Harpoon Gun

Harpoon Gun
Level editor item
Object type	Special Item
Special item category	Hazard
Available in Happy Wheels since version	1.23
Last updated	1.86

The harpoon gun is a hazard in Happy Wheels. It was introduced in v1.23. The harpoon gun is a grey, metallic - possible concrete - base, with a harpoon-firing device perched on top of it. It activates when a character is within its presence and will fire a harpoon when the character is close enough. It is one of the only two "guns" in the game, the other being the arrow gun.

Only one harpoon is fired and will kill a character if it strikes them in the head, rectum or chest (rarely), without even taking off the head. The harpoon actually does not kill by striking those body parts; the velocity of the harpoon overpowers the collision physics, and also helped by the ability to stab, so it passes through the body of the target to the head. Sometimes, the harpoon might even blow the character's body to pieces or might even rip their head clean off, and if the player ejects from their vehicle and the harpoon becomes lodged in the ground it can also kill the player (in some instances).

Harpoon guns have four toggles: The first is whether the user wants the harpoon to remain attached to its base with an anchor or if they want it to fire freely without an anchor. The second toggle allows you to fix the turret of the gun and to make it fire at a specified angle (the angle can be anywhere from -110 to 110). The third toggle allows triggers to be able to fire them. If this option is checked, the harpoon gun will not be able to fire, even if the target is right next to it. Only when the trigger is activated can the harpoon gun fire. The fourth option deactivates the harpoon gun and will remain deactivated until a trigger activates it.

Harpoon guns also have a little light that corresponds with the state of the harpoon gun. If the light is pink, this means that the harpoon gun is normal. If it is blue, this shows that the harpoon gun is set to fire at a fixed angle. If it is green, this means that the harpoon gun can only be fired by triggers and when it is black, it means that the harpoon gun is deactivated.

Users have actually managed to create their own levels featuring a giant harpoon. A commonly seen type of level is a harpoon run, similar to arrow gun runs.

Glitches

• Harpoons pass through some parts of a vehicle, making almost every single spot of the player vulnerable.
• If you put in rotation "-", it will become "NaN" which will make the harpoon become a black hole.

Trivia

• The harpoon uses two collision boxes. The first collision box, the one near the sharp end, will collide with fixed objects, and anything that can be stabbed, such as characters and food items, but it won't collide with anything else. The second collision box, the one near the other end, will collide with anything, but it will not stab.
• The anchor of an anchored harpoon gun can be grabbed.
• In the level editor, the anchor takes up 7 more shapes while an unanchored harpoon takes up 4 shapes, which means an anchored harpoon will take up 11 shapes. This is because the string on the anchored harpoon is made up of 7 small circles.
• Once a harpoon without an anchor stabs a fixed object, it will be impossible to get it out. With an anchor, it will be slightly easier.
• The harpoon is sometimes used in harpoon catch levels where a harpoon shoots at you and you try to grab it and kill someone at the end or land it in the "win zone".
• The harpoon gun uses a "predicting aim" system where the harpoon can almost always precisely hit the character when he/she is moving at any speed in any direction. This can be seen if "debug draw" is turned on in the level editor.
• If more than one option is checked, the light will not be multicoloured. Instead, it will just show the corresponding colour of the most recently checked option.
• The area of detection of a harpoon gun comes in the form of a rectangle, where the width is 800, while the height is 400, meaning that a harpoon gun can detect a character from 400 pixels away in horizontal distance and 400 pixels away in vertical distance.
• When editing a level in the mobile level editor, the colored light on a harpoon gun does not appear, but does when testing.

Gallery

The harpoon gun with the anchor in action.

The old harpoon gun without an anchor.

A harpoon.

Wheelchair Guy holding onto the anchor of the harpoon.

Wheelchair Guy dangling from an anchored harpoon.

A harpoon run level with the harpoon.

A harpoon pull level with Lawnmower Man.

The harpoon gun and its options: default, fixed turret, trigger firing, and start deactivated.