Enemies (Turnament series)

A list of enemies in the games Turnament and Rust Bucket.

General game information
All enemies are destructible and can harm the player on contact. They will follow Rust Bucket and will only move when the player does so. In Turnament, enemies will always move towards the player even if the character is unreachable. In Rust Bucket, however, they will stand idle if there is no target nearby, and they will prioritize the target that is the closest to them (villagers, green knights or Rust Bucket).

Enemies will be defeated if they are in the same tile as a solid object or a hazard, except for statue enemies and ghosts which are immune to fire tiles and fireballs.

Slimes
Slimes are the first enemies encountered in the Turnament series.

Appearance
Slimes in Turnament appear as green blobs with two small white pixels for the eyes. When they are preparing to attack, they will jump in place at a fast pace.

In Rust Bucket, slimes appear blue on the inside, and have a mouth. When they are about to move towards the player, their blue outline will turn light-red.

Game information
Slimes generally move towards the player or chase them, making a move every two times the player moves. They follow a pattern of readying their attack one turn, then attacking. When readying an attack, the slimes move up and down, as if preparing to pounce. After the player's next turn, slimes will move one tile. When they are not bobbing up and down, they are unable to attack the player and can be easily killed in this stage.

In Rust Bucket, it is possible to find slimes hiding in pots. They will be in their idle state when the player cracks the pot open and they start moving after the next turn.

Slime towers
Slime towers are enemies in Rust Bucket.

Appearance
Slime towers look like a pile of three slimes stacked on each other. They all are conjoined to form one big enemy. The slime tower only has one mouth and two eyes on its top part, despite being composed of three slimes. The independent slimes that are part of the tower are a bit smaller than usual slimes so that the slime tower enemy is not too big compared to other normal enemies. Much like regular slimes, the tower will be resting when not moving, and will have a red outline when it is about to move.

Their gold variant has the exact same appearance as regular slime towers, but are dark gold instead of green. Unlike other gold enemies like golden statues, their outline will remain the same colour instead of changing to bright red.

Game information
Slime towers first appear in level 13 and have the exact same behaviour as regular slimes. Attacking a slime tower will result in it breaking out into three normal slimes. The slimes will appear in every tile adjacent to where the tower was defeated, except for where the player, obstacles or other entities are. The state of the slimes that are generated when killing a slime tower depends on the sate of the tower when it was killed. If the tower was idling when killed, the summoned slimes will be in their idle state (and vice versa).

Slimes will not appear if their spawning tiles are obstructed with obstacles, gaps or even enemies. As a result, it is easier for the player to deal with a slime tower if it is killed when cornered by gaps or obstacles, as fewer slimes will spawn. Splitting a slime tower at the correct moment can sometimes be necessary to solve a level, as some puzzles require three enemies to be standing on heavy buttons at the correct time to open a gate.

Because the slimes that spawn after defeating a slime tower will appear in every empty tile adjacent to where the tower was, it is possible to have a slime tower split into four slimes if it is killed by a fire tile or a fireball; however, this behaviour is likely unintended as slime towers are designed to only show three slimes.

Golden slime towers are a variation of regular slime towers which can only be seen in Endless Mode. They act exactly like their counterpart, with the only difference of dropping a coin on the ground when killed. The slimes which are spawned by the golden variant are normal slimes and will not drop any more coins when defeated.

Skulls
Skulls are enemies in the Turnament series.

Appearance
In Turnament, skulls have the appearance of white craniums with black eyes and two teeth.

In Rust Bucket, skulls appear much more cylindrical, like the player. They are beige-coloured with red round eyes, with a slit as their nose and three teeth.

Game information
Skulls move every time the player moves. They are dangerous to touch, as they kill the player in contact.

Skull statues
Skull statues first appear in level 14 of Rust Bucket and are a skull variant.

Appearance
Skull statues, like their boar counterpart, are stone skull statues on a round pedestal. They are not animated like regular enemies, but can still move around. Their gold variant will appear bright yellow with a red outline.

Game information
Skull statues have the exact same behaviour as regular skulls. Much like boar statues, they cannot be defeated directly by the player, green knights or even fire. They can only be defeated with bombs, by teleporting onto them or with a warhammer. This resistance to most forms of damage make them a core mechanic of most castle levels. They can appear in Endless Mode, although they are much rarer than most other enemies.

Much like golden boar statues, skull statues have their own golden variant. They share every property of the normal skull statues, but are very rare and only appear in Endless Mode. They will drop a coin upon death.

Appearance
Skull Bombs are shaped like skull enemies, but are grey and they have a fuse on their head.

