Lemmings Forums

Hi everyone

Your tutorials have been very helpful Flopsy. :thumbsup:

(Ski Sloping lemmings) which probably has not much to do with skiing. This is a pack that uses the original skills and the original and Oh no tilesets, the nine tilesets. :thumbsup: I think I made some decent puzzle type levels. The first eight or nine levels are tutorials but not like your normal tutorial levels, these ones are a bit harder than your standard tutorial levels. The first level is just to do with using the release rate tool, I think it is set to 50 but I could be wrong.

I'm hoping to maybe do some backroute changes but I might do that at a later date, see how it goes as it is at the moment. The first rank which is the (Blue slope) that's your hard tutorial levels and few more straight forward type of levels. The next rank up is the (Red slope)which are slightly harder still these levels might have multiple solutions. The rank after this one the the (Black Slope) these levels get harder as I've hopefully implemented some puzzles within some of the levels. The last rank is the hardest (Orange Slope) where you can't make many mistakes at all as you can lose the level.

I'm hoping that the 80 levels are okay and hopefully some levels might trip up even the masters of the lemmings. There are a few levels that might not go down well but lets hope that there aren't too many of those type of levels. 

I hope I have added the right file.

I'm hoping this also encourages others to make a big level pack. It was actually quite fun making the levels but sometimes you do run dry for ideas and sometimes it can be a bit more difficult to come up with a level.

Thanks Namida and IchoTolot, :) Thanks for helping me out with the last post. hopefully I've added the right one this time.


Should work now the download. :)

Hi! Downloaded it and it seems to work. :)

But I found 1 bug currently:

For me the "Black Slope" rank is the first rank in the level selector. I also found the reason:

Your "levels.nxmi" file is named "Ski Sloping levels.nxmi". This way the file gets ignored and the levels are just displayed by folder order in the level select screen.

I fixed it for myself now and the "Blue Slope" rank is now the first rank as intended. Did you manually edit the file's name? ??? If yes, don't simply rename those generated files! ;)

Anyway rename the "Ski Sloping levels.nxmi" file to "levels.nxmi" and reattach the pack with the fixed name. Then everything will function correctly. :)

I will try to take a look at the pack over the next week. :)

Replays for the Blue Slope rank attached. Comments:

Comments

1. Release Rate Practice: Odd title. Sure, it's convenient to raise the RR to 99 to speed things up, but it's not necessary, and that leaves most of what you can do with the release rate unexplored.
2-4: Okay skill tutorials but the 100% requirement is a bit harsh. I suppose that underlines the fact that this is a NeoLemmix pack and you expect the player to make use of features such as undo, splat ruler and skill shadows.
6-7: Much trickier than expected for tutorials, with some precise placement needed in 6, and timing / crowd control tricks in 7.
9. Building Test: The first of several levels in this rank with a lot of building. I know it's much easier in NL with the ten-second skip, but it's still one of the more tedious ways of getting from point A to point B. I used an advanced trick for containing the crowd; not sure what was intended here.
10. Treat Earth Well: For the first non-tutorial level, this would be tough for new players, with the trick of working with the last lemming, not much leeway with skills, and the first trap.
11. Cold Night: Much easier.
12. Extremely Tough Level: ...it really wasn't all that bad :P but again, the trick would be hard for new players, making me wonder whether the level really belongs this early.
13. Four Temples: I like the concept, but would have preferred more variety among the sub-levels instead of mostly building.
15. Old Palace: Dense and chaotic. No idea if there was a different intended route, but I'm sure there are lots of ways to do it. However, this is fairly demanding for an early level, especially with the 100% requirement.
17. Strange Place: Yay, a break from building and a nice puzzle with a small number of skills. I saved 100% when (for once) the level is lose-5, so I'm not sure if what I did was unintended or you just built in some leeway. Could add a talisman.
19. Very Dangerous Trail: This was horrible. There are so many falls that are only just above splat height, and the limited skills meant I couldn't take the precautions I wanted, to make them safe by a comfortable margin, so I had to do a lot of testing and rewinding. (The splat ruler doesn't help much when a fall is borderline, unless you're very good at reading it.)
20. Search in Snow: NL reveals the hidden exit easily, so this is just a large "get through a varied terrain" level. At least it's a pretty fun one, with decent leeway and lots of room to choose your own route.

Thanks guys trying the pack out, look forward to checking those replays you guys have.

Quote from: grams88 on March 31, 2019, 06:40:45 PM
Thanks guys trying the pack out, look forward to checking those replays you guys have.

The issue is still not fixed yet.

The "levels.nxmi" file is still named "Ski Sloping levels.nxmi" in your attachment.

Rename and reattach it so unsuspecting users still get the right order of difficulty ranks, it's just 1 file that needs a quick renaming.

Otherwise most people will start with Black Slope.

I attached the fixed pack. It's quick so I simply did it. ;P

At least we got in working in the end. :)

Thanks for playing and commenting on the levels proxima. I'm looking forward to watching the replays, is there a shortcut key for playing replays? I forgot which key it was. I'll will post a more detailed reply once a few try the blue slope levels out. The (Very Dangerous Trail) level will be an interesting one to watch as I feel that might be a bit hard for the blue slope rank but I'll keep there at the moment.

Quoteis there a shortcut key for playing replays? I forgot which key it was.

Standard hotkey for loading replays in a level is "L".

All hotkeys can be looked at by going into the configuration menu by pressing "F3" in the main menu.

Also the answer to most things in that regard is: The Manual (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4081.0)

QuoteAt least we got in working in the end. :)

Your attachement in the main post still contains the wrong file name for "levels.nxmi". ;)

Looking forward to checking out the replays. My thinking in relation to making the tutorial levels was to make them a bit harder than your traditional tutorial levels. Hoping it is not off putting for newer players, I was hoping a lot of us may have some mayhem or havoc experience. :devil:

Spoiler

Thanks for posting the replays Proxima

I got the idea for the first level from a colorful Arty level where you don't need to do anything but I thought I would use that as practice to use the release rate.

The next few levels might be more linear as you have a certain route that you must take. I see where you are coming from there Proxima with some of the early tutorial levels being a bit harsh, my main idea was to actually make the tutorial levels a bit tougher than usual. This might sound strange and a bit off putting for newer players but my main idea was that a lot of us might of finished or got very far in the original and oh no so by the time someone gets to the custom packs they maybe some lemmings experience with that also.

This can be a very mean level (the building test) and very tedious, maybe the hardest of the tutorial levels. I'll check your replay for that one. proxima

Attached are lots of replays.

