Stumbled upon an web browser version of Rocks'n'Diamonds 2.11, MS-DOS version

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RAP
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Stumbled upon an web browser version of Rocks'n'Diamonds 2.11, MS-DOS version

Post by RAP »

Heya all,

I just stumbled upon this interesting nugget over the world of R'n'D, thanks to the power of DOS Box via online, you can play the game online from DOS Games Archive:
https://www.dosgamesarchive.com/downloa ... monds-211/

Keep in mind of the loud sudden starling noises when first starting to open up the game via DOS Box, it kinda made me jump. Also, at least for me, the game runs pretty slow when sampling some of the levels, probably because of emulation or because my hardware isn't strong enough to do stable framerates from it.

Seeing this makes me wonder, would a MS-DOS version of Rocks'n'Diamonds be possible on the latest version? I say this because I'm reminded of the MS-DOS port of Retro City Rampage, which unlike the NES prototype is the full game like the Steam and console versions of that game.
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Holger
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Re: Stumbled upon an web browser version of Rocks'n'Diamonds 2.11, MS-DOS version

Post by Holger »

Hey, that's cool! :-D

Playing old DOS games in DOSBox in a browser is always cool, although R'n'D runs quite slowly also on my system (MacBook Pro from 2015 which is still quite fast for most other things).

But it's not up to date -- the latest DOS version of R'n'D is version 3.1.0. ;-)
Seeing this makes me wonder, would a MS-DOS version of Rocks'n'Diamonds be possible on the latest version?
I removed DOS support from R'n'D a long time ago (after the above mentioned version 3.1.0), which was based on DJGPP (for compiling a DOS executable) and Allegro (for handling graphics, sound and music). I did this to make it easier for me to maintain the code base, and I dropped support for some other targets later (like native X11 support and SDL 1.2 support) that are not much used anymore or where most people could easily use other targets instead (like Windows instead of DOS, SDL instead of X11 or SDL 2.0 instead of SDL 1.2).

But using the existing code in earlier versions available from the Git repository (mainly files "msdos.c" and "msdos.h", plus "x11.c" and "x11.h", as the DOS port was based on an abstraction of the X11 code layer) would probably make it possible to backport the current R'n'D version to DOS again (which would require to drop some features that are not supported by the DOS code layer, like network game support).
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RAP
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Re: Stumbled upon an web browser version of Rocks'n'Diamonds 2.11, MS-DOS version

Post by RAP »

Network game support? Like LAN or playing with other players online? Doesn't something like the original Doom support online multiplayer since it's also a MS-DOS game, or is that a different can of worms? I'm now curious what other things have to be cut for this demake or cut down MS-DOS version would make it work, like certain music support? Related to talking about this version, I recall seeing the files levels made in R'n'D formatted in a particular way for the MS-DOS version, at least how the file type name is set up (hopefully I didn't confuse it with something else completely), making me wonder how to port MS-DOS formatted levels to the more general accepted use of the format for every supported platform, or whether there's just a simple solution.
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Re: Stumbled upon an web browser version of Rocks'n'Diamonds 2.11, MS-DOS version

Post by Holger »

Network game support? Like LAN or playing with other players online?
Yes. Although it will most probably only work well in local networks, due to the synchronized nature of the game engine and network latency when using non-local networks.
Doesn't something like the original Doom support online multiplayer since it's also a MS-DOS game, or is that a different can of worms?
Yes, it's one of the first games with network gaming support.

So, yes, network games are possible also with MS-DOS, but R'n'D uses SDL_network, which is not available for MS-DOS.
I'm now curious what other things have to be cut for this demake or cut down MS-DOS version would make it work, like certain music support?
Same thing with graphics, sounds and music: The MS-DOS version of R'n'D used Allegro, so there were artwork file formats that were supported by the SDL libraries, but not by Allegro.
Related to talking about this version, I recall seeing the files levels made in R'n'D formatted in a particular way for the MS-DOS version, at least how the file type name is set up (hopefully I didn't confuse it with something else completely), ...
It's only the file name format, to fit into the 8.3 limitations of MS-DOS.
... making me wonder how to port MS-DOS formatted levels to the more general accepted use of the format for every supported platform, or whether there's just a simple solution.
Support for the crippled MS-DOS style file names would be the easiest part, but then, if you want a MS-DOS version again, you would need the other direction (to use files from R'n'D in the MS-DOS version), so file names would have to be converted to the 8.3 scheme (which may also require converting artwork configuration files that reference those file names).

So, as always, the devil is in the detail. :-)
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