List of DC3 elements and elements that are different in DC3

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ncrecc
Posts: 153
Joined: Thu Jul 12, 2018 12:59 am

List of DC3 elements and elements that are different in DC3

Post by ncrecc »

Recently, the developer of Diamond Caves 3 has stopped offering it for purchase, and instead put up a weaker (in my opinion) "Diamond Caves" game on Steam. This Steam version does not feature any of the levels that were previously in DC3 and now has its "do levels in order" handicap more or less permanently enabled. Due to this making it much harder for new fans to experience the original Diamond Caves 3, Holger has offered to port all of the DC3 elements to RnD, so to assist him I have come up with this big list of DC3 elements and behaviors that are not yet in RnD.

Perhaps replace all instances of "DC2" in the game's text with "DC3" and replace "Diamond Caves 2" with "Diamond Caves 3" once all of the unimplemented DC3 elements are in.

Note that I am defining "move" here as the time it takes for the player to move from one square to another.

Note that these elements are from DC5, the Steam version of Diamond Caves, but only the ones that I have seen in DC3's editor are included.

If you completely forget what some of the pictureless elements below look like, take this DC3 demo. It contains tutorial levels, which go over every element in DC3, and an editor where you can quickly view what elements look like.

Skeleton Key: Gives the player every key (whether this includes EMC keys is up to you), and an infinite amount of white keys. Worth as much score as a normal key.

Four-color door: Can be passed through once the player collects any red, yellow, blue, or green key.

Wooden door: The red, yellow, blue, green, and white doors come in wooden variations. These wooden doors act the same as their counterparts except that they can be destroyed.

Doors: All doors except the exit door are slippery in DC. This is not the case in RnD, nor EM, so perhaps fixing this would be best as a "doors are slippery" level setting.

Wall with content: DC has a lot of walls with content. Here's everything that isn't currently in RnD (some of it is things currently in DC but not RnD):
Wall with Ruby
Wall with Boulder
Wall with Nut
Wall with Bomb
Wall with Megabomb
Wall with Ship (facing up)
Wall with Bug (facing up)
Wall with Yam-Yam (moving up)
Wall with Robot
Wall with Mole (facing up)
Wall with Slime (random direction)
Wall with Wheel
Wall with Red Key
Wall with Yellow Key
Wall with Blue Key
Wall with Green Key
Wall with White Key
Wall with Skeleton Key
Wall with Dynamite (not lit)
Wall with Shield (normal)
Wall with Extra Time
Wall with Closed EM Exit
Wall with Open EM Exit
Wall with Green Amoeba
Wall with Yellow Amoeba
Considering how many of these different elements there are, it might be more practical if there was some way to assign content to individual walls instead of having all of these "wall with content" elements flooding the editor.

Narrow passages: These are completely identical to the one-way ports from Supaplex and would just be a reskin. You go in through the big end and exit through the smaller end.

Narrow steel passages: These are just the Narrow passages except indestructible and textured to look like steel.

Wall (not round): This is one of many flat walls that gems and nuts do not slip off of. There is a small indent in this wall's graphic, as if the wall was built so that objects would be caught and not slip off. Speaking of DC-style slipping...
Gems and nuts will slip off of the following normally non-slippery DC tiles:
Flat normal wall
Flat steel wall
Invisible normal wall
Invisible steel wall
Replicator corner tiles
Replicator switch
Exit
Steel exit
Conveyor switch
All tube tiles
All remote bomb controls
Teleporters
RnD emulates EM slipping behavior fine, but not DC slipping behavior: the nut, pearl, and crystal do not have the "slip from certain flat walls" option that the other gems do, and gems with said option enabled do not slip off of invisible walls, exits, steel exits, tubes, or conveyor switches. (For the EM slipping behavior to coexist with the DC slipping behavior, they would have to be separate options, given how gems do not slip off of invisible walls or exits in EM.)

Steel wall (not round): Same as Wall (not round) but steel and indestructible.

Yellow Amoeba: From what I can tell, the only difference between green and yellow amoeba is that they can have different growth speeds set in the editor. Perhaps in RnD this could be given all of the same variations that green amoeba has (BD amoeba, amoeba with content, etc.) and with all of its settings completely independent from green amoeba.

Grass (DC3): Grass grows like amoeba, but can have a different growth speed set. It can also be dug away like dirt. It does not explode on contact with ships, bugs, and BD enemies the way regular amoeba does. For clarity, this should probably look different from the EMC grass - maybe a lighter shade of green?