Spoiler

In my opinion, there are many very similar levels, that all boil down to: Getting safely down using lots of small islands. Similarly there are quite a few levels that consist of placing builders correctly to get up. Having a few of them is fine with me, but in the current pack, there are too many of them.
Secondly, some levels could be more polished optically. They somehow feel like you placed some pieces randomly and tried to form a level out of it afterwards. 
Blue Slope 17: Good level, but far harder than its current place. Should be moved later.
Red Slope 3: Nice level.
Red Slope 9: Saving all lemmings on this level is a very nice challenge.
Red Slope 14: Are you sure this level is solvable?
Black Slope 1: Excellent level! :thumbsup:
Black Slope 19: The bottom half was very nice. But building up between the topmost two layers was unnecessary in my opinion. I would have preferred if the exit was slightly lower and less builders are given.
Orange Slope 1: Nice level, but it really doesn't need to be quite so tall.
Orange Slope 5: Very good idea: Hinting at 13 separate mini-levels, but two of them have to cooperate.
Orange Slope 12: Excellent level! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
Orange Slope 19: I have two "solutions" that fail due to a fall that is just one single pixel too high. Could you please first check that the level is still solvable with the latest NL version (as I know solutions that would work in vanilla Lemmix) and perhaps make it clearer which falls are deadly?

Thanks Nepster

Spoiler

Red slope level 14 is possible, I double checked just there, it's a tricky puzzle

Just to double check something, can you actually change the height when making levels in Neolemmix? I kept mine to the default height for all levels.

Hi guys

Spoiler

(Nepster) I will probably focus on some of the black slope levels. I watched your black slope and orange slope replays, still to watch the others. The long building ones must of been a nightmare. My folders all messy at moment, it is in the wrong order for the levels

A journey level was completed nicely, you let one die. Your solution to big world was the intended solution, you done well building from the trap area. 

The bubbles, bubbles everywhere was the intended one, I tried to make this level's solution not so obvious.

The dirt puzzle level was similar to the intended one.

The falling down the mountain was an interesting solution you had there, I like how you used the builders to get up the hill.

Great lemming caper was the intended solution.

The man with moustache level was a different solution but it was accepted I would say, not a back route as such. 

The maze blocks level was an interesting solution, you done quite well using the bomber skill to alter the terrain to your advantage. :thumbsup: North pole puzzle was almost the intended solution, I think with that level you can have quite a few different approaches, maybe except for the end part.

Will you rescue me, I kind of liked your solution, I'm hoping others don't do it that way, it's a good solution but can probably get tedius with the building.

The welcome to the red world, I'm maybe thinking about changing that one but I will see how others solve that one.     

Actually you guys are helping me find some backroutes, Nepster might of found a few, thank you. I might as well focus on finding backroutes at this time being. If I do make a backroute changes, I will let you know what levels it is and post the updated pack at the top of this thread. I might make a few changes to the later levels rather than the earlier ones.



Actually I might as well do an update just now,

Thanks to Nepster for finding them.

Only across less builders, Nepster solution okay

Maze blocks less builders, Nepster solution okay

Welcome to venus placed traps so can't go a certain way.

Welcome to the red world, changed some blocks to make the height higher.

I will add the updated one at the top of this post, Many thanks.

Thanks for the reply.

QuoteA journey level was completed nicely, you let one die.

Which NeoLemmix version do you use? When I load my replay, it saves all lemmings.

You are right, you saved them all on that one Nepster, I just noticed what you used the last builder for. :)

I've had some time for the first rank and the last level today. I've attached the replays. :)

For the written comments here I will focus on what could be improved.

In general:

My favorite level so far was 1 17! :thumbsup:

As Nepster also stated: For my taste there were too many huge levels with 15+ builders. I would try turning down the builder count drastically and aim for a balance between small, medium and large levels in future content.
In quite a lot of levels I just had to build very long bridges where I just assigned a builder, pressed the skip 10secs button, assigned the next builder, pressed the skip 10secs button, assigned the next builder,......this makes some levels seem very monoton.

Level specific:

Spoiler

- 1 02 + 1 03: I think 5-10 lemmings would have done the trick here. ;)
- 1 05: The empty space where you just walk could have been trimmed here. You have long walking periods where nothing needs to be assigned.  You could have achieved the same with a much smaller level.
- 1 09: This is too hard and too long for a simple builder tutorial. I would have put the exit on the lower right side here.
- 1 12: This is quite a step in difficulty from the last level. Mining from below through a ceiling could easily be a road block for less experienced players.
- 1 13: I think I stated many times that I really don't like the disjoint union kind of levels. :devil:   Each section could have been a level on it's own.
- 1 17: A really good puzzle! :thumbsup:
- 1 20: Exits should always be visible! Even more when they can't hide from true physics mode. ;)

- 4 20: I see the main problem here should be "how to turn with just builders". But you could really cut the level height in half here and still make the level work with waaaaay less builders.

- 4 19: I quickly checked the level as Nepster stated that it may be impossible: I quicky saw a solution that failed to a terrain piece being 1 pixel off. Could you check if this level is indeed possible. ???

Hi IchoTolot

Thanks for giving the pack and go and comments. :)

Have you got a replay for the 4 19 one?

Quote from: grams88 on April 06, 2019, 10:16:45 PM
Have you got a replay for the 4 19 one?

As I stated:

Spoiler

Before I do any further serious attempts on the level I first want a confirmation that the level is solvable and not indeed unsolvable by accident. I have wasted too many hours (I guess even days by now) on impossible levels in the past.

I just have a suspicion because now 2 attempts fail because of of 1 pixel. I've attached these 2 via replays to this post.

Replay 1 failed because the lem missed a piece of terrain by 1 pixel. The 2nd one because of a bridge being 1 pixel too short.

In any way I HIGHLY recommend you create, store and maintain solving replays to all of your levels as a master library on your machine. This way you will always have easy access to intended solutions and can confirm that all levels are indeed solvable.

Spoiler

I was able to solve the level, it's an interesting one I feel.

Quote from: grams88 on April 06, 2019, 10:48:58 PM

Spoiler

I was able to solve the level, it's an interesting one I feel.

Ok, good. That's what I wanted to know. :)

Solved it now and attached my solution.

Spoiler

Consider moving the left terrain piece that was a problem in one of my replays to the left to better mark that the attempt does not work.

Don't think this is spoiler as such, that's the intended solution IchoTolot, welldone that is a tricky one to find but I kind of like the trick that you sort of have to use in that level.

Ok, I finally solved 4-19, too. While the solution is very nice, I feel that you really should give players a bit more leeway in placing their skills.

Spoiler

Basically the four skills on the middle platform all have to be placed pixel-precise! And to make it worse: There are dozens of placements that fall short by a single pixel.
Actually I tried this very solution when I first played your pack, but after several failed placements, I decided that this couldn't possibly work. Only after three more hours trying everything else and eliminating all other possibilities, I went back and finally managed to find the correct placement.
Playing and solving this level would have been a lot more fun for me, if I had two or three more pixels to place the first builder on the middle platform and at least one more pixel to place the first miner.

Thanks Nepster

Spoiler

It is an unusual solution and can get a bit annoying when try to build up to that bit, I was hoping that would lead players away from the solution specially being the second last level in all. I think it all comes down to the very first builder, I could be wrong but if you are using the first builder as a stepping stone sort of thing for your next builder. I would be a bit scared to mess around with that to be honest as IchoTolot was mentioning in his last post.

