Boulder Dash Forum

This is a project I'm currently working on and it's a little hard to explain.

I am using Boulder Remake to create my own versions of the original BD 1-4. This is (once again) hard to explain. I'm leaving difficulty levels 1-2 nearly the same, but then theres a twist . In levels 3-5, I'm adding my own physical changes to make the levels gradually more difficult layout wise, in addition to the regular changes. I hope you understand what I mean .

It will only be available in .brc format, because BR is the only clone I know of as of now, where you can freely and independently edit each difficulty level.

You'll see what I mean when I get done...

I think I understand...

You want to edit not only the properties like random seeds, timing, amount of diamonds, etc....., but also the places of the walls, density of bouders, exact places of fireflies, amoebas, etc....? Ergo, you want to edit the whole map and all the available cave properties?

This sounds cool btw!

Exactly, you've got the hang of it!

The layout of most levels won't change at all; there will just be more obstacles, or alternate locations/arrangements on special elements.

I'm almost done making the BD2 version, it's going to be really hard to change caves L and P and still have them be solvable!

I've played Boulder Remake a bit. I played it instead of C64 Boulderdash for a week or so ages ago and decided that whilst it is very good and faithful, and has a solid feel, you just can't beat that combination of the Boulderdash gameplay and the C64's chunky, earthy graphics.

Mmmhmm

I know what you mean about the different levels, though. I think when I imported Sendydash I into it, it put caves 1 to 20 on difficulty level 1, 20 to 40 on level 2, and the rest on a rather short level 3 . Sadly some of the intermissions were unsolvable because of the time limit and no cave delay.

It's pretty neat.

Sendy wrote:Sadly some of the intermissions were unsolvable because of the time limit and no cave delay.

I actually haven't tested all of my intermissions on it yet - I hope they are alright, because I've already sent the RTAD .brc's to Arno and CWS.

I wrote:I actually haven't tested all of my intermissions on it yet - I hope they are alright, because I've already sent the RTAD .brc's to Arno and CWS.

Well now I've checked them out, and some of them are either impossible or relying on extreme luck. Well, they'll remain that way until the cave delay feature is implemented. Also the amoeba in RTAD2int4 gets converted when you drop the boulders in the M-walls. If the game was imported from an engine version where the magic wall doesn't stop the amoeba, shouldn't the "Magic wall don't stop amoeba" option already be checked on all the caves?!

I talked to Marcin about a year ago about the "cave delay". No chance. Either he is not able to do it or he does not want to. He has the "speed" option but this is not the same. This option sets the speed for the complete game and not single caves.

Unfortunately the converter can not convert the different versions of the engine correctly. I also talked about this with Marcin a while ago but with the same result. I have really no idea why he does not want Boulder Remake to become the best clone ever.

CWS wrote:I talked to Marcin about a year ago about the "cave delay". No chance. Either he is not able to do it or he does not want to. He has the "speed" option but this is not the same. This option sets the speed for the complete game and not single caves.

And, the most important thing is that the timer always counts at the same rate, which means you technically get more time in faster caves.

CWS wrote:I have really no idea why he does not want Boulder Remake to become the best clone ever.

I'd guess either arrogance or laziness, but maybe I'm mis-judging a bit.

in another topic, Sendy wrote:I'm looking forwards to seeing what you do with [BD2] O

Levels 1-4 won't be too difficult, but level 5 is relatively wicked .

I'm done with the second one now...here are a few preview maps from the first 2. Now I've started in on the third, of course.

BD1 A/5


BD1 N/4


BD2 G/5


And a few more...
BD2 K/4


BD3 A/5


The variations among levels 3-5 (1-2 remain the same) aren't as drastic as I may have made them sound, but they can certainly make things more difficult in many cases.

Looks much promising!

But personally I wouldn't use fireflies in cave A of BD1 and 3... I'd only use the existing elements, giving it a twist by modifying things like places and density.

I think with some well placed "random" boulders these caves can be made hard like hell.

Arno wrote:But personally I wouldn't use fireflies in cave A of BD1 and 3... I'd only use the existing elements, giving it a twist by modifying things like places and density.

Yeah, that was a hard decision to make, but I wanted to change the pre-existing elements as little as possible to retain the "feel" of each cave.
I like the fireflies because they add a new challenge (and surprise) to a cave that was just a bunch of collecting in the earlier levels.

I like the game!
In many caves of level 5 you have to find some new secrets, that's interesting! If you know the map, level 5 is easier than 4. Level 4 is the greatest challenge and then you enter into a level 5 full of secrets and funny ideas!

Thank you!!
It will go public in just a little while - I've been doing some modifications here and there, but am almost finished.

Well, that was eight months ago...but now they're done for real! You can get them at the following link (sans BD 4):
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JGQ8YIZX
Some of the demo's don't work because I failed to rerecord them after fine-tuning a cave, but I think the overall results are quite good.
Enjoy!