Release Rocks 'n' Diamonds

[Blue Ion]

Rocks'n'Diamonds from Artsoft Entertainment

This game recreates the engines of Boulder Dash, Emerald Mine, Supaplex and Sokoban, and does so faithfully enough to be able to replay the original games.
However, it doesn't stop there. The game evolved enough to be able to use elements from all 4 games at the same time, use of custom behaviour elements and all sort of trickery that can turn the game in something completely different.
Thanks to this customizability, the game has spawned hundreds and hundreds of custom levels. Highlights include Snakebite, R'n'D jue special collection or the Zelda adventures.
Also for the more purists, thousands of the original levels for the original Emerald Mine, Supaplex, Boulderdash and Sokoban are available, converting this game almost into an ultimate collection.

Todo:
Unfortunately I use software scaling to fit the screen into the pandoras resulting in ugly aliasing. A OpenGL ES scaling will probably follow once I learn how to use it.

Final notes:
To put the extra levels, run the game once, search for a folder in its appdata folder called .rocksndiamonds/levels and drop everything there.
Finally, I really recommend do the tutorial, as it teaches all of the basic elements and its interactions as well as stuff like the tape recorder which comes handy to avoid replaying the same part over and over again (though it is slow to do so, overclocking will help here).
And yes, I love this game.

Shots of a level from Emerald Mine, Snake Bite, Zelda II, and a levelset from Jue.






Downloads:
PND: OpenHandhelds

 

[zx-81]

nice one thanks !

 

[Trip]

Always loved the Boulder Dash games.
Cheers Blue

 

[fusion_power]

Nice to have these kind of games in one package, I enjoy Sokoban like games from time to time

Todo:
Unfortunately I use software scaling to fit the screen into the pandoras resulting in ugly aliasing. A OpenGL ES scaling will probably follow once I learn how to use it.

I always thought the Pandora LCD can do Fullscreen scaling in Hardware and "fore free". ^^"

 

[Blue Ion]

I always thought the Pandora LCD can do Fullscreen scaling in Hardware and "fore free". ^^

Hehe, note the screenshots resolution, I've taken them from the pc version: 672x560, that 560 made the two bottom rows hidden from the gameplay and since there is no option to keep the level always centred on the player, you would lose that lower part of the level, making many levels unplayable. Specially those levels that are 17x17 tiles (I think) and fit on the screen with no scrolling. So what I'm doing is scaling DOWN to a lower resolution, to 640x480 so everything fits.

I don't think this LCD can do any type of scaling so far (specially scaling down instead of up), I mean, you might be confusing that was said you could use 400x240 with no speed penalty as the LCD would double the pixels, but even if you are not, LCD scaling is not working, either with any resolution or just those lower than 400x240.
Heck, changing the resolution just gives you a tiny screen centred on the LCD.
I've tried while messing around using the 320x240 resolution (for an hypothetical wiz port, though don't hold your breath) and while the game worked and behaved just as well, the resultant screen was tiny.

The only hardware scaling you can get are either with OpenGL or Overlay, and quite limited the last one as can be seen with the movies.

I'm playing the BD2K3 level set and because it uses smooth 32 bit graphics, the aliasing is not that bad.

Don't forget to check the extra levels for more sokoban levels if you ever run out .

 

[DaveC]

I always thought the Pandora LCD can do Fullscreen scaling in Hardware and "fore free". ^^

Hehe, note the screenshots resolution, I've taken them from the pc version: 672x560, that 560 made the two bottom rows hidden from the gameplay and since there is no option to keep the level always centred on the player, you would lose that lower part of the level, making many levels unplayable. Specially those levels that are 17x17 tiles (I think) and fit on the screen with no scrolling. So what I'm doing is scaling DOWN to a lower resolution, to 640x480 so everything fits.

Cool this game rocks! (Ok sorry for thr bad pun)

That is a weird resolution for a PC,672x560 . What happened to good ole VGA? It is only enough more resolution to cause trouble.

Anyway it doesn't look too bad now. I would rather have it like this, nice and crisp, instead of some blurry filter.

Is there a way to change the artwork at all? I was kind of interested in changing some pixel art but because it is in a .pnd I can't get at anything. I assume by the mod ability that tiles can be changed.

Thanks for the great port

 

[Blue Ion]

That is a weird resolution for a PC,672x560 . What happened to good ole VGA? It is only enough more resolution to cause trouble.

Heh, I wasn't the only one to pester him about it. Holger explained that back in time when 486 computers where all the rage, he did the game for unix systems with monitors of 800x600 or 1024x768 at most. Since back then the X server didn't support fullscreen mode, that res fitted well within the desktop and had a nice number of tiles visible.

Is there a way to change the artwork at all? I was kind of interested in changing some pixel art but because it is in a .pnd I can't get at anything. I assume by the mod ability that tiles can be changed.

The game allows you to use any custom artwork you want, just check the setup section. If you want to edit the original artwork, just download RnD for the pc or its sources, (mine are coming soon, I want to clean them first) take the gfx_classic folder from the graphics one and place it in same one in the appdata/.rocksndiamonds
, don't forget to change the name in the graphicsinfo.conf as well.
If you're going to do more serious editing (like changing animation smoothness) you might want to download the conf edit program and avoid touching the file yourself.

 

[skeezix]

Scaling should be no problem, but iut can be a little tricky when you've not done it before; the two main approaches would be using fbset/ofbset type stuff to set the screen rez and let the system scale it to fullscreen for you, or using open gles and setting your display as a texture and using gles to scale it for you.

jeff