Williams Defender arcade game - just noodling around
Channel: modolief
Date: 2014-10-30

Here I set the machine for 15/99/3K/0wave ... I.e.
Setting #8 → 3
Setting #18 → 15
Setting #19 → 99
Setting #21 → 0

Why?  

Setting #8 → 3:  I let myself have a new ship and smart bomb every 3K because I'm mixing baiter hunting into the game, and that's how hard baiter hunting is.  Since my training regimen has emphasized baiter hunting recently, I want to mix that into standard play so as to "normalize" the quick reaction habits I'm developing.  Also, for most of the game I don't use smart bombs, just trying to see what I can accomplish with the ship by itself.  I can die a lot with no big consequences.

Setting #18 → 15:  starting difficulty.  Factory value is 5, maxing out at 15.  This way I'm already facing a fair number of baiters early on.

Setting #19 → 99:  progressive wave difficulty.  Well, I've clocked it twice at 99/99, and am doing a whole bunch of roundabout training before I try to clock it again.  99 is actually equivalent to 30, by the way, as the machine doesn't do anything past 30.  So this means that from levels 5 through 20 (might be off by one there, but close enough) the difficulty will be increasing steadily.  A good way to ease into the higher difficulty setting.

Setting #21 → 0:  The game never gives me a new planet; normally I get one every five waves.  This is a holdover from when I was trying to turn it over in all-space.  Though I achieved that goal, it was difficult, and I haven't returned to it.  But ... again, it's nice to mix some of this in and revisit those recently won skills before they fade.  Note that I end up with one humanoid remaining at some point, then that gets shot off the bottom of the ship, so I'm in space for the rest of the game.

I like playing this way.  I can play as long as I want.  Actually, I was getting tired around 250K, right after the iPhone ran out of juice.   I've been in pretty good form lately so there are some inspired moves here and there, as well as a lot of bonehead ones.  But that's the point of this style of play: be loose, experiment.  Enjoy.