Boulder Dash Forum

puhh... no idea... Can you give me /us a little hint? Is it one of yours? Or one of your family?

Dustin wrote:puhh... no idea... Can you give me /us a little hint? Is it one of yours? Or one of your family?

It has caves from many authors. No caves from me. Some caves from Rolf Roth are there.

Another hint: Prof. Knibble coded some engine modifications exclusively for this release.

Is that related to the phenomenon when an amoeba is closed at the beginning of a cave, it is quiet, but when you open it, it starts to Brawn? This is what you see very often in games PLCK. Interesting behavior, which may be one reason why it has apparently not been used..

shaneandriu wrote:Is that related to the phenomenon when an amoeba is closed at the beginning of a cave

No.
This behavior was already present in the BD1 engine, but somewhat buggy. Apparently they fixed it in the BD2 engine, although the original caves don't make use of this feature.

Sorry for reviving an old topic, but I felt like having a guess at this last question. Of course I had to do a bit of research first...

Since a clue said that it was programmed by Prof Knibble, I checked your website, LogicDeluxe, and downloaded the games there in the Prof. Knibble zip folder. Next I checked the disc contents in my C64 emulator, uses more than 1 disc, my guess is a game called Marathon Dash.

I'm not 100% sure, but you never know.

Marathon Dash it is, of course. Did nobody ever played it? I can't believe, it wasn't answered before.

Your turn, Mr Escape.

Wow, i'm surprised I got that one. Hurray for researching, I guess!

I must admit, I haven't played Marathon Dash properly before, i've only had a quick try it a while back.

I can't think of a good question to ask right now. I'll have a think, and try and post one by tomorrow (fingers crossed).

Okay, I got one. Hope it's not too tough (or easy for that matter.).

When playing a standard cave in the PLCK game engine, is there a way to survive, after a rockford doll has been destroyed? If so, can you describe how this can happen?

This is indeed possible, if you destroy a Rockford doll by an explosion. This won't case Rockford to be killed, unless the doll itself has touched the firefly or butterfly.

Arno Dash 11 contains an intermission in which this effect must be used in order to complete it:

Yep, that's right Arno! Your cave shows what I was exactly thinking of.

It's your turn to ask a question.

OK, here is a classic problem.

Suppose that in this PLCK intermission, exactly one of the 3 "doors" is a hidden exit, and the other two are just titanium walls. Rockford has no idea which one is the exit.



After pondering for a while, Rockford picks the first door as his first guess, and he moves towards this door at the most left side. Now the creater of the cave decides to help Rockford a little bit by mentioning a different door being a wrong one. So he tells Rockford that the middle door is a "fake" exit.
Now given this new information, what should Rockford do to maximize his probability to exit succesfully, without losing a life?
1. Stay at his first guess and pick the left door.
2. Change his mind and go for the door at the right.
3. It doesn't matter.

Note that the explanation counts, rather than the answer!

Is this a trick question? It depends on how you define "exit succesfully, without losing a life"
If "without losing a life" is what matters, the answer is 3, because you can't even loose a life in an intermission, no matter what you do.
On the other hand, if by "succesfully" you mean, Rockford actually has to reach the exit, the laws of probability dictate to try the door at the right, since excluding the middle door makes this a 50:50 chance, rather than the one 3rd chance of the initial guess.

I'm going to guess it's 3. The reason being that the creator of the cave may be lying about the middle exit being "fake". The left exit has been eliminated sa fake, therefore Rockford should just take a guess at either the middle or right-hand exit.

Mr Escape wrote:The reason being that the creator of the cave may be lying about the middle exit being "fake".

The creator is not lying. He decided to mention to Rockford a fake door out of the 2 remaining doors (which Rockford did not initially guess). So the left door is not excluded, only the middle one.

LogicDeLuxe wrote:Is this a trick question? It depends on how you define "exit succesfully, without losing a life"

I mean that Rockford reaches the exit. A more accurate description would be "exit succesfully, without being trapped".

LogicDeLuxe wrote:the laws of probability dictate to try the door at the right, since excluding the middle door makes this a 50:50 chance, rather than the one 3rd chance of the initial guess.

Yes, the answer is correct! The headline of the explanation also, except for the probabilities 50:50. In fact, the creator gives extra information on the middle+right door only. So the probability of the left door stays 1/3, as you already noticed. But then the probability of the right door becomes 2/3 since this door is now the only possible out of the two doors (middle+right). Also, the sum of probabilities is 1 as expected.

Anyway, since I didn't ask for the probabilities, I approve this explanation. So it's your turn!