Spoiler

This is to do with the last level, I was kind of wanting to cop;y the thing from the original lemmings by making the last level not as hard as the other ones. I really liked that idea from the original lemmings

Hello,

I recently startet playing this level pack and I finished the "Blue Slope" rank today. It's different from the level packs I played so far for the levels are much bigger and the degree of difficulty varies considerably - a little too much for my taste, to be honest.

Some notes:

Levels 6-9: While I appreciate the idea of tutorial levels, I think these levels are damn hard for its kind. In level 7, a lot of precision is necessary while in level 9, I used an advanced trick for crowd control.
Level 11: A complete cakewalk compared to the levels before and after.
Level 12: This one is HARD. I'm quite sure I backrouted it, using a basher-glitch
Level 13: I personally don't belong to the people in this forum that don't like disjoint unions. The concept of this level is pretty nice though I think the four sub-levels could be more varied. There's too much building involved. Also, a time limit would be appropriate here since it would force the player to solve all the parts simultaneously.
Level 14: Easy one and a real builder fest. Levels of this type are a litte overrepresented in the pack so far.
Level 15: One of the best levels in the first rank! I like the name (always important for me), I like the chaotic visual design and I like the way I solved it - though I'm not sure if I did it the intended way. I'm very sure there are multiple solutions possible here.
Level 17: This is the only real puzzle and therefore it's the best level of "Blue Slope" - I agree with others here. Took me a while to find a solution.
Level 19: Much too hard for its position. Many falls are just above or below splat distance and it's almost impossible to estimate them all correctly. It's all try and error.
Level 20: Personally dont' like hidden exits. It's often said, but I believe that a level should give the player all information needed directly from the start (and yes, that's also true for hidden traps).

Now, this may a sound a little negative, but it's definately not true. Everyone has its own artistic handwriting and I like exploring this. And now I'm looking forward to the Red Slope rank.
All my solutions can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/user/Vidusaka/playlists

Alright so, at the moment I'm pretty stumped on the next level in each of the other two packs I'm playing (SEBLems and Lemmings United), so I figured I'd give a new one a go.

Replays attached for all the levels I've solved so far.

Blue Slope feedback

0101 "Release Rate Practice" - Just to prove a point, I solved this one without changing the release rate. :P A time limit could avoid this.
0104 "Lost Exit" - The last part is a tad on the tricky side - obviously the exit is easy enough to spot, but having to turn around and make sure no lemmings slip past the miner seems a bit excessive for a level at this point. I'd suggest reducing the save requirement a bit, or putting a wall on the other end so lemmings can't leave that area.
0105 "It's All Downhill From Here" - There's no reason this level needs to be this large.
0106 "Know Where To Bomb" - This one was quite a difficulty spike.
0107 "To Dig Or Not" - And this one even more so. O_O
0108 "Make Sure You Block" - Then, by comparison, this one is pretty easy. Also, this is another one that's way larger than it has any reason to be.
0109 "Building Test" - There's no way around it - this is an utterly awful level. It's also yet another sudden difficulty spike, as any trick used to separate a worker using only builders will always be a fairly advanced trick. But the biggest issue is, once again, this level is ridiculously huge for no reason.
0110 "Treat Earth Well" - The crowd control on this level is nice, but I feel you could remove most of the building a path without this level being any worse off for it.
0111 "Cold Night" - This is fairly easy compared to the others as long as one knows the dig-under-blocker trick, but it's not a bad level otherwise.
0112 "Extremely Tough Level" - ...so, if you recognize it's extremely tough, why not move it to a later rank? It's not a terrible level, although it's a concept that almost every level designer has created some variation of.
0113 "Four Temples" - You could easily cut down on the number of builders in this level. Also, the third temple from the top seems utterly pointless - it's literally just "build up to the top of the wall".
0114 "Knots Landing" - Another long, easy level that's mostly building with a couple of other skills thrown in. From this point on, I will skip such levels, as they're just time consuming without offering any real challenge.
0115 "Blue Palace" - Okay, this one is a MUCH more interesting level! This one is really good - although I would say that it is another one that's a bit of a difficulty spike.
0116 "Pillars Of Earth" - Skipped.
0117 "Strange Place" - This is a pretty decent level! Although I think this might be a backroute.
0118 "Burst Pipe" - Skipped.
0119 "Very Dangerous Trail" - Skipped.
0120 "Search In Snow" - While I'm almost certain this was intended as another "use lots of builders" level, I solved it because I spotted a way to do so without using any builders at all. However, even with this solution, this is still not a very good level - hidden exit (which is pointless in NeoLemmix, as clear physics mode can very quickly reveal it), and huge for no reason.

I'll continue with Red Slope in a bit; though if I find again that I'm skipping more levels than I'm solving, I likely won't go much further than that.

Overall, my opinion is - this pack isn't very good so far, but, you definitely have potential to make a better pack in the future. Don't take this too harshly - I had the same issues with my early packs; I generally don't even acknowledge any of my packs earlier than Lemmings Plus I anymore because they had these same issues - levels being unnecesserially large, builder-y, difficulty all over the place, etc. Even Lemmings Plus I shows this effect to a small extent. It takes time to get good at this. Levels like "Blue Palace" show you do have the ability to make good open-ended levels, while some of your training levels and "Strange Place" show potential for puzzles (for example - the builder training level, while a bad level overall, relies on some clever thinking to seperate a worker - that is a good element; try using ideas like that in levels with less filler). You definitely shouldn't give up on level design - pay attention to the criticism of this pack, and chances are your next one will be much better. :D

Continuing on with Red Slope,

Feedback

0201 "Old 1930s Pipework" - Not a bad level. Unlike the earlier ones, just building everywhere won't work, and the player is forced to be somewhat economical with builders and make use of other skills instead.
0202 "Learn As You Lem" - Quite a big difficulty spike here, but a good level. Although again, there isn't really a need for that much building - or for that matter, for the bash to be that long.
0203 "Tetris Blocks" - I was not able to solve this one. To be clear, this isn't in the sense of "I skipped it because it looked bad" - I just couldn't find a working solution.
0204 "Lemmings vs Spiders" - This level was not very interesting gameplay-wise, and absolutely awful from a visual point of view.
0205 "Think Carefully" - This is a pretty good level! :D
0206 "No Exit Hoax" - Again, hidden exit levels are both pointless (due to clear physics mode) and annoying.
0207 "Sandy Stairway" - Skipped.
0208 "Be On The Lookout" - Skipped.
0209 "Follow The Fire" - Not a particularly interesting level, and another one that's excessively big for no reason.
0210 "Inspired Level" - Skipped.
0211 "Learn As You Lem 2" - Skipped. One thing I'll point out - since you obviously need to make every lemming a floater anyway, and there's no reason not to do so right away when they spawn, why not just make them spawn as floaters?
0212 "I Have A Dream" - 100%ed without using builders. At this point though, the whole "huge top to bottom, with a few general obstacles along the way but no overall greater picture" concept is getting very worn out. It's one thing to do that once or twice for easier levels; but it's getting really excessive by this point in this pack.
0213 "Lemming Has Crashed" - Skipped.
0214 "Walking Downstairs" - Another large, top-to-bottom, generic obstacles with no overall bigger picture level.
0215 "Pipe Entrance" - Skipped.
0216 "Only One Miner" - Mostly a nice level, but it wouldn't hurt to fill in the gaps in the last part - all they achieve is making the miner annoying.
0217 "Building Down Steps" - So not only is this yet another level like 12 and 14, but it's pretty much just 0214 in a different graphic set - it's the same thing, just build from one platform to the next. There's a small twist in that it's trickier to turn lemmings around when needed - build to the floating rock on the left, block and have the last lemming mine under to release (then make them both floaters) on the right. But I'm not going to actually execute this one, due to it yeah, pretty much just being 0214 again.
0218 "How To Get Down" - This one is a much better level! :D I might have backrouted it, though.
0219 "Egyptian Curse" - I very nearly skipped this one upon seeing the general layout and the skillset, but then realised what the actual solution was, and that it was actually relatively good. This is a good example of how even if you have good levels, having too many bad ones can negatively impact them!
0220 "Cave Climbing" - Skipped.

