Funny Fly Formations! :D

[Dustin]

Hi guys,
in this thread I want to present and shortly discuss some fly formations which I mostly discovered by chance while playing classic-style caves and which I find very funny for different reasons! The formations can also well be inspiring for cave creators!

At the moment it'd be very laborious for me to post pictures (for technical reasons), so let's return to the good old ASCII art style again

There are two main differences between our formations here and Arno's Dancing Fly Formations:
1. While DFF only work in empty space, the formations here work with obstacles.
2. Our formations here are not (globally) moving.

Perhaps everything is best understood with an introductory example!
I'll use the following designations throughout this thread:
L/R/U/D: firefly with facing direction
l/r/u/d: butterfly with facing direction
o=obstacle for the flies (dirt, wall...) which is necessary so the flies don't escape
*=empty space which the flies need for moving
x=can be an obstacle or empty space
s=special spot (explained seperately every time)

Formation 1: Frank and Franka in Lockdown

xooox
o***o
s*L*o
s*Rox
xxxxx
In this case, the bottom "s" can be dirt or empty space, while the top "s" is dirt. If Rockford first digs the bottom "s" (if necessary) and then the top "s" away, the fireflies will build the Dancing Fly Formation "FnF" (provided they have enough space to the left)!

Those two flies are ready to explore the world by building a Dancing Fly Formation, but they've been put in Lockdown so they have to stay at home until they're released!

Phases:
Phase 1 see above

Phase 2
xooox
o***o
sLU*o
x**ox
xxxxx

Phase 3
xooox
o***o
sL**o
xD*ox
xxxxx

Phase 4
xooox
o***o
sU**o
x*Rox
xxxxx

Phase 5-11 (the flies move independant of each other):
xooox
oU**o
s*U*o
x**ox
xxxxx

xooox
oR**o
sL**o
x**ox
xxxxx

xooox
o*R*o
s***o
xD*ox
xxxxx

xooox
o**Ro
s***o
x*Rox
xxxxx

xooox
o**Do
s*U*o
x**ox
xxxxx

xooox
o***o
sL*Do
x**ox
xxxxx

xooox
o***o
s**Lo
xD*ox
xxxxx

and back to phase 1:
xooox
o***o
s*L*o
x*Rox
xxxxx

Perhaps it's also possible to make the cage smaller while keeping the same effect. In any case, this version works well!

[Dustin]

Formation 2: Prisoner and Jailer

Phase 1:
xoL*
oR**
xoxx

Phase 2:
xo**
oDD*
xoxx

Phase 3:
xo**
oL*R
xoxx

Phase 4:
xo*U
oU**
xoxx

and back to phase 1.

The left firefly is the "prisoner". It wants to break out but in phase 1 and 2, it's blocked by the "jailer". In phase 1, the cavescanning order makes the jailer move first, while in phase 2, the prisoner is scanned first (before the jailer moves away). In phase 3 and 4, the prisoner would be free to break out, but in these phases, it faces into the wrong directions to do so! So we have two consecutive frames where the jailer blocks the prisoner, followed by two frames where the prisoner faces into the wrong direction, and so on

The formation can be varied in several ways:


Variation 1: A butterfly as prisoner
The prisoner can as well be a butterfly, facing right in phase 1, up in phase 2, left in phase 3 and down in phase 4. However, the jailer can only be a firefly, at least in this single-jailer formation. See below for variations with butterflies as jailers!

Variation 2: Several prisoners
Of course more prisoners can be added to the left side of the first prisoner. The facing directions and fly genders (ff/bf) of the other prisoners are then irrelevant.

Variation 3: Several jailers
Instead of one looping jailer, there can also be several jailers looping around an obstacle. The jailers have distance 4 from each other. Here's an example with several prisoners (two ff, one bf) and several jailers (five ff):

xxxxL**
xxxx*o*
xxxx*oU
oooo*o*
oDLuDo*
oooo*o*
xxxx*oU
xxxx*o*
xxxxD**

In this version with several jailers looping around an obstacle, the jailers can also be butterflies. In this case, the jailers loop around the prison. For example:
*r***
*oood
*oRR*
uooo*
***l*
(two prisoned ff, four jailer-bf)

Next episode will be "The Cannonball"!