Gdash

[CWS]

Another thing missing: the menu option "New Game" (which creates an empty index and points to a new filename so the old one could not be overwritten). At the moment if I enter the cave editor there is always a game loaded. And it is not possible to make a new empty game. I have to delete every single cave in the game displayed to make it empty and then I have to make a new cave. That's the only way at the moment.

[LogicDeLuxe]

A switch like "Amoeba always green and slime always blue" would be nice, in deed.

The color management is different in the Atari version. The amoeba is always green. I wonder how this could be done as the amoeba changes colors (in C64 manner) along with all othe colors at the moment.

"in C64 manner" the 3rd foreground color can be different for all 4x8 tiles, but it can only have the lower 8 colors of the palette, so it's not a hardware difference. The reason, this feature was abandoned in the C64 port is obviously speed. The C64 version emulates a virtual screen which takes a serious percentage of the CPU time, and there was no raster time left for this feature to work. Without a true virtual screen and no page flipping capabilities for the color RAM, the engine would have to write the colors for every frame, which simply was too much.

As for some interesting specs: The C64DTV could handle this, as it has virtual screen support and it also has a faster CPU. In addition to this, a significant part of the raster time can be saved by preparing the animations in eight memory banks and just swap them with every raster interrupt, since its bigger RAM easily permits this. Virtual screen and prepared graphics alone would make the engine about 5 times faster. So imagine caves of about 5 times the C64 size. The faster CPU would gain even more.
I'm not sure if I will ever do such a project, though. I have enough to do with CLCK and my upcoming engine.

[CWS]

"in C64 manner" the 3rd foreground color can be different for all 4x8 tiles, but it can only have the lower 8 colors of the palette, so it's not a hardware difference. The reason, this feature was abandoned in the C64 port is obviously speed. The C64 version emulates a virtual screen which takes a serious percentage of the CPU time, and there was no raster time left for this feature to work. Without a true virtual screen and no page flipping capabilities for the color RAM, the engine would have to write the colors for every frame, which simply was too much.

I remember - you already explained this somewhere. Maybe this behaviour can be (optionally) implemented into GDash?

I have enough to do with CLCK and my upcoming engine.

Have you ever thought of using GDash as basis and work together with Cirix? Think about it - GDash is for every system. It can by compiled on Windows and Unix (a Windows only version maybe would stop working in several years). It's open, well structured and it's exactely the clone we are all waiting for. Maybe you can improve the engine of GDash so that it meets your expectations, add the things you ever want to include to be the best clone ever. So you do not have to write a separate game. Development will simply be faster that way. Working together is the better goal, I think.

[LogicDeLuxe]

I like the bomb animation and the Rockford carrying one. I always wanted it that way, but the C64 hardware sets tight limits, thus I never implemented it. I'm glad, someone finally made it reality.

Have you ever thought of using GDash as basis and work together with Cirix?

Not at the moment, as PLCK is still in order. After that, the physic engine sure is a good base to start with, since it is the most complete C64 clone already. I would probably write a graphics engine with SDL for it and giving it graphic and sound capabilities similar to Boulder Remake. Smooth movements will be optional, of course. The editor will have C64 export capabilities and it can be set to restrict itself to any C64 engine feature set, so you can directly develop native C64 games with it. Since Gdash is GPL'd, this should be no problem.

[CWS]

Have you ever thought of using GDash as basis and work together with Cirix?

Not at the moment, as PLCK is still in order. After that, the physic engine sure is a good base to start with, since it is the most complete C64 clone already. I would probably write a graphics engine with SDL for it and giving it graphic and sound capabilities similar to Boulder Remake. Smooth movements will be optional, of course. The editor will have C64 export capabilities and it can be set to restrict itself to any C64 engine feature set, so you can directly develop native C64 games with it. Since Gdash is GPL'd, this should be no problem.

Sounds perfect to me. Man this would all be great - no it would be ultimate! But think about it: Developing an own game takes a veeeeery loooooooong time to finish. Look at CLCK how long development takes. This is the reason why I thought it would be better to take GDash as it is and add all necessary things to become the ultimate Boulder Dash clone.

[LogicDeLuxe]

Along with the dirtmod, there should be the option to use the slime graphic for amoeba. For instance, this would be the intended appearance for Boulder Dash 2 Cave B. With the white amoeba there, the dirtmod is missing its actual purpose.

[CWS]

Can you please mark (in the element box) the butterfly and the firefly which is the regular one? So that I always use the right one at a glance.

[LogicDeLuxe]

Crazy Dream 3 Intermission 4: Vertical raster distance is too high. There should be no distance, ie. the raster should be 4 vertical stripes.

Crazy Dream 3 Intermission 5: Really shouldn't be there. The engine should know that a BD1 format game has always 16 caves and 4 intermissions only.

Crazy Dream 3 Acid properties in the cave data:
$16 Acid speed (unused in the original BD1)
$17 Bit 2: if set, Acid's original position converts to explosion puff during spreading. Otherwise, Acid remains intact, ie. it's just growing. (unused in the original BD1)
$1C Acid eats this element. (also Probability of element 1)

[cirix]

hi

Since Gdash is GPL'd

no it isn't, and i think it will be isc licensed. sometimes gpl is just a mess

Crazy Dream 3 Intermission 4

the version of the converted file you all have is an older one. next version.

