Popping Corn

Popping Corn is a consumable effect that restores health to the player by healing for each peg activated during a shot. It appears as an item-like effect that triggers when pegs are struck, converting peg hits into small, immediate heals that sustain the player's surviving pegs between rounds.

The effect heals 1 HP for every peg activated (the number of activations is determined by the game's HEAL_PEG_HITS value). It applies on a per-shot basis: whenever a shot activates pegs, each activated peg grants the listed amount of healing to the player. This makes Popping Corn particularly effective in levels or runs with dense peg layouts or when using shots that reliably hit many pegs, such as wide-angle shots, multiballs, or setups that ricochet through clusters.

Practical notes and interactions:

• Maximizing peg activations in a single shot increases the total heal gained from Popping Corn, so pair it with abilities or items that increase pellet count, spread, or peg-bouncing.
• The heal is granted immediately upon peg activation; it does not queue or delay, so it can prevent peg losses between successive enemy turns.
• Effects that change how pegs are activated (for example, converting pegs to stronger states or altering activation triggers) will proportionally affect the amount healed since healing scales with activations.