Unsolvable levels

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Holger
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Post by Holger »

> The lacking 8 emeralds are in the 5th YamYam (in right-bottom part of the board), which
> cannot (and I don't think it was supposed to anyway) be smashed.

Yes, I see no way to smash this one either...

> So, if you got the number
> of emeralds from that calculations, it's only virtual, not factual.

Of course. I've just added all elements that could give emeralds. That does not mean that all of them can be reached, of course.

> And AFAIR it's not the first
> level with that problem in EMC pack...

When looking at that level again, I see some "?" elements, which are elements which were not supported or unknown when converting the level. With the new EM engine, these elements are probably mapped to some non-R'n'D elements which are needed to solve the level. I'm curious what they might be, but I suppose they are the candidates needed to solve that level.
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bojster
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Post by bojster »

Holger wrote:When looking at that level again, I see some "?" elements, which are elements which were not supported or unknown when converting the level. With the new EM engine, these elements are probably mapped to some non-R'n'D elements which are needed to solve the level. I'm curious what they might be, but I suppose they are the candidates needed to solve that level.
Indeed these element might stand for some missing element... there are 4 "?"s, so maybe they're all worth 2 emeralds each... or... is the needed emeralds number imported directly along with the level or estimated by calculation somehow? In the latter case it would be enough to subtract 8 from it and level would be solvable... as for me, I'll wait for the new engine and re-converted levels.
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Holger
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Post by Holger »

> Indeed these element might stand for some missing element... there are 4 "?"s, so maybe
> they're all worth 2 emeralds each...

Well, I've found not less than 10 "?"s in that level... :-)

> or... is the needed emeralds number imported directly along with the level or estimated by
> calculation somehow? In the latter case it would be enough to subtract 8 from it and level
> would be solvable...

No, it's directly imported from the level file. On-the-fly calculation would be nearly impossible, I think (would give too less emeralds, if not recursing deep enough -- yamyams might produce bugs or other yamyams, for example -- or too much emeralds, which can never be collected then -- not all emeralds might always be reachable).

> as for me, I'll wait for the new engine and re-converted levels.

With the new engine, levels won't be converted anymore, but the original levels will be read in "as is", which will allow for maximal flexibility for later engine bug fixes.

But "problem levels" like the one you've reported here are of great help to check the accuracy of the new EM engine, so if you should encounter similar things, I would be glad to have them reported here, also. After all, the new EM engine will be created for exactly these kind of levels, which can not be solved with the current R'n'D engine. :-)
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bojster
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Post by bojster »

Holger wrote:Well, I've found not less than 10 "?"s in that level... :-)
Sorry to say, but my calculation is more reliable since I counted only the reachable question marks :P

PS. Bond Mine 12, level 3 - another emerald shortage (at least 3 are lacking if you count all possible to get, but since magic walls run very shortly I only managed to score -12 emeralds [= lack 12 in the end]). And again, there are 9 ?'s in the cavern with magic walls and another 4 in the cavern with spaceships (but these are most probably some wall-curve elements), so maybe that's the case.
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Holger
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Post by Holger »

> Sorry to say, but my calculation is more reliable since I counted only the reachable question marks

Oops, you're right of course! :-o
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Post by Flumminator »

Contributions 2002/Rüdiger Schäfer/Level 34 (no blue key)
Contributions 2002/Rüdiger Schäfer/Level 71 (sand blocks EM-style door)
Contributions 2002/Rüdiger Schäfer/Level 96 (blue door unpassable)
Contributions 2002/Rüdiger Schäfer/Level 100 (yellow door unpassable)

@Holger: I will send you corrected levels and tapes for the whole series soon, but I strongly discourage using them in your autoplay-check.
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Yoshi348
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Post by Yoshi348 »

Bond Mine 1 (3.2.0 rc1) level 50: 23 required gems too many.
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Holger
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Post by Holger »

Yes, I came to the exact same number of gems. Strange...
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Aurora
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Re: Unsolvable levels

Post by Aurora »

Obviously this is an old thread and many of the fixed level files are likely lost now, but is there any place I could download a fixed version of additional Boulder Dash levels? The copy I downloaded from (I believe) Martijn's page still has issues making certain levels impossible.
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Re: Unsolvable levels

Post by filbo »

Aurora: your question is more answerable if you give direct URLs to what you downloaded. Or at least filenames, exact levelset names?

=====

Having had my attention drawn to this thread, I notice a couple of mentioned levelsets in the 'Contributions 1995-whenever' collection, which I don't seem to have: Martin Hermann, and Holger Schemel himself! Where might I find those?
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Aurora
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Re: Unsolvable levels

Post by Aurora »

By "additional Boulder Dash levels" I meant Boulderdash II & Boulderdash 16, both of which contain impossible levels early in the set. As for where I downloaded them...I honestly couldn't say. I assumed it was from Martijn's page but again, that page hasn't been updated in a long time and the current download link redirects to a 404 page.
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Holger
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Re: Unsolvable levels

Post by Holger »

Having had my attention drawn to this thread, I notice a couple of mentioned levelsets in the 'Contributions 1995-whenever' collection, which I don't seem to have: Martin Hermann, and Holger Schemel himself! Where might I find those?
The first one is here: "Contributions_1996/rnd_martin_herrmann" (part of the "Contributions-1.2.0.zip" package).

The second one was removed, as it was merely just a test level set leftover from the very early years, if I remember correctly. (You can look for yourself, though, it's still there: Go to "https://www.artsoft.org/RELEASES/rocksndiamonds/levels/" and download file "rnd-contrib-1.0.0.tar.gz" or "rnd-contrib-1.0.0.zip".)
By "additional Boulder Dash levels" I meant Boulderdash II & Boulderdash 16, both of which contain impossible levels early in the set. As for where I downloaded them...I honestly couldn't say. I assumed it was from Martijn's page but again, that page hasn't been updated in a long time and the current download link redirects to a 404 page.
Yes, I think you have downloaded it from this URL: http://www.bd-fans.com/RnD.html

- Levelset Name: Boulderdash
- Number of Levels: 319
- Author: Several Authors
- Description / Note: Contains Boulderdash II, Boulderdash 16 and XBD

The corresponding download link is indeed broken, as Martijn encountered a disk crash years ago, and was unable to recover all data. However, I have a snapshot from his site from 2012 which still has it -- see attached.

But I am afraid that they still contain those unsolvable levels... :?
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Boulderdash.zip
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filbo
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Re: Unsolvable levels

Post by filbo »

Now when I recheck I find the martin_herrmann levels in my collection without any trouble! No idea what I was doing wrong.

'test level set leftover from the very early years' sounds like something worth historical preservation even if you don't think too much of it :)

Maybe you can label it like 'Holger Schemel (test levels)'...
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Re: Unsolvable levels

Post by Algebroot »

'test level set leftover from the very early years' sounds like something worth historical preservation even if you don't think too much of it :)

Maybe you can label it like 'Holger Schemel (test levels)'...
Worth noting is that, from what I can remember, all of Holger Schemel's levels appear to be either:
1. Work in progress versions of remakes of some Emerald Mine levels (solvable but with unfinished level design, no emeralds needed, and RND style keys & doors)
2. The default level template (you start seeing this a lot for later levels of the set, as most of these levels don't exist)
3. Just a few random test levels for Boulderdash elements

So I don't think there's anything truly interesting to look at.
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Holger
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Re: Unsolvable levels

Post by Holger »

Can't remember anymore, but I think you are right! :D
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