Boulder Dash 2

[Andrew Davie]

This is a proof-of concept, not officially sanctioned, "what if".  It's a new Boulder Dash, using new technologies. Implemented in the CDFJ bankswitching scheme. Some of the interesting features include the introduction of Interleaved ChronoColour.

[Adam]

That looks great.  Amazing work as always.

[Bomberman94]

Pretty impressive and new ,,features" and better graphical presentation (compared to the first one). It would be awesome to have a new BD with these techniques and maybe other caves. What about this strategy: freeze the actual engine with all the new fantastic things and concentrate to build the new caves first. After that take a deep breath and look if this is it or something should be adjusted/changed. And hey - new and other ideas may lead to BD 3 in the future (who knows and I'm ready for this).

[MachoDrone]

that's beautiful. how many lines of code is that?

[Andrew Davie]

that's beautiful. how many lines of code is that?

About 20,000

[Andrew Davie]

I had a bit of fun implementing some effects for "rage quit". In the video you see it start playing a cave, and then I hold RESET - and we get to the RAGE QUIT words, some shaking, some sound effects. I always liked the auto-detect and concept of rage-quitting.  I hope to be able to release a playable demo sometime... we shall see.

[Bomberman94]

Very cool feature - I love your new boulder dash and celebrate any news about this game. I'm dreaming of a version that randomly generates playable levels - can't imagine what else you could do with the memory you free up.

[Andrew Davie]

Very cool feature - I love your new boulder dash and celebrate any news about this game. I'm dreaming of a version that randomly generates playable levels - can't imagine what else you could do with the memory you free up.

Randomly generated levels would be awesome . I'm not sure how to get there, but I'm very open to the concept.

I forgot to mention, I grafted the more sophisticated sound system from Minesweeper into this version of BD - it has a number of bug fixes and improved capability. I'm quite happy with the sound now.

[Bomberman94]

Yes, agree - sound is great now! I would be happy to play/test your new version and can check if PAL version is working well, too.

[Andrew Davie]

Hard to screenshot as there's a lot of motion. But here's the new "RAGE QUIT" graphic...




Updated...  would make a decent T-Shirt design.

[Andrew Davie]

I've revisited SECAM compatibility, after JetSetIlly updated/fixed Gopher with correct timings.
There were a few bugs in my code, but after review the SECAM version is looking quite nice. I decided to implement SECAM-60 (60Hz) instead of SECAM-50. Hopefully this won't inconvenience TOO many people (that's an in-joke; there are approximately zero SECAM '2600 users).

[Andrew Davie]

Here's a bit of updated video. The drop-in sound engine from Minesweeper, and improved "rage quit" graphics/effects. And a bit of gameplay showing the various screen magnifications.

[Andrew Davie]

This is pretty esoteric code...!

Code Select Expand

    if (flashTime
        && !--flashTime
        && (flashTime = --ARENA_COLOUR & 0xF) == 0)
            ARENA_COLOUR = 0;

Can you figure how it operates exactly?

[Andrew Davie]

Here's an optimised version which is even more quirky...

Code Select Expand

    if (!--flashTime && (flashTime = ARENA_COLOUR-- & 0xF) == 1)
        ARENA_COLOUR = 1;


[Andrew Davie]

Just having a bit of a play with alternate 'rage quit' displays.
Here's a full-screen skull and crossbones that's.... not too bad?