong", so a loop isn't expected in the first place.

Rampage is another one I can think of.

"Rampage" has, what, 150 levels or so? Surely not in the same category as "Paperboy".

I meant that some of them don't loop, and that it shows the credits once you beat it.

You're not talking about games like "R-Type", do you? Please tell me that you mean games like "Galaga" and that you did not refer to "R-Type" and "Gradius".

Sigh. Is it really that difficult to properly understand the question? I'm talking about small games. "Donkey Kong", "Kung Fu", "Paperboy". Either single screen games or games with a very simple level layout. I wanted to know if there are games like these that don't loop.

"R-Type" and "Gradius" are a completely different category: These are not tiny highscore games. These are "full-blown" games with a good bunch of individually designed, multi-screen levels.

Do you really fail to see what kinds of games I'm talking about? When I mention small games like "Donkey Kong" or "Paperboy" and exclude games like "Contra" and "Final Fight", then you really don't understand that these shooters would clearly go into the latter category and not into the former? And do you really think if I meant those kinds of games, I would even have to ask and I wouldn't know, for example, about "Super Mario Bros.", "Mega Man" or "Ninja Gaiden"?

[Dwedit]

Phoenix for the TI83/TI89 is most definitely a high-score game with an end. You'd want a game like this to keep going to rack up a high score, but it ends abruptly after the last level.

For those who weren't sitting around in high school playing calculator games all day, Phoenix is a 2D shmup where you collect money drops from the ships you shoot down to buy upgraded weapons.

[dougeff]

Hey, speaking of a game list with a surprisingly small subset...can anyone think of an NES (or Famicom) game with a female protagonist? And RPGs don't count because they generally have a large number of heroes.

I can only think of SMB2, Athena, and Metroid.