Pre-release 5 of Rocks'n'Diamonds 4.4.0.0 available!

[Holger]

The 5th pre-release of version 4.4.0.0 is available for testing, and it can be seen as a release candidate of the final new version, which should be ready for release soon.

It mainly contains the following additions, changes and fixes:

• added editor graphics definitions for BD style firefly and butterfly
• added support for (configurable) suicide key for BD game engine
• added delayed game over if BD player can be re-created from effect
• added color template bitmap functions to support color ranges
• added sounds for BD style bubble when moving/pushing
• added support for player dying sound for native BD engine
• changed graphics for magic wall for native BD engine
• changed graphics for BD style waiting rock when moving/pushing
• fixed changing level colors before fading out game screen
• fixed sound for BD style bubble changing to clock
• fixed moving and pushing elements on conveyor belts in BD engine
• fixed two crash bugs

Again, make sure to also update the BD level collection to the latest version (see the BD forum annoucement).

Now available from the download page!

[TheOnyxGuy]

Ok, two things I already found out:
1) For some reason Save & Exit button in Setup is now gone for some reason? Although I assume it's made to be exclusively hidden for prereleases.
2) There's no sound for collecting a gem while screen warping (collecting an item at the top of the screen while being on the bottom edge of the screen, at least)

[TheOnyxGuy]

Also, few minutes after than, I saw this noisy effect appear... I honestly don't remember if that's a intentional feature of the BD engine or not.

fdfdsfsdfasdasdf.png (190.77 KiB) Viewed 8655 times

[ncrecc]

Also, few minutes after than, I saw this noisy effect appear... I honestly don't remember if that's a intentional feature of the BD engine or not.

it is; it indicates you scored enough points to get a bonus life (although bonus lives don't actually do anything in RnD...)

[ncrecc]

upon replacing the Boulder_Dash level folder with the new version and opening this version of RnD for the first time, when the game was done loading all the custom level info, it took me to this version of the menu with nothing but snowflakes streaking across the screen:

snowflakeweirdness.png (66.22 KiB) Viewed 8643 times

probably a similar issue to this occurrence with some kind of memory corruption, though this time it happened before i was even able to go ingame or see any of the menus
this did not happen on the second time i opened the game.

noweirdness.png (21.95 KiB) Viewed 8643 times

should note I had Marek Roth->Crazy Dream 1 level 13 selected, so the game was opening to the BD-style menu. maybe that has something to do with it.

[Holger]

Ok, two things I already found out:
1) For some reason Save & Exit button in Setup is now gone for some reason? Although I assume it's made to be exclusively hidden for prereleases.
2) There's no sound for collecting a gem while screen warping (collecting an item at the top of the screen while being on the bottom edge of the screen, at least)

Regarding the "Save & Exit" menu:

As many people have asked for this, I have changed saving setup values so that all changes are automatically, immediately saved (so you don't need an explicit "Save & Exit" menu entry anymore, which apparently was a concept that many people do not understand anymore nowadays). If you like or prefer the old behavior, just set "Game & Menu -> Show Menu to Save Setup" to "on", and everything works as before again.

Regarding sounds for collecting gems at wrap-around positions:

Thanks for this bug report! I have just fixed this bug.

[Holger]

upon replacing the Boulder_Dash level folder with the new version and opening this version of RnD for the first time, when the game was done loading all the custom level info, it took me to this version of the menu with nothing but snowflakes streaking across the screen:
snowflakeweirdness.png
probably a similar issue to this occurrence with some kind of memory corruption, though this time it happened before i was even able to go ingame or see any of the menus
this did not happen on the second time i opened the game.
noweirdness.png
should note I had Marek Roth->Crazy Dream 1 level 13 selected, so the game was opening to the BD-style menu. maybe that has something to do with it.

This is a very strange bug that was first reported by TheOnyxGuy a few years (?) ago. So it is in fact a bug that is older than the newer versions with GDash code, and most probably is not related to GDash related changes. I have just searched for the bug report forum post which contains some screenshots of this bug, but wasn't able to find it.

TheOnyxGuy, can you find this bug report thread, or remember it's title?

In fact, I never was able to reproduce this bug (which seems to only happen when it's snowing, that is, on christmas and the four Sundays before christmas), but it occurred to me last Sunday, looking exactly like one of TheOnyxGuy's screenshots: For me, the whole screen looked like an absurdly zoomed snowflake (with large color gradients from white to black). And it also occurred right after starting the game. However, I was never able to reproduce this bug, and only saw it that single one time. (So far, I assumed it would only happen on Windows, but for me it occurred with the Mac version.)

