BD2 - General Discussion

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BD2 - General Discussion

Post by RTADash »

Let's talk about BD2, just because I think it's the most inventive of the original BD games.

I know it quite well, since I've recently played through all 5 difficulty levels.

The difficultly level throughout the game takes on an interesting curve.
Levels 1 and 2 seem to be of almost identical difficulty, with some caves on level 2 being easier than 1.
Level 3 is quite a step up from 1/2 and could render the average player unprepared.
Level 4 is noticably harder than 3, but not overwhelmingly so. A few caves are easier than 3.
Level 5 isn't too much worse than 4. Most caves here are easily learned if you were sucessful on 4. Some are still easier.

Here's what I think are the 5 hardest caves (1 being the hardest)
5. L/3 (complexity)
4. K/5 (speed)
3. G/4 (difficult firefly placement)
2. C/5 (tough encounters and speed)
1. G/5 (just hard to complete, because of inconvenient placements)

[EDIT]
Here's a graph showing the difficulty progression depicted above:

Hard.|........................x
........|.................. x......
........|..........................
........|..............x..........
........|..........................
Easy.|....x...x..............
........|---------------------
Level>...1...2...3...4...5

(I needed the dots because 10 spaces seem to equal 1 space...
Last edited by RTADash on Sun Jun 03, 2007 9:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Arno »

----> MAPS

I think indeed that not all caves have an increasing difficulty through the levels. Many caves (B,D,E,F,H,M,P) could have been made harder in the higher levels by simply requiring more diamonds.

Also interesting to note:
In cave G level 1 and 5 there is a way to avoild blasting through all 4 walls. You can open the most left wall by killing a firefly at the right place. Just discovered that... :wink:
Last edited by Arno on Sun Jul 29, 2007 6:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by RTADash »

Really, you can?! I was wondering about that. Where is that spot?

I rarely find shourtcuts because I don't look for them. Laziness :lol: ...

Good point there about the diamond requirements.

About cave B, I think 2-4 could definitely be harder, but I'm content with B/5; because of the speed it is psychologically harder to snap diamonds while things are still falling.

D has hardly any potential. I don't think the requirement makes much difference because you can easily get 64-65 every time. Maybe it needs some random boulders

E, F - Yeah I agree on these, moreso on F than E.
H - Definitely.
M - Positively!
P - For my own sake I wouldn't like this beacause I tend to go light on the diamonds, but it is a good idea.

I was thinking about cave K, why did PL bother placing magic wall when titanium walls have the exact same effect. I'm stumped! PL doesn't seem like one who would try to deceive.
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Post by Arno »

RTADash wrote:Really, you can?! I was wondering about that. Where is that spot?
Level 1:
Image

Level 5:
Image

Notice however that in level 1, you're dependent on a random event: pushing a boulder!
RTADash wrote: D has hardly any potential. I don't think the requirement makes much difference because you can easily get 64-65 every time. Maybe it needs some random boulders
I still think that cave D would be more interesting if, for example, in level 5 (almost) all diamonds would be required. Now a few diamonds get lost in the explosions, and many times there are still enough left at the other side of the amoeba. If more diamonds were required, then you need a good timing when releasing the fireflies and a bit luck as well (growing amoeba :) )

But random boulders (blocking the way) is a good idea, too!
RTADash wrote:I was thinking about cave K, why did PL bother placing magic wall when titanium walls have the exact same effect. I'm stumped! PL doesn't seem like one who would try to deceive.
Good question! Both elements would behave identically in this case... Maybe PL didn't want to use titanium walls as randomly placed elements. In all caves from BD2 the titanium walls are used only for regular patterns. This could be a reason. Or otherwise, PL found the walls better looking in cave K. But that's just my guess..........

Image
Last edited by Arno on Sun Jul 29, 2007 6:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by RTADash »

That's pretty nifty, especially on level 5!

For a while now I've noticed that the game has wierd color settings.
Caves without slime or amoeba have normal colors as in BD1. What's funny, though, in the caves with amoeba or slime, the blob doesn't share the same color as the regular walltops and the boulder tops.

In caves with amoeba the dirt color changes to that of the titanium walls and the amoeba uses color 3, instead of 5 as in the original game.

In slime caves, though, the dirt is the same color as the slime, which also uses color 3.

Any thoughts on this?
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Post by Arno »

That's the BD2 Dirt Modification. Personally I don't like this modification because the colour of the light reflected by the walls and boulders (but also the diamonds and the fireflies) will not be the same as the amoeba.

I like it when the amoeba determines the glow of light in the cave. This way the presence of an amoeba creates (next to the sound) a special atmosphere in the cave.

By the way - in Deluxe Packer it is possible to put the BD2 Dirt Modification on/off when you pack your levels (but I never use it, of course :) ).

And: the BDCFF2BMP converter doesn't support the modification yet, so the maps of BD2 are looking different now.... dirt is green, amoeba is white.
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Post by RTADash »

Arno wrote:And: the BDCFF2BMP converter doesn't support the modification yet, so the maps of BD2 are looking different now.... dirt is green, amoeba is white.


That's not entirely true. When I used it to make the maps for BD2, i selected the 2) Original, BD2 Graphics option. The Amoeba was green as it should be, but the dirt was also green. :cry: However, the caves with slime appeared correctly :) .

What appears to happen is this. Unlike BD1 where the slime and amoeba use color #5, in BD2 they use color #3. On caves with slime, the dirt says its usual color (#3), which makes the slime and dirt the same color, and the dirt is a different color than the titanium walls. But, on caves with amoeba the dirt switches to color#4, which is the same is the titanium walls, while the amoeba (color3) is different than the dirt.

