Rocks'n'Diamonds

NOTE: I am currently using version 3.2.6.1, JUE special version.

As more, and more newer versions of R'n'D arise, I quite felt that the game started becoming more and more loose. And I think the game engine has quite changed a bit without realizing it. For example:

* Say that your in a field of dirt all around you. And you snap, why did I say that? If you repeatedly press the "snap" button while moving, you can see that the player "image" start jittering a bit. It even goes far as reintroducing some of the older bugs in the new version in smaller chunks of pieces.
* Additionally, snapping repeatedly while moving at the same time (unlike the proper 1-step way to snap, but still partially involves this bug) makes the game a bit more glitchy, nor hard or easy. Like if you go to a space, and then you suddenly snap that way: you will snap the space next to the one you are going into. Try that to snapping a piece of dirt holding a rock while walking upwards -- you'll die because of that.
* Surviving an explosion by a Bomb is cheating, I know, I know... we knew this glitch before -- I feel like you should make it permanent and have the player die such an explosion. I'm going to have to remove that "trick" from my old Bomb levels. For some reason, this Supaplex "trick" suddenly was spread to all types of explosions.
* Bumping enemies before they kill you. This may make the game more than what it normally tries to do -- be a Emerald Mine/Boulder Dash clone. This already breaks how the game is normally played. I think someone made the Supaplex trick spread all over to enemies now as well.
* Make Yam-Yams (or devours as I call it my way) less dangerous to players when contacting to them. I really hate this one. Those enemies have been using in levels where it can be very tedious to complete the level (compared to EM-version devourers, thank god for making them more based on timing).
* OTHER: Fix other bugs that you missed in the Bug Reports topic. ;o

Can you please try fixing them? I kinda miss the old feeling of playing the older versions of Rocks 'n' Diamonds.

I'm not always sure if I understand you right. For buggy behaviour introduced in one of the latest versions, could you please note which was the last version that worked right? (BTW: Are we always talking about the R'n'D engine, or are some points related to the native EM/EMC engine?) I'm especially confused about the "snapping while moving" thing... :-o

About yamyams: Their behaviour towards the player should be more or less like in the original Emerald Mine game.

About the "survive bomb" behaviour: This should be solved by a switch that enables/disables the buggy behaviour (with the default set to "disabled").

Holger wrote:I'm not always sure if I understand you right. For buggy behaviour introduced in one of the latest versions, could you please note which was the last version that worked right? (BTW: Are we always talking about the R'n'D engine, or are some points related to the native EM/EMC engine?) I'm especially confused about the "snapping while moving" thing...

Strictly the R'n'D engine. The Emerald Mine engine is very fine. x3 Sorry if I somehow confused you. ;o
I'll send you the tape via email later on -- respond to this topic when you received it!

*bump!* (I already gave you the e-mail with the tape and level Holger!)

I've tested the level and tape. The graphical bugs are caused by the level file being very, very old: It's indeed a level from R'n'D 1.2! The R'n'D engine contains code to support those very old levels to make sure they are still solvable with the current version (for the price of strange things here and there, like the graphical bugs you discovered).

So this is not behaviour introduced with newer R'n'D versions, but it was always there and was only fixed for newer levels. So if you have the suspicion that newer R'n'D versions introduced new bugs (graphical or others), please always do your tests with freshly created levels, so they have the same version. (Of course it's still OK and important to report things like "Old, existing level XYZ does not work anymore or behaves differently with the latest version, while it worked fine with the previous version".)

So, as a general rule, it's always a good idea to make some tests with previous or older R'n'D versions to see if a bug discovered in the latest R'n'D version was newly introduced with that version, or if it already was present in older R'n'D versions.

But I do agree that playing those old levels sometimes look quite ugly! Maybe I can do something about it, so that those old levels are still solvable, but do not show such graphical garbage... :-/

Ah... This might explain some of the other mysterious bugs we have that involves using levels made in a certain version of R'n'D. Yeah... even emulating the glitches from the old game into the new version. Why not simply update all the older levels to work in the new version?

Older versions of R'n'D? I know how to get them (through your site files of course!), but can you tell the users how to access to older versions of R'n'D?

(Heh, very old level version #... *points at the editor ideas & tweaks topic*)

RAP wrote:The Emerald Mine engine is very fine.

thanks for that compliment :-) i like that it has stood the test of time (the secret ingredient is love).

Holger wrote:About yamyams: Their behaviour towards the player should be more or less like in the original Emerald Mine game.

differences, from most obvious:
* pushing against an eater kills you.
* an eater pushing against you while you are digging dirt/eating an emerald/collecting keys etc. kills you.
* if an eater hits a wall sometimes it goes back the way it came, even if it can turn left or right.
* an eater should eat diamonds it is touching, not only ones in its way.
* an eater should pause when eating a diamond.