Modules Pawn

Modules: Pawn

The Pawn slot decides what each player steers and how it moves. One chip; every player in a game gets the same pawn. Empty means Cursor. Ingredient: Nero Alloy. All slots

Chip	What it does	Recipe (shapeless)
Cursor (default)	A free cursor that moves in four directions and stops at walls.	Blank Chip + Nero Alloy
Paddle	A slide-along bar that bounces hazards and shots back.	Blank Chip + Nero Alloy + stick
Runner	Runs on its own; tap to hop over hazards, steer to change lane.	Blank Chip + Nero Alloy + leather boots
Serpent	Always moving; grows with each pickup and dies touching itself.	Blank Chip + Nero Alloy + slime ball
Ship	Drifts with inertia and fires shots where it points.	Blank Chip + Nero Alloy + arrow
Stacker	Guide falling pieces; full rows clear and score.	Blank Chip + Nero Alloy + brick

Any pawn that stands on a hole in the floor (see Shrinking Floor) loses a life. After losing a life a pawn comes back with a short shield (one second) so nothing can wait for it at the spot where it returns.

Cursor

Moves one way at a time with the pad and stops at walls. With the One button control it moves on its own (starting to the right): A reverses it, B stops it.

Setting	Default	Range
Speed	3	1–5

Paddle

A bar that slides along one line near the edge of the board. Behind it is the player's goal line: a hazard that reaches your goal line costs you a life. The paddle bats balls, crates and shots back instead of being hurt by them; a moving paddle puts a little spin on a ball. Players one and two take the chosen axis (bottom and top, or right and left); players three and four take the other.

Setting	Default	Range
Length	3	1–8 cells
Speed	3	1–5
Axis	Horizontal	Horizontal, Vertical

Runner

Runs along its lane on its own and turns round at a wall. Left and right (or the pad's one axis) move it one lane over per press. A hops: while in the air it passes over hazards and shots and can clear a hole, but not a wall. Landing locks the next hop and lane change for four ticks. Low Gravity makes hops last longer.

Setting	Default	Range
Speed	3	1–5
Jump (cells)	2	1–4

Serpent

Always moving. The pad turns it (it cannot turn straight back on itself); with the One button control, A turns left and B turns right. Every pickup makes it one segment longer (up to 48). Running into a wall, a solid thing or its own body costs a life. In a game with several serpents, only the one whose head runs into another's body is hurt; head-on, both are.

Setting	Default	Range
Speed	3	1–5
Start length	3	1–8

Ship

Thrust pushes it and it keeps drifting; drag slows it down. It faces the way it last moved. A fires a shot (at most one every half second) along the aim stick if the control has one, otherwise the way it faces. Shots fly for two seconds or until they hit a wall; a shot can take down a Chaser drone (two hits) and scores for the shooter. A paddle can bat a shot back, and the batted shot then belongs to the paddle's player.

Setting	Default	Range
Thrust	3	1–5
Drag	Light	None, Light, Heavy
Fires	on	on, off

Stacker

Pieces of two to four blocks fall from the top. Left and right shift the piece, A turns it, B drops it at once, and holding down makes it fall faster. A landed piece becomes part of the stack. A full row clears and scores row bonus × rows² (two rows at once score four times one row); every landed piece scores 1. A new piece that cannot fit at the top ends the game for that player. A falling crate that hits the piece costs a life.

Setting	Default	Range
Fall (rows per second)	1	1–5
Shapes	Mixed	Bars (two- and three-block bars), Mixed (bars, a corner and a square)
Row bonus	10	1–100

Odd combinations

• A Paddle with the Reach Exit rule: the exit is placed at the far end of its line, which it cannot reach — the match runs to its time limit.
• A Runner on Grid 16 shuttles up and down one column. It plays, but it is dull.
• Two Stackers in a Versus game share one board; a cleared row scores for whoever landed the last piece.
• A Stacker with Laser Sweep, or with Fog, plays — and is hard.
• Two idle Paddles can return a ball that comes off a corner along the same diagonal for ever; the match then ends at its time limit.