Trial by Spikes- A Game Programmer's Knightmare..?

[DJOSKA87]

As some of you already know, I've been getting back into creating some form of interactive Knightmare game, but as my journey progresses, things are never as simple as they first appear.

Aside from the reconstruction of the various rooms and puzzles featured throughout the show, there is also the task of programming them- not just to behave exactly how they did on screen, but to be fully functional in a free, user-controlled environment.

Watching back through the episodes, many of the puzzles were dictated with a little help from Treguard with no use and abuse from the teams- they just got on and performed the task required in order to succeed- or fail.

This is particularly true with the Trial by Spikes in the way that NOBODY cheated the puzzle.

When you look at it- a skilled, sighted dungeoneer could take one look at the spikes and notice a clear run straight to the door between the 4th and 5th tiles.

Now, imagine yourself viewing that same room on a computer screen with the ability to control the dungeoneer directly using the arrow keys... Tempting isn't it...?

This presents a problem to me as a game programmer to have to find a way to intervene in order to prevent this little cheat from being undertaken.

Another way to avoid the puzzle would be to step back a row and wait for the next row of spikes to come up, thus, revealing the correct clear square.

The latter I have almost cured- if the user steps back from the desired row, no spikes will emerge until that user stands in the correct row.

But what if they happen to be standing BETWEEN the spikes..?

You see- not as simple as it sounds is it?!

This is just one of the many puzzles I have yet to solve on my 'quest', but not one I can cheat my way out of...