More Boulder Dash!

[bob147]

Also I'm ashamed to admit that I got fed up with bubble bobble and put it aside. The lightning power ups not even drifting down the screen properly was the final straw!

[raspberrypioneer]

Bbcmicro.co.uk is really good at adding new homebrew as its released. Do a release thread here and I'm sure they'll pick it up as well?

Thanks! It looks the right kind of place but possibly just BBC Micro. I'll take a look / get in touch with them.

[bob147]

Ah yes, I somehow missed that you've been focusing on the electron version, I believe bbcmicro.co.uk hosts a few electron games that have been ported to the bbc (like Electron Frak with the extra levels for example) but it doesn't host Electron games specifically.

[raspberrypioneer]

Thanks Bob, for now I'll release some of the completed SSD versions to this chat. Once Bill's editor is released, new versions can be created either from scratch or by importing existing designs held in BDCFF files. I'll leave Bill to provide the details about the editor. It's really impressive!

So with that ...

*** Release of tested alternative versions!
The attached zip file contains 6 SSD 'fan versions' of Boulder Dash created from BDCFF files on this site (see Cave Maps). The ones picked here are just 6 from over 100 different fan versions available. They appear to all use the original BD1 game engine, so in theory will convert and work on the Electron.

I've played / tested the versions in the attachment on my Electron and they are well thought out and should provide a fun challenge for all Boulder Dash fans! They can be quite tricky - I've not completed any of them yet! In these conversions any of the caves are accessible from the start screen (except bonus intermissions), so if blocked on one, there are others to play instead. I generally play these games using the ElkSD128 which has a joystick port. This allows the keys used in the game to be mapped to joystick controls, which makes a big difference to overall playability for me.

These caves can be tweaked or completely redesigned using the editor, this includes things like the changing the time limits and number of diamonds needed in case you need extra help. The colours used are generally the default ones from the original game, which can also be amended via the editor.

I've not tried these using an emulator at this stage.

I must give a huge shout out to Bill and also Cybershark in getting this far! Very much appreciated, this game has been transformed!

[leenew]

Thanks Bob, for now I'll release some of the completed SSD versions to this chat. Once Bill's editor is released, new versions can be created either from scratch or by importing existing designs held in BDCFF files. I'll leave Bill to provide the details about the editor. It's really impressive!

So with that ...

*** Release of tested alternative versions!
The attached zip file contains 6 SSD 'fan versions' of Boulder Dash created from BDCFF files on this site (see Cave Maps). The ones picked here are just 6 from over 100 different fan versions available. They appear to all use the original BD1 game engine, so in theory will convert and work on the Electron.

I've played / tested the versions in the attachment on my Electron and they are well thought out and should provide a fun challenge for all Boulder Dash fans! They can be quite tricky - I've not completed any of them yet! In these conversions any of the caves are accessible from the start screen (except bonus intermissions), so if blocked on one, there are others to play instead. I generally play these games using the ElkSD128 which has a joystick port. This allows the keys used in the game to be mapped to joystick controls, which makes a big difference to overall playability for me.

These caves can be tweaked or completely redesigned using the editor, this includes things like the changing the time limits and number of diamonds needed in case you need extra help. The colours used are generally the default ones from the original game, which can also be amended via the editor.

I've not tried these using an emulator at this stage.

I must give a huge shout out to Bill and also Cybershark in getting this far! Very much appreciated, this game has been transformed!

I can upload any new game as soon as it is uploaded here. Not a problem.
At the moment, there isn't a specific way to just search for Electron games on bbcmicro.co.uk but if you type "Electron" into the search box you get around 300 hits.
*many will be from Electron User magazine and Electron User Group PD software.
I may ask Mark if there is an easy way (for him!) to add the functionality as there is already an internal switch marked "Electron Conversion"...

Lee

[raspberrypioneer]

I can upload any new game as soon as it is uploaded here. Not a problem.
At the moment, there isn't a specific way to just search for Electron games on bbcmicro.co.uk but if you type "Electron" into the search box you get around 300 hits.
*many will be from Electron User magazine and Electron User Group PD software.
I may ask Mark if there is an easy way (for him!) to add the functionality as there is already an internal switch marked "Electron Conversion"...

