Rocks'n'Diamonds

Hi,

Firstly, thanks for the amazing game! I have known about it for years, but first time posting on the forum. Big fan of Emerald Mines.. love seeing the classic levels and cooperative 2-player. I loved playing these with my dad when I was young and now I am playing them with my son.

Fun part is I got my wife interested too! So now she is playing with him too. Now I got a second gamepad and we'd like to play all three

So, my question: I noticed in the setup that there are configs for up four players, but I can't seem to find any levels where we can play with three players. I have enabled local team play and have the two joysticks setup (plus one keyboard) but the most I can find are 2 players. Am I doing something wrong? Are there any 3-player levels?

Thanks,
Marc

Hi Marc, and welcome to the forum!

Great to hear that you have fun playing the game with your wife and son!

Regarding team mode games with three players: The main problem is that the (maximum) number of players is defined in the level itself (by the level designer). For example, most Emerald Mine levels were designed to be playable by one or two players (so they contain two players, where the second player is removed when playing in single-player mode).

There are three possible solutions (some of them practical, some theoretical):

1. Look out for level sets with more than two players. Unfortunately, I'm afraid than there are virtually none of them out there (with the possible exception of a level set by SlappyHappy2000, who has indeed created some levels for three and four players and who has released them here in the forum a few weeks ago, if I remember right -- I'll check for the link).

2. Modify existing level sets to be playable with more than two players. This works like this: Copy an existing level set directory (say, "levels/Emerald_Mine_Club/emc_ace_mine_1") to a new directory (say, "levels/emc_ace_mine_1_for_3_players"). You might like to also change the name of that level set (by editing file "levels/emc_ace_mine_1_for_3_players/levelinfo.conf" for our example level set, changing "name: Ace Mine 1" to "name: Ace Mine 1 for 3 players", for example). Then open the levels of your copied level set in the level editor and just add one or two players -- don't forget to also add an additional exit for each new player! Et voila -- you can now play that level with three or four players! (Please note that this might not work with all levels.)

3. A future version of R'n'D might contain a new functionality to automatically add players (and exits) to existing levels. This would always be an experimental feature, which might result in unplayable/unsolvable levels. But it wouldn't be too difficult to add such a feature, I think.

I hope that I was able to help a little bit -- especially solution 2. might be useful and practical in your case!

Have fun!

Hi Marc

The best choice is Holger's option 1. SlappyHappy2000 specifically made a multi-player levelset due to the huge hole in the market in this area. In fact, he volunteered to do it because I was whining on these forums about the lack of mulitplayer levels! His level designs are incredible and the custom artwork and music make it one of the best levelsets I've played. And that's high praise considering I've been playing R'n'D frequently for decades! Here's the link to his Better Together levelset: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3271

I was in a similar predicament to you: I needed three player levels because my two oldest sons were both really into R'n'D, so I transformed the following levelsets into three player versions: Junior Chaos Caves, Kids' Fun MIne, Tutorial 1 and Young Denmine. It was a case of adding extra players and exits, plus keys, and occasionally having to change the Yam's configurations when they gave the player a key, for example. I have also recently made a 4-player version of Kids' Fun Mine as my third son has recently gotten into R'n'D at the age of two, so the four of us are playing together - two on the keyboard and two on PS4 controllers.

Holger - what's the best way of sharing these levels with this dude? I see that SH2K had a link to his levelset on the releases page. How did he put them there? Did he email them to you?

Cheers,
Jamie x

Hi Jamie x,

thanks for posting the link to SlappyHappy2000's level set!

I have also recently made a 4-player version of Kids' Fun Mine as my third son has recently gotten into R'n'D at the age of two, so the four of us are playing together - two on the keyboard and two on PS4 controllers.

Wow, that's really cool!

Holger - what's the best way of sharing these levels with this dude? I see that SH2K had a link to his levelset on the releases page. How did he put them there? Did he email them to you?

Yes, he sent me his zipped level set by mail (or a download link to some cloud storage, not sure anymore), and I put it into the levels folder on my web site, so he can link to it! I should also update my "Levels & Artwork" page, to directly link to it, but haven't managed it yet.

And indeed I just wanted to ask you to also send me your three and four player modified levels sets -- I really think that quite some people will like them, as there aren't that many multi-player level sets available for R'n'D!

Depending on the size of the resulting zip files, you should also be able to just post them here as an attachment, but if this does not work (not sure at the moment), just send them to me, and I'll add them to that folder, too!

Hi Holger

I've attached the 3 and 4 player levelsets. I've left off Young Denmine for now because I realised I've only converted the first 30 levels to three player versions. I'll upload it once I've converted the remaining levels.

Best wishes
Jamie x

Hi Jamie,

great, thanks for uploading them here, so everybody can download those enhanced level sets!

Marc, please let us know if this works for you (by extracting the attached 7zip archive to your R'n'D "levels" folder).

If you should have any problems getting it to work, please just let me know, and I'll be happy to help!