...just to see who's still around.
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Roll Call ;)
Boulders are round.
Fireflies are square.
I need to find
a'way out of here.
Fireflies are square.
I need to find
a'way out of here.
- LogicDeLuxe
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What exactly are your criteria for a "perfect" BoulderDash engine?Simon wrote:I'm still dreaming of writing a "perfect" BoulderDash engine for the C64
I started the XDC engine some time ago. It is very accurate with BD1, BD2 and PLCK caves already. The only minor incompatibility would be the milliseconds based timing, which would be no problem at all for newly designed caves. Also the sound is a bit different, as I didn't wanted another Pokey imitation, but efficiently allocated SID channels dynamically.
The engine is completely written from scratch, with the exception of the Bresenham line algorithm. It uses the same intro and title screens and graphics sets as CrLi does, thus those tools can be reused for this engine.
Planned features are the rest of CrLi and the completion of the compiling tools, which are very alpha right now. No promises when I find the time, though.
None that I know of. There are C64 emulators though. I didn't try, as I only have an unexpanded Amiga 1200 with a 170 MB harddisk.By the way, are there any BoulderDash clones for the Amiga that look and feel like the real C64 BoulderDash?
Hm, I don't have exact criteria. First of all, it's about the fun of writing the engine myself from scratch.LogicDeLuxe wrote:What exactly are your criteria for a "perfect" BoulderDash engine?Simon wrote:I'm still dreaming of writing a "perfect" BoulderDash engine for the C64
I'd like the look and feel to be 100% identical to BD1 or BD2, but without the magic wall bugs. Internally, I'd like the engine to be as efficient as possible, not wasting any CPU cycles. The spare cycles could then be used for some cool ideas like more colors or bigger caves.
Fine, so writing a perfect BoulderDash clone that works on an unexpanded Amiga 500 and looks, sounds and feels exactly like BD1 and BD2 on C64 does indeed still make perfect sense.LogicDeLuxe wrote:None that I know of. There are C64 emulators though. I didn't try, as I only have an unexpanded Amiga 1200 with a 170 MB harddisk.Simon wrote:By the way, are there any BoulderDash clones for the Amiga that look and feel like the real C64 BoulderDash?
If I had the time to spare...
- LogicDeLuxe
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- Joined: Sun Jul 15, 2007 12:52 pm
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XDC looks identical, except my cave window is 8 rasterlines taller, and messages are in a player specific color to make it easier to tell which turn it is/was.Simon wrote:I'd like the look and feel to be 100% identical to BD1 or BD2, but without the magic wall bugs.
The physical magicwall bug is there as an option. The visual part of that bug is not implemented.
Good luck in finding any spare cycles. You will notice that an accurate Boulder Dash engine is quite demanding on a C64. Unlike the Atari version does, scrolling can't be accelerated. Even tricks used on some sidescrolling games are virtually worthless. I considered many options when I started coding XDC. You may surprise me with your implementation, of course.Internally, I'd like the engine to be as efficient as possible, not wasting any CPU cycles. The spare cycles could then be used for some cool ideas like more colors or bigger caves.
Should be possible. The blitter should be fast enough for smooth animation. Taking a look how well Turrican performs, it merely occasionally stucks when the screen is almost filled with waterfalls, but since Boulder Dash needs much less colors, a stock Amiga 500 should be able to handle this.Fine, so writing a perfect BoulderDash clone that works on an unexpanded Amiga 500 and looks, sounds and feels exactly like BD1 and BD2 on C64 does indeed still make perfect sense.