A Couple of potentially broken levels

[Wildstrike]

1.
Diamond caves > game levels > 25
Seems impossible, there's no window for getting past the space ships.
2.
Diamond caves > easy levels > 09
seems impossible to collect blue keys without destroying them with bomb,
this one might just be me missing some mechanic though?

[ncrecc]

1.
Diamond caves > game levels > 25
Seems impossible, there's no window for getting past the space ships.

diamond caves 025.png (56.81 KiB) Viewed 282 times

this very much is not possible; it seems like the ships are all supposed to be going in a loop but some of them collide with each other instead. on closer investigaton in the editor, the problem is this particular ship:

diamond caves 025 - problematic ship.png (57.69 KiB) Viewed 282 times

presumably in diamond caves, ships move forward immediately on the start of the level without checking to see if they can turn around. one solution to this would be to edit the level so this ship faces downward, but even then the timing would be a bit different compared to the original level since the ship would spend 1 move turning counterclockwise to face right. maybe DC levels should have a special property for bugs & ships that makes them always attempt to move forward at the very start of the level (i.e. act as if the "is there empty space for me to turn?" check has already been made)

2.
Diamond caves > easy levels > 09
seems impossible to collect blue keys without destroying them with bomb,
this one might just be me missing some mechanic though?

diamond caves easy 009.png (38.68 KiB) Viewed 282 times

amoeba is not deadly to stand next to; you can just walk into the keys to grab them (or snap them if you want to be careful)

[Holger]

Hi Wildstrike, welcome to the R'n'D forum!

And thanks for bringing up some edge cases with the new Diamond Caves level collection!

Diamond caves > game levels > 25
Seems impossible, there's no window for getting past the space ships.

Oops! The spaceship near the yamyam should start moving right, but starts moving up! Apparently Diamond Caves handles this case differently than Emerald Mine did (where the spaceship would start moving up). Looks like I have to fix this for DC levels!

Diamond caves > easy levels > 09
seems impossible to collect blue keys without destroying them with bomb,
this one might just be me missing some mechanic though?

I have no idea how the original Diamond Caves game handles this -- for example, igniting dynamite next to the bombs let the bombs explode themselves, destroying the blue keys. (Just checked with the original Diamond Caves.)

Anything I've missed? And idea how this level could be solved in the original game?

[Holger]

Hi ncrecc, our posts just crossed!

You are right about the first one (with the spaceship starting into the wrong direction) -- this has to be fixed in the code, just as you wrote.

But the other one is misleading if using the classic R'n'D artwork! In both Emerald Mine and Diamond Caves, the third key is blue (while it is green in R'n'D). So when playing this level with the DC artwork, you can see that the blue keys are those between the two rows of bombs! Which engine behavior might make it possible to get these keys? As mentioned, I've just tried this with the original game, but without success.

[Wildstrike]

Hi ncrecc, our posts just crossed!

You are right about the first one (with the spaceship starting into the wrong direction) -- this has to be fixed in the code, just as you wrote.

But the other one is misleading if using the classic R'n'D artwork! In both Emerald Mine and Diamond Caves, the third key is blue (while it is green in R'n'D). So when playing this level with the DC artwork, you can see that the blue keys are those between the two rows of bombs! Which engine behavior might make it possible to get these keys? As mentioned, I've just tried this with the original game, but without success.

pretty sure the bombs use to drop then explode. They would only explode the tile you were just on and the 5 adjacent ones.
There's certainly some weird behaviors that are not native to DC 2 and 3 (idk if 1 is different or even which game engine these levels are currently played on)
I think when rocks are cracking nuts they also fall off too quickly.
and when pushing rocks they always push at the same interval where as I remember have them had a random amount of pushing time before they would move.

[Holger]

First of all, the DC levels are played with the R'n'D game engine, although the original DC engine is closer to the EM engine (especially with regard to the fact that the player can move every single frame in the R'n'D engine, while the player can only move every eight frames in the EM and DC engine, which makes quite a difference).

So this "asynchronous handling of game elements" (as in the R'n'D and also the original Supaplex engine) is the most apparent difference to the BD and EM (and DC) game engines, which handle game elements synchronously every eight frames.

As the original DC engine is closed source, exact behavior can only be guessed by playing the game, not studying the code, unfortunately.

pretty sure the bombs use to drop then explode. They would only explode the tile you were just on and the 5 adjacent ones.

Yes, if a bomb falls down, it explodes -- the field where the bomb was, plus all eight surrounding (adjacent) tiles. If one of these adjacent tiles is also a bomb, it also explodes (potentially resulting in a chain reaction if there are a lot of bombs).

This works the same in R'n'D, EM and DC.

There's certainly some weird behaviors that are not native to DC 2 and 3 (idk if 1 is different or even which game engine these levels are currently played on)

The original DC2 and DC3 game engines should work the same as the DC1 game engine regarding bombs.

Could you describe what you experience as "weird behavior" when playing DC levels in R'n'D? Some differences could be adjusted to work more similar as in DC.

I think when rocks are cracking nuts they also fall off too quickly.

I will compare this in both engines, but this should not make a big difference regarding playing and solving levels. Or does it?

and when pushing rocks they always push at the same interval where as I remember have them had a random amount of pushing time before they would move.

Rocks are pushed at random intervals in both the R'n'D and EM/DC engine, but it works differently. In R'n'D, there is a delay between 8 and 16 game frames before a rock that is being pushed really moves. In EM/DC, there is a random chance that a rock that is being pushed really moves, which is checked every eight game frames. This may result in rocks being pushed faster than in R'n'D, but may also result in a much longer pushing delay. Maybe I could adjust this for DC levels in R'n'D.

