Growl

[hansolo77]

February 2018 GOTM Winner: Luigimaker - 61,900 (link)

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Growl Leaderboard

 

POSITION	USER NAME	TOTAL SCORE
1	Luigimaker	61,900 http://goo.gl/N4i6bL
2	patrickfx	42,600 http://goo.gl/N4i6bL
3	Cynicaster	40,400 http://goo.gl/N4i6bL
4	hansolo77	29,400 http://goo.gl/N4i6bL
5	rtkiii	13,100 http://goo.gl/N4i6bL
6	millerbrad	12,800
7	Floyd Turbo	12,100
8	GimmeClassics	11,700 http://goo.gl/N4i6bL

Last Updated by hansolo77: 10-09-2020

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Please use these settings when submitting a hi-score for Growl:

ROMSet: Growl
Unused: Off [All]
Flip screen: Off
Service Mode: Off
Difficulty: Medium
Cabinet Type: 4 Players/4 Coin Slots
Final boss continue: No
Special Rules: This is a Single Player ONLY Variation! You may freely choose your character. Continues are NOT allowed!

The green coloured default values match the Twin Galaxies settings.
The red coloured values need to be changed!

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# you can change your Mame dip switch settings by following this guide:
# you can make a printscreen of your hi-score screen by following this guide:
# general rules for submitting your hi-score:

 

[hansolo77]

Growl, known in Japan as Runark (ルナーク Runāku), is a belt-scrolling beat-'em-up originally released for the arcades by Taito in 1990. Set in the early 20th century, the player controls a forest ranger who must protect the local wildlife from a group of evil poachers who are driving the animals to extinction. A home version was released for the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive) on November 1991. It was also included in the arcade game compilation Taito Legends 2 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Microsoft Windows.

The player begins the game by choosing from one of four different forest rangers, each with a different amount of health, attack strength, and jumping height. There are four variations of the game (which can be determined by dipswitch settings):

• A common two player setting (used in most 2 player cabinets).
• A four player setting with individual coin slots for each player (usually seen in most conversions of 4-player cabinets such as Crime Fighters, Gauntlet, and Quartet).
• A four player setting which uses a pair of two player cabinets linked together with a special cable.
• A four player setting which uses two coin slots for everyone (usually seen in conversions of Trog among other four player cabinets which use two coin slots).

The two-player variant allows the player to choose which character they would like to play as while the four-player versions assign each character to a player slot like other beat em ups.

The game's controls consists of an eight-way joystick for moving the character and two action buttons (attack and jump). The player can perform a variety of different attacks (punches, kicks, and finishing blows) depending on the position of an enemy. By pressing both buttons while surrounded by enemies, the player can perform a special attack that strikes every enemy around him. By pressing both buttons while holding the joystick upwards, the player will perform a longer jump.

The player can procure weapons by destroying barrels and wooden crates or disarming certain enemies. There are a total of eight weapons which can be obtained: three melee weapons (a pipe, a sword and a whip), two throwing weapons (knives and hand grenades), and three firearms (a pistol, a machine gun, and a rocket launcher). The barrels and crates can also be picked up and thrown at enemies as well. When the machine gun or rocket launcher runs out of ammunition, these are still wielded by the player as melee weapons. The pistol, on the other hand, is thrown by the player after all of its bullets are used. The player can drop his current weapon by pressing down and attack while wielding it. If a weapon lies on the ground after a certain period, it will vanish completely.

There are seven regular stages (called rounds) and a bonus game, for a total of eight stages. The locations include a city, a moving train, a boat, a jungle, a cavern, and the hideout of the poachers. There are six types of enemy characters throughout the game, excluding the final boss (who has two forms). There are also animal helpers that will help out the player after they're rescued from a poacher, such as an eagle, a herd of deer, and an elephant.

--Quote from Wikipedia

[hansolo77]

Thanks all who voted.  We ended up with a tie, so the winning game is here.  The losing game is on the next round's poll already, without having to rely on a random chance of getting picked again.  Enjoy!

[patrickfx]

look cool! like I little like double dragon !