Lee

This sounds great, thanks Lee

[raspberrypioneer]

Still a bit hooked on this game! I thought I'd take a look at the graphic characters next.

Each element / graphic tile consumes 32 bytes and many of these have multiple tiles for their animation
Below are the elements, the number of them and their start addresses (in hex from the start of the BDSH3.$ or MBOL2.$ files)

space &0
boulder (x2) &20
diamond (x4) &60
titanium wall (x2) &E0
exit &120
wall (x2) &140
explosion (x4) &180
magic wall (x4) &200
amoeba (x2) &280
butterfly (x3) &2C0
firefly (x4) &320
earth (x2) &3A0
extra life twinkle &3E0
rockford (x18) &400
numbers 0-9 &640
symbols (x5) &780
letter A-Z &820

Not sure if this is 'common knowledge' - was new to me ...
Each byte is split into high and low nibbles and the bits matched up and added to get the 4 colours in the graphic.
E.g. 01010110 becomes 0101 and 0110, then the first two bits from each are added, then the next two etc, resulting in 00 = 0, 11 = 3, 01 = 1, 10 = 2
This way 01010110 is morphed into 0312, use colour 0, 3, 1 and 2 for that part of the character. Each bit is 2 pixels long
This will provide one half of the tile, to get the other half, need to jump 8 bytes and get the other half, giving one line of the tile
Repeat this until 32 bytes consumed, resulting in a full tile!

Using this I tweaked the graphics used in the game, taking a bit of inspiration from Bubble Bobble. Below is a pic of one of the redesigned Rockford frames with the colour coding shown.

New Rockford.png (14.55 KiB) Viewed 602 times

Also attached is a new version of the game with new graphic characters

BBArnoDash01.ssd

(38 KiB) Downloaded 9 times

[bob147]

I like the idle animation, nicely done

[raspberrypioneer]

It turned out better than expected, a nice bit of detail in the original along with Rockford blinking, you don't often see that kind of thing in retro games

[Cybershark]

Also I'm ashamed to admit that I got fed up with bubble bobble and put it aside. The lightning power ups not even drifting down the screen properly was the final straw!

Fair enough. I think that, when Tricky had been mulling over potential new projects, he'd pondered Bubble Bobble, but had ruled it out as we already have a version. I suppose he might reconsider if he realised how lacking the current one is...

[Cybershark]

How you getting on with Bubble Bobble? Maybe we can turn our attention to that when we're done here

Does the Electron have Bubble Bobble?!

It's BBC only, I'm afraid. Still worth seeing though!

[Cybershark]

Bbcmicro.co.uk is really good at adding new homebrew as its released. Do a release thread here and I'm sure they'll pick it up as well?

Thanks! It looks the right kind of place but possibly just BBC Micro. I'll take a look / get in touch with them.

This is true but, thankfully, there's just one version of Boulder Dash (that runs on both platforms)

You've really been busy with your conversions! That's fantastic that you've ported all the Arno's Dash caves over now.
Just looked at your Bubble Bobble-inspired sprites too. I thought you'd maybe only changed the Rockford graphics, so was pleasantly surprised! This looks fantastic Maybe you could give each of the 6 Dash volumes their own theme?
I had made a slight start on importing some Repton graphics, but hadn't taken it very far.

Anyways, my editing package has just about finished cooking. Everything seems to test out ok now, and it feels suitably polished. Bill's just provided me with a final bit of support and I should (finally) have it ready for release later today or tomorrow

[raspberrypioneer]

You've really been busy with your conversions! That's fantastic that you've ported all the Arno's Dash caves over now.
Just looked at your Bubble Bobble-inspired sprites too. I thought you'd maybe only changed the Rockford graphics, so was pleasantly surprised! This looks fantastic Maybe you could give each of the 6 Dash volumes their own theme?
I had made a slight start on importing some Repton graphics, but hadn't taken it very far.

