Diamond Caves is being sold on Steam now

[ncrecc]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/929850

I hope this doesn't come off as shilling, it's rare to come across any good BD games nowadays. Besides, DC2 was good enough to be implemented into RnD. (And I understand now why Holger might not be responding to the "add the rest of the DC3 elements" requests.)

[ncrecc]

Unforunately the developers have majorly dumbed down a lot of the game for "the casual audience" that the game will probably never reach to begin with.

The UI looks like something out of a freemium mobile game now:

The "handicap" is now enforced and cannot be disabled, and your only way to skip levels is to collect and spend "extras" from beating previous levels... those "extras" can also be used to temporarily turn on blatant cheats such as free dynamite, force-fields, and hammers. And to top it all off, the levelsets are way different now, with the tutorial levels completely removed, and there don't seem to be message postcards at all any more. The level editor and custom level functions have also been disabled until Steam Workshop integration is completed.

I suspect what happened here is the same with what happened with Boulder Dash 30th Anniversary: it was originally a mobile remake of the game with cheats that made levels less difficult but had to be paid for, and then the developers thought they'd get more money if it were a paid game on Steam, so they awkwardly half-removed the mobile features and paying for cheats and packaged it as a PC game.

[Holger]

Yes, I've also noticed the Steam re-release of Diamond Caves (without any version suffix like "II" or "3" this time; this seems to be some kind of trend nowadays ... first version numbers like 3.0 were replaced by date stamps like "2018-12" or simply incrementing integer numbers like "67", then they were completely removed from the program name, finally ending up in mobile games and programs being updated/replaced with crippled ^H^H^H considerably different versions under your ass ^H^H^H over night; even Apple is following such a "naming scheme" with the iPad now).

Besides, DC2 was good enough to be implemented into RnD.

Yes, I do think that DC2 (or Diamond Caves in general) is a very good BD style game (and it's even a little bit older than R'n'D). That's why I added support for reading its level sets.

(And I understand now why Holger might not be responding to the "add the rest of the DC3 elements" requests.)

I thought that I shouldn't support playing DC3 level sets too much as long as it is actively maintained and sold, to not hurt its author's business (although I think that just adding "the rest of the DC3 elements" shouldn't be too much of a problem).

But if it should be true that none of the "classic" DC/DC2/DC3 level sets can be played anymore with the new Steam version of the game, I might consider adding a bit more DC2/DC3 support, just to enable fans of the "classic" version of this game to be able to play all those nice level sets without restrictions like handicap that cannot be disabled etc.

I suspect what happened here is the same with what happened with BD2K3: it was originally a mobile remake of the game [...]

BD2K3? Have I missed anything? Is there a mobile game version of BD2K3 out there? Never noticed! I only know it as one of the greatest level sets for R'n'D, created by Alan Bond in 2003, and still being playable just fine in current R'n'D...

[ncrecc]

I suspect what happened here is the same with what happened with BD2K3: it was originally a mobile remake of the game [...]

BD2K3? Have I missed anything? Is there a mobile game version of BD2K3 out there? Never noticed! I only know it as one of the greatest level sets for R'n'D, created by Alan Bond in 2003, and still being playable just fine in current R'n'D...

Ah, sorry, I was thinking of Boulder Dash 30th Anniversary. Shares a "3" so the names kind of melded together in my mind. I should definitely get around to playing BD2K3 some time.

But if it should be true that none of the "classic" DC/DC2/DC3 level sets can be played anymore with the new Steam version of the game, I might consider adding a bit more DC2/DC3 support, just to enable fans of the "classic" version of this game to be able to play all those nice level sets without restrictions like handicap that cannot be disabled etc.

Great idea! I think RnD preserves the spirit of Boulder Dash-esque games the way they ought to be preserved, by sticking with the tried and true methods that made those games so great, instead of cramping things by telling players "you have to play the levels in this exact way, in this exact order, and here's some game-breaking tools if you don't like that."

[filbo]

R'n'D's game-breaking tools of replay, single-step, and speed adjustments, are just right! :)

[ncrecc]

The editor has finally arrived! Now I should be able to provide some of the more pedantic information about the DC3 elements, e.g. how stacked magic walls work.

[ncrecc]

Nowadays the developer has gotten way better about supporting the "older ways", especially since now that the editor is out you can play any levels from any set in any order you want with the "test" feature. The developer is also porting old DC2 and DC3 levelsets to DC5 one by one.
However, I would still advocate bringing DC3 elements over to RnD, since it seems that DC3 has officially ran its course now and is being replaced by DC5.