BoyBlue
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 547
Registered: 03-25-2006
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File: SokoGen-XSokoban.hold (27.3 KB)
Downloaded 79 times.
License: Public Domain

As everyone knows, the problem with Sokoban is that it's just too easy. But there's a solution: handicap yourself by emulating it in a game engine that wasn't designed for Sokoban! Many people have done this before, and I'm happy to do my part.

Here's a hold containing the Sokoban puzzles that are included with XSokoban (which is allegedly in the public domain). It was generated more-or-less automatically by a conversion program I've been working on. I'm not planning to submit this hold for official publication.

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[Last edited by BoyBlue at 03-28-2009 05:56 PM : New version]

Kwakstur
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 385
Registered: 05-05-2006
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Glad to see you again, BB!

This is neat, although I'm not a fan of the Wraithwing player role; it's a little hard to see. You definitely do want WW to be the base role (so that you don't activate the PPs) but maybe you could instead make it be a WW character with custom GFX? Nothing copyrighted, of course.

____________________________
Also known as ExpHP everywhere else.

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[Last edited by Kwakstur at 03-07-2009 06:52 PM]

BoyBlue
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 547
Registered: 03-25-2006
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I'll entertain suggestions, or contributions for character or portrait graphics. This hold is basically a joke, but I'm not quite bored with it yet, and would like to make it look better. I'll at least vary the graphical theme in different rooms. And if I can figure out the original authors and origins of the puzzles, I'll credit them.

If anyone knows of some more Sokoban puzzles that are free enough to use in this way, and that they'd like to play in DROD for some reason, I could probably convert them to a hold like this pretty easily.

(By the way, I also have a more normal hold in the pipeline, which should be ready any moment now.)

brian_s
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 587
Registered: 05-27-2004
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I am a bit of a sokoban fan and decided to download this hold. I immediately recognized levels 1-50 from a sokoban game I got back in 1996. The author distributed it as freeware, so if you want I can email it to you.

BoyBlue
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 547
Registered: 03-25-2006
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Here's a new version, with cosmetic changes.

I don't want to scare anyone off -- I'm confident that it's perfectly safe to import this hold, but because this version also has Data IDs, Character IDs, and scripts that use them to deal with, I'm slightly less confident about its correctness than I was about the first version. I'm posting hold files after exporting them from TCB, not the originals, so even if there were problems, they may have been filtered out by TCB. Still, let this be a reminder to back up your DROD data periodically.


(brian_s: Thanks for the offer; I don't think I need that, but I'll let you know if I change my mind.)

Tim
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1979
Registered: 08-07-2004
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BoyBlue wrote:
And if I can figure out the original authors and origins of the puzzles, I'll credit them.

from http://www.geocities.com/erimsever/sokoban1.htm:
Copyright © 1982-2006 Hiroyuki Imabayashi
Copyright © 1982 by Thinking Rabbit Inc. Japan. Commercial 50 levels are copyright Thinking Rabbit Inc., in Takarazuka town, Japan.
Copyright © 1989,1990,2001-2006 Falcon Co.,Ltd. all rights reserved. Sokoban is trademark or registered trademark of Falcon Co.,Ltd. in Japan and other countries.

Joseph L. Traub collected another 40 levels for XSokoban.

As for XSokoban, the game program is probably in the public domain. The puzzles however, are not.

____________________________
The best way to lose customers is to let little kids running loose on a forum with too many mod points.

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[Last edited by Tim at 03-11-2009 12:01 PM]

BoyBlue
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 547
Registered: 03-25-2006
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Thanks, Tim, I'll review this, and probably update the hold in some way.

If the puzzle authors have not actually renounced their copyrights, they've done a pretty good approximation of it. XSokoban has been declaring these puzzles to be public domain for at least 1.5 decades now.

BoyBlue
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 547
Registered: 03-25-2006
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I uploaded a new version, attached to the first message above, which has some more cosmetic changes: informational scrolls, and different graphical themes for some rooms.