I've really just converted a small subset, there are easily more than 100 of these files! I will convert some more of them. Not all are compatible with the BD1 engine on the Electron but there aren't that many new elements in BD2 (just slime and growing walls), which could probably be substituted by supported elements reasonably enough. Playing with the graphics was a bit of a break from the conversion work! It would be nice to add more - a Repton inspired theme would be interesting, perhaps recognisable characters from Dig Dug, Pac Man and Manic Miner could feature too...

Anyways, my editing package has just about finished cooking. Everything seems to test out ok now, and it feels suitably polished. Bill's just provided me with a final bit of support and I should (finally) have it ready for release later today or tomorrow

That's excellent! I'd be keen to try it out. I was wondering how you did the main splash screen for your version? It looks great.
At some point over the next day or so, I'll drop Bill's editor with instructions onto the chat - I don't think Bill likes documentation so that's been delegated

A slight side note - do you run your tests on an emulator or real Electron? My tests have been fine on real kit but I've not succeeded with loading on the Elkulator emulator. It's probably me ...

[Cybershark]

I was wondering how you did the main splash screen for your version? It looks great.

I found a PNG of the PC version of the original screen online and converted it to a MODE 1 image using Dreamland Fantasy's excellent BBC Micro Image Converter. That allows all sorts of tweaks to the dithering, and I think I have it looking about as sharp as is possible. The alterations to the original image were all done by hand - Corel Photo-Paint X6 being my weapon of choice

A slight side note - do you run your tests on an emulator or real Electron? My tests have been fine on real kit but I've not succeeded with loading on the Elkulator emulator. It's probably me ...

This hasn't actually been near an Elk - even a virtual one. I work in BeebEm and have been taking it for granted that everything will fly just fine on the Electron. There's really no reason (I can think of) why it shouldn't

[Cybershark]

Alrighty then. After one slight scare last night, I think this one's done gestating

BDeditor.ssd

(117 KiB) Downloaded 6 times

Have made it as user-friendly as possible - with (largely) the same layout and controls as Bill's editor - and it has a handy Help page which should give all the instructions needed. I've checked it over (and over) but am sure there's bound to be some problems with it. Any and all feedback will be appreciated!

Huge thanks to Bill for his support & for providing me with an assembly language routine that produces a much faster cave display than my shonky BASIC was capable of

[raspberrypioneer]

Wow its awesome! Very convenient to have the editor and game available on the one ssd! If there is a slight problem with a new or original cave, exit playing and go edit it! How easy is that!

Looks really polished with the title screen, menu and all the help information available. The editor is easy to use (sure you have to get used to the keys a bit but they're pretty intuitive), anyway press H to get help if you forget! I never thought some of the hacks I started with would morph into this! Really impressive! Well done!

As a bit of a test I've edited cave A, clearing it out and making my own design, then playing it. All works perfectly. The combination of ctrl + navigation keys to draw tiles / elements is very handy. Also very useful to switch colours and see the result immediately. I hope I can generate some fun and interesting cave designs of my own now!

I'll get the instructions and Bill's editor out tomorrow. The instructions are not far off now. The overall look and keys used are common across both editors - a big plus that they're alike despite being on different platforms. Well done and many thanks for building this (to Bill too of course) .

[Michael Brown]

Hi,
Just wondering if it would be possible to create a BoulderDash II game by using this editor.
Was wondering if any of the Spectrum screens could be ported over or re-created using this editor.
Not sure if there are extra characters in that game though? and if so, can they also be re-created?

Mick.

[raspberrypioneer]

The game 'engine' for the Electron is Boulder Dash 1 / BD1 so it won't be able to work for all the Boulder Dash 2 caves. Some look like they will work as they don't have the new BD2 elements. The new elements are slime (like a membrane which allows boulders/diamonds to pass through after a time) and horizontal growing walls (wall that will grown into empty spaces next to it). There is also a slight change to the direction which fireflies and butterflies start their movement (as I understand it). The closest we could get to is adapt the few caves which use these elements.

