Better Game Elements menu for Boulder Dash

[ncrecc]

Attached are drop-in replacements for helpanim.conf and helptext.conf for the Boulder Dash levelsets. This is a completed version of the Game Elements page for Boulder Dash that properly groups elements by their source (BD1, BD2, Construction Kit, New Boulder Dash, Crazy Dream, GDash, and misc.) and includes a description for every element, as well as a few new animations.

bd_elements_2.png (34.24 KiB) Viewed 13214 times

bd_elements_1_new.png (33.5 KiB) Viewed 13164 times

Holger, if you're reading this, feel free to add this to the official "GDash levels for R'n'D" and "Boulder Dash" packages.

[ncrecc]

did not notice until this morning that empty_space_1 thru 16 display as numbers if shown in the help screen and not empty space (see the "07" in the second screenshot)... bummer. as suggested there are 7 headers total that need empty space next to them ("BOULDER DASH 1 ELEMENTS", "BOULDER DASH 2 ELEMENTS", "CONSTRUCTION KIT ELEMENTS", "NEW BOULDER DASH ELEMENTS", "CRAZY DREAM ELEMENTS", "GDASH ELEMENTS", and "MISCELLANEOUS") which is more than the amount of empty space elements the current BD help screen uses (empty_space, bdx_empty_space, sp_empty_space). dunno if there's a workaround to this.

[TheOnyxGuy]

You could potentially use invisible elements, such as invisible wall, invisible steel wall, invisible sand, character ' ' (blank space) and dripper... although that's still not enough unfortunately, yeah...

[ncrecc]

You could potentially use invisible elements, such as invisible wall, invisible steel wall, invisible sand, character ' ' (blank space) and dripper... although that's still not enough unfortunately, yeah...

thank you for the suggestion to use invisible walls. it turns out between true "empty space" elements and invisible stuff there's more than enough. (went with bdx_empty_space, empty_space, sp_empty_space, mm_empty_space, df_empty_space, invisible_wall, and invisible_steelwall.) attached is an updated version with properly invisible tiles for the headers. i've also replaced the attachments on the original post.

[TheOnyxGuy]

Oh, different empty spaces... whether they're exclusive to their respective engines or not, some of them may also be considered unnecessary leftovers... Which reminds me... Back when I first played R'n'D 2.0.1 (that was basically my first ever R'n'D experience which I got from a shareware DVD), it didn't have "engines" nor it had proper... engine consistency... Basically, there were indeed different kinds of empty spaces, the most prominent of which was SP's empty space. If you put at least one empty space which is not of Supaplex's own, it's not Supaplex: Murphy gets replaced by Rockford, all explosions are default R'n'D explosions and etc. Basically back then it was almost impossible to make an SP level without screwing up the empty spaces which you couldn't distinguish (char spaces were also invisible in editor back then).
...
Sorry, just had a core memory unlocked...

[Holger]

Haven't tried it out, but looks very good! (Will still check it and most probably use it for the BD level collection.)

Regarding the use of various, engine specific empty space elements for the "game elements" screen: Maybe I should configure the "custom empty space element" graphics so they are really empty on the "info screen". Would make the helpanim/helptext files look less confusing, maybe.

[Holger]

Argh, I wanted to add this in version 4.4.0.4 yet, but haven't. Mainly because I wanted to change all those empty space elements to be really empty on the INFO screens, so it is easier to use them for empty lines, or lines with header texts, without having to find out which engine-specific, effectively unused empty space elements could be used instead... :-/

Hope to get all this into 4.4.0.5!

[Holger]

Holger, if you're reading this, feel free to add this to the official "GDash levels for R'n'D" and "Boulder Dash" packages.

Finally found the time to review the new helpanim/helptext files -- looks great!

Just added them to the GDash levels for R'n'D -- will be available with the next update (maybe together with a potential next patch version of R'n'D, or maybe just without it).

Thanks, ncrecc, for this contribution!

[TheOnyxGuy]

To be real, over time R'n'D got dozens more of elements which the game only describes in editor. I feel like, overall elements info list should be updated, and possibly have exclusive ones for all classic levels (for now we only have EM, DF, MM and I guess now this BD one).
Well, of course it doesn't really have to list every available single object, but considering that it doesn't even describe pearls, crystals and black orb bombs... Ya know how kind of dated that list is by now.