So, end of the second rank, and most levels are still general easy ones that are extremely builder-heavy. Sorry to say this, but I am not at all impressed with this pack, and I don't think I will be continuing any further with it. On the other hand, I am definitely interested to see what you create in the future, after taking into account the feedback you've gotten on this pack. :)

Thanks Namida and Swerdis

A lot levels have been builder heavy in that regards, thanks for your honest feedback. Looking forward to checking out your solutions.

Maybe I might of rushed this pack, sometimes I tend to rush projects which might be a bad thing. The second last level on the blue slope might be one I should of put into the later ranks but I'll probably keep it there for the time being. The tetris block levels seems to be an odd one here in that it is not too builder heavy but more of a puzzle type solution which it does seem to be a one in a blue moon type of thing.

No worries about the honest feedback, I will try to take into account what you are saying for any new projects in the future. I might of found it quite tricky thinking of different solutions without it being too builder heavy, there is one level I really don't like and I was thinking should I include it but I would this one is extremely builder heavy, I was thinking because we have the fast speed feature the builder heavy ones might not be too much of a problem maybe that's why I put more in than was needed. I probably need to cut down on that aspect of it.

I'm hoping the last two ranks won't be too builder heavy, there is one level I know for a fact I'm not proud of.

Don't worry about the honest feedback guys.

Try to compare it to an older pack rather than comparing it to the great packs that are out now, I wanted to be a traditionalist as I wanted to just stick with the way lemmings was in the past except there is one thing I did which was not traditionalist and that was the vertical scrolling, I know we had this in lemmings tribes so I thought I might as well do it that in my one. I thought a lot of the levels on mindlist's website are still very good puzzle wise and look really nice, even though they are older ones.

Try to compare it to my very first pack which was this one.

http://lemmings-db.camanis.net/levelpack/ag1zfmxlbW1pbmdzLWRichELEglMZXZlbFBhY2sY4s4FDA/

Is there a shortcut for loading replays quick, I forgot how to do it as I left it for a while.

Sorry for the builder heavy type levels, there are quite a lot in the earlier ranks, hoping it is not as much further on.

The shortcut key to load replays is "L", assuming you haven't changed it. This is true for both default hotkey layout choices.

So - you say you want to stick to traditional features. That's fine, you're far from alone in that regard. Although not all of them stick to old features still, there are several creators who have made amazing content using only "classic" features, such as IchoTolot's "Lemmings Reunion", Nepster's "NepsterLems", many one-off levels by Crane, etc.

And I fully understand that, builders make it easy to make huge levels, they also take up a lot of time so they "feel" like you're making a big, hard level. But usually, when you rely too hard on them, what you're actually creating is a big tedious level, not a big hard one. Don't take this too harshly - this is a mistake that almost everyone makes with their early content, and some people still make it sometimes even when they reach a higher level of skill. For example - SEBLems, which is an absolutely amazing pack from the 2nd rank onwards, has a few too many levels of this kind in the 1st rank.

A good way to overcome this is - try to create a pack, not necesserially a big one, it could just be 10 levels or so, while holding yourself to some specific rules that force you to change how you do things. In this case, perhaps set a limit on number of builders - maybe "no more than 4 in any single level, and the average per level across the entire pack must be 2 or less" - and perhaps a similar rule on level size. Think of other ways that such obstacles could be handled - for example, there's a wall lemmings need to get up? Instead of giving some builders, give the player two climbers, a blocker, and a miner. Or if getting up the wall really doesn't need to involve anything but building up, there's no need to prevent other lemmings going up it early, etc - don't even put the wall in the first place; put a ramp instead. There's a gap? Maybe there's a different path that goes around it - or maybe they do build over it, but it's a single small gap that only needs one or two builders. Which brings me to another thing to consider - if you don't have much reason why you need a gap that requires multiple builders to cross, shorten the gap so it only needs one or two. For the purpose of this suggestion, if you have several gaps in a row that require one or two builders each, generally, treat them as one big gap. Of course, there are cases where this suggestion might not quite fit. For an example, see "The Buildo Station", Danger 18 in my pack Lemmings Plus I. This is a level with 25 builders, and players will generally use most, or even all, of them. But due to the nature of how they're used, the level can be completed in under 1 minute - and indeed, it must be, as it has a 1 minute time limit. Another example of a level that's builder-heavy, but still a decent level, is "It's All A Matter Of Timing" from Oh No! More Lemmings! - because how to use those builders is a puzzle itself, it's not just a matter of repeatedly using them in obvious ways until you reach the exit.

Remember - levels do not have to be super long. Many of the most highly-regarded levels are actually quite small - from the official game, for example, the three most highly regarded levels in the original game are Mayhem 3, Mayhem 13 and Mayhem 20, all of which are fairly short levels, with few builders (2 in Mayhem 13, 1 each in the others). To the contrary, the massive, builder-heavy levels like Taxing 14, Mayhem 1 and Mayhem 14 tend to not be nearly as popular. Now don't take this the wrong way - it IS possible to make a huge level that's also very popular, the level that won Level Of The Year 2016 (IchoTolot's "Heroes of Lemkind") was fairly large. However - if you solve, or watch a solution to, this level, you'll notice that there isn't endless building just to clear a single obstacle. It definitely uses builders, but not to create single huge ramps. There are other levels in Lemmings Reunion that do involve creating single large ramps - but usually, one lemming will be doing this, and the real puzzle of the level is keeping the other lemmings busy while he does so.

Thanks for the information Namida

Hoping I do the spoiler thing okay. :)

Spoiler

The building test totorial type level does not seem to be too popular which I can understand because of the amount of building. It does get a bit tedious.

I made most of my boss levels big in the building department, that's probably going to be very unpopular.
THe strange place level seems to be a little bit popular, I liked how this one turned out

The very dagerous trail, I can understand that it is lots of building and estimating height distances which can get annoying, I felt it does have a tiny puzzle attached to it.

Swerdis done quite well with this one, you left with seven builders left. I wouldn't of even thought of that solution welldone

The pillars of earth one could be annoying as it is a straight forward solution and a lot of building.