Conveyor belt switches: DC has some options that RnD does not. Conveyor belt switches can be set to start on the left, in the middle with the next push turning it left, on the right, or in the middle with the next push turning it right. Unlike RnD, conveyor belts in DC can be manually configured to start at a certain direction, and do not require the presence of a conveyor switch to determine which direction they move objects at the start of the level. Also, switches in RnD can be activated by falling boulders, but only the player can activate switches in DC.

Conveyor: Conveyors in DC move objects as fast as the player's normal walking speed, but conveyors in RnD move objects slower than that. Also, in DC, active conveyor belts produce an ambient droning noise.

Yam-Yam: Yam-Yams in this game (they are called "Eaters") start the level moving down instead of up, except if they are summoned into the level via being smashed out of a chest or wall with content or being spawned via replicator (in which cases they start the level moving up). A Yam-Yam summoned by smashing another Yam-Yam will be moving down when it is spawned.
Also, when a Yam-Yam eats a diamond in DC, the diamond plays its "collected" animation, and the Yam-Yam does not continue moving until the diamond is fully collected.

Emerald Gate: Every time you pass through it, an additional gem is added to the amount of gems you need to open the exit. However, if you are at zero gems needed, passing through the emerald gate cannot bring it back up.

Growing walls: DC also has some growing walls that can only grow in one direction, as opposed to two or four. Growing walls in DC grow at the speed of a walking player, but growing walls in RnD grow slower than that.

Switch gate/time gate: The open/close animations for these gates are much shorter in DC than they are in RnD. This means that after opening a gate, you can go through it near-immediately in DC. Also, they use the menu door sound for opening and closing, instead of the long exit door sound. In my opinion the menu door sound is more fitting for these gates; the exit door sound should only be used to indicate something really important to completing the level (i.e. the exit door opening).

Time gate wheel: In DC, if you spin a time gate wheel, then spin other time gate wheels while the first wheel is still spinning, all wheels will stop spinning once the first wheel stops spinning. In RnD, this is not the case, and you can extend the duration for which a time gate is open by spinning multiple time gate wheels.

Switch gate switch: In DC, these are slippery and nothing can switch them except the player.

Tubes: The tubes in DC and the tubes in RnD are nearly identical (although the RnD tubes are reused from DX Boulder Dash, I'm guessing DX Boulder Dash reused its tubes from DC2), except... you guessed it, the player can't be seen inside of RnD tubes. Navigating through tunnels can be much harder if you don't know where you are. I would recommend making the tubes partially see-through like this: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2583
DC tubes also make rattling sounds when you walk through them.

Boulders/bombs/etc.: I just wanted to point out that the push delay for pushable objects is much different in DC than in RnD. In DC, there seems to be about a 50/50 chance for the object to move instantly when pushed on. The push delay can also get larger than in RnD, up to at least 1 second (6 moves). I don't have exact numbers.

Contact mine: Once it's activated, it explodes in a 3x3 radius after 1 move. It activates when it's fully adjacent to an enemy (including amoeba) or the player, or when it's hit from above by a falling object. Amoeba drops do not activate the mine unless they turn into regular amoeba within the mine's range. Like bombs and remote bombs, it will prematurely explode if it is caught in another explosion.
There is a specific peculiarity I've noticed with contact mines: if, on the turn the mine explodes, a player is in range of the mine's explosion but is moving to a non-explosion tile, that player will survive; but if an enemy that moves at the same speed as the player (such as a ship, bug, or eater) tries to do that, it will not survive. I suppose that applies for all explosion tiles.

Dynamite: DC5 (Diamond Caves for Steam) features a little bar below the player that fills up while you hold down the "drop dynamite" button so that you know how long to hold before the dynamite is dropped. Personally I thought this was a very good way to convey that you have to hold down the dynamite button and not just press it, and it would be a nice feature for RnD to have.
Image

Dynamite (lit): DC3 allows pre-placed lit dynamite in a stage much like RnD, except you can also select the fuse length (whether it explodes in 4 moves, 3 moves, 2 moves, or 1 move)

Steel signs: DC3 has some signs that are not in RnD or not properly represented. Here's a comparison:
Image
Although the heart sign exists in RnD, it is one of the hidden Frankie Goes to Hollywood signs that cannot be accessed except as user-defined elements. It also has different shading than the DC heart.
Although the arrows exist in RnD, they are destroyable and do not actually appear on a steel wall.
The radioactive sign already exists in RnD's DC2 category, but it is triangular instead of being circular.
If the Player 1 and 2 signs are put into RnD (as yellow Rockford and red Rockford, of course), there should also probably be Player 3 and 4 signs.
Also, the guy on the handicap sign has an arm in RnD but not in DC... but that's just nitpicking. :P

Magic steel wall: Same as DC2 magic wall, but indestructible. Perhaps steel variants could also be made for the BD and EM magic walls.

