Don Pedro BD5-11

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Arno
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Post by Arno »

Very funny reviews!

About cave C of BD5: indeed not so creative, but I remember when I played this cave for the first time I recognized cave C with walls replaced by boulders. I found it quite funny at that time. Perhaps this is the first "remix cave" ever? ;)

I'm very curious to read more reviews! :D
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Post by LogicDeLuxe »

Arno wrote:Perhaps this is the first "remix cave" ever? ;)
Probably not, since Masters Boulder Dash is supposedly his first game, which seems to be the only one based on BD3, Caves C, E and F there are also very similar to the original BD3.

On the early BD1 engine games, quite a few didn't even bother changing the random seeds. Not only on C, but also for the other caves with random elements, you can frequently recognize the placements from the BD1 Caves.

Take a look at Don Pedro's Caves A alone:
BD5: It's right there. Diamonds replaced with Boulders, and Space replaced with Dirt.
BD6: He changed the quantities, but the pattern is right there.
BD7: Same difference.
BD8: Random is unaltered BD1!
BD9: And again unaltered random from BD1!
BD11: Same seed. Subtil, but it's there. Every Boulder had either a Boulder or a Diamond in its place on BD1.

I also reused the BD1 Cave A random elements in Creazy Dream 10, which is intentional and meant as a homage to BD1.
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Post by Arno »

LogicDeLuxe wrote:BD8: Random is unaltered BD1!
Yes, when I first played that cave I recognized the bottom-left corner from BD1 cave A (probably because you approach it from above, just like in BD1).

For the other caves A in your list I realized later that the random seed is the same. :)
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Post by Dustin »

Finishing the BD6 review.

M - First cave with all three "diamond-creating entities" in it - butterflies, amoeba and magic wall! But unfortunately, they're just "placed somewhere" without any clear idea behind it, So only 2/5.

N - Another uninspiring cave. Some fireflies, some butterflies, some boulders, some diamonds - but no idea at all... just 1/5.

O - That's a funny new idea for that time, a firefly in such a narrow tunnel that you can't get past it! So Rockford must move back and forth to avoid it. Though the layout is still clearly upgradeable, I'd rate this one above average, 3/5.

P - Uninspiring again. Some explosions and then you collect the diamonds, create some bonus diamonds if you wish, and that's it. 2/5.

Int4 - Hidden exit, but without a shade of a hint where it might be - unfair. 1/5.
Boulder Dash X Rock, Paper, Scissors:
ROCKFORD collects DIAMOND, digs DIRT
DIAMOND outvalues DIRT & BOULDER
DIRT carries BOULDER, blocks FIREFLY
BOULDER kills FIREFLY & ROCKFORD
FIREFLY kills ROCKFORD, guards DIAMOND
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Post by Arno »

Thx for finishing this review! Nice! :)
Dustin wrote:Int4 - Hidden exit, but without a shade of a hint where it might be - unfair. 1/5.
Actually I found this intermission quite funny. When playing this on C64 the 4 dirt-paths go outside the visible area since the scrolling is disabled for intermissions. Even Rockford becomes invisible when entering any of these mysterious paths. Perhaps this is the first intermission exploiting this effect? ;)
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Post by Dustin »

Very interesting, Logic DeLuxe! PPerhaps I should also leave the seeds unchanged in cave A of my upcoming Don Pedro remix game - let's see... ;D

BTW, is there a definite reason why the Crazy Dream cave maps aren't on this page?

Arno - well yes, maybe I underestimated the fact that this int is the first hidden exit cave and therefore has a surprising effect to a player who hasn't seen this before! I raise the value of this int to 3/5! ;D So DP6 gets all in all 45.5% from me. This fits into my subjective feeling that it is worse than DP5. From a purely gameplay-based point of view, I think it's even clearly worse, but there were some points for instructive new ideas, e.g. caves B, J, and int4.
Boulder Dash X Rock, Paper, Scissors:
ROCKFORD collects DIAMOND, digs DIRT
DIAMOND outvalues DIRT & BOULDER
DIRT carries BOULDER, blocks FIREFLY
BOULDER kills FIREFLY & ROCKFORD
FIREFLY kills ROCKFORD, guards DIAMOND
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Post by Dustin »

Arno wrote:I'm very curious to read more reviews!
So here we go :D

Don Pedro 7

BTW I'm ignoring the fact that the fireflies were ghosts, which I don't find too instructive, but that's of course a matter of taste - just as all this stuff ;D
Also, all reviews are based on level 1 solely, as there aren't any proper higher levels anyway. Here, Dr. Watson and Don Pedro continued the unfavourable tendency that started in BD3 - higher levels are an unplesant additional work for the creators and not worth bothering too much about. In my opinion, this is a pity because the 5-level idea has a lot of potential, which the Dustin's BD series constantly tries to prove ;D

A - as already mentioned, there's not too much creative staff you can construct with only two objects available, and - well, it isn't too creative either. 2/5.

