Attribution, rights and takedown
This site is an unofficial technical study of a game somebody else made and somebody else owns. This page names them, lists what is published here and on what basis, and says how to have any of it removed.
Removal requests
For a rights concern, email dan@dbhq.uk identifying the page, build or material concerned. I will suspend public access to the identified material promptly, normally within 24 hours of receiving the request, and confirm the action taken. Formal proof of ownership is not required before suspension. Suspension covers the page link and also the associated assets and copies under my control. I will contact you about any clarification or resolution before restoring access.
Write to the same address with corrections, which are welcome, or with anything else.
This is unofficial
- Not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by or connected to BBG Entertainment GmbH, First Star Software, Inc., Mastertronic, or anyone who worked on the original game.
- Non-commercial. Nothing here is for sale or monetised, and nobody is paid. There is no advertising, sponsorship, affiliate link, donation button or newsletter.
- One thing is counted, and you can switch it off. Visits are counted with Google Analytics (page views, a rough location and a device type) so I can see which pages are useful, and a notice on your first visit says so. "Opt out" on that notice, or "Cookie settings" at the foot of any page, turns it off: nothing is then loaded from Google, and the site makes no request to anywhere but this server. Nothing else is measured, for advertising or otherwise, and nothing is shared with advertisers. Your choice is kept in a cookie in your own browser, not in an account, and holds on every dbhq.uk site. The site works identically either way. How the counting works.
- This independent project claims no ownership of anything that belongs to somebody else, and nothing in it is an official release.
Who made Rockford
These credits come from strings in the MS-DOS executable, the most reliable source there is for them.
| Original release copyright notice | © 1987 First Star Software, Inc. |
| MS-DOS version by | Synergistic Software, Inc. |
| Programmed by | John Conley |
| Graphics by | David Schroeder, Walter Meyers and David Johnson |
| Game puzzles by | Fernando Herrera |
| Music by | Nick Scarim |
| Adapted from | the Amiga version |
| Based on | Boulder Dash by Peter Liepa with Chris Gray |
| Published by | Mastertronic |
They cover the PC version only. Rockford began on Arcadia Systems' Amiga-based arcade hardware; Icon Design ported it to the Amiga, and Synergistic Software ported that to DOS. The other versions credit other people, and Sources and earlier work goes into them.
The copyright notice records the original release. BBG Entertainment GmbH announced its acquisition of the Boulder Dash intellectual property from First Star Software in 2017. These acknowledgements do not purport to describe ownership of every separate component of the game.
Trade marks
Rockford and Boulder Dash are trade marks of BBG Entertainment GmbH. BBG's own legal notice states they are registered in the United States, the European Union and other countries.
They appear here to identify the game this research is about. Nothing here is licensed by BBG Entertainment or First Star Software, or offered as their product.
What this site publishes, and on what basis
| What | Whose | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| The written research: formats, offsets, engine rules, music structure | Ours | Facts and ideas are not protected expression |
| The C# engine, the tools, this website | Ours | Original work |
| VIP's soundtrack | New production over Nick Scarim's melody | A remix based on the 1987 theme. Credited to him, and no licence for it is claimed or held |
| VIP's sprites for the five 1988 worlds, and its title art | Generated for this project | Newly generated images. The sprites used the original 16 by 16 sprites as reference images, and generating them does not by itself clear rights in the original designs |
| VIP's cartoons: WIN, LOSE and TIME for each 1988 world, 90 frames | Generated for this project, from First Star's frames | Each frame was generated with the original frame as its reference image. That is a derivative use of First Star's art with no licence, on the same footing as VIP's sprites: if the sprites come down, so do these. VIP carries no file of the original cartoons |
| VIP's art for the five hidden worlds | Generated for this project, from Aleksi Sahala's drawings | Generated with his tiles and portraits as reference images, so derived from his work. Credited to him by name, with a link to his repository. His repository carries no licence. On 7th October 2026 he agreed by email to the use of his tilesets on condition of credit and a link, and VIP uses them on those terms, as the reference images its art is generated from. It comes down with his art if he asks |
| One screenshot of a cave in VIP's scuba world, on the Play page | Derived from Aleksi Sahala's drawings, as the row above | A picture of art VIP already serves, credited to him by name under the picture, with a link to his repository |
| The tiles and select-screen portraits for the five hidden worlds, in the faithful build | Aleksi Sahala's | Used unchanged and credited, with a link to his repository. On 7th October 2026 he agreed by email to this use, on condition of credit and a link. That is agreement in an email and not a licence; his repository carries none |
| The forty cave layouts and their quota and time tables, in both builds | First Star's | Copied from the original. Published in both builds since 22nd September 2026. No licence to redistribute them is claimed and none has been obtained |
| The original artwork, title screens and 1987 music, in the faithful build, and its WIN, LOSE and TIME cartoons | First Star's | Copied from the original. Published in the faithful build since 22nd September 2026, the cartoons since 12th October 2026, and shown in two screenshots on the Play page. No licence to redistribute any of it is claimed and none has been obtained |
The first two rows rest on the distinction drawn in SAS Institute v World Programming, where the Court of Justice held that copyright in a program does not protect its functionality, its programming language or its data-file formats as such. That distinction does not authorise copying protected code, artwork, music or level content, and the research, the engine and the generated assets each need to be considered on their own.
