Show us how to get a high score on TotAN!! Post your video!

Okay, I'm totally baffled on how people are getting scores over 100M on this (or any big high score) on this table. I nudge aggressively and follow the tips posted in this forum but still come up way short. Avg game is usually in 20-30M range on either iPad or 360. I've never rescued the princess. So I'm asking...SHOW ME YOUR SKILLS!!! Post a video on Youtube or Vimeo and share the link here! You could be a celebrity on these forums! Don't just put your HS in your sig, film it and show us your kung fu!

EDIT: You don't have to get fancy with capturing video. Just stick your iPhone in front of your TV and hit record. Im not picky as long as I can see the ball and the flippers.

I'd love to see some real experts too.
I'm a 20M max TOTAN player
Come On! Be the Bowen Kerins of TPA Fans Forum LOL

No clue how to capture stuff off of my PS3, sorry

Not exactly sure how to go about video capture on my 360, otherwise I'd do it.

Essentially it boils down to lots of lamp spins to bring up the base end-of-ball bonus, lots of captive ball hits to bring up the multiplier, and lots of extra balls so that you can collect that large bonus as many times as possible. Stacking 3X Lightning Lamp on top of Multiball is good for a lot of points; rescuing the Princess is 24M (20M for her + 500K for each of the 8 skeletons) and lights Special (extra ball) in the outlanes for another round of bonus.

There's a bit of endurance involved as well: my 240M game took over an hour. But unlike a real table, you can pause TPA and take a break whenever you want! Take advantage of that to clear your head when the table starts going fuzzy on you because you've been staring at it unblinkingly for so long.

Here is a video of me achieving my best score so far on Arabian Nights. I played quite recklessly but it worked out in the end -- 239,608,490

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoqeCm0n6gY

bavelb said:

No clue how to capture stuff off of my PS3, sorry

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Just stick a camera in front of your TV. I'm not picky!

TheTenthEnemy said:

Here is a video of me achieving my best score so far on Arabian Nights. I played quite recklessly but it worked out in the end -- 239,608,490

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoqeCm0n6gY

Click to expand...

How did you record this? Thanks

Thanks so much for that. I'm really not playing much differently than you but I see you are aggressive in collecting jewels using wishes. I also notice you don't trap balls too much on multi ball. I would love to rack up a score like that on my first ball!

My prob is that I just get bad luck with the out lanes and STDM. There were times I thought you TOTALLY SHOULD HAVE DRAINED, but you got lucky(?). I'm going to work on that little flipper pass you do so well. That I haven't tried too much. I should try more bounce passes too. I'll watch your video again.

Nice skills. Someday I hope to get a score like that.

bavelb said:

No clue how to capture stuff off of my PS3, sorry

Click to expand...

Serenseven said:

Not exactly sure how to go about video capture on my 360, otherwise I'd do it.

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Besides just setting up a standard camera or cellphone to tape the TV screen as you play, you can buy a Roxio Game Capture device or a Hauppauge PVR. Both record video straight out of your console onto a PC. They are very easy to setup and use.

Tabe

TheTenthEnemy said:

Here is a video of me achieving my best score so far on Arabian Nights. I played quite recklessly but it worked out in the end -- 239,608,490

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoqeCm0n6gY

Click to expand...

Okay I got 47M using your approach. I'll keep at it...

For anyone wondering about recording, for this video I used Quicktime to record my entire screen on the Mac. For recording gameplay from consoles the Hauppauge HD PVR is absolutely the best way that I know of.

IdontHave50cents said:

Thanks so much for that. I'm really not playing much differently than you but I see you are aggressive in collecting jewels using wishes. I also notice you don't trap balls too much on multi ball. I would love to rack up a score like that on my first ball!

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Although I often collect jewels with wishes, I was a bit too aggressive with that toward the end of this game as I saw the possibility of getting to the princess rescue three or four times, which I've never done before. I'm poor at multi-ball in general, as evidenced by this video. I've tried all of the multi-ball strategies I know of, and none seem to work for me, it's something I need a lot more practice with.

IdontHave50cents said:

My prob is that I just get bad luck with the out lanes and STDM. There were times I thought you TOTALLY SHOULD HAVE DRAINED, but you got lucky(?). I'm going to work on that little flipper pass you do so well.That I haven't tried too much. I should try more bounce passes too. I'll watch your video again.

Click to expand...

The out lanes on TOTAN are brutal, it's all a matter of nudging to keep the ball out of that area/remove it from that area, or to make it choose the in lane instead of the outlane. This requires anticipation of where the ball is going to be before it gets there. I'm sure there are people who can explain this much better than I can. Center drains are another matter entirely, in The Pinball Arcade the nudging is effective enough at changing the course of the ball that center drains are almost always avoidable with slap saves and/or nudging. Whenever I drain down the middle in TOTAN I either made a mistake, or the tiger loop sent the ball back at lightspeed. Another thing is to only shoot for safe shots, but my video doesn't really represent this. There was indeed a serious luck aspect to this game, the ball just refused to drain early on when I was playing very recklessly.

If there are any specific points in the video that you want clarification on just give me the time in the video and I can probably explain what happened.

One thing the top Papa players say is to try to keep the ball under control at all times. Do this by keeping it off the slings and try to trap it whenever possible.

Not that I'm an expert at this table or have the highest score here and I don't have a way to record, but I did just hit 236mil after being inspired by this thread. I think the best way to approach the table is to mostly beat the crap out of the lamp and keep the ball alive doing it with good use of nudging.

Nudge aggressively and nudge smart. Don't go bananas, but use a good push when you see the ball heading towards the middle or the outlanes. You MUST nudge quite a bit and get the hang of when to do it I think to score on this table since lamp shots are not exactly the safest shots to make. Whenever I make a wish (and I try to make as many as I can) I take the jewel unless it's 3x Lamp Scoring or Collect Bonus. I think having jewels under your belt further adds a good amount to the bonus. The bonuses and lamp spins are the money makers. So, when you get multiball, that's your chance to really give the lamp a kick in the butt. Killing the Genie also gives you a good amount of points amidst the chaos.

Get the multipliers, get the bonuses, get multiball, get the spins, kill the Genie, practice nudging. That's about all there is to breaking 100mil, if you ask me. I don't think it's terribly complicated, but it is intense and you have to be alert or you will lose the ball.

Just checked my score on this - 114,806,980

Like others have mentioned: multiballs, collecting all of the jewels for the sword and rescuing the princess

I usually start a 4 player game and find that on some, the ball drains very quickly due to an awkward bounce (and not nudging in time) whereas others you can get really far in.

Stick with it and you'll get there!

I plan to start uploading some videos when TPA comes out on Windows. I prefer to use FRAPS for recording my gaming sessions.