B - this has a really beautiful-looking cave map! Speaking of gameplay, it can be quite frustrating to search for the exit while fireflies are potentially at every corner - at least if one plays this "the classical way" with only 1/4 of the cave visible. Hard for me to decide between 2 and 3 points, but "in dubio pro reo" :D 3/5.

C - that's a cool idea! DP has made the best out of the fact that he couldn't place any regular objects in C-caves and had the funny idea to randomize an amoeba! A clear plus in terms of creativity! I'm not entirely sure how to interprete the "Amoeba Time 0" o the cave map - does the amoeba start to grow fast from the beginning or does it never grow fast? On my favourite clone GDash, the second is the case, which makes the waiting time even more boring than usual in trap-the-amoeba caves. On the other hand, in the first case I'm not sure whether it is even possible to trap the amoeba?! Who knows more here? In any case, 4/5 for the innovative C-cave!

D - another innovative idea. If you aren't careful, the diamonds will immediately fall down through the Magic Walls. Well, most of them will fall through exactly 2 MWs, so it doesn't matter, but the fact that the Wall runs for only 20s demands some quickness.I'm not entirely sure whether it was intended by DP that one can "cheat" because the dirt area is just big enough to smash butterflies without the diamonds falling down at all. This looks pretty obvious for me today, but I also remember I wasn't aware of this when I first played this cave! I could imagine that DP overlooked this, too, because otherwise he might have required far more than 20 diamonds. In any case, I give 4/5 for a very innovative idea!

Int1 - not creative, but playable. 2/5.

E - not clear to me what this cave is all about. The beginning kind of copied from BD1-int2, and the rest of the cave has no clear theme at all, beside boringness while collecting the diamonds and then go all the way back to the exit without anything happening... 2/5 with a lot of good will.

F - that's a nice construction! A thoughtful design which demands a bit of strategy concerning the order in which the four parts can be played. Freeing the exit is also quite tricky, and here DP explored a new principle - explosions can also have a downside when they blast away the wrong items - in this case the "item" is Rockford himself! :D We'll see more of this two caves later. On the downside of this cave is again the fact that the fireflies must be released by snapping, which is too often the case in DP's games for my taste. Still, this nice construction deserves 3/5 IMO.

G - this is DP's first cave which explicitely uses the good old BD1-MW-amoeba-behaviour. The idea is a clear improvement of BD3-O, but unfortunately the cave is quite unfair, at least with the original BD1 engine. As soon as the amoeba grows too high, the Magic Wall cannot stop it anymore... but on the other hand, you have to wait long enough to get 50 diamonds. This results in extreme luck-dependance, and what makes matters worse, there's also no clearly visible reason why the amoeba sometimes converts and sometimes doesn't, which raises the frustration factor drastically. I'm pretty sure that DP didn't know about the exact rules himself, but then he could simply have lowered the diamond requirement and everything would have been fine. As it is, more than 2/5 is absolutely not possible despite the innovative basic idea.

H - looks unimpressive to me at first sight, but this cave explores some unusual explosion effects. What happens in the box in the middle is quite clear - one of the walls must be blasted away so you don't get stuck in the box. The "pillar" to the right again shows downsides of explosions - the diamonds are in danger to get crushed if you make the explosion too early. However, I have two improvement suggestions with the design - first, the pillar is so high that the explosion in the pillar requires pushing luck, which I think is quite unnecessary, and second, the diamonds have to be collected anyway to see the exit and realize that the explosion in the pillar is necessary at all. But then the diamonds are out of danger and safely in Rockford's pocket anyway. I would have replaced the exit by another diamond and put the real exit somewhere else. Still, the innovative ideas make me rate this above average - 3/5!

Int2 - looks far more interesting than most of his ints. And finally, the fireflies have space to move! I think it would have been nicer to seperate the two fireflies, but still 3/5 for the strategy that is needed to get a boulder to the left wall.

- t.b.c. -
Boulder Dash X Rock, Paper, Scissors:
ROCKFORD collects DIAMOND, digs DIRT
DIAMOND outvalues DIRT & BOULDER
DIRT carries BOULDER, blocks FIREFLY
BOULDER kills FIREFLY & ROCKFORD
FIREFLY kills ROCKFORD, guards DIAMOND
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Post by Dustin »

At the moment I'm rebuilding Don Pedro's caves for Krissz's site, and this made me think of this thread again - it's high time to continue! :D

I - I like this cave! Few non-random objects and still different ideas to explore in different parts of the cave:
First, Rockford needs to find a way to get upwards without getting stuck, collecting as many diamonds as possible on the way. The idea was not new at that time - Dr. Watson's BD4, cave I was similar.
Next, when Rockford has made his way upwards, there's a magic wall with a boulder/diamond mixture above it. Here, Rockford faces a completely new challenge: converting the boulders but trying to pick the diamonds out without converting those! That's a wonderfful, innovative new idea for that time!
Having made it to the left half, we see a BD2-P like finish.
Overall, I think this is a very good cave divided in three parts with different tasks to solve, and with the common theme of big boulder-diamond mixtures. The only downside I can see is the slow speed on the BD1 engine due to the many active elements. Of course, this is not at all Don Pedro's fault! So yes, why not - 5/5!

