BD2, Super Boulder Dash version

Everything about the old and new Boulder Dash games for C64, Atari, ...

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Sendy
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Post by Sendy »

Crazy Light Tileset Editor?

Or if you want to be a bit surreal about it -

Crazy Lioioioioioioingungun bufsuh chutt. Though I preferred my first suggestion.
Watcher Kitty is always watching...
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LogicDeLuxe
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Post by LogicDeLuxe »

You probably wondered if there are differences in the caves of Super Boulder Dash 1 like we discovered in BD2. Now, I'm sure, there aren't. I did a per byte comparison of the FSS release and Super Boulder Dash. The only changed bytes within $5000-$8f48 (which is what the original file occupies) are 3 bytes at $8dae, which merely is a JSR to the end. All it does is copying the EA logo into the graphics every time the title screen appears. There are also some initialization code added at the beginning at $4ff4, which probably has to do with the nasty loading routine. So unlike the BD2 version, this one looks like a simple patch to just add the EA logo, nothing more.

I also compared 3 different First Star releases of BD1. They are all identical. The only differences are different loading routines.
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Post by LogicDeLuxe »

BD2 comparison Original vs. Super Boulder Dash
(yes, some were mentioned already, but I like to have a rather complete list)

Cave B:
Times=200, 190, 180, 170, 160 vs. 200, 200, 200, 200, 200
Diamonds required=75, 80, 85, 90, 95 vs. 80, 80, 80, 80, 80

Intermission 2:
Times=30, 25, 20, 20, 20 vs. 20, 20, 20, 20, 20

Titlepic was changed: "Copyright 1984" for some strange reason. The EA logo. And an additional, but rather unreadable credit.

Slime caves have only bit 4 set vs. bit 3 set in the animation byte. This is an interesting change. Both do animate the slime/amoeba graphics, but only bit 3 activates the dirt mod. Yes, it will be added in my next Dash-FAQ. And note that this is no change in the engine, but really only this animation bit in the cave data.

In the original, you can only start a game with cave "a" on levels 4 and 5. In Super Boulder Dash, you can select "a", "e", "i" and "m" on all levels. In contrary to BD1, this is no bug. The restricting code was cleanly removed.

The F1 key works along with the fire button to advance to the cave selection screen in Super Boulder Dash.

The initialization was optimized and shifted to the beginning. This removes about a kbyte of junk data before $c000. This junk was inserted because BD2 uses the modul signature at $8000 and the BASIC ROM might be banked in while executing it. Also the initialization code at $c000 had some silly code which writes some useless bytes in front of the engine. Maybe this was an attempt to prevent crackers from reading the loading code (not that someone ever wanted to have it included in a clean crack anyways)
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