This is a minor update of the Emerald Mine Club level collection that adds the following changes and fixes:
The update is available at the Levels & Artwork page!
A new minor release is available with the following additions and bug fixes:
This release has some new features worth mentioning for creators of both levels and custom graphics. The new custom element condition “next to” is different to the already existing CE conditions in that it not only allows to react to events, but also to static game engine conditions, namely to game elements being next to other game elements (or the player). Before, it was only possible to check for game states that resulted from moving or changing elements, which was sufficient for many cases, but not all.
Another important enhancement are the new “empty space elements”, which behave exactly like the normal, single empty space element, but can be customized with custom graphics or animations, offering new possibilities to create level graphics design without the usual black background.
This can be combined with two new graphics animation modes: “tiled” to use larger bitmaps to decorate patterns of the same element in a level, and “random_static” which works like the already existing “random” graphics, but does not change on the same level position during the game.
Some example custom artworks and levels that illustrate the new features will be published together with the announcement post for this new version in the forum.
The new version is available on the download page!
This is the first in a series of planned re-releases of level sets for Rocks’n’Diamonds, to make those level sets easier to install and play, and to add features and other stuff that may have been missing in the original releases by their authors.
We will start with the level sets of Andreas Buschbeck, which were released on his web site for the first time in 2003. Andreas Buschbeck has created five classic style level sets with custom artwork and sound. As a hobby musician and trance DJ, he also added excerpts of his music to his level sets, which fit well to his level sets and which are grouped into three custom music sets (which can, as with all custom artwork sets in Rocks’n’Diamonds, also be used with other level sets).
However, not only is his web site down for many years now (and the broken link to it on the “Levels & Artwork” page has been replaced with a link to the last snapshot of his web site on archive.org), but also his level sets with custom graphics, sounds and music were scattered over many different packages, which made it a bit complicated to install and play them in Rocks’n’Diamonds.
For a more convenient user experience, all level sets, graphics, sounds and music sets have been put together into one single package, which can easily be installed and played. As an extra bonus to the already released four level sets, an additional, previously unreleased fifth level set (“AB Levelset 0”, which is more of a prequel level set to the other four sets) with 80 levels and different graphics, created in 2002, has been added to this collection, which also contains solution tapes for all included levels.
You can download Andreas Buschbeck’s level sets here or from the “Levels & Artwork” section!
Please download and use this patch release as soon as possible, as it fixes a major problem with generating unique player IDs for the high score server.
The resulting problems with assigning scores and player names on the high score server caused by this bug have already been fixed on the server itself, but to be able to rename your player in R’n’D and still have all your scores associated with your changed player name, you have to upgrade to this new R’n’D version which fixes the problem also on the client side.
Now available from the download page!
This patch release fixes problems with receiving (slightly) larger responses from the high score server, causing high score lists with many entries to be cut off after a few dozen entries. For example, you should see all 100 score entries for the tutorial level set “Niko Böhm’s Tutorial” (which is the default level set shown when Rocks’n’Diamonds is started for the first time), while you will only see less than half of that in most cases with previous versions. This new release fixes this problem, and shows all score entries.
Now available from the download page!