J - That's the other end of the innovation scale... fireflies guarding diamonds and... um... diamonds guarded by fireflies. 2/5.

K - Strange but interesting! :D If Rockford quickly moves doen, he can see the first Rolling Fly Formation in his career! (Or better, rolling ghost formation ;D) So after the first DFF in BD6-B, now Don Pedro also was the first to discover a RFF! And there's a mean little troll again - one might think that the titanium wall next to the start is the exit, but it isn't! So if the player thinks that he has all the time in the world to easily collect the diamonds while the fireflies get crushed by the amoeba anyway, then an unpleasant surprise awaits him in form of 200 amoeba-rocks falling down and buring the real exit! I guess that the huge timer of 180 was made intentionally to give the player an additional false feeling of safety. So I think this troll is very much thought of and also the RFF is a clear visual plus IMO. A clear downside is the gameplay which is not interesting at all (once Rockford knows he must hurry, there are no obstacles hindering him to do so). Still 4/5 for nice troll plus RFF!

L - nice design! Basically, we have BD1-I with fireflies, which is an interesting addition IMO! The amoebas that get pre-crushed add a nice explosive effect to the start, and in fact, we see the amoeba randomness at its clearest here: there's a tiny chance that one of the amoebas might grow twice before the firefly reaches it and survive the explosion! In this lucky case, the player gets a completely different cave where the amoeba can give him hundreds of bonus diamonds! Though the cave is based on BD1-I, these new additions and innovations make me rate this cave very high too - 4.5/5! I was thinking about another full score, but the fireflies can also become annoying if they build a vortex (2 fireflies circling in the same 2x2 space) at the wrong place.

Int 3 - Not interesting but playable - 2/5.

M - what a WTF cave!! :shock: Inside the first few seconds after the cave is loaded, the player sees a never-seen-before butterfly stack moving below the inbox, hears a magic wall which this time does not convert the amoeba (meaning that for the first time, both sounds can be heard simultaneousely!) and then Rockford hatches and sees the butterflies moving toward him and the amoeba, possibly crushing the latter and turning into diamonds which then partly convert into boulders (not all convert because a part of the magic wall might get destroyed). What a show without Rockford doing anything special! :D
It's very funny to see how Don Pedro discovered more and more strange fly moving habits by just putting some flies somewhere! This is probably another occasion where he "innocently" just wanted to have butterflies, made a line of them and then was stunned himself about what they did! :D
Possibly Don Pedro was also wondering why the amoeba did not convert by the magic wall this time. (Today we know the reason - the BD1 engine's magic wall bug was such that all amoebas BELOW a magic wall counted as trapped as soon as the wall was activated, but here, the amoeba being ABOVE the magic wall, there's no such effect!)
One tiny question remains - what the hack is Rockford supposed to do after this overstimulation?! Getting 75 diamonds from the butterflies is not so easy if the diamonds tend to get converted into boulders! I guess Don Pedro's solution was to deflect the butterflies quickly, so that the amoeba survives and converts into boulders which then partly convert into diamonds! A completely new and fantastic idea IMO!
Of course, such a mind-blowing cave will not only have fans. I remember that when I played it for the first time, I got completely confused and thought that all this was an abuse of Boulder Dash :D Still, alone the fact that there is so much to write about this cave makes me think it deserves at least 4/5!

N - Dealing with butterflies in narrow spaces seems to be the topic here. But the random pushing-boulders element seems a bit unfair when failure could mean that the butterflies will follow and crush Rockford.
The strange firefly-diamond construction might indeed be an interesting playground - the firefly might chase Rockford without a gap in-between, but still Rockford can escape because the cavescanning order favors him. However, one single diamond is quite a little reward for taking such a risk IMO, and overall the cave doesn't leave a good impression on me - just 2/5.

O - yeah, the game had to get finished somehow?! Though the idea of breaking through the "firewall" by creating a BD2-K-like snake might have its plusses and the unconvertable-boulder-troll might be somewhat funny, the cave just looks like a wasteland, lovelessly created just because the game needs 20 caves... 1/5.

P - more diamond-guarding fireflies, more wall-blasting and one more firefly surrounded by dirt. On the other hand, there is some strategy involved - the first explosion is quite not so easy to do and then, Rockford has to blast the bottom-left wall before the bottom-right wall because otherwise he would run out of fireflies. However, this idea has already been seen in Dr. Watsons BD4-J (with nicer design IMO), and also the many fireflies can be quite annoying in the bottom-right corner, so I don't like this cave enough to rate it above avergae - 2/5.

