BoulderRush primary objective is to collect required number of
diamonds in defined time and exit the cave. There is no live
limit. On the other hand there are no hidden features, cheat
codes, etc.
You control Rockford movement to solve given cave. Look at the
game elements to find out how they interact with each other.
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Stones and diamonds fall dawn in space, fireflies and butterflies can freely move. |
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Rockford can move through dirt leaving empty space behind. Growing lava also consumes dirt. |
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Stones can be pushed by Rockford. Rockford (the player) can drop them on flies to make an explosion. |
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The main objective of the game is to collect required number of diamonds. Rockford steps on it to pick it up. |
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The wall can't be moved but explosion leads to demage it. Rockford can't pass through the wall - instead try to blow it up. Exploding fly makes required hole. |
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This is rock stable wall. It's impossible to move or blow it up. |
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Fireflies move through the space. They can fly in the
entire cave. Fireflies blow up when hit by falling stone
or diamond. Lava is deadly for them also. They explode
into space, i.e. produce 3 x 3 square of empty space. Fireflies are left spinning - they prefer left direction. Looking for free space at the left of themselves makes them fly clockwise. |
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Butterflies move through the space. They can fly in
the entire cave. Butterflies blow up when hit by falling
stone or diamond. Lava is deadly for them also. In
contrast to fireflies they explode into diamonds, i.e.
produce 3 x 3 square of diamonds. Butterflies are right spinning - they prefer right direction. Looking for free space at the right of themselves makes them fly counter clockwise. |
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Lava grows randomly through the space and dirt.
Closed stops growing and transforms into diamonds. When
there is to much lava (above 23% of whole cave area) it
suddenly transforms into stones. At the beginning lava can grow slowly, but after amount of time it starts growing very rapidly. |
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Magic wall looks like an oridinary wall when it is
off. It's magic, becouse falling stones are transformed
into diamonds and vice versa. This could happen only if
there is an empty space under tha magic wall; otherwise
falling stones and diamond disappears. At the beginning magic wall sleeps and falling stone/diamond turn it on. After a period of time it turns off. Inactive magic wall eats falling stones and diamonds (it can't be activated again - it expires). |
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Slime is permeable. It means that stones and diamonds laying on the slime can randomly pass on. Slime unlike lava elements can't grow. |
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This is a player. Rockford can move through space and
dirt. He can pick up diamonds and push stones. But he
should avoid flies as well as skull and glue. You control Rockford by pressing cursor keys. <Control> key has special meaning: it lets Rockford pick something up without moving. Use it in conjunction with cursor keys. |
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Expanding wall expands in horizontal or vertical (or both) direction, if there is an empty space to fill up. Rockford should be very carefull not to be catched by expanding wall. |
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This is Rockford's look-alike. Rockford must protect him against flies. If dummy dies, Rockford dies immediately too. |
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This is an ordinary wall, but it looks like hard steel wall. |
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Bomb doesn't move nor fall down. When hit by falling stone/diamond blows up. |
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Skull is stable like steel wall. It's also deadly for flies and Rockford. It doesn't move. |
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Glue can eat flies (without explosion) and Rockford. (this element is not currently implemented) |
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After collecting required number of diamonds look for a flashing out box to exit the cave. Closed out box looks like steel wall, but beware of explosions near the out box: you could accidentally destroy an exit. This prevents from successfully finishing the cave. |
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This is also an exit, but it remains non-flashing and thus is difficult to find. |
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This flying moth behaves just like a butterfly, except that it explodes into stones instead of diamonds. |
Recorder allows recording and replaying Rockford's activity.
Every move you make is stored in internal buffer. To start
recording just press 'C' key (menu Game/Record Game). Recorder
restarts currently selected cave. Small red circle in status bar
is blinking to indicate recorder is active. Pressing 'C' key once
again turns off recorder. Note: Recorder is able to record
only internal (built-in) or Cave/GamePack caves.
After recording Game/Replay Game option becomes available.
You could also press 'P' key to replay recorded action. Yellow R
letter is blinking to indicate recorder is replaying a cave.
Use two options (File/Load Recorded Game... and File/Save
Recorded Game...) to (re)store recorded information.
cursor keys |
Control Rockford movement in four allowed directions. |
<Control> |
Used in conjunction with cursor keys to pick up diamonds, push stones or remove dirt without moving Rockford itself. |
<Esc> |
Restarts current game. |
<Space> | Pauses current game. |
<Enter> | Breaks the game and invokes intro screen. |
<Shift> | Press and hold down while application starting to prevent from entering full screen mode. |
Look at the menu to learn about other shortcuts.
Status bar presents following information:
Sound effects in BoulderRush are built upon original 8-bit Atari BoulderDash. Each sound is generated using simple mathematical formula and thus occupy small amount of precious space. BoulderRush requires sound card capable of 44100 Hz 8-bit sample playback. Use standard windows accessory to adjust sound volume.
BoulderRush is written in C++/MFC using MS Visual C++ 6.0. The game algorithm is coded directly according to Peter Broadribb description. It's extremely close to the original BoulderDash (8-bit Atari and C-64 versions). Original BD internal cave format was also an inspiration for object oriented cave editor.
If you are not familiar with BoulderRush I
suggest you to explore internal game no 1 starting from it's
first cave on level 1. Consecutive caves explain basic concepts
of the game and it's elements.
If you are serious old Boulder Dash player and you think that
this game doesn't keep anything secret, then I suggest you to try
out Mega Boulder Dash caves from GamePack.
Anyway, here are some simple tips. Maybe you find something interesting for you.
Cave Properties dialog box, Parameters page:
In this page you can establish following cave properties:
Title, Description & Author - self explanatory
Cave Time & Diamonds reguired - time to finish the cave & number of diamond required to successfully finish the cave (2 x 5 = 10 separate integer values (from 1 to 9999) for each level
Points per Diamond - number of points per diamond (as integer from 0 to 9999)
Bonus Points - number of bonus points per extra diamond (as integer from 0 to 9999)
MagicWall Milling Time - number of cave time units magic wall is milling after activation (as integer from 0 to 9999)
Lava to Rock - lava transform threshold in percents of whole cave area (as fixedpoint number from 0.0 to 100.0)
Hatching Delay - Rockford's hatching delay (as integer from 0 to 100). This is a number of scanning frames inbox will be blinking before Rockford's hatching (preopen time)
Slime Permeability - slime permeability in percents (fixedpoint number from 0.0 to 100.0). Zero (0.0) means slime is not permeable
Lava Time & Probability (slow & fast) - three integer values: lava slow growth time (from 0 to 9999) and two probabilities for slow & fast lava growth stages (from 0 to 250, where 0 means no growing at all)
(c) Michal Kowalski 1998