What's the fastest way to get from A to B?

Is it by aeroplane? Perhaps by train? No, it's by using other people's cars, and lots of them! This ingenious idea will save you the cost of purchasing a ticket, or petrol. There are no waiting times for the plane or train to depart, and no need to wait at the petrol pump to refill your car. Everyone should do this, it'd make everything so much quicker!

The genius who came up with this idea is Vasco_F, who has put together a training programme called Freeway Fury. The government wish to trial this novel idea, and will get the best performer in the training simulator to try the notion out in real life. They will award points for the number of cars you successfully use, the speed at which you reach your destination, your athleticism in jumping far distances and your reaction times in swapping into cars going the other way. In a bid to boost recycling and the economy, they are also rewarding the number of cars you destroy and how many need some bodywork done after you're through with them. They also wish to convert everyone to the obviously vastly superior practice of driving on the left hand side of the road, so will reward those who do the business on that side of the road with a gift of everlasting nitro.

You have a week to get as high a score as possible, leave a comment here so I know to check for your score, or tell me in chat (I might tell you to leave a comment here anyway :P). Post a screenie in the comments of your end score to brag about how you are the paragon of driving in each of the desired areas. Good luck!

Edit: you may need to submit your score by pressing 'UP' to get your score to register. You might not, but it's best to be sure :P

NB: the above recommendations to commit crimes are in jest only. Whilst it could well be fun in real life too, stick to playing with your keyboard to avoid jailtime.

Though None Survived, They Will be Remembered!

With only three people with enough balls to face the zombies, determining the best zombie killer was easy, if a bit lonely :( Possibly my fault for not spamming this enough...

In third place, with 720 was PR2_STORY
In second place, Snape007 had 2270 points
But clearly the best zombie-killer with only footballs to use was Payton_Hayes with a freakishly massive 164790! A big, red Kongratulations to him, and remember his name for the next World Cup in case it is zombie infested too!

Hey, This Game Looks Familiar...

If you pay attention to the blog, and have a good memory, you'll recognise some aspects of this game which will give you an advantage, although the instinct to kill zombies should be inherent in everyone so nobody ought to have too much trouble :P

Mousebreaker brings us to a zombie infested World Cup, where it is up to you to kick footballs really hard after bouncing it on your noggin, and at zombies to send them crumbling into the earth. You have 7 days to get as high a score as possible (extended to midnight on Sunday 26th September), and submit it by posting a screenshot like this (name and green plug in top right of chat, score visible in game over screen, or whatever happens if you beat the last boss :P) in the comments. The guide on how to do that is here.

A few tips: head the ball a few times to make your hoofing power increase, your bonuses (throw speed, base hoofing power and fancy balls) stay with you so each time you try will be easier, and your score accumulates from previous levels so on your best run, start from level 1 :P

Good luck, and happy zombie rekilling!

PS: the legit version of the inital game is here (this is NOT the tourney game! Play the above one for a score).

Running, Jumping, Money Collecting, Switching and Levering... and oh, Teamwork's pretty important to get right too

After the failure of the World Cup thingy, let's give this a go :P

The game is 5xMan by Gibton, and I'm looking for the highest score you can get. The game calculates your score by multiplying the number of glowing pieces of toast you collect by the amount of time you have left and the level difficulty (1 for easy, 2 for medium - which I found the most difficult to collect everything on, incidentally - and 3 for hard), then sticking some zeroes on the end. I'll calculate your score the same way, since I've heard of some problems with getting some of the in-game achievements to register (which give you half a million points in total).

You have a week to post screenshots (instructions how are here) of your 'Play' screen like in my screenshot (have your name visible at the top right of chat). Stick them in the comments below this post, and you are allowed to update your screenshot :P

A couple of hints: try to get your people to arrive at the multiswitch rooms at about the same time so they don't waste time waiting for each other, and press space bar to end your turn as soon as you put a man on his multiswitch - the time left on the clock will go towards your total.

Good luck!

Edit: Important announcement! It seems that the easy mode glitches (2 cases reported so far), giving people an impossibly high score. Hence we won't be using people's easy score, only their medium (doubled) and hard (tripled) scores.

And The Best Babysitter In The Hall Is...

