Fish Bone

A Fish Bone is what's left of a Piranha or a Dead Fish that ends up out of the water, which happens when the water drains away around it. It can be picked up and thrown like a Rock, and hurts a monster as an arrow does, breaking as it hits.

A Fish Bone is picked up and thrown as any item is: crouching over it with empty hands, the attack key lifts it, and the attack key throws it, at 8 pixels a step plus the player's speed, rising at 3 ^{[8] [9]}. It moves by the code all items share: its own lighter gravity, 0.2, lasts its first step, and then it falls 0.6 pixels a step faster each step, as items do, bouncing off walls and floors ^{[10] [11] [12]}. It turns to point the way it's flying ^[13].

While it moves faster than 2 pixels a step, across or down, and touches a monster, it takes 1 hit point from the monster nearest it (Nearest-enemy hits) and is destroyed; a Caveman, a Hawkman, a Mantrap, a Yeti or a Vampire is also stunned. It's destroyed even when the monster's own rules spare it the hit, as a Caveman's do while it's stunned, so it breaks on the first monster it reaches. Only an invincible monster or a Magma Man lets it fly on. A Damsel it hits loses 1 hit point, and the bone is destroyed too ^{[1] [14] [15]}. Unlike a Rock or an arrow, it can't hurt the player: his own code checks only for those two ^[16].

In the clip, the player drops a bomb beside a pool and runs back. The explosion breaks the pool's side, the water drains away, and the Piranha in it turns into a Fish Bone. He picks the bone up, jumps out of the pool and throws it at a Snake, which it kills, breaking ^[17].

Level generation makes no Fish Bones, and the level editor has no tile for one. They come from:

• Piranhas. One whose middle isn't in water turns into a Fish Bone at once ^[18].
• Dead Fish, the same way, while they're on the screen ^{[19] [20]}.

Both live only in water, so it takes the water draining for either to leave it: a block next to water that breaks lets the water beside it go, and the rest of the pool follows over the next few steps ^{[21] [22]}. A Piranha that's killed leaves only blood, and a Dead Fish three plain bones, not a Fish Bone ^{[23] [24]}.

• Bombs. An explosion destroys a Fish Bone, as it does an arrow, a Jar or a Skull ^[25].
• Lava. A Fish Bone that touches lava stops and sinks, and is destroyed once it's under the surface ^[26].
• The screen. It moves only while it's within 16 pixels of the screen ^{[27] [15]}.
• Exits. Carried through a level's exit, it's in the player's hands on the next level; while he holds it, the HUD shows it in the box for the held item ^{[28] [29] [30]}.

• A Fish Bone breaks on the first monster it hits, hurt or not, so it's good for one throw, where a Rock can be thrown again.
• It can't hurt the player, so one thrown at a wall beside him and bouncing back is harmless.

• The code that lets a thrown monster hurt the monsters it hits ends by destroying the thrown one if its name is "Arrow" or "Fish Bone", a line copied from the items' code; no monster has either name ^[31]. The Jar's and the Skull's own steps keep the same line, which never holds for them either ^{[32] [33] [15]}.