Few game franchises can boast such a long history as that of Boulder Dash. The 42-year-old IP has indeed had its fair share of releases on an incredibly large number of platforms, as well as clones and wannabes in the 1980s. It is mostly just remembered these days by those that knew it on their Atari 8-bit computer or Commodore 64 back in the day, so the appeal will perhaps be lost on younger audiences. However, those curious enough to take a peek nowadays are sure to find a physics-based puzzle game series with more depth than they might otherwise expect from such an archaic franchise. Does this 40th anniversary release measure up to those classics of the 1980s?
The basic premise of Boulder Dash is that the main character Rockford (an ant, a miner, a spaceman, or a random dude depending on the game) has to go through caves in search of diamonds or non-descript gems. Each cave has a time limit and a certain amount of diamonds to collect in order to open the exit door, which itself also has to be located, as it may sometimes be concealed as a random bit of indestructible titanium wall.
Caves are made up of the aforementioned diamonds and titanium wall tiles that can’t be destroyed by anything, brick walls that explosions can clear out, dirt, and the titular boulders. Being a physics-based game series, each type of tile has its own set of rules. Dirt can be cleared out by simply walking through it, as if Rockford was digging through it. Dirt can hold boulders up in the air, but gravity will pull them downwards if the dirt holding them is cleared.
Boulders and diamonds will be held up in the air by titanium walls and dirt, but not by brick walls or other boulders and diamonds. In the latter case, they will roll off towards the edge instead.
Boulders can be pushed sideways onto empty tiles, but cannot be pulled. Falling boulders will kill Rockford if they land on his head, but will also make enemies explode in a 3×3 tile radius, which is a required mechanic to blast away brick walls or boulders blocking access to diamonds required to clear the level.
Enemies include fireflies and butterflies. The chief difference between the two is their movement pattern (clockwise or counterclockwise respectively) and their behaviour upon death (fireflies merely explode, generating nine diamonds).
Another living creature in Boulder Dash is the amoeba, a green blob that randomly grows in size every game engine tick, engulfing dirt and empty spaces till it reaches critical mass. At that point, it transforms into a massive cumbersome pile of boulders. Fireflies and butterflies explode on contact (in some levels the amoeba and butterflies interacting are the only way to get the required diamonds to open the exit, for example). However, should the player manage to trap the amoeba using boulders or their own body in such a way that it cannot grow any further before it reaches critical mass, it will turn into a massive pile of diamonds instead.
A special kind of blue amoeba on the other hand will not grow but randomly allow falling diamonds and boulders to pass through it on their way down every game engine tick.
The final game engine feature is magic walls. Some of them will expand sideways if dirt, boulders or diamonds holding them are cleared, while others will magically start glittering for a set amount of time after a falling boulder or diamond comes into contact with it, allowing them to pass through and converting one into the other (diamonds into boulders or vice versa).
This is the basic recipe for classic Boulder Dash, and while later releases may sometimes have introduced new mechanics, this 40th anniversary release sticks to this OG formula very closely.
This 40th anniversary release bundles caves from past games as well as completely new ones and, as a pleasant surprise, some noteworthy fan-created ones from yesteryear such as the great Arnodash set. The caveat to this, however, is that the full games are not included. Originally each game included 16 caves (plus four bonus stages awarding an extra life if cleared) and five game loops. For example, the game would start on cave A-1 and upon clearing P-1 would loop back to A-2, with the second loop changing up the required number of diamonds and the placement of enemies, boulders, dirt and diamonds while keeping the basic layout of walls. Game speed would also increase to crank up the difficulty.
This new release only includes the first loop of each, sadly. Furthermore, each level is its own self-contained thing and can be skipped at will instead of each game included being a continuous experience to be cleared with a limited amount of lives. This does take away some of the challenge of the original games, unfortunately.
There is, however, one flipside to this: the addition of an online world record system. The fact that each level can be replayed at will, be restarted very quickly, and selected at will works great with the challenge of trying to get the best score possible on each cave.
Still, though, if only it was still possible to play these OG caves the way they were meant to be played (back to back with a limited number of lives) in addition to the level select menu the way it is now. Then the online record system only displays the current world record but not who holds it. A true leaderboard system with names proudly displayed would have been better. Indeed, since the name of the player is not displayed anywhere, no one will ever know who got a record but the record holders themselves.
Visually, each set of caves sort of has its own set of graphics. The old 8-bit caves retain their visual style (which can be picked from either the Atari or C64 styles).
There is something to be said about control options as well. Sadly, these games were built around joystick controls, especially microswitch joysticks. In this reviewer’s opinion, nothing replaces the clicky feel of a good Competition Pro 5000 joystick to play classic Boulder Dash, be it on Commodore 64 or Atari 8-bit microcomputers. These allow for precise movement that other types of controls simply don’t quite allow. The feel of inputting a single click to move Rockford only exactly one space or holding down the fire button and clicking once to “suck up” a tile of dirt or a diamond without moving onto that space is simply something that was never replicated quite right in any of the subsequent release.
Upon release of this 40th anniversary package, it was only possible to move Rockford using the left analogue joystick and use the “suck-up” action by either holding down the A button and tilting the stick in the desired direction (replicating the original configuration but the feel is quite wrong) or using the d-pad as “four directional suck-up buttons”, which is even worse. This was patched after release to allow movement of Rockford with the d-pad instead of the analogue joystick, which is a definite improvement but still doesn’t quire measure to the greatness of the original incarnations. However, because microswitch joysticks just aren’t available for modern consoles, it was always going to be a challenge for whichever developer would try to get it right, so it’s hard to hold it against BBG Entertainment.