Game information
Skull Bombs are basically a fusion of skull enemies and Bombs. These enemies are created to blast fragile blocks in puzzle levels, but they can also destroy statues like regular bombs.

Leaping enemies
Spiders are enemies in Turnament and demons are enemies in Rust Bucket. They have the exact same behavior in both games, and only differ in appearance.

Appearance
Spiders have a black body, four black legs, and four red eyes. Demons are dark-red square-shaped creatures with bright pink eyes and two dark-blue bat wings. They have two legs similar to teeth, which make them look similar to skulls.

Game information
Spiders and demons home in on the player. They jump two tiles through the air, staying in the air for one turn. When airborne, both enemies can be stood under safely. Their jumping ability makes them hard to kill, so it is much easier to avoid them than attack, as they are rarely mandatory to kill in order to progress in the game.

In Rust Bucket, demons will die if they land on a solid object. This includes wooden and normal keys as well as wooden and normal shields.

Squids
Squids are enemies in Rust Bucket.

Appearance
Squids look like pale pink squids with a single yellow eye and four tentacles which they use to stand on.

Game information
Squids first appear in level 12 and are also found in the Endless Mode of Rust Bucket. Squids can only move diagonally. They cannot attack the player or a green knight directly next to them, as they can only move or attack one tile in each four diagonal directions. Since they cannot move into walls or pits, they can be blocked where the player or most other enemies are unable to. Unlike most enemies which move in straight directions, squids will teleport as they move diagonally, allowing them to teleport to it even when they have something next to them. Squids are also one of the enemies which can hide inside pots.

Mimics
Mimics are enemies in Rust Bucket.

Appearance
Mimics have the exact same appearance as treasure chests. When active, they will show their two white pointy teeth and long purple tongue.

Game information
Mimics only appear in Endless Mode when the player has a minimum of 5 points. They appear exactly like treasure chests, making it impossible to differentiate mimics from regular chests. Once the player is in a two-tile diamond-shaped radius of them, they will become active and start following Rust Bucket, moving one tile per turn.

Contrary to chests, mimics will only give the player one coin or a weapon when killed and will disappear instead of staying as an obstacle to the player. Green knights can approach mimics without activating them, meaning that it is safer for the player to use a green knight to open chests.

Brain monsters
Brain monsters are enemies in Rust Bucket.

Appearance
Brain monsters are large pink brains with one large white eye. Their body is in the shape of a dark pink cylinder and they have four tentacles to stand on.

Game information
Brain monsters are first found on level 12 and are also found in Endless Mode and are the only type of enemy in Rust Bucket which does not move. Brain monsters always remain idle and therefore can easily be killed by the player.

Brain monsters will try to spawn other enemies to attack the player. They will first think about the enemy they want to generate, which will appear in a small thinking bubble above their head. On the next turn, the new enemy will appear on a tile adjacent to them and start attacking the player. They will spawn one new enemy every four turns, doing nothing for two turns, thinking about the enemy they want to create on their next turn, and finally creating it one turn after. If they are out of reach of the player or the adjacent tiles are in a dark area, they will perform the exact same process but will fail to summon the enemy. In this case, the enemy icon that will appear before they attempt to summon the enemy will be grayed out.

Brain monsters can spawn many types of enemies, but one brain monster will always create the same type until it is killed. In endless mode however, Brain monsters can sometimes switch the enemy type they can create. The type of enemy each brain monster is assigned to spawn is random each time the player encounters a new brain monster in Endless Mode, but is pre defined in levels. The ability of creating enemies, some being very difficult to deal with in certain environments such as Boar statues, makes brain monsters one of the toughest enemies of the game, despite being immobile.

Ghosts
Ghosts are enemies in Rust Bucket.

Appearance
Ghosts are white cylindrical creatures with circular indents at the bottom of their body. They have a W shaped mouth and two eyes that switch between yellow, orange and red. When going through walls, their eyes and mouth is the only part of their body that can be seen and they are surrounded by white sparkles. Upon death, they will disappear in white fumes.

Game information
Ghosts have the same movement as skulls, being able to move one tile per turn. They only appear in Endless Mode once the player has seven or more points. Ghosts can move through walls and all obstacles, except for pots and bombs. In rare situations, ghosts can be found hiding inside pots, coming out of them when the pots are destroyed. Ghosts are able to go through blocks and pass over gaps to reach their target, and are also immune to fire.

When inside a wall, ghosts are still vulnerable and can still be defeated by the player if Rust Bucket is standing next to them. They will not factor in obstacles or gaps when trying to reach their target, and will always take the shortest route, regardless of the potential obstacles in the way. This means that they can fly through the void between rooms if it is a shorter route to the player. They are also the only enemy which can access to shops via the walls and target the player.

