[Game] Rodent's Revenge

[dee....@gmail.com]

To learn PuzzleScript I decided to remake the 1991 classic Rodent's Revenge.

http://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=b8fc0342c653e6d2e81d

You push blocks to trap cats and turn them into cheese. A cat must be surrounded on all sides to turn into cheese. You can pick up the cheese, although currently the only reward for picking up cheese is for personal satisfaction. There are also immovable blocks on level 3 which add some challenge.

Currently there are only 3 levels.

Some things from the original that aren't in the game (yet?):

Cats moving through diagonal gaps - To me this is the biggest difference from the original to the puzzlescript version. This makes the player have to be careful not to create any diagonal gaps or the cat could get to them easily. I'm not too sure how to implement this. On the puzzlescipt documentation it says "If you can think of an interesting use for diagonal directions, just let me know and I'll try add it back in." If the diagonals got added back in it might be trivial to add slipping through gaps but right now it seems really complicated for me to do.

Mouse Traps, Sink Holes, and Yarn Balls - These are obstacles in the original game that wouldn't be too hard to add in (except maybe the sink holes which trap the mouse for a certain amount of actions or time). These would appear in levels 4+

Cats moving in realtime - I tried to get this to work but I want the cats to move in realtime (such as move every 0.5 seconds) but I don't want them to move again when the mouse moves which would mean the cats would move the same time the mouse does in addition to their realtime move. If anyone has a suggestion on how to make the cats only move in real time and the mouse can move independently that would be great!

Other small tweaks - Such as in the original you could crush cheese by pushing a block into it, you could push a cat with a block, having a timer and point system (although I would probably leave the timer out personally, and the points would just be a "nice to have"). Also in the original all the cats on screen had to be trapped before they turned into cheese and that is currently something I don't have. Also cats could be trapped together and currently if 2 cats are trapped in the puzzlescript version they don't turn into cheese.

P.S. A big thank you to Sean Barrett (www.nothings.org) for his enemy follow code from his game "Dungeon Miner" - http://silverspaceship.com/mine/dungeon_miner.html
And Sally Bridgewater for my "cat into cheese" code which I based off her code in "Tidy the Cafe!" - http://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=6faf74de7d562674e71a

[Anna Anthropy]

rodent's revenge was my jam back in the day.

things seem to get hairy if you trap cats using other cats? these three cats (SEE ATTACHED SCREENSHOT) refused to cheesify

[Ken Calder]

Haha yeah, it was a pretty strange game but it was simple and fun!

I noticed that bug and I tried to fix it but couldn't figure it out without breaking some other stuff so I left it for that first version. However Chris Pickel wrote in with some super simple code to fix that bug as well as got the cats moving in realtime like the original! I updated the game with those fixes and I added some other things like another level with mousetraps and small things like blocks can now push cats and crush cheese. 

The updated version can be found here: http://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=c0a86b3cbc3e58c45550

(I didn't figure out how to make an updateable url properly the first time but this new link should have the most up to date version)

[Chris Pickel]

Well, firstly, now that I'm thinking through it, maybe the rule group isn't necessary. But a contrived example for explanatory purposes:

Suppose we have three cats trapped like this:

####

#21_

#3##

####

And rules like this:

(A) vertical [ Walled Cat | no Barrier no Cat ] -> [ Cat | ]

(B) vertical [ Walled Cat | no Walled Cat ] -> [ Cat | Cat ]

(C) horizontal [ Walled Cat | no Barrier no Cat ] -> [ Cat | ]

(D) horizontal [ Walled Cat | no Walled Cat ] -> [ Cat | Cat ]

Rules A and B aren't run, then rule C frees cat 1, then rule D frees cat 2. Cat 3 is trapped and becomes cheese.

If we put the rules in a rule group, then any of them can be applied in any order. So, after rules C and D free cats 1 and 2, rule B frees cat 3.

When I wrote the rules, I put them in a rule group because I was thinking of them as equivalent things that should be applied together, but now I don't think it's necessary. The first rule can finish before the second rule is applied.

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[Ken Calder]

Ah ok, I think I understand it now. Thanks for the explanation!

[Connorses]

I won!

Does the original get any harder? These levels are practically the same, especially when the mousetraps are mechanically almost the same as walls.

[Ken Calder]

Awesome! haha

The original gets quite hard, there are 50 levels of increasing difficulty. One huge difference in the original is that cats can go through diagonal gaps, so you have to be much more careful in the original. Also the cats move faster when they are near you and they move faster the more cats you turn into cheese I believe. Also in later levels there are yarn balls that go around the level that kill you and holes that you can get stuck in and that destroy blocks if you push them into the hole. And the levels vary quite a bit in the original, some having less blocks and others the blocks are all scattered so you have to make your own safe area in the beginning.