Pre-release 4 of Rocks'n'Diamonds 4.4.0.0 available!

[Holger]

The 4th (and most probably last) pre-release of the upcoming new major release version 4.4.0.0 is available for testing now!

It contains (among many others) the following additions and fixes:

• added support for BDCFF game elements that were still missing
• added support for tapes recorded with old or new GDash game engine
• added color picker for selecting level specific colors for BD engine
• added support for smooth movement using two-step directions in BD engine
• added new game element “light rock” to native BD game engine
• added level editor option for fixed or buggy BD style teleporter
• added support for moving/pushing rock animations to BD engine
• added support for BD game engine levels without time limit
• added new (collectible) game element “rocket” to native BD game engine
• added support for level specific information text messages from main menu
• added support for optional level info (“story”) before starting the game
• added showing full level and level set information for BDCFF levels
• added setup option to show level info before game start (yes/no/once)
• added setup option to save setup without “save and exit” menu entry
• added missing editor graphics for some BD style game elements
• added missing element descriptions for some BD style game elements
• added using old BD engine for tapes from 4.4.0.0-test-3 and earlier
• changed the BD engine to match the new GDash code at various places
• changed allowing negative number of gems needed in level editor
• changed graphics (and names) for BD style sand ball and loose sand
• changed name of BD style “mega rock” to “heavy rock” (for “light rock”)
• fixed clipping BD engine intermission levels in editor
• fixed smooth animations for snapping in BD engine for non-black space
• fixed using BD player pushing animation while stirring the pot
• fixed using BD player pushing animation when moving to pushable tile
• fixed broken BD player pushing animation when pushing an element
• fixed graphical bug with snapping player drawn as moving into explosion
• fixed bug with drawing diagonal player movement in BD engine
• fixed use of smooth movement when elements are moving diagonally
• fixed smooth movement for elements passing through slime in BD engine
• fixed smooth movement for player pushing bladder (bubble) in BD engine
• fixed showing number of BD diamonds needed if determined at run-time
• fixed bug with handling player birth game elements before hatching
• fixed smooth movement for elements in magic wall with no space below
• fixed moving rock animations for BD engine when on conveyor belt
• fixed pushing element from left side onto conveyor belt in BD engine

Make sure to also update the BD level collection to the latest version (see the BD forum annoucement).

Now available from the download page!

[Holger]

The list of changes, fixes and additions is too long to list them all in the announcement above, but as far as I can tell (and remember), all bugs that were reported in the forum threads for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd pre-release version of R'n'D 4.4.0.0 should have been fixed now.

I would be very happy if everybody who has reported bugs or misbehaviors could have a look if everything is working as expected now. And I am sure that I have still overseen quite some bugs, and introduced a few new ones.

At this point I really would like to express my special thanks to ncrecc, who has (apparently) tested all those pre-releases to the bone, having reported countless details that really should be (and hopefully have been) fixed for the final release version! I really appreciate your work and your valuable contributions, as the quality of the new BD engine in R'n'D would not have been possible without it!

Please let me know what's still missing for R'n'D 4.4.0.0 to be ready for prime time, and hopefully I'll be able to get it out before christmas. Or at least this year. Or early next year...

[ncrecc]

on windows 10 at least, the game crashes if it tries to play the BD "get extra life" sound when using the original RnD sounds.

to replicate, enable Override Level Sounds in the "Custom Artwork" setup menu, then go to the first level of First Star Software - Construction Kit Examples and collect all 6 gems. observe that the crash does not happen when Override Level Sounds is disabled (so the BD sounds are used instead), and you gain a bonus life when it would previously crash.

[ncrecc]

is it possible for BD-engine levels made in RnD to have descriptions / story? this would be useful for a BD tutorial i want to make

[TheOnyxGuy]

While playing around with editor, I found few issues which carried over from rc3 to rc4 which I don't know if they're intended or not:

1. When a bomb explodes, it leaves walls after the explosion, which sort of defeats it's primary purpose,
2. When collecting clocks, instead of "collecting" them like usual player automatically "snaps" them from spot and clock leaves sand in it's place,
3. If you try to break a wall with diamond with pneumatic hammer while the tile below you is empty, player instead just pointlessly snaps, leaving the wall untouchable if on both of it's sides there's just empty space till something obscures one of these spaces.