Over the week many of you tried your hand at babysitting, but only one can have the coveted prize of best babysitter, decided by the Joll parents of course.

They watched your progress throughout the week, and gave you scores which they have kept secret until just now when they told me. Well, they tried to keep it secret, it seems that the scores of your competitors were continually leaked but we won't tell them that.

In reverse order, the best ball babysitters were:

5) Katare             14279
4) Soro99            14381
3) Kresick            14502
2) george076393 14839

And a big, red Kongratulations to Kong's best babysitter of baby balls, Zelja! He got the all time high score of 14860 and claims to have optimised every level!

Save The Children!

This week you've been asked to do some babysitting. Your charges are very adventurous, however, and have a tendency to roll off without warning - much like their parents actually.

Of course, babysitting some balls would be far too easy for the likes of you - a simple box would do the trick. No, first of all you must round up all the children by throwing their parents and grey strangers at them, who you can stuff or starve (don't worry, they're smiling so they don't mind). The jolls have been raised well so will only go off with their parents, who happen to be the same colour as them. Only once all rounded up can you babysit them, and the longer they spend indoors the happier the parents will be (you wouldn't want them to worry about their children perhaps being stuck at the bottom of a potential well, would you?).

Now for the rules: complete all the levels as quickly as possible, and the person with the highest total score at the end of the week will receive a huge red Kongratulations!

So, have fun rounding up the jolls from the land of King.com and good luck to you all!

PS: leave a comment if you figure out what the 9 diplomas mentioned in the game description are :P

Escaped the Zombies!

Only to be poleaxed by a yeti, massive bee or gravestone (or maybe a zombie did get you after all).

Kongratulations and thank you to everyone who had a go at this game, it was a much larger turnout than for zombie football. The top ten were:

RustyMetalBox    2591
LethalMutiny        3049
vaen                     3149
EatinCheez           3187
PR2_STORY       3328
Xymnala              3604
WiiPlayer113      4335
ribnag                 4983
elldaman311       5003

And Katare was the winner with a score of 5758 feet - the only competitor here to have run more than a mile, and getting the all time high score in the process! A huge red Kongratulations to you, Katare!

I'll post the final scores I saved earlier in the week in the comments below, so if I have missed you out then you can bring my attention to it. If I have missed you out for whatever reason, chat more in the HoO and/or leave a comment for the next time ;) In any case, I made sure I picked the right person to name as winner :P

Running Away (From the Zombies?)

After reviving some zombies alongside the blog about a month ago, only to have them stolen away, you must now do a bit of running. 'Running from what?' I hear you ask. Good question, all I know is that the screen keeps pushing you along and you have to hop, slip and jump past several types of obstacles on your way to dying being incapacitated by one of them later on.

The game is Kawairun by xelu, and is pretty easy to jump straight into. Take a screenie as per ES' instructions (showing your end score like in this one) and post it in the comments, or just get a score, make sure it's in the kong high scores and leave a comment here to tell me you've had a go. You have a week to run as far and as wide as you can, good luck!

Undead Olympics

In the spirit of the Olympics (I'm cold and am not thinking straight - there might also be some typos in this due to stiff fingers), I have decided only to mention the top 3 scores.

With the brilliant bronze medal, we have elldaman311 who had a score of 480

The super silver medal goes to ace0of0spades with a score of 730

And the winner this week, with a glimmering score of 106140, it's RustyMetalBox! Super Kongratulations to you! Enjoy this gaudy gold medal:

Oh dear

It appears the zombie football game has been removed for being stolen, so you won't be able to play for a better score. If you have any screenies of your scores, you can still upload them until midnight on Sunday.

I'll, erm, try to pick a game that has been out for longer next time :P

Necromancy!

Bad news! It seems that in resurrecting this blog we have overcooked our spells and also revived some rather unwelcome characters. We need your help in defeating them and have provided you with the ultimate weapon to do so, FOOTBALLS! That means round things you hit with your foot, not eggy things you hold in your hands...

The choice of weapon is because the zombies heard about the world cup draw (USA are in England's group, how excellent ;) ) and decided to join in the fun by eating all other weapons to force us to play football against them. You might think opponents with rigor mortis would be easy pickings, but unfortunately, the zombies don't play fair - sending on substitutes without warning, hiding underground, flying, wearing armour and employing all manners of dastardly tactics. On the plus side, the ref is worse than Graham Poll and will happily caution and card you without following through, so feel free to knock the zombies' noggins off (hint hint).