Int4 - A magic-wall-stops-amoeba- int again, without any new aspects compared with BD3-int1. 2/5.

Overall BD7 gets from me a score of 56.5% from me, and also my subjective feeling tells me that I like this game best so far - it includes quite some innovative and/or nicely designed caves!
Boulder Dash X Rock, Paper, Scissors:
ROCKFORD collects DIAMOND, digs DIRT
DIAMOND outvalues DIRT & BOULDER
DIRT carries BOULDER, blocks FIREFLY
BOULDER kills FIREFLY & ROCKFORD
FIREFLY kills ROCKFORD, guards DIAMOND
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Post by Dustin »

Don Pedro 8

A- That's definitely one of my favourite Don Pedros intro caves! It's a kind of little speedrun with all diamonds required and a back-and-forth tour. Nice intro IMO and therefore above average - 3/5.

B- hmmm... this cave looks quite thought of, but also very tedious. First, Rockford waits for about 20 seconds for the fireflies to blast the way free. In these 20 seconds, there's absolutely nothing Rockford can do. Afterwards, it's not even clear whether the amoeba survivded and how many fireflies it has killed, which makes the difficulty of the rest of the cave quite luck-dependant. And also, all this boulder-pushing... first of all, it's slow and second of all, there's another luck factor because if Rockford is very slow, a firefly might disturb or even kill Rockford during his job. And if this happens, the cave restarts with another 20 seconds of doing nothing... in my opinion, though the cave idea has potential, it's so boring and annoying that I give it only 1/5.

C- Another nice idea for a purely random cave - several amoebas that might enclose some of the valuable diamonds if Rockford isn't quick enough! Although there's a lucky factor again, I think that giving 2 bonus diamonds is a fair deal, so I'd like to give this new idea an above average rate - 3/5.

D- another cave idea with potential: a kind of "minefield" where Rockford's only real task is to avoid butterflies while moving diagonally through the whole cave. But again, there's some annoying waiting time included - this time for an amoeba growing into butterflies. Also, I found it more fitting if fireflies were used for such a minefield-idea instead of butterflies. Although this cave is by far not as boring as B, I still rate it below average - 2/5.

Int1 - looks innocent but I found it quite tough to get enough diamonds in short time. It needs trial and error, but there's only one try... I don't like it much. 2/5.

E- that's a strange one! Another amoeba which has to suffocate, but this time the waiting time is not that boring because Rockford has to blast some walls anyway. Again, I find it a bit annoying that ten fireflies have to be released simultaneousely - wouldn't three or four have been enough? Basically, Rockford has to make three explosions and wait for an amoeba to suffocate, while the middle section with the magic walls looks a bit pointless to me. (It can be used to convert the amoeba, of course, but why if the amoeba suffocates quickly anyway?) I'm not sure whether to rate this with 1 or 2 points - but there's some funny temptation: one might think that Rockford can just blast through the boulders at the start and skip the whole middle/left part of the cave, but he's one boulder short for this idea. (Actually it is possible, and quite challenging!) This makes me rate the cave 2/5.

F- Another two hundred fireflies moving through the whole cave - and not a shade of an innovative idea at all. 2/5 with good will.

G- A kind of new idea - if Rockford is greedy and traps the amoeba into the biggest possible cage, it will overgrow inside the cage! Also for the first time, Rockford is really needed to help trapping the amoeba (at least, this is clearly the intended way to do it.) On the other hand, the cave looks quite empty, the right half of the cave is quite a mystery, and there's another long waiting time for the amoeba to suffocate. (Of course, that's often just the case with amoebas, but here it's more than a minute without doing anything useful). In the end, Rockford has to search the exit with (too) short time and finds it behind the fireflies which might not all come out because they might loop... I don't want to rate this cave above average for all those disadvantages but also not below average because I find it kind of innovative, so let's just give 2.5/5! :D

H- an even emptier cave with a known idea - converting an amoeba with a magic wall. This time, the amoeba can't even be properly seen so it's hard to estimate when it's big enough without getting overgrown. The magic wall activation is combined with an explosion, which is kind of a little bit innovative. On the other hand, there's some more tedious boulder pushing (OK, Rockford has to wait for the amoeba anyway). Again I can't decide between the plusses and minusses - 2.5/5! :D

Int2- that's the first time I give 0/5, just because the int is practically unsolvable! Cave time=30, amoeba time=20, which means the amoeba starts to grow fast with 10 seconds left. It may still take some seconds to grow out of its narrow cage, then one or two more seconds to finally get big enough to get converted. This makes 4-5 seconds for Rockford to collect the diamonds and exit. At least on GDash/ Krissz's site, I find this cave impossible to do with these settings. Am I missing anything, was there anything different on the C64 that made this int somehow possible?!?!
Otherwise I'd think this is a nice little extension of BD3-int 1 with the amoeba cage that can make the player think that the amoeba has to be trapped inside the cage but then finds it gives too few diamonds. But as it is...

