Rocks'n'Diamonds with Krissz game engine

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artsoft
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Rocks'n'Diamonds with Krissz game engine

Post by artsoft »

Summary:

Rocks'n'Diamonds has extended its Boulder Dash compatible game engine with Krissz game engine compatibility ("new engine" only). Check it out for your preferred platform (Windows, Mac, Linux or Android):

* R'n'D download page

Get selected Krissz Engine compatible cave sets ready to play with R'n'D (7947 levels in 122 level sets):

* Krissz Engine levels for R'n'D

Just drag and drop the downloaded zip file into the Rocks'n'Diamonds window (main menu) and restart the game. Now you can select the Krissz Engine cave sets from the "Levelset" menu! Have fun! :)

Detailed:

This new feature in Rocks'n'Diamonds is all about Krissz's site with online BD Remake + Construnction Kit as discussed earlier in this forum.

For an introduction into the motivation of this R'n'D project, you might like to re-read the following post about BoulderCaves+, a Krissz Engine compatible remake by Irmen de Jong and Agetian, and especially see the answer to the question "Why was Krissz Engine chosen as a target for a clone implementation?" in the second post of the above mentioned thread, Boulder Caves+ Frequently Asked Questions.

Again, the main focus of this project (that is, Rocks'n'Diamonds in general, and the new, Krissz Engine compatible extension to the native BD engine in particular) is to preserve as much of the history of this game genre, as authentic as possible, to make it as easily accessible, usable and playable as possible for today's players, and to make everything as openly available to the public as possible.

To show how the Krissz Engine compatible BD game engine works, the cave collection released together with the new R'n'D version contains several great cave sets which were submitted by fans of the Krissz game engine. For two of the included cave sets, "Boulder Dash for Newcomers" and "Cave Scanning Order" (both created by Dustin), replays (also called "demos" or "solution tapes") have been included and can easily be played by pressing the little "play" button to the right of the cave preview in the main menu. These two high quality cave sets offer great fun for beginners ("Boulder Dash for Newcomers") as well as experts ("Cave Scanning Order"), and demonstrate that even caves using engine edge cases work fine with the current engine implementation.

I hope to be able to add more caves soon! So if anybody should have more caves available, I would be happy to add them to the collection!

Have fun! :D
Last edited by artsoft on Sun Jan 11, 2026 6:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Rocks'n'Diamonds with Krissz game engine

Post by artsoft »

I wish you all a happy new year! :D

I would like to add some notes to my previous post.

The new compatibility of R'n'D's BD engine with the Krissz Engine is limited to the "new engine"; while most caves in "old engine" format should generally be playable, existing demos only work if recorded with the "new engine". Caves that were created using the "old engine" will be marked with a corresponding label "old engine" in the main menu.

For caves that focus on (or even require) frame-exact playing (like the "Cave Scanning Order" cave set by Dustin), it might be recommended to set the setup options "sticky movement input" and "smooth element movement" to "off" (in the "Game Engines" sub-menu of the R'n'D setup menu). While it should technically not be required (and should not make a difference engine-wise), I was told that it does make a difference if you are used to the "playing rhythm" of the original game engine.

I hope you enjoy the new possibility to offline-play Krissz Engine caves in R'n'D. :)
Last edited by artsoft on Wed Jan 07, 2026 1:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Rocks'n'Diamonds with Krissz game engine

Post by igormakovsky »

The best Christmas presents for me are (1) the new HoMM 3 HotA release with new bulwark town (2) the new RnD release with Krissz game engine support.

Thank you so much, dear Artsoft! I've always dreamed to play those outstandable levels. They are so well thought and clever designed!

Question is why small graphics is significantly smaller than in common bd levelsets? I play on macbook 3456 × 2234 with default scaling.
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Re: Rocks'n'Diamonds with Krissz game engine

Post by artsoft »

Thank you, igormakovsky! I am happy that you like the new release and the new cave collection! :)
I've always dreamed to play those outstandable levels. They are so well thought and clever designed!
They really are! An update with more cave sets will follow soon!
Question is why small graphics is significantly smaller than in common bd levelsets? I play on macbook 3456 × 2234 with default scaling.
I think I know what you mean. The reason is that the cave collection uses a significantly larger window size to be able to display the larger playfield (of 30x18 tiles compared to the classic 20x12 tiles) that is used by the Krissz game/graphics engine by default. When using the "small graphics" setting, caves that are using smaller playfields are not scaled up to fill the whole window, but are just centered with their smaller tile size. This especially stands out when playing in fullscreen mode.

When playing caves with larger playfields, this is probably no problem (because you probably use "small graphics" by intention to be able to see more of larger playfield than you would see with "normal" tile size). But caves with classic, default 20x12 playfield size indeed look a bit small then.

An immediate, easy solution is to just use the graphics of the GDash cave collection also for the Krissz cave collection, by choosing the "Boulder Dash" graphics set in the "custom artwork" settings together with "override: yes" setting. Doing this, you get "classic-sized" caves just fitting to the screen (like when playing the "Boulder Dash for Newcomers" set).