Maybe the next journey for this is to disassemble the BD1 code and add in those elements making BD2

It looks like Boulder Dash 3 doesn't have these new elements so should convert pretty well. It won't have the new graphics it introduced (though I think they were pretty terrible). There is a way to replace the graphics used in this modified BD1 version (a byte replacement hack, not editor), so possible to get pretty close I think.

[Cybershark]

Wow its awesome! Very convenient to have the editor and game available on the one ssd! If there is a slight problem with a new or original cave, exit playing and go edit it! How easy is that!

Thanks! Yes, it was my thinking that it'd just be nicer - and a more authentic feeling Acorn experience - to have everything in one handy package, rather than having to keep switching platforms. Although, obviously, importing external files is not really practical here!

I never thought some of the hacks I started with would morph into this! Really impressive! Well done!

I never thought we'd get to this stage either, back when I couldn't even get a cave to generate properly! Was that really only a couple of weeks ago?? Bill recoding the game to load the individual (unfurled) levels was such a massive watershed moment.

The overall look and keys used are common across both editors - a big plus that they're alike despite being on different platforms.

There are a few things done differently on my editor: the functon key shortcuts to colour change, and being able to cycle through the sprites with Z and X keys but, when Bill and I were comparing notes, I figured there was no reason why those things couldn't also work the same way as in his editor - colour changes from the parameter editing section, and keys 0-9 to pick a sprite.

I spent some time juggling the layout for the parameters section of the editing screen, so as to be as optimal as possible given the limitations of a MODE 1 display. Was cool that Bill adopted that look too. Was his idea to have the parameter numbers show in a different colour (to stand out more) and that was something that I then adopted. I suggested a couple of other features along the way too - like the diamond counter, so you can tell at a glance how many are in the cave, and having a key to toggle the visibility of Rockford's start and exit positions.

I cut a corner on the parameter editing, in that I didn't feel a need to have to hit a key to adjust the parameter that you had the cursor over, although that does mean there's no quick up and down movement between the fields.

Anyway, it was great to have two heads going at this in slightly different directions and to then be able to pick and choose what we liked (or didn't) from both approaches

The game 'engine' for the Electron is Boulder Dash 1 / BD1 so it won't be able to work for all the Boulder Dash 2 caves. Some look like they will work as they don't have the new BD2 elements. The new elements are slime (like a membrane which allows boulders/diamonds to pass through after a time) and horizontal growing walls (wall that will grown into empty spaces next to it). There is also a slight change to the direction which fireflies and butterflies start their movement (as I understand it). The closest we could get to is adapt the few caves which use these elements.

Maybe the next journey for this is to disassemble the BD1 code and add in those elements making BD2

A while back I did suggest that this might be possible. Doesn't sound like the behaviour of those new elements is anything too outrageous. Dunno how much memory is left? And, as you say, it would require a thorough disassembly. There do seem to be a couple of unassigned cave item values, so it'd probably be quite simple to insert new items into the levels - even if they were pure decorative

[TobyLobster]

I'm working on a complete disassembly, https://github.com/TobyLobster/Boulderdash

There does seem to be some memory available, as there is often unused space at the end of pages between routines.

[raspberrypioneer]

And now the Windows based editor from Bill to compliment the excellent Electron based version from Cybershark we got yesterday!

Boulder Dash Editor.zip

Boulder Dash editor (Windows version)

(558.93 KiB) Downloaded 5 times

There is a readme.md file in the docs folder which explains how to use the editor and the bd / BDCFF file import tool (two programs). It's also very easy to use. Included are a few bd files and their resulting ssd files from importing. Although I wrote these instructions, I'm really just the scribe here - this is Bill's hard work and skill to get this off the ground.

Having this additional editor offers a nice choice of editor platforms to use! I think I'll use the Windows-based editor more for the download and edit caves scenario (perhaps to replace unsupported BD2 elements), and the Electron version for the play game - switch over and amend cave scenario, continue playing. I'll try my hand at creating a suite of caves which will probably include a bit of both.

