Boulder Dash Forum

This is for Cirix or anyone else who needs suggestions for 'advanced' elements in a boulderdash game. I know adding lots of obscure elements to an elegant puzzle game can ruin it's beautiful simplicity, but I believe that used sparingly they could inject new life into retro-style BD gaming. Most of these ideas are not thought of me, but were heard of whilst reading about programmers implementing boulderdash ports and clones.

I hope these suggestions are not premature or unwelcome, I've tried to make them as clear as possible, and of course, the community will probably influence if any of these are worthy of inclusion in the amazing Gdash universe.

If any are included I'd be honoured to come up with some C64-style graphics for them.

The objects:

1) Werner's Game style enemies. This idea was shot down when I suggested it before, perhaps because Werner's was a pretty crappy game, but I think having them will provide a break from the usual wall-following enemies of BD.

Behaviour:
- Moves forwards into empty space
- Turns left if it bumps into an object
- Explodes if player is adjacent
- Explodes if crushed by boulder

Further suggestions:
Explosions could produce a valuable element, as Butterflies do, but not diamonds. (Keys? Bladders?)
Could be either immune or vulnerable to amoeba.

2) 'Wet hell soil' from a Spectrum BD variant (name escapes me). This is a hybrid between a diamond and mud, in that it can be eaten, but will also fall down and roll off each other.

Behaviour:
- Has same movement properties as diamond. Will stack, roll and fall like diamonds do
- Can be eaten, but for no gain other than strategic reasons
- Cannot crush player or trigger explosions

3) Conveyor belts from various clones. A fixed, indestructible block which will move boulders and other free-moving inanimate objects that are resting on it either left or right.

Behaviour:
- Indestructible and immobile
- Moves objects on top of it one space to the left or right (so there will be two variants of this object). Objects it can move are: Diamond, Boulder, Megaboulder, Nitro, and any other object devised in the future which is free-moving and doesn't hover.

Further suggestions:
Switches which turn the conveyor power in the level on and off. It could be a toggle so that active conveyors turn into dormant ones, and vice versa. Also, there could be portable conveyors which are the same as normal ones, but they can move, fall, roll and even convey each other. (A stack of these would spread out to form a long horizontal conveyor). It seems appropriate that these 'mini' conveyors should be destructible.

4) Replicators which are solid, immobile machines which can create a constant stream of a given item underneath them, for example, boulders.

Behaviour
- Solid, indestructible, immobile, like titan wall
- Adds 1 item to the playfield square immediately underneath it, provided said square is empty
- Has a setting in the cave data which specifies which object to produce. Failing that, there is one variant of replicator for each object producible (seems cumbersome) or another idea suggested below
- Has a setting in the cave data which specifies the rate that objects materialize. I.e. the number of game engine cycles to wait before making an object

Further suggestions:
Some implementations I've seen have the property that they replicate any object which rests on top of them. This is elegant in the fact that it reduces the need for various types of replicator for making different objects, and also clearly shows the player what to expect from the machine. Additionally it allows the function of a machine to change dynamically, creating puzzle opportunities. Personally, I'd rather exclude Rockford himself from the duplicating process if this angle is taken.

5) Lava - usually called Acid in Emerald Mine et al, but since acid already exists in our universe, why not call it lava. This basically is static and indestructible and anything that falls into it disappears for good, much like an expired or blocked milling wall but with the advantage that it's independent from milling wall and is more visually appealing for the role it plays.

Behaviour
- Solid and indestructible
- Objects in the square above moving downwards vanish into it
- Animated, like the surface of water (side view)

There are more which escape me at present, maybe someone else will come up with suggestions?

Some good suggestions there! I quite liked the 'Snakes' in the M.A.D 'Rockford' game, which, when their head touched a rock, turned it into a collectable item. It also had the added element of 'getting in the way' sometimes when you were trying to rush around. You could also have it increase in size after each (or a variable number) of items are collected, a la the 'Snake' game?

Sendy wrote:2) 'Wet hell soil' from a Spectrum BD variant (name escapes me).

Is it Earth Shaker by any chance?

Good ideas! The only problem is how to implement these elements into GDash as they were in their original games? A simple description would not be enough - maybe you remember how hard it was to get the perfect timing and behavior of the established elements...