[rtkiii]

11 hours ago, patrickfx said:

look cool! like I little like double dragon !

Hopefully without the slowdown 

[Cynicaster]

Great... another 2 months of a beat-em-up game that hardly anybody will play because these games are dull button-mashers without the multi-player social aspect.  Oh well, can't win 'em all... luck of the draw I guess. 

I did my part last night and played one credit to get the ball rolling... I don't anticipate very many more attempts. 

11,900

[hansolo77]

Wow so emotionally depressive.  You know.. you don't HAVE to play and put down a game that was VOTED on.

Updated OP, DB, RSS

[rtkiii]

Yeah I agree with HAN.  I get you a being a little snarky and with this forum it is all in good fun, I hope. 

Obviously though, some people like this game that is why it received so many votes...am I a fan...not sure...never played.   - but when these get out of the way then games you really enjoy will start getting voted on.

[hansolo77]

I've never played this game either.  It's been on the voting poll a couple of times, and was pretty popular those times as well.  I'm actually a pretty big fan of these beat-em-up games.  I'm upset with myself I never got a chance to post an official score for TMNT.  That's one of my favorite games too, having actually played it in MAME in the past.  This game is cool in that it's sort of like a wild-west romp, but really more like Indiana Jones tying to rescue animals from poachers.  Can't wait to see what our turn out will be.

[Cynicaster]

I wasn’t trying to be a wet blanket.  But please consider where I’m coming from here.   We get like 8-10 people voting a game like this in, and only a few bother to show up over 2 whole months to post a single score.  One of which is always me, whether I like the game or not, because I want to support the comp.  If everyone else did the same for games they’re not crazy about, imagine the activity we’d have. 

I’m not saying this because I think I’m owed anything... but I’d think it would put me in a position to speak freely about the game that gets voted in.

Regardless, what I say is just one man’s opinion, and you’re of course free to take it or leave it.   

[hansolo77]

I completely agree about the lack of participation.  But I don't think it's a problem with this game.  I think it's a problem with the atmosphere.  We got a LOT of games too.  I tend to think everybody is more interested in playing the latest addition, rather than going back and playing the older ones.  Truth is, we're running out of really great AAA level games.  All the best ones are already available.  So there's not any interest to play anymore.  When we first started out, we had a HUGE turnout because the games we had were everybody's favorites.  Now we're playing games nobody's ever heard of.  But that's why I set up the polls.  Try to get user input on what game to play.  It's a little thing but I thought it would help generate some end-user involvement.  Even if you don't like the game that is ultimately voted on, at least you got to participate in the decision making.  The biggest obstacle for me is trying to generate interest.  @GimmeClassics was so much better at that than me.

[Cynicaster]

On 1/6/2018 at 10:58 PM, hansolo77 said:

Truth is, we're running out of really great AAA level games.  All the best ones are already available.  So there's not any interest to play anymore.  When we first started out, we had a HUGE turnout because the games we had were everybody's favorites.  Now we're playing games nobody's ever heard of.

 You're probably right about this.  Unfortunately, I think lots of players just aren't interested in treading off the path of nostalgia, so they just want to play the same 10-15 "recognizable" games over and over.  I don't understand that, myself.  There are several thousand games playable in MAME, and there are lots of hidden gems to discover.  It's true that there are also lots of duds, but competitions like this provide a platform for people to suggest the "hidden gems" they've discovered, and a platform for players to have "vetted" game suggestions served up to them on a silver platter.  

[rtkiii]

My 1st attempt...  9,900.  I plan to play a couple more times as this score is horrible 

[hansolo77]

I'm seriously going to make a conscious effort to try and play this game this time.  I wonder if submissions might pick up if the moderator of the group makes an attempt to post scores too.  I mean, if I was a new guy here, and I saw lots of games, but the moderator not even participating, I'd probably 2nd guess posting an attempt to.

@rtkiii - Thanks for your submission, even if you feel it's small.  There's plenty of time to improve it, and maybe you'll get some competition along the way!

