Pre-release 6 of Rocks'n'Diamonds 4.4.0.0 available!

[Holger]

subtle audio bug: in the BD engine, when you complete a level, the "score ticking down" sfx stops playing when you reach 10 seconds left if you're using rnd's Classic Sounds, probably because boulder dash normally has the designated "low time" sounds play instead

This is the only bug report I haven't checked yet, but I will do and try to fix it!

ncrecc, thanks again for your outstanding and incredibly helpful bug reports! Without your help, the new BD engine would never have reached its current level of quality! I cannot express how much I appreciate this!

[BryanFRitt]

The solved Boulder_Dash levels don't seem to be showing up in https://api.artsoft.org, Is this intentional since this is 'pre-release' version? Will they show up in later builds?

Regarding the new "Classic Boulder Dash (native engine)": I just forgot to add this set to the high score server! Just did that!

Cool, So far, I've got [at least] one score in there now out of ??.

Also, It seems Boulder_Dash is more likely to produce bad tapes than other levels.

Argh, indeed. Although the notorious "snapshot bug" also happens for the BD engine, the large number of bad tapes was most probably caused by the fact that the high score server still had the pre-release version 4.4.0.0-test-1 installed, instead of the current version (4.4.0.0-test-6), so most tapes will have been played with the newer engine version, which the high score server did not know yet.

I have updated the game engine on the high score server to the latest version, and I will re-run all those failed tapes for BD levels again (which will hopefully "heal" some tapes).

They're showing up as bad tapes even locally. Like I go back to play it back again []|>, and it seems to mess up more often than usual. So far, I 'haven't noticed any patterns as to what causes it to happen more often with these.

[Holger]

They're showing up as bad tapes even locally. Like I go back to play it back again []|>, and it seems to mess up more often than usual. So far, I 'haven't noticed any patterns as to what causes it to happen more often with these.

It this case, it does not have something to do with the high score server then, but is caused by using F1/F2 engine snapshots with the probability of broken tapes due to the often mentioned unknown bug in this technique. It may indeed be possible that the native BD engine is more prone to this error, for whatever reason. :-/

[Holger]

I have updated the game engine on the high score server to the latest version, and I will re-run all those failed tapes for BD levels again (which will hopefully "heal" some tapes).

OK, all failed tapes of BD levels since 2024-01-01 were verified again, changing 2794 failed tapes to 1158.

[Holger]

sloped dirt does not mesh with normal dirt:
sloped_dirt_and_normal_dirt.png
(for that matter, should sloped dirt have crumbly sides as well?)

All fixed now!

[Holger]

subtle audio bug: in the BD engine, when you complete a level, the "score ticking down" sfx stops playing when you reach 10 seconds left if you're using rnd's Classic Sounds, probably because boulder dash normally has the designated "low time" sounds play instead

Indeed. And you were perfectly right regarding the cause of this little sound bug. Fixed now!

When testing this, I also noticed that it looks a bit strange that the level time counter very quickly counts from 100 to 60, then counting down slower until reaching 0 (as the BD engine accelerates counting down remaining level time over 60 seconds after winning a game). While setting this threshold from 60 to 100 increases the whole time counting process a little bit, it looks much better having the time between 100 and 0 counting with the same speed (instead of apparently jumping from 100 to 60).

[BryanFRitt]

Bad tape.
When I load this, tape it says it's 4:00, then when I then click on stop [] the time goes to 2:32.
BOULDER DASH > ACHIM HAERTEL > ACHIM HAERTEL > 014: CAVE 14
~/.rocksndiamonds/tapes/bd_achim_haertel/014.tape
weird... Not sure what I changed if anything, but tested again right before submitting this, and now it dies at end, and doesn't change anything viewable when pressing stop [].