Nineteen characters for Muncher Lab,
in five themes. Every one is drawn in code, made up for this game, and
moving the way it would in the maze. Under each is what it would DO:
for a hero, how sugar treats it; for a bad guy, how it hunts you.
The themes are ready-made games, but nothing is stuck to its theme:
any hero can go up against any bad guys. The little black square on
each picture is the size it would be in the maze.
Your picks:none yet — press Pick on the ones you like
Ideas to build the game round
The sugar meter
Your muncher has to eat sugar to keep going. A meter drains as you
run; every cookie tops it up. Let it run dry and you go sleepy and
slow. Keep it in the sweet spot and you are at your best. Cram it
with cupcakes and you hit SUGAR OVERLOAD: very fast, a bit out of
control — and then the crash. Each hero sits on that meter
differently, which is what makes them play differently.
Floors for the editor
Arrows — conveyor belts that speed up whoever runs with them: you, the bad guys, or both.
Ice — you slide until you hit something.
Crumbly floor — becomes a hole after you cross it, so you cannot come back that way.
Hiding spots — a bush or a box: while you are in it, nothing can see or hear you.
Crunchy crumbs — noisy to walk on; the bad guys that hear will hear you.
Holes and portals, numbered, one way or both ways — and each bad guy can or cannot use them.
Things to pick up
Bait — drop a cookie and the greedy bad guys go for it instead of you.
A key that opens a gate somewhere else in the maze.
A friend in a cage — let them out for an extra life.
A bell — a trap: ring it and every sleeping bad guy wakes up.
Whole levels with a twist
Lights out — you can only see a little way round you.
One big boss — a giant bad guy two squares wide that only fits the wide roads.
Escort — a slow friend follows you, and the bad guys want them.
What the editor would ask about each bad guy
Name and look — one of the pictures above.
Speed, wandering and chasing.
How it finds you — sees you down a straight line (how far), hears you (through how many walls), smells you anywhere, or none of those.
What it does then — chases round corners, or charges in a straight line until a wall and then sits dazed (for how long).
How long it remembers before it gives up and wanders off.
How it wanders — at random, on a patrol, asleep until woken, or just dopey.
Which portals and holes it can use.
A thief? — goes for your power-ups and uses them itself.
A bad guy is set up once and given a name; a level then just says
who is in it. So "Pouncer" is the same cat on every level he is on,
and a level can be designed round what he does.