Does It Ever End?

[BlitZx HyPnOsIs]

I reached level 101 and it it's still going, does anyone know what the last level is or if it ever ends? I noticed there's only about 2 or 3 different types of levels and only about 5 or 6 different challenge levels, then they start reusing them.

[Fonkey Monkey]

wouldnt it suck for you if it ended at level 102 .
but i think it just keeps going. as do alot of games ( geo wars, space invaders,pole position)

[gr3g23]

im on level 140 i dont think it ends lol

[Ghoster]

The old arcade game froze at 256.

[scoobydiesel]

Yeah msot classic older games like this didnt really have an ending it just matterd if it would freeze or something. I remember when there was a galaga arcafe machine in my area it would freeze at lvl 190 or something and they ended up getting ride fo it becuase it froze and no one would get a high score...it was sad when they got ride of her...she was a hottie i tel ya

[SilentRamble]

255 is the limit on a lot of things like that. It has something to do with the language used to program games (very ignorant on stuff like that)

I know 255 is used on other things, for example:
-I heard about this guy who beat PacMan. It ended on Lv255
-Stats on Final Fantasy X maxed out at 255 (Yojimbo's agility was the only one i recall getting there)

If you feel like it, try for 255. I sure as hell won't

[Elfire313]

Keep going and tell us!

[Jdm]

Originally Posted by Elfire313

Keep going and tell us!

Yeah, I would like to know when it'll stop as well! Keep going!

I just bought and downloaded Galaga last night. It brought back a lot of memories. I stopped at around level 42 because I couldn't take it anymore. It was a pretty easy game to unlock achievements. I unlocked all the achievements in about 2 hrs., but I just couldn't play it anymore. I died so many times and I'm not even close to where you guys are. More POWER to you guys!

[tarheeltay]

I guess I'm the only true nerd here... 255 in binary would be 11111111 which (if you know binary) it is kind of like 99999999, for 256 you'd need to add another decimal place to make it 100000000. This is why games would max out here.

My guess is it can only hold up to 8 decimal places.

[Butters]

Originally Posted by tarheeltay

I guess I'm the only true nerd here... 255 in binary would be 11111111 which (if you know binary) it is kind of like 99999999, for 256 you'd need to add another decimal place to make it 100000000. This is why games would max out here.

My guess is it can only hold up to 8 decimal places.

Dam men u b a smert one ya? I aint got no braiins lice you ^_^...

Really though that's impressive that you would know that. And for you guys who played so many levels, how many pee breaks did you have to take?

[DropDeadArtemus]

nice one tay. finally someone else who understands binary and the limits it put on a game. nice little fun fact for all those who dont quite comprehend binary. binary also only used a series of 8 numbers known as bits. those 8 bits combined form a byte. so naturally once all those bits reach a value of 1 ie. 11111111=255 that was the limit of binary. trying to advance past that would overload the code and cause the code to stop running.

[Way Fast CBR]

nice, i just learned a little bit about bianary and keep playing, i would like to see if it ends

[Andrew x360a]

That's a pretty cool analysis of the theoretical limits of the game. Very nice.

[Galaxy Silver]

If I recall right 255 is the max # of rupees you can get in the original Zelda too.

[TheWetherMan]

ya like most of these people said in most old arcade games the game just crashed after a certain level

[RRIKER]

Originally Posted by tarheeltay

I guess I'm the only true nerd here... 255 in binary would be 11111111 which (if you know binary) it is kind of like 99999999, for 256 you'd need to add another decimal place to make it 100000000. This is why games would max out here.

My guess is it can only hold up to 8 decimal places.

You're right on the money. As a game programmer, I learned a lot of history on old, old, OLD systems and friggin ancient programming techniques.

Back in the days of cartridges and cabinets, games didn't use optical storage media or even hard drives (shocking, ain't it?). Everything ran off of and was stored on the then-pitiful RAM chips.

Developers had to decide how to allocate this memory (malloc for you C/C++ coders) in the most efficent way possible. Graphics (sprites), level properties, gameplay elements (point collecting, powerup effects), sound, AI (if any), and the subject of the evening--counters.

