Posted: 12/28/2011 4:17:35 PM
By: Chris Mansfield
First, the bad news. As 2011 comes to a close Richie Knucklez' Arcade Games in Flemington, New Jersey will be closing along with it as Richie seeks to spend more time with his family and to recharge his batteries for whatever comes next.
Now the good news. Richie is going out with a bang not only by hosting a final Saturday get together on New Year's Eve but also by hosting Mad George Leutz's fourth and final (let's hope) attempt to take down the 28-year-old marathon Q*bert record. And you'd have to be mad to try to do so; it is expected to take nearly 70 hours of play on a single credit to top the 33,273,520 score set by Rob Gerhardt on November 28, 1983.
George is reportedly sleeping at Richie's arcade as we write this, and it is expected he will awake and begin his three days of self-induced optical torture at midnight tonight, Eastern Time (GMT - 5:00). The plan is to surpass the record as the ball drops in Times Square on Saturday night to ring in 2012. The entire attempt will be streamed at http://www.twitch.tv/richieknucklez, so be sure to stop by and cheer George on to victory.
UPDATE #1: And he's off and running hopping! Official start time appears to be 12:18am ET on Thursday.
UPDATE #2: He topped 20 million at the 39-1/3 hour mark. He's on pace for 65.4 hours, which would put record achievement at 5:30pm ET tomorrow, but his pace will slow due to fatigue and breaks. George estimates 8:00pm ET on Saturday.
UPDATE #3: 26.2 million at the 56 hour mark. His scoring pace has slowed. The typical scoring pace for Q*bert is 500,000 per hour, so he "should" be at 28 million by now, but slower scoring is to be expected this late in the game. He's now on pace for just over 71 hours, which would put him at the record at the stroke of midnight ET.
UPDATE #4: At 9:48am ET at the 57.5 hour mark his extra lives dipped below 9 for the first time. Ten minutes later it was all over. Total elapsed time was 57 hrs 40 mins, and the final score was 26,721,915. Thanks, George, for a monumental effort!