To answer your question (from a year ago, sorry I hadn’t discovered this blog at the time) I think the name “Caravan Mode” originated from some competitions Hudson Soft used to hold in the late 80s early 90s for some of their shoot-em-up games like Star Soldier. I think the competition itself was called “Something something Caravan” and a lot of said games had caravan modes built in.

That’s going by memory, admittedly I googled this to double-check but I’m having trouble finding corroboration (or really anything about “Caravan Mode” that isn’t mentioning its inclusion in so-and-so arcade game).

By the way, were the Arcade Archives versions of Punch-Out or Vs Super Mario patched to improve the controls and emulation? I saw a speedrunner at Awesome Games Done Quick beat the AA version of Punch Out and thought of getting it until I saw your blog post about its issues.

I do like Donkey Kong personally, but I also understand the feeling that a lot of older games haven’t aged well. I personally have trouble enjoying the Atari 2600, even though I owned one as a kid, because a lot of the games are just too simplistic for me now.

In terms of Caravan Mode… looking at the timestamps on my Switch I believe it took me just over two weeks for me to top Serphy’s score in the Japanese version and two months for International (which I’ve since increased from 55800 to 56200). I’m not sure how often I was playing it, but like I mentioned the passage of time is more important than just playing it all day.

I got those half a year or so before I first completed the Japanese version in April and then International in May. So my skill level was significantly lower. Caravan Mode really helped me improve the barrel stage.