Boulder Dash® Developers' Diary

[+Andrew Davie]

As an experiment I tried seeing what the gfx would look like with only 2 alternating colour lines, rather than 3. The 21 pixel height of the 'tiles' doesn't quite fit here, but this is just a mockup.

 

Well, although this might look better when full size on a TV (due to less spacing between the colour line effect), it's missing the wider range of your colour palette, especially the grey as well as the blue for the boulders. Still, it was an interesting experiment..

 

 

I find the smaller the TV, and the further away you are, the better BD looks. I don't mind this, really -- back in the day, smaller TVs would generally be the norm. Your experiment is interesting, and I'm sure could be used for other games requiring just a 4 colour playfield. It's a bit un-nerving seeing these runnable demos using the exact graphics that BD uses; in principle these graphics are copyright © First Star Software... so perhaps it might be worthwhile keeping that in mind. I'd like to keep them happy.

 

Cheers

A

[supercat]

I think your comments and demo are very interesting, and sobering, but wish you'd go and find another project to bully!!!

 

Besides, I've been trying to bully him for years to use character pairs. Especially since 4A50 would allow the lookups to be done in-kernel.

[+Andrew Davie]

I think your comments and demo are very interesting, and sobering, but wish you'd go and find another project to bully!!!

 

Besides, I've been trying to bully him for years to use character pairs. Especially since 4A50 would allow the lookups to be done in-kernel.

 

 

Give me a good price on 4a50 boards! I do acknowledge the advantages of the format, but making the move is a bit daunting.

[+Andrew Davie]

I've known for some time, of course, that 4A50 offers opportunities for improvement in the capabilities of the engine. I've just been a bit frightened of it My first attempt at doing a converstion was in March 2006. I know these things because I actually comment my code but of course I abandoned this when it didn't work. Tonight I restored that old attempt, ripped out everything BD-related (for of course, it's all out of date anyway) and just went back to basics -- a flashing colour background. And voila, I have a working 4A50 binary. Now I plan to have a think about the layout I want to use for a bit, while slowly adding in bits of the game to see how it all comes along.

[vdub_bobby]

It's a bit un-nerving seeing these runnable demos using the exact graphics that BD uses; in principle these graphics are copyright © First Star Software... so perhaps it might be worthwhile keeping that in mind. I'd like to keep them happy.

If you want, I'll pull the binaries I posted. I figured that the tile graphics weren't copyrighted - well, not by FSS, anyway; I thought they were yours. And I didn't copy the little guy. But it doesn't really matter to me, I mostly just put the gfx and level layout in to catch your attention and show that it could be done.

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

I'm just curious if anyone has contacted FSS about this project, and what their responce was(if there was one).

 

That one screenshot looked fantastic. If this game ends up looking like that, and still being playable...it would be well worth the "high price" we signed up for. In fact, it might even be worth more if it meant getting permission from FSS.

 

Something to note in reference to that: I contacted the management company of my and Rose's favorite artist about using some lyrics between chapters of a book I am writing. They wanted to know the distribution range(limited to country, continent or worldwide), number of projected copies, and specifically what I wanted to use. I was not able to get back to them, as a virus took care of my system. I know all about assumptions, but I believe that a low production run, for an antiquated system, might be allowed with minimal expense. I believe that, because it really wouldn't cost them anything to allow it, they make a few bucks, and we get a game.

 

Copyright laws in the US are strange and intricate creatures. It never hurts to ask, though.

[+Andrew Davie]

I'm just curious if anyone has contacted FSS about this project, and what their responce was(if there was one).

 

All is being done with FSS's approval. Everything I do is OK'd with them first. Our communications have been friendly and I think we both hope to bring the project to a successful release. I have been (on and off) in discussions with them for over 5 years now, so we have a long history during which time I think we have established some trust and understanding. I have to solve a few technical issues to get the game to function perfectly, and I'm not putting any pressure on myself to do this. It's finished when it's finished, and at that time if FSS approves of the final result then it will be released. There are no fundamental showstoppers regarding permission or copyright; these have been sorted out.

 

Cheers

A