Back in December I wrote about a game called Monkey Kick Off, which you can read about here. While others had posted clips of themselves kicking the ball into the 6000 to 7000 range, I was only able to kick the ball 5806 meters. Of course, I was able to produce videos of myself kicking the ball into the 6000+ range (and even 9 872 171 meters) after cracking the video playback encryption. You can produce a code to “prove” a kick of any distance you want, but I actually proved my 5806 meter kick with a screenshot.
So, I haven’t played the game for months, and yesterday I suddenly had the urge to play again. I hoped that the long break would give me a new perspective on the game. It took a while to remember the timing to get a 5000+ meter kick, but I was eventually able to get two kicks over 5500 meters. My record didn’t seem likely to fall, so I gave up for the night. Tonight I took another shot at it, and I got a really good kick within a few minutes. The first bounce landed well past 1000, the second bounce landed well past 2000, and the third bounce just barely broke 3000. That’s generally the criteria for a great kick, but the ball can already be running out height by that point and can run out of momentum in the Monkey Village. Then the ball was still bouncing off the screen in the 4000 zone, and I realized that I had just kicked a new record. I wasn’t surprised when I saw the counter turn from red to green, indicating a new record, but I was shocked when I saw the ground turn purple.
I knew that the 6000 zone had purple ground and the space ship from Monkey Lander from the fake playback videos that I and others have been able to create, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen it in full 640×480 resolution in-game. I still didn’t break 6000, but I got enough of the 6000 zone onto the screen to see the whole space ship. I can now say that a kick of 6000 meters is probably possible. Here’s the URL to see me kick the ball 5963 meters.
Just for fun, let’s analyze why this kick went so much farther than my previous kick. The code for my kick of 5806 meters was qporqUottouuUorFBoUBopptotFBuo4KA9hmoEsut, which we can translate to 21,329,55,669,380,90,115,5806,DOSGuy,7465. The code for my kick of 5963 meters was qqorpEotEouEUorFBoUBopqqotUuro4KA9hmoEurB, which translates as 22,317,57,679,380,90,122,5963,DOSGuy,7630. The stats for the kicks are as follows:
| Old | New | |
|---|---|---|
| Kick height | 21 | 22 |
| Gravity | 329 | 317 |
| Kick angle | 55 | 57 |
| Power | 669 | 679 |
| Unknown | 380 | 380 |
| Throw angle | 90 | 90 |
| Throw height | 115 | 122 |
| Score | 5806 | 5963 |
| Name | DOSGuy | DOSGuy |
| Checksum | 7465 | 7630 |
The kick height of 22 means that the ball was slightly higher in the air when I kicked it, which explains why the angle was slightly higher at 57° instead of 55. Kicks are always farther when the second number is lower, but I was never able to figure out if it represents gravity, atmospheric density, or wind resistance. At any rate, the conditions were more favourable on this kick than the last one, which is a good start. The real story is having the power increase from 669 to 679, which is probably because the ball was falling from a throw height of 122 instead of 115. I knew as soon as I saw it that this was a very high throw. So it seems to just come down to the fact that the ball was thrown especially high, and the timing of my kick produced a good angle.
Now let’s abuse the replay code to find out how I could have kicked this ball better. If I had waited a split second longer and kicked the ball at a height of 21 instead of 22, producing an angle of 55° instead of 57, would the ball have gone farther or shorter? Let’s mess with the code and replay the result. The ball only went 5841 meters! Of course, the power (in theory) would have been slightly higher if I had let the ball fall for that extra split second, but it seems like 57° is just a better angle to kick from. When my record was record was 5633, the kick height was also 22, the power was 671 (higher than the 669 on my kick of 5806), but the angle was only 50°. I can only guess at the numbers if I were to have kicked the ball at 23 instead of 22, but let’s assume that my kick angle would have been 59°, and power would have decreased to 675. The replay video shows that the kick would have gone 5904 meters. If the power had remained unchanged at 679, the replay shows that it still only would have gone 5974 meters, for a gain of 11 meters. Basically, I got all of that one. The angle was perfect, and the throw height and second variable were both favourable. It doesn’t look like a kick of 6000 was possible on this throw, and I don’t know if the ball goes any higher than 122. Is 6000 possible? It’s a definite maybe, nothing more. It definitely looks like I came pretty close to having a perfect kick.
Tags: Monkey Kick Off, Totebo