Lemmings Forums

Allow me to introduce Lemminas. Lemminas are female Lemmings, who wear pink instead of blue and have blue hair, like Marge Simpson, that they keep in a ready-for-action swish pony tail.

The world they inhabit is rich with colour, magic, unicorns and gelato!

Help them navigate their way across the mysterious, magical lands of Purple Kingdom as they find their way back home...

Feast your eyes and ears on these beautiful worlds and enjoy the brand new music; some of it is my own, some of it I've borrowed from classical themes and popular nursery songs, in keeping with the Lemmings tradition (full credits below). I've tried to match it with the visual themes to create an immersive and hopefully memorable playing experience.

Anyway, enough waffle from me! Here are the screenshots:

Screenshots

Rank 1: Magical - The easy stuff! Soft and gooey and gorgeous.

(https://i.imgur.com/Z1MhkNr.png?1)
Welcome The Lemminas - A breezy but beautiful beginning...

(https://i.imgur.com/LZyLPUb.png?1)
Lemminas Go Forth - Four of everything!


Rank 2: Sensational - Still easy ish, but with more crystals and fairy dust!

(https://i.imgur.com/VTrd0zE.png?1)
Race To The Top! - A lot more fun than the first version of this level ;P

(https://i.imgur.com/Nbv3p7I.png)
Escape From Crystal Mountain - Two exits, multiple possible solutions, a smorgasbord of puzzles...


Rank 3: Tricksy - Slightly more demanding puzzles this time, but no less colourful.

(https://i.imgur.com/CD9ozO8.png?1)
Who's Doing What? - I forgot the solution to this one and had to check it from an old replay :crylaugh:

(https://i.imgur.com/yiyLfGJ.png?1)
The Milkshake Machine - A number of ways to unravel this one...


Rank 4: Pandemonium - Reach for the stars and hope for the best...

(https://i.imgur.com/7bh9bxI.png?1)
Lemmina City Steel Facility - At least as hard as it looks.

(https://i.imgur.com/8iITal1.png?1)
Lemgate - A dazzling puzzle. With teleporters.

This pack has been an absolute joy to create. There has been laughter, tears, late nights, eye candy overload, sugar highs, frantically-typed messages, painstaking attention to way too much detail, and all that other good stuff you lovely people have come to expect from a fully-formed pack of NeoLemmix levels.

A huge, huge thank-you to DireKrow for playtesting the entire pack in its first draft, and for going above and beyond to provide a full set of replays, extensively detailed feedback and invaluable advice (most of which has been followed, I assure you!) ;P

Another big thank-you to Proxima and IchoTolot for providing further testing, muchos helpful comments and suggestions, backroute-detection servicing, and pointing out that 300 Lemminas probably is too many...

And of course, a thank-you to Namida for maintaining the platform that supports all of our frantic doodling and puzzlesome wanderings. And for helping to make The Unnecessarily Tall Pillar a much better level. :thumbsup:

But most of all, big thanks to YOU for saving the Lemminas! (That is, after you've downloaded and completed the pack. ;P)

Without further ado, proceed to the downloads section below and enjoy this pack in all its glory! Along with the levels, there is a full set of replays for all Talismans (88 in total - at least 1 on every level!), and of course the music, sound and required styles.

Please feel free to use any of the content (i.e. music, sounds, styles) for your own packs; just remember to credit me if you do.

Enjoy Lemminas!

Recommended settings: NeoLemmix 12.8+ / High Resolution / No Smooth Resampling / Normal Quality Minimap

The pack has been playtested on a low-end laptop with the above settings; all levels performed well and there were no lag issues, even on large levels.

Music Credits:

All tracks arranged and produced by me using Logic Pro X, composer credits as follows:

Lemminas 1 - My own composition
Lemminas 2 - My own composition
Lemminas 3 - Based on Mozart's Sonata in C, Bach's Toccota and Fugue in Dm and Traditional Nursery Rhyme Five Little Speckled Frogs
Lemminas 4 - My own composition
Lemminas 5 - Based on Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C#m
Lemminas 6 - Based on Zoëë's Techno Wonderland, with an ending composed by me
Lemminas 7 - Based on Traditional Nursery Rhymes The Ants Go Marching In and Nellie The Elephant
Lemminas 8 - My own composition

Setting up Lemminas:

I've put everything into one zip folder called Lemminas V1.04 which can be extracted directly to the root folder of your copy of NeoLemmix (the extractor will place everything where it should be). However, if you prefer to do these things manually, ensure that you do the following:

Place the contents of the "levels" folder into NeoLemmix>levels
Place the contents of the "music" folder into NeoLemmix>music
Place the contents of the "Replay" folder into NeoLemmix>Replay
Place the contents of the "sound" folder into NeoLemmix>sound
Place the contents of the "styles" folder into NeoLemmix>styles (the style is available via the NeoLemmix Manager anyway, but here it is just in case!)

As a relatively-open first rank, none of the levels particularly stood out that much, but they were definitely good levels for such a rank.

The only exceptions are 13 and 15. I suggest replacing both.

My reasoning

13 solves itself. I get that it's meant to show the "updraft + exit" combination, but I don't really think this needs a level at all - let alone a self-solving one - to draw attention to it. It's a completely expected result of the objects overlapping, and as long as such an overlap is clearly visible, it draws enough attention to itself.

15 on the other hand, this is a case of "while the ability to do this is a point of interest for technical reasons, it's not something you should actually do in a real-world level" - after all, what you've really done here is placed an invisible teleporter. The wrap effect really isn't needed at all for this level, but if it is there, there's no reason at all it couldn't be done with regular, visible teleporters.

Lemminas Records

* = indicates that this record is held by more than one player.