Wall (round with point): Slippery. If a nut falls and lands on it, the nut will crack. It's that simple.

Steel wall (round with point): Same as Wall (round with point) but steel and indestructible.

Shield (normal): RnD treats stacking shields differently than DC. If you collect a 3-second shield (for example), and then immediately collect another shield, in DC your shield time would be reset back to 3 seconds, but in RnD the shield times would add and you'd have a shield of 6 seconds.
Another thing DC5 does with this that I like is showing how much shield time you have left with the shield ring gradually disappearing, instead of just flashing quicker like in RnD's case.
Image

Removable DC2 mine: In DC, if the player has a shield, this tile can be dug through as if it were regular dirt. In RnD, this tile can only be removed by snapping, and will be treated as a solid tile if the player tries moving into it while using a normal shield.

Replicator: There are four colors of replicator: red, yellow, blue, and green. Each colored replicator has five parts, all indestructible, and the corner parts are considered slippery for gems and nuts. The only part of a replicator that actually does any spawning is the bottom-right tile, which spawns the replicator's selected element to the left of itself. This is a fully assembled red replicator (you could take every part but the bottom-right off and it would still work):
Image
Replicators spawn elements and are controlled by respectively colored switches, like magic balls. Unlike magic balls, their generation delay can not be configured and is always 2 moves, and they can not kill Rockford if he is blocking the space in which an object would generate (unlike RnD magic balls, anyway. EM magic balls never kill the player). Each replicator spawns one type of element over and over, and it will spawn that element out of the empty space that its parts form over (the bottom middle space). Which element it spawns is configurable. In DC, you can also configure whether each replicator starts the level activated or not.

Light Barriers: Think infinitely fast one-directional growing walls that can be toggled on and off. Like conveyors and replicators, these come in red, yellow, blue, and green, each color of barrier emitter has a respective switch that can toggle it, and each color of emitter can be configured to start the level in an enabled state. The barriers can freely pass through perpendicular barriers, but will be blocked by parallel barriers. If two barrier emitters facing one another are freed of obstruction at the same time, the barriers facing left or up will override the barriers facing right or down, but the reverse is true if the two barriers are activated at the same time. It's hard to explain, so here's some gifs:
Image
Image
(Yes, those player movements are synchronized in the second image.)
Barrier emitters, barrier switches, and the barriers themselves are all slippery, though they appear to be flat.

Remote Bombs: Remote bombs can be moved around either by pushing them (they have zero push delay), or by pressing one of the "remote bomb switch" tiles. Very similar to balloons and wind, except they only ever move one tile at a time. They explode if a "remote bomb switch (ignition)" tile is pressed, or prematurely if crushed by a boulder or caught in another explosion. Also, they are slippery.

Postcards: DC allows for up to eight types of postcards in one level. This means four new types of postcards would be introduced to RnD. Might I suggest they use the same coloration as the four EMC-exclusive keys and doors?

Teleporters: They come in the classic four colors: red, yellow, blue, and green. Only players can enter them. Teleporters work best when there is exactly one other teleporter of their type in the level - a lone teleporter will just act like a steel wall, and if more than two teleporters of the same type are in a level, the first two will link and the extras will act like steel walls.
When you press against a teleporter, if the matching teleporter is unblocked, you will instantly appear at the destination teleporter - there is no animation for walking into the entry teleporter - and be walking out in the direction you pressed at the entry teleporter. I am guessing this is because the designer wanted entering and exiting teleporters to be as fast as entering and exiting a door, but for some reason could not just speed up the player like when passing through doors.
If you press against a teleporter that has a valid destination teleporter, but that destination teleporter is blocked in the direction you're trying to move, you'll just uselessly shuffle against the entry teleporter for one move and stay in place. Teleporters are declared blocked the same way doors are considered blocked, so you can't teleport onto a diggable or collectible tile.