RTADash wrote:

Sendy wrote:2) 'Wet hell soil' from a Spectrum BD variant (name escapes me).

Is it Earth Shaker by any chance?

Yus

CWS wrote:Good ideas! The only problem is how to implement these elements into GDash as they were in their original games? A simple description would not be enough - maybe you remember how hard it was to get the perfect timing and behavior of the established elements...

Good point, although personally I don't feel that these objects would need to be recreated exactly as they were in the original games, complete with behavioural and timing quirks, because Gdash doesn't set out to recreate accurately, say, any part of the Earth Shaker universe.

So my intention would be just to nab these ideas so people making games specifically designed for Gdash would have more fancy construction options and as such simple logical descriptions should (I hope) suffice. These objects may even be 'non-BDFCC' elements selected from a different menu.

Well, nice ideas

And I like them because they are new to BD but they still have that retro feeling. Because they are simple like dirt or a boulder, and still seem to make many possibilities for puzzles!

For completely new elements, no real timing constraints apply, I think. GDash is very much specialized on the BD engine, to such an extent that I think now it just would not be possible to correctly play an emerald mine or a supaplex game in it. This way, compatibility with some other game is somewhat out of question. (To get deeper into this, I will estimate how much time processing such an element, for example the wet hell soil, would take on a c64... It is probably faster than a boulder, as it moves like that, but must not check for fireflies underneath. So BD1 scheduling will also work realistically... Aside from the fact that I do not recommend BD1 scheduling for any new game, as it is a compatibility setting only.)

And now for a question: how would these objects look like? I think, the hell soil would look like hell, but it should be rounded on all edges. So colors are that of dirt's, and the shape that of a boulder. For the werner's enemy, I think I will choose some old enemy - as I already use the monolith graphics for amoeba2, for example. And the conveyors should look almost exactly the same as the pipes in supaplex.

I'm glad you're enthusiastic, Cirix, as it's been my dream for a long time to have advanced objects in a retro engine. I've played games like Rocks'n'Diamonds but little things were not quite right, and of course, I missed details like the colour schemes.

If it's OK, I'd like to do a mock up of some images for how the proposed objects would look like, in a way that will hopefully mesh with the C64 graphics format. I'll use mostly static images and some 4 frame animations, for example, for the conveyors.

My early proposal for the conveyor:

and for the hell soil:

boulder rush-colored versions.

As an additional suggestion for the Conveyor Belt, how about a toggle switch that changes the direction of travel of the belt?

That might add another degree of required tactic to solve a puzzle?

Matt Vinyl wrote:As an additional suggestion for the Conveyor Belt, how about a toggle switch that changes the direction of travel of the belt?

Currently I'm planning four variations, so the belts can obey gravity rules.

Matt Vinyl wrote:You could also have it increase in size after each (or a variable number) of items are collected, a la the 'Snake' game?

I think that would not be easy to implement, as elements in a cave move freely, ie. they are not connected to each other.

Sendy: hell wet soils should be sloped/slippery, right? If it is standing still (for example, on a titanium wall), another boulder standing on it should fall down, I think.

cirix wrote:Sendy: hell wet soils should be sloped/slippery, right? If it is standing still (for example, on a titanium wall), another boulder standing on it should fall down, I think.

Yes.

EDIT: Actually, I just found it in the original game, and NO, it's not a slippery object, so my initial description was wrong.

Perhaps we could have a toggle for slippery or non slippery hell soil? Or perhaps just two different types with different coloured graphics?

Here's a picture of the hell soil in it's native universe:



Obviously, it's the red stuff. There is Earth Shaker footage on Youtube, but nothing that shows the hell soil. Still, brilliant Speccy game and worth playing if you're into Speccy emulation.

Ok I think I misunderstood your conveyor belt idea. The image of the supaplex pipe does not apply

Sendy wrote:EDIT: Actually, I just found it in the original game, and NO, it's not a slippery object, so my initial description was wrong.

Then what does it do? It falls down, but does not roll, so if many of them fall over each other, one tall column will be built? (For example, falling walls do this, they build a tall, thin tower.)

I already did a slippery variant. I think I will call it a "Dirt ball". Maybe the non-slippery would be... ?