Enough background information, the zombies are located here thanks to a tip off from LOLaffro. Go get them and leave proof of your prowess in the comments section via a screenshot - details on how to take one have been kindly written by ES here. You have a full 7 days to submit a score, and I'll work out exactly what time that is when I'm less sleepy.

You needn't kill all the zombies to be able to submit a score here, but it is highly recommended or they'll come for your pets during the night :( A suitable screenshot would be this, showing you in the user list, top right of the chat window and also showing the green (or yellow) plug there. I might change these conditions later or paste rules from a forum tournament, but essentially just get a score yourself and show that it was you and not someone else :P

Good luck to you all, there are only about 12 levels so don't get disheartened! :)

A Belated Announcement

Not quite 6 months after it was due, here are the results of the Zodiac Reactor Tournament:

The top ten, in reverse order, are (were :P) :

sykoone 4325
VNeuberg 5462
greatether 6460
HawaiianPenguinz 8865
Katare 12414
PR2_STORY 15150
LethalMutiny 55795
Asperon 59400
archilepsy 88700

And the winner was elldaman311 with 200516!

A big kongratulations to elldaman311 for winning, and thank you to everyone for taking part and being patient for these results to be posted up :P

Making Stars

Today, we embark on a journey of weeklong length, starting slowly but increasing our pace all the time to create stars. We must shove blobs of Earth, Air, Wind and Fire into funface's Zodiac Reactor, whilst avoiding the villainous Chaos Orbs and nefarious Exploding Orbital Minions.

Grab the elements when they come within reach, and protect your reactor with the shield. It might be a good idea to start on normal mode, but the high scores will be taken from the terminal velocity mode. Leave a link to your screenshot with your name and score in the comments below. Screenshots like this are acceptable, showing your score and your name in the top right of chat next to the plug.

To take a screenshot, follow the directions here by ES, then paste the link between the exclamation marks in step 10 into the comment box (click where it says [number] comments below this post). Don't forget to say who you are and what your score was in the comment too.

Entries will be accepted until midnight on Sunday the 21st of June (that's Father's Day!). Good luck to you all!

After a tough week of joining up coloured pipes, only a handful of people have managed to emerge with a score, so thank you and kongratulations to you all for taking part. Despite there being two categories, unlike last time we have the same person emerging victorious in each high score list. Impressive!

In reverse order, the top 11 were:

Smuglapse with 416
Pezsmatulok with 259
Purplefrog with 232
Zelja with 199
Kma029 with 150
Amoz with 149
Kyriva with 136
Xymnala with 131
Zachkenobi with 117
CheezezbergrPls with 114

And the winner by almost half a minute is... Deafr0x with 87! Very big kongratulations to you for winning this week's "The choice is yours" Hall of Odin Tournament!

Full scores here! 

Spin, Mix and Light Up!

No, this isn't a an appeal for resident DJs, but it is a call to the mouse for this week's Hall tournament!

A big red thank you to Xymnala for suggesting the game. We'd also like to thank everyone who took part and voted in this very close vote, especially to whoever gave the 11th vote to Colourshift which saved us the headache of working out what to do with a tie :P

With the game decided you now have one week, until Sunday midnight, to get as low a score as possible on two modes of Colourshift. Your scores will be added (a little easier than multiplication ;) ) together and whoever has the lowest score will be crowned the victor. Despite being unreliably informed that hard colour had no wrap (you know who you are :P), the two modes will be medium colour, and hard mono. These are found on 'Quick Play' on the main menu.

Good luck everyone!

Break out the Ballot Papers!

With much thanks to Mcdestructor, Xymnala, someone anonymous (please sign your name!), elldaman311 and XEN0N, we have five games to choose from - that's almost too many to count on one hand in quinary and upwards!

The poll's at the top of the page with 5 options if I've done it right. It should be open for a week, and you should be able to change your mind up until it closes. Do please try all five games before voting though, even if you've played a game before, it may have been updated recently. You can vote for your own suggestion, I wouldn't want to penalise people who were brave enough to make a suggestion :P

It would also be nice to see what stats you all would like to compete with in these games (if there is more than one reported one), so make loads of comments for this blog post to that effect :D

The games are, in order submitted: Flash Flash Revolution, Colourshift, The Space Game, Pop Pirates and Falling Bombs 2. Get testing and suggesting!