t.b.c.
Boulder Dash X Rock, Paper, Scissors:
ROCKFORD collects DIAMOND, digs DIRT
DIAMOND outvalues DIRT & BOULDER
DIRT carries BOULDER, blocks FIREFLY
BOULDER kills FIREFLY & ROCKFORD
FIREFLY kills ROCKFORD, guards DIAMOND
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Post by Dustin »

Don Pedro 8, Part 2

I - I think the idea is interesting - a lack of space below a magic wall and the right strategy is to snap all the diamonds. But the right half of the cave is just very unimaginative and boring! Instead, a few fireflies guarding the exit would have been a lot better IMO, so despite there's a somewhat new idea with some potential, it's just 2/5 for me.

J - that's nothing new, but I find the design quite appealing because Rockford discovers this cave step by step. First, a lot of fireflies threaten him, but there's a small "safepoint", then moving on, he discovers the area with the diamonds, and then the long tunnel leads to the exit which is guarded by a few more flies. The flies are not too annoying and I think it's fun to play, so above average - 3/5.

K - more fireflies, and they're quite harmless if Rockford moves quickly from the start. However, I remember I was very "over-cautious" at first when I played the cave, and then the flies become really annoying! So being quick is just the trick to beat this cave in a simple way. I think this is quite an imaginative idea and deserves another above-average rate IMO - 3/5.

L - I don't like this one much - tedious boulder-pushing again, two fireflies which have to be snapped free again, and explosions again - nothing really interesting and also not especially fun (to me). 2/5.

Int3 - another 2/5 for similar reasons.

M- an idea which is kind of inventive: it looks like a butterfly-amoeba-apocalypse-cave, but it isn't because the amoeba will convert after the first explosion. So we have something kinda new: the butterflies have to be crushed by diamonds from the other butterflies. However, this was already a viable strategy in BD1-N and also the cave looks very empty and poorly designed. 2/5 with good will.

N- a mysterious cave! Again, it looks like a butterfly-amoeba-cave, and again it isn't because the amoeba is much too fast and will quickly convert into boulder and then block off the exit. So in fact, the amoeba is a kind of timer and the butterflies must quickly be killed with the boulders. It seems to me as though M and N are a kind of "parody" on butterly-amoeba-caves! Compared to M, this one is much nicer designed and the idea much more inventive and striking for the player. That's why I think this one should be rated clearly higher than M - 4/5!

O- more explosions, but this time it's different fro the "usual explosion cave" - the thick wall around the exit demands quite some strategic thinking! First of all, it's much easier to blast the wall horizontally instead of vertically, and also the exact explosion spots need to be thought of before. The fact that the fireflies can't be released one by one adds to the difficulty but can also be slightly annoying. Also, the cave again looks a bit empty. I'm not sure whether to give 3 or 4/5, so 3.5/5 is my final word! ;)

P- Just explosions, and the trick that two of the walls can be blasted free with one explosion is also over-used by Don Pedro by now - 2/5.

Int4- the best for last! I think this is by far Don Pedro's best intermission of all his fangames. The brick walls have to be blasted away without blasting the magic walls, too - that's an entirely new idea and also the implementation is quite appealing IMO. Of course, it's hard to figure out with one try because we don't know where the magic walls are. So Don Pedro could have added a magic wall which can be activated to see the magic walls to make the cave fairer. That's the only slight minus for me, otherwise I love the idea - 4.5/5!

Overall, this makes 48% frome. Quite a solid, average fangame but 7 was better IMO. Still, I think that one must never forget that these were the first fangames, so Don Pedro had no input for ideas other than Bd1-4 yet, and taking this into account, I think his work is historical and deserves much to be part of the standard cave pack of every fanmade BD clone!
Boulder Dash X Rock, Paper, Scissors:
ROCKFORD collects DIAMOND, digs DIRT
DIAMOND outvalues DIRT & BOULDER
DIRT carries BOULDER, blocks FIREFLY
BOULDER kills FIREFLY & ROCKFORD
FIREFLY kills ROCKFORD, guards DIAMOND
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Post by Dustin »

Don Pedro 9

A- One of the worse cave A's IMO. The titanium rings don't seem to make any sense, and one of them encloses a small area for no reason. 2/5.

B- Rockford must blast his way out of the initial room, but the boulder placements make it tricky to do so. Apart from that, nothing intersesting can be said about the cave. 2/5.

C- So we're back to BD1-C-like C-caves. At least the random seed could have been changed (or did Don Pedro not know how to do so? It seems possible.) 2/5.

