I started working on a Boulderdash remake back in 2017 and it was pretty much one of my first games that I worked on solo after I switched to working with Gamemaker Studio 2.

I spent a long weekend in Devon visiting Aaron over the last few days where we brain-stormed and decided to have a look at what could be done with the enemy AI in Boulderdash. At present Envahi is progressing steadily so we didn’t really look at that at all as I don’t really need any help with it at present.

Warp butterflies have returned with a vengeance. I’ve worked so much on the AI for these things now that it was inevitable that I’d get the bug coming back as I’ve rewritten the bloody script so much. They mostly still behave, however, so I’ve left them as they are and not ported the script to get the fireflies moving as well just yet.

Finally tracked down a nasty bug today which has been in the game since I first added the butterfly movement routines. Due to me using tiles for all the game play objects in this game, I’ve had to write a particularly long and cumbersome script to handle the movement pattern of the butterflies in-game. Currently it’s the only moving enemy in the game, even though fireflies are still present where they should be.

Time for another update as I’ve mostly slacked since Xmas but have still been beavering away at Boulderdash to try and get it finished. Suspect I’ve taken longer to work on my version than the original game was coded now but I’ve added elements to the project so that’s my excuse for being at the almost-finished line for at least two months now.

It’s getting near Xmas now and, like everyone else, there’s lots of stuff going on that has made Boulderdash development a bit slower than i would have expected. So it’s time for an update, so everyone can be sure I’ve not actually fallen asleep.

As mentioned in my last post, I’ve been quietly working on a remake of an absolute classic C64 game – Boulderdash. Before I go into what’s been involved in remaking this with Game Maker Studio 2, it’s worth you firing up an emulator – Vice is perfect – and playing the game itself. You’ll learn a lot more about it than I could ever explain here – and it’ll be fun too.