Second pre-release of Rocks'n'Diamonds 4.4.0.0 available!

[Holger]

The second pre-release of the upcoming new major release version 4.4.0.0 is available for testing now!

It contains the following additions and fixes:

• added support for opening level set zip files in Android version
• added UTF-8 support for cave names in BDCFF files
• added setup option for fast game start from level editor
• added precedence of game keys over speed/debug keys when playing
• added checking availability of level specific colors in level editor
• added using masked drawing for player on walkable tiles in BD engine
• added snapshot support for BD engine
• added single step support for BD engine
• added checking for help anim/text files in different locations
• improved converting BD game engine elements for R’n’D game engine
• improved smooth movement animation for classic BD scheduling types
• improved smooth movement animation for BD engine (complete rewrite)
• changed defaults for falling element sounds in BD engine
• changed default game cycle delay value for BD engine
• fixed showing level in cave names for BDCFF cave sets without levels
• fixed score time for BD engine
• fixed cave flashing on open outbox for non-black cave background color
• fixed player entering pot when using smooth movement
• fixed graphical bug when snap-pushing with smooth movement in BD engine
• fixed bugs with wrong newline handling in envelopes (game and editor)

Now available from the download page!

[ncrecc]

"Tutorial" and "Crazy Dream 1" by marek roth remain bugged & unsolvable: viewtopic.php?p=18892#p18892

[ncrecc]

when something sinks in acid, the acid appears to "jump up" to meet it:

jumpyacid.gif (55.71 KiB) Viewed 13533 times

similarly, when rockford snaps a dirt adjacent to something that wants to immediately move into that snapped tile, it will appear to come out of him:

steelmeet.gif (13.33 KiB) Viewed 13533 times

(this example is of an expanding steel wall, but a butterfly could be used as well.)

[TheOnyxGuy]

Want to add up few things:

• When finishing a level in BD engine, the game for some reason skip all the movement and just instantly snaps to player already being in the exit while everything also instantly shifts forward;
• Handheld bombs when planted explode producing walls which I assume is the engine not recognizing the output element and instead replacing it with engine's default object (which is BD's normal wall);
• When there's multiple players placed around a big level, the wrap around mechanic goes a little crazy and starts shifting around because of all player clones teleporting via screen wrapping;
• Somehow I managed the level to hang up by making a 18x18 level with a lot of players placed in a chess pattern;
• I don't really know what happens when you collect clocks, but it seems pretty strange. In short, player creates sand that collects clocks for him. I assume that's just a placeholder, not sure...

[ncrecc]

• Handheld bombs when planted explode producing walls which I assume is the engine not recognizing the output element and instead replacing it with engine's default object (which is BD's normal wall);
• I don't really know what happens when you collect clocks, but it seems pretty strange. In short, player creates sand that collects clocks for him. I assume that's just a placeholder, not sure...

These are inherent to GDash, and themselves are probably inherited from old, strange Boulder Dash hacks. (IMO "bomb explosions turn into walls" makes about as much sense as "you need to collect 5 skeletons before you can stir the pot"...)

If you're on Windows, here's a slightly feature-enhanced port of GDash that still keeps all the mechanics intact: https://github.com/revvv/gdash-export-C ... tag/1.9.15 You can use this to verify whether or not something is a bug or carried over from GDash.

• Somehow I managed the level to hang up by making a 18x18 level with a lot of players placed in a chess pattern;

This sounds concerning though; can you post a screenshot?

[Holger]

"Tutorial" and "Crazy Dream 1" by marek roth remain bugged & unsolvable: viewtopic.php?p=18892#p18892

Unfortunately, I have totally missed checking these two issues you have reported already for 4.4.0.0-test-1.

Will have a look at them this time!

(elements sinking into acid and snapping things next to moving elements)

Oops! I will check and fix these bugs! (The new smooth movement code should make fixing such issues much easier than with the old code, which really was a mess, so fixing one thing sometimes created two new bugs, which should not happen anymore with the new code...)

