Boulder Dash Forum

I just played through BD1 level1 yet again (it never gets old)!

Has anyone else realized how rushed most of the caves seem due to the relatively restrictive time limits? It seems dumb to bring it up just now, but I've never remembered to bring it up...

RTADash wrote:BD1 [...] Has anyone else realized how rushed most of the caves seem due to the relatively restrictive time limits?

Yes, indeed. In my experience, when playing BD1 for the first time, each cave had several challanges to overcome.
(1) At first, you don't even know the whole cave layout due to the scrolling area, so you have to explore the cave.
(2) Then you have to get a clue how to solve the cave.
(3) And then you have to manage to solve the cave in time (and without getting hit by a boulder or bumping into a fly, of course).
Actually, the first two steps aren't really re-playable once you solved them (unless you manage to erase your memory). That's really a pity since I like them more that step 3.
On a related note, steps 1 and 2 also get a lot simpler, even trivial, when you have maps of the caves.

At least on level 1 I always found the times plenty. Of course, this could be related to the fact, that the timer is slower on PAL machines. The slow PAL timer renders intermission 3 impossible, unless the 2-player delay bug is deployed.

Simon wrote:On a related note, steps 1 and 2 also get a lot simpler, even trivial, when you have maps of the caves.

The maps are kind of a double-edged sword, unless you can resist the urge to look at them before conquering a cave. I know I can't

LogicDeLuxe wrote:Of course, this could be related to the fact, that the timer is slower on PAL machines. The slow PAL timer renders intermission 3 impossible

Yeah, I switched to NTSC mode because I hate being killed right away in that intermission. That timer difference explains it; I'm not going nuts