About Boulder Panic!

	Sign In Sign-Up

Questions? Just email me!

midryder@intcon.net

Boulder Panic 1.2 is released! This is probably the last major release for the DEMO version of Boulder Panic! 1.2 includes a full tutorial on playing the game, even better graphics, a demo of the level editor, the ability to load challenge levels, and more! Oh - and it's just plain slicker now! If you downloaded 1.0 or 1.1, be sure to download this - it's only 73k, so it's worth your time!!!

Also online is a demo Level Pack. These are Challenge Levels that you can download to play with the demo. Since I'm releasing the Level Editor demo included into Boulder Panic! 1.2 Demo, if you have a cool level you've created, email it to me at midryder@intcon.net and I'll put it in the next demo level pack!

Boulder Panic! 1.1 Demo Released! What's new, you ask?

New - Scoring Difficulty. I had one person complain that it was too easy. So, I added 4 setting for scores: Easy (default), Medium (you loose 3 times the value of a gem when it breaks!), Hard (9 times the value!), and Yeah, Right! - 30 times the value! If you thought it was too easy before, try a Medium sized playfield, and Yeah, Right! scoring - on mistake will pretty much cost you the game. Holler if that's still to easy...

New - Gamespeed setting. Normaly, Boulder Panic! ran in an untrotled mode - it ran just as fast as it could. However, that made it difficult to see how the pieces were moving when someone clicked on a gem or what have you. The default is Slow - great for small and medium games. It can still run without delays, based on the 4 settings in the New Game dialog.

Changed - Panic Mode. Panic Mode! now works quite a bit differently. Instead of droping single gems, it now drops groups of them. Instead of picking the same target all the time, it picks different areas. Quite a bit more challenging now (and less moronic. This is what happens when at 2AM you have a brainstorm, and add a new feature - it was downright lame in the original version!)

Fixed - Panic Mode. Panic Mode! had quite a few quirks when the game ended. Oops. Again... when doing things at 2 AM, it really does seem like a good idea at the time...

New - Added some new graphics, and game delays. This makes things more 'intuitive' for someone who's never played it. It made perfect sense to the programmer, and perfect sense to the play testers who had the game explained to them. However, someone who's never played before, well, it made little sense. The new graphics show you how much you made or lost on gems, gold, etc. Much improvement

New - Default settings for all the new options are designed to help new players understand the game. As far as I know, no one has read the directions for playing the game, so the game appears to be pretty damned weird. It makes sense with the default settings.

Changed - Physics. I made some changes to the game physics. If you played the previous version, well, you can see the difference. If you haven't, don't worry about these changes - they just made things a little more realistic.

Changed / Fixed - Resize, Minimize, Maximize work in an intelligent fasion now. This means that people who want to run it on a machine that can only display 640x480 now can do so - and it works on my Libretto now!

About Boulder Panic!:

Boulder Panic is a very simple puzzle game to understand. Considering that the demo is 164K, it's going to take you more time to read this page, than to download the game and get started playing!

But - I'll go ahead an explain it, just for those who want to read about it before experiencing it!

Boulder Panic! Is somewhat inspired by Boulder Dash and Willi, a very old series of games back from the Commodore 64 era, And Columns and Puzzle Fighter. Inspired, however, does not mean a copy of - it's completely different.

Boulder Panic! Is a puzzle game, where the object it to get as high of a score as possible. There are 3 types of gems: Rubies, Emeralds, and Diamonds. Gems are fragile - if you drop a boulder or something heavy on a gem, it breaks, costing you points.

There are two types of 'metals': Silver, and Gold. Both of these are considered 'heavy' - when you drop one on a gem, the gem breaks, costing you points. Metals score lower than most of the gems do.

Boulders are the final element - these are heavy, but, cannot be collected for points.

To collect an item for it's points, simply click on it. But, be careful - when you click on an item, gravity takes effect, moving the objects above it down. You have to be mindful of where gems are located, as collecting one gem could cost you more points in broken gems!

There's another way to make more points, however - chaining. If there is more than gem or metal of the same type touching each other, you collect all of the connected items. The first item will be at it's normal value. The next item is worth 1.5 times the value, then 2.0 times, 2.5 times, etc. So far, my biggest score off of a single click was over 3000 points worth of diamonds! (It should be noted, however, I was almost 1000 points in the hole at the time...)

Of course, the bigger the chain, the bigger the risk of making gravity do it's thing, and costing you tons of points!

The demo, of course, has some limitations:

No Sound
It cannot load or save levels
No level-cycle based games
No TNT!
No Walls!
No Editor!
256 color graphics (the originals are 24 bit color, which look much nicer :-)
Limited playfield sizes

The full version has sound, a level editor, 24 bit graphics, etc. Plus it has a pack of levels for level-cycle based play, etc. Also - a high score table! You are also permitted to play random games of any size from 2x2 to 125 x 125 (NASTY thing to try and play! One move is worth thousands of points down the drain!)

When you register, I'll send you the current full version - either via email, or send you a temporary link to download it from. If you must have it by mail, email me directly, and we can make arrangements (at a higher cost - sorry!) Registration is $12.50, so it's nice and inexpensive. As I put more cool stuff in the full version, I'll send you an email saying a new full version is out, and asking if you'd like to receive the new version by email - it's your choice!

I will also be listening to user comments, suggestions, etc. for the full version - if it can be done, and sounds like a cool idea, I'll probably incorporate it, and add you to the list of credits!

Now - something of note: The demo is 124k. I did everything I could to trim it down in size, without limiting too much what a user could do. The goal was to make it small. The second goal was to make it run on any Win 95, 98, NT4, or 2000 machine - DirectX isn't nesisary for Boulder Panic! There's a price that's paid for that of course - it's slower at drawing really large levels. I may produce a DirectX version of it if there's enough demand from users for it (but, I'll continue to maintain the normal version just the same.)

CREDITS:

I wrote it, of course. However, there are people who do deserve some credit here:

Heather Bumbguardner - for putting up with listening to me bable online as I'm writing it. Thanks, Lover!

Meredith Bloodworth - ditto in real life, plus, play testing. Also came up with the idea of Land Mines in Challenge Levels. Don't curse me about those - it was her idea and I'm blaming it all on her!

Dan Haag - Play testing, bug testing, etc.

Lance O'Donnel - Play testing, bug testing, etc.

Steve Steinhauser - Doing last minute bug testing before releases.

Pascale Leurox - for pointing how much gold looks like popcorn in this game. I thought it was just me...

Chris, Greg, and Seth - for setting around and turning programming into a spectator's sport as I re-optimized a couple parts of the game

Joan Hansen - an obvious addict, she came up with an idea to make it even easier to stay addicted to the game! When the game ends, the gameover screen now contains a 'restart' button that allows you to restart the game without ever having to navigate the menus again!

And of course, thanks to everyone who has downloaded the game to check it out!