These records are correct as of the release of Lemminas V1.06 (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679.msg80165#msg80165). If you wish to submit a record, please make sure you have this version.

Rank	#	Level	Fastest Time (Player)	Most Saved (Player)	Fewest Total Skills (Player)
Magical	1	Welcome The Lemminas	1:31.35 (WillLem)	16/16 (*)	6 (*)
Magical	2	We Like To Dig Too	0:15.00 (Proxima)	8/8 (*)	1 (*)
Magical	3	Mind The Gap...	1:22.71 (WillLem)	16/16 (*)	10 (*)
Magical	4	Lemdon Bridge	2:16.65 (WillLem)	16/16 (*)	11 (WillLem)
Magical	5	Lemmina Loop Prevention Service	0:58.35 (WillLem)	2/2 (*)	8 (*)
Magical	6	Just Keep Swimming	0:41.29 (*)	2/2 (*)	6 (*)
Magical	7	Lemminas Luv M.C. Escher	0:59.53 (*)	41/41 (*)	2 (*)
Magical	8	Pyramids of Lem (Under a PepsiCola Sky)	0:56.47 (WillLem)	30/30 (*)	11 (Proxima)
Magical	9	Send Them Soaring!	0:38.94 (WillLem)	16/16 (*)	12 (*)
Magical	10	Just Shimmy!	0:57.41 (WillLem)	1/1 (*)	5 (*)
Magical	11	I'll Go First...	0:58.41 (WillLem)	2/2 (*)	8 (*)
Magical	12	Climbing In The Moonlight	0:34.41 (WillLem)	1/1 (*)	4 (*)
Magical	13	Believe In Yourself!	0:16.88 (*)	1/1 (*)	0 (*)
Magical	14	Lemminas Go Forth	0:48.76 (WillLem)	16/16 (*)	16 (Proxima)
Magical	15	A Jumper Would Be Handy!	1:36.65 (WillLem)	1/1 (*)	3/5 (*)
Magical	16	Revenge of the Ice Cream Monster	1:49.29 (WillLem)	8/8 (*)	20 (*)

Rank	#	Level	Fastest Time (Player)	Most Saved (Player)	Fewest Total Skills (Player)
Sensational	1	Worra Lorra Lemminas!	2:23.12 (*)	301/301 (*)	5 (*)
Sensational	2	Dimples	0:46.24 (WillLem)	30/30 (*)	4 (*)
Sensational	3	Backroute To The Future	1:19.94 (Proxima)	90/90 (*)	5 (Proxima)
Sensational	4	Pillars of Venus	1:40.41 (WillLem)	16/16 (*)	10 (kaywhyn)
Sensational	5	See You On The Other Side	1:41.59 (WillLem)	2/2 (*)	11 (*)
Sensational	6	Hurry!	1:25.18 (WillLem)	2/2 (*)	11 (Proxima)
Sensational	7	The Melting Block	0:20.82 (WillLem)	31/31 (*)	7 (*)
Sensational	8	The Continuum	2:22.82 (WillLem)	8/8 (*)	21 (Proxima)
Sensational	9	Delaying The Inevitable	1:02.06 (DireKrow)	16/16 (*)	9 (*)
Sensational	10	The Strange Boutique	0:47.18 (WillLem)	4/4 (*)	7 (DireKrow)
Sensational	11	The Refrigerator	1:48.65 (WillLem)	100/100 (*)	15 (Armani)
Sensational	12	Falling Forever	0:13.53 (*)	3/3 (*)	3 (*)
Sensational	13	The Unnecessarily Tall Pillars	2:45.00 (WillLem)	17/17 (*)	9 (*)
Sensational	14	Race To The Top!	1:11.76 (WillLem)	2/2 (*)	36 (DireKrow)
Sensational	15	Many Jumpers Would Be Handy!	1:58.18 (WillLem)	100/100 (*)	12/32 (namida)
Sensational	16	Escape From Crystal Mountain	3:25.00 (WillLem)	17/17 (*)	17 (WillLem)

Rank	#	Level	Fastest Time (Player)	Most Saved (Player)	Fewest Total Skills (Player)
Tricksy	1	Who's Doing What?	0:38.47 (WillLem)	31/31 (*)	12/13 (*)
Tricksy	2	Lemmina PepsiCola Research Event	0:48.76 (WillLem)	2/2 (*)	8/10 (*)
Tricksy	3	The Milkshake Machine	1:29.18 (WillLem)	16/16 (*)	6/29 (namida)
Tricksy	4	Konbanwa Lemmina-san	1:18.65 (WillLem)	30/30 (*)	12/36 (namida)
Tricksy	5	Lemmina Drops	1:25.94 (WillLem)	16/16 (*)	6/22 (WillLem)
Tricksy	6	Day of the Daredevils! Part III	1:32.71 (WillLem)	2/2 (*)	7/8 (*)
Tricksy	7	Easy Peasy Lemmina Squeezy	1:13.00 (WillLem)	18/18 (*)	10/13 (*)
Tricksy	8	Stainless Steel Lemminas	0:31.88 (WillLem)	16/16 (*)	2/6 (*)
Tricksy	9	POOR WEE CREATURETTES	1:13.53 (WillLem)	33/33 (*)	19/21 (Proxima)
Tricksy	10	Down The Rabbit Hole	0:22.65 (WillLem)	33/33 (*)	8/65 (*)
Tricksy	11	Lemminas Recurring	0:55.41 (WillLem)	31/31 (*)	6/12 (*)
Tricksy	12	Soda Streams	2:04.94 (WillLem)	3/3 (*)	12/14 (*)
Tricksy	13	Nessy II	2:42.18 (WillLem)	4/4 (*)	30/44 (DireKrow)
Tricksy	14	No I in Team	0:44.76 (WillLem)	8/8 (*)	16/17 (Armani)
Tricksy	15	Just a Second...	0:00.94 (*)	5/5 (*)	6/6 (*)
Tricksy	16	The Crystal Cobwebs of Mt. Katie	1:27.06 (WillLem)	100/100 (*)	37/96 (namida)

