Difference between revisions of "Freeze Ray"

Revision as of 10:57, 22 July 2006

Fired like a standard gun, this weapon blasts 'ice' for several seconds in the direction aimed. When this ice beam comes into contact with a worm, that worm is frozen in a cube of ice. When fired at land, a thin sheet of ice forms on the land and makes it slippery.

Could also be used to freeze barrels, making them harmlessly shatter when shot.

Freezing another worm should not be a problem when programming. This concept is already in the game as the Freeze weapon, which is used on your own team. Making the land slippery in certain areas though, despite this feature being aviable in early Worms games, could present a problem. In earlier Worms game the entire level was made slippery to worms that walked on it. But this weapon sees it localised, where only certain sections (i.e. those fired at with the Freeze Ray) are slippery. This might not be easy.

When you use Freeze, your entire team is frozen, and invulnerable to enemy attack (except drowning if the land beneath is shot). When it is your turn again, your team unfreezes so that you can use them. It's this that presents a problem in the Freeze Ray.

Obviously, for this to even count as a weapon it must damage the enemy in some way, either directly through health loss, or strategically. But so far it seems to do no more than protect the enemy, until he unfreezes when it's his turn.

So the solution must be to prevent his worm(s) unfreezing when it is convenient for him, as similar weapons in other games are orginally designed for. But if the enemy player can't use his worm, what happens? Does he just lose his turn? This could be very frustrating if his worms get repeatedly frozen. One possibly solution is to prevent him using the frozen worm but allow him to use other worms on his team, but what if he has no unfrozen worms? This weapon will require some careful thought if it is to be implemented as a useful, tactical weapon.

The Freeze Ray is everyone's favourite fictional and comical weapon. The mechanics of the weapon might present problems, as described above, but the concept would make it a good addition to Worms.