identical levelsets super-freak-pro
Posted: Thu Jan 07, 2021 7:25 am
The levelsets:
(A) emc_freak_mine_super_pro
(B) emc_super_freak_mine_prof
are identical. Well, in fact, not precisely identical. Levels 1 22 25 26 32 49 52 69 74 76 79 all have slight edits. Two of those (32 & 52) are documented in an updated titlemessage_1.txt; I feel safe in assuming the others are similar small tweaks to fix broken levels.
Also, B's levelset name is the same as it describes itself ('SUPERFREAKMINE PROF' in the title msg), while A's is not.
So B is a fixed edition of A. Further, mildly supporting this interpretation, the changed levels' files in A are dated 1990-12-23 or 1991-10-03, while in B they are 1995-05-03 through 1996-06-22 (except level 79 is 1980-01-02, probably modified while a PC was booted into MS-DOS with dead CMOS battery...)
So I think A should be removed from the collection.
=====
While examining this I noted that the graphics/*.png in 3.1.0 have different date stamps than *.pcx in 2.1.1. I curate date stamps and in a case like this (translating file to more modern format, intending to exactly preserve original intent) -- I would stamp the new file with the original timestamp. I also noted that the *.png in 3.0.0 had identical contents to 3.1.0, but earlier timestamps, showing that you either ran the conversion twice, or automatically run it for each build of the collection. Seeding extra timestamps for identical files is not good :)
The timestamps for *.conf also differ, but in this case there are actual material changes. I would probably stamp comments into the modified versions, stating the prior timestamp & purpose of changes, but that's just me being overly fussy :)
(A) emc_freak_mine_super_pro
(B) emc_super_freak_mine_prof
are identical. Well, in fact, not precisely identical. Levels 1 22 25 26 32 49 52 69 74 76 79 all have slight edits. Two of those (32 & 52) are documented in an updated titlemessage_1.txt; I feel safe in assuming the others are similar small tweaks to fix broken levels.
Also, B's levelset name is the same as it describes itself ('SUPERFREAKMINE PROF' in the title msg), while A's is not.
So B is a fixed edition of A. Further, mildly supporting this interpretation, the changed levels' files in A are dated 1990-12-23 or 1991-10-03, while in B they are 1995-05-03 through 1996-06-22 (except level 79 is 1980-01-02, probably modified while a PC was booted into MS-DOS with dead CMOS battery...)
So I think A should be removed from the collection.
=====
While examining this I noted that the graphics/*.png in 3.1.0 have different date stamps than *.pcx in 2.1.1. I curate date stamps and in a case like this (translating file to more modern format, intending to exactly preserve original intent) -- I would stamp the new file with the original timestamp. I also noted that the *.png in 3.0.0 had identical contents to 3.1.0, but earlier timestamps, showing that you either ran the conversion twice, or automatically run it for each build of the collection. Seeding extra timestamps for identical files is not good :)
The timestamps for *.conf also differ, but in this case there are actual material changes. I would probably stamp comments into the modified versions, stating the prior timestamp & purpose of changes, but that's just me being overly fussy :)