Welcome to the DX-Boulderdash Homepage !

 

 

DX Level-Editor Version 0.22 beta: go here for details.

DX-Boulder Version: V 0.43 alpha

The purpose of this 7th test release is to give a general overview of the game performances on different systems. Don’t expect a completely Bug-free game yet.

It performes little error checking, so it’s not impossible it might crash under unlucky circumstances. Use it at your own risk, but it should be pretty crash-free now. (At least on my system).

If you are willing to send in Bug reports or have any ideas for improvement, please send me a mail. It is greatly appreciated.

Wat's new ?

 

Implemented 2 player mode with split screen display (Some bugs left)
Implememted Display area to alter the visible area in the game.
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)
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 help-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 !

What's Fixed ?

Fixed Diamonds collect bug - Quicksand bug
Fixed explosion bug (resulted sometimes in black inpassible space)
Fixed Utility disk Bug
Blue and red pipes are inexplodable now, as are switchgates and time gates
Various 2 player mode bugfixes
Maximum Diamonds to collect is now 32767 (was 255)
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. )

What's next ?

Less bugs :-)
More objects ...
Better and more sounds (considering the size in KB, perhaps as an optional module)
Full help
Level-Browser
2-player mode
acces to the options menu from within the game.
....

For a complete overview of the changes check the history page.

Some additional spritesets and levelmaps can be found at the Boulder archive section

Some notes on new or experimental functions:

Sound

This version supports sound via Direct-Sound. DX-Boulder checks for the presence of a sound card, however if this sound card doesn't support Direct Sound (but almost all do), DX-Boulder will crash :-( . Start DX-Boulder with the parameter "nosound" to disable sound (you only have to do this once) or delete the "opt.bdi" file.

You can disable the sound in the options menu.

For background music: there's an internal module player implemented.
Just drop your favorite music module in the DX-Boulder directory
If you place more modules in the DX-Boulder directory, a random one will be selected.

Joystick

Joysticks are supported (I think, but people keep telling me otherwise, so I'll reimplemented as soon as I get a joystick), but I've only tested it an an old Analogue one. If you find that the joystick-signal interferes with the normal keyboard input (for example: your player always goes to the left), you can disable it in the options menu.

For the ultimate nostalgica: Here you can find some information on how to build an adapter to use an Amiga / C 64 / Atari joystick (with a 9 pins connection) on your PC (a 15 pins connection). It's very easy to build, very cheap and it works great !!! Also for all those Amiga and C64 emulators ....

DirectX windows mode

From version 0.40, DX-Boulder can also be run in a WINDOW (in contrary to full screen). You'll find the switch in the options menu.

However, this is slower than full screen (inevitably).

Also, on an 256 color display, the initialisation is VERY slow, due too all the palette match operations.
(and I mean VERY slow).
Well,... that's next on my list to fix ....

For some reason, the "game paused" image is not displayed when the game is in pause mode.

General

The Scrolling routine of the 16x16 sprites may cause the game to slow down or speed up, depending on the amount of moving objects, the amount of empty space and the speed of your computer. The big spritesets don't have this behaviour. (They use another drawing routine)

 

If you come up with ideas you want to see implemented in a boulderdash game, or in a Universal Platform game, I am very interested in your thoughts. (really J )

Also I have disabled some experimental functions:

 

Note that I didn't create most of the levels suplied. Credits can be found in LevelCredits.txt.

I haven't tested all the levels myself yet, so it could be possible that some levels can't be completed because of bugs. (probably so)

Please mail me if you find any problems.

Thanks for all the bugreports! It's greatly apreciated.