Updated OP, DB, RSS

[Cynicaster]

On 1/8/2018 at 4:08 PM, rtkiii said:

My 1st attempt...  9,900.  I plan to play a couple more times as this score is horrible 

 

Hey rtkiii a bit off-topic, but I'm just curious about your MAME cabinet there... any links to info on the build I can look at?  Looks pretty cool from that closeup.  

 

 

[rtkiii]

Cynicaster, Thanks for the compliment!  The bezel art and control panel art where something I created in photoshop for "The Time Machine". 

 

The cabinet itself is a original Dig Dug Cabinet that I stumbled across a few years back that had a NEOGeo board in it.  So I gutted it and setup for mame.  Orignal Dig Dug Artwork still in tact    In this close up all I see is my terrible cutting job around the monitor, it is paper print of my original idea that I have never had professionally printed...yet 

[Cynicaster]

On 1/11/2018 at 8:16 AM, rtkiii said:

Cynicaster, Thanks for the compliment!  The bezel art and control panel art where something I created in photoshop for "The Time Machine". 

 

The cabinet itself is a original Dig Dug Cabinet that I stumbled across a few years back that had a NEOGeo board in it.  So I gutted it and setup for mame.  Orignal Dig Dug Artwork still in tact    In this close up all I see is my terrible cutting job around the monitor, it is paper print of my original idea that I have never had professionally printed...yet 

 

Cool.  Does that mean you have 2 player, 4 buttons per side control panel (Neo Geo)? 

As for cutting card stock for a monitor bezel, I tried that on a project and couldn't get it to look right.  I ended up folding black electrical tape around all the edges to hide the white "inside" of the paper, but that is a hack solution.  I think the trick is to probably use a really sharp blade to get  the cleanest cut possible.  For my main cabinet, the bezel was created by masking off the monitor area and spray painting the back side of the plexi black.  Works very well, but makes it difficult to do anything other than solid color. 

 

 

[rtkiii]

On 1/12/2018 at 10:54 AM, Cynicaster said:

 

Cool.  Does that mean you have 2 player, 4 buttons per side control panel (Neo Geo)? 

As for cutting card stock for a monitor bezel, I tried that on a project and couldn't get it to look right.  I ended up folding black electrical tape around all the edges to hide the white "inside" of the paper, but that is a hack solution.  I think the trick is to probably use a really sharp blade to get  the cleanest cut possible.  For my main cabinet, the bezel was created by masking off the monitor area and spray painting the back side of the plexi black.  Works very well, but makes it difficult to do anything other than solid color. 

 

 

It is a 2 player cabinet with six buttons each.  The CP was layed out to have 4 and I added two extra, I think.  Or the 6 were already there but hidden under the old CP artwork.  Good idea on the bezel artwork....sharper the better

[rtkiii]

Score Update

13,100

[hansolo77]

Nice improvement!  My plan is to try and post a score up on Wednesday.  No promises, but it's a goal. 

Updated OP, DB, RSS

[Cynicaster]

40,400

The number of enemies simultaneously on the screen gets pretty ridiculous in this game, but it's nice that it doesn't slow down like Double Dragon when that happens.  

I find that for most of the game the only way I can survive is to spam the jump kick move because it knocks guys down with a single hit.  If I do anything else that takes more than single hit, somebody will attack me from behind.  This reminds me of how you pretty much get forced to use nothing but the elbow smash in Double Dragon.  

 

[hansolo77]

I actually played a bit of this the other day and realized my controller setup got messed up.  Gonna have to figure out what's up with that soon.  Looks like a fun game too. 

Nice improvement on your score Cyn!

Updated Op, Db, Rss

[hansolo77]

Here's my late entry.  I worked out my controller problem and got a decent enough go.  It's not 1st place material, but I'm not really in it for the competition, just to best my own scores.  I hope to have some more free time soon to have another go at it.

Score: 29,400
Level: 3
Initials: HAN

I had to take the picture with my phone, the keyboard on my GameEx PC stopped working and I had no way to press F12 for the MAME screengrab.

Updated OP, DB, RSS

[rtkiii]

Yeah I am impressed with the lack of slow down with this game.

[Luigimaker]

This is definelty one fo the better beat em ups