Rank	#	Level	Fastest Time (Player)	Most Saved (Player)	Fewest Total Skills (Player)
Pandemonium	1	Lemmina City Steel Facility	1:16.29 (WillLem)	101/101 (*)	16/16 (*)
Pandemonium	2	Milkshake Party	0:59.71 (WillLem)	17/17 (*)	14/17 (kaywhyn)
Pandemonium	3	Nightmare on Lem Street III	1:15.94 (WillLem)	100/100 (*)	29/80 (DireKrow)
Pandemonium	4	Lemgate	1:10.24 (Proxima)	8/8 (*)	9/12 (Proxima)
Pandemonium	5	The Cherry Cola Conundrum	1:44.29 (WillLem)	100/100 (*)	18/25 (WillLem)
Pandemonium	6	L-PoP	0:24.24 (WillLem)	60/60 (*)	10/28 (Direkrow)
Pandemonium	7	Falling Forever Part II	0:43.76 (WillLem)	31/31 (*)	8/8 (*)
Pandemonium	8	Staircase to Nowhere III	1:42.59 (WillLem)	16/16 (*)	38/119 (Armani)
Pandemonium	9	With a Twist of Lemmina Please	0:52.88 (WillLem)	32/32 (*)	13/14 (*)
Pandemonium	10	I'll Just Wait Here, Shall I?	1:44.29 (WillLem)	301/301 (*)	9/14 (*)
Pandemonium	11	Mary Poppins' Land II	2:51.00 (WillLem)	160/160 (*)	12/12 (*)
Pandemonium	12	Erm...	1:20.65 (WillLem)	16/16 (*)	7/10 (kaywhyn)
Pandemoniuml	13	Constellations II	2:25.71 (Armani)	4/4 (*)	39/65 (Armani)
Pandemonium	14	Save Us	0:37.00 (WillLem)	30/30 (*)	15/33 (*)
Pandemonium	15	Nothing is Impossible	0:39.12 (WillLem)	3/3 (WillLem)	17/28 (kaywhyn)
Pandemonium	16	Rendezvous at the Mountain Part II	1:22.88 (WillLem)	33/33 (*)	25/101 (DireKrow)

Other records/challenges for Lemminas:

Skills You Can't Live Without (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4614)
Builders & Bashers Only (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5188.msg86947#msg86947)

I played first two ranks of the pack. :D
And I really want to make several levels using your new tileset for my future pack.
They are just SO beautiful!! :thumbsup::thumbsup:


My favorite levels are 'Hurry' and 'Race To The Top'!
Of course I like the all other levels too.
Attached zip file is my replays for first two ranks including all talisman except for Sensational16 Gold talisman.
I have 16 lemmings and 1 cloner in the level but the talisman says I have to save 31!
Is there any hidden cloner pick-up skills? or just your mistake?

Thanks for the replays Namida, all intended solutions or decent alternatives and only 1 backroute which I'll fix in 1.01!

In response to your comments on 13 and 15:

Response to Namida's comments.

This pack had quite a few more experimental/demo-style levels in its first incarnation, and I culled a lot of them on good advice.

I kept the "updraft + exit = direct drop possible" (Level 13) one for 3 reasons:

1) It's a trick I discovered myself, and I wanted to show it off.

2) I use this method in a number of later levels, so wanted to assure players that it works by demonstrating it as clearly and explicitly as possible.

3) I just love the level. It's actually one of my favourites and I just couldn't bring myself to cull it. As mentioned, I did cull others that were far more troll-ish than this one.

Similarly, Level 15's wrap-effect appears again once more in a later level with a very similar layout, where the puzzle is defined and enhanced by this effect. I designed this as a super-easy level for players who've never experienced wrap-effect in a Lemmings level before to get used to it first, and I stand by my decision.

OK, so it's done with teleporters, but that's just a way of getting the effect to work: I think that as long as the player understands what's happening and isn't being misled (the title of the level, the layout and the decoration all give clear visual clues as to what's happening), it's an acceptable level design. I wouldn't mind being presented with a level like this; I think I've done well to avoid it being troll-ish or misleading.

With that being said, if I get a further backlash of such comments regarding this level I will consider removing it. Ultimately, I do want the pack to be accepted and liked by the community. At this point though, I'm hoping that most players will enjoy and appreciate the spirit in which this level was created.

Furthermore, the talisman in this level is quite difficult to get: well done for figuring it out!

Looking forward to your replays for the rest of the pack! :thumbsup:

---

Quote from: Armani on March 09, 2020, 07:58:11 AM
I played first two ranks of the pack. :D
And I really want to make several levels using your new tileset for my future pack.
They are just SO beautiful!! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

Thanks! I look forward to seeing what levels you make with the tileset!

Quote from: Armani on March 09, 2020, 07:58:11 AM
Attached zip file is my replays for first two ranks including all talisman except for Sensational16 Gold talisman.
I have 16 lemmings and 1 cloner in the level but the talisman says I have to save 31!
Is there any hidden cloner pick-up skills? or just your mistake?

It's a genuine mistake: if you want to you can edit the level's talisman in the meantime so it says to save 17 instead!

I'll be providing a set of fixed levels in version 1.01 once I get a list of initial issues, this being one of them. That'll probably come later this week.