Quicksand: Whatever the quicksand speeds are in DC, they don't seem to match up with the quicksand speeds in RnD.
Here's the DC speeds: no quicksand, quicksand, and slow quicksand.
Image
Here's the RnD speeds: no quicksand, fast quicksand, and quicksand.
Image
From what I remember, RnD treats fast quicksand in a way it probably should not be: the rock does not travel through the quicksand itself any faster than it would in normal quicksand, it only has a faster animation for entering and exiting the quicksand. This may be why the quicksand speeds shown above are not synchronized.

Magic wall reset: A button similar in appearance to the DC2 light switch. Pressing this tile after the magic walls have disabled will cause them to reset. You can then push a convertible onto the magic walls to re-activate them. (Whether this should only affect DC2 magic walls or BD and EM magic walls as well is all up to interpretation.)

Hammer: Collectibles similar to white keys. While you have at least one hammer, snapping at any of the following tiles will create a 1x1 explosion on that tile and use up a hammer:
Wall
Wall (invisible)
Wall (round)
Wall (round with point)
Wall (not round)
Magic wall
Growing wall (any type)
Narrow passage (any direction)
Wall with content
Chest

Chest: There are eight types of chests. Each type can be configured (much like a replicator) to contain a certain element. If the chest is exploded specifically with a hammer, it will leave behind its selected element. Chests are slippery.

Slime: The slime moves about twice as slow as a Yam-Yam - so slow that if it's directly below a boulder and moves down, it can be crushed by the boulder in mid-air. It cannot harm the player except by its death explosion. If the slime moves into the following element, it will absorb it as long as it does not already have something absorbed:
Any gem
Shield (normal)
Extra Time
Dynamite
Hammer
Any key
While it has something absorbed, that absorbed element is shown inside of the slime, except transparent and as a small graphic. Once it is smashed by a rock (or killed in any way that would cause a Yam-Yam to leave behind its contents), it explodes in a 3x3 square and leaves behind the absorbed element in the spot that it died.

Level border: DC does not automatically place a steel border around levels like RnD does. The level border can be touched, although it is completely indestructible.

Wraparound: DC allows for horizontal wraparound, vertical wraparound, and both types at once. The size of a level determines how far it goes on before it wraps around. If this is implemented, the camera should allow a player behind the wraparound point to see what's on the other side of the level.
Last edited by ncrecc on Sun Jan 06, 2019 5:03 pm, edited 3 times in total.
filbo
Posts: 647
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2014 10:06 am

Re: List of DC3 elements and elements that are different in DC3

Post by filbo »

Following are my recent notes about DC3 elements, which were written a few days ago while these recent discussions were under way.

I think ncrecc has covered almost everything I wrote here, but I'm sure I've captured a few extra or different (possibly wrong!) details.

=======================

DC3 elements / emulation

I got curious about this, and spent some time looking at DC3 videos on Youtube, taking the following notes. Some, possibly much, of this may also apply to DC2 or even DC1.

Videos watched, and which had something worth noting include at least the following (possibly a few others that I failed to paste into the list):

https://youtube.com/watch?v=kmxqdofC6xU
https://youtube.com/watch?v=wWW9jcIEVI8
https://youtube.com/watch?v=npdDzQBGWrY
https://youtube.com/watch?v=LQwqedv3GkI
https://youtube.com/watch?v=CbzwkE7GUlI
https://youtube.com/watch?v=g8LIjhr_htc
https://youtube.com/watch?v=_cOXVL8rsXg
https://youtube.com/watch?v=XL6YlOdRU58
https://youtube.com/watch?v=LNP3i7bBzWY
https://youtube.com/watch?v=KAz-PnLV1ds
https://youtube.com/watch?v=LXBBWrEZE6E
https://youtube.com/watch?v=PCa08NhcuuM
https://youtube.com/watch?v=brik1Tjq2u8

Also looked at the following R'n'D forum posts:

