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Stalactites hang from the ceiling while stalagmites grow from the floor. Every few months I have to look this up again, because I can never get the distinction fixed in my head - and because games just love stalactites. (Even now, it wouldn't surprise me if I've gotten it wrong.)There is a certain order to stalactites in games, too: an innate understanding of the way they should work. Stalactites fall on you once you walk underneath them, but it's rarely an instantaneous process. Stalactites give you warning before they fall. They shake for a few seconds and then they detach. They're death from above, but polite with it. This probably doesn't hold true for the real world.
Nova-111 is the latest must-buy for any stalactite lovers out there, and it actually finds something fresh in this old video game prop. Nova-111 is a game where you move a little spaceship around a cave network in turns, moving one block across the map and then pausing, while most other things in the vicinity do the same. The local stalactites are definitely not turn-based, however: they are triggered by your turn, but they then fall in real-time. It's almost an affront, really. Don't you know the rules?
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