Any way to extract DX-Boulder sprites?

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RAP
Posts: 317
Joined: Sat Jun 19, 2004 6:44 pm

Any way to extract DX-Boulder sprites?

Post by RAP »

DX-Boulder (or DX-Boulderdash), quite the wonder, I used to fiddle around this game before moving onto Rocks'n'Diamonds, unfortunately time has passed as no one would play this nowadays. Locked away by time are those sprites, check out the screenshots of the sprites being in use: http://www.steffest.com/dxboulder/DXScreens.htm

There are 3 tilesets: "Emerald", "EmeraldBIG", and "FruityCaves" in the last latest version. For each name said, they are in both .bam and .iml formats. Here's the link of the last latest version of the game before the game had ceased developement:
http://www.steffest.com/dxboulder/Files ... 3alpha.zip

However, there's 1 tileset that's even more forgotten than those 3, "MagicP", that resides in the second last version of the game. Opening the game and trying the thing, it appears that the message displays this note: 'This levelmap requires a higher spriteset version' for certain levelsets, of the two of I played, they're akin to Emerald Mine 1 (Kingsoft), and Boulder Dash. I assume this is why it didn't appear in the last latest version of the game. Here's the other download link:
http://www.steffest.com/dxboulder/Files ... erV042.zip

I tried to extract it, as there's a sprite editor that I messed around back then, but the problem is, the link's a dud, not even the Wayback Machine has it!
http://underworld.fortunecity.com/arena ... XTools.zip

Sesame Street? What? Well sadly, there's no tileset of that at all. There's not much development from seeing that screenshot so. It'd be cool if the sprites are converted for Rocks'n'Diamonds, the ones I look forward are the Fruity Caves one, and Emerald Big.
Steffest
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Re: Any way to extract DX-Boulder sprites?

Post by Steffest »

Hey Rap,

It's nice that someone still remembers that game:-)
DX Boulder was my first "real" software development project and I knew sh*t about coding back then so I ran myself into every trap that DIY software juniors can ran into :-)
But still is was fun.

The MagicP spriteset was just a blatant rip of the Magic Pockets sprites by the Bitmap brothers.
It wasn't very complete. That's why you sometimes get that "requires a higher spriteset" message, which means that the level uses element that are not present in the spriteset.
I did recover some of my old sources from an old harddrive recently, so if you do really want them: they are at http://www.emeraldmines.net/files/magicPsprites.zip

The fruitycave sprites are still very nice I think. I still have those sources as well somewhere.
the .iml files is just a palette and then then the binary data of all the sprites.
the .bam files is just a map that ties sprite indexes to animation frames.

The sesame sprites was the spriteset I initially developed the game with - a very long long time ago - it's not very useful as it's just some none-animated sprites from sesame street.

Don't you love how simple things where back then ?

I still play emerald mines at least once a week - it's still the reason why I keep all my old Amigas at hand.
I gave up on my DX Boulder sources a long time ago, but I did port the David Tritscher engine to javascript some time ago and usually play that one in the browser.
I still look out for new unknown emerald mine levels sometimes and play tested the Kevin mine 4, 5 and 6 releases (available on http://www.emeraldmines.net/) which where great fun.
I ALMOST found a complete unknown mine "surfer mine 2" when I helped transferring the 12000 disks of the Bamiga Sector One archive to ADF ( http://www.amigaclub.be/bs1/ ) but sadly that disk was missing ... bad luck!
(I did found some other mines with slight variations on the levels in that archive though ... I still have to add them to the site)

Anyway ... Emerald Mines forever!

Cheers
Steffest
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RAP
Posts: 317
Joined: Sat Jun 19, 2004 6:44 pm

Re: Any way to extract DX-Boulder sprites?

Post by RAP »

Whoa, hey Steffest, didn't expect you to respond so quickly!

Yeah, I tried playing the last latest version of that game, DX-Boulder on Windows 7, I had to force it to make it windowed and adjust the speed, which for the latter, isn't even enough! There is definitely no way the speed inconsistently changes whenever I played it on Windows XP many years ago. Sucks that the game's dead, but at least most/all of the elements have been transferred to Rocks'n'Diamonds for great use, like those blue tubes! They're quite popular for levelmakers from what I remember, they can be used as decoration too!

Oh, blatant rip off from the game Magic Pockets itself? Bet sprite-ripping was more sporadic and a rarity back then, a quick internet search gives me links like this in regards to fetching the sprites:
http://bringerp.free.fr/RE/MagicPockets/utility.php5
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=22437
http://hol.abime.net/2385/gamemap
Such availability, sprite sets like these could be used to compile graphic sets for caves in Rocks'n'Diamonds. It's gonna be more easier now that Rocks'n'Diamonds has .PNG image file support. Perhaps I can do something about that.

Speaking of Fruity Caves sprites, I didn't know there's a Emerald Mine clone of that game by the very same user that made those sprites until years ago, and it looks very fun to play from a brief look. Too bad there's no gameplay footage on the internet to quickly show the game itself for the non-players. o: Oh, I'm sure there's a possibility of a Sesame Street Mine graphic set, there just need to find enough references and resources. xD I await for the other sprite pieces, especially EmeraldBIG.

Ah, I've been on a Emerald Mine kick for the last couple of days, finally finishing up levelsets from the Emerald Mine Club collection, which you can track here (I'll be posting another update within a week or so): viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2084
Oh? You accept new levelsets for your Emerald Mines website, and try to playtest them? Well, I have a 15x15 levelset in the Emerald Mine engine style that I've been working on and off for years, and I just made a lot of new levels for the past week or two with a bunch of creativity involved and pushing the engine to the limits per say, but they have to be played in Rocks'n'Diamonds though. I may wanna reach to at least a thousand 15x15 levels. :p
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