BD84

[Alan]

http://ambience.artsoft.org/BD84.ZIP

This levelset is a near perfect clone of the original Commodore 64 Boulderdash.

Graphicly the same in terms of movement....everything except the scroller is jerky (by intention of course).

All the original timings, for well......everything! All sounds, intros, exact scores (time and bonus diamonds), and a lots and lots of small but accurate tweaks.

Cave colours.....There are 16 versions of every element, all a different colour. Gives each cave that good old "BD feeling"

Custom element versions of everything, including the original amoeba, enchanted wall and slime. Oh, and "Extra Rockford" a nice and interesting puzzle element.

Lots of TLC has been put into the editor. Making levels and changing colours is so easy and very,very quick. (there's an editor_help.txt included)

Includes Boulderdash 1,2 and 3. BD2 is the best one out of the lot IMO. I only made a couple of caves myself (I had to get it to 64 levels, just for the hell of it)

The odd thing though.......in terms of level sets, this would mean I have come full circle! (see the last level ) But BD84 is a much more complicated game than BD2K3, or even Snakebite!


Have fun!

[RTADash]

Wow, I find this to be thoroughly amazing!!!

(That's typical from Alan, though )

[Alan]

Thanks RTAdash!

Well, 50 people have downloaded this and I've got one comment! I guess I've reached that stage then....oh well! (curse you circle of life!)

Still, with all the BD heads floating around this forum I thought.......well, some discussion about the finer points of the amoeba would pop-up (turning to diamonds if in the same cave as an active magicwall, and also the missing turbo-delay). Maybe I should of uploaded this to the BD forum instead?

*shrugs*

[HerzAusGold]

Good work as usual.
As far as I have time, I want to map the BD element from BDCFF Converter to your elements! So you can play each BD level.

Is this possible? Can you give me the ele num's where I have to set?
e.g. for Diamond, Butterfly, aso. (15 ele's)

[Alan]

Here's a version of BD84 that RTAdash has kindly converted to actual C64-BD colours! (which is no mean feat I can tell you!).

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EKQY3O2U

Gives it an even more authentic feel!


Crosspost!

Good work as usual.
As far as I have time, I want to map the BD element from BDCFF Converter to your elements! So you can play each BD level.

Is this possible? Can you give me the ele num's where I have to set?
e.g. for Diamond, Butterfly, aso. (15 ele's)

Thanks!

Luckily I made the actual editor elements CE1 onwards, and the unseen engine parts much lower down. So that will be 360 to 380(ish). I'll get a proper list for you soon (I also wrote a script that converted VBS-BD files back to RnDs levels )

[Alan]

There's only one CE that ruins the order (I forgot about it), so it isn't a straight 360 onwards......

360: Empty space (you can't use RnDs space)
361: Dirt
362: Boulder
............. <---doh!
364: Diamond
365: Slime
366: Enchanted wall
367: Amoeba
368: Wall
369: Titanium wall
370: Firefly left
371: Butterfly left
372: Entrance
373: Exit
374: Hidden Exit
375: Growing wall
376: Extra Rockford
377: Envelope 1 (not needed)
378: Envelope 2
379: Envelope 3
380: Firefly right (I almost forgot about these!)
381: Firefly up
382: Firefly down
383: Butterfly right
384: Butterfly up
385: Butterfly down

You also need the blank level (or build one with the 4 important border "watchers"). You can also have every element in the border, including the entrance and exit (needed by BD3)

Time, diamond score+bonus, magicwall milling time, amoeba speed-content-maxsize, slime permeability and some others are set in the CE....just look out for CEs with square brackets in their names as these are properties (it's the reason why you can't make a RnDs template in BD84 )

Unfortunately, all the positions of these values in a level have shifted as I changed the caves after converting them from VBS-BD (when I coloured them in)......so that info will have to be hacked out again. :-\

[Holger]

This level set is just GREAT -- again! :-)

I really like the overall authentic C64 feeling of it (including the menu, like the setup screens etc.), and the "demo playing" style title screen caused me to think about how this might have been done exactly (before looking into the graphicsinfo.conf :-) ).

I only had the chance to play a few levels (including the last one!), but it feels very "classic" indeed, also due to the (unusual) different colors.

I just can't believe that all those BD elements were build by CEs, expecially "tricky" ones like the wonder wall (mill) or the amoeba, which have some special features and behaviour that I wasn't sure that it could be done with CEs (but apparently they are both generic and powerful enough to do that)! :-O

> Graphicly the same in terms of movement....everything except the
> scroller is jerky (by intention of course).

Interestingly, the (soft-)scrolling with those classic BD graphics seems to flicker quite a bit on a TFT monitor (which the "normal", empty R'n'D level with R'n'D sand does not do to that degree) -- no idea why, but it may be because of the higher contrasts of the original BD graphic. I think this effect isn't visible on a CRT monitor...

> All the original timings, for well......everything! All sounds, intros, exact
> scores (time and bonus diamonds), and a lots and lots of small but
> accurate tweaks.

That must have been a terrible amount of work, even with most of this information available on the BDCFF pages! :-o

> Lots of TLC has been put into the editor. Making levels and changing
> colours is so easy and very,very quick. (there's an editor_help.txt
> included)

Cool!

> But BD84 is a much more complicated game than BD2K3, or even
> Snakebite!

That's the impressive fact "behind the scenes": Everything looks so "easy" in BD84, because if just seamlessly works, but indeed it must have been a hell more difficult to achieve than many cool new elements in BD2K3! :-o

> Time, diamond score+bonus, magicwall milling time, amoeba
> speed-content-maxsize, slime permeability and some others are set in
> the CE....just look out for CEs with square brackets in their names as
> these are properties (it's the reason why you can't make a RnDs
> template in BD84

Why does this not work? Haven't tried it yet, but I thought that the reason might be that you need a template with a specially prepared playfield (for the control CEs), but the template should contain all that CE property stuff, doesn't it? But I will try to save and use a template, and then I will probably see where the problem is...

