Dustin wrote: ↑Sat Sep 06, 2025 7:31 pm
(BTW I think on L5 this is one of the hardest caves of the whole series, because some more - and harder - tricks of this kind will be needed!)
For me the hardest cave in this series was Cave F - Playing With Fire/5.
Dustin's Boulder Dash 14_008.png (13.84 KiB) Viewed 18882 times
I know what to do but I can't press my buttons such precisely, running through the square with the firefly, even on the very first level.
I saw how Arno do it in "Boulder Dash for profs - Dustin's BD14 Cave F L5".
Very impressive, that's all I can say, but I won't even try to repeat — it's a waste of time ))
About DBD 14, Cave O/4 (your video):
Nice run! Your run shows exactly how to solve the two main difficulties as intended:
(1) Releasing the third BF (from left to right) by snapping at the right moment.
(2) Releasing the second BF from left with the help of another BF.
BTW, (1) is a cavescanning order (CSO) effect - these are quite tricky to perform in general, and I made two whole threads about them here in this forum (in "Tools, Fanstuff"), as well as over 200 mini caves showcasing them (also uploaded by Arno on YouTube). So yeah - these are tricky, but also very interesting to me
About the level 5 version of the same cave:
Haha, I didn't intend to keep that as a secret I just find it way too difficult to try to explain the level 5 solution in words. Luckily, there's also a video from Arno showing the solution:
It's the third cave of this video. (The cave speed is slower, though, but otherwise it's identic.)
Note that at minute 1:29 Rockford is just in time to snap a diamond which would otherwise be inside the explosion range - this trick makes all the difference between solving the cave or being one diamond short!
This is another CSO trick - and a quite tough one even by the standards of this tricky topic!
My basic idea behind this whole cave is that I like to play around with the classics, and in doing so I found out that BD2, cave O, can be rotated by 180 degrees and still be solvable but only with difficult CSO tricks
About the other cave you mentioned (DBD 14, cave F/5):
Yes, I agree that this one is very, very hard. There's one thing to note about Arno's solution, though: it's not necessary to collect all the diamonds in the top-left section in one lap. Rockford can take several laps, so he doesn't have to snap so often in short time. That might make the thing a bit easier, though still very hard.
In the middle of the game series - around Dustin's BD 7-20 or so - I made some extremely difficult level 5 caves, some of them even outside my own skill range. (For example, I don't remember if I ever solved this one myself, of if I was satisfied with knowing that it can be solved.) The idea behind that is that the five levels are meant to offer challenges for players of all skill ranges - the lower levels more for those who just like to play new BD caves, the higher levels for those who like to be challenged and don't mind to spend one or more hours on just one cave. Now, as I consider myself a good but not outstanding BD player, I didn't always want to limit the level 5 difficulty by my own solving skills. Also, I like it if the highest level of a cave has no more bonus diamonds, so if Rockford solves it, then he knows that there's nothing more to do in this cave, a feeling of "having solved the cave completely".
It's still always funny and instructive to see you or other players (at Krissz's site, mainly) find ways to get more diamonds out of my caves than I thought were possible - sometimes with insane runs, but sometimes also with surprsingly simple methods which I overlooked
That's how Dustin's BD 15 (Xpert Remix) was born - it's made of exactly such caves where more diamonds are possible than I originally thought
Last edited by Dustin on Mon Oct 13, 2025 10:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Dustin wrote: ↑Sun Sep 07, 2025 11:05 am
There's one thing to note about Arno's solution, though: it's not necessary to collect all the diamonds in the top-left section in one lap. Rockford can take several laps, so he doesn't have to snap so often in short time.
I have tried several times, I can't overrun the FF in the square loop even on the L1.
I guess it's because of its counterclockwise direction. I dare say the clockwise FF direction could leave 2 free beats each loop.
