Shoals Surfer
Posts: 263
Joined: Sunday, 4th September 2011, 20:45
Quirk removal
One of these occasions* was the first time I encountered a mimic. I walked up to a door and without warning it transformed into a grinning monster straight out of Yellow Submarine. It was great, and hair-raising, and the character barely survived.
Now mimics don't do anything, the item just turns out to be a mirage and fades into thin air. If you're playing quickly you might not even notice them. I'm guessing they changed because in their pomp they were traps it was impossible to spot, hence a potential unavoidable death. Fair enough, but the game has lost something memorable.
Similarly, I was saddened to witness two approaching jellies ignore a perfectly slurpable crocodile corpse, as they now only consume unseen items. This change does puzzle me; it makes jellies less likely to factor into a player's tactical decisions (can I/is it advisable to get to and kill the jelly before it slurps that wand? etc.) while making them a little less interesting. Were players finding it frustrating to see jellies eat items they wanted? That would seem to me a 'part of the game' frustration, like mutations or heavy drain.
I don't intend this to be a restatement of flavour vs. gameplay; I accept primacy of the latter. But the oddities are what help make Crawl so good, and sometimes that's worth a bit of awkwardness. Like double albums that are flabby, but that flabbiness means that the ingredients are always slopping around and making fun new combinations (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vincS_wW0xM).
*The other one was first encountering an Oklob. Yes, I am easily pleased.
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