The Enemy Cell is, in most cases, the enemy of the player. Puzzles and vaults alike share a goal of destroying this cell. In the original Cell Machine (by Sam Hogan), enemy cells were not even cells. They were just background assets that destroyed the cells that entered them and, when all killed, triggered the win condition. This prevented them from being generated.
Key Attributes
- Non-pushable, destroys on all sides
- Rotation-independent
- Non-updating
Uses in the Community
In contraptions, the enemy cell is often used as a less-permanent trash cell. One well-known device is a machine that moves enemies by generating them and subsequently destroying the previous enemy. It leaves behind no trail! Outside of these applications, however, enemy cells are not frequently used in contraptions.
In puzzles, the enemy cell is used much more. In fact, enemy cells are always used in true puzzles, as defeating them is the main purpose of a puzzle. Some other types of puzzles, i.e. cages, do not use enemies necessarily, but these are not truly puzzles by their definition. Other than as the objective, they serve little purpose. It could be argued that having multiple enemies is not being the objective, but rather just making the objective (the last enemy) harder to get.
In vaults, they serve nearly the same purpose, as vaults and puzzles are indeed quite similar. Enemies are used sometimes to make timers longer, or to make it easier by effectively making a pit vault's pit longer. Extending a pit via enemies is often done in conjunction with a popener-defense. In solving, it is ridiculously tedious to use enemies in solves, but sometimes necessary. It's so tedious because having a convenient opening method along with a way to put an enemy into the vault is quite difficult. Some potential use cases are creating an opening in a conveyor vault or removing cells where you can put something on both sides, but can not access a trash cell.