Supaplex

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Supaplex
Developer(s)	Dream Factory
Designer(s)	Michael Stopp and Philip Jespersen
Platform(s)	Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS
Release date	1991
Genre(s)	Scrolling tile-based puzzle game
Mode(s)	Single player
Media	Floppy disk (1)
Input methods	Keyboard, Joystick

Supaplex is a video game created by Michael Stopp and Philip Jespersen of Dream Factory. It is an extended clone of Boulder Dash.

1 History
2 The Game
3 The authors
- 3.1 Michael W. Stopp's story
- 3.2 Philip E. Jespersen's story
4 Supaplex clones
- 4.1 Megaplex
- 4.2 Other clones
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] History

Though originally designed as a version of Boulder Dash that could fit onto a floppy disk, the designers abandoned this approach in order to create better graphics. The game comes with 111 levels though many unofficial level sets have been released that greatly increase that number. The game was released for Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS.

Due to hardware dependant programming, the PC version of Supaplex ran twice as fast as PCs became faster. Herman Perk disassembled the game, debugged it and re-assembled it again. The result became known as SpeedFix. Extra features have also been added without changing the game itself.

The developers of the game have declared the software freeware. [1]

[edit] The Game

Although the levels must be played in order, the game allows up to three levels to be skipped at any given time. The game is very challenging, but unlike many Boulder Dash-related games the difficulty comes from solving the puzzles in each level rather than from semi-responsive controls. Furthermore, Supaplex does not use time limits for solving the puzzles, unlike Boulder Dash.

Most objects are identical in behaviour to those in the original Boulder Dash. [2] Murphy substitutes Rockford, who collects objects called Infotrons, which are reminiscent of schematic representations of atoms, instead of diamonds. Instead of dirt, the levels are filled with printed circuit board simply called base in the game's manual, and not lined with brick walls, but with computer chips and other hardware, and filled with Zonks instead of rocks. The enemies are moving scissors, called Snik Snaks, and electrons which resemble sparkling stars.

Supaplex introduces a number of new elements that were not present in Boulder Dash, including bugs, pieces of base that randomly cause a life threatening electrostatic discharges, Ports, which limit Murphy's movement to specific directions, and terminals, which set off yellow Utility Disks. Utility Disks are explosive floppy disks and come in three different colors: Orange Disks work like Zonks, but explode when hit or when falling. Yellow Disks do not fall yet may be pushed in any direction, and explode when the Terminal is used. Red Disks can be carried and dropped when convenient, exploding seconds after.

Supaplex is the first Boulder Dash-like game that is not fully grid-based: while the playing field is an obvious grid, the objects do not "snap" from one grid position to another, but can be halfway or "in between" grid positions. This behavior has led to a number of well-known bugs that can be turned to the player's advantage, many of which need to be exploited to complete fan-made levels. For instance, by turning around quickly, the player can cause an enemy or rock to "bounce" off Murphy.

A partial screenshot showing a few elements of the game.

[edit] The authors

[edit] Michael W. Stopp's story

The graphics artist of Supaplex, Michael W. Stopp, commented on the development of Supaplex (read it at his homepage as well):

“

In the age of the Commodore 64 there was a game called Boulder Dash. Me and my schoolfriend Philip Jespersen adored it. We also adored the capabilities of Commodore's Amiga. But unfortunately we couldn't play Boulder Dash anymore. In summer 1988 we stopped the mourning and decided to make our own Amiga-version, at that time called "Think!". We added a number of new elements and gravitation. And we decided that there should be a lot of levels: 111 (but it still had to fit on a floppy disk!). Since Philip did the programming somebody had to construct the levels...guess who! The first 50 levels or so weren't too difficult, but there was still a long way to go; so this kept me on my toe for the next months.

But what was even worse, was the fact that you had to play all those levels, to see if they were possible. Every little change of code meant that you had to play them all over again. And there were constant changes... With 100 or more levels this meant playing to the point where it became difficult to distinguish between game and reality (you'd always feel as if there was a pair of scissors chasing you...). Eventually the game was finished and we had the silly idea that we might try to earn money with it. Surprisingly, the guys of Digital Integration thought the same and so they bought it from us. Due to a trademark conflict, it had to be renamed. That's how it became Supaplex.

And now, many years later and thanks to the internet, we found out that there was still a dedicated community of Supaplexers around. If you want to know more about Supaplex check out "Elmer Maarten's Supaplex-Homepage". He provides the most comprehensive and complete information about the game on the Internet. Find solutions to levels as well as new levels and additional software on his page.

”

[edit] Philip E. Jespersen's story

The programmer of Supaplex, Philip E. Jespersen, commented back in 1996 on the development of Supaplex:

“

... The Amiga Fever extended into my first "serious" project, which turned to be a computer game called "Think!" which was a BoulderDash inspired game. "Think!" which was eventually released Europe-wide by Digital Integration as "Supaplex" and was written 100% in Assembler and featured many nice programming tricks and high speed graphics. Digital Integration (Robin Heydon) also ported the game to MS-DOS, but I still prefer the Amiga Version, as its controls are better. As a requirement set by Digital Integration "Supaplex" had to run on any 512KB RAM Amiga machine, which turned out to be a serious problem, which only could be solved by writing own direct floppy disk read/write code (MFM coding was quite difficult as there was hardly any documentation available at all). I also had to setup my own stack management, because as the boot code of the floppy got loaded, no "official" stack was created by the operating system, which in any case got completely wiped out anyway by "Supaplex". Hence no Harddisk Version was ever released, although nowadays in would be no problem at all, as everybody today seems to have gigabytes of RAM (well, maybe a bit or two less)...

”

[edit] Supaplex clones

[edit] Megaplex

Megaplex is a clone of the original Supaplex which runs under Windows. As well as the original 111 levels, the player is able to create and share his own levels with a level editor. Megaplex is based on the exact improved Supaplex machine language code, which makes it 100% compatible with all original Supaplex levels and recorded demos, but it does not include any scoring information.

[edit] Other clones

Other Supaplex-like games include such titles as WinPlex, SubTerra, Igor (originally intended to be named "Supaplex-2"), Diamond Dash, and Rocks'n'Diamonds, New Supaplex. There is also a version for Macintosh, called Infotron.