A possible future solution would be to scale the playfield to fit the screen when the playfield is smaller than the screen. But this could also have unwanted side effects, like playing very small "mini caves" (with very small playfields) that would then absurdly be scaled up, which most probably would look wrong.

So just using the classic GDash graphics with "override artwork" option enabled is probably the best solution here.

Please let me know if this works for you! And I am always happy for feedback to know what else could be improved! :)
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Re: Rocks'n'Diamonds with Krissz game engine

Post by CWS »

Wow! That's great! :)

As you support a few different engines - would it be possible to set the custom artwork for each engine separately (graphics/sounds/music)?
It's a bit annoying to change it each time.
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Re: Rocks'n'Diamonds with Krissz game engine

Post by artsoft »

As you support a few different engines - would it be possible to set the custom artwork for each engine separately (graphics/sounds/music)?
It's a bit annoying to change it each time.
I have never thought about this, but I see what you mean, and just changing the artwork between two graphics sets can indeed be quite annoying if you want to change it regularly (as it usually requires quite a lot of mouse clicks).

Two hints or ideas to help work around this:

Workaround 1: When regularly switching between two graphics sets for cave sets that have their own graphics configured (like it is the case for the GDash and Krissz cave collection), just changing the "override" option between "yes" and "no" can be a quick way to enable or disable using a certain graphics set for a certain cave set.

Workaround 2: You can define many players that each have their own setup settings, and quickly change between them by just clicking on your current player name directly in the main menu, then clicking on a different player name with different setup settings (which only requires two quick mouse clicks). (Unfortunately, this will have some other, maybe unwanted side effects, as recorded tapes are then stored for separate users, for example.)

I hope one of these two work for you as a quick temporary solution.

But I will think about your suggestion, and see if there is a good solution that is easy to use and not too confusing (as there is already a large amount of setup possibilities, which can be quite overwhelming not only for new users). :)
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Re: Rocks'n'Diamonds with Krissz game engine

Post by CWS »

Thank you for your reply!

Better more than less setup possibilities!
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Re: Rocks'n'Diamonds with Krissz game engine

Post by igormakovsky »

Can't stop playing newly added Krissz cavesets in RnD and have some questions on it:

1. Why Krissz engine levelsets are so much better and well designed than those, included into common BD levelsets?

2. Why same authors (like Arno) make separate caves to BD and Krissz levelsets? Won't it be easier to make single cavesets that will suit both? Why not add Krissz levelsets to the BD levelsets?

3. I've asked chatgpt that told me, that Krissz engine is way more strict toward in-game timings and such. If it is so perfect in details, than why not fix the unperfect gdash? Will it loose compatibility with cavesets then? If yes, then is there a list of changes that make the difference between Krissz and Gdash? I've seen infinite scrollable levels that look impressive.

Sorry if these questions might seem dilettante, I'm really curious about it.
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Re: Rocks'n'Diamonds with Krissz game engine

Post by artsoft »

Here are some answers to your questions (to the best of my knowledge):
1. Why Krissz engine levelsets are so much better and well designed than those, included into common BD levelsets?
That's a good question! :D There may be several answers to this.

First of all, the Krissz BD web site community probably has some of the most experienced, most dedicated and most addicted BD players with a great amount of knowledge regarding the inner workings of the BD engine (which can be proven by the CSO ("cave scanning order") or "Slime Math" cave sets, for example).

Then, there are a lot of relatively new caves created during the last few years, which can draw on the insights gained in BD cave construction over the last 40 years.

Or, maybe, the current cave creators are just a bit (or a lot) more talented and creative than many of those who created earlier cave sets.

What undoubtedly is true is that quite a number of members of the Krissz BD web site are part of a community of highly motivated creators and players of BD style caves! :)
2. Why same authors (like Arno) make separate caves to BD and Krissz levelsets? Won't it be easier to make single cavesets that will suit both? Why not add Krissz levelsets to the BD levelsets?
The main problem seems to be that the Krissz BD web site neither has an import functionality (to import existing BD caves from GDash, for example) nor an export functionality (to be able to play caves created for the Krissz BD web site also in other BD players, with GDash only being one of the more prominent (and highly compatible) examples).

That's also (apparently) the reason why a lot of already existing (classic) BD caves have been converted for the Krissz BD web site (be it manually, by several members, or automatically, probably by Krissz who could be assumed to have access to tools to convert existing caves, like GDash caves in BDCFF format, to the internal cave format of the Krissz BD web site).