-- Programming Vocab --
Counters are basically any number in a game's code that keep track of a number (duh). These are usually integers (whole numbers) and keep a running total of information until they are either decremented, incremented, cleared, or otherwise changed by value.
-- end lesson --

During the Golden age, developers thought games like a past time for young adults and children, and that people would only play for a couple of minutes to an hour of playtime. They had no idea of the popularity or addictiveness of some games (which led to the rapid expansion and bust of Atari, Colecovision, etc.-- it wasn't until the NES (aka Super Famicom) was developed that the video game industry got its first booster shot.).

-- SKIP TO HERE IF YOU WANT THE SHORT ANSWER --

So, in the interest of saving valuable RAM, the level counters were represented as a single byte, or 8 bits (1's and 0's).

As tarheeltay mentions, the maximum number that can be represented in binary with 8bits is 11111111 - which in a binary (or base 2) number system translates to decimal as 255. Should players reach lvl 256 (and the programmers f'd up and didn't reset the level counter in that case), all hell would break loose in the for of an integer overflow. Confused? quick math 'yall:

in binary, you use onl 2 symbols for math, 0 and 1
in decimal, we use 10, 0-9
in hex we use 16, 0-9 and A-F

when counting in any number system, you move to the next place when you run out of symbols. in grade school, you counted up till 9, then you said "10" but 10 is just a 1 in the power of "10s" place, and a 0 in the "ones" place. Multiply 1 x power10 and add 0 x power1 and you get 10+0 = 10

the same logic applies to binary, but trickier.
3 in decimal base is 11 in binary base.
0=0
1=1
2=10
3=11
4=100
5=101
6=110
7=111
8=1000
see the pattern? since you only have 0's and 1's, you carry over the next "place" after only two counts. using the powers' logic 1011 binary is solved like so:
1 x power 8 8
0 x power 4 0
1 x power 2 2
+1 x power 1 +1
11

IN THE GAME, when 255 or 11111111 was incremented by one, there was no set place to make 100000000, and the game would either crash because it was looking for more memory or replaced vital code which would result in a "kill screen" - the garbled up stages. once the game was reset by code or powering off/on, the game usually righted itself. the most famous incident is PAC-MAN, but games of this era (Williams, Midway, Atari) were highly prone to these bugs. Its feasible to fill a score meter past it's maximum 999999999+1 or whatever, you could get the same problem if the programmers never checked for it.

On xbox360 versions, the code ported or emulated could be unchanged due to laziness or technologically unfeasible (time n' money) and will mess up still.

NOW that you have read this, link this info if someone asks about lvl 256, improve your programming skills, or he||, get a degree in number theory...I just never want to explain this again.

P.S. - Y'all nerds ain't got **** on ME! Cower before my programming might!

[D3AD FR3D]

Originally Posted by RRIKER

You're right on the money. As a game programmer, I learned a lot of history on old, old, OLD systems and friggin ancient programming techniques.

Back in the days of cartridges and cabinets, games didn't use optical storage media or even hard drives (shocking, ain't it?). Everything ran off of and was stored on the then-pitiful RAM chips.

Developers had to decide how to allocate this memory (malloc for you C/C++ coders) in the most efficent way possible. Graphics (sprites), level properties, gameplay elements (point collecting, powerup effects), sound, AI (if any), and the subject of the evening--counters.

-- Programming Vocab --
Counters are basically any number in a game's code that keep track of a number (duh). These are usually integers (whole numbers) and keep a running total of information until they are either decremented, incremented, cleared, or otherwise changed by value.
-- end lesson --

During the Golden age, developers thought games like a past time for young adults and children, and that people would only play for a couple of minutes to an hour of playtime. They had no idea of the popularity or addictiveness of some games (which led to the rapid expansion and bust of Atari, Colecovision, etc.-- it wasn't until the NES (aka Super Famicom) was developed that the video game industry got its first booster shot.).

