Mattcrampy
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These monsters are believed in some circles to be toys the Neather dragged down with him to play with in the dungeon. They grew sentient, and left after the Neather turned his attention to the dungeon's monsters.

Of course, that could just be a load of bull. Who ever heard of toys growing brains?

Since I ballsed this up so badly last time:

Toys move in a direction until they hit anything. Walls, doors, creatures, other toys, mimics, tar, pits, crumbly walls, anything. One exception is Beethro's sword - it goes straight through. It can run Beethro over, though.

When they hit something, they stop moving, and begin to rotate clockwise until the spawn counter reaches 0. They will then stop rotating and start moving again as above.

Beethro can only kill the spinning form, by hitting it with his sword. The moving form passes through it.

Toys do not collapse trapdoors. They are not aware of Beethro, usually, and are not affected by invisibility potions.

If there is a brain in the room, instead of rotating clockwise, the toys will turn to face Beethro. No other part of their behaviour changes.

I hope that's clearer.

Matt

[Edited by Mattcrampy on 07-31-2003 at 04:27 PM]

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Scott
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I'm not sure what you mean exactly. Does a toy just stand still when it runs into a wall till it gets to turn 30? What happens when it runs into something and that is then removed. Say it runs into a roach and the next turn the roach moves does it continue to move?

zex20913
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Questions.

1. What of invisibility? It sounds as if the monsters don't sense whether Beethro is in the room or not. Would they move? Turn?
2. Why make them stop so long to turn? They just, eventually (and unless brained) turn two counter-clockwise.
3. Can tar smother them? (I hope not...)
4. Does it treat pits as walls?
5. Would it treat Beethro's sword as a wall?
6. Perhaps I didn't see the guise of the monster at first...does this monster take up many squares, or are they individual 1X1 creatures?
7. Do they have an overall ubertoy mentality? It sounds as if one stops, they all stop.

Overall, I don't think I like this monster. In small numbers, it is very easy to kill, and to predict where it moves to. In large numbers too. They sound far too easy to avoid or stop. If they are collective though, as may be your intention, I would have to give it more thought.

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Sokko
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It's time once again for Sokko's ASCII Drawings! I think I know what you're picturing here.

   W                 (#2) W
  W                      tW
 W         (#1)          |W
W       -t                W
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Here we see a U-shaped wall section. Two toys, #1 and #2, are heading in the directions indicated by the lines (they are facing west and south, respectively). The spawn counter has counted down to 15 so far.

   W                      W
  W                       W
 W                        W
W     -t                 tW
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW|W

Now the spawn counter is at 13. Toy 2 has moved all the way south and has hit the wall; it is still facing south. Toy 1 has a little ways to go until it hits the wall.

   W                      W
  W                       W
 W                        W
W   -t                  -tW
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Spawn counter is at 11 now. Toy 2 has taken two turns to rotate clockwise so it is not facing a wall anymore. Toy 1 has moved two spaces west again.

   W                      W
  W                       W
 W                        W
-t                      -tW
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Spawn counter at 7. Toy 2 is still waiting for the counter to reach zero. Toy 1 has finally reached the wall.

   W                      W
  W                       W
 W/                       W
Wt                      -tW
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Spawn counter at 4. Now both toys are waiting for it to reach zero; Toy 1 has taken three turns to rotate so it is not facing a wall. It will go northeast.

   W                      W
  W/                      W
 Wt                       W
W                      -t W
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

The spawn counter is now at 0 and the toys have started moving again. Note that this wall formation could easily end right here; Toy 1 would just continue on in the same direction until it hit a wall.


This would be great with one crucial difference: The toys cannot be destroyed directly by Beethro. Instead, you must trap them out in the open, because if the spawn counter runs out and the toy has still not reached a wall and rotated yet, it will die. The toys can be blocked by anything, including creatures and Beethro's sword; doors count as walls, but by using tricky orb-whacking you might be able to force them to rotate in such a way that they would have no chance of getting to a wall the next time they move.

