DX Boulderdash History

• Implememted Display area to alter the visible area in the game.
• Maximum Diamonds to collect is now 32767 (was 255)
• Implemented 2 player mode with split screen display (Some bugs left)
• Fixed Diamonds collect bug - Quicksand bug
• Blue and red pipes are inexplodable now, as are switchgates and time gates
• Fixed explosion bug (resulted sometimes in black inpassible space)
• Fixed Utility disk Bug
• Implemented Balloons,Shield,Extra Time Implemented Brown,Black,White and Purple keys and doors (EMV6 objects)
• Implemented Spring,Well (very nice object with lots of potential !) Stitch (android)(EMV6 objects)
• Changed Firefly and Butterfly behaviour a bit to match original C64 behaviour (You can now move up to the left of them without being killed: not very logical, but following the c64 gameplay. )
• Implemented Wind (affects balloons) + according buttons.
  
• Added support for many "rockfords" like found in many C64 and Boulderoid Caves.(Rockfords are all player 1, they move all together).
  
• Added C64-Diamond and C64 Boulder: this to achieve full C64 Boulderdash compatibilty: They behave slightly different from normal Boulders and Diamonds.
  
• Added "dumbford": some sort of external life, that you have to protect from enemies. (C64 object: I got them all now).
  
• Made "Start game" the default button at startup.
  
• Added Configurable Keyboard settings.
  
• Added Robot and Stitch Attraction to the closest player.
  
• Fixed some hekp-screen bugs.
  
• Started to convert the FruityCaves sprites by Kevin Saunders to a DX Boulderdash Spriteset
  
• Added more "Advanced Graphics": dirt,rocks,stone walls and steel walls now can have random appeareances: very nice !
  
• Various 2 player mode bugfixes

Fixed Diamond Grab Bug
Added Hatch (C64 BD feature)
Added Maximum Amoeba Spread (C64 BD feature)
Added possible Trapped Amoeba to Diamond Conversion (C64 BD feature)
Implemented Firefly (C64 BD object): looks like ship but with slight differences.
Implemented Butterfly (C64 BD object): looks like bug but with slight differences.
implemented Slime (C64 BD object).
Added Animcount check
Added Hidden Exit
Added Pacman (Rocks'n'Diamonds object)
Added Intermission level (always goes to next level, even if you didn't reach the exit)
Fixed door bug, nut bug
FINALLY implemented decent Amoeba Drop,falling at half speed
Redrawn some sprites in the EmerladBig-Spriteset
Pearls crash when they fall
Replaced some sounds

Disconnected DirectSound initialisation from Directdraw intialisation
Added "Map" funcion: press "m" in a game to display a map of the level: works with all sprite-sizes,resolutions and level-sizes.
Added new objects: tubes. (all kinds of shapes) these can be connected to form a pipeline. Little fellow can walk thru it (he's invisible while he's in the tubes offcourse)
Rearranged keys + automatic restart/nextlevel
Added new resolutions: 400x300 and 512x384
Re-arranged the scrolling routine in the new (experimental)drawing routine. :a bit faster (but still some display bugs).
Rewrote the DirectX-component to also support a non DirectX drawing output (standard windows gdi) just for testing: this is REALLY slow!
Added an internal module-player, making use of the excellent Midas digital sound system.
Fixed Speedbug added lots of new objects: (most of them from DC2 by Peter Elzner): switchgates,conveyor belts,Landmines,timed gates
Re-implemented animation-routines (supports speed,loops,links and repeatcounts)
Expanded LevelMap-Format: included Description, Status, Last level detection, minimum Imagelib needed.
Added "Advanced Graphics" option: this is an attempt to make the game less static-looking: Meaning: the dirt,stone walls and amoeba(slime) have all appropriate rough edges + some things are constantly animated. this is only in the big spritesets like EmeraldBIG.iml . Since this takes a lot of processing power, you can turn it off on slower machines.
Fixed Scrolling bug,
Fixed Rockbirth bug
Added Imglib version check
Expanded help
Added objects help
Fixed scrolling bug in windowmode

Added joystick support.
Re-added sound support (now with sound-card detection)
If a sound card doesn't support DirectSound, it's not disabled automatically, though.
Fixed quicksand bug, Magicwall bug (oops), CoX and CoY bug.
Started adding missing Boulderoid objects: added Expending Walls (Horizontal, vertical and both directions)
Added independant Menu and Game screen resolutions.
(super low game resolution of 320x240 is now supported: for slow computers, or for people looking for a better Amiga 500 look :-) )
Also you don't have to restart the game anymore to switch resolutions: it's done on the fly.
Added "moves" counter
Added DirectX window-mode! Well, it's still experimental and a bit unstable, especially when switching to/from full screen.
Fixed Amoeba bug

Added some more errorchecking (Dx-Boulder shouldn't crash anymore at initialising, even when all data files are missing)
Added support for different screen resolutions. (Use 1024x768 only if your graphics card has more than 2 M memory)
Added speed-option.
Added Keyboard control for frontend and menu (some details still missing).
Finally catched up with the MagicP spriteset: all objects are now (more or less) present.
Changed game keys: Press 'Esc' for return to menu Press 'q' to restart the level. If the level was completed,it will also return to the menu.
Fixed little Yamcontent-bug + other little inconsistencies.

