Rocks'n'Diamonds

Heya folks,

So, I'm working on more of the Random Generation Mine levelset that I've been working on, and I've been trying to make use of elements that are available in the Rocks'n'Diamonds engine that isn't custom elements when it comes to using existing elements to randomize, because I don't wanna lean on creating entirely new elements because I feel the existing elements haven't necessarily been used as often these days.

One of the recurring elements I keep seeing and using for the 15x15 tile size Emerald Mine Club levelset I've been working on and off all the time is the Plant tile, which has two unique distinctions that make it different from an unremovable Land Mine, which is that enemies can dig through them safely, and boulders and similar objects like that would remove them under the weight of those objects.

I was so disappointed when I thought of some ideas for the level generation scenarios and tried using the Plant tile, as it didn't work like it was supposed to from the Emerald Mine engine but in the Rocks'n'Diamonds engine. it's just a reskin of the Land Mine element that can't be removable, as I can't find the differences between the two after some testing.

Would it be possible to just have a toggle to enable the proper effects like in the Emerald Mine engine? If you have to, you can have a Rocks'n'Diamonds kind of spin, like you did with most of the Emerald Mine Club elements (for example, out of the blue, I did not realize that Magic Balls when spawning elements in the Rock'sn'Diamonds engine, when it tries to spawn an element that's occupied by the player, just kills them instead, which can make some interesting scenarios that's different from doing it in the Emerald Mine engine).

Hi Ryz,

there are currently no plans to extend the existing R'n'D game elements that are inspired by game elements from the Emerald Mine engine to better match their native engine counterparts, also I admit that this would be desirable.

If I will do this or not in the future depends a bit on how I see the potential for such changes to be used in real world level sets, especially when taking into account that many such ideas can already be implemented using custom elements.

For example, I have just checked how the "plant" element behaves in the EM and the R'n'D engines, and you are right about the differences (and that the game element behaves more interesting in the EM engine than in the R'n'D engine). I have then created a custom element (CE) that looks like the plant (by using the "use graphics of" option in the editor) and that changes to empty space when touching a certain group element (GE), and then put the rock and the yamyam into that GE, and voila: It works much closer to how it would behave in the EM engine when used in the R'n'D engine!

So, in many cases you could just easily build new game elements that behave just as you like (and that can also be build close to game elements known from one of the other game engines)!

Hmm, did some custom element fiddling around, as I would prefer that for my levelset that the custom elements would only be limited to the random level generation aspect.

The results have been mixed as I attached a level that I quickly worked the custom elements (CEs) around: It's closer to being more of the EMC properties, but I don't think i feel satisfied about it if wanting to emulate it closely or exactly:

Interaction with Rocks:

• Whether a rock will destroy the CE plant tile
  • In the Emerald Mine engine, upon level starting, when the boulder hits the plant tile, there's a delay of 0.20 seconds before it breaks.
  • In the Rocks'n'Diamonds engine, attempting to replicate with CEs, I had the CE to change to a delay CE to indicate breaking by having said CE 'touch' the boulder from their bottom side as I had to drop the boulder on top of it.
  • It worked, there's a delay CE that replaced the existing CE before it disappears, allowing the boulder to go downward and do the same with the other plant CE tiles.

• Whether a sitting rock will destroy the CE plant tile
  • Narrowing it down, wanted to see if the CE plant tile will be changed to a destroy CE just by the sitting boulder with the same change properties
  • ..And it didn't work at all; it only works when there's an empty space gap to be able to detect it through touching, which is oof.

Interaction with Yam Yams:

• Whether a Yam Yam is able to 'dig' through the CE plant tile
  • In the Emerald Mine engine, Yam Yams can 'dig' through the plant tiles with their movement paths as if the player does it with ordinary dirt tiles.
  • Attempting to reproduce this in the Rocks'n'Diamonds engine, I had the CE plant disappear upon being 'hit by' a random direction moving Yam Yam specifically, and not 'touched', since touching just has the CE plant tiles just by grazing by on their left or right side, and not when in the direct path of the Yam Yam's direction.
  • It worked, but only on having an empty space gap between the Yam Yam and CE plant for the latter to disappear, as the Yam Yam can't seem to dig left or right CE plant tile like I would've thought, like hitting it, it requires an empty space about it, so mixed results there, halfway but not replicating the Emerald Mine way of it.

Interaction with Bugs:

• Whether a Bug is able to 'dig' through the CE plant tile
  • Unfortunately it's similar to the results of the Yam Yam, just the bug hitting the CE plant tile for it to work.

So yeah, mixed results, not to the desired results on what I wanted, but it is a bit of a different and odd feeling having to replicate objects with custom elements rather than using the existing elements, it's different since even though I do enjoy the inclusion of custom elements that was introduced...2 decades ago, oh goodness, as to stop introducing new Rocks'n'Diamonds only game elements, it's different feeling of dynamic as it changes the expectations from the player's side of things with custom rules or elements being a thing, compared to for the most part, existing elements retaining their intended properties and attributes.

To give a couple of examples, the expectations of playing a Super Mario Maker 2 level is different from playing ROM hacks based on Super Mario World; for the former, for me, it makes it insanely intriguing if the level creator was able to come up with contraptions that are confined to the game logic and physics as determined by the game on the way it's coded. With the latter, additional stuff can be added on top of the vanilla coding with assembly coding and such, a bit similar with in-game programming with Rocks'n'Diamonds but a lot more freedom, but sometimes it can be limiting that way, as again, expectations be different, reactions feeling different since it's not vanilla logic anymore. It's not a bad thing, just a different feeling or angle of expectations, but it's not really what I wanted to have for the random generation levelset on the latter.

The only way I would feel good about it on making CE plant tiles and have it be in my random generation levelset is being able to replicate the unique aspects of the EMC plant tile to my liking, to have the elements limited to the enemies or boulders that only existed in Emerald Mine (I don't wanna extend it to elements that are outside of the Emerald Mine engine since that is murky decision making territory, like deciding whether penguins should also dig into the CE plant tile, or if they should die from it instead, or having the Zonk boulders from Supaplex be a lighter material and don't break the CE plant tiles to differentiate from the similar Boulder types, which this is what I mean on the amount of freedom and decisions can sometimes be limiting).

Side thing, there's a bunch of special properties in Rocks'n'Diamonds elements that can't be replicated (and one of the topics I wanna do years ago is to replicate all the existing elements that exist in the Rocks'n'Diamonds engine into CEs and see how far can they be replicated). I'm not sure to what extent you can continue adding more custom element properties or things, but you have done a lot of additions and fixes with custom elements, the 'even faster' movement speed for example is critically needed for my level generation levelset that didn't exist when custom elements were introduced, in a level by level basis on working with 50 ticks that make up a second during the game is exceptionally important to make the moving parts work. If you are interested in developing the custom element functionalities even further, I can have fun toying around custom elements even more and make a custom element replication attempt topic.