[ncrecc]

While playing around with editor, I found few issues which carried over from rc3 to rc4 which I don't know if they're intended or not:

1. When a bomb explodes, it leaves walls after the explosion, which sort of defeats it's primary purpose,
2. When collecting clocks, instead of "collecting" them like usual player automatically "snaps" them from spot and clock leaves sand in it's place,
3. If you try to break a wall with diamond with pneumatic hammer while the tile below you is empty, player instead just pointlessly snaps, leaving the wall untouchable if on both of it's sides there's just empty space till something obscures one of these spaces.

these are all inherited from GDash, and i think they're intentional in the original games they appear in:

1. bombs originate from the "First Boulder" series (by Prof. Knibble and POSCOPI; listed under POSOCOPI Waldkirch in the GDash level collection), where their contents are set to different things on a per-level basis. some levels have them explode to empty space as you'd expect, but many of them intentionally have them set to explode to walls so that disposing of all the bombs becomes an obstruction (or so that you can only use them to guide fireflies/butterflies). this includes the very first level of First Boulder 1, which i suppose is why bombs explode into walls by default.
2. clocks becoming dirt after they're collected makes sense when you consider that caves in boulder dash are usually mostly dirt by volume - though i will admit i'm a little skeptical of this explanation myself given that nowhere in the 3 First Boulder games does a clock appear surrounded by dirt (though it happens a lot in the later Crazy Dream series by Marek Roth)
3. think of it like rockford has to have firm footing before he can start drilling. the pneumatic hammer is introduced in Crazy Dream 7, and in level 10 (Buddel), the player's snap element is set to "explosion", and they have to stand on thier own explosions in order to drill away narrow columns of wall, so it seems intended.

[ncrecc]

assorted bugs:
1. in the BD caves, pushing a bubble has the default RnD push sfx
2. when you solve a BD cave, the palette change to the next cave happens even though the game fades to black in-between (which happens even if "show scores after game" is disabled):

solvelevel.gif (2.03 MiB) Viewed 8494 times

3. it is impossible to record a solution tape for Crazy Dream 9 level 1, even though the level itself is solvable. the fireflies are set to spawn more players after they explode, but when you die to the fireflies, you immediately get a "game over" and the tape stops recording even though more players spawn afterward. not sure what a robust solution to this would be. the minimum this situation would require is to check whether any "player birth" elements are present, or any explosions that are set to end in a "player birth" element are present, before triggering a game over.

onediamond.png (45.83 KiB) Viewed 8494 times

[ncrecc]

when "override level graphics" is on for the BD caves, magic walls have their own distinct look from normal walls, which i think ruins some levels where the presence of magic walls is supposed to be a secret. e.g. Achim Hoffman level 01:

secretmagicwalls.png (66.18 KiB) Viewed 8480 times

(there are probably better examples, but this is all i could remember.)
perhaps there could be a "show magic walls" option in the Game Engines setup menu.

[ncrecc]

strange bug i can't seem to reproduce: after a long session that included turning "Override Level Graphics" on and off a couple times, i tried to go to the level creator while on a BD level (specifically Achim Hofmann - Achim Hofmann level 01), and the "this level is read only!" notice for some reason was blurrily stretched to cover the entire game window. when i tried to dismiss it, it left streaks on the screen as it minimized, implying it failed to clear itself from the screen. here's a screenshot:

dismiss.png (12.81 KiB) Viewed 8477 times

(note that the window is 640x502 for some reason instead of 640x480 like it usually is when the BD graphics are active.)
i'm not sure what state the game was in. i was able to get the notice to "expand" again by pressing escape and enter, which might mean it went to the editor but still hadn't cleared the notice.

[ncrecc]

this would break away from GDash, but it would be cool if eventually we could customize what elements can emerge from ghost explosions (like what happened with the gray ball in Mirror Magic). here's a mockup based on the default elements ghost explosions produce:

ghost_custom.png (16.81 KiB) Viewed 8472 times

(the "choice type" options are the same as for the gray ball in MM)

[ncrecc]

somehow after saving a level the player's snap element was changed to SP_TERMINAL. (i didn't notice any other unusual element config changes.) this is another one-off bug; it hasn't happened since and i'm not sure how to replicate it. this was during the same session as the "this level is read-only" notice taking up the entire screen.

[ncrecc]

the absence of rockford's distinctive "autsch" when he dies in BD-engine levels (when default RnD sounds are used) feels wrong

[ncrecc]

on windows 10 at least, the game crashes if it tries to play the BD "get extra life" sound when using the original RnD sounds.

should stress this is especially a problem when making levels in the level creator, where the "points until extra life" value is 500 by default with no way to change them - if you get 500 points while testing your level, and you haven't added custom sounds to your levelset (even if sfx is muted!), the game crashes

[ncrecc]

smooth movement for rocks is buggy when conveyors and wraparound are involved

conveyorses.gif (2.99 MiB) Viewed 8389 times

(actually, the case with regular rocks looks alright, but the case with flying rocks definitely looks bugged)

[Holger]

on windows 10 at least, the game crashes if it tries to play the BD "get extra life" sound when using the original RnD sounds.

Thanks to your detailed description of this bug (and therefore being able to reproduce this on my Mac), I was able to find and fix this issue! (This bug was particularly nasty as it only occurs when overriding the default BD sounds with classic sounds.)

Fixing this bug was especially important as I plan to create a "special" BD level package for the final R'n'D release that is based on the GDash level package, but does not contain the original game graphics, sounds, music and levels for a reason, but using the classic R'n'D artwork set for all those level sets. (Replacing this "stripped-down" level package with the "full" GDash level package will of course be possible.)