Centipedes
Centipedes are enemies in Rust Bucket.

Appearance
Centipedes have multiple parts, one head and some body segments. All parts are cylindrical and greyish-blue coloured, with a slightly darker cross on top. Body elements have multiple arthropod legs. The head is taller, with a darker middle section, and has no legs. It also has two white fangs and a circular red mouth whole, but no eyes.

Game information
Centipedes are the only enemy in Rust Bucket to be composed of multiple parts. They always have a head, and often other body segments. The head is the only part of the centipede which tries to move towards the player, moving one tile per turn, while each body element will follow the head's movement. The player can attack any part of the centipede, which will defeat that part but leave the other segments alive. A centipede will always have a head, so killing its head will transform the body element before it into a new one. Killing a body element of a centipede will separate it into two separate centipede, with two separate heads. The newly created head will be from the element right next to the part which was cut off. A centipede will only be defeated once all of its segments are destroyed.

A giant centipede serves as a pseudo-boss in level 10. After defeating a large pack of slimes, boars and skulls, the player will enter the centipede's room, with fire tiles and giant skull statues at the entrance. The centipede is made out of twenty-two parts, which all have to be defeated for the player to reach the end. The player can use pots, or can turn around obstacles to reach the body elements of the centipede.

In Endless Mode, centipedes only appear after reaching a score of eight. They will only appear as short centipedes, and can even appear as just a head, in which case they behave exactly like skulls.

Living stumps
Living stumps are enemies in the castle levels of Rust Bucket.

Appearance
Living stumps look like square-shaped light brown wood logs. They have a large single yellow eye as well as two small green leaves on top of their body. They also have tree teeth, which makes them look like wooden skulls. Once attacked, they will turn grey, like if they were petrified. They will close their eye, their leaves will turn brown and a crack will appear on them.

Game information
Living stumps will chase after the player like skulls, going one tile per turn. When attacked, they will not disappear but rather stay as obstacle, much like chests. They will stay petrified for two turns, will start opening their eye after three turns, and will come back to life four turns after they are attacked. As such, they cannot be defeated completely simply by attacking them. In both their living and petrified state, living stumps can be killed if they are touched by fire or caught in the explosion of a bomb.

Medusas
Medusas are enemies in Rust Bucket

Appearance
Medusas are green cylindrical squid-like creatures with two yellow eyes and eight tentacles they use to stand on.

Game information
Medusas first appears in level 17. They will move one tile per turn, like most enemies of the game. They have the ability to move sideways, like skulls, but also move diagonally. Medusas are therefore able to attack anything within a one-tile square radius around them. Much like squids, they are not blocked by obstacles or enemies adjacent to them and can still reach the player as long as they have a tile they can teleport to.

Appearance
Robots appears to be orange robots, who have one yellow eye and two feet.

Game information
Robots are first found from level 31 in Puzzle mode. These robots are special because they can only move horizontally, which makes this enemy the only one, who won't chase Rust Bucket.

Appearance
Blobs are grey slimy creatures with white eyes.

Game information
Blobs moves like skulls, but they leave mushroom-looking obstacles behind them. These mushrooms can be destroyed normally.

Appearance
Crocodiles are green creatures with yellow eyes.

Game information
Crocodiles are the only enemy type with limited moving area. They can only move on light green tiles. Just like Living stumps, Crocodiles can be only stunned for few turns. However, the crocodile can be prevented from reviving by stepping on the tile it's gonna pop up making the crocodile to revive behind the player.

Appearance
Bulls are grey creatures with white long teeth.

Trivia

 * Although real spiders have eight legs, spiders in Turnament have four. This is likely due to the limitations of the pixelated art-style.
 * Slime towers share a similar design with jumping ball towers from Bad Ice-Cream.
 * Many enemies resembles Chess pieces: skulls behaves like rooks, slimes like pawns, boars like knights, medusas like queens and squids like bishops. This parallel is enhanced with the appearance of giant chess pieces in the castle levels of the game.
 * In some Nitrome blog posts where early game footage is shown, a beta version of skulls can be seen, in which they have two legs to walk on. There was no walking animation, and the skulls were instead sliding on the ground. This was later overhauled for the version which can be seen in the finished game, which is more similar to their original design.
 * The death particles of skulls show bones that do not normally belong to the anatomy of skulls, implying that these enemies have little bones inside of them.


 * Crocodiles looks really similar to Wanaan from Mega Man 3