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additional boulderdash levels?

Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2017 2:52 pm
by Aurora
hello!
does anybody know if there's any place i can find the additional boulderdash levels for RnD? the download link on martijn's site seems to be broken :/
thanks

Re: additional boulderdash levels?

Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2017 9:53 pm
by filbo

Re: additional boulderdash levels?

Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2017 11:23 pm
by filbo
Hmmm. At the moment that I checked, http://www.bd-fans.com/RnD.html was offline, so I found it on archive.org.

Then I tried to download from archive.org all 222 files linked from the main page; and successfully acquired 188 of them.

Only then did one of my attempts to reach the original site succeed. So then I tried to download the 34 files which were not found on archive.org; but unfortunately, the apparent reason that archive.org doesn't have them is that bd-fans.com also doesn't have them! I did a spot-check on a file or two which were on archive.org, and they were also present on bd-fans.com.

The 34 that I failed to download were as follows. (Note: some of these are of only tiny historical interest, like builds for OS/2 and PocketPC; and some others are readily acquired elsewhere, including artsoft.org; yet finally, there also appear to be a couple dozen which might be unique and therefore currently 'lost'. I marked with '(*)' some items below which I'm pretty sure are in 'standard' locations like artsoft.org or even, indeed, in the basic RnD downloadable packages). See the archive.org and/or bd-fans.com pages for readable descriptions:

Files/RnD/Graphics/MBPGS.ZIP
Files/RnD/Levels/42_Steps.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/ASiekierkas_Showcase.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/BD2K3.ZIP (*)
Files/RnD/Levels/Boulderdash.zip (*)
Files/RnD/Levels/Classic_Supaplex.zip (*)
Files/RnD/Levels/Colourful_World.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Contributions_2005.zip (*)
Files/RnD/Levels/Element_follows_element.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Emerald_Factory_%28Easy%29.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Fool_that_bug.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/JuergenBonhagen.zip (*)
Files/RnD/Levels/Level_in_level.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/MP-Richard.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Manuels_Sokoban_Levels.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Master-Rocks.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Maze_Solver.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Moving_Elements.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Negundo_World_2.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Quicksand_for_emeralds.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Random_Level.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Rotation_Project.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Scrolling_Text.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Slippery_Ground.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Space_Invaders.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Step_Puzzles.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Text_Input.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Tutorial_Aaron_Davidson.zip (*)
Files/RnD/Levels/Tutorial_Niko_Boehm.zip (*)
Files/RnD/Levels/Wrap-Around_Scrolling.zip
Files/RnD/RnD308_OS2_XFree2.zip
Files/RnD/RoNDi_%28PocketPC%29_v3.1.0.zip
Files/RnD/Utilities/Level_Sketch_v2.zip
Files/RnD/Utilities/RnD_Database_v0.9.zip

Re: additional boulderdash levels?

Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2017 1:37 am
by Aurora
filbo wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 11:23 pm Files/RnD/Levels/Boulderdash.zip (*)
yup that's the one; it doesn't seem to be available on artsoft.org either :/

Re: additional boulderdash levels?

Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2017 1:14 pm
by Holger
I've attached the file your are looking for; it comes from an old (2012) dump of "www.bd-fans.com".

Maybe I should set up a mirror site for it on artsoft.org... My latest dump is from 2015, which has quite some additions compared to the 2012 dump, but which also already has all those missing files filbo listed above. :-/

Re: additional boulderdash levels?

Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2017 9:52 pm
by Aurora
thank you!

Re: additional boulderdash levels?

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 1:08 am
by filbo
I did eventually find copies of 11 of the lost files in various FreeBSD archives (the one I actually downloaded from was http://ftp.stu.edu.tw/FreeBSD/distfiles/rocksndiamonds, and crosschecked sha256sums against some other BSD site whose details I failed to note):

Files/RnD/Levels/42_Steps.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/BD2K3.ZIP (as BD2K3-1.0.0.zip)
Files/RnD/Levels/Classic_Supaplex.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Colourful_World.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/JuergenBonhagen.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Manuels_Sokoban_Levels.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Master-Rocks.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Negundo_World_2.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Slippery_Ground.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Space_Invaders.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Step_Puzzles.zip

(BD2K3.ZIP under filename BD2K3-1.0.0.zip)

-- which means I still don't have copies of (http://www.bd-fans.com/):

Files/RnD/Graphics/MBPGS.ZIP
Files/RnD/Levels/ASiekierkas_Showcase.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Contributions_2005.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Element_follows_element.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Emerald_Factory_%28Easy%29.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Fool_that_bug.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Level_in_level.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/MP-Richard.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Maze_Solver.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Moving_Elements.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Quicksand_for_emeralds.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Random_Level.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Rotation_Project.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Scrolling_Text.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Slippery_Ground.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Text_Input.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Tutorial_Aaron_Davidson.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Tutorial_Niko_Boehm.zip
Files/RnD/Levels/Wrap-Around_Scrolling.zip
Files/RnD/RnD308_OS2_XFree2.zip
Files/RnD/RoNDi_%28PocketPC%29_v3.1.0.zip
Files/RnD/Utilities/Level_Sketch_v2.zip
Files/RnD/Utilities/RnD_Database_v0.9.zip

-- did not understand from your comments about 2012 and 2015 dumps whether you might have any of these, or they remain lost. (And I do realize that the 2 tutorials + Contributions_2005 are well captured elsewhere, just not in the precise forms 'lost' from bd-fans.com...)

