Boulder Dash Forum

Hello!

I recently discovered this great website and forum and have been looking through the sections trying to find out more information about "No One's 16 Boulderdash Games". I keep reading how they are "slightly different" from the originals/clones they're based on, but I would like to know about these differences in greater detail, as I haven't been able to make out any differences at all so far. For instance, Cave 1/1 of BD1 looks completely identical based on the maps (original, No One's version) and the information listed below (diamonds required, time etc.).

So, what exactly are the differences? Is there a comprehensive listing anywhere that describes them?

Also, isn't it odd that No One's 16 BD is a legal download, although it contains BD1, 2 and 3?

Cheers,
John

"Zig-zag" from BDI has a couple of the fireflies above the boulders deleted. That's the only difference I've spotted so far.

Welcome to the forum, John!!!

In BD1, there are only a few small differences:
-Int1 has the B-fly going in a loop instead of around the border.
-Cave N has 3 F-flies deleted (as Sendy mentioned)

I'm pretty sure that NoOne didn't do a version of BD2.

There's many more differences in BD3 (for level1, at least):
-Cave B: The boulders are arranged differently
-Cave D: Same story here
-Int1: There's no InBox
-Cave K: The amoeba box is twice as large.
-Cave L: 4 boulders above Rockford are removed.

Even more changes in BD4:
(most of these make the caves much easier)
-Cave A: Colors and layout are different
-Cave B: Colors are different and Rockford is moved 2 spaces right.
-Cave C: Titan walls are no longer destructible. One more diamond is needed and the bonus diamond value is 10 less.
-Cave D: The boulder layout is different and there is a box of dirt in the middle of the B-flies. The time and diamond values are modified.
-Cave E: The diamond and bonus diamond values are swapped.
-Cave F: The diamonds required and the bonus diamond values are modified.
-Cave G: A lot of the amoeba is removed as well as two rows of boulders on top. The colors are changed.
-Cave H: The colors are changed.
-Int2: The diamond value is changed from 10 to 90
-Cave I: The colors are different.
-Cave J: The destructible titan walls are replaced with normal walls. More diamonds are added plus some random boulders. The diamond requirement and values are changed. The colors are different.
-Cave K: The amoeba box is reduced and the diamond values are altered. The colors are changed.
-Cave L: The diamond values are altered and the amoeba box is different. The colors are changed.
-Int3: One Rockford is removed and one color is changed.
-Cave M: There are random boulders added.
-Cave O: The block of F-flies is altered, some diamonds above are removed, and there is an escape passage added on the right. Diamond requirement is changed.
-Cave P: A nicely designed cave was replaced with an unbelievably easy one that's totally different.
-Int4: A rockford is removed, and there are a bunch of boulders added above the amoeba zone. The bonus diamond value is changed.
(no changes in Int1 and Cave N)

There are too many changes to mention in BD5-11 .

Yeah, most of the changes make the caves easier. There are also changes that are only visible when you play the game.

A good example is BD1 int1. The butterfly follows a different path because the initial moving direction (not included in the maps) has changed.

Another example (but not so important) is BD3 cave B. Here all the diamonds are in fact the "final stage" of a diamond birth. So they become diamonds after the cave has started.

RTADash wrote:I'm pretty sure that NoOne didn't do a version of BD2.

This is probably because No One used the BD1 engine for his "16 BD Game", in which the specific BD2 elements (slime, growing wall) are not supported.

But... No One skipped BD9 also, and this is a BD1-engine game! I wonder why he did this - perhaps he found BD9 too hard?

Arno wrote:Another example (but not so important) is BD3 cave B. Here all the diamonds are in fact the "final stage" of a diamond birth. So they become diamonds after the cave has started.

In BD4-B the diamonds seem to be in an even earlier stage of birth, because they don't even look like diamonds when the screen appears.

Arno wrote:But... No One skipped BD9 also, and this is a BD1-engine game! I wonder why he did this - perhaps he found BD9 too hard?

There's a modified BD9 in the clone "Boulder Remake" maybe No One just didn't include it in their 16 game BD for some reason...

Thanks a lot for the clarification, and forgive me for forgetting that BD2 isn't included! So did No One create his versions mainly because some of the caves in the originals (1 & 3) and Don Pedro's were considered too difficult?

