Oneiromancer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2936
Registered: 03-29-2003
IP: Logged
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Digging Serpents (0)
...or perhaps a better name, like Tunneling Worms or something like that. For this post I will call them "diggers" for short.
Diggers are just like serpents, except that they can dig through walls. Normal walls take 5 turns to dig through, during which time the digger shortens like a normal serpent. So a sufficiently thick wall can still kill a digger, but a 1 block thick wall will let through all but the shortest diggers. Breakable walls can be destroyed by the serpent on the first turn, much like Beethro with his sword in front of him. Pits still kill serpents like normal, as do orbs. Diggers don't like to kill other monsters, but will if they have no other choice. It takes just one turn to eat a monster (i.e., no shortening of the digger). Diggers can't eat other diggers or serpents. An unbrained digger will only dig into a wall if it has been lured into a dead end. It will treat breakable walls as empty spaces for the purpose of chasing Beethro. Note that if a digger is trapped against itself and a wall, like say in a 2 square wide corridor, it will try to dig through the wall rather than die on itself. When brains are around, diggers will be able to calculate the least damaging way of getting through walls to Beethro, if he is unreachable by any other method (self-preservation comes first, then killing Beethro). If a brained digger is stuck agains a wall and itself, it will decide if it is better to wait or to dig.
That leaves doors, statues (those 2x2 pieces), and tar. For doors, I think it would probably be best if they were unaffected by diggers, but an option could be to just have the digger open the door to be reopened if possible by an orb. It seems to me that statues are not as strong as walls, but stronger than breakable walls...perhaps they dig through every other turn? Finally, you could argue that tar is like a creature, and so the digger avoids it, but I think it would be more interesting to have the digger carve its way through the tar. If it is a square that Beethro would normally be able to break, then it can go through in one turn, but if it is a curved portion of tar then it can go through just like a normal wall (5 turns). This is an interesting way of getting rid of previously unpassable tar.
I'm sure I missed some subtle thing, but there you go. Critique away!
Game on,
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"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams
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/dy