So as randomly suggested on Discord, I have an idea for a new skill, the Shielder.
The lemming deploys a large tower shield (either medieval-style or a riot shield) then begins pushing slowly forward, as if trying to shove a heavy box by pushing their shoulder into it. Any lemmings in front of the Shielder get turned around - in effect it's a moving Blocker, but it only affects lemmings in one direction (lemmings coming from behind the Shielder are not affected).
- The Shielder moves at about the same speed as a Basher
- The Shielder stops if they start falling or hit a wall they cannot step up, but don't immediately turn around (in case they're a climber)
- The Shielder can be assigned a skill to make them stop; a Walker won't make them change direction
- Because they have a large shield deployed, the Shielder is actually immune to zombies that walk into it. Conversely, a Zombie Shielder won't infect lemmings that they're pushing with their shield. However, if the Shielder pushes the lemmings into a wall, everyone will get infected the moment the Shielder reverts to a walker. The Shielder can still get infected by zombies coming from behind (and will infect regular lemmings coming from behind in the case of a Zombie Shielder)
The idea behind the skill is that it's a new means of crowd control, specifically they can sweep an entire section of floor from one end to the other, as a means of compressing a crowd to get through a trap, say, and it also has the secondary use of slowing an individual lemming down for a long period. It's also a unique, special and potentially cruel way of dealing with zombie lemmings (e.g. pushing them all into a pool of water!).
Questions that I haven't figured out an answer to yet:
- Should the Shielder stop at a completely impassable wall (more than 6 pixels high) or also at a wall they need to ascend (more than 3 pixels high)?
- What happens if a lemming performing a skill (e.g. a Builder) hits the Shielder's shield? Do they stop what they're doing or do they continue building but change direction? (The Shielder would end up overtaking the Builder or might stop completely because of the need to ascend the Builder's steps).
- What happens if they hit a Blocker? Does the Blocker start walking, or does the Shielder reverse direction? Does the Blocker then face the original direction of the Shielder? (e.g. if a Shielder moving left touches a Blocker facing right, the Shielder will reverse direction, now moving right, but the Blocker will now be facing left).
- What happens if two Shielders push into each other?
I'm sure there's a few other edge cases that I haven't thought about, but how does it look on the surface?