Man it's been ages since I've been around here. But recently I had some free time and an old computer, so I played some DROD. Replayed some of the official holds and tried out a few others. One of the other holds I played was Salamander by Jutt. I was quite inspired, and thought, "
I could try doing something like that"
, so I started working on a new hold.
Here are the new monsters I came up with
The Controller
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A land dwelling human or humanoid creature. A way to describe it's movement would be flexible-beelining fleeing.
First it tries to move in the direction it would take him farthest away from Beethro. If that directions blocked, it'll try the second best, and so on. If the only possible moves would bring him closer, it'll stay in place. This fleeing pattern is different from both brained and unbrained roach queen movement.
There's one more thing to it's movement. Unlike roach queens, they aren't completely harmless. If they feel extremely threatened, they'll switch to attacking instead. Gameplay wise this means, that if Beethro is standing on a tile next to them, they'll attack him, instead of fleeing. So usually, unlike with roach queens, it's unsafe to stand next to them.
However that's not all that there is to these creatures. They also act as a form of brain. While at least one controller is present in the room, other monsters will behave differently.
The Animated Sword
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A floating sword with a mind of it's own. It has a pretty unique movement pattern. A way to describe it would be flexible-beelining with restrictions on witch direction it can go in.
The direction the animated sword faces plays an important role in it's movement, for it can only move in the three squares closest to it's facing direction. (Like the directions you can move off from force arrows, except the sideways directions) It'll check all three possible locations, and try them in order of witch is closest to Beethro. After moving, it'll face in the direction it moved.
If all of the possible moves would take it farther away from Beethro, then instead of moving, it'll turn in place by 45 degrees to try and face Beethro.
When controlled it can also move sideways. (So the directions it can move is exactly like the directions you can move off from a force arrow)
The Specter
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The specter is a ghost like creature, capable of walking on land and through walls (but not over pits or water). It's movement would be best described as snake-like.
Like snakes, it'll move only horizontally and vertically, switching preference every 5 turns. Unlike snakes, they don't necessarily have to move, so if they can't get closer to Beethro, they'll stay in place. Also unlike snakes, they'll move diagonally to kill Beethro if they are standing next to him.
When controlled, they switch preference every turn. (Like brained serpents)
The Controlled Golem
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The controlled golem is simply the golem, except when a controller is present, they behave differently.
When controlled, they'll have flexible-beelining movement. They can still be killed by a sword stab and will leave a pile of rocks behind.
When the last controller in the room dies, all golems will be stunned, and will not move for one turn, then they'll continue moving like regular golems.
Well those are the basic ideas. The hold itself is pretty much just started, so I don't really have anything to show just yet.
The main reasons I'm still posting are the following.
One is that I don't want to abandon this idea, but if I keep the hold to myself while working on it, it might just happen.
The other is that I'd like to ask for feedback on the ideas. Like I said, the hold is just started, so if changes are to be made, they should be made now.
