Boulder Dash Atari 8 Bits
First Star Software Inc. of the U.S.A. released Boulder Dash for the Atari 8 Bits in 1984. Boulder Dash is an arcade-action puzzle computer game developed by Peter Liepa and Chris Gray of Canada. Originally coded for the Atari 8 bit line of micros, Boulder Dash was ported to almost every computer game machine of the mid-to-late 1980s.
For millions of computer-gamers Boulder Dash was one of the first action-based computer games that actually played well, with great controls and smooth screen-scrolling.
Boulder Dash Objective
In Boulder Dash players move Rockford (a character-sprite) around a tile-based playing field (a cave) in tile-based increments, collecting a certain amount of jewels within the time limit, while avoiding monsters and falling boulders and glimmering jewels (aka gems). Rockford is basically digging through dirt aka mining for jewels. Rockford needs to manipulate boulder positions in order to solve navigation puzzles. Once the required number of jewels have been collected a secret door is revealed, leading to a tunnel that takes Rockford to the next cave.
Boulder Dash Features
- 16x mystical caves aka levels/stages
- 324x individual screens in total
- 5x difficulty levels
- Single-player or two-player alternating
- 4-way movement, 4-way scrolling
- Tile-based playing field
- Pushable and falling boulders
- Animated sprites and idle anims (e.g., foot-tapping seven years before Sonic)
- Falling boulders and jewels can kill and trap
- Boulders and jewels can be dropped upon monsters
- Boulders can only be pushed if they are unobstructed (not hedged in by a dirt, boulder or wall tile)
- Boulders topple to the side and down if unobstructed. They will then free-fall. Avalanches of boulders and jewels can be triggered.
- Butterflies turn into jewels when boulders are dropped on them
- Fireflies can blow open walls when boulders are dropped on them
- Amoeba self-replicate over time
- If boxed-in, Amoeba suffocate and turn into jewels.
- If allowed to expand hugely, Amoeba die and turn into boulders
- Enchanted wall, Titanium wall
- 4x playable intermissions
- There is no shooting (firing a weapon), jumping or jackhammering
The Atari 8-bit version of Boulder Dash requires an Atari 400/800 with 16-32K of RAM. Tape and disk versions of Boulder Dash require 32K of RAM whereas the cartridge version requires 16K of RAM. Boulder Dash controls support keyboard or 1-2 joysticks.
Boulder Dash IBM PC versus Commodore 64
Nice easy way to compare Commodore 64 (C64) graphics with CGA display mode on i808x CPUs.
The C64 version of Boulder Dash is far superior to the IBM PC Booter version of 1984 (CGA / i808x).
The C64 version has smoother screen-scrolling, more colorful graphics, more detailed graphics, faster tile-refresh, more responsive controls and much better sound and music. However, the original Atari 8 bit version (see header image) features even smoother scrolling than the C64 version.
You can click the image and mouse-wheel up and down to compare.
Boulder Dash Construction Kit
Boulder Dash Construction Kit includes the levels from the original Boulder Dash. This is the Amiga version:
Boulder Dash Construction Kit Versions
- Commodore 64/128
- Commodore Amiga
- Apple II
- Atari 800
- Atari ST
- IBM PC / IBM PCjr.
Rockford Amiga 1988
Icon Design Ltd. ported Arcadia Systems' Rockford coinop to Amiga in 1988. Amiga Rockford plays really well -- fast. Amiga Rockford was programmed by Laurence Vanhelsuwé and composed by Jas C. Brooke.
Synergistic Software ported the Amiga version of Rockford to IBM PC MS-DOS in 1988. As can be seen, PC Rockford is not as colorful as Amiga Rockford. PC DOS Rockford was programmed by John Conley.
Emerald Mine Amiga 1987-90
Kingsoft of Germany released Emerald Mine in 1987, Emerald Mine 2 in 1988 and Emerald Mine 3 in 1990 -- all for the Amiga.
The Emerald Mine games are high-quality Boulder Dash clones that feature several tile-types, monster-types, interactables and collectables.
Each Emerald Mine game features over 100 single-player stages and 2-player simultanenous teamwork stages. In addition, Emerald Mine 2 is bundled with an editor programmed by Volker Wertich.
Emerald Mine scrolling and sprite-shifting are super-smooth.
Emerald Mine 1-3 were programmed by Klaus Heinz and Volker Wertich, drawn by Gabi Kittner and composed by Holger Gehrmann.
Boulder Dash Atari ST 1987
This Atari ST version of Boulder Dash is a clone. It doesn't have any of the original Boulder Dash levels and its scrolling is not smooth. That said, this is a good clone by Thomas Kraatz in 1987.
The Atari ST and Amiga versions of Boulder Dash do not even begin to take advantage of ST/Amiga capabilities. However, ST/Amiga owners were glad that they could play Boulder Dash on their 16 bit micros (if, that is, they did not keep their 8 bit micros).
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