King Scorpion

**King Scorpion** is the first boss encountered in I Hate Running Backwards. It is the last obstacle before the player can complete the A King's Tail environment.

## In-game description

*The King of Scorpions is the ruler of the desert. He became so popular that they even made a movie about him, although they wrote his name wrong by switching the words. Although he is a Scorpion he actually has an army of Antaresian Spiders that attack when he burrows underground to catch his breath. Be careful while he’s burrowed because he will try to sting you with his tail. If you can call being impaled by a 12 foot tail “a sting”. Melee spin to deflect the bullets but be careful about the acid that he throw at you. No defending from that.*

## Tactics

The Scorpion King appears at the bottom-center of the screen and will cycle between two different phases during the battle against him.

In the first page, the **minigun strafe phase**, Scorpion King will fire from both his arm-mounted miniguns while strafing left or right. When Scorpion King returns to the bottom-center of the screen, he will narrow the distance between the two lines of fire, then stop firing, and shoot an acid projectile in front of him. He will then strafe one more time, or in Hardcore mode, immediately move on to his second phase.

The trick to dealing as much damage to Scorpion King in this phase is to stay between his stream of bullets, moving along his strafing path. Should the player find themselves too close to the bullets and in need of exiting the stream - the bullets he fires here can be deflected with a hammer, which allows for a safe escape. The acid he fires at the end of a strafe attack cannot be deflected in any way, and must be avoided at all costs.

In the second phase, the **burrow phase**, Scorpion King will dig a hole and go underground. While underground, Scorpion King will follow the player around and if it manages to position itself directly under the player, use its tail to impale the player, dealing damage. Additionally, during this phase, a horde of Antaresian Spiders will reinforce the Scorpion King and attack the player. This stream of Spiders ends when the second phase ends. Scorpion King will then return to the middle-bottom of the screen and start over from the first phase.

Avoiding Scorpion King in this phase is an easy task for fast characters such as Dancing Denzell. Lo Wang's melee dash also works perfectly for avoiding King, should he come too close to the player. The Spiders are best repelled using a rifle weapon.

In the Hardcore mode, Scorpion King has four miniguns instead of two, making for an extra wide stream of bullets. He also fires three acid projectiles instead of one, in a triangular pattern.

Beating the Scorpion King before he can get to the burrow phase unlocks the Overkill achievement. Beating him with two curses activated unlocks Against Some Odds.

## Trivia

* The King's appearance is based off the Arachnoids from the classic Serious Sam games.
* The movie the in-game description refers to is The Scorpion King. During development, this was also the name for the boss, but the two words were switched around due to potential copyright concerns.