On the subject of talismans - if you really do want to keep level 13, there's no reason you need to specify "save 1" as a talisman requirement there (since that's the same as the level's save requirement). Just have no requirements at all, and the talisman will simply be for "complete the level".

Okay so, on to the first half of the second rank.

Spoiler

Sensational 1 "Worra Lorra Lemminas" - Sorry, but 300 lemminas is nowhere near justified here. The last skill assignment occurs at about 20 seconds. The last lemmina exits at about 1 minute 50 seconds. That's a minute and a half of waiting around. That detail aside, it's a decent level.
Sensational 2 "Dimples" - I'm not sure if this is intended? It's a nice level, but it's very easy.
Sensational 3 "Backroute To The Future" - DON'T HIDE OBJECTS BEHIND TERRAIN! If you don't want players to bash under there, use steel or one-way-arrows or a gap, not hidden teleporters. This goes doubly so if your intent was for the player to pick up the cloner skills on the right.
Sensational 4 "Pillars of Venus" - I can't figure out the gold talisman on this one, so far, but managed Bronze and Silver in the same replay instead.
Sensational 5 "See You On The Other Side" - This is still quite easy. By this point, I'd expect this rank to get at least a bit harder than the end of the previous rank. In and of itself it's a good level.
Sensational 6 "Hurry!" - Nice level, although I'm not sure why it needs a time limit?
Sensational 7 "The Melting Block" - Another nice one. Although - max 2 walkers, you say? How about just one? :P
Sensational 8 "The Continuum" - Not bad, but not particularly special either IMO. Your talisman challenge wasn't particularly hard, so I offer you a harder challenge here: Complete the level with no builders. I've included a replay for this. ;) (I realised after this that there was an easier way I could've done it, but it's still a decent challenge.)

Also - regarding your response to my comments on level 13 of the first rank...

Spoiler

QuoteAs mentioned, I did cull others that were far more troll-ish than this one.

Level 13 isn't trollish in any way. The player can clearly see what's going on - the lemmina walks, falls what would (visibly) be too far, but lands safely due to a (visible) updraft. Then, because she's landed in front of an (also visible) exit, she then exits. Nothing is unfair or "trollish" about this; it's just pointless because this level solves itself with no interaction from the player.

Quote from: namida on March 10, 2020, 04:37:35 AM

Spoiler

Sensational 1 "Worra Lorra Lemminas" - Sorry, but 300 lemminas is nowhere near justified here. The last skill assignment occurs at about 20 seconds. The last lemmina exits at about 1 minute 50 seconds. That's a minute and a half of waiting around. That detail aside, it's a decent level.
Sensational 3 "Backroute To The Future" - DON'T HIDE OBJECTS BEHIND TERRAIN! If you don't want players to bash under there, use steel or one-way-arrows or a gap, not hidden teleporters. This goes doubly so if your intent was for the player to pick up the cloner skills on the right.

I feel obliged to mention that I pointed both of these out during testing, so that people don't think I overlooked them :P

Solved tricksy rank.

Spoiler

Tricksy1 Who's Doing What? : I solved this level immediately as I already tried this level on discord. ;P
Tricksy2 Lemmina PepsiCola Reserach Event : Simple but nice puzzle!
Tricksy3 The Milkshake Machine : I achieved silver talisman and gold talisman followed. Two birds in one stone. :D
Tricksy4 Konbanwa Lemmina-san : Likewise. Two talisman in one replay.
Tricksy5 Lemmina Drops : Not sure this is intended. I have lots of leftover skills.
Tricksy6 Day Of The Daredevils! Part3 : Similar solution to the one I solved in the contest. The level looks beautiful! :thumbsup:
Tricksy7 Easy Peasy Lemmina Squeezy : This little level is one of my favorite! Especially the gold talisman was quite tricky and clever! :thumbsup:
Tricksy8 Stainless Steel Lemminas : Silver talisman is very easy I think.
Tricksy9 POOR WEE CREATURETTES! : Was the most difficult level of this rank. Timer was a little bit tight.
Tricksy10 Down The Rabbit Hole : I really enjoyed this one, as I have a rabbit in my house :D She is so adorable!
Tricksy11 Lemminas Recurring : Nice trick at the final.
Tricksy12 Soda Streams : It was a little bit tricky but enjoyable. I guess the black soda is for coke, yellow for fanta, but is there any pink soda? ???
Tricksy13 Nessy2 : I read the tiltle and worried since I hate the nessy level of the orighnal game, but this level was fun fortunately.;) And I'm afraid I backrouted the level. I didn;t use bottom side of the level and ignored the pick-up skills.
Tricksy14 No I in Team : It was very tight and busy level.
Tricksy15 Just a Second... : I also already tried this level before, maybe on discord.
Tricksy16 The Crystal Cobwebs of Mt Katie : Two talisman in one replay!

Lol, nice idea, WillLem! :thumbsup: I've been hoping for someone to transfer the (female) Lix sprites to NeoLemmix, but the main obstacle to that obviously would have been the different skill types, specifically those that NeoLemmix has but Lix doesn't (the other way round wouldn't have been a problem, and especially the Lix Jumper could have been saved for later).

But this is a valid alternative! ;)

So you've added a new gender, and I've added a new skin tone with my Egyptian sprites (L2 Beach also counts, I guess).

Back then I joked about "diversity" in Lemmings; now it seems like you took that joke seriously... :D

To be fair, though, the new recolouring option makes the creation of new sprites easier than ever. So especially for "geography levels", as I like to create them, it would be kind of cool to have the lemmings in a given level look a bit more like the inhabitants of the area that level is supposed to represent.