One problem when converting caves between, say, GDash and the Krissz BD web site is the fact that the game engines are not 100 % compatible. This is not that big of a problem for playing "normal" caves which do not require 100 % identical game engine behavior, but indeed a problem for "expert" caves which require frame-exact, identical behavior (including things like random number generation), and always a big problem when attempting to replay demos with a different game engine than the engine that was used to record the demo in the first place.
3. I've asked chatgpt that told me, that Krissz engine is way more strict toward in-game timings and such. If it is so perfect in details, than why not fix the unperfect gdash? Will it loose compatibility with cavesets then? If yes, then is there a list of changes that make the difference between Krissz and Gdash? I've seen infinite scrollable levels that look impressive.
Well, I would not say that the Krissz BD engine is more "perfect" or "strict" than the GDash engine, but just a little bit different (with a few additional features that do not exist in the GDash BD engine, like light boulders or inifinite scrolling, to name two examples). The Krissz BD engine is indeed more "strict" in a certain sense, as it does not offer compatibility with a number of different (and sometimes quite esoteric and C64 hardware related) cave timings, but only implements one single way of handling cave timings and game element processing during the game. Indeed, this makes the game engine more simple and clean and tidy -- or "perfectionalistic", if you want to put it that way. :)

So the GDash game engine is in fact not "imperfect" at all -- quite the opposite, as it tries hard to support all existing classic BD cave formats and how they were handled in detail on the original hardware (especially classic C64 and Atari 8-bit systems). So the GDash game engine does not have to be "fixed" here, but could at most be extended to also support Krissz BD engine caves (which it currently does not, as it handles amoeba differently, for example, and has no support for light boulders or infinite scrolling).

This is where the new BD engine in R'n'D comes into play, which uses the existing, well-established GDash engine with enhancements to also support everything that the Krissz BD game engine offers -- to a degree that even existing demos recorded when playing complex caves (or caves that push the game engine to its limits) work perfectly fine with 100 % compatibility (although it is important to mention that this is only true for the "new engine" on Krissz BD web site, not the "old engine", which was used until several years ago, and which is still used by quite a number of caves on Krissz site). (So, if you want to put it that way, the BD engine in R'n'D is that "fixed GDash engine" you asked for. ;-) )

Regarding a list of differences between the Krissz and GDash game engines, besides the already mentioned differences (like light boulders and infinite scrolling), it can be found in the BD engine related changes in the Git history between R'n'D versions 4.4.0.6 and 4.4.1.0 (and also includes a number of tiny, but important changes that are required for 100 % engine compatibility).
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Re: Rocks'n'Diamonds with Krissz game engine

Post by CWS »

Maybe somebody can open an issue on the GDash Github website because of the Krissz engine support.
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Re: Rocks'n'Diamonds with Krissz game engine

Post by igormakovsky »

Image

Holger, something looks broken, like in "Arno 19 Flying quartet cave" (Arno Numbered Caveset).

Rockford is killed instantly at the start of the level because of firefly-voodoo doll collision during the hatching phase.

Or am I doing something wrong?
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Re: Rocks'n'Diamonds with Krissz game engine

Post by artsoft »

No, it's not your fault! This is one of the caves using the "old engine" (as marked in the main menu with a red "old engine" text in the lower right corner).

Unfortunately, the BD engine in R'n'D is only fully compatible with the "new engine" caves of the Krissz Engine cave collection, while caves created with the "old engine" might or might not work. I should make this more clear in the initial post!

What do you think? Should all those "old engine" caves be removed from the Krissz Engine caves package for R'n'D?
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Re: Rocks'n'Diamonds with Krissz game engine

Post by igormakovsky »

artsoft wrote: Tue Jan 06, 2026 12:26 pm What do you think? Should all those "old engine" caves be removed from the Krissz Engine caves package for R'n'D?
Ofcourse not! Most of them are finishable. For the sake of Boulder Dash museum, all have to be kept!

Maybe in the future they will be compatible as well.
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Re: Rocks'n'Diamonds with Krissz game engine

Post by artsoft »

I should make this more clear in the initial post!
Just did that.
Most of them are finishable.
Yes, that's right. So I will keep them. :)
Maybe in the future they will be compatible as well.
Even though not planned at the moment, "old engine" compatibility could theoretically be added in the future.
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Re: Rocks'n'Diamonds with Krissz game engine

Post by artsoft »

Good news! The cave collection with Krissz Engine compatible caves has just been updated! :D

A number of new caves have been added that were created by those cave creators already existing in the last package. Then, caves created by the following site members have been added: Chris Neilson, Enrico, Nesdori and Trischi83!

Interestingly, the package contains 288 caves by Enrico, while Krissz' site only lists 21 caves by Enrico! I have no idea from where all those additional caves apparently also created by Enrico come from! :shock:

I have updated the link to the updated cave collection in the first post of this thread.

There are many stunning, remarkable caves in the updated collection! For example, there are caves by Nesdori that are more like works of art than playable caves -- while those caves are in fact still playable, and even solvable! :o

One such example is the cave "Mona Lisa", created by Nesdori (which is also part of the updated package). There is a separate package available that contains only this single level, showing the full cave instead of only a part of it, together with a playable demo that was recorded by "shredder" (who, if I remember right, is also a member of this forum)! To use this package, you also need to have the GDash cave collection for R'n'D installed, as that one-cave package is build upon the graphics set of the GDash cave collection (for whatever reason). Here's the package of this very cool cave:

Nesdori's Mona Lisa

Just download, install and select it -- and make sure you have fullscreen mode and music enabled! :D

And if you click on the "play" button on the right side of the main menu, you can watch the solution replay! (Yes, you will need good vision to watch the player moving through that cave!)
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