Rocks'n'Diamonds

What's being worked on for RnD right now? I remember one post on the old board talking about a plan for implementing 99% compatable engines, but I don't rember which one was which version, or whether the original BD was part of the plans. And besides, there might be other plans as well...

(I wasn't quite sure where to put this, so I guess it works here.)

Yoshi348 wrote:(I wasn't quite sure where to put this, so I guess it works here.)

Indeed it does.

I think 3.1.0 was for 99% SP compatibility. 3.2.0 for BD and 3.3.0 for EM.
I might have mixed up BD and EM here though.

having converted some BD levels recently, I think it might be impossible to do it 100% with the RnD engine.

In BD you can have a line of fireflys all touching each other, they move left without any gap between. In Rnd they all bump into each other...

> I think 3.1.0 was for 99% SP compatibility. 3.2.0 for BD and 3.3.0 for EM.

Well, here's the roadmap (including the previous and current version):

- 3.0.0: custom artwork and custom elements
- 3.1.0: fix most known bugs of the R'n'D engine
- 3.1.1: fix those bugs that are still left in 3.1.0
- 3.2.0: add 99% compatible EM (Emerald Mine) engine
- 3.3.0: add 99% compatible BD (Boulder Dash) engine
- 3.4.0: add 99% compatible SP (Supaplex) engine

The current R'n'D engine is in fact not very compatible with SP; it's just enough to solve most of the _original_ levels; but many add-on SP level sets use a lot of dirty "tricks" (which can also be called bugs) of the original SP engine. The same is true with many EM and BD levels.

For this reason, we will never get 100% compatibility to BD, EM or SP levels and their elements _inside_ the R'n'D engine. Therefore, I will add additional game engines to the game which you can then choose in the level editor, like this:

For this level, use the following game engine:
- R'n'D
- BD
- EM
- SP

These additional (BD, EM, SP) engines will be based on code that is known to be 99,9% compatible to the classic original games and engines. This might also include a different graphical presentation, like the old "jump-moving" of BD elements, because the element behaviour is impossible to implement with "soft-moving" (at least if you don't want elements to overlap that closely move horizontally and vertically along the same tiles).

Expect this roadmap to take quite some time (I mean, don't hold your breath yet ;-) ). The order of engine implementation has a simple reason: The EM engine code is in C, which should be easy to adapt. The BD engine code is in Pascal and Assembler, which is still not too hard, but a bit harder. The SP engine code is in Visual Basic and Assembler, which I expect to take most time to convert.

When done, the classic levels are expected to play 1:1 like in the classic games.

> What's being worked on for RnD right now?

To answer the first question last: At the moment, I'm very busy at work and have nearly no time for R'n'D (that's why the contributed levels are still not available). Then, I'll take some weeks of vacation soon, so I expect to release a little bugfix release 3.1.1 in August... (And remember that I expected to release 3.1.0 in Q1/04. ;-) )

so some of the dirty tricks you see in all the new supaplex levels, can be playable in a new version? I'm awaiting it, because many levels can't be solved, due to this.
When do you expect version 3.4.0 is ready?

Martijn wrote:When do you expect version 3.4.0 is ready?

Let me answer this Holger:
When it's finished
(Not within the very near future )

It depends on what you call a very near future...

Let me say... is it before the end of this year?

Martijn wrote:It depends on what you call a very near future...

Let me say... is it before the end of this year?

Probably not.
Take a look at the timeline of RND, check the version dates when each version was released.
Maybe, if we're lucky, it will go faster in the future. We'll see.

a pity...

but.. I still play RnD with fun and I just don't play those levels which are not solvable.

Martijn wrote:...I just don't play those levels which are not solvable.

Right, I just skip the unsolveble levels.
Think there should be a pack full of fixed unsolveble levels.

Grunt002 wrote:Think there should be a pack full of fixed unsolveble levels.

Actually, there is for some... right here.

There is actually thousands of more levels that are unsolveble,
mostly like those in the Emerald mine club, the fix will never get done.

Grunt002 wrote:

Martijn wrote:...I just don't play those levels which are not solvable.

Right, I just skip the unsolveble levels.
Think there should be a pack full of fixed unsolveble levels.

I did not mean that. I meant the levels which are not solvable NOW, due to the incompatibly. Holger will build in original programming language of Supaplex, for example.

RnD 3.2.0?

No, 3.4.0. The entire list is up there in this thread, in Holger's post.