-- SKIP TO HERE IF YOU WANT THE SHORT ANSWER --

So, in the interest of saving valuable RAM, the level counters were represented as a single byte, or 8 bits (1's and 0's).

As tarheeltay mentions, the maximum number that can be represented in binary with 8bits is 11111111 - which in a binary (or base 2) number system translates to decimal as 255. Should players reach lvl 256 (and the programmers f'd up and didn't reset the level counter in that case), all hell would break loose in the for of an integer overflow. Confused? quick math 'yall:

in binary, you use onl 2 symbols for math, 0 and 1
in decimal, we use 10, 0-9
in hex we use 16, 0-9 and A-F

when counting in any number system, you move to the next place when you run out of symbols. in grade school, you counted up till 9, then you said "10" but 10 is just a 1 in the power of "10s" place, and a 0 in the "ones" place. Multiply 1 x power10 and add 0 x power1 and you get 10+0 = 10

the same logic applies to binary, but trickier.
3 in decimal base is 11 in binary base.
0=0
1=1
2=10
3=11
4=100
5=101
6=110
7=111
8=1000
see the pattern? since you only have 0's and 1's, you carry over the next "place" after only two counts. using the powers' logic 1011 binary is solved like so:
1 x power 8 8
0 x power 4 0
1 x power 2 2
+1 x power 1 +1
11

IN THE GAME, when 255 or 11111111 was incremented by one, there was no set place to make 100000000, and the game would either crash because it was looking for more memory or replaced vital code which would result in a "kill screen" - the garbled up stages. once the game was reset by code or powering off/on, the game usually righted itself. the most famous incident is PAC-MAN, but games of this era (Williams, Midway, Atari) were highly prone to these bugs. Its feasible to fill a score meter past it's maximum 999999999+1 or whatever, you could get the same problem if the programmers never checked for it.

On xbox360 versions, the code ported or emulated could be unchanged due to laziness or technologically unfeasible (time n' money) and will mess up still.

NOW that you have read this, link this info if someone asks about lvl 256, improve your programming skills, or he||, get a degree in number theory...I just never want to explain this again.

P.S. - Y'all nerds ain't got **** on ME! Cower before my programming might!

GAY

[Zola's Assassin]

i have played GALAGA for months now. it ended for me at 255. have fun gettin there if you all want to. nuttin much after level 32 where you get the last achievement

[zlionsfan]

That was the norm in those days. Nobody really expected different things to happen in a game, arcade operators didn't really want people playing that long on a single quarter, and there wasn't that much memory for different AI/levels/strategy. There were a ton of games that got faster/more difficult to a certain point, then just leveled out until you hit the game's limit. There wasn't really a reason to consider more than one byte for game level because so few people played that far anyway. (Aside from the play-differently-to-play-longer paradigm, like Asteroids and ships vs. asteroids.)

What that generally translates to is a collection of ports that quickly bores modern gamers: if you don't appreciate the game for nostalgic purposes, they're pretty much good only for achievements. (There are also "classics" that aren't much good for nostalgia either.)

[Gavintaft433]

Yeah i bought it yesterday and only played it for about 1hr in all and have all the achievements

[Caddius]

I think it would be insane to go all the way to level 255 when you have Halo 3 there you could be playing, but hey, that's me.

[XZYOE]

I gave up on level 33, but it's cool that people are so dedicated to this game.

[gamingwithgodz]

it goes on until lvl 255 and then it repeats itself starting at 1

[LUCKYMEWHEEEE]

can i ask the ppl who say that they made it to high levels, i.e level, 100,140 ect.. do u mean u played straight to get there, or continued after u died originally?

[Jade Rossi]

01001010 01100001 01100100 01100101
00100000
01100100 01101001 01100111 01110011
00100000
01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00001101

[The Taymanator]

Good to know that the theory was correct, that it "ends" at 255. However, it would have been nice if they programmed in an easter egg or reward for those who actually play that long. Even a "congratulations" message would be nice. Better yet, record the GTs of those who actually get that far...nice bragging rights.

[Beta Man]

101100 = x