Pinball Scoring: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|Scoring is quite unique in pinball; the game is notorious for being generous with "points," a unit of measurement analogous to the haypenny, the microsecond, and the nanometer -- they are all units of measurement that are too utterly small to be of any use whatsoever.|[http://rinkworks.com/lights/ Lights and Noises]}}

*** ''Microsoft Pinball'' was also capped - at 999,999,950. You can never score in increments of less than 50.

** Playing ''Gottleib Pinball Classics'' ([[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|a simulation of classic tables from the Gottleib Pinball company]]) is an education in how many zeroes pinball tables have gained over the decades, from 1 point per bumper bounce and a three-digit score counter to 10,000 points per bounce and a digit counter stretching off towards a billion.

** Pokémon Pinball. Scoring in the main game is already pretty ridiculous, but the [[Game Breaker]] Mewtwo bonus stage will give you 50 million points every time you hit him, adding up to around a billion points each time you play it. With a little bit of skill and a lot of patience, scores in the tens of billions or more are possible.

** Kirby's Pinball Land is somewhat of an aversion of this trope as most ways to score points are 'only' in hundred or thousand increments. The highest individual payoffs are 50,000 from defeating a boss, 77,700 from a top level jackpot, or the maximum of 99,990 in a bonus stage. The score loops back to zero after exceeding 99,999,990 points, which was probably just left in the game as it usually takes several days of play to reach it.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* ''[[wikipedia:Go (game show)|Go]]'' has scores in multiples of 250. The winning team receives $1 a point.

* Taken [[Up to Eleven]] in a kids' Bible game show titled "Kids on the Move." The ''first'' round was a variation of [[Series/Hit Man|Hit Man]] (here's a short film, now answer some questions based on the film's dialogue) with questions worth ''35,000'' points each. The next round was a stunt round played by a different team outside the studio) which offered ''250,000'' points, and the final round (unscramble this Bible verse within 60 seconds) had a total of '''''500,000''''' points on the line. (If memory serves, it was something like 250,000 for solving the verse, 100,000 for identifying the book, chapter, and verse number, and 150,000 for solving the verse in a faster time.)

 

== Sports ==

** Although it has to be said, in a game in which you have a game score, a set score, and a match score to keep track of, it's actually a good idea to count at least one of them different from the two others, to easier keep track. Not sure if this was intentional, or just a happy side effect.

* In Quidditch, the [[Fictional Sport]] from ''[[Harry Potter]]'', scoring a goal is worth 10 points, and catching the [[Golden Snitch]] is worth 150 points. There doesn't seem to be a reason for them to not be worth one and 15, respectively.

** [http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/474239 The original Newgrounds version] was updated shortly after release; one of the changes was a more standard scoring system (items give you 1000 points instead of doubling the score).

* Averted in many Konami arcade beat-'em-ups of the early 1990s, like ''[[The Simpsons]]'' and ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' - everything worth a point was worth exactly one point. Even the [[Final Boss]].

* ''[[Total Overdose]]'' is notable for an FPS, having a point system that simply represents points scored and aren't a form of currency. Initially exploration is rewarded with these, unlocking upgrades at arbitrary increments. Later these global points become irrelevant, but mission totals remain important for scoring performance and unlocking additional upgrades.

* ''[[Capcom vs. Whatever|Tatsunoko Vs Capcom]]'' measure damages in this manner. If you've been playing or watching the Japanese version, and have some knowledge of kanji, you'll notice that damages start in the ''ten thousands'' and can rise to the ''billions''. The English translation for non-Japanese regions revealed it in all its glory - a magazine screenshot shows Ryu landing a [[Kamehame Hadoken|Hadoken]] for 19 hits and 8.655 billion damage. Yeah.

* ''DJMAX Portable'' from the second installment onwards does this with [[Combos]], thanks to the [[Limit Break|Fever]] system (which multiplies how much your combo goes up when you hit a note) and the way hold notes are handled in combos. You can easily get 5,000 combo in a single song, even if the song only has 700 actual notes.

* Inverted with ''[[Beatmania IIDX]]'''s "Expert" scoring system; getting a Just Great yields 2 points, a Great yields 1 point, and every note judgement below is worth 0.

** In ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'', ''random encounters'' frequently have HP scores in the hundreds of thousands.

** ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'' has a [[Bonus Boss]] whose HP totals over 50,000,000 HP! The damage cap is still at 9999 but you can do multiple strikes with some weapons to make multiples of 9999. [[Limit Break|Quickenings]] and some Espers can break the cap. It gets a lot worse when the boss' HP is low when it's around ten million or so and activates a passive ability that lowers your damage cap to 6999.

** 4th mix's endless mode has "only" 32 digits, but it takes even longer to counter-stop than 3rd mix. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgugWIlzYbA See this video.] By comparison, 3rd mix's Endless mode takes around 250-300 stages of straight Perfects.

** Hell, in ''any'' of the DDR games before [[Supernova]], you have this trope. A 10-foot song garnered a maximum of 100,000,000 points.

* The HP and damage of the first ''[[Valkyrie Profile]]'' can get into this range. Damage easily gets into the high tens of thousands (and hundreds of thousands if properly done), with many millions of HP for high-end bosses, for no apparent reason other than dramatic effect.

* Almost all ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' games use this too. Even at the beginnings of them, your units will have 4-digit to low 5-digit max HP and be dealing 4-digit damage.

* The money credits in the Japanese version of ''[[Gran Turismo]]'' has two more digits making the last two zeros meaningless. Example: 10,000Cr = 1,000,000Cr

* The freeware platform shooter ''[[Iji]]'' averts this impressively: it doesn't really have a concept of score, but certain rare bonuses give you "+1 point", for a maximum total of 10. {{spoiler|Unless you find the bonus that gives you 99 points.}}

* The ''[[Touhou Project]]'' games have a different scoring system for every individual game. In the first six games, potential scores [[Sequel Escalation|inflated over time,]] from 10-20 million in ''Story of Eastern Wonderland'' to over 100 million in ''Lotus Land Story'' and ''Mystic Square'', to over 600 million in ''Embodiment of Scarlet Devil''. From the seventh game, ''Perfect Cherry Blossom'', all subsequent main games (except the ninth) placed the focus of scoring to ''raising the value'' of Point Items, rather than just collecting them; potential scores are in the billions, depending on the game (''Imperishable Night'' is the highest with a record of over 6.3 billion; ''Mountain of Faith'' is only 2.2 billion).

** Having said that, though, mundane activities such as going through scenery or killing enemies brings reasonable amounts. What gets the score way up are the end of act bonuses and the wisps.

* Averted very hard in the Desert Bus minigame in ''[[Penn & Teller]]'s Smoke and Mirrors''. It takes ''eight hours'' to get '''one point'''.

* Doujin shooter ''[[Altenative Sphere]]'' is ridiculous in this respect. A normal playthrough of the lowest difficulty level will get you a ''twenty-digit'' score.

* When ''[[Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?]]'' really took off in Germany, suddenly all kinds of video games around this quiz appeared. Some actually used as advertising that you not only could earn [[DM 1]],000,000 but ten or thousand times as much. Virtual money in the same game setting. Great selling point guys.