What is the general opinion here? You guys seem to know a lot about those, so which version do you prefer out of, say, BD3?

Thanks again!

John wrote:What is the general opinion here? You guys seem to know a lot about those, so which version do you prefer out of, say, BD3

For BD1 and BD3 I prefer the original versions (except the Space graphics from BD3).
For BD4 (Dr. Watson) and BD5...8, 10, 11 (Don Pedro) I prefer the No One version.

Note however that the ones I prefer are also the games that I played in the early days, long before I downloaded the other versions and used them with emulators.... (coincidence?.....)

John wrote:What is the general opinion here? You guys seem to know a lot about those, so which version do you prefer out of, say, BD3?

I prefer the originals for BD1-4. After that, I don't play BD5-11 very often, but I use the No One versions when I do. I would enjoy BD3 more if I could get the fix to work that makes it playable on levels 4-5.

Actually NoOne did a version of BD2 using the BD1 engine. It's part of Final Surprise Boulder II. Eventhough, it's not too hard adding slime and growing walls to the BD1 engine (I did in some of my older games), he choosed to redesign those caves and simply removed such elements. Also some caves are changed due to the more restricting geometry of the BD1 engine. For instance there is no raster instruction. Those are Cave G, which has some walls missing, Cave I is also at the instruction limit and differ slightly, Cave K has the same random seed for all levels and Cave M is just impossible without raster instructions. Other changes are only done due to NoOne's usual redesign habbits.

Also if you like to look for changes, 16 Boulder Dash, Surprise Boulder 1 and Surprise Boulder 2 are all slightly (and sometimes not so slightly) different.

I guess, the little popularity in modding the BD2 engine is the title pic, which takes RAM not available for other nice features.

LogicDeluxe wrote:Cave I is also at the instruction limit

I know that the memory was limited bud how much did it take to store an object in a cave? What was the limit on the number of instructions? Did the BD2 engine have more room for these?

(Sorry for so many questions)

RTADash wrote:I know that the memory was limited bud how much did it take to store an object in a cave?

They use instructions of variable length. I have detailed information on the cave formats here: http://www.gratissaugen.de/erbsen/BD-In ... quote]What was the limit on the number of instructions? Did the BD2 engine have more room for these?[/quote]Both, BD1 and BD2 have the same size a cave can have. The difference is, that BD2 can draw certain caves with a raster instruction much more efficient than BD1 which does not have that instruction. That's why BD2's cave design is so different, compared to the other early BD games.
The number of instructions itself has no limit, but the number of bytes the cave can have may not exceed 255 bytes.

The 5 No One's boulder games included in this collection all have 5 levels. The funny thing is, after those 5, they stopped and only made 1 level per game. (If the conversions in BR are correct)

BTW, No one's Boulder 2 Int 2 lacks an inbox on the map, but the BDCFF has the coordinates set to place it somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Same for one of the diamonds in cave F (I think).

RTADash wrote:The 5 No One's boulder games included in this collection all have 5 levels. The funny thing is, after those 5, they stopped and only made 1 level per game.

All No One Boulders with the BD1 engine use levels. The BDCFF files here have them in as well: http://www.boulder-dash.nl/

Does the original No One Editor use the BD1 engine? I noticed that No One's Boulder 1-4 (not the 16BD version) say "Made without editor". And then, No1's Boulder5 says "Made with the No One editor" I don't have the originals for 6-##. Were they made with a different editor?

RTADash wrote:Does the original No One Editor use the BD1 engine? I noticed that No One's Boulder 1-4 (not the 16BD version) say "Made without editor". And then, No1's Boulder5 says "Made with the No One editor"

No One didn't release any editors for the BD1 engine. Some other groups did, though, but they are not exactly comfortable to use. Take a look at the Apollo 8502 games. There's an editor included.

I don't have the originals for 6-##. Were they made with a different editor?

They are all on my site: http://www.gratissaugen.de/erbsen/c64dash.html
I fixed obvious bugs, but didn't change them otherwise. I wanted them true to their intended appearances including those intros.

I have also a list with all games and the engines they use: http://www.gratissaugen.de/erbsen/liste.html