AlefBet
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Okay, my first feature request on the new forum.

How about an impurity in the tar where if Beethro stabs it with his sword, it turns all the tar it's connected to into tar babies. Beethro would have to be very careful about stabbing them when he could make sure he can deal with the ensuing hordes.

Beethro might choose to cut the tar mine into a segment by itself before hitting it so he can manage it. But the tar mine might be connected to a tar strand down a corridor he has to go down, so he'd have to use the mine to open the path up.

Or the tar mine could be connected to a chunk of tar that Beethro can't otherwise destroy, but must (using the mine) in order to open a black gate. So he'd have to leave it at least partially connected to the chunk when he hit it.

Tar mines might also be placed in such a way that Beethro would have to be careful about not accidentally hitting any of several, on a sortie through the tar.

Detail: If a tar mine turns in to a tar baby as a result of the stability rules of tar (not on a 2x2 square since Beethro stabbed next to it), it just disappears into a tar baby. It does not go off. If you want to make sure that can't happen, put a 2x2 block of tar mines in the tar, or put it on an edge next to a curve.

Well, guys, what do you think?

____________________________
I was charged with conspiracy to commit jay-walking, and accessory to changing lanes without signaling after the fact .

++Adam H. Peterson

DiMono
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Would tar mines set each other off? So you could create a situation like this:

--------------------
  TMTTTMTTTMTTTMTTTT
  MTMTMTMTMTMTMTMTMT
  TTTMTTTMTTTMTTTMTT
--------------------

where T is tar and M is tar mine, so hitting the first mine chains the rest and creates a lot of tar babies?

____________________________
Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

AlefBet
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DiMono wrote:
Would tar mines set each other off?

I think I wasn't clear. The mine turns the entire blob it's part of into tar babies, however far it goes. So if you have something like this:

         |TTTT|
---------+TTTT|
    TTTTTTTTTT|
  B-MTTTTTTTTT|
    TTTTTTTTTT|
---------+TTTT|
         |TTTT|

It would end up like this

         |::::|
---------+::::|
    ::::::::::|
   B-:::::::::|
    ::::::::::|
---------+::::|
         |::::|

[Edited by AlefBet on 03-17-2004 at 10:10 PM GMT: Formatting]

____________________________
I was charged with conspiracy to commit jay-walking, and accessory to changing lanes without signaling after the fact :blush.

++Adam H. Peterson

joker5
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I hope so. And DiMono? I'm just wondering... could you change your avatar back? It's kinda freaky.

~joker5

____________________________
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DiMono
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Ah, but that was the whole idea, my friend. Eventually I'm going to add some blue to the eyelids so it looks like it's the page rolling its eye, instead of some disjoint eye rolling itself.

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zex20913
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I'm pretty sure I understand the principle, but DiMono's question spurred one in my head.

Do tar mines count as tar squares? That is, if you hit one and there are more connected in the tar, would they become tar babies? I think they should, because if all the other tar is changed, the tar mine has little point.

Or, it could be considered a tar square, but NOT effected by other tar mines, allowing tar mothers to make more tar around them, so you would have to detonate all of the mines.

Another question I have is if a mother is in a tar mine tar blob, what happens to it at detonation? Will the mother die? Will there be some tar around the mother? Either way has potential; I think the latter has more.

I really like this idea, but I think it needs some fine-tuning just the same.

____________________________

AlefBet
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DiMono wrote:
Eventually I'm going to add some blue to the eyelids so it looks like it's the page rolling its eye....

So you want to be a "web page mother" of some sort? Everytime the eye rolls, your comment gets bigger?

____________________________
I was charged with conspiracy to commit jay-walking, and accessory to changing lanes without signaling after the fact .

++Adam H. Peterson

AlefBet
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Do tar mines count as tar squares? That is, if you hit one and there are more connected in the tar, would they become tar babies?

That is what I would envision.

Another question I have is if a mother is in a tar mine tar blob, what happens to it at detonation? Will the mother die? Will there be some tar around the mother? Either way has potential; I think the latter has more.

I envisioned the former, but it's open for debate.

I really like this idea, but I think it needs some fine-tuning just the same.

Glad to find approval in some measure.

____________________________
I was charged with conspiracy to commit jay-walking, and accessory to changing lanes without signaling after the fact .

++Adam H. Peterson

The_Red_Hawk
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Does a tar mine behave in the same way as other tar? i.e. it can only be in a 2x2 block unless connected to something else and all that. Is it possible to have tar mine babies?

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The red hawk's dance of death.

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joker5
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Freaky. I was just thinking it would be neat if you sort of faded the edges into blue like the board. This would be the first avatar centered around the board.

And this is really really powerful. It might be good for a few select puzzles but it can really bite you in the arse and it could REALLY help you. I think it maybe needs to have a range of some sort. Of course I'm probably wrong, but really, at most a square of 5*5(like an invisibility potion) would give the best of both worlds. You get tar removal, baby generation, non-always-overkill which can be avoided if desired via other mines if they detonate each other, and passability if you're just tunneling past.

