Boulder Dash 40th Anniversary - All These Years Later, Those Diamonds Won't Collect Themselves
It shouldn’t be a surprise for me to say I believe the games industry should be doing a better job of celebrating its history, especially when it comes down to acknowledging those games that don’t fit the common US and Japan-focused narrative that is presented to us.
So Boulder Dash 40th Anniversary’s release sounds like it should be right down my alley, right? For the most part, it is, it’s just it could have done so much more to celebrate this milestone.
Its biggest strength is just how much Boulder Dash you get, with over 300 caves included for you to run about in hunting down those diamonds, whilst avoiding falling rocks, along with the other traps that will catch you out.
These include a tutorial which slowly introduces its features, letting you understand the role gravity plays in tripping you up, and how best to approach the hazards on offer. I can’t help but feel that, regardless of whether you’re new to the series or someone returning to it after a lengthy absence, it gives you a good grounding of what to expect as you scramble through them all.
At which point you’re let loose on the rest of the levels. Most are brand new, coming from both the developers and some fan-submitted sets. These fans have been producing levels for the original game’s Construction Kit from back in the day. The fact that Boulder Dash 40th Anniversary continues this tradition brings a smile to my eye, too.
The final group of levels is a recreation of those from the original 1980s releases, with the option to choose a skin based on a number of vintage computers on which the original games were released.
It’s unsurprising to say Boulder Dash 40th Anniversary is great to play, thanks to the responsive controls in moving Rockford, your hero character, about. What also helps is the screen layout showing enough of the surrounding area to help you plan movements. Boulder Dash is the kind of puzzle game where it’s not only about being fast with them to avoid triggering a rockfall that’ll kill or trap you, but also being quick thanks to some savage time limits.
As much as I appreciate the visual style, I wish they’d not gone so far with the lighting effects in some of the levels, as they made things harder to distinguish. Sometimes it’s better to push for clarity over vibes when defining a game’s art style.
A decision I absolutely applaud is removing lives. Having the freedom to retry levels as often as you want, or jump to those you’ve unlocked, does a lot to save you from frustration when stuck, which I feel is great for newer players. It goes a long way to making this the best way to experience Boulder Dash.
Now that’s an easy sell if you have a nostalgic connection to the original, if they don’t trigger memories of intense frustration, but it’s sadly another story for those without said connections.
This is probably the biggest disappointment in calling this Boulder Dash 40th Anniversary, as it doesn’t offer anything to celebrate that milestone. I’ve probably been spoiled by other interactive documentaries and collections released over the last few years, which have gone beyond simply giving you a set of games wrapped in an emulator.
But as we see the top-end of the industry try to replace game-making creatives with the slop machine, showing the stories of the humans who have created these enduring games feels all the more important.
I don’t know about you, but I’d love to have seen some archive material included about the development of the original game. Or perhaps some interviews or materials giving the original developers a chance to reflect upon what they created all those years ago, and how it’s endured since then.
Perhaps a neat feature would have been to include some commentary or such from the fans who contributed those level sets. I would honestly be fascinated to see the perspectives of those who cut their teeth with that original Construction Kit and continued creating new levels for so long.
I’m sure there’s plenty more that could have been included to give us a real sense of why Boulder Dash has endured for 40 years, and I think it would have made for a fantastic way to introduce it to a new audience beyond those with that nostalgic connection to the series and those original games.
It’s a shame as the game goes a long way to making it more approachable for new players with the tutorial, but without context, it’s hard to draw those players lacking the sense of curiosity. Which at 40 years is something that’s important thanks to the nature of changing audiences as gaming continues to widen its audience, despite everything else going on in the industry right now.
Despite the lack of any historical context, Boulder Dash 40th Anniversary is a solid celebration of the mechanics behind this iconic action/puzzle game, making it well worth trying out if you’re in need of a puzzling fix.
Boulder Dash 30th Anniversary was covered on PC with code kindly supplied by the publisher.