[ncrecc]

upon replacing the Boulder_Dash level folder with the new version and opening this version of RnD for the first time, when the game was done loading all the custom level info, it took me to this version of the menu with nothing but snowflakes streaking across the screen:
snowflakeweirdness.png
probably a similar issue to this occurrence with some kind of memory corruption, though this time it happened before i was even able to go ingame or see any of the menus
this did not happen on the second time i opened the game.
noweirdness.png
should note I had Marek Roth->Crazy Dream 1 level 13 selected, so the game was opening to the BD-style menu. maybe that has something to do with it.

This is a very strange bug that was first reported by TheOnyxGuy a few years (?) ago. So it is in fact a bug that is older than the newer versions with GDash code, and most probably is not related to GDash related changes. I have just searched for the bug report forum post which contains some screenshots of this bug, but wasn't able to find it.

TheOnyxGuy, can you find this bug report thread, or remember it's title?

In fact, I never was able to reproduce this bug (which seems to only happen when it's snowing, that is, on christmas and the four Sundays before christmas), but it occurred to me last Sunday, looking exactly like one of TheOnyxGuy's screenshots: For me, the whole screen looked like an absurdly zoomed snowflake (with large color gradients from white to black). And it also occurred right after starting the game. However, I was never able to reproduce this bug, and only saw it that single one time. (So far, I assumed it would only happen on Windows, but for me it occurred with the Mac version.)

seems it may be this thread: viewtopic.php?p=17586

[Holger]

After about ten hours of testing, debugging, and nearly going crazy... I have finally fixed this bug!!!

[filbo]

I note with (friendly) amusement that this announcement is much less bold than the pre-release-4 announcement was, about whether it is the final release. :)

These are awesome beta-testers; being held back from releasing a busted release is a really good thing!

[ncrecc]

when a level is completed where one of the dimensions is smaller than the window size (e.g. standard intermissions in RnD graphics), the playfield will be offset to the top-left during the fade-out. for intermissions in particular, solid white will also be displayed in the out-of-bounds space

intermissionoffset.gif (2.2 MiB) Viewed 8563 times

[ncrecc]

picking up individual rockets (BDX_ROCKET) uses the default RnD pickup sound if using the Boulder Dash sfx. strictly speaking there's no bug here since individual rocket collectibles are RnD-exclusive anyway and don't appear in the GDash levels the Boulder Dash graphics set is for; i only noticed this because pre-release 4 had the "crash if trying to play RnD bonus life sfx" bug and i switched to always using Boulder Dash sfx to avoid it. i guess if in the future someone wanted to make their own levelset with BD assets that would be a nice inclusion.

[Holger]

I note with (friendly) amusement that this announcement is much less bold than the pre-release-4 announcement was, about whether it is the final release.

Although I did expect more bug reports for 4.4.0.0-test-4 to come, I thought I would just fix them and do the final release when done. But then I thought it would be better to have other people have another look and some testing again before doing the final release. Yes, I was a little bit too optimistic about 4.4.0.0-test-4 being the last test version.

These are awesome beta-testers; being held back from releasing a busted release is a really good thing!

You're absolutely right! And my testers here in the forum are only few, but really awesome people! Without them, I would have never been able to even remotely reach any decent level of quality for the new major release! You are all of such great help, and I am really thankful for your contributions to R'n'D and its new BD engine!

[Holger]

when a level is completed where one of the dimensions is smaller than the window size (e.g. standard intermissions in RnD graphics), the playfield will be offset to the top-left during the fade-out. for intermissions in particular, solid white will also be displayed in the out-of-bounds space
intermissionoffset.gif

I was able to find and fix this nasty bug! Thanks!

[Holger]

picking up individual rockets (BDX_ROCKET) uses the default RnD pickup sound if using the Boulder Dash sfx. strictly speaking there's no bug here since individual rocket collectibles are RnD-exclusive anyway and don't appear in the GDash levels the Boulder Dash graphics set is for; i only noticed this because pre-release 4 had the "crash if trying to play RnD bonus life sfx" bug and i switched to always using Boulder Dash sfx to avoid it. i guess if in the future someone wanted to make their own levelset with BD assets that would be a nice inclusion.

Thanks for this observation! In fact, I do want to limit the sounds for the native BD level set to those included with GDash, so I changed the sound for collecting a rocket to being the same as the sound for collecting a BD style bomb.