Eizzoux wrote

When finishing a level in BD engine, the game for some reason skip all the movement and just instantly snaps to player already being in the exit while everything also instantly shifts forward;

Yes, that's right. The problem here is that the game engine immediately stops when the player enters the exit, which happens using "jump movement style" in the classic game. Waiting another cycle to draw movement animations may currently break the correct tape time for the high scores, so I switch off smooth movement animations in this case and immediately stop the engine. I will check if this can easily be fixed without affecting the recorded time to solve the cave.

When there's multiple players placed around a big level, the wrap around mechanic goes a little crazy and starts shifting around because of all player clones teleporting via screen wrapping;

Oops, again! Haven't tested this, but can perfectly imagine it, as there is not "the player" (like in all other engines), but a lot of players all treated equally, which will cause a mess if many of them wrap around the level borders!

I will have a look how this is handled in GDash...

Somehow I managed the level to hang up by making a 18x18 level with a lot of players placed in a chess pattern;

A test level to be able to reproduce this problem would be great! Maybe something is causing an infinite loop...

[TheOnyxGuy]

This sounds concerning though; can you post a screenshot?

A test level to be able to reproduce this problem would be great! Maybe something is causing an infinite loop...

Sure thing, here's the level.

019.level

(862 Bytes) Downloaded 1190 times

Platform: Windows 10 x64, just in case.
Just start up the level and the game will just freeze so you'll have to open task manager to force close it.

[ncrecc]

the above level does not seem to crash when recreated in gdash (set cave width and height to 18, filled rectangle of space, then two "raster" rectangles of player effect to create a checkerboard pattern) so whatever it is must be in rnd

[ncrecc]

here's a much simpler level that can also crash:

018.level

(862 Bytes) Downloaded 1103 times

this is the same as eizzoux's level, but all rockfords are removed except 1 in the middle.
if you make him walk to the right edge of the screen, he will be stuck in his walking animation forever, and the game will refuse to exit or close
you can also replace him with "inbox with player" and the same thing will still happen

[TheOnyxGuy]

Speaking of, here's a short level exploiting one of engine's mechanics (another one), which is also very similar to one of R'n'D's engine bugs that are still present to this day.

019.level

(796 Bytes) Downloaded 1811 times

[ncrecc]

^ i can't tell what mechanic is exploited or what bug this is similar to, aside from being able to push rocks in midair to the right (which is also a thing in gdash), but i did notice that while the player's "snap element" in that level is set to vertical growing wall, whenever you snap it just creates an unknown element (? tile).

[ncrecc]

when a nut is cracked, something similar happens to expanding walls, in that a nut (i'm guessing it's the "nut explosion 1" tile) appears to move downward from the rock that cracks it.

bdnuts.gif (51.17 KiB) Viewed 13411 times

additionally, the nut doesn't appear to animate at all while it's cracking, which is because all "nut explosion" tiles look identical to the uncracked nut. i'd recommend using the animation frames that an EM nut uses when it cracks, but with the gem replaced with a BD diamond. here's what that might look like:

nutcrack.png (1.8 KiB) Viewed 13411 times

[TheOnyxGuy]

^ i can't tell what mechanic is exploited or what bug this is similar to, aside from being able to push rocks in midair to the right (which is also a thing in gdash), but i did notice that while the player's "snap element" in that level is set to vertical growing wall, whenever you snap it just creates an unknown element (? tile).

Oh yeah, forgot about this, I was just originally toying with player's snap containing different kinds of explosions from BDE, but the game doesn't remember such elements and instead replaces them with something else, so yeah, just an unintended leftover.

[amirnatsheh7]

hey holger, what about BD engine with RND Engine in level editor?

RND Engine idea in level editor:
editing explode to nitro Pack
add number of rocket to shoot
make CE update
And what’s next?

[ncrecc]

the editor permits you to configure BD levels as having a step limit instead of a time limit, but in-game it will just act as a time limit anyway.

bdsteps.png (6.05 KiB) Viewed 13256 times