Cold night I think that's what the level was called yeah it does have the digging under the blocker but i feel most people would have probably gotten very far with the original and maybe oh no before they tried this. Amiga and Atari st fans might of played the two player version might of revealed this trick within the two player mode, I loved the two player version back in the day.

The one where you had to do mining to get to the exit, at least the exit was showing as you were saying namida but I can understand why it might be difficult for newer members.

I like your comments for the blue palace level, I tried to make it look an old palace with the spiders webs everywhere, there's a few different ways to this one, I wouldn't say there was an intended solution as such.

The search in the snow level was more of a play around and have fun. I really liked hidden exits level and I feel we all have different opinion on this, I know Ichotolot was so against this from what I remember. I'm in the minority with this one I would say, I mean one or two hidden exits levels in a pack would be okay but if it was more than two I think it would be more annoying in my opinion.

Sorry a bit all over the place with the levels , I get confused easily. I loved watching your video Swedis and thanks to Namida,, I might maybe try a 10 level pack at sometime in the future and avoid the long building type levels.

Hey Grams88,

thank your for watching my videos. I don't have to add a lot to what Namida has written since he perfectly summarized what could be done better. Just want to say: Don't take the criticism too much to your heart. I'll tell you something: I didn't create a level pack by myself so far, so it's absolutely unproven if I could do it better. And I'm quite sure your next pack will be a step forward. (I will finish this pack here, though.)

Greetings, Swerdis

Interesting reading what Namida has wrote, I will try to take that into account when I make my next pack, I don't think I will be changing much with this pack, it was even tricky making this one. :) I felt as if I made not bad puzzles considering not knowing much about Neolemmix and the tricks that many of us are used to. The big criticism seems to be with the heavy building and yes I agree a lot of the levels can get tedious because of this but I feel as if the later levels aren't really a build anyway type of levels. I feel as is some of the later levels you have to think a little bit before you build. A lot of the earlier levels were more following the lines of the original tricky levels in where you can build anyway so to say.

I could maybe focus on smaller levels in the future with less building. I can't really change this pack a lot, I wouldn't even no where to begin so it is what is. I would say this is not a pack for the regular forum members but more of a one for the newer members who have not really tried much neolemmix out. I wanted it to be a slight step up from the oh no more lemmings in that the tutorial levels are not meant to be your standard tutorial levels and they are meant to be a bit more challenging than your normal tutorial levels.

I'm hoping at least a lot the forum members do get a tiny tiny tiny amount of enjoyment from the level pack

Just some quick updates to two of the levels.

(Cave climbing) I have removed the barrier to the right and change some of the skill limits.
Thanks to Swerdis for this one. I mean to the left ooopps

(Will you rescue me) has some more steel areas. I think I thought about changing it slightly after watching Nepster's Attempt at the level.

I will update the download link on the first page where you download the pack. (Many thanks)

Hoping it is okay to post Swerdis's attempts or completing the (Ski Sloping Lemmings) if that's okay from Swerdis :) I think he plays through Deceits's pack as well which is a highly regarded pack in the community.

I try to avoid watching other playthroughs of packs if it is one I'm thinking of playing in the future, I guess you could say the same applies here. Be careful not to look at the youtube video if you are not wanting to see the solution to the levels in the pack.

I do have a lot of heavy building levels but the later levels of the pack gets you to think where to place the builders instead just randomly building and building. There's only a few levels which just contain the exploder, I thought the instant exploder works well in this scenario. (lol)  A little bit of my thinking because we have the frame stepping features I feel as if that will cut down on the tedious of the building in some levels. I did find if I did make a mistake in one of the levels the reverse feature seemed to take a long time, maybe it was the wrong button I was pressing, it was a frame stepping backwards type of thing if that makes sense.

I tend to take longer with things, what I mean by this is if I try to learn something usually if it is the level editor or duke3d level editor, if I leave it for maybe three or four weeks I feel like I need to relearn it, if I leave something for two or three weeks I get scared just incase I forget how to use it again. This seems to be a thing with me if I was to start projects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq44L_5A-c8&list=UUOahFY7zAWCoGpKOQdUf7mw&index=45

QuoteI did find if I did make a mistake in one of the levels the reverse feature seemed to take a long time, maybe it was the wrong button I was pressing, it was a frame stepping backwards type of thing if that makes sense.

NeoLemmix has a one-frame back button on the skill panel (if you aren't using the compact panel). You can go back one second by right-clicking it, or 5 seconds by middle-clicking it. (The same right/middle click equivalents also apply to the forward 1 frame button.)

You can configure hotkeys to jump forward or back by any amount of time you want. I'm not sure about the functional layout (but you can check under Config -> Hotkeys), but the traditional layout has:

< - Back 5 seconds
- - Back 1 second
B - Back 1 frame
N - Forward 1 frame
> - Forward 5 seconds
Spacebar - Forward 10 seconds

There's also two special skips that can be configured with hotkeys, which on the traditional layout are mapped to [ and ] respectively. The first jumps backwards to the last skill assignment, while the second jumps forwards until either a shrugger exists, or there are no active platformers, builders or stackers.

Finally, there is also the "Save State" feature. This doesn't carry over once you exit gameplay, but by configuring a hotkey, you can press Save State (under traditional layout, Enter) to save and Load State (under traditional layout, Backspace) to load. Note that this saves and loads replay data too, not just the current time position! This can be useful if you want to try something, but might want to revert back to your previous replay later - it's quicker than actually saving (and viewing part of) a replay file for this purpose.

(Thanks Namida for the information will have as look into that one as that will make things a lot easier).

NEW NEWS PLEASE READ

I've been thinking and I might maybe remove a level from each rank, I will try to remove the most hated level from each rank to bring the level pack down to 76 levels. Hoping not to edit any of the levels as it stands unless there is a serious backroute problem which I hope there is not.

Levels I might remove are (Blue Slope) = (Pillers of earth)
                                       (Red Slope) = (Inspired level)
                                       (Black Slope) = (Video game text) Looks like a horrible level
                                       (Orange Slope) = (Inspired by Ben Conway) Too much building

Should be okay to download now, I had a few problems and I think I managed to sort it out now.

Here are replays & feedback for my favourite levels from this pack (coincidentally, all of them are in pillar style!):

Feedback

Blue 13 Four Temples - I can't figure out what the blocker is meant to be for, but that's good because I managed to save all the Lemmings anyway! This is an enjoyable early-pack level, and I love multi-entrance mini-puzzles.

Red 5 Think Carefully - Took me a few tries to come up with a solution to this one, but the title served as inspiration to keep looking! The only thing that I'd suggest is adding a couple of extra skills/terrain blocks to make an all-save possible, because this is a very nifty puzzle deserving of a 100% solution.

Red 18 Egyptian Curse - A fantastic level that not many would get the solution to straightaway! I only managed it because I had to employ the same tactic quite extensively in the Oh No! Reverse Lemmings pack, so I recognised the trick immediately. It's done to great effect here, and it's an enjoyable solve.

