NiroZ
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1302
Registered: 02-12-2006
IP: Logged
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Contestant #1 (0)
Name: Legged Queen
Description: The Legged Queen is a brown behemoth, it's torso and head occupying one tile, with each of it's giant brown legs covering a tile two spaces away, spindly beige bones connecting them to it's core - which seems to be on some kind of unnatural swivel.
Movement: The Legged Queen (of which there can only be one per room) consists of itself, and eight legs. The legs start out in the 'Knight' positions relative to the Queen's main body:
*L*L*
L***L
**T**
L***L
*L*L*
The Queen moves orthogonally only, moving it's forward-facing legs on one move, then those forward and to it's sides on the next, then the torso on a third, then the rear-side legs on the fourth, and finally the far rear legs. If something would prevent either leg from moving, the Queen does not move until both legs can move - unless this something is a wall, arrow, monster, Beethro, or similar, in which case it will move it's legs back to the neutral (chess-knight) position, then start a new movement. (It is entirely possible that this new movement will be in the same direction.)
The Queen will always move if it can do so, except that it will always stop in the last five ticks before a spawn cycle if it is in it's 'neutral' position. It will favor starting a move to the left or right on ticks 5-9 and 15-19, up or down on 10-14 and 20-24, and directly away from Beethro (favoring vertical movement) on 0-4. If it cannot follow this timing rule, it will make whatever move it can, favoring (but not nessesarily) moving away from Beethro. The Queen moves after any other monster in play.
An exception to this: When the Queen's torso turns red (see Interaction, below), all legs will pull back into it's normal chessboard position in one move, and it will then skitter (orthogonally only, following the same choosing rules as usual except that it will move directly away from Beethro on 25-29), all legs and the torso moving in one tick if possible. If any one leg (or the torso) can't move, it does not move at all.
Another exception: If the Queen's torso is orthogonally adjacent to any orthogonal tiles, it will choose one of those tiles to move along above all else (followed by the north-south versus east-west timing, followed by avoiding Beethro).
Anything that would prevent a Snake from moving onto a tile will prevent a Legged Queen's legs or torso from moving onto it.
Interaction: Legged Queens do not react to Brains or most other monsters, except that their legs and torso take up tiles as those monsters would.
It's legs, however, count as walls for the purposes of Seep movement locations. Further, the Seep can automatically move with the leg if it does not move off of it (so as to avoid getting killed by moving onto an invalid tile). Seeps on Legged Queen legs effectively turn them into moving seep locks (my name for a puzzle widget of a Seep locked into a single tile, able to strike Beethro if he gets to close, but otherwise unable to move).
To kill a Legged Queen, Beethro must first get it's torso low enough that he can actually strike it's head. While he can easily reach around to whatever side it's facing, he can't really swing it upwards. To lower the Queen, he simply needs to weaken it's supports. If his sword moves onto a Seep-occupied leg, the Seep is removed. If it moves onto an unoccupied Leg, that leg turns red (to indicate it has been sliced), weakening it and bringing the torso down a little. Slicing all eight legs turns the Queen red (sending it into skittering, as described above in Movement), at which point Beethro can simply move his sword onto the Torso to finish it off (all nine pieces explode bloodily, the torso as it was struck and the legs outwardly, at the same time). However, if a Spawn Cycle concludes while the torso is red, all eight legs as well as the Queen's torso return to it's normal beige color, and it returns to normal motion. (If the torso is not red, the legs do not return to beige.)
The Slayer's hook does not effect the legs, but can kill the queen if the Queen is red, as well as seeps in the legs.
If a bomb's explosion strikes all eight legs, the Legged Queen is slain instantly - otherwise, all legs stricken are reddened (but the torso is not).
The Legged Queen is also, well, a Queen - on a spawn cycle, it spawns roach eggs on orthogonally adjacent tiles. These are identical to normal queen's roach eggs other than only spawning in fours.
Puzzle potential:
Four immediately obvious puzzles I can think of with this:
* Tight, closed quarters arena with a Slayer and several Seeps. This forces Beethro to play keep-away from the Slayer, kill the Seeps, then finally finish off the Queen itself.
* Block it in with arrows on every leg (you only need eight with proper placement - block four legs from moving horizontally outward and four more vertically outward) and you have a stationary roach generator with all eight tiles around it open. Adding seeps to the legs makes it a guarded generator.
This will prevent rear legs from moving, always keeping it in an ultimately neutral position.
* Place it in a room full of pre-rotated mimics who are prevented from moving somehow, with no access for Beethro - this forces you to kill it using timed rotations, and possibly movement around this room to keep it moving towards the mimics.
* It's slower motion pattern presumably can present many possibilities for timing puzzles - say, putting the Queen itself on a narrow track of Orthogonal tiles, and causing a roach to spawn in an unreachable location when it reaches the end of that track.
Advantages:
* It's got plenty of obvious puzzle potential (If I can think of four general categories, there's interest to be had from more evil thinkers)
* Drawn right, it can look quite impressive, making a suitable 'giant boss' enemy to fit alongside Slayer and Neather.
* It introduces many new possible widgets.
* Non-brain reactive creature introduces some interesting possible new reactions with brains.
Disadvantages:
* Non-brain reactive creature changes one common DROD rule.
* In bad designs, can be difficult or impossible to kill, but not seem like it.
* It's unusual complexity prohibits there being more than one in a room (otherwise, you introduce the possibility of having two tangled together, which looks at best highly unrealistic and at worst stupid).
Misc: Not much.
Variations:
* A Legged Queen that always skitters
* A Legged Queen that can move each leg independently as long as they stay within three tiles of it
* A Legged Queen that can stomp on Beethro, perhaps combined with the previous gimmack (though Seeps can effectively create this type of Queen)
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emoticon as its graphic, you could rate it lower than if the other person suggested 
as the graphic. 