2005-12-14 viewtopic.php?p=4154 "DC3 in R'N'D"
2005-12-18 viewtopic.php?p=4179 "DC3 Elements update"
2005-12-28 viewtopic.php?p=4310 "pre-release 3.2.0-5"
2006-05-12 viewtopic.php?p=6121 "Diamond Cave Levels"
2008-10-13 viewtopic.php?p=11863 "EM/DC2 Magic Wall compatibility bug"
2018-02-06 viewtopic.php?p=14862 "4.0.1.1 - Diamond Caves 2 levelset converting problems"
2018-10-06 viewtopic.php?p=15342 "Implement some Diamond Caves 3 elements"
2018-10-07 viewtopic.php?p=15343 "Some DC3 elements" (CE + graphics)
2018-12-15 viewtopic.php?p=15468 "Diamond Caves is being sold on Steam now"

Notes:

- magic wall transitions:

+ rock -> emerald
+ emerald -> diamond
+ diamond -> rock
+ pearl -> bomb
+ ruby -> megabomb
+ crystal -> crystal

- noted the following elements which (afaicr) do not exist in RnD:

+ magic wall restart switch (makes magic wall which had timed out ready to re-activate by next object falling into it; did not see what happens if hit while magic wall still running)
+ at least two different appearances of magic wall -- as far as can be distinguished in the videos I watched, they behave identically and operate on the same timer etc.
+ ruby (= 2 emeralds)
+ wall with exit
+ wall with dynamite
+ wall with ruby
+ wall with key (don't know which types of key allowed)
+ steel 'point' -- wall which cracks nuts when they fall onto it; slippery (I think I remember)
+ brick 'point' -- ditto, explodable
+ hammer -- countable inventory, breaks one breakable wall, treasure chest, or nut; consumed
+ treasure chest -- open with hammer (looks like with snap? not sure if walking into also works); contains 1 item (can be anything??); don't know if they can be pushed around, slippery or not, what happens with bombs; don't know if each one has unique contents or if it's order-of-access like yams
+ slow quicksand (same as fast, rocks just fall through more slowly)
+ megabomb -- bomb with 5x5 explosion area, minus corners (21 total cels)
+ remote control bomb -- doesn't fall; don't know if dangerous to touch
+ 4 directional remote controls for bomb -- walk into to move 1 step; continuous for continuous (don't know if snap works)
+ remote detonate control for bomb -- walk into to detonate (don't know if snap works)
+ contact mines -- look like bomb in ring; explodes 3x3 if touched by player (4-sides); spaceship detonates; falling rock detonates; does not fall
+ wooden versions of doors -- can be destroyed by bomb (and presumably other explosions); don't know if all door types have wooden relatives (saw at least red/yellow/blue/white)
+ grey fake-door (no key operates it; not sure if this is any different than a steel wall with different picture)
+ rainbow door -- opens by any of red/yellow/blue/green key (don't know if any other keys open it)
+ 'emerald gates' -- each time through, you need +1 emerald to open the exits; not consumed
+ 'skull key' -- 'can open every door' (does that include switch gate, time gate, white key? or only color gates?); emerald gates still add one to emeralds-needed count
+ light barriers -- various colors (don't know list); horizontal / vertical, with push-to-toggle control buttons; block all moving elements; not affected by bug explosion, presumably not explodable
+ light barrier control buttons, one for each color (whatever they are)
+ at least two colors of amoeba (green & lighter yellow/green); apparently same except can have different growth rates (and maybe contents??)
+ one-way doors, 4 directions (perhaps not different from Supaplex 'ports'); there is definitely a 'stone' edition which is explodable; didn't notice if also a 'steel' not-explodable edition
+ teleporters -- 4 colors; can jump back and forth between 2 of same color; not seen >2 of same color
+ replicators -- several colors, each has a bump-to-toggle switch and produces an infinite stream of 1 element; switch and replicator are separate elements (and replicator is 6 elements, only one appears to be active, rest are decoration; like acid pool); bombs do not explode replicator (don't know about switch); did not see whether there is a frequency-of-production setting
+ tubes -- like DX Boulderdash elements except player is visible inside
+ grass -- DC3-style grass is like dirt, but grows sort of like amoeba (no dripping); grows into empty space only, not dirt
+ pink slime -- moves like a slow yam, picks up and carries one item; did not see what happens if it hits another item (does it bounce, drop 1st and pick up 2nd, or what?); drop rock on one to retrieve its carried item; not dangerous to touch; not dangerous if they walk into you; don't know if dangerous if you walk into them (probably not); don't know if can open with explosion, hammer, wall-with-point, etc.?
+ there appear to be separate slow- and fast-push types of rocks
+ robots -- as already known, but some behavior makes them run away from player (PCa08NhcuuM 26:30, 28:45, brik1Tjq2u8 2:15)
+ yamyams -- sometimes don't eat diamonds? (PCa08NhcuuM 27:00)