D- Annoying! That was my first reaction after playing this on GDash. It's trivially clear what to do, but the amoeba might grow out before Rockford can push three boulders into their places, and if this is successfully done, the amoeba might need too long to suffocate so there's not enough time left to take the diamonds and exit. Note that both BD random factors - pushing boulders and amoeba growth - can severely work against Rockford here. I'm not absolutely sure how it worked on the C64, as there are always slight differences between the engines. But even if it was fairer there, I still can't say many positive things about the cave - it's still annoying to slowly push the boulders, and Rockford needs absolutely no creativity. Just 1/5.

Int1- it's obviuosly completely unfair to make a dark cave with fireflies! How is Rockford supposed to do this with one attempt?! On the other hand, the idea of a dark cave is completely new and creative in itself. Still, it would have been easy to come up with a far better implementation. Just a few diamonds and boulders and several outboxes (I think this was possible with the BD1 engine, wasn't it?). In this case, I would for sure have rated this creative idea very high, but as it is, it's unfortunately just 1/5 IMO.

E- Ouf! Does anyone find this interesting? I mean, nothing against a keyboard/joystick control cave, but this is just tedious, boring and demotivating to me. Bd1-Int2 already had a similar idea, but a much better implementation - short, quick and if it doesn't work - no problem, next cave. But this? 1/5.

F- Not that much fun to me, either. The first firefly is another one which must be released under tough conditions, the first boulder must get out of the way, and then there's a long way to the right half where standard explosions await Rockford. The other fireflies also have long waiting times before they can finally be crushed. 2/5 with good will.
Note that there's a ~2.5% chance that the amoeba survives. I'm not sure whether Don Pedro was aware of this - in fact it's a cavescanning order effect! :D

G- Challenging and the best cave so far in this game IMO! Although I still don't like it much that the fireflies can't be released one by one, the cave has also quite some plusses: First of all, it was a big "OH!" for me when I noted that the amoeba's cage is too small for 99 diamonds, which means that Rockford can't just wait for it to suffocate this time. And secondly, even if Rockford knows that, the task to trap the amoeba into a bigger cage is also quite tricky to solve!The idea itself is kind of anticipated by BD3-K, but Don Pedro's implementation is quite nice IMO. So finally, I can rate a DP9 cave above average - 3/5!

H- great, appealing design! That's an explosion cave which requires quite some strategy and possibly some failure attempts before Rockford finds out how to do it best. The only downside I can see is the slightly annoying placement of the fireflies, which makes me give this cave "only" 4.5/5. Great stuff!

Int2- An interesting version of BD1-Int1, which I want to rate above average - 3/5.

t.b.c.
Boulder Dash X Rock, Paper, Scissors:
ROCKFORD collects DIAMOND, digs DIRT
DIAMOND outvalues DIRT & BOULDER
DIRT carries BOULDER, blocks FIREFLY
BOULDER kills FIREFLY & ROCKFORD
FIREFLY kills ROCKFORD, guards DIAMOND
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Arno
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Post by Arno »

Dustin wrote:Just a few diamonds and boulders and several outboxes (I think this was possible with the BD1 engine, wasn't it?).
Yes, BD4 (Dr. Watson) Int 1 is probably the first cave (or intermission) with multiple outboxes. :)
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Dustin
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Post by Dustin »

Ah yes, of course, Arno! Just forgot that :D

Don Pedro 9, part 2

I- I'm not sure how this cave looks in the original (with the magic wall bug), but without the bug it's quite a bit challenging to me to get enough diamonds and exit without getting stuck and without the exit being blocked off. The idea itself can already be seen similarly in Dr. Watson's cave I, but the funny idea to create this cave via a magic wall makes me rate it above average - 3/5.

J- A kind of mini puzzle. Rockford can simply escape the starting area via the bottom, but in this case it will at least be hard to get a boulder through the magic wall. So the intended solution is probably to use the two fireflies at the start to blast through the walls so the topmost boulder can be pushed and converted. Nice idea, though otherwise the cave doesn't offer much and releasing the fireflies by snapping in such a narrow space spoiled the fun for me when I was less experienced with BD earlier. Still, I think the creative idea deserves a 3/5 rate!

K- I find the exit position quite unfair, so that's just another troll! Otherwise a simple yet enjoyable cave - 3/5.

L- Very challenging! Rockford should watch the flies carefully to note that they have different distances to each other, so he should best collect the diamonds while staying between the two flies with maximum distance. Quite strategic and also stylish design! 4/5.

Int3- The "usual" magic-wall-stops-amoeba-idea, combined with the possibility to just let the amoeba grow and trap it with the wall and Rockford. Overall, this int looks a bit pointless to me, so below average - 2/5.

M- Interesting idea to kill butterflies with a vertical boulder stack, but the cave looks very empty and unattractive to me, and also the big butterfly mass can be really annoying. Overall, despite the creative idea, I think the implementation is far from optimal - 2/5.