The cave layouts do not rest on that. Both builds include them and their quota and time tables, copied from the game, because no playable version can run without them. That material is separate from the engine written here, and no licence to redistribute it is claimed. It is why both builds sat behind a password from 16th to 22nd September 2026, and the password came off on 22nd September without a licence. No permission has been obtained: a request was sent to BBG Entertainment GmbH on 16th September 2026 and has not yet been answered. Any of it will be suspended on request, as set out above.
What is and is not offered here
The original disk images and the executable are not offered here, packed or unpacked, and nothing links to anywhere that offers them. The original DOS release itself is not available from this site.
Both playable builds are public, from 22nd September 2026. So that the game can run, each sends the original cave data to the browser that opens it, and the faithful build sends the original artwork and music too. Neither hands out the release as it shipped, only what it needs to play. VIP serves none of the original's art files: its sprites, title art and cartoons are redrawn, and the release assembly removes the original's sheets from it.
What was made here, and what you may do with it
- The writing on this site is mine and may be quoted with attribution and a link. That permission does not extend to any third-party material reproduced here.
- The engine, the format readers and the tools were written for this project and are public at github.com/dbhq-uk/rockford-engine under the MIT licence, without any of the original game or of this project's art and audio.
- VIP's sprites for the five 1988 worlds were generated with an image model using the original 16 by 16 sprites as reference images, and its cartoons the same way from the original frames. Its title art was generated from a written description. All of them are newly generated, and that does not by itself establish clearance of rights in the original designs or characters. Rights in generated images are themselves unsettled between jurisdictions, and no claim is made here beyond having made them.
- VIP's hidden worlds were generated the same way from Aleksi Sahala's drawings, so they are derived from his work and are not this project's own; the terms are in the next section.
- VIP's soundtrack was generated on Suno for this project in two cuts, vocal and instrumental, and the vocal cut plays by default. It is a remix based on the 1987 theme by Nick Scarim: his melody, new production. Suno's Pro tier assigns whatever rights Suno holds in the output, which cannot include rights in the underlying composition. Suno does not warrant that copyright vests in the output at all, and no claim is made here that this music is cleared.
Other people's work used here
- Inter by Rasmus Andersson and JetBrains Mono by JetBrains, both under the SIL Open Font Licence, subset and self-hosted.
- The five hidden worlds in the faithful build - scuba, player, music, luck and miner - are drawn with Aleksi Sahala's tilesets and select-screen portraits, from asahala/Rockford-Patcher, used unchanged. His repository carries no licence. He was told when they went in, and on 7th October 2026 he agreed by email to this use on condition of credit and a link to his repository, as given here. That agreement is not a licence, and they come down if he asks.
- VIP's versions of the same five worlds were generated with his tiles and portraits as reference images, so they are derived from his drawings and are credited to him for that reason, on the same terms of his 7th October agreement: use of his tilesets, with credit and a link to his repository. If his art comes down, VIP's hidden worlds come down with it.
- Earlier work on the game is credited in detail on Sources and earlier work. The oldest is Rocky Clone, a public-domain Amiga game from 1989 by Laurence Vanhelsuwé, the Amiga port's programmer, which plays the same forty caves. The others are the Rockford Remake Project by A. Sahala, Camoto and ModdingWiki by Adam Nielsen, and the cicodis translation by Gabriel Valky.
Contact
Daniel Grimes, who built this site: dan@dbhq.uk. One person reads that address and answers it himself.