Orange 2 Cascade Again - Remix levels will generally always win me over, but this one is done particularly well and it's an all-save to boot, which is always very satisfying. I got the crowd control method the wrong way round in my first try, but the leftover builder I had helped me realise what I'd done wrong! Great to play through.

That was very nice to play through the ski Sloping lemmings pack, :thumbsup::thumbsup: I look forward to checking your replays out, I see you like the piller levels from the pack. The later levels are probably a lot better than the earlier levels in the pack.  Looking forward to checking it out Willem

Quote from: grams88 on February 25, 2020, 12:42:04 PM
That was very nice to play through the ski Sloping lemmings pack, :thumbsup::thumbsup: I look forward to checking your replays out, I see you like the piller levels from the pack. The later levels are probably a lot better than the earlier levels in the pack.  Looking forward to checking it out Willem

To be fair, I haven't been able to solve every level! I'll have a look at the last rank at some point and see how far I can get through it.

No worries WillLem, I think there are some right hard ones in there, I rememember one level in particular that was very tricky, I won't mention what one it is.

Spoiler

The red slope 18 level you did quite well, I liked the technique you had for the lemming building and mining very quickly. I remember finding this level quite hard to pull off myself even though I was the one that created it, weird. You done really well with that one, the tricky one with that one is you have to dig in a way that does not kill the lemming by accidentally digging through the bridge.

I loved your solution for the Orange slope 2 level cascade again, it is virtually the intended solution, maybe I should avoid using intended as I feel your solution could be classed as the intended one as it seems to be on the same idea as my one. I guess this is a level where one lemming does most of the work and it could be that the level overwhelms us right at the start when the lemmings are coming out fast.

The four temples level, I could see why a lot of the earliar levels didn't seem too popular, I think it was to do with the amount of
building that has to be done. The blocker was more of a skill just to make it easier, maybe it was meant for the bottom temple to seperate the lemmings.

The red slope 5, level (think carefully) you done that quite well. I would say it was a bit different to my solution but I think this level could have lots of different solutions, nothing too level breaking hopefully. I liked how you first lemming miners the ground till he dies but the other lemmings can still make it across, that's quite a nice one there Willem.

Thanks for giving the pack a go, makes me happy :thumbsup:

Hello grams88,

I have completed the level pack, so I just wanted to attach my replays and give some feedback. I've also done an LP of the pack.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbp2m4KlFpJvuoGCKxPyBXHeIsM8DzlC7 (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbp2m4KlFpJvuoGCKxPyBXHeIsM8DzlC7). Enjoy! :P

General Feedback on the Pack

There's going to be a lot of echoing of what others before me have already said. As some of the long-time members already stated, there's way too many of the type of levels that most in the community dislike. In particular, there's way too many builderfests, as well as a lot of unnecessarily very tall levels that don't serve any purpose for being tall. For the latter, a lot of the levels can be done on a much smaller map. For the former, I definitely don't mind the occasional one, but after a while it does get on my nerves. In the same way, I don't mind the occasional hidden exit levels. Fortunately, there's only two of them, but there's too much buried exits, though! After a while, it got on my nerves that one needs to uncover the trigger area of the exit.

I will say the same as namida here, and overall I wasn't too impressed with the pack. However, I have noted that the pack isn't all bad. Despite a lot of the levels being of the type that most don't like, there's still some true gems in here.

For the Blue Slope rank, I must say my favorites here were Blue Slope 10 - Treat Earth Well and Blue Slope Slope 16 - Strange Place. I would agree that Blue Slope 18 - Very Dangerous Trail was the hardest of the entire rank. A lot of the splat falls were annoying, but that is the main obstacle of the level. Now that I think about it, I think there were some things that I could had made easier in the solution.

For the Red Slope rank, my favorites were Red Slope 3 - Tetris Blocks, Red Slope 5 - Think Carefully, and Red Slope 15 - Only One Miner. Red Slope 3 took a while, but it was a really satisfying one once the solution did click. Red Slope 5 was a really good puzzle to figure and hash out although admittedly the overhang to prevent coming back to the left was a bit annoying :laugh: Red Slope 15's practically similar to Blue Slope 10 in the level idea of isolating a pioneer and then releasing the crowd later, although the solution in both cases are obvious.

I would say the hardest in the Red Slope rank was Red Slope 10 - Learn as You Lem 2. It might seem that you have a lot of builders, but they surprisingly run out very fast. I'm not sure if it might be possible to finish with a spare builder or two, as well if a solution involving the bottom might exist. Still an unnecessarily tall level in my opinion, although without the decoration at the bottom the level would look super bare, so I think it's all right here. Also, levels where you have to assign so many of the same skill to a lot of lemmings aren't exactly my favorites, either. The level might had worked better if the entrance was a pre-assigned floater one instead.

For the Black Slope rank, I think this was probably your hardest rank in the pack. Honestly, despite being the final rank, the Orange Slope rank wasn't that bad. There were still some hard levels in there, but I think it was mostly due to how I'm already familiar with a lot of the tricks needed on many of the levels there.

My favorite in the Black Slope rank was Black Slope 1 - Great Lemming Caper Part Two (extremely nice reworking of the level from the OL with a really good solution! :)). As for the hard levels, lots of them here: Black Slope 3 - Bubbles, Bubbles Everywhere, Black Slope 7 - Uphill Struggle, Black Slope 8 - Welcome to the Red World, Black Slope 13 - Only Across, Black Slope 16 - Welcome to Grassland, Black Slope 17 - Two Blockers, and Black Slope 18 - Big World. The hardest part in Black Slope 3 was getting down safely, especially with the very limited builder supply. I guess the same can be said about Black Slope 8, since getting down safely is definitely the hardest part. I seemed to have found a really difficult solution to Black Slope 8, in contrast to Swerdis', hence why I really struggled with this level. The hardest part in Black Slope 13 was containing the crowds on the left side, but even after that, getting up to the exit is also very hard, especially considering the very limited builder supply.

For Black Slope 7, the main difficulty seems to come from the execution. In particular, doing the part with getting out the starting area without spending a builder was very frustrating to do. Even after that, the level still isn't a complete cakewalk, especially with making a climber friendly wall for everyone.

Black Slope 17 is extremely punishing in the skillset in that it allows absolutely no leeway or recovery from misplacing even one single builder. The hardest part to do was the far right side, but that in itself is super precise, making the turnaround point and getting up to the next platform with as little builders as possible. I would definitely reduce the precision here or even provide a couple of extra builders. Nothing is more frustrating than having to rewind so much and having to redo several parts of the level because of one screw up in one part of the level.