N- Very nice design! Another creative way of how to crush butterflies, this time with the diamonds from earlier explosions! This way, a pillar is created and the titanium wall raster guarantees that explosions only happen in that pillar. Great challenge for highscorers, very thoughtful implementation of a good idea and a wonderful design - yes, that's 4.5/5 for me! :D Slight minusses are only the fact that all butterflies are connected, which makes it impossible to release them in portions, and the fact that they have to be snapped free again.

O- Some standard explosions and another big fly mass - just 2/5 for me.

P- This just doesn't look much thought of, except for one thing: the explosions must be made in a defined order, or Rockford runs out of fireflies. This has been seen before, and the cave also looks quite empty - just 2/5.

Int4- Yet another butterfly-boulder-intermission. Although one of the boulders looks hard to use at first sight, there's nothing really puzzling about it. 2/5.

Overall, this makes 49% for Don Pedro 9!
Boulder Dash X Rock, Paper, Scissors:
ROCKFORD collects DIAMOND, digs DIRT
DIAMOND outvalues DIRT & BOULDER
DIRT carries BOULDER, blocks FIREFLY
BOULDER kills FIREFLY & ROCKFORD
FIREFLY kills ROCKFORD, guards DIAMOND
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Dustin
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Post by Dustin »

Don Pedro 10

A - Given that DP only had two objects available, this is quite a creative kind of A-cave. I think the amoeba time could have been set a little bit higher, but still 3/5.

B - Explosions in narrow space - not my taste. 2/5.

C - A "standard" C-cave again. 2/5.

D - Just butterflies and diamonds - nothing special. 2/5.

Int1 - That's a nice one! Moving up the stairs at high speed and in time trouble is quite challenging and fun to me! 4/5.

E - This palace visually strikes me as very beautifully designed! It's quite a tough challenge to get all the diamonds while avoiding the fireflies in narrow space. While clearing all the dirt in the dead-ends can be slightly annoying, I don't see anything else to critisize - great cave and optically appealing too! 4.5(5.

F - A similar theme as E, but this implementation looks far less appealing to me, both visually and in terms of gameplay. 2/5.

G - Another explosions-in-narrow-space-cave, and it's also strange that there are no bonus points. 2/5.

H - One more creative idea! The boulders can't convert because there's an ordinary brick wall in the way, so Rockford breaks it at certain spots so the boulders can fall through. I think this is way more than just "yet another explosion cave"! 4/5.

Int2 - Nothing special, but I like the "Quattro Stagioni" layout :D 3/5.

I - Just a boring, tedious walk to the diamonds and back... 1/5.

J - Fantastic puzzle! The intuitive attempts are all short of fireflies, so a very inventive solution must be made, with the basic idea to have the amoeba convert into boulder! Although a way was found at Krissz's site to solve the cave with the amoeba converting into diamonds too, it does not change the brilliancy of Don Pedro's idea IMO! 5/5.

K - This one does have some tricky spotsand unusual ideas, like blasting a boulder so it won't be in the way of the exit, being chased by a firefly and blasting an overseized wall. That's enough for me to rate it above average, although the desing does not look appealing and the firefly-chases-you thing can be annoying. 3/5.

L -This one has a very nice little idea that gets lost in modern engines because it uses yet another BD1 engine bug - the "infinite delay state" if an element moves into the cave border! In particular, no firefly may move into Rockford's starting position because it would freeze forever. Although the rest of the cave is absolutely not inventive, I would find this creative enough to give it an above-average rate if it weren't for the firefly blocking the exit, which can't be released 100% safely and makes the cave unfairly luck-dependant. 2/5.

Int3 - Uhh - this mini starting cage is no fun to me. 1/5.

M - Standard apocalypse cave, combined with especially dangerous butterfly releases. 2/5.

N - Nothing special either. 2/5.

O - This one looks strange but it has actually a very unique and creative idea! If Rockford does not care about the amoeba, it will most likely block the exit, so he has to arrange an amoeba path that prevents that from happening. (The amoeba time is too short to trap it completely, at least for me.) Afterwards, it's still tricky to get enough diamonds. Very inventive, although the design is not so appealing and the fireflies are surely not to everyone's taste. 3/5.

P - Another difficult puzzle-like cave, but this time it wasn't so satisfactory to solve it because there's no big "Aaaaaah" but rather an "ouf - finally avoided those damn fireflies..." That's why it's not too great to me - 3/5.

Int4 - More explosions - more 2/5 rates.

