Crystal Castles: 1st completed game

I couldn't complete a game during the competition, so it stands to reason that the first time I play my machine at home, I finish a game of Crystal - the FIRST game I have ever completed in fact!

I had been struggling with 10-1 as I rarely got there, trying to work earlier patterns, which usually left me without enough lives to see the last stage. But, at the competition, I refocused and worked on completing boards quickly, but safely and carried that over on my home games, and viola!

I reached 10-1 with three lives and was so excited that as the dancing Berthilda's did their thing leading me to the next stage, I called my roommate George in and told him I was about to finish a game of CC. I swept the lower left corner perfectly and made a flawless transition to the upper part of 10-1, avoiding the skeleton and getting all the gems rather quickly, I zipped to the bottom and died on the steel ball. Once I respawned, I cleared the bottom portion and went to the right square and swept down the streak of gems, expecing the game to end...and nothing! I had left ONE gem in the bottom square, just to the right of the cauldron. I got killed again while I sat in disbelief, trying to look for the gem I missed and then died really stupidly when I respawned, trying to dodge the ball. I snagged the gem quickly after that and ended the game with a 110K+ time bonus (laughable) and 10K for my one life, so not a tremendous score, but it is still a finished game.

After talking with Mark Alpiger, the former wr holder this evening, I told him my goal was to get an 850K+ score. Mark, having seen some of my patterns and knowing what I was likely to do, told me it was totally possible if I worked on getting some of the gemeaters on the 8 and 9 boards and sped up a bit to max out the time bonus at around 130K. Each life at the end of the game gets you a 10K bonus as well, so I could have hit 800K if I had moved a bit quicker and not wasted three lives on 10-1.

I'll be working on this game for a while and it really never seems to get old. I think it may be my favorite classic game.