I like the bomb animation and the Rockford carrying one. I always wanted it that way, but the C64 hardware sets tight limits

just a thought, i think developing a c64 version has simply no point now. your crli, which is simply superior compared to the original, has just come to the limitations of the c64. as you always say, the scrolling already eats x percent of the cpu, this way, you just can't move on. that is why i always wanted gdash, to have an exact clone, but to have a windowed, intuitive, configurable etc editor and the like.
sometimes i think about switching to sdl, too. that would also make implementing sounds easier. yet, i'm not willing to lose the menu and dialog box driver editor, nor even a menu-driven game. maybe at some time i will separate the game from the editor, game will be sdl with sounds, editor will be gtk with no sounds (but still caves testable inside). you see, you remember no1's highscore saver, which asked "save highscore, yes no" and there was no info if you have to press y for yes, or use the joystick or whatever, now that is a thing i just can't stand in those old programs; gtk is a tool for me to make this easier. popping up a yesno dialog box is two lines of code. in sdl, it would be two pages. no time for that, rather focus on the game

Can you please mark (in the element box) the butterfly and the firefly which is the regular one? So that I always use the right one at a glance.

this might not be the thing what you refer to, but as in clck, the place where the *flies are in the element box, shows the direction to which they are facing. that is why they are in a +-shaped arrangement. if you switch off animated view in the editor, and open an element box again, you will se what i mean.

[LogicDeLuxe]

hi

Since Gdash is GPL'd

no it isn't, and i think it will be isc licensed. sometimes gpl is just a mess

Now I'm confused. The file COPYING in your source download clearly states

Code: Select all

		    GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
		       Version 2, June 1991

You really should put the correct license file to your archive. And you should start every source file with a comment mentioning the license it is released under.

[CWS]

I like the bomb animation and the Rockford carrying one. I always wanted it that way, but the C64 hardware sets tight limits

just a thought, i think developing a c64 version has simply no point now. your crli, which is simply superior compared to the original, has just come to the limitations of the c64. as you always say, the scrolling already eats x percent of the cpu, this way, you just can't move on. that is why i always wanted gdash, to have an exact clone, but to have a windowed, intuitive, configurable etc editor and the like.
sometimes i think about switching to sdl, too. that would also make implementing sounds easier. yet, i'm not willing to lose the menu and dialog box driver editor, nor even a menu-driven game. maybe at some time i will separate the game from the editor, game will be sdl with sounds, editor will be gtk with no sounds (but still caves testable inside). you see, you remember no1's highscore saver, which asked "save highscore, yes no" and there was no info if you have to press y for yes, or use the joystick or whatever, now that is a thing i just can't stand in those old programs; gtk is a tool for me to make this easier. popping up a yesno dialog box is two lines of code. in sdl, it would be two pages. no time for that, rather focus on the game

You are totally right! Leave the C64 limitations behind and give us the ultimate clone with everything that could not be realized on the good old C64! But I do not like the idea that I have to start another program to have sound. Shouldn't it be possible to implement sound into the program as it is? Maybe it's easier with SDL but if it's possible with this version of the program it would be much nicer.

Can you please mark (in the element box) the butterfly and the firefly which is the regular one? So that I always use the right one at a glance.

this might not be the thing what you refer to, but as in clck, the place where the *flies are in the element box, shows the direction to which they are facing. that is why they are in a +-shaped arrangement. if you switch off animated view in the editor, and open an element box again, you will se what i mean.

I know it with the +-shape. But which one is the standard one? By the way: it definately looks like CLCK!

[cirix]

then it's gpled now
i don't really care, nor do see why anybody is interested. this is not a money project, it's a for fun project. the gpl was only copied there by the autoconf scripts.

[LogicDeLuxe]

then it's gpled now
i don't really care, nor do see why anybody is interested.

It's just a legal thing, mainly to ensure that no one can claim an exclusive right to it.

[LogicDeLuxe]

Intermissions from BDCFF files are assumed to be 20x12, thus the random generator doesn't work correctly. It needs all 40 C64 columns to get the correct placements in C64 caves. Now, as we have defined visible area in BDCFF, this should be easy to solve.

No One Delight: All colors are black. I guess, you have to insert No One's default colors.

The predictable random generator already reaches its limit on regular sized caves with 40x22, ie. patterns repeat throughout the cave. With bigger caves, you get the same patterns all over again and again.
Maybe we should have a new random number generator which produces longer, thus less repeating sequences. The current one must stay for compatibility and would be the default one, of course, so we could have it as an option.

Btw. there is a predictable random number generator in the Doom source. Also the SID chip has one build in, so it should be there in the VICE source. I don't know if they would suit any better, though. I'm just pointing out some open source ones.

Independently from this, random set to -1 could easily prevent those repeating patterns by just using true random numbers.

[CWS]

Interesting that I did not noticed the problem with the random generator. But I'm not as deep in it.

On that occasion I noticed that there is no random generator in the tool bar (selecting an element and then clicking of a random generator button in the toolbar). As the original C64 BDCK has this tool it would be nice to have it in GDash, too! At the moment it has to be done with the cave properties only.