Boulder Dash Forum

benjamind2011 wrote:Smooth scrolling is another issue altogether, and I think the GTK/SDL libraries may play a part in this..

The main problem is that the windows port of GTK+ is incredibly slow. On Linux, 1280x800 @ 50fps (with fine scrolling, 4x scale) in GDash eats only a few % of the cpu. (!) Maybe sometime I will switch to some other toolkit. But that is a tedious work, rewriting the whole thing (also the editor).

cirix wrote:i don't see why it should be constans. imagine a totally empty cave, player in the top left corner. the cave starts, and then you start running to the right. suddenly the cave starts scrolling, and you keep running. if scrolling is faster than the player, then it will stop and start, stop and start. if scrolling is slower than the player, then suddenly he will run out of the screen - and you won't be able to see what you're doing.
i think both of the above would be annoying.

Your example is a bit, ... extreme and surely not relevant for existing games: at lowest speed, the scrolling stops 2 times, at fastest speed, o.k. it takes a few seconds. But, I almost never had problems with the constant scrolling in any C64 bd-game. There's still a difference between theory and practice . It was only a guess how somebody could improve the scrolling in your game, no negative write-up.

What I really find annoying in the C64 bd-games is the scrolling to the other side of the cave, when the player leaves the left or right border!

subotai wrote:What I really find annoying in the C64 bd-games is the scrolling to the other side of the cave, when the player leaves the left or right border!

for its slowness?

cirix wrote:for its slowness?

Yeah, for its slowness. You always have to wait til you can continue playing. If you just want to take a look to the other side of the cave and then go back, this can really be annoying. But I guess this may be the best solution however. I don't know if it was a good idea to increase the scrolling speed in this case. I think that this could cause problems, if there are more than one rockford present in a cave.

cirix wrote:Maybe sometime I will switch to some other toolkit. But that is a tedious work, rewriting the whole thing (also the editor).

I think OpenGL would be the perfect kit, as it runs across multiple platforms, and I believe it also runs under Linux. I think this would make a very good choice, and I think the scrolling would improve under OpenGL. With OpenGL it may even be possible to do a 3D mode which might be cool.

benjamind2011 wrote:

cirix wrote:Maybe sometime I will switch to some other toolkit. But that is a tedious work, rewriting the whole thing (also the editor).

I think OpenGL would be the perfect kit, as it runs across multiple platforms, and I believe it also runs under Linux. I think this would make a very good choice, and I think the scrolling would improve under OpenGL. With OpenGL it may even be possible to do a 3D mode which might be cool.

I can confirm that OpenGL is a great way to do the graphics that will work cross-platform (Windows/Linux/Mac OSX)

I made a cross-platform engine (uses SDL for windows/input, OpenGL for graphics, and OpenAL for audio) that allowed my boulder dash inspired game The Probe to work on Windows and Linux (Ubuntu)...I don't have a Mac to try making a Mac version though.

cheers,
Paul

I purchased a nice Dell IPS monitor last week, and I must say after replacing my old LCD and then installing this one and adjusting the gamma levels and brightness levels the other day, my GDash experience is much richer colours.

I'm rediscovering all the caves with the new screen...wow, I never thought colours could be so rich

I'm looking forward to an OpenGL implementation of GDash as I think it might run faster/smoother that way. Still, it's great as it is now...nothing is missing, it's pretty much all there. I know it could be expanded to handle custom elements/raster effects and scripts, etc, but that's another can of worms...

...it is still the *best* boulder dash clone. I know of no other clone that comes this close to recreating this great game

paul_nicholls wrote:I don't have a Mac to try making a Mac version though.

Would be really nice to have a MacOS X version of The Probe...

benjamind2011 wrote:I'm looking forward to an OpenGL implementation of GDash as I think it might run faster/smoother that way. Still, it's great as it is now...nothing is missing, it's pretty much all there. I know it could be expanded to handle custom elements/raster effects and scripts, etc, but that's another can of worms...

...it is still the *best* boulder dash clone. I know of no other clone that comes this close to recreating this great game

You are right - GDash is THE best BD game available today! (I do not know if the word "clone" is right for that game as it's much much more than that!). I really do not miss a thing but the UI and presentation of SDash could be a little more arcade like (I really like the way Raptisoft does such things in his games like Hamsterball or Hap Hazard). I really hope that development will continue some day.

OpenGL would be a nice idea - if that works with the X11 implementation of the MacOS X version. At the moment it is working great with Terminal/XQuartz, all necessary libraries can be installed with MacPort so that nothing has to be compiled from scratch. If it stays that way when using OpenGL then it would be really nice. Scrolling could really be better - I noticed the difference with Boulder Dash on C64 (via CCS64 on a Windows PC) as I have installed it on a real arcade machine with a 15khz arcade monitor running at 60 Hz - scrolling is as fluid as on a real C64!

Yeah, Gdash rocks!

benjamind2011 wrote:I know it could be expanded to handle custom elements/raster effects and scripts, etc, but that's another can of worms...

Most of these things are fully supported in Gdash. Only the import with any2gdash lacks a bit in compatibility (slime permeability, starting directions of elements, etc.). It would be no big deal to fix that. And it's not worth the time to implement the magic wall breakscan as only a fistfull of games take advantage of this "feature". Fruitless to discuss (unfortunately)

subotai wrote:Fruitless to discuss (unfortunately)

Subotai, what makes you say that? Do you know something about the future development plans for GDash that the rest of us don't?

Always remember that GDash is source code and anyone with decent programming knowledge can take the source and develop GDash further if they want to.

You are right, but nonetheless cirix is knowing the source the best. I can not imagine that anyone else will continue developing from the current version. But it would be nice if someone would do that, of course...

I think it would be a nice idea to collect new ideas or any kind of improvement for GDash here. Maybe if we find enough fresh new thoughts it will be a impulsion to resurrect the code from the grave...

benjamind2011 wrote:Subotai, what makes you say that? Do you know something about the future development plans for GDash that the rest of us don't?

Yes, I do No, of course I don't. But I'm not really a dreamer. I would be very pleased to see a new release of Gdash (especially SDash, which I really adore). Well, at least cirix did answer, but he didn't answer any question about the development. Why? To keep it secret? I don't know any reason for that. The latest release date of Gdash was in february 2010. That's a very long time. As I already mentioned: I think that with some minor effort it could get almost perfect (No reason to reimplement everything).

The latest release I have is 20100605 with some minor improvements. But I do not know if I can give it away as it was a developer preview release for me to test. Only cirix can allow the release...

Thank you to all involved in the making of GDash. It is superb and has provided me with hours of fun.

I've been spending a few months creating levels every now and again. I'm going to create a game with 100 caves (+ 25 intermissions) and then upload it as an attachment if that's possible (I'll have to provide a link as attachments doesn't appear possible now).

I'm enjoying it more and more each time I play. There are virtually infinite possibilities, and having control over cave color really brings out the artist in me.

Just wondering if there has been any further development. I remember discussing OpenGL as being a great library for doing the 2D stuff. A 3D version...I wonder if that's possible. I think a 2.5D version would be more playable than 3D due to the layout of the caves, etc.

...just doing a little dreaming every now and again...