Re: additional boulderdash levels?

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2017 1:55 am
by ellipirelli
hi, filbo,

I have sent some of the missing levels and levelsets to Holger (via e-mail). I think he'll post them later here (if he has time)
greatings to all rnd-fans.

Re: additional boulderdash levels?

Posted: Sun Nov 12, 2017 12:20 am
by ellipirelli
It's often helpful to read the old pages...... :lol:
From here http://www.artsoft.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=478

is a link to this page: levelscetch 2 and 2 levels by Holger.
http://www.artsoft.org/RELEASES/rocksnd ... /unsorted/

Re: additional boulderdash levels?

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2023 8:40 am
by ellipirelli
Hi Filbo, Martijn had indeed researched thoroughly for all his sites and had put together his download packages for Rnd with levels from the forum and Zomis' files archive. I suspect that he stopped updating his site from mid 2007 on, as there was still a lot uploaded to Zomis' site until 2012 that didn't appear on Martijn's. Like you and many other RnD fans, I spent years searching for the level packs that can now no longer be downloaded from Martijn's BD site. Across the internet and with wayback searches.

For this reason I had sent a mail to Zomis a few years ago asking for the missing levels. Surely many other users have contacted him and he had here
viewtopic.php?p=17794&hilit=zomis+rnd+f ... ive#p17794
made everything available for download that he still had. Unfortunately, many of the folders are empty, but the levels from Lee Brewer, which unfortunately were not offered on Martijn's site, still exist (ID 652). I thought there was really no way to ever find the exact packages you were looking for anymore.

For years, like many others, I only was just a user collecting levels for RnD, EMC, Supaplex and BD from Artsoft, Zomis' Files archive, Martijn's BD site and from the Internet. Out of ignorance I then deleted a lot of things I couldn't do anything with at that time. I learned only in the course of many years what e.g. CE levels or tools/utilities etc. are. And when I finally understood it, many downloads were no longer possible. After the forum was reopened and there were always questions about missing levels, I just thought: I have a lot of them. But it took me 3 years after I signed up to make my first attempt at posting and uploading level packs in 2017, because I didn't even know how to do it. You were the first to reply and write a tutorial for me back then.

Yesterday, while searching for a particular BD game, I saw again a page from Martijn and did not want to visit it, because I assumed that you can no longer download much there. But out of curiosity I opened it anyway and after some time I found exactly what you are looking for.
Here are all the original level packs again, which have not been downloadable for a long time. (I leave out the files that are too big).

Re: additional boulderdash levels?

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2023 8:45 am
by ellipirelli
the next:

Re: additional boulderdash levels?

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2023 8:51 am
by ellipirelli
not enough??? :P :wink:

Re: additional boulderdash levels?

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2023 8:56 am
by ellipirelli
and the last...
Files/RnD/RnD308_OS2_XFree2.zip was too big, I made the zip to 7z

Re: additional boulderdash levels?

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2023 8:56 am
by ellipirelli
And here is the link for those who want to download everything (game versions, documentations, levels, etc.) completely.

https://www.artsoft.org/rocksndiamonds/ ... m/RnD.html

The address says Artsoft first and since I'm a complete layman, I don't know if this page was saved by Martijn himself or by Holger. According to the date it is from March 2010 and the downloads work. The links at the bottom only work with Wayback. In any case it is "bd-fans.com".

I hope this helps you. :D

Re: additional boulderdash levels?

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2023 9:40 am
by filbo
Hi ellipirelli --

That final link -- https://www.artsoft.org/rocksndiamonds/levels/martijnmooij/2010-03-16/www.bd-fans.com/RnD.html -- does indeed point directly back to this site, Holger's artsoft.org. So apparently all of these files have already been here since long before we were discussing where to find them!
ellipirelli wrote:I don't know if this page was saved by Martijn himself or by Holger.
It's Holger's site; but it's true that this forum software has capabilities to have alternate admins and stuff. But I would guess this was captured by Holger back in the day, and none of us ever noticed it, and he didn't remember when he saw us talking about these files being lost.

Searching the entire forum for "martijnmooij/2010-03-16" finds only this post of yours from a few hours ago. Seaching for "martijnmooij"'s name by itself finds 2 others which are clearly about the same person, but not about that cache of files. So those have existed on the site, unknown to all of us, for an unknown length of time. I mean, of course '2010-03-16' in the URL is extremely suggestive, but it could mean that Holger downloaded the files that day, but only linked them up to the web site yesterday!

=====
since I'm a complete layman
Well, I'm not :)

So I was easily able to find that there are actually three side-by-side directory hierarchies:

www.bd-fans.com 2010-03-16
www.bd-fans.com 2012-11-07
www.bd-fans.com 2015-12-09

-- of which you have discovered only the first. These appear to be 3 different complete scrapings of bd-fans.com by Holger, 3 different times over the years. So if anything is still missing, maybe it's in one of those.

=====

I don't think you needed to upload all those files; just linking to the scraped site-image you'd discovered was sufficient.

=====

Holger, this begs the question: what other hidden goodies exist underneath https://www.artsoft.org/rocksndiamonds/levels ? That URL leads to an HTML page, which then doesn't link to ./martijnmooij; there could be any number of other hidden gems!