Every other game that uses this modification (besides BD2, itself) screws it up, by making the dirt the same color as the titanium walls in slime caves as well in amoeba caves.

Basically, to properly emulate this mod in BDCFF>BMP, you woud have to program the BD2 graphics file to detect amoeba within a cave and modify the dirt color accordingly for those particular caves only.
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Post by Arno »

Exactly!

Only for the BD2 maps at the website, I used the BD1 graphics, so that the amoeba/slime appear to be white there.

Also the picture of the amoeba differs a bit from the BD1 graphics: the holes are bigger, since the "border" of the holes has colour 2 instead of 4.

To implement this, I'll have to make distinction between 2 variants of the Dirt Modification:
- One with dirt modification for amoeba caves;
- One with dirt modification for amoeba and slime caves.

Because I save the map in a matrix before generating the BMP pic, it's easy to determine whether an amoeba/slime is present. Then for the dirt, slime and amoeba I could use a "permutation" of the colour scheme, according to the chosen settings.
Last edited by Arno on Mon Jun 18, 2007 6:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Sendy »

BD2 is my favourite of the originals! I was amazed when I saw it after playing BD1 for so much. And that's really when I started fantasizing about making my own levels. Little did I know my wish'd get granted!

My only complaint is that the pink titan + brown dirt colour scheme is used too many times. You'd be amazed how much that bugs me sometimes. Also the orange titan + blue dirt is very attractive but also appears too much. There could have been more variety.

You may have noticed that I like the colour aspect of BD. It really sets the personality of the level and makes it creative.

BD3 is IMO an abomination. No real original ideas, and the caves don't have an interesting 'feel' at all. And that space tileset, gah.... :roll:
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Post by RTADash »

Sendy wrote:BD3 is IMO an abomination. No real original ideas, and the caves don't have an interesting 'feel' at all. And that space tileset, gah....
That's what happens when they take PL off the design station and don't properly fill it with someone, who's also creative.

And the other problem with BD3 was that each cave was only one color and different shades of that color. Plus, the color pattern was the same for each half of the game. Booooooring!
Sendy wrote:My only complaint is that the pink titan + brown dirt colour scheme is used too many times. You'd be amazed how much that bugs me sometimes.
RTAD1 should be annoying; I used that scheme 4 times in that game. :lol: (Gaves G, J, Int 3, P)

I wished that the slime and growing wall would've been used in BD3-11, but they're okay without it, I guess.
Last edited by RTADash on Sat Aug 11, 2007 1:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Arno »

RTADash wrote:And the other problem with BD3 was that each cave was only one color and different shades of that color. Plus, the color pattern was the same for each half of the game. Booooooring!
And the intermissions all had the same light-blue color (looks nice BTW - like ice crystals, yet still boring to have it in all 4 intermissions)...

BTW - there is a version of BD3 (Professional Boulder Dash, Sijben Soft) with different colours and without the space graphics. I mostly play this one when I play BD3.
Sendy wrote:You may have noticed that I like the colour aspect of BD. It really sets the personality of the level and makes it creative.
Me too! :)
I generally dislike those clones that use one and the same colour scheme for all caves! :pissed:
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Post by RTADash »

Arno wrote:And the intermissions all had the same light-blue color (looks nice BTW - like ice crystals, yet still boring to have it in all 4 intermissions)...
RTAD3 does this also...

I noticed the intermissions are the same colors in BD1 and BD2. Plus both int3-4 are the same color. I wonder why they did this. (did PL color all the caves?)
Last edited by RTADash on Sat Aug 11, 2007 1:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Arno »

RTADash wrote:RTAD3 does this also...
except for color 5 (amoeba, slime) :)
RTADash wrote:did PL color all the caves?
No, Peter Liepa colored the caves of the Atari version; these colors are different from the C64 version (but not better i.m.h.o).
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Post by RTADash »

(Time to revive this topic :) )
Arno wrote:No, Peter Liepa colored the caves of the Atari version; these colors are different from the C64 version (but not better i.m.h.o).
I don't know about the Atari colors, myself. I think the duller C64 color palette (sorry Jack Tramiel) is more "earthy", which is perfect for exploring caves. I especially don't like the purple dirt / blue walls / green light in BDI-B and BDII-G (I think). It feels to me like a well-decorated house. :?

Anyway, I've complained enough about that :oops: . Let's get back to BD2 :P .
Here's some observations I've had on the intermissions:
-Instead of being faster, they play at the same speed as the difficulty level you're currently on.
-The time values are modified a little on the higher difficulties. (I didn't think an intermission could change)
-Int1 is always solvable if you move right away and don't stop. However, if you hesitate, the fireflies will be facing a different direction and it might not work out.
-Int2 nothing special here. I don't know why the diamonds fall into place instead of just being there.
-Int3 you have to know what you're doing right away, and you have to do it right, or this intermission is shot.
-Int4 is the only screen I know of where you want to use a boulder on a firefly to blast through dirt (@Arno, you've already seen this in the video I've sent you) to free the 5 around the exit and make your life easier.
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Post by Sendy »

My only complaint is that the pink titan + brown dirt colour scheme is used too many times. You'd be amazed how much that bugs me sometimes. Also the orange titan + blue dirt is very attractive but also appears too much. There could have been more variety.
Oh my, check out the end of ArnoDash 1! :)

http://www.boulder-dash.nl/down/maps/Ar ... 0Dash.html

:lol:
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