- behavioral notes observed:

+ light switch, in addition to lighting invisible sand, also marks 'grey' doors (lightly) with their true colors
+ can snap falling emeralds (& similar) left, right and up (so, with right timing, emerald falling on head is not fatal)
+ when bug hits player protected by deadly shield, only 10 emeralds' worth of gems exposed, one is absent due to player being in that cel
+ both colors of amoebae were initially represented on-screen as drops, not blocks; don't know if this is just stylistic or if it means amoebae cannot be initially placed in 'mid-air' as they will fall to first surface
+ when mole eats amoeba, amoeba disappears before mole moves; if an emerald is above that amoeba, it falls and blocks mole
+ rocks (presumably everything) must *fall* onto magic wall; rock/etc. resting on magic wall does not fall through on activation
+ levels were shown with very large horizontal or vertical size (at least several hundred cels); none shown with extremely large span in both directions, but might also be possible
+ at least one level seen which required horizontal wrap

- UI notes observed:

+ on-screen counter of white keys
+ on-screen counter of force field timer
+ on-screen 'exit open' indicator (outside of game playfield)
ncrecc
Posts: 153
Joined: Thu Jul 12, 2018 12:59 am

Re: List of DC3 elements and elements that are different in DC3

Post by ncrecc »

Some afterthoughts and responses to filbo's post (I can no longer edit my original post):

Snapping works for remote bomb controls.

Rainbow door can't be opened with a white key, but it can be after collecting the skeleton key.

Light barriers, barrier emitters, and barrier switches are indestructible. The replicator switch is also indestructible.

I forgot to mention in my original post that rubies and megabombs exist. They do, and filbo's descriptions of them are accurate. Rubies are pretty much identical to emeralds except they are worth 2 gems, convert to a megabomb when processed through a DC2 magic wall, and count as a different element from emeralds.

Turning on a light switch in DC outlines the door handle of gray doors with the door's true color, with no outline if the door is fake. I guess in RnD this could just flat-out reveal the colors of gray doors, given how that's what EMC magnifiers do.

Slimes treat items as solid walls if they already have an item absorbed.

Amoeba can't have content in DC, and does not explode or change if it is surrounded.

Amoeba can be placed in the level as either a drop or in solid form. This applies to both yellow and green amoeba.

What filbo said about downward-moving objects on top of amoeba blocking a mole's path when it eats that amoeba is true, but only partly so. It happens with emeralds, rubies, diamonds, light barriers, and players (if a player is holding the "down" button while on top of the amoeba), but *not* with nuts, pearls, crystals, bombs, megabombs, or growing walls. Odd.

What filbo said about robots occasionally moving away from the player is true, and I cannot guess why this would happen aside from some sort of glitch. Best observed at https://youtu.be/brik1Tjq2u8?t=128

I'm not sure what filbo is talking about regarding Yam-Yams not eating diamonds. In the video & timestamp he mentioned, the Yam-Yams naturally would not be able to move into the diamonds since Yam-Yams cannot change direction until they hit an obstruction.

Each chest contains unique content, and it doesn't depend on which order they're destroyed like with Yam-Yams. There are eight types of chest that can have content uniquely set for each of them, but you can place the same type of chest multiple times in a level. If a chest is caught in an explosion other than the 1-tile explosion caused by hammering it, it doesn't release its content. Chests are slippery and can't be pushed. Walking into a chest does not open it, it has to be snapped at while holding a hammer (this consumes one hammer). There's only a handful of elements that can be contained in a chest, but I imagine the RnD implementation will remove that silly limitation.