There are a few things done differently on my editor: the functon key shortcuts to colour change, and being able to cycle through the sprites with Z and X keys but, when Bill and I were comparing notes, I figured there was no reason why those things couldn't also work the same way as in his editor - colour changes from the parameter editing section, and keys 0-9 to pick a sprite.

Yes sorry, there are a few fairly minor differences. The collaboration has made for a fine result. I also like the count of diamonds on a cave, really useful to make sure the number required are actually there to pickup!

A while back I did suggest that this might be possible. Doesn't sound like the behaviour of those new elements is anything too outrageous. Dunno how much memory is left? And, as you say, it would require a thorough disassembly. There do seem to be a couple of unassigned cave item values, so it'd probably be quite simple to insert new items into the levels - even if they were pure decorative

I think so too, they don't appear to be especially complex elements. We know where the data for graphics, cave parameters and (I think) the main splash screen live. I guess Bill has some outline of the assembler code having changed it for the cave loading etc. Maybe not far from a disassembly, possibly leading to more?

[raspberrypioneer]

I'm working on a complete disassembly, https://github.com/TobyLobster/Boulderdash

There does seem to be some memory available, as there is often unused space at the end of pages between routines.

As if by magic! Amazing!
Thanks for publishing on github. I'll be following this for sure. Let me know if you need a tester
I'd also be interesting in knowing how you build it all at the end, tools etc (newbie to this ecosystem - done some 6502 on the C64 though)

[bob147]

Well done team Boulderdash! I know I'm just a cheer leader in this thread but I like people who take on these projects to know theres people out there who enjoy their efforts I will try out both editors when I'm nextvin front of my beeb / pc

[Cybershark]

Couldn't help but notice the rather painful way that Raspberry was editing sprites. Didn't exactly look like fun, and I figured I could perhaps do something about that, as I already have a very functional MODE 5 sprite editor that I made for Hobgoblin. The Hobgoblin sprites were 1.5x as wide as the Boulder Dash ones, so it's really just a case of fiddling with a few values to make it suitable for BD. I guess it's getting added to my package at some point then

It's working nicely already, and I'm just now crossporting some additional features that I added to a later MODE 1 version (that I used to tinker with the sprites for my BD cave editor).

Not quite sure how it'll fit into my front end... will perhaps offer a choice of available sprite sets when loading the game.

[raspberrypioneer]

I did a search for an editor but couldn't find something that seemed suitable, so this looks ideal! Understanding how the bytes were split up for colours was a bit like unlocking a puzzle, a bit like a game within a game I guess, feels good once cracked . I then turned to an Excel spreadsheet to develop new graphics and provide the bytes needed. Python used to poke them over the original code addresses.

Not too bad in the end but it would be great to have a proper editor! I think allowing the resulting sprite set to be selectable somehow from the cave editor would be a neat way of getting them incorporated. It would make the turn around time a lot quicker for refining the sprites after trying them out in the game.

[Cybershark]

Raspberry's been kindly checking out the progress of my WIP sprite editor and I think it's now more than ready for public consumption

It comes bundled in one DSD with the game and cave editor. Like the cave editor, it features a Help screen - and uses many of the same keys - so should be quite intuitive.

Features:
Allows editing of all 40 sprites - although some of those seem to be (unnecessarily?) duplicated
Full save and load support
Copy & paste
As with the Repton3 editor, it can show animations for sprites that use them
Sprites can be easily offset, filled, wiped or reverted to a previous state

Get it here:

BoulderDashEditingSuite.dsd

(137.5 KiB) Downloaded 5 times

[raspberrypioneer]

Thanks for this excellent cave and graphic editor all rolled into one package with the game. It really could be an 'official construction kit', very easy to use and enjoy. A professional looking result, I think the original developer would be impressed.

[Cybershark]

It's been a good mental workout, that's for sure!

Hopefully it can now find itself a home at www.bbcmicro.co.uk

[TobyLobster]

My disassembly of Boulder Dash is now complete. It is available in both Beebasm and acme formats. https://github.com/TobyLobster/Boulderdash

[raspberrypioneer]

Wow, had a quick glance over at it - an impressive achievement!

I'll give building it a go myself, then a possible tweak or two might follow!