[ncrecc]

to recap, the impossible section in easy 009 (with the keys being different colors in the default RnD graphics than in the DC graphics):

diamond caves easy 009 impossible section.png (7.89 KiB) Viewed 235 times

it can't be that bombs don't explode in a chain-reaction, since otherwise this section in game levels 023 wouldn't work (you explode the yam, it drops a pink switch and two rocks which fall onto the bombs, then the walls open up and reveal the robots & gems):

game levels 023 chain reaction.png (11.97 KiB) Viewed 235 times

and the "hall of light" page for DC has a single screenshot that shows a bomb exploding in a 3x3 square ruling out the "bombs only explode orthogonal tiles" theory: https://amiga.abime.net/games/view/diam ... creenshots

5614_screen7.png (38.13 KiB) Viewed 231 times

the only possibilty i can think of is that keys are indestructible in DC... this has the effect of lowering the stakes of minis 027 a bit (since you can let the bombs fall right away and don't need to worry about the keys early in the level being blown up) but i'm not aware of any levels it would break.

i tried to get an amiga emulator working to test how keys behave in the original Diamond Caves but amiga emulation is way over my head...

[ncrecc]

(speaking of the keys being different colors in the default RnD graphics than in the DC graphics: why not just map DC blue keys/doors to RnD blue keys/doors, and DC green keys/doors to RnD green keys/doors, and change the DC custom artwork definitions to match, so the apparent key/door types don't change if you have custom artwork disabled? surely swapping all instances of "key/door id 3" with "key/door id 4" and vice versa won't result in any gameplay differences.)

[Holger]

the only possibilty i can think of is that keys are indestructible in DC...

They are definitely destructible -- just tested it again by playing this exact same level of the original game in an Amiga emulator.

i tried to get an amiga emulator working to test how keys behave in the original Diamond Caves but amiga emulation is way over my head...

There is an Amiga emulator that runs directly in the web browser:

- https://vamigaweb.github.io/doc/

Just click "Run" and it runs, asking for a floppy disk to boot from. Here's the ADF for Diamond Caves 1 (Amiga) -- just insert it via the "file slot" button:

- https://www.emeraldmines.net/default.as ... oads&id=71

You may or may not need a Kickstart ROM file, but I think the emulator will also emulate it by default (but not sure if the ADF works with it).

(speaking of the keys being different colors in the default RnD graphics than in the DC graphics: why not just map DC blue keys/doors to RnD blue keys/doors, and DC green keys/doors to RnD green keys/doors, and change the DC custom artwork definitions to match, so the apparent key/door types don't change if you have custom artwork disabled? surely swapping all instances of "key/door id 3" with "key/door id 4" and vice versa won't result in any gameplay differences.)

Yes, indeed, that should work just fine!

To be honest, I decided to just keep the keys in their original order to minimize confusion for myself! There are similar "problems" with the Emerald Mine Club collection, where some graphics sets have green and blue keys swapped, and some not, which would make things even more confusing when relying on the colors in the default R'n'D graphics set (that is, I would have to know this for each converted level set, to swap or not swap keys accordingly).

So I have decided to just keep both the order of keys 1 to 4, and their associated graphics, in both EM and DC, even if the colors may then be different than with the default R'n'D graphics -- just as you wrote, it really should not make any difference in the game, even if using a different artwork set.

So just mapping keys in linear order from native EM/DC to R'n'D, regardless of artwork sets, seems to be the least error-prone way to do it.

[Wildstrike]

Could you describe what you experience as "weird behavior" when playing DC levels in R'n'D? Some differences could be adjusted to work more similar as in DC.

Created this short video for all the ones I can think of atm. There's probably more though.
https://youtu.be/xpO7dpJTqhU

[filbo]

What if there's text in the level, like 'take the green key first'?

[Holger]

Could you describe what you experience as "weird behavior" when playing DC levels in R'n'D? Some differences could be adjusted to work more similar as in DC.

Created this short video for all the ones I can think of atm. There's probably more though.
https://youtu.be/xpO7dpJTqhU

I get "Video unavailable // This video is private" -- probably you have to set this video as "public" or something like that.

[Holger]

What if there's text in the level, like 'take the green key first'?

Exactly.

That means that playng a level set that comes with its own custom artwork, but using different artwork to play it, could always result in such problems, even if i try to match the "custom" colors of game elements to those of the "classic" artwork.

[Wildstrike]

Could you describe what you experience as "weird behavior" when playing DC levels in R'n'D? Some differences could be adjusted to work more similar as in DC.

Created this short video for all the ones I can think of atm. There's probably more though.
https://youtu.be/xpO7dpJTqhU

I get "Video unavailable // This video is private" -- probably you have to set this video as "public" or something like that.

Should work now. Had it set to private instead of unlisted.

[Holger]

Should work now. Had it set to private instead of unlisted.

Works fine now, thank you for recording and sharing this -- this is very helpful!

pretty sure the bombs use to drop then explode. They would only explode the tile you were just on and the 5 adjacent ones.

First I misunderstood you here, but after watching the video, I know what you mean! And I also tested this again with the original game: Indeed, just walking below the bombs lets them all fall down before exploding, without igniting other bombs above! No idea why I missed that!

And it works just like in the EM engine in this case.

Hmm, when think about it ... maybe it's worth it to port all DC style elements from the R'n'D engine (which is the only engine that supports them at the moment) to the EM engine, which is much closer to the DC engine than the R'n'D engine (although most DC levels seem to play fine with it). And then let all DC levels be played with the EM engine (with DC elements support). Will have to think about it ...