Well, okay, they don't have to be actual balls...they could be really stupid creatures...like lemmings or something.
The only creature currently in DROD that has the possibility of moving uninfluences by Beethro is the serpent, and then only if Beethro isn't in line of sight. This is kind of unusual, isn't it?
Now, there are lots of puzzle games with "
monsters"
that move around and don't directly threaten your character, although you still die if you touch them. These usually have some kind of pattern to them: they just bounce back and forth, or they always turn left if they hit something, or always turn right, etc. But in DROD...you can kill these monsters. Heh, heh, heh...
Okay simple example: a square room, with several of these RDBs moving around the perimeter. Pretty easy for Beethro to kill or avoid them, right? Well, we have several options here:
1. Other monsters in the room. Say, a goblin. In the course of manipulating the goblin to give it the justice it so rightly deserves, it blocks the path of one of the RDBs. Suddenly the RDB is on a whole new trajectory. Perhaps dangerous to Beethro, perhaps not. Or perhaps this could be a puzzle, that one has to make the RDBs go into a certain passageway.
2. Beethro might only be able to kill the RDBs from the back three squares. If this was the case then it might be evil to give them the same Beethro detection as the serpents. Oops, something is chasing you that can't get caught up on its own tail and won't die in a dead end. But if you can get around the back of it...
I'm sure there are more ideas for simple applications of the RDBs. A more puzzle-oriented thing would be a maze where Beethro controls the doors to let an RDB escape. There are levels like this with roaches already in DROD, so this would just be thinking about it a different way. You could even do a level 6-type level where you had to do the same maze with different creatures following different rules (even a serpent...that would really suck, except you'd have to figure out a reason to want it to escape).
I think my brain just emptied out. What do y'all think?
Game on,
[Edited by Oneiromancer on 06-20-2003 at 08:38 PM GMT: Added devil emoticon, thanks Schik!]
____________________________
"
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
