Rocks'n'Diamonds

The objects from emerald mine v6 which be in dx bd not be in rocksndiamonds?

> The objects from emerald mine v6 which be in dx bd not be in rocksndiamonds?

Oops, it seems that I oversaw this post -- sorry for that!

Well, about the question: You are right that some of the elements that exist in the Emerald Mine V6 engine do not exist in Rocks'n'Diamonds, like the android or the spring bumper.

All these elements will soon be available by selecting the new "Emerald Mine" engine in the level editor, and probably also in the normal R'n'D engine (with maybe slightly different behaviour).

The new Emerald Mine V6 compatible game engine will be part of the upcoming release 3.2.0.

will the next version be released this year???

> will the next version be released this year???

Most probably: Yes. Not the final 3.2.0 release, but a release candidate or at least a beta version.

But I'm (still) quite sure that you all will get a new version to play with before the year is over. It's nearly in a state that could be called "ready for testing". It's just that I currently have really no free time (which will get better around christmas), and that there should be at least some native Emerald Mine Club levels to test with the new engine. You can do nothing with the existing, old, converted EMC levels -- even with 3.2.0, they will all be played with the existing R'n'D engine. You definitely need the original EMC levels to take any advantage of the new engine.

As I might not complete the new EMC level set with the 3.2.0 testing version, I'll probably release a (stripped down) testing EMC package with only a few sets. So, please let me know which EMC level sets you would prefer to test with the new 3.2.0 engine! Just name one or two (or three) sets which should be included! :-)

Um, well... I guess Emerald Mine and Bond Mine levels would be good... and of course the original EM sets.

but will my tapes and levelinfo stay when the levels are played as native levels, in other words: don't I have to play it all over again? I guess no, but I want to be sure.

bojster: I would not include the bond mine levels, because they are all solvable, at least, the ones I played. I would include Emerald Dash and some of the Downunder Mine levels (as I think the yam yams have to go into the acid).

Martijn wrote:I would not include the bond mine levels, because they are all solvable, at least, the ones I played. I would include Emerald Dash and some of the Downunder Mine levels (as I think the yam yams have to go into the acid).

Seems that you didn't play them too much, then. May of them contain question marks in place of some custom elements - I hope it will change... Also, the newer Bondmine levels have more custom elements than the old ones.

well I play levels from all levelsets and not from only the bond mines for example, so that means the progress with bond mine 1 for example is not so fast.

OK then, so you can take my word for it, because I played them ALL and only one Bondmine levelset (number 8) is fully solvable, the rest have one or more unsolvable leves. Conclusion: if they were released, I could quickly check them all and see if something actually changed.

huh? are you sure? in number 8, the first level is not possible as far as I know because the bombs block your path! And I visited your tape archive to see how you do it then, but you don't provide bond mine 8 there! Maybe you mean number 6???

Yes, I meant number 6, sorry. As for number 8, it's totally messed up ;-] I suppose that question mark is something that was supposed to roll down the wall and smash the bombs ;-)

> but will my tapes and levelinfo stay when the levels are played as native levels, in other words:
> don't I have to play it all over again? I guess no, but I want to be sure.

As the old and new engines are completely different, playing a tape that was recorded with the R'n'D engine for a native level will force the native level to be played with the R'n'D engine. Playing the level again (with the native engine) will then re-record the tape using the new engine. So, the answer is "yes" and "no". :-)

Holger wrote:As the old and new engines are completely different, playing a tape that was recorded with the R'n'D engine for a native level will force the native level to be played with the R'n'D engine. Playing the level again (with the native engine) will then re-record the tape using the new engine. So, the answer is "yes" and "no". :-)

Huh? So I can't just load the tapes and see if the levels are still broken where they used to be? I'd say that's a major disadvantage... Well anyway, now I'll get to test some of the levels...

I just noticed that I wrote some bullshit:

> > As the old and new engines are completely different, playing a tape that was recorded with
> > the R'n'D engine for a native level will force the native level to be played with the R'n'D
> > engine.

That's wrong. Tapes just throw the stored actions into the actual level, so playing such a tape will of course result in playing the native level, but most probably with different results...

> Huh? So I can't just load the tapes and see if the levels are still broken where they used to be?

Well, a level tape usually contains the actions (keyboard input etc.) to play/solve a level. If the level is now played with a different engine (which in most cases expects slightly different input), the tape will fail in most cases.

> I'd say that's a major disadvantage... Well anyway, now I'll get to test some of the levels...

Always remember that the new EM game engine is not a "fixed old engine", but a completely _different_ game engine, with completely different internal working. The result is, that tapes recorded with the R'n'D engine will in 99,9% fail when played with the new engine. They are just not compatible to each others.

Tapes for genuine R'n'D levels (like all contribution levels or BD2K3 etc.) are of course not affected, but only tapes for those levels which are going to be replaced (which are all the EMC levels for now).