I modified level 14 "Let Them In" of the Martin Brentnall set in the DX Boulderdash levels -- filename:
levels/DX-Boulderdash/dx_martin_brentnall/014.level
The original had the following problems:
1. The timing of the level is controlled by a yamyam bouncing around in a set of one-way reflectors, releasing sets of stored rocks. The yamyam may randomly skip one or more of these reflectors. If so, when the next set(s) of rocks are released, they do not reach the player, being blocked by the previous unreleased set(s) below. To successfully play the level, most or all of the stored rock sets must be released.
Fix: added to each "release the rocks" bomb fuse a side-fuse which releases the previous set; these chain backwards, so even if the yamyam skips all but the last set, they are all released. As far as I can tell, this can no longer go wrong: even if the yamyam skips directly to the final "trap the yamyam forever" arrangement, he bounces across to trigger all the releases before returning to get trapped.
2. The last two "release" bomb sets do different things: release a flock of bugs and other pests (to make life more difficult); and finally, blow up the exit (to add a "race" element to the action). These two parts of the level were not working due to use of non-falling "stable bombs". Also, one of the fuse-starter columns was the wrong height and did not successfully light its fuse.
Fixed these by using a few regular falling bombs + redesigning the problematic fuse.
3. The penultimate action, releasing the bugs, did not work because a rock will not slide from a slippery wall ("normal wall, BD style") to an adjacent "quicksand (empty)". The released rock was landing in the wrong place. I could have fixed this by removing or moving the "quicksand (empty)" down one; instead, I added an extra slippery wall to redirect the falling rock to the right target.
I will upload the modified version -- this will be my first upload to this forum, so we'll see if I'm successful. The upload is further modified by the editing process in that:
4. It's in a different save format (probably RND native instead of whatever the original was -- except that `strings` on the original says "ROCKSNDIAMONDS_LEVEL_FILE_VERSION_1.4", while the new doesn't have that at all, so I'm not sure what's going on...)
5. The NAME and AUTH fields are "Mod: Let Them In" and "Bela Lubkin (ed.)" instead of "Let Them In" and "Martin Brentnall".
Attached: archive of:
./levels/DX-Boulderdash/dx_martin_brentnall/014.level.orig
./levels/DX-Boulderdash/dx_martin_brentnall/014.level.converted
./levels/DX-Boulderdash/dx_martin_brentnall/014.level
./levels/DX-Boulderdash/dx_martin_brentnall/tapes/014.tape
- The original level, as extracted from rockslevels-dx-1.0.tar.gz http://www.artsoft.org/RELEASES/unix/ro ... 1.0.tar.gz
- The original level, reformatted, after saving from within RND 3.3.0.1 (comparison base)
- The updated level
- A tape of my successful completion of the level, including witnessing the release of the bugs
I am also going to attempt to inform Martin Brentnall, I *think* I've found the right guy with a bit of google searching. Don't know if he still cares about BD-style game levels decades later...
>Bela<