Munchkin Behavior
All Munchkins do the same thing: they move mindlessly from left to right. They are totally unaware of the upcoming terrain, obstacles, enemies, or even other munchkins. The just move steadily from left to right.
They stop when they can't move rightward due to an obstacle, and will start moving again if the way is cleared. All terrain, objects, and other Munchkins are obstacles that impede movement.
They will walk of edges, and fall. When falling, Munchkins accelerate according to gravity, but also keep their horizontal momentum from walking. If they are moving to fast when they hit the ground, Munchkins will splat and die.
In general, Munchkins are subject to the physics of the world. They are always either in a walking state, or in a tumbling state. Tumbling occurs when Munchkins fall, are impacted by sufficiently fast tumbling munchkins, or affected by certain gizmos and enemies (kicked, catapulted, etc). When tumbling, Munchkins are treated like spheres that engage in mostly elastic collisions with other Munchkins and immovable objects, experience air resistance, and splat when colliding with immovable objects if traveling sufficiently fast (in the direction orthogonal to the surface of collision). All objects other than Munchkins are considered immovable for collision purposes. Munchkins leave the tumbling state when movingly sufficiently slowly and close to the ground.
Munchkins never splat when colliding with other Munchkins, but may cause other Munchkins to achieve splat velocity. Munchkins treat Munchkins below them as ground, and can walk on top of them (thus increasing their land speed).
Munchkins move slightly slower on inclines, and slightly faster on declines.
Munchkin Types
There are four types of Munchkins, each with different abilities and properties beyond those which all Munchkins share:
- Workers: The most common Munchkin type. Workers have the ability to lift other Munchkins on top of them. If a Munchkin walks into a Worker from the left, it is lifted on top of the Worker (provided that there is room on top of the Worker) and can continue moving. In this way, groups of workers will form "staircases" that allow Munchkins to get over walls.
- Runners: The athletic Runners move faster (50%?) than other Munchkins, and when they reach the edge of a platform, instead of just falling they make a small forwards leap. They are fast enough to bypass certain kinds of traps (by getting out of the way before the trap can affect them).
- Gliders: Mysteriously, Gliders fall much more slowly than other Munchkins. They have significantly increased air resistance, which decreases their terminal velocity to well below splat velocity. (Maybe decreased mass and/or decreased acceleration due to gravity as well/instead?)
- Tinkers: The cleverest of the Munchkins, Tinkers are skilled at dismantling things. Tinkers can destroy enemy robots that they encounter (sometimes it takes several Tinkers for a single enemy) simply by walking into them. Tinkers are also the only Munchkins capable of picking up resources that sometimes appear on the levels.
Additionally, Muchkins of any type may also have one of two special modifiers:
- Munchkin Saboteurs act just like regular Munchkins of their type, but instead of decrementing the counter on their corresponding rockets, they increment it.
- Munchkin Marshals act just like regular Munchkins of their type, but additionally announce upcoming Munchkins in a speech bubble just above them, acting as a kind of "next" feature. As a Munchkin spawn point moves off the left of the screen, any Marshals on the screen will pictorially display the type of number of Munchkins that will spawn from that generator.
