Boulder Dash Forum

Biters have been introduced in fan games early on (I guess in the 80s by Prof. Knibble?). They can also be used in the Crazy Light Construction Set. I am a bit puzzled by them, as their behavior always seemed rather unpredictable to me. Can someone help me?

1. What is the algorithm by which they move/eat?

2. Is there a *good* cave (that is fun to play/solve) that demonstrates that they are interesting elements and that hence there is a reason for their existence?

Hi Dr. Guru,
I've made one cave using biters so far (which isn't released yet). As far as I can tell, they behave as follows (on GDash):

1. They can move into space, dirt and diamonds, eating the latter two in the process.
2. Their first priority is to eat dirt, secondly a diamond, thirdly moving into space.
3. If 2. still gives them a choice where to move, their priorities are: forward > turn left > turn right.
4. They can not move backward, If they have no other choice, they wait for 1 fram in the dead-end.

Thank you, Dustin, for this information about the movement algorithm! Maybe I will try to play around with biters in CLCK somewhen in the future.