Overall, I give DP10 a rate of 52.5% - once again it has a lot of standard stuff but also some amazing ideas!
Boulder Dash X Rock, Paper, Scissors:
ROCKFORD collects DIAMOND, digs DIRT
DIAMOND outvalues DIRT & BOULDER
DIRT carries BOULDER, blocks FIREFLY
BOULDER kills FIREFLY & ROCKFORD
FIREFLY kills ROCKFORD, guards DIAMOND
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Dustin
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Post by Dustin »

Don Pedro 11

A - A copy of BD3-O. 2/5.

B - Standard explosions. 2/5

C - Back to the "standard" C-caves. 2/5

D - Nice little idea to use the diamonds from butterflies to crush more butterflies. Still, the cave's a but empty and escaping the flies in narrow space at the beginning is a recuring theme, which I don't like too much. 2/5.

Int1 - One of many butterfly-boulder-ints. 2/5.

E - The first cave which looks kind of inventive. Still, I'm not such a big fan of those escape-fireflies-with quick-sequence-of-snapping-and-moving-issues, and once again, there's one spot where there's a 50/50 risk of explosing even if Rockford is quick. 2/5.

F - Difficult, but also beautiful! At least the left half with the asthetic firefly pattern! It's quite an unusual challenge to escape those, although the right half is rather annoying to me - explosion after explosion when the flies can still be dangerous. I would like the cave better if there was just a boulder-diamond-mix on the right side, as a reward for escaping the flies. All in all, I can't decide whether I find this one below or above average, so 2.5/5 :D

G - This is a more inventive cave than it looks! The diamond requirement forces Rockford to use the only firefly to let the amoeba out. The obvious try would be to trap the amoeba in the bigger cage then, but Rockford also has to get access to the exit, which then gives the amoeba an escape route which has to be blocked again with the left boulders, and in a way that Rockford doesn't lock himself out. As far as I can see, the magic wall is a slight troll which should best be avoided completely. Quite an unusual and tricky cave; the first one which fully convinces me to give a clear above-average rate: 4/5!

H - Ouf! Too many fireflies for my taste... 1.5/5

Int2 - More explosive stuff. 2/5.

I - I like this one! Very asthetic design and the gameplay is simple but fun to me. Fun fact: Don Pedro took the biggest random boulder density (with the given random seed) which did not make the cave impossible! This is another clear above-average cave for me - 4/5!

J - Hm. Strange inbox area, then a few explosions later Rockford is confronted with a cool innovative idea - blasting a hole into a vertical magic wall to make it useful! Unfortunately, at least one bottom-right firefly is needed and there's a 25% danger that both get crushed once Rockford snaps them free.Come to think of it, I think the intended solution is to use the free firefly to blast both caged fireflies free (with a boulder pushed all the way from the left). This method is 100% deterministic but also annoying... Also, Rockford will probably have to waste a try to discover the magic wall. All in all, I find the idea with the vertical magic wall very innovative and worth a high rate, but the implementation in this cave doesn't strike me as the best. For me, the plusses and minusses roughly weigh out here - 2.5/5.

K - Was this the last missing cave when DP had 19 ready...?! 1/5.

L - More explosions. 2/5.

Int3 - Once again, toooooo many fireflies for my taste, though I'm not completely sure if the amoeba had a fair chance to kill more than one firefly on the C64?! 1.5/5.

M -Butterflis, amoeba and... I'm not sure what those caged boulders do?! 1/5.

N - Trickier than it looks! The amoeba can easily get crushed by a firefly so Rockford has no weapon against the butterflies anymore, or it can kill all the flies so Rockford can't blast his way to the exit anymore. But somehow, this empty cave still doesn't appeal me. 2/5.

O - Uhh. this cave has always been rather disgusting to me. I'm not a fan of these special colours. The magic wall construction in the middle does look interesting, but there are too many boulders in the way for my taste to have fun with it. And finally, the whole blast-the-brick-wall-to-get-access-to-the-magic-wall-thing can be completely ignored by using the right magic wall... The magic wall timer is too short to use both magic walls anyway. (I guess Don Pedro did not know how to change the magic wall and amoeba timer - the timer is just identic to the original stting of BD1-O). Just 1/5.

P - Tricky, but not very inventive. More fireflies at ugly spots and the cave has hardly intermission size. 2/5.

Int4 - Nice round tour with fireflies chasing you. 3/5.

Overall this makes 42% from me - one of the games I like less and I think many caves show that DP slowly ran out of ideas, so I think it was natural for him to finish his great work!

Conclusion: Given that these were almost the first fangames in history and that DP had several technical restrictions to deal with, I think he created a great fundament for more fangames to come! Among a majority of standrd or even boring caves, there are quite some very inventive ideas and even masterpieces for that time!
Boulder Dash X Rock, Paper, Scissors:
ROCKFORD collects DIAMOND, digs DIRT
DIAMOND outvalues DIRT & BOULDER
DIRT carries BOULDER, blocks FIREFLY
BOULDER kills FIREFLY & ROCKFORD
FIREFLY kills ROCKFORD, guards DIAMOND
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