Hammers do not break nuts... not in Steam DC, anyway, but Steam DC does not take many liberties (none I've noticed so far) and remains quite true to DC3. (to filbo: if you remember seeing a nut broken with a hammer, could you link the video & timestamp you saw it at?)
filbo
Posts: 647
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2014 10:06 am

Re: List of DC3 elements and elements that are different in DC3

Post by filbo »

What filbo said about downward-moving objects on top of amoeba blocking a mole's path when it eats that amoeba is true, but only partly so. It happens with emeralds, rubies, diamonds, light barriers, and players (if a player is holding the "down" button while on top of the amoeba), but *not* with nuts, pearls, crystals, bombs, megabombs, or growing walls. Odd.
I can imagine a software reason for such behavior, sort of as a bug / emergent property of how the game engine is written. This is not to say that it is the actual reason, just a conjecture that might be true:

During each 'tick' of the game timer, it may be the case that the engine looks at each element type in a strict order (probably their order in some array; possibly ordered by those elements' storage IDs in the level definition file). As it looks at each element, it implements that element's special properties as well as generic things like movement-under-gravity. Then, if it is the case that elements (emerald, ruby, diamond, light barrier, player) appear earlier in this sequence than (mole), and (nut, peral, crystal, bomb, megabomb, growing wall) appear later, this exact behavior would ensue.

It is this sort of crazy subtlety which leads to the long discussions about Engine Compatibility etc. as seen in the earlier conversations between Holger & David Tritscher (author of X11 Emerald Mine as well as the EMC engine within Rocks'n'Diamonds).
I'm not sure what filbo is talking about regarding Yam-Yams not eating diamonds. In the video & timestamp he mentioned, the Yam-Yams naturally would not be able to move into the diamonds since Yam-Yams cannot change direction until they hit an obstruction.
In RnD -- at least in the Emerald Mines Club 50000-level conglomeration which I've been playing recently -- yams do seem to eat diamonds which they pass during a linear motion; like so:

Code: Select all

...Yyyyyvyyyyy ==> yam moving this way
........D..... ==> passes diamond below, pauses to eat it before continuing in original direction
It is possible that I'm misremembering this, but I don't think so.
Hammers do not break nuts... not in Steam DC, anyway, but Steam DC does not take many liberties (none I've noticed so far) and remains quite true to DC3. (to filbo: if you remember seeing a nut broken with a hammer, could you link the video & timestamp you saw it at?)
I thought I saw a nut being opened by a hammer. If I did, it is 99% likely it was in one of the Youtube videos I listed (and 1% likely it was in one of the few other videos in the same two series). I intended to capture the URL of each video in which I saw something interesting, but may have missed one as YT was autoplaying them in sequence.

But these videos add up to several hours, so it is not particularly reasonable to expect anyone to repeat the experience just to figure out such a tiny point. Better to install the real DC3 on a compatible system (old-Windows?) and simply test it. With the difficulty that I believe just installing DC3 gets you some simple levels and a demand to feed it a license key, which may not be available these days unless you already have one from Back Then. I don't know whether the level editor is unlocked in the demo mode, but it seems likely it would be locked...
ncrecc
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Re: List of DC3 elements and elements that are different in DC3

Post by ncrecc »

In RnD -- at least in the Emerald Mines Club 50000-level conglomeration which I've been playing recently -- yams do seem to eat diamonds which they pass during a linear motion; like so:

Code: Select all

...Yyyyyvyyyyy ==> yam moving this way
........D..... ==> passes diamond below, pauses to eat it before continuing in original direction
Sorry, this was ignorance on my part. I never knew Yam-Yams could do that. (It's exclusive to the EM engine, though.)
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Better to install the real DC3 on a compatible system (old-Windows?) and simply test it. With the difficulty that I believe just installing DC3 gets you some simple levels and a demand to feed it a license key, which may not be available these days unless you already have one from Back Then. I don't know whether the level editor is unlocked in the demo mode, but it seems likely it would be locked...
DC3 actually runs on modern operating systems (including Windows 10) and includes 50 demo levels, but unfortunately the editor is locked unless a registration key is provided.

Luckily I was able to find a demo level (#14, "Treasures!" in the Tutorial level group) that has both a nut and a hammer in it so I could test if nuts were breakable with hammers. Answer: they are not.
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(You can't see when I snap in this image, though, so you'll just have to take my word for it.)
ncrecc
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Re: List of DC3 elements and elements that are different in DC3

Post by ncrecc »

A few more things I forgot to mention:

Conveyors are indestructible in DC3, but in RnD they can be destroyed like normal. Perhaps RnD could have two variants of each conveyor belt: indestructible, and destructible.

In RnD, moles can be crushed by rocks, in which case they explode into nine gems. Moles in DC3 cannot be crushed by rocks at all! Then again, RnD lists the mole under the "RnD" section instead of the "DC2" section, so maybe this is intended...

