Rockfall

Name: Rockfall
Format: Super NES
Developer: Paul Lay (programmer) and Harvey A. Kong Tin (graphics)
Publisher: none
Year: unknown

Rockfall is a freely distributable (ie. it has the (PD) tag) tech demo for the SNES which also happens to be a reasonably good game in it's own right.

I am not sure exactly when the game was released - there are no contact details in the game, and in fact no details at all apart from credits for the two designers on the title screen. There may be some credits or something at the end of the game which explain who made the game and how it was distributed, but unfortunately I do not have nearly enough madskillz to finish the game to find out.

The programming shown off is quite remarkable for a user tech demo - Mode 7, the SNES' flashy sprite scaling / rotating is shown off, along with some reasonable music. I don't know whether this was created as a demo to try and get into a coding company, or whether it was simply made for fun, but either way it's pretty impressive.

The basic premise of the game is that you have to guide a sort of mining thing around an area that is filled with earth. Like arcade classic Dig Dug, you dig away the earth in whatever direction you go. The object of the game is to collect every gem on each level, before making your way to the exit, before the time limit runs out.

As the game name suggest, there are also some rocks. Which, coincidentally enough, fall. A lot. Basically the main hazard of the game is rocks falling on your miner robot thing and crushing it. Rocks will not only fall if you dig away the square of land beneath them (you move one "tile" at a time in any direction, a la Final Fantasy), but also if you dig the area to one side and then diagonally below them. This means:

Key:
: = earth
O = rock
M = miner

There's a rock ahead. We want to avoid Rockfall.

/-----\
|:::::|
|::O::|
|:::::|
|::M::|
|:::::|
\-----/

Send the miner up one...

/-----\
|:::::|
|::O::|
|::M::|
|:: ::|
|:::::|
\-----/

Now the rock is teetering. It doesn't crush the miner yet, but if you move it down it will (once a rock gets some falling speed going, it will kill you). So the solution to this situation is move right or left...

/-----\
|:::::|
|:: ::|
|:: M:|
|::O::|
|:::::|
\-----/

...where the rock will fall down, and miss the miner.

You can get in trouble in some situations though...

/-----\
|:::::|
|:O:M:|
|:::::|
|:::::|
|:::::|
\-----/

Looks safe enough, eh? Dig left...

/-----\
|:::::|
|:OM :|
|:::::|
|:::::|
|:::::|
\-----/

Now, without a care in the world, dig down...

/-----\
|:::::|
|:O  :|
|::M::|
|:::::|
|:::::|
\-----/

Hey, you're still safe right? Nothing could hurt you if you dug... say... a little more down?

/-----\
|:::::|
|:   :|
|:: ::|
|::O::|
|:::::|
\-----/

Ah. Oh dear. We appear to have been HORRIBLY CRUSHED BENEATH A GIGANTIC ROCK. Well, I did tell you not to dig down.

As you can imagine, having a whole heap of rocks, un-minable sections of the map, and other psuedo annoying bits can make this puzzle game a decent prospect for a lovely night of hair tearing outage. There are some levels where finding all the gems is incredibly hard. Some with extra enemies. For example, there is a truly devilish level where there are these dodgy green snake things effectively locked up in these sections of the map which are unminable, but as ever, there is one route out. Be a little careless with your mining, and these green devils get out and start to chase very fast around the map. Not the easiest level. There is ample opportunity for skill to be shown off - in every case of the green monster level things, there is a possibility to kill them by dropping a rock right on them. But as ever, get it wrong, and you could be faced with a green menace, or even crushed by a rock.

There is a good amount of variety in the levels, as some do not even feature any earth to cut away or rocks, they are just Pac-Man style mazes. Because each level is not shown in full, you cannot see the whole maze at once, and so working out the route to a gem the other side of an annoyingly invulnerable wall is quite taxing.

The graphics are reasonable, and since each level is constructed in Mode 7 there is a nice zoom in spiral effect at the end of each level. Animation is, in my opinion, very good for an amateur game. There's a very nice spin effect on the miner, and a sort of blow torch type effect that only appears when digging through earth. A clever programmer methinks.

Special mention must go to an absolutely mental level that comes quite late in the game (I haven't finished the game, because it gets very difficult later on. But then, that is the fate of all video games made by one or two people.. with only one guy to do playtesting, he will eventually become so good at his game that he will think it is too easy. So he ramps up the difficulty / time limit / whatever. This is why early games that were made by one person (eg. for the Sinclair Spectrum) may now seem very difficult.) - this level makes use of Mode 7 in the same way that Castlevania IV or the Super Ghouls N' Ghosts. Basically, after certain delay, everything in the level stops, and the screen slowly turns 180^o, and the gravity reverses. This means what used to be a safe situation, with a rock on the floor, and the miner digging around the ceiling...

/-----\
|::M::|
|:: ::|
|:: ::|
|:: ::|
|::O::|
\-----/

...can change in a second to a rather nasty little mishap when the gravity reverses...

/-----\
|::M::|
|:: ::|
|:: ::|
|:: ::|
|::O::|
\-----/

/-----\
|::::M|
|::: :|
|:: ::|
|: :::|
|O::::|
\-----/

/-----\
|:::::|
|:::::|
|O   M|
|:::::|
|:::::|
\-----/

/-----\
|O::::|
|: :::|
|:: ::|
|::: :|
|::::M|
\-----/

/-----\
|::O::|
|:: ::|
|:: ::|
|:: ::|
|::M::|
\-----/

/-----\
|:: ::|
|::O::|
|:: ::|
|:: ::|
|::M::|
\-----/

/-----\
|:: ::|
|:: ::|
|::O::|
|:: ::|
|::M::|
\-----/

/-----\
|:: ::|
|:: ::|
|:: ::|
|::O::|
|::M::|
\-----/

/-----\
|:: ::|
|:: ::|
|:: ::|
|:: ::|
|::O::|
\-----/

Dodge that, crazy miner fool!

The upshot is, that you have to be aware of what is going on above, below, and to both sides of you to succeed in this game.

Overall, Rockfall is an excellent game, and certainly the best of the Public Domain SNES games that I have played. I would highly recommend picking it up. Since it's public domain, I can tell you where to get it without E2 getting in shit - check out www.zophar.net in the SNES ROMs section for the download. It is playable in Zsnes, but in the version I checked with, not Snes9x. Meh. ZSnes is better anyway.

So, all you puzzle fans, pick this baby up. You won't be disappointed.