All in all: Another extremely cool level set that does not look like R'n'D anymore, but like a completely new game program! Very well done!! :-)

[Alan]

Thanks Holger! (and WB BTW)

Interestingly, the (soft-)scrolling with those classic BD graphics seems to flicker quite a bit on a TFT monitor (which the "normal", empty R'n'D level with R'n'D sand does not do to that degree) -- no idea why, but it may be because of the higher contrasts of the original BD graphic. I think this effect isn't visible on a CRT monitor...

Hummm, interesting! I'm also stumped.....the dirt doesn't have any animation (or 2nd_movement tile "abuse"). Maybe the C64's 4x2 resolution is somehow freaking out you monitor? (does real BD in emulation do it also?)

Why does this not work? Haven't tried it yet, but I thought that the reason might be that you need a template with a specially prepared playfield (for the control CEs), but the template should contain all that CE property stuff, doesn't it? But I will try to save and use a template, and then I will probably see where the problem is...

Arghhh.....I'm starting to think I don't understand templates at all!. For example the time isn't set in the level, but in a CE score (this is so I can test for the last 10 seconds in a cave, which plays the panic notes)
But if I change the CE-time in a level it asks me "Do I want to update the template", which I don't.....or do I?? :-S (otherwise all levels will have the same time?). But you know, I didn't test this 100% so I might of missed something (again!), I've lost work due to wrongly pressing the template button.....I'm scared of it

[Nathan H.]

I like it! I'll have to look at the last level..... I didn't notice it before.

I've lost work due to wrongly pressing the template button.....I'm scared of it

I don't like that button either...

[oblivion]

hmm... i better try this out!

[Nathan H.]

BD3 cave F requires 150 diamonds. at start, there are 104 in the level, and many destroy themselves smashing fireflies. The are no magic walls, no butterflies... what is one supposed to do?

[Alan]

BD3 cave F requires 150 diamonds. at start, there are 104 in the level, and many destroy themselves smashing fireflies. The are no magic walls, no butterflies... what is one supposed to do?

Wow, you're right! Here's BD3's info:-

http://www.boulder-dash.nl/down/maps/Am ... ash03.html

Which is the same as mine (I found this page after I made BD84, which was a shame!). You know what? I haven't got a clue how to beat this one....it looks impossible!

BD3 is weird anyway (amoeba turns to diamonds if a magic wall is active, and you start in the border on some caves).......so maybe I've missed some other hidden rule? To be honest I wasn't very good at it on the C64, I think the graphics put me off

[RTADash]

BD3 cave F requires 150 diamonds.

In the game data itself, yes. But, in the actual game the number is only 50, because the diamond requirement in the BD1 engine cannot have more than 2 digits. As such, the original game ignores the hundreds place digit and, therefore, the cave is solvable.

(Just think, if it ignored the ones place instead you'd only need 15 diamonds. )

BD3 is weird anyway (amoeba turns to diamonds if a magic wall is active, and you start in the border on some caves).......so maybe I've missed some other hidden rule?

BD3 actually uses the exact same game engine as BD1. In said engine, there is a bug that causes the cave-scan algorithm to reset each time a boulder hits the magic wall. This causes the amoeba to stop counting any possibilities of growing, thus turning it into diamonds on the spot. However... this only occurs if the amoeba is completely to the right of the magic wall, assuming you were to arrange every square in the cave in one long row: left to right / top to bottom. (Was that confusing? nah...)


Addendum
Here are some examples. (assume they all use the BD1 engine)
Example 1: The amoeba would convert upon a boulder hitting the magic wall, because the amoeba is entirely to the right of the wall.
Example 2: The amoeba would not convert, because some (in this case, all) of it is to the left of the magic wall.
Example 3: If you dropped a boulder into the the first magic wall, the amoeba would convert. If you dropped a boulder into the second or third magic walls, however, it would not.

I think the graphics put me off

There's an unpublished version of BD3 that uses the classic graphics. You should try that one instead.

EDIT
Apparently, two of the three images for the above examples have magically gone missing from Imageshack's database; while the third, which is exactly the same, hasn't. If any latecomers to this topic have a desire to see the first two, then PM me, and I'll put the examples on Megaupload for downloading.

[Alan]

In the game data itself, yes. But, in the actual game the number is only 50, because the diamond requirement in the BD1 engine cannot have more than 2 digits. As such, the original game ignores the hundreds place digit and, therefore, the cave is solvable.

Oh well, I better update update it.

BD3 actually uses the exact same game engine as BD1. In said engine, there is a bug that causes the cave-scan algorithm to reset each time a boulder hits the magic wall. This causes the amoeba to stop counting any possibilities of growing, thus turning it into diamonds on the spot.

I didn't know it was based on a bug! So, why didn't they use the BD2 engine in BD3?

However... this only occurs if the amoeba is completely to the right of the magic wall, assuming you were to arrange every square in the cave in one long row: left to right / top to bottom. (Was that confusing? nah...)

Great!, I've been looking for this info for ages. I think it would be impossible to do with CEs though....maybe.

[RTADash]

I didn't know it was based on a bug! So, why didn't they use the BD2 engine in BD3?

I have no idea, to be honest - it does seem kind of regressive.

Great!, I've been looking for this info for ages.

I'm glad to have finally ended your search. I'm sure LogicDeLuxe could point out some intricacies/exceptions of this bug, but that's the gist of it, at least.