Playing the original game

[Pio2001]

Hi,
Being new to the forum, here is a little introduction.

I have been playing the original Boulder Dash game for hours in the 80's on my Atari 800XL (I don't have any other version of the game).
I found a clumsy, but faithful emulator for Windows some years ago, but it is only recently that I could find a good emulator for Linux.

In the old times I was able to complete the game from A to P at difficulty level 1, 2 and 3.
At level 4 and 5 I was only capable of completing A to N.
My highest score is meaningless, since it was obtained restarting endlessly level M... I had realized that one gets a bit more than one extra life every time.

I've always played the game at PAL speed, that is slower than NTSC speed (which prevents me to do anything in the third bonus life).

Thanks to Youtube I have learned how to trap flies into endless loops. I had never realized that before ! I used to complete J and N by luring the flies into the longest possible path.

My prefered levels are K and L because they require a lot of planning. Especially at difficulty level 2 and above.

For the time being, I'm trying to replay the whole game. I've just completed difficulty level 1.

[Arno]

Welcome Pio2001 and thx for sharing your BD experiences!

I found a clumsy, but faithful emulator for Windows some years ago, but it is only recently that I could find a good emulator for Linux.

I'm also aware of a nice online emulator to play Atari BD:
https://archive.org/details/a8b_Boulder ... US_k_file#
Not sure about the quality, but I play it sometimes when I want to compare the C64 versus Atari version of BD.

My highest score is meaningless, since it was obtained restarting endlessly level M... I had realized that one gets a bit more than one extra life every time.

That's a good point indeed, since there have been highscore compo's for BD1 (the C64 version), which makes no sense to me as well if you know this trick. By the way, there's still one here:
https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Boulder_Dash

For the time being, I'm trying to replay the whole game. I've just completed difficulty level 1.

Good luck with playing, Cheers!

[LogicDeLuxe]

That's a good point indeed, since there have been highscore compo's for BD1 (the C64 version), which makes no sense to me as well if you know this trick.

That's why we used an altered version which doesn't give extra lives for points over at Lemon64.

[zsom]

LogicDeLuxe.
Please write, are there any advances in the XDC engine?
When will the new version be?

[Pio2001]

Hello,
I've completed difficulty levels 1, 2 and 3.

Now I'm stuck at exactly the same point as I was when I was playing the game on my old Atari 800XL : level O/4.

I managed to get 23 diamonds out of 24. But I can't do better. How do you pass this level ?

I get below the enchanted wall from the beginning. I make as much room as I can under it. Then I cross just below the wall, to the right (the other way I must wait for the boulders to fall and I'm loosing time). Then I get the bunch of boulder on the left into the wall, then the six boulders above (the fly is freed, but I don't pay attention to it), then as much isolated boulders as I can. But it's never enough.
Is there a trick ? Something that I'm doing in the wrong order ?
I can never have the top right bunch falling into the wall. Is this the key ?