~joker5

____________________________
Criminals, like other people, dislike being shot. ~FBI study on guns

www.badgerbadgerbadger.com

"Two words: Beam Waffle!" -me

AlefBet
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joker5 wrote:
And this is really really powerful. It might be good for a few select puzzles but it can really bite you in the arse and it could REALLY help you. I think it maybe needs to have a range of some sort. Of course I'm probably wrong, but really, at most a square of 5*5(like an invisibility potion) would give the best of both worlds. You get tar removal, baby generation, non-always-overkill which can be avoided if desired via other mines if they detonate each other, and passability if you're just tunneling past.

I tend to favor having it act on the entire blob. When you're playing, it's easier to see what will happen. Also, tar mines wouldn't have to be used with tar mothers, so when you design puzzles you can lay out the tar exactly how you want it to "detonate," connecting only what you want connected. (Of course, other possibilities open up with tar mothers combined with mines.)

You get, for the most part, the same capabilities either way (with being able to cut or lay tar manually), so I favor simplicity. Just my $0.02.

____________________________
I was charged with conspiracy to commit jay-walking, and accessory to changing lanes without signaling after the fact .

++Adam H. Peterson

DiMono
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For some reason I'm envisioning a puzzle when you need to let tar grow until it reaches a mine, fending off the tar babies generated in the process, until you can finally detonate the mine and ...kill more tar babies. That only works if tar mines don't grow tar around them though.

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Deploy the... I think it's a yellow button... it's usually flashing... it makes the engines go... WHOOSH!

AlefBet
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DiMono wrote:
For some reason I'm envisioning a puzzle when you need to let tar grow until it reaches a mine, fending off the tar babies generated in the process, until you can finally detonate the mine and ...kill more tar babies. That only works if tar mines don't grow tar around them though.

You can put a tar mine in a block of tar surrounded by broken wall to accomplish that:

###########################
#TT              TTTTTT o #
#TM*    |        TTT@@T   #
# *     B        ##########


# = wall
* = broken wall
T = tar
B = beethro
@ = tar mother
o = orb

The corridor is impassible unless you can use the mine on it.

Mike and I were talking about this. I generally wanted mines to be only in tar, but he has compelling arguments that they would be useful if tar could "grow to them" and you could use them.

____________________________
I was charged with conspiracy to commit jay-walking, and accessory to changing lanes without signaling after the fact .

++Adam H. Peterson

The_Red_Hawk
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Just an aesthetic question - what would they look like? Would they be different in or out of tar?

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

Nillo
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AlefBet wrote:

###########################
#TT              TTTTTT o #
#TM*    |        TTT@@T   #
# *     B        ##########

# = wall
* = broken wall
T = tar
B = beethro
@ = tar mother
o = orb

In that situation it would be very hard to survive when the mine is detonated. You would have to repeatedly cut the southern side of the tar so it does'nt get more than 3 squares wide, or else you would be swarmed.

____________________________
“Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the 'Ellie May,' a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.”

AlefBet
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Nillo wrote:
In that situation it would be very hard to survive when the mine is detonated. You would have to repeatedly cut the southern side of the tar so it does'nt get more than 3 squares wide, or else you would be swarmed.

Therein lies the puzzle. If a puzzle designer thinks that's too hard, they could put walls or broken walls in to make it grow differently, more constrained. But I believe it's solvable as is.

____________________________
I was charged with conspiracy to commit jay-walking, and accessory to changing lanes without signaling after the fact .

++Adam H. Peterson

DiMono
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Actually, it's pretty trivial to solve it as it is. Just stand under the left end of the wall, and when the tar expands so it all touches just cut across to the left, separating the tar, hide behind the crumbly wall and have at it.

That aside, I like the idea, and hope the Caravel team can find a way to work it in to 1.7

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Skylancer64
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What if you had something like this?

#########
#     TT
#   TTTT
#   MT
#   
#

Would both blobs turn into tar babies? They are touching and in a sense, "connected," but they look like distinct blobs in-game also.

[Edited by Skylancer64 on 03-20-2004 at 12:49 PM GMT: Fixed typo]

____________________________
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AlefBet
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Skylancer64 wrote:
What if you had something like this?

#########
#     TT
#   TTTT
#   MT
#   
#

Would both blobs turn into tar? They are touching and in a sense, "connected," but they look like distinct blobs in-game also.

Good question. I think the rules for "connectedness" should be consistent with those chosen for the display of tar. It might be a bit harder to program that way, but if blobs that happen to touch -- but don't really "connect" -- were to detonate each other, it would be confusing to the player.

Unless someone sees more puzzle potential the other way? Anyone? Bueller?

____________________________
I was charged with conspiracy to commit jay-walking, and accessory to changing lanes without signaling after the fact .

++Adam H. Peterson