Highscores

[Mara]

Let's talk about highscores. You know, those point systems that were really popular back in the day. It is safe to assume that everyone that reads this thread has attempted to gain as high score as possible in some video game. It doesn't necessarily mean some visit at the local arcade or playing some classics on NES. A lot of recent games still have a scoring system either because the game itself is has heavy arcade elements or it has some game design solutions to integrate scoring with something else. The point is that people like to chase high numbers even up to this day. Some people are competitive and try to be the very best on the leaderboards while others might find satisfaction from self-improving, even if it's still a long road ahead compared to the top scores.

But that got me thinking. What would be the best way to keep track of your scores? Are people still using a pen and some paper (possibly even an empty book?) and for those with these weird things called computers, what services are out there? Of course you want to archive your achivements, be it good or bad. It is a good motivator to keep getting better scores if you see your older scores written down. It's kind of like having a retro collection or having a list of watched anime - you look at it at some point and you always start to remember some random bits. "Oh right, I sure forgot that I watched that horrible show!" After all, our memories are not perfect.

If you are writing down your scores, where do you keep them? Paper, spreadsheets or some website?

[pierrot]

At times I've dropped a final score into my Backloggery entries, usually after finishing a game. It's not ideal for actually tracking high scores, but on certain consoles, I have save data that holds the high scores, so I'm not usually too concerned about recording them somewhere else.

Back in the day--it actually wasn't all that long ago, but sometimes it feels like it was--when there was a lot more activity in the Shmups subforum, I posted a number of screenshots of high scores, like everyone else. It might not be a terrible idea if I went through those screenshots, and recorded the scores in Backloggery.

[Klogen]

For games i rely on Steam achievements
For anime i rely on Myanimelist
For physical achievements i use the good old pen and paper, for example: running a very fast sprint, i have my usual routine track printed from google maps and i like to keep it as a sticker and update if i break the record.
For board games - good old pen and paper too.

When i played runescape, i relied on their awesome highscores (hiscores) page.
I think there are decent android apps for multipurpose tracking of achievements, even adds the game element for your tasks, gaining exp etc

[dunpeal2064]

I either save replays (This is easiest on PC, but some console games like the Cave 360 stuff let you save them), or just take a pic of the screen.

Granted, I only tend to do this when I plan to post the score on some sort of leaderboard, usually on shmups forum (though there are a few ancient score threads on here, too).

[Nemoide]

I'm absolutely not any kind of high-score master for anything, so I don't put too much effort into it.
Like pierrot, I will sometimes put high scores in Backloggery. Usually for arcade-style games that don't save score info. I feel like a physical notebook would be a fun idea, but it would be tough to keep organized.

For Bemani games (Konami's rhythm game series), Zenius-I-Vanisher has a score tracker. I don't really USE this because my scores are LAUGHABLY BAD compared to most serious folks folks. A cell phone photo of the results screen is acceptable proof for just about anyone in the rhythm game community.

[dunpeal2064]

One of the benefits of playing Groove Coaster on mobile as my main rhythm game. Has online leaderboards anyways, but also super easy to just screen cap the results page.

I don't think I've ever saved a bemani score, I am awful at their games