Units

Skull Types

There are four types of Skull units. Three are enemies, one is friendly.

Young Skull (enemy)

  • Move speed: 3 tiles/s
  • Smaller than the average Skull.
  • Can not engage in summoning rituals with other Skulls.
  • Grey skin.
  • After being alive for 8-10 seconds, the Young Skull becomes either a Mummy or Ghoul Skull, picked randomly.

Mummy Skull (enemy)

  • Move speed: 1.5 tiles/s
  • Normal sized Skull.
  • Can engage in summoning ritual with Ghoul Skulls.
  • Blue skin.

Ghoul Skull (enemy)

  • Move speed: 1.5 tiles/s
  • Normal sized Skull.
  • Can engage in summoning ritual with Mummy Skulls.
  • Becomes charged after summoning ritual.
  • Pink skin.
  • Can summon Young Skulls when charged.

Ghost Skull (ally)

  • Move speed: 3 tiles/s
  • Normal sized Skull.
  • Kills other Skulls (except Ghost Skulls)
  • Terminates after killing 5 Skulls
  • Black skin.
  • Same vulnerabilities as all other Skulls.

Summoning Ritual

When two a Mummy Skull and Ghoul Skull cross paths, they will stop to perform a summoning ritual. Each Skull holds position in their respective 1x1 unit for 2 seconds. A completed ritual results in a charged Ghoul Skull.

If the player terminates the Mummy Skull before 2 seconds have passed, the Ghoul Skull is not charged.

  • During the summoning ritual, Skulls are unable to start rituals with other Skulls that might pass them by during the act. Furthermore...
  • … the Mummy Skull is unable to start rituals for 3 seconds after a ritual. ("after a ritual" being when the 2-second ritual process has finished).
  • … the Ghoul Skull is unable to start rituals for 6 seconds after a ritual. (alternatively set it to 2 seconds after finishing spawn-action instead)

Skull Spawning

Skull Ritual Spawn

A Charged Ghoul Skull will spawn a random number of 1-5 Young Skulls 2 seconds after the summoning ritual is finished.

  • Young Skulls are spawned in 0.5 second intervals
  • The Ghoul Skull will stop for 0.2 seconds for each spawn, but will continue moving between spawns.
  • Spawned Young Skulls will immediately start moving in a random direction.

Game Start

At the start of a game, the map will be pre-populated with 10 Young Skulls: 5 Mummy type, 5 Ghoul type.

Skull AI

The Skull will move forward until it hits an impassable object (wall, blockade etc.) or a multiple-choice path. It will then randomly choose to turn left (90), right (90) or back (180), then continue moving forward again.

(Can be made smarter, but Skull AI is intentionally simplistic for both code and gameplay reasons).