Congrats, now you've made me think about what Asian lemmings should look like... :D (Armani, you're South-Korean, any suggestions? ;) )

Quote from: namida on March 09, 2020, 05:55:35 PM
On the subject of talismans - if you really do want to keep level 13, there's no reason you need to specify "save 1" as a talisman requirement there (since that's the same as the level's save requirement). Just have no requirements at all, and the talisman will simply be for "complete the level".

Thanks, good shout: I'll implement this change in V1.01.

Response to Namida's Sensational 1-8 Feedback/Other comments

Thanks for the replays so far Namida, great to watch; I love seeing how other people approach the levels and you have an eye for detail, which is obvious in the way you play. I appreciate your constructive feedback as well; there are certainly some things I will reconsider in my level designing, either for this pack or future packs. So thanks for that! :thumbsup:

Some response comments:

Quote from: namida on March 10, 2020, 04:37:35 AM
Sensational 1 "Worra Lorra Lemminas" - Sorry, but 300 lemminas is nowhere near justified here. The last skill assignment occurs at about 20 seconds. The last lemmina exits at about 1 minute 50 seconds. That's a minute and a half of waiting around. That detail aside, it's a decent level.

300 Lemminas is required to fill the structure for a few seconds before the last few Lemminas appear. It was originally 1000 and the structure was more than double the size! I changed it on good advice but still wanted the screen to be full of Lemminas at some point (hence the title!). I'm done now, I won't do it again!

That being said... I have a hotkey assigned to "skip forward 100 frames" for times like this. NeoLemmix makes things like waiting for exiting lems a non-issue, surely...?

Quote from: namida on March 10, 2020, 04:37:35 AM
Sensational 2 "Dimples" - I'm not sure if this is intended? It's a nice level, but it's very easy.

Hmmm... the level is supposed to include the Dolly Dimple trick. I'll have to fix it, but I'm not sure how...

Quote from: namida on March 10, 2020, 04:37:35 AM
Sensational 3 "Backroute To The Future" - DON'T HIDE OBJECTS BEHIND TERRAIN! If you don't want players to bash under there, use steel or one-way-arrows or a gap, not hidden teleporters. This goes doubly so if your intent was for the player to pick up the cloner skills on the right.

My justification here is that the teleporters are hidden in a backroute! Only someone backrouting the level would encounter them; also, the talisman does require this backroute in order to get to the right side of the screen (where a receiver is clearly visible - clear physics would show the teleporter's location), but I have alluded specifically to backroutes in the title. I know it's trollish to hide objects, but surely it can be excused if the level can be completed without taking this route, and the title gives clues. The talisman was originally titled "Let's see if you can do 90!" (BTTF Quote) because the idea is to get to the Cloner pickup... maybe I'll re-title it again to give an extra clue. Or, I'll just make the teleporter visible! :P

Quote from: namida on March 10, 2020, 04:37:35 AM
Sensational 6 "Hurry!" - Nice level, although I'm not sure why it needs a time limit?

The time limit is there to prevent dawdling and to guide the player to the solution. Also, given the level's title, I just feel it adds to the atmosphere of the level.

Quote from: namida on March 10, 2020, 04:37:35 AM
Sensational 7 "The Melting Block" - Another nice one. Although - max 2 walkers, you say? How about just one? :P

Haha, nice! :thumbsup:

Quote from: namida on March 10, 2020, 04:37:35 AM
Sensational 8 "The Continuum" - Not bad, but not particularly special either IMO. Your talisman challenge wasn't particularly hard, so I offer you a harder challenge here: Complete the level with no builders. I've included a replay for this. ;) (I realised after this that there was an easier way I could've done it, but it's still a decent challenge.)

I had a go at this before watching your replay and managed it (replay attached) - I'll definitely add this talisman in 1.01, great idea! It made the ending a lot easier to deal with as well. I'll have to do a talisman limiting bashers as well for the main solution tho!

Quote from: namida on March 10, 2020, 04:37:35 AM
Level 13 isn't trollish in any way. The player can clearly see what's going on - the lemmina walks, falls what would (visibly) be too far, but lands safely due to a (visible) updraft. Then, because she's landed in front of an (also visible) exit, she then exits. Nothing is unfair or "trollish" about this; it's just pointless because this level solves itself with no interaction from the player.

OK, fair enough. The original version of this had a hidden updraft, and so ultimately would have had more impact because players who know that DD isn't possible in NL wouldn't have expected the Lemmina to survive the fall: after community consensus, I made the updraft visible and this ultimately renders the level less effective, I agree.

However, it's not completely pointless: there will doubtless be some players who've never seen an updraft before playing NL, and may find this level revelatory. I'm leaving it as it is for those people, wherever and whomever they may be. :)

Response To Armani's Magical/Sensational/Tricksy Replays & Feedback

Really enjoyed watching your replays Armani. You certainly have great skills when it comes to solving. Well done on all of your multiple-talisman solutions, particularly The Crystal Cobwebs of Mt. Katie: I found the Gold Talisman for this really difficult just by itself! Also, thank you for your kind comments on my levels, this was nice feedback to get.

Here is my response to your replays/comments:

You currently hold the record for We Like To Dig Too! with a blistering 15.53 seconds! I'm now in third place behind yourself and Namida!

You found the same backroute to Lemmina Loop Prevention Service as Namida - I'll probs fix this in 1.01.

Neither yourself nor Namida used the Disarmer in Pyramids Of Lem...? He built over the trap, you mined out the trigger... do people not like using the Disarmer? Or did you just see it as an extra challenge?

Loved your solution to Dimples, very creative. I would like to find out a way to make it so that the Dolly Dimple trick must be used at least once on this level tho!