The only way they would be a threat to Beethro would be if he was standing right in their path with his sword pointing away from them, which would be pretty stupid. Then again, I can see some interesting puzzles with "sword arrows" here...

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Mattcrampy
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Right, from the top:

I'm not sure what you mean exactly. Does a toy just stand still when it runs into a wall till it gets to turn 30? What happens when it runs into something and that is then removed. Say it runs into a roach and the next turn the roach moves does it continue to move?

When the toy can't move, it starts turning. If the obstacle is removed, it continues to turn until the spawn counter reaches 0, when it starts moving again.

1. What of invisibility? It sounds as if the monsters don't sense whether Beethro is in the room or not. Would they move? Turn?
2. Why make them stop so long to turn? They just, eventually (and unless brained) turn two counter-clockwise.
3. Can tar smother them? (I hope not...)
4. Does it treat pits as walls?
5. Would it treat Beethro's sword as a wall?
6. Perhaps I didn't see the guise of the monster at first...does this monster take up many squares, or are they individual 1X1 creatures?
7. Do they have an overall ubertoy mentality? It sounds as if one stops, they all stop.

1) The toys have no idea that Beethro is in the room. Invisibility potions then have no effect on the toys. Nevertheless, you can use invisibility potions, say, to manipulate roaches into a position to block it.

2) You misunderstand - they wait until the spawn counter reaches 0, as Sokko demonstrated.

3) No, tar just grows around it. of course, it can't go anywhere.

4) By the same sort of magic that makes it move, they won't go over cliffs. It treats walls and cliffs the same.

5) No, that's not my intention. It goes straight through.

6) 1x1 squares.

7) No, not really. If one stops, it rotates. Others will stop at other times and rotate. Clever level design will soon having them going in all different directions.

This would be great with one crucial difference: The toys cannot be destroyed directly by Beethro. Instead, you must trap them out in the open, because if the spawn counter runs out and the toy has still not reached a wall and rotated yet, it will die. The toys can be blocked by anything, including creatures and Beethro's sword; doors count as walls, but by using tricky orb-whacking you might be able to force them to rotate in such a way that they would have no chance of getting to a wall the next time they move.

The only way they would be a threat to Beethro would be if he was standing right in their path with his sword pointing away from them, which would be pretty stupid. Then again, I can see some interesting puzzles with "sword arrows" here...

Your ASCII art is right on the money here, Sokko.

Right, I'm going back and clarifying the description. If you make them die by being out in the open, it means you have to ensure it has 31 spaces to move to kill it, which lessens the puzzle possibilities. It goes straight through Beethro's sword when moving.

Perhaps, instead, it's invincible, but it dies when it hits a wall. If Beethro hits it with his while it's spinning, it reverses direction.

Matt



[Edited by Mattcrampy on 07-31-2003 at 04:29 PM GMT: credit where credit's due.]

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zex20913
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I'm still a tad confused. You said Sokko's explanation of the turning was right, but in your clarification it's still unclear.

Do they turn until they face a space where they can move to (Sokko's explanation)? Or do they turn clockwise, and keep turning clockwise until the counter reaches 0 and then they move whichever way they are facing?

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Mattcrampy
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Sorry, I misread Sokko's attempting to clarify.

My intention was that if it was facing a wall when the spawn counter reached 0, it would run into it and start spinning again. This is probably not workable though, so instead I'll propose that if they face a wall when the spawm counter reaches 0, they continue to rotate until they're not facing a wall, then they start to move.

Matt

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Sokko
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He's talking about the toy being "too late" to finish rotating by the time the spawn counter reaches 0. In that case, it will just keep on rotating until it finds an open position and shoot off right away.

If you don't like the thought of having to have 30 spaces of empty tiles lined up to kill one, then halve the counter; they would die on either 15 or 30, and move away from walls after rotating on those same numbers. This way you only need 15 spaces of empty tiles to kill one by leaving it out in the open. I really like this idea of having to keep them away from the walls because it offers lots of puzzle potential.

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Mattcrampy
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Certainly, 15 would be fine. It's a bit more practical for room design.

Matt

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