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6.5 Guard: E>G

Enemies in the game are collectively referred to as “guards”. The couple attributes that set guards aesthetically apart from one another are: type and style. The former is the most significant in the sense that it determines the actual graphical shape of the guard,46 while the latter determines only his coloring. The five guard types are: GUARD, FAT_GUARD, VIZIER, SKELETON and SHADOW. They have 8 different styles, given by integers ranging from 0 to 7.47 These are summarized in the table below.

 Style    GUARD  FAT_GUARD    VIZIER  SKELETON   SHADOW
0
mininim-figures/guard-0
mininim-figures/fat-guard-0
mininim-figures/vizier-0
mininim-figures/skeleton-0
mininim-figures/shadow-0
1
mininim-figures/guard-1
mininim-figures/fat-guard-1
mininim-figures/vizier-1
mininim-figures/skeleton-1
mininim-figures/shadow-1
2
mininim-figures/guard-2
mininim-figures/fat-guard-2
mininim-figures/vizier-2
mininim-figures/skeleton-2
mininim-figures/shadow-2
3
mininim-figures/guard-3
mininim-figures/fat-guard-3
mininim-figures/vizier-3
mininim-figures/skeleton-3
mininim-figures/shadow-3
4
mininim-figures/guard-4
mininim-figures/fat-guard-4
mininim-figures/vizier-4
mininim-figures/skeleton-4
mininim-figures/shadow-4
5
mininim-figures/guard-5
mininim-figures/fat-guard-5
mininim-figures/vizier-5
mininim-figures/skeleton-5
mininim-figures/shadow-5
6
mininim-figures/guard-6
mininim-figures/fat-guard-6
mininim-figures/vizier-6
mininim-figures/skeleton-6
mininim-figures/shadow-6
7
mininim-figures/guard-7
mininim-figures/fat-guard-7
mininim-figures/vizier-7
mininim-figures/skeleton-7
mininim-figures/shadow-7

Like the kid, each guard has a starting position and facing direction, but naturally, every guard starts with a sword in his possession. Each guard also has an arbitrary number of total lives.48

Each guard also has its own set of skills which influence how strong they are in battle. There are six skills that are given as percentage (between 0% and 100%, inclusive) indicating the probability of the related action succeeding.49 In the following descriptions, fight range is the safe distance from the kid guards strive to keep during battle: a step away from striking, but far enough for not being hit. Attack range is the nearer distance guards have to be in order to make an effective strike.

Attack

Probability of the guard initiating an attack when in attack range. If the kid is not in fight mode the attack is immediate regardless of this.

Counter attack

Probability of the guard initiating a counter attack after a successful defense.

Defense

Probability of the guard defending an attack when in attack range.

Counter defense

Probability of the guard defending a counter attack.

Advance

Probability of the guard going towards attack range when in fight range, if the kid is not attacking. If the kid is not in fight mode the advance is immediate regardless of this.

Return50

Probability of the guard backing off to fight range when in attack range.

For how these skills are related to kid’s in battle, see Counter attack and counter defense. For skills that are tested at each cycle (12th of a second) like attack, advance and return, 1% means once every 8.33 seconds on average. The user has to keep in mind that this drops quickly (8% means once every 1.04 seconds), thus care is needed or the guard might end up having very unnatural movements, like alternating too fast between advancing and returning.

There are two more attributes that are categorized under guard skills, which are not interpreted as percentage.

Refraction period

How many cycles the guard is kept still after being hit, before being able to advance and attack.

Extra lives

How many lives to add to the common total lives.

This non-terminal command has sub-commands for setting all these characteristics.

Gj>GPSJDKLTY

All actions apply to the currently selected guard, whose index j is shown by all commands of this hierarchy. Before being able to perform further actions upon a guard it has to be enabled. This is done by selecting the guard’s type. See Type: E>GT. If the currently selected guard is disabled, the mouse cursor is set to UNAVAILABLE and attempts to execute any other command will fail showing ‘DISABLED GUARD’ on the message line. While commands of this hierarchy are active, darker semi-transparent images of the guards are shown in their starting place, above all constructions and characters.


Footnotes

(46)

In the original game the guard type is not given per guard, but instead per level: 3→SKELETON, 6→FAT_GUARD, 12→SHADOW, 13→VIZIER, others→GUARD.

(47)

The original game has the same styles (from 1 to 7) for guards of type GUARD, but has a fixed style for all others. MININIM has equivalent styles in that range for every other guard type, and uses style 0 to give the original vizier style to guards of type GUARD and FAT_GUARD, while reserving it as the original style for all other guard types.

(48)

In the original game the number of total lives is fixed per level and can’t be changed.

(49)

In the original game guard skills can’t be fine-tuned individually, as the game uses a predefined set of 12 possible skill configurations (ranging from 0 to 11). See Skill: E>GK.

(50)

This skill attribute is not available in the original game as guards there never back off by themselves.


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