Well done spotting that backroute to Hurry! - you absolutely smashed the time record! This will have to be fixed! (I might leave it actually, see if anyone else spots that...) :thumbsup:

I loved your use of the Shimmier's 'Reacher' state to free up a worker Lem in The Continuum; this is turning out to be another level of many solutions! See if you can do Namida's no-builder challenge: it's so ridiculously easy once you figure it out but you wouldn't spot it straightaway with all the distractions going on in that level.

More records: 13.88 seconds for Falling Forever and 4:23.94 for The Unnecessarily Tall Pillar, with a brilliant solution as well - my record for this level is 6:04.25!

I liked your solution to Race To The Top! - nice use of the structure. The Team Red Lemmina wins in my version of the solution; you found a way for Team Blue to win. :thumbsup:

You managed to find the secret for the locked exit in Escape From Crystal Mountain, so well done for that! There is a much simpler way to go about it though, and rescue the Lems to that exit as well.

Quote from: Armani on March 10, 2020, 10:48:24 AM
Tricksy5 Lemmina Drops : Not sure this is intended. I have lots of leftover skills.

Yep, that's intended. I've put more skills in to make it easier is all. You went for the talisman straightaway, some players might not.

Quote from: Armani on March 10, 2020, 10:48:24 AM
Tricksy6 Day Of The Daredevils! Part3 : Similar solution to the one I solved in the contest. The level looks beautiful! :thumbsup:

Thank you so much! I'm glad you like it. :) This solution is actually sort-of a backroute, believe it or not! You got everything exactly as intended except the cloner is meant to be spawned near the beginning and shimmy across the top of the level. I guess the new layout means that isn't necessary, I'll have a look at fixing that in 1.01.

Quote from: Armani on March 10, 2020, 10:48:24 AM
Tricksy7 Easy Peasy Lemmina Squeezy : This little level is one of my favorite! Especially the gold talisman was quite tricky and clever! :thumbsup:

I'm thinking of doing a mini-pack of mini-levels, would you be interested in a collaboration on this?

Quote from: Armani on March 10, 2020, 10:48:24 AM
Tricksy9 POOR WEE CREATURETTES! : Was the most difficult level of this rank. Timer was a little bit tight.

You did well, beating my time by a few seconds and finding exactly the intended solution as well!

Quote from: Armani on March 10, 2020, 10:48:24 AM
Tricksy10 Down The Rabbit Hole : I really enjoyed this one, as I have a rabbit in my house :D She is so adorable!

Sweet! Post a picture of her on the Cute Tribe in Discord. :lemcat:

Quote from: Armani on March 10, 2020, 10:48:24 AM
Tricksy11 Lemminas Recurring : Nice trick at the final.

Try it again - you found the trick, but the star should turn the glider around after 3 platform builds - I could add 3-walker limit to this talisman! :thumbsup:

Quote from: Armani on March 10, 2020, 10:48:24 AM
Tricksy12 Soda Streams : It was a little bit tricky but enjoyable. I guess the black soda is for coke, yellow for fanta, but is there any pink soda? ???

Good question. Pink lemonade? Or rather, pink lemminaid? (Sorry for the bad joke!) ;P

Quote from: Armani on March 10, 2020, 10:48:24 AM
Tricksy13 Nessy2 : I read the tiltle and worried since I hate the nessy level of the orighnal game, but this level was fun fortunately.;) And I'm afraid I backrouted the level. I didn;t use bottom side of the level and ignored the pick-up skills.

Thanks! Original Nessy is a favourite of mine tbh, I love doing remix levels for it. I think I like all the original levels that look like pictures, basically! Your alternative solution is very creative and more than acceptable, although you could have just used the shimmy bar for the floaters during the end section - no need to build over that trap!

Really loving the response on this pack so far everyone. Keep these replays coming, I'm looking at making a full set of fixes in 1.01; turns out there's plenty to do already! :lemcat:

Spoiler

QuoteMy justification here is that the teleporters are hidden in a backroute!

This makes it worse, not better. You're outright acknowledging "this route should work, but I have now added a completely hidden element that interferes with it". Like I said - if you want to block this as a backroute; do so with something that is clearly visible, like steel or one-way arrows.

Quote from: namida on March 11, 2020, 12:22:08 AM

Spoiler

QuoteMy justification here is that the teleporters are hidden in a backroute!

This makes it worse, not better. You're outright acknowledging "this route should work, but I have now added a completely hidden element that interferes with it". Like I said - if you want to block this as a backroute; do so with something that is clearly visible, like steel or one-way arrows.

I completely agree that backroute blocking should be fair and visible. But what if the intention is for a player to use the backroute and find a hidden object? I'd rather do this than block the backroute - the backroute was put there on purpose, hence the title!

I'll put up a poll and see what the response is. If people are really against it I'll fix it in V1.01.

Quote from: Strato Incendus on March 10, 2020, 01:47:05 PM
Lol, nice idea, WillLem! :thumbsup:
---
Back then I joked about "diversity" in Lemmings; now it seems like you took that joke seriously... :D

Thanks, Strato!

Haha, to be honest the diversity thing never even entered my mind. I had it pointed it out to me by a friend when we were talking about it, and I guess the pack could certainly be seen in that light. Interesting that it's been picked up on...