Most importantly, I will have to apologize for my full blown-out rage I exhibited in my LP on Black Slope 11 - Welcome to Venus. This is truly the first time I have ever fully raged on camera in an LP. It came from a combination of factors: using a route with very fiddly terrain that kept failing, fed up with a lot of the same stuff that had already been done to death before this point by this point in time, such as with the huge builderfests and very tall levels that are not necessary at all with being tall, and just being cranky from lack of sleep. As it turns out, I failed to realize something that I never considered in any of my attempts that would had made it a solve much earlier, hence I was a complete dummy on the level. In any case, it's amazing that I've managed to hold it together for more than 20 LPs before I truly raged for the very first time in an LP video. Not to mention deep down I felt I was suffering and on the verge of a nervous breakdown, stressing out a lot, and wincing in pain so much because I really wanted to just be done with the pack and get on to others I wanted to LP, because, sorry to say it grams88, but I wasn't the least bit impressed with the pack overall. However, as I've stated many times, it's the level I rage at, not the designer, as the author is the last person I would rage at. Even then, there's absolutely no excuse for my full-on rage, so again I apologize for that to you and also my viewers who see it if they happen to watch it. At the same time, I believe in always having the original recording, and hence I still upload it anyway, just to show viewers what can definitely happen during an LP. Obviously, I'm not proud of the moment I truly raged, but I still feel that I must show the video, anyway.

Luckily, it did get somewhat better after the Black Slope rank, because I felt the Orange Slope rank was your strongest rank in the entire pack. My favorites here were Orange Slope 1 - Abandoned Building, Orange Slope 2 - Cascade Again, Orange Slope 10 - Getting Through Those Bars, Orange Slope 12 - Trap of Death, and Orange Slope 14 - Floating Dream. Orange Slope 2 is a very nice remake of "Cascade" from the OL. Certainly harder, especially containing the crowd in the starting area, but once you figure it out, then the rest is somewhat easy. Orange Slope 12 is a really nice one, although I just hate how the starting area is quite small to work with in order to be able to save everyone.

Spoiler

For Orange Slope 1, that's a really clever trick with building so that you get close enough to the wall to fall and bomb to make a hole for the climber to get into and build the splatform for the crowd! :thumbsup:

For Orange Slope 10, I'm already familiar with the trick of removing the ceiling to keep a builder going so that he doesn't hit his head and stop, hence why I found it easy. Even then, it's quite cool that this might be the longest I've seen to repeatedly chip the ceiling off for the builder, although I think there's a similar level to this in Nuked Lems. This can be difficult to achieve due to the timing needed, but fortunately it worked out perfectly for me.

For Orange Slope 14, that's very clever to sync up lemmings so that a lemming can fall safely onto the steel block after a few builder bricks while it's still a safe drop. This seems to be the reason why we're allowed up to 10 losses so that the builders aren't wasted. Thank you for providing way more than enough builders, though! ;)

The hardest in the Orange Slope rank were Orange Slope 4 - Frozen Ice Cave, Orange Slope 5 - 13th Kruger, Orange Slope 6 - Lemmings vs Spiders Two (also a very boring and annoying level to play and solve), Orange Slope 13 - Big Tree, and Orange Slope 18 - Fire and Death. There is a very similar level to Orange Slope 5 in Nuked Lems, except this one didn't give me as much trouble, interestingly enough. Still a really hard level, especially since it's not so obvious how to distribute the skills to any section at any point. This makes it very hard to plan out the solution. At least the number of trapdoors matches the number of lemmings, whereas there are some that don't spawn any lemmings in your Nuked Lems pack. Once again, the hardest part in Orange Slope 13 appears to be containing the crowd without a builder, as the level doesn't appear to be solvable if you do spend a builder to contain the crowd. Orange Slope 18 is a hard level only because it's the only level in the pack I wasn't able to solve after two recorded video attempts and hence had to switch to off-camera time. The solution itself fortunately isn't very tight, but there are a few very pixel precise skill assignments. I would definitely reduce the precision needed, just like Nepster said. Still quite a solid level, though!

Spoiler

Orange Slope 4 was just a very hard level, albeit also an annoying one with the very fiddly terrain and many places where you can't get through without being a climber, especially combined with the very restricted skillset. The start was especially hard to figure out, safely containing the crowd and figuring out what skill you can afford to use. If intended, I must say that interrupting a basher midstroke with a blocker and letting one through is quite clever! Also, I don't know if it was intended for the second icicle trap to not kill anyone due to the trigger being buried in the terrain.

The original version definitely does NOT warrant a repeat in Orange Slope 6! It was just very annoying and it's not obvious at all what is the best path to take with either of the entrances. Not to mention it just seems like a much worse complete mess of webs meshed together. I definitely think this level can go and it wouldn't harm the pack too much at all. Besides, there have already been a few bomberfest levels before this one. Guess this one just pushed the limit there.

Finally, for Orange Slope 11 - Follow the Steps Down, My Love, the lizard trap does not eat the Lemmings at all. I checked in the editor, and the trigger is too high by 1 pixel. Therefore, my solution shouldn't work at all but it does due to the misplaced trigger. Think the easiest fix would just be to spend another skill there with another lemming ahead of time so that not too many get killed and it would still be a solve.

---

Overall, I wouldn't recommend anyone to put this pack on their "to-play" list due to the reasons above, although it's nice to see that you took some of the feedback to heart to improve with your second pack. Now that I've played both of your packs, albeit backwards due to playing your second pack first before your first one, I can definitely agree that Nuked Lems is somewhat a step up from this pack. Especially in the builderfest levels, where I don't think there were really any in Nuked Lems, but unfortunately there's still a lot of unnecessarily tall levels. I still saw a lot of the same things in Nuked Lems, such as that one bomberfest level and the several mini sections that I really struggled with. Still, Nuked Lems is an improvement over Ski Sloping Lemmings.

So really, I guess I might spare anyone the agony of playing through this pack. Admittedly, I really did feel like I was suffering from a heart attack at some point during the Black Slope rank and felt I was suffering unnecessarily from LPing the pack. Honestly, I felt it was the worst decision I made in LPing the pack, but that's on me, as I brought it on myself. No fault of anyone's. However, it's nice to finally know that all levels are solvable and that now there's one person who solved the entire pack.

Just like the others have said, please don't take my harsh criticism too personally as well. Like Swerdis, I myself have not made a level pack yet, and I'm not sure if I ever will, although I haven't ruled it out completely, so I'm not sure if I personally can do better than this. Still, I hope the LP is enjoyable to watch despite my rising rage as the LP goes on. Outside of this, I hope you're doing well and that we'll see you around here sometime again soon! :)   

Hi Kaywhyn

It's good to hear from you, hope you have been doing well. Looking forward to checking your let's play out. I've been working on my the book which is about harm OCD. I'm hoping to maybe get it published as a paperback soon. See how things go in the future.

You don't mind if I post my thoughts here, hope that's okay.

Welldone on completing that pack, it's a very hard one and does contain a lot of builder heavy levels. I do feel my nuked Lems one was a lot better than the skii sloping lemmings. Nukem Lems seems to be getting a better reception than the skii sloping one. Interesting looking at the different solutions to the levels. I wasn't too impressed with the skii sloping lemmings myself, I was thinking of maybe removing it as it seems to be causing more frustration than anything else. I'm thinking about that as I don't think it's a good level pack, to be honest.

I was hoping to maybe making more packs in the future but like before only focusing on the original eight skills ones. I'm not really one for the new skills at the moment as I haven't really looked into them too much. I wonder if I should have a go at making a big level pack again but lessons learned from the previous one especially skii sloping lemmings.

