Grimrock

Place the script in a single square. Put walls and one or more doors around it to contain the monster. At least one door is required. Optionally place a monster in the chamber, let the script spawn a random monster, or specify the monster the script is to spawn. Pick options like items that might be added to the monster, can the chamber be restarted, and etcetera. Select the holding cell (described later), add your own buttons or whatever to activate, deactivate, or toggle chamber operation, and you're done!

The monster will be mobile, flapping wings, rotating, or staring at you. A whine, intense blue light will shine, frost will spew from the ceiling, and ***BAM***, your monster is frozen in place... maybe forever! The chamber pulses with blue light, and fog descends from the ceiling due to the cold. The constant throbbing of refrigeration is ever present and usually not in sync with other independent chambers that may be close by.



Revival is also fun. The blue light fades, a red one come on brightly, sizzling is heard quickly followed by a column of flames descending from the ceiling and then ice explodes off of the previously trapped monster as the door opens! Now it's time for a fight!

I discovered, on my elevator script, that you can't place some things in the game from scripts and have them look right. Therefore, you must define your own doors, pressure plates (other than a hidden one in the chamber itself), and etcetera. I recommend a drainage tile in the bottom of the chamber, but it’s optional. The script executed, finds all of the doors, installs an option pressure plate in the chamber itself for reactivation (don't do this yourself - use the script!!!) delays a short period of time so that multiple chambers in the same area won't cycle at exactly the same time, and then it triggers the startup sequence.

Startup makes sure the doors are closed, checks to see if the chamber is resetting or if it can actually start, and looks for a monster already inside. If none is found, the script will spawn the one you specified in the options, a random one, or none at all. If appropriate, items will be randomly added to the monster you already put in the chamber or the one the script created. The monster is further inspected to ensure that no groups are present. It simply won't do (for technical and story reasons) to try to freeze a group. You should see why later....

The single occupant is trapped, and now the magic begins. The graphics and sounds start playing and the original monster is whisked away to a holding cell. This can be a hidden one by one cell or a large room or hallway as long as enough X blockers are around to keep the monster from moving. A doppelganger or substitute monster, just like the original, is created in its place and it's hit with a modified spell that does little damage, but 100% freezes the occupant.

Graphics cycle every few seconds, the chamber throbs, and the system is stable, but refreshed every 10 minutes because I've had a few monsters thaw on their own before the freeze duration should have expired. The refresh process destroys the doppelganger in the chamber, creates another just like it, and freezes the monster again. This repeats as long as the chamber is active.

When the chamber is deactivated, the graphics start, the doppelganger is hit with 9999 points of physical and cold damage thus shattering it into those really nice ice fragments that fly everywhere then quickly melt. Any objects the doppelganger drops are destroyed and, in this instant, the original monster is transported back in the empty void - so fast that you can't see it happen. This is done for two main reasons. 1) If you free, then refreeze a monster, its hit points will be the same (unless healing occurs while it's outside of the chamber? It could happen I guess.) 2) Perhaps more importantly, the monster will be carrying exactly what it was before - no more and no less. Short of destroying a monster and seeing what it drops, there is no way to tell what a monster is carrying. I did this in earlier versions, but duplicate shields, spears, and etcetera kept happening for various reasons. This is cleaner and developed when I still thought I'd support groups.

The original monster is back in place, the graphics wind down, and the doors open. There are some nice puzzles I think can be developed in waiting or luring a monster into a chamber and having it automatically activated by that hidden pressure plate the script spawns or by actions on your party's part. You know, a monster so far above the party that killing it simply isn't an option. I've done a few...

I don't support groups for several reasons. 1) Story line wise, you always get one person in a cryogenic chamber, not two or more. Heck, what's going to happen on Stargate Universe!? They were one chamber short in the end, you know. 2) You can't spawn a party of three skeletons limiting revival graphics. 3) You can't add items to groups. 4) Groups are sometimes a single monster to start with, but entity wise, they eventually turn into discrete monsters that occupy a single square - i.e. no longer a group, but 4 separate monsters.

Well, I have a couple of movies to post, but the resolution is too high, so I'll post them later. This post is already too long, sorry!