As much positivity as this pack can generate is fine by me! Enjoy it in whatever way you wish. :thumbsup:

And here're replays of Pandemonium rank and some comments. :D

Spoiler

Pandemonium2 Milksahke Party : At first glance, I doubt this level is even possible to solve. Very clever trick to turn around the walker lemming. :thumbsup:
Pandemonium3 Nightmare on Lem Street3 : It was artistically pleasing to see lots of red and green lemminas gliding and hanging around. :D
Pandemonium4 Lemgate : My backroute sense is tingling :devil:
Pandemonium6 L- pop : I got a only bomber solution but can't get silver talisman. I don't know why.
Pandemonium8 Staircase To Nowhere3 : Favorite level of the rank! The level itself was quite easy but the talisman makes it difficult and makes player to think hard how to effeciently save skills
Pandemonium16 Rendezous at the Mountain Part2: Beautiful and epic final level.  :thumbsup:

Quote
Neither yourself nor Namida used the Disarmer in Pyramids Of Lem...?
He built over the trap, you mined out the trigger... do people not like using the Disarmer?
Or did you just see it as an extra challenge?

Oh I just overlooked that I do have a disarmer. In most of the level I played so far, I just bypass traps using destructive skills or constructive skills or just sacrificed some lemmings. And without thinking, I did so again in that level. And yes, using disarmer to disarm the trap looks most natural. :)

Quote
I'm thinking of doing a mini-pack of mini-levels, would you be interested in a collaboration on this?

Sure! Of course! My pleasure :D I love mini levels!

Quote
Sweet! Post a picture of her on the Cute Tribe in Discord.

Okay. Will do that when I go back to my house next time :thumbsup:



@Strato

Quote
Congrats, now you've made me think about what Asian lemmings should look like... :D (Armani, you're South-Korean, any suggestions? ;) )

Hmm I have to think about what appearance related features of asian are.
Without much thinking, I quickly draw an asian lemming using Painter ;)

Spoiler

(https://i.imgur.com/43UymVr.png)

Nice job, Armani! :) That looks pretty much exactly like what I had suggested in the thread for new sprite ideas (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4681.0): black hair, red clothes, and a slightly darker skin tone than the standard white of default lemmings. So it seems like my "clichéd perception" wasn't too far off... ;)

I like the addition of the long hair, though! :thumbsup: That would require hand-crafting new sprites from scratch, obviously. The rest could be achieved by just using a recolouring scheme. But we can discuss the further details of that in the thread linked above.

Back to the topic of this thread:

@WillLem: I've played the first 11 levels yesterday evening, I'll upload my replays once I've completed the first rank. ;) So far, I'm enjoying it a lot! :thumbsup:

The record for Falling Forever is now 13.82 seconds! ;P

Played some more...

Spoiler

Sensational 9 "Delaying The Inevitable" - Nice level!
Sensational 10 "The Strange Botique" - I suspect this is a backroute, seeing as there's a talisman for 3 walkers and I only used one. Side note, why is "1 disarmer" a talisman requirement when the level only gives 1 disarmer anyway? (Maybe it was meant to be no disarmers, although that's still pretty simple.)
Sensational 11 "The Refrigerator" - Why have you used overlapping entrances to create a misleading impression of how the lemminas will spawn, in a case where you could easily do the same with two work-as-normal entrances + a single preplaced lemmina? This is a particularly jarring case because other levels that have been misleading weren't particularly special levels anyway; but this one is otherwise a fairly good level.
Sensational 12 "Falling Forever" - While it's not as bad since you can still kind of see it, was it really necessary to hide the receiver behind the entrance instead of above or below it? More importantly though, you've completely hidden a second receiver by making it overlap the first. Also - it seems to me that the fastest time possible here is 13.82 (this is a pretty easy level to optimize for time), which means the talisman is very tight. In general - I'd say to cut back a bit on the time-related talismans, especially when most of them are just "do the normal solution as optimally as possible". Time limits are a feature that should be used sparingly; that doesn't change when talismans come into play. (Indeed, you've probably noticed I don't usually bother with the time limit talismans in this pack, but I've been getting - or at least trying - most of the skill limit ones.)
Sensational 13 "The Unnecesserially Tall Pillar" - Splat distance is 64 pixels. With some really good basher+miner trickery (ignoring, if relevant, that this then means you can't use the skills elsewhere), plus the builder, a particularly skilled player could likely shave maybe 25ish pixels off the fall. Therefore - this pillar doesn't need to be more than 90 ~ 100px tall (it would be a different case if the climbing was also serving to delay lemmings to allow another part of the solution, but that is not the case here). The pillar is in fact over four times this height. Given that every time something goes wrong in this level, this ridiculously long climb (and fall, where applicable) must be done over, I could not be bothered continuing to attemp this level and thus have not solved it. (If I'm missing something that actually makes the long climb / fall relevant, then here's the lesson to learn: By doing unnecessary stuff in other cases, you've lead players to assume the same is true here and thus not bothering to solve the level.) The icing on the cake here is - you are already aware of the flaw in this level's design, because you've given the level a title that references it.
Sensational 14 "Race To The Top!" - Looks like you made a slight mistake in the design near the exit. (At least, I hope it's a mistake. If that's intentional, it's yet another case of misleading design - and with unnecessary pixel precision on top of it.)

Sensational 15 and 16 both have more cases of misleading design (invisible objects / overlapped entrances respectively), so I have chosen not to play them for now - 16 more on principle than because the misleading design is a huge problem in that case.

My impression so far: You've got some very good level ideas here, and the music you've made for this pack is incredible, but this pack's quality is severely harmed by the frequency of elements that are designed to (or at least, very obviously have the effect of) mislead the player, or purely to add length to a level with no actual solution value (some padding can be good, but there are cases here - "Worra Lorra Lemminas" and "The Unnecesserially Tall Pillar" in particular - that are blatantly excessive). Unfortunately, I don't feel that I want to continue with this pack unless / until these issues are resolved. (But on the flipside - I definitely do hope these things do get fixed, because I would like to continue with this pack - as mentioned, there are some good ideas in here, they're just held back because it's never clear whether any given level will be fair or not.)