Fixed Time Score. (now fully BD4 compatible)
Fixed Game.rec error checking (a bit): You can now play back BD4 recorded game files, but since the engines are still not quite compatible, your
game probably wont replay the same.
Replay routine rewritten. (who said Ascii files were easier then Binary ??)
Fixed diamond collect bug: when you grabbed a diamond and took the empty space right after, you got double score. (also for Keys-Dynamite-emerald)
Fixed Scroll Bug: Scrolling was not automatically reset after a game (Oops).
The levels are all shifted down 1: so the first level is level 0 instead of 1.
Added Recording and playback file select Dialog.
Ha! The Drand48 is functioning !! : very good news !
Chain reactions are not right yet ....
Changed Yam code (to BD4 routine)
Added SpriteSet and LevelMap File Requesters. (very basic)
Found a little inconsistancy in the Rock Fall routine (not the last one I should think) (under investigation and under construction)
Fixed some display bugs.
Hiscore and Playerlist are now saved encrypted.

(It is not called V0.38 because I haven't fixed any bugs yet)
Added missing Supaplex objects : Snik Snaks, Electrons, Utility Disks, SupaBomb, Traps, Gravity Ports.
Changed random-number routines (Finally found Drand48, but not fully functioning yet).
The animation-frame file format needs changing : 2 bytes a frame + an editor frame needs to be included.
Added Level-names in the level format, but they don't show yet. (set to default: "Level X")

First Beta release (only the player, not the editor)
changed Bug and Ship Code (now different codes for different directions: Needed frame-room for turn animations).
Yams eat Blue Diamonds now.
Keys and dynamite made zappable.
Game.rec Checking seems broken hmm... : don't delete this file !!!
(also don't delete opt.bdi)
Disabled some problem causing routines: Backdrop, Transparancy, sound ...

redesigned Frontend
Added Acid (splashes when something falls into Acid yet to do)
Added different start directions for Bugs, ships and Yams (Finally) (Yams under construction)
Added Gray doors (Finally)
Added different players
Basic navigation in Highscore and Player tables
Added some Error Checking (mostly for file integrity, but still very limited)
Changed the recordingfile format: it was necesary to include the full Levelmap name, So: it's no longer BD4 compatible (I should fix that)
Started decoding Diamond caves compressed levelformat : see DC-Format.txt
Maybe I should put the level conversion routines in the game itself instead of only in the Level Editor.

OK: Have to rewrite the game a lot for Wil's BD4 compatiblilty: the goal is to achieve a100 % compatibility so you can exchange and playback recorded games. Also the score should be compatible.
Things Changed:
- Objects reacts faster when falling down. This is much better: better feel and better action
- Falling objects tumble different
- Bombs retimed: actually now I have to have another supaplex-style bomb ...
Animation map is extended (Level format should also be extended ...)
Added some things of Emerald mines/Bd4: Robots (aliens) Quicksand ,Keys and doors
Added record and playback of games.
Added HighScore Tables
The palette handling of DGC-image library editor is horrible: Started to write a Sprite-editor.
current features:
- DGC Image library compatible
- can import BMP and IFF (not limited to 256 colors)
- simple edit functions (under contruction)
- can import Sprite Maps (under contruction)
- Palette rearange functions (under construction) (very important)

Got a pretty good working Boulderdash and Supaplex Game now: Still some miner tweaks (see to do).
Gravity option in Supaplex can be expanded even further to form an entireplatform game (Magic Pockets Spriteset)
But this requires some major adjustments in the program structure: An option is needed to control the main charactar either tile-based (like Boulderdash) or not (platform games like Donkey Kong etc etc etc).
Very interesting Idea !! (but actually hard to implement: extra collision detection)
But indeed: the levelformat has to be adjusted: 256 different object codes arenot enough: 2 bytes (65536 object codes) should be sufficient, but you would need a pretty fast computer to check them all (allthough a lotare dependable on settings like Gravity, tile based and a lot of 'Background' objects don't require checking).
Peter Broadribb's proposal for a BDCFF is pretty good, it only lacks multiple layersupport. (If I only could contact him ...)
Also the Animation Map needs extension.