The Choice Is Yours...

Over the past few months the Hall has been competing in various games chosen by the regular mods. Now, it's time to see what sparkly gems everyone else has hidden up their sleeves :D

So, we'd like you all to find a game you think would be really, really fun for everyone to play, and send it in! Submissions by email, blog comment, fax and carrier pigeon will be accepted. Of course, it may be difficult to reach us by some of those methods, so choose one that you think will surely get your entry to us.

Your game suggestion should:

1. Have working API so we can tell who the winner is easily. :P
   
2. Be easy to learn to play - ideally you should be able to get a decent score with under half an hour's practice.
3. Following on from 2, try to avoid games with a save file based high score - if there is a save file, again make sure it doesn't take long to get a decent score.
4. Not have badges. We've all already had a go at playing the badged games (or will do, at some time in the future :P), so let's try some other games too - suitable unbadged games exist just as unsuitable badged games exist.
5. Not be multiplayer, as then the ability of your opponent becomes a factor as well as your proficiency at a game.
   

Entries will be compiled for a week (until Sunday) and then a poll will be put up on the blog (this one, right here). If we have too many entries then we'll vote on some this time and then the rest a few weeks later, so please only submit one game. If there are too few, then entries made whilst the poll is up will be added to the poll, and we'll ask those who have already contributed to submit another one too :D

The poll will be open for a week, with the winner awarded the honour of being the next Hall of Odin Tournament game, and the person who suggested it awarded a big thank you (it'll be in big red letters, you know the sort) from us for finding the game.

I think that's everything, now get those entries coming in! :D

Game Over

After a long week and a half of eking out an extra ten points here and there in AirBattle and venturing far into the perplexing realms of Whaa, we have found a winner of the first double gamed Hall tournament! Interestingly, the winner did not achieve the highest score in both games. Anyway, without further ado, let's see who won! (After a top ten countdown of course :P)

ryanh9513 6475060
Soro99 14215500
Darcouth 15022800
Payton_Hayes 20163360
Xymnala 33375960
Kyriva 40550400
PR2_STORY 48216640
zachkenobi 59354880
Zelja 154196460

And the winner is, with 155285100 points, elldaman311! Double kongratulations to him for his victory!

Week 1 scores.
Week 2 scores.

If I have missed out anybody, or calculated your score wrongly, please leave a comment by clicking where it says '[a number] comments' below.

Huh? Eh? :/

Things are very tight at the top at the moment, so it's all still to play for in this second game. The closing time for the whole tournament will be midnight on Thursday the 16th of April, and you can still add to your score in AirBattle until then. Did you find the two secret hyperlinks in the previous post?

Now, onto what you have all been waiting for! The second game is ... Whaa by Ridiculous! If you're in trouble there are instructions, somewhere :P A few tips that might come in handy are to shoot and avoid stuff, and to use the mouse ;)

We've had a (relatively) massive number of comments on the previous post (thank you PR2_STORY, elldaman311 and the mystery anonymous person whose comment I don't fully understand), let's keep it up!

As before, good luck and have fun!

To The Skies! (And Hopefully Staying There)

It has been a while since the last tournament, so here's one with a bit of a twist. This time it will last for a week and a half (or maybe more, make comments below!), and have two games, the second of which will be announced later this week. We have yet to decide which game should be the second one, but have some ideas - suggest what type of game (sidescroller, puzzle etc.) you'd like in the comments too (after a month of posts with no comments, I'll be really peeved if there aren't any for this one >:( ).

To get everyone warmed up, first up is AirBattle by EvgenyKarataev! Fly around, collect coins, avoid spiky stuff and shoot other stuff - oh, and get as high a score as is (super)humanly possible ;)

Highscores for this game will be counted from now until the tournament ends (announced along with the second game), so there is more than a week to work on perfecting each level. If you feel you are in the need for a break, why not have a look at other games by the same developer?

Final scores will be combined from the scores in the two games by multiplying them together, so look forward to some massive numbers. In the mean time - good luck and have fun!