The bombing fest level in Nukedlems I wasn't too keen on myself as I remember it was like bomb after bomb. I remember that one. (hehe)

I might focus more on a similar pack like Nuked lems, I feel that this pack did a bit or is it fair to say a lot better than the skii sloping lemmings. One of the problems I had with skii sloping ones was because the frame stepping was there It sort of encourages me to maybe do alot of levels that are hard to execute if that makes sense.

Interesting you were mentioning about tall levels. The main reason I tend to do levels with maybe a lot of areas is more of a decoration thing, I like the idea of someone just looking around at the level, like the (art gallery) level from the original lemmings game. The decoration in lemmings is always a big thing with me. Maybe precision levels can get very annoying I agree totally there. Fire and death if I remember right was a level you had to have good precision.

It looks like I did 100 times better when making the Nuked Lems, I hope it's okay to say this as I want to improve and if I do simliar levels in the future, hoping people will like those ones.

Hey grams88, it's great to hear from you :) Once again, I apologize if I sounded extremely harsh and patronizing in my feedback. I'm normally not one to have anything negative to say about level packs and usually just stick to the positive stuff, but there was just too much of the former that I felt it needed to be said. After all, it wouldn't be good if I was pretending that Ski Sloping Lemmings is a good pack, in contrast to the other long-time members who posted before me saying that the pack wasn't so good. Now that I've played through the entire pack, I'm in complete agreement with all of them, and you seem to be as well. I hope we didn't influence your decision into agreeing that it's not a well-done pack, though. As I stated further down, there were still some great gems in the pack. I felt the Orange Slope rank was the strongest rank in the entire pack, even though it's not the hardest IMO. That goes to the Black Slope rank, which I felt was the hardest rank in the entire pack.

Quote from: grams88 on September 06, 2021, 11:29:57 PM
You don't mind if I post my thoughts here, hope that's okay.

Of course not! This is your topic, after all. I just love reading and getting feedback from the pack author regarding my solutions myself ;)

Quote
I was hoping to maybe making more packs in the future but like before only focusing on the original eight skills ones. I'm not really one for the new skills at the moment as I haven't really looked into them too much. I wonder if I should have a go at making a big level pack again but lessons learned from the previous one especially skii sloping lemmings.

It's perfectly fine to just stick with the classic 8 skills, as I myself am a diehard traditionalist when it comes to the game of Lemmings myself (classic 8 skills, time limits on every level, etc). I would definitely love to see more level packs from you in the future. Nuked Lems was definitely somewhat better and a step up from Ski Sloping Lemmings, as I definitely saw that you took the feedback you got from the latter to improve the former.

Now that you mentioned it, I'll take this time to say that I thought your Lemmini packs were great! I especially loved your 25th anniversary pack, where you took several OL and ONML levels and made a completely different solution out of them. Even better was that some of the ones that appeared in Colorful Arty's Retro rank in Sublems for SuperLemmini had completely different solutions from his. I would love to revisit those levels sometime just because I remember them being really good. I remember your remake of Fun 2 being one of your hardest and one of the last ones that I managed to solve much later. Same with your remake of Crazy 4 from ONML, although honestly I'm not sure if I would like to do the solution again by hand, hence why I made sure to save a replay of it, because I remember it being a huge pain to execute. Also, I remember your "Pillars of Hercules" remake being a really hard one as well.

Quote
I might focus more on a similar pack like Nuked lems, I feel that this pack did a bit or is it fair to say a lot better than the skii sloping lemmings. One of the problems I had with skii sloping ones was because the frame stepping was there It sort of encourages me to maybe do alot of levels that are hard to execute if that makes sense.

Definitely better than Ski Sloping Lemmings in most ways ;) As for the framestepping existing in NL, yes, it does mean that authors can and have made levels where the absence of such tools make it impractical or nearly impossible to do, but it doesn't mean that it should be done. I will say this, and that is I don't mind pixel precision in solutions, as long as there isn't too much of it. Too much of it in a short amount of time is what will make me mind, similar to how I don't mind the occasional hidden trap but too many in a short amount of time will annoy me.

This was something that I aimed to avoid when I was making my contest levels. I noticed in the process of playtesting, that some of the very precise skill assignments kind of happened by accident due to the design and was therefore completely unintentional on my part. If that happened, I fixed it by allowing more pixels of leeway, as I don't want solutions from others to constantly fail by at least a pixel. I'll be honest, and that is levels where you know the solution but you have to constantly rewind to fiddle around and find the correct skill placements to be on the dot in regards to pixel precision tend to be no fun to play at all, a sentiment I'm sure I share with many of the other members here. Even more so when one's time is valuable.   

@grams88

I'm currently looking at level packs which use only the Classic 8 skills and which might work well in SLX.

I remember enjoying playing this pack as the levels are not too difficult and have a lot of potential. We also seem to share a liking for traditional-style Lemmings gameplay, so I was wondering if you'd like to collaborate on an updated SLX version of this pack :lemcat: We could also look at adding some of the levels from Nuked Lemmings and create a compilation pack of the best levels from each, if that's something you'd be interested in.

Either that, or would you be happy for me to go ahead and remix some of the levels myself? I'd run everything by you before releasing the levels either way.

Let me know your thoughts on this,

- WL

Hi WillLem, Hope you are doing well. :thumbsup: I remember those Ski Sloping lemmings. 

We are very similar in our traditional lemmings style levels. :thumbsup:  I think I did have a lot of builder heavy levels in that pack from what I remember, I liked using the ski slope colors as the difficulty rating. that will be good seeing the levels again and bring back some nice memories. :) We both do like out hidden exit levels even though I probably won't go tooo mad myself with it. :thumbsup:

QuoteEither that, or would you be happy for me to go ahead and remix some of the levels myself? I'd run everything by you before releasing the levels either way.

Hope I done the quote thing okay there, :laugh:

That second option sounds really good if that is okay with yourself, I'm sure you will make some good decisions, I could maybe have a little look to remind myself of the levels, I think there are a few youtube videos up there with the ski sloping lemmings.  I'm looking forward to seeing how this goes, You can pick any levels you want including the nuked lemmings, that will be fine with myself.

I remember they were levels I really liked In there, I'd probably need to refresh myself what the levels were again.  There was a level, I think it was called (Video game text) I think I removed that one as I didn't really like the way it turned out. I wasn't too keen myself on that (Video games text) level.

Quote from: grams88 on April 09, 2024, 03:50:37 PM
That second option sounds really good if that is okay with yourself, I'm sure you will make some good decisions
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You can pick any levels you want including the nuked lemmings, that will be fine with myself.

Thanks! I'll definitely send any work I do on this your way before anything is released anyway, but it's good to have your blessing :lemcat:

Quote from: grams88 on April 09, 2024, 03:50:37 PM
There was a level, I think it was called (Video game text) I think I removed that one as I didn't really like the way it turned out.

No worries, I'll make sure this one isn't included.

Idea: I'm thinking it might be good to title the project "88mph Lemmings", after your username ;P