In DC3, an (EM) exit disappears once a player goes into it, which is why there are two (EM) exits in co-op levels. In RnD, EM exits remain open until all players have exited.
filbo
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Re: List of DC3 elements and elements that are different in DC3

Post by filbo »

In RnD, moles can be crushed by rocks, in which case they explode into nine gems. Moles in DC3 cannot be crushed by rocks at all! Then again, RnD lists the mole under the "RnD" section instead of the "DC2" section, so maybe this is intended...
In all such matters, I think it is best to look at RnD's behavior (with the RnD engine) as its own intended behavior. We see that every sort of element can have all sorts of behavioral subtleties, and Holger has in some cases chosen different ones, and that's fine. (There might be a few cases where he was unaware of some subtlety and concludes that his own element would be better with it; in which case, I expect he would arrange for the RnD engine to recognize levels from before the change as requiring the old behavior, as he has done for many other changes over the years...)

Meanwhile, the point of this exercise (to me) is to figure out exactly how the elements are supposed to behave in DC3, so that one can potentially imagine a perfect DC3-level-engine in the future.
In DC3, an (EM) exit disappears once a player goes into it, which is why there are two (EM) exits in co-op levels. In RnD, EM exits remain open until all players have exited.
I think you are correctly describing the behavior of exits in the RnD engine of RnD. Certainly the exits in RnD's EMC engine do disappear on exit (with what looks like a 1x1 explosion which does not harm neighboring elements). Of course, when I exit an EMC level I usually try to arrange for a bug or spaceship to touch the exit at the same moment; then I exit with a bang :)
Arno
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Re: List of DC3 elements and elements that are different in DC3

Post by Arno »

ncrecc wrote: Mon Jan 07, 2019 4:54 pm What filbo said about robots occasionally moving away from the player is true, and I cannot guess why this would happen aside from some sort of glitch. Best observed at https://youtu.be/brik1Tjq2u8?t=128
:roll:

8)

I have proof it's not a glitch.

I found out from DC3 videos that "White Rooms" is a vertically wrapped level. "House of Ruby" is a level wrapped both horizontally and vertically and the same thing occurs at the room with a single robot and 2 rubies. It is caused by wrapped level mechanics.

Wrapped levels ("infinite levels" in the DC3 level editor) do not make a level actually infinite - they just allow moving and falling elements including the player to pass through edges on the level resuilting in them appearing on the other side of the map. It looks like they are infinetly long because the camera doesn't stop over wrapped edges, but shows what's happening on the other side.

In "White rooms" the room with a swarm of robots has its top half on the bottom of the level while the second bottom part of the room is located at the top of the level. Robots in DC3 chase the player (like in RnD but it has a fixed move delay unlike the randomized movement in Rnd), however they can't see that the shortest way to the player is to cross the edge of the map. They see that the player is at the other side, so AI forces them to move at the spot where the player actually is on the map. The robots chase the player but not through edges of the map.

From the explanation of wrapped levels i think it's possible to recreate them in RnD along with all other elements. I already remade the slime, so there is hope for DC3 recreation.
filbo
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Re: List of DC3 elements and elements that are different in DC3

Post by filbo »

It took a long time, but Holger did eventually implement horizontally wrapped levels for Emerald Mine.

I expect that the difficulty level of accommodating vertically wrapped levels would be something like 50-75% as hard as horizontal. That's just a general feeling from my own several times implementing such things in various settings (e.g. game-of-Life)
ncrecc
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Re: List of DC3 elements and elements that are different in DC3

Post by ncrecc »

The barriers can freely pass through perpendicular barriers, but will be blocked by parallel barriers.
I realize now this is worded a bit strangely. It's true, though. Barriers can intersect as long as they're not pointed at each other.
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It seems vertical barriers will be prioritized over horizontal barriers when it comes to drawing priority.
filbo wrote: Sun Jan 06, 2019 11:30 am+ there appear to be separate slow- and fast-push types of rocks
This is probably misconstrued. Pushable objects in DC3 have a strange "random push time" where you can either push them instantly or be stuck for a whole second trying to push one.
I think the random push time is always in intervals of "moves", where one move is how much time it takes for the player to move from one space to the next. Pushing a rock (or a bomb, or a nut...) could take 0 moves, 1 move, 2 moves, 3 moves, etc. Not sure where it caps out.
Rocks'n'Diamonds can probably ignore this, since it has its own logic for pushing things.
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