Boulder Dash Forum

http://www.diamond-pro.com/games/dc3.shtml

Does anyone here play Diamond Caves 2 or 3?

It's basically Emerald Mine on the PC with a shedload of extra objects and features. You have to pay to use it properly, and it has only one graphics set. I was making an amazing caveset a couple of years ago, and then my file got corrupted and I lost my favorite self-made levels, and ever since that, I've not been able to fully get back into it.

Pros:

- Solid physics and game-engine with no unwanted quirks
- Easy to use level editor
- Good, clear graphics
- Many game objects, just about everything you'd ever need, apart from custom content (a la R'n'D)
- Lots of levels

Cons:

- Payware.
- Controls sometimes stick, so in timeframe-sensetive situations, you sometimes die through no fault of your own
- Only one graphics set, and no colour editing (all you will ever see are grey walls and orange mud, etc)
- It takes a while to load a level for playtesting on my computer
- Annoying sound

Finally, this is not a fault of the game, and the original game levels are well designed, but almost all of the user made levels available seem to be spoiled by extreme difficulty, complex colvoluted level layouts which do not guide thought processes of the player, and lots of 'blind traps' where you're trapped by a caving-in wall unexpectedly, in a rather sadistic manner. Perhaps if you're some kind of masochist this would appeal, otherwise it saps almost all the fun out!

I decided to buy this game because of the solid, reliable physics and many objects available. At the time the competition was R'n'd, which I loved, but the physics seemed a lot less stable. If R'n'd have improved their physics, I may go back to it and ditch DC3.

Sendy wrote:almost all of the user made levels available seem to be spoiled by extreme difficulty, complex colvoluted level layouts which do not guide thought processes of the player, and lots of 'blind traps' where you're trapped by a caving-in wall unexpectedly, in a rather sadistic manner. Perhaps if you're some kind of masochist this would appeal, otherwise it saps almost all the fun out!

If you DL the Emerald Mine Club package for RnD, you'll discover that 95% of the levels are either hopelessly confusticated or endlessly tedious and repetive. The only really good EM/DC levelsets I've found are the original 2 or 3 by Kingsoft and a few of the tutorials. (:roll:)

Sendy wrote:R'n'd, which I loved, but the physics seemed a lot less stable. If R'n'd have improved their physics, I may go back to it and ditch DC3.

That's just because RnD's game engine is natively asynchronous. Anything can happen at any time, and it's a lot smoother to boot.

Well I love R'n'd, but to me but there are two things you can do in that engine which almost repulse me:

1) Collect a falling diamond from below by moving up onto it at the right time
2) Detonate a bomb on your head (!?!!?) by letting it drop down onto you and instantly moving down a space

I was wondering, I used to design this adventure/puzzle game on squared paper when I was a kid, sort of inbetween Zelda and Chip's Challenge (a no gravity BD type game)? Anyone who uses R'n'd, could they tell me how possible/easy this would be with custom elements and content?

RTADash wrote:If you DL the Emerald Mine Club package for RnD, you'll discover that 95% of the levels are either hopelessly confusticated or endlessly tedious and repetive.

It almost seems like the more objects you give people, the less creative they are with them

Sendy wrote:I was wondering, I used to design this adventure/puzzle game on squared paper when I was a kid, sort of inbetween Zelda and Chip's Challenge (a no gravity BD type game)? Anyone who uses R'n'd, could they tell me how possible/easy this would be with custom elements and content?

I'm not sure about Chip's Challenge, but I know that Alan Bond has already made two Zelda type levels, which you can get here:
http://www.artsoft.org/rocksndiamonds/levels.html
Be sure to play them with RnD version 3.2.4, as 3.2.6 currently crashes every other second.
I've looked into the inner workings or Mr. Bond's Zeldas and they are simply brilliant, but very complex. Basically, whenever Link moves to a new room, the old one is destroyed, and the new one is constructed at the exact same spot. The shape and contents of a room are dictated by a minimap with a marker that that moves with the player.

I checked out the Zelda clone, it's very good indeed! If I made a R'n'd game it would probably use a linear level type system, because the nonlinear room system you describe sounds like a right pain in the fookin' 'ed