Got around to resolving the Pandemonium rank. Replays attached. :)

Quote from: namida on March 11, 2020, 07:54:49 PM
(Earlier post)

I must apologize about the comment about the entrances specifically - upon looking at the levels now, in the latter level, either a bug was causing the 1 not to be visible, or I completely overlooked it. It also doesn't help that the direction arrow obscures the 1 either... but what to do about that is a subject for another topic (which I'll open shortly).

In the former, it's hidden behind terrain. I'm fairly sure in this case it wasn't intentional, but there would be no harm in moving the entrance downwards a bit so it's visible.

I do still stand by the rest of what I said - but that includes the positive parts! You've definitely made some nice levels, it's just that there's a few not so great ones in there too - as well as some that are mostly good, but have certain details that could be improved.

Since that does leave nothing wrong with Sensational 16, it's only fair I at least solve that one. It's a pretty nice level!

@Namida Thank you again for taking the time to play through the pack so far, and for offering suggestions to improve it. I really appreciate the feedback. Oh - and well done on the talisman solution for Escape From Crystal Mountain! :thumbsup:

Response to Namida's Sensational 9-16 Comments

Quote from: namida on March 11, 2020, 07:54:49 PM
Sensational 10 "The Strange Botique" - I suspect this is a backroute, seeing as there's a talisman for 3 walkers and I only used one.

Ah yes - this is down to the way you used the Cloners. I'll add another pickup for 2 Cloners to fix this in V1.01. The 1 Disarmer talisman is a genuine mistake, I'll also fix this.

Quote from: namida on March 11, 2020, 07:54:49 PM
Sensational 11 "The Refrigerator" - Why have you used overlapping entrances?

As you've already realised - this level and 16 Escape From Crystal Mountain in fact do not feature overlapping entrances. I think it might be a bug that the number didn't appear above the entrances, but it is fixed by unchecking "No Overwrite" in the case of The Refrigerator. In the case of level 16, the number does appear but only after the directional arrow has vanished. I've attached screenshots to show that these levels do indeed only have the number of hatches shown, and nothing is overlapping.

Quote from: namida on March 11, 2020, 07:54:49 PM
Sensational 12 "Falling Forever" - While it's not as bad since you can still kind of see it, was it really necessary to hide the receiver behind the entrance instead of above or below it? More importantly though, you've completely hidden a second receiver by making it overlap the first.

I think I just wanted to keep the level tidy to be honest rather than having teleporters and receivers all over the place. I get your point though - overlapping the receiver with the entrance hatch could possibly be an issue, I'll address this in V1.01. With regards to overlapping the receivers, I'd say it does keep the layout of the level a bit neater and it's obvious to the player what's happening in this level so maybe this isn't too much of an issue? I will give this one some thought.

Quote from: namida on March 11, 2020, 07:54:49 PM
In general - I'd say to cut back a bit on the time-related talismans, especially when most of them are just "do the normal solution as optimally as possible".

We may have to agree to disagree on this one: I've already stopped using time limits as a result of community advice, but I really like solution-optimization as a style of play (it's something I'm particularly skilled at!) so I wouldn't like to see it disappear from Lemmings completely. Whilst some players are excellent puzzle-solvers, some of us are better at execution-based play, and time-based talismans is actually a nice little way of keeping it a part of the game whilst moving it to one side. It keeps the game satisfying for players who enjoy speed-solving and setting time records.

With that being said, I will look at using them less, or at least be a bit more creative about when I apply them to a level. This is a fair point.

Quote from: namida on March 11, 2020, 07:54:49 PM
Sensational 13 "The Unnecesserially Tall Pillar" - Splat distance is 64 pixels...Therefore - this pillar doesn't need to be more than 90 ~ 100px tall...The pillar is in fact over four times this height...I could not be bothered continuing to attemp this level and thus have not solved it.

Haha, OK. I've had my fun, I'll reduce the pillar size and make this a more inviting level to play in V1.01. The irony here is, though, that it was in fact you who came up with the solution for this level as it is now! I'm not sure if you remember... (your original replay won't work now because I have changed the design a bit to enforce the solution). If you look at the top of the level where the exit is, you'll see something you might recognise... :)

Quote from: namida on March 11, 2020, 07:54:49 PM
Sensational 14 "Race To The Top!" - Looks like you made a slight mistake in the design near the exit. (At least, I hope it's a mistake. If that's intentional, it's yet another case of misleading design - and with unnecessary pixel precision on top of it.)

No intention to mislead here at all, I assure you, your solution to this was indeed a backroute; the player is supposed to go for the Floater pickups to get down to the exit. I'll fix this in V1.01.

Quote from: namida on March 11, 2020, 07:54:49 PM
My impression so far: You've got some very good level ideas here, and the music you've made for this pack is incredible

Thank you for this comment! I am primarily a musician, it just so happens that I've found an outlet for it making Lemmings levels. :lemcat: I might make a full pack of tunes for people to use in their packs if I get more good feedback on the music.

Quote from: namida on March 11, 2020, 07:54:49 PM
this pack's quality is severely harmed by the frequency of elements that are designed to (or at least, very obviously have the effect of) mislead the player, or purely to add length to a level with no actual solution value ( "Worra Lorra Lemminas" and "The Unnecesserially Tall Pillar" in particular - that are blatantly excessive)... I definitely do hope these things do get fixed, because I would like to continue with this pack - as mentioned, there are some good ideas in here.

I assure you (and anyone reading this!) that there is no intention whatsoever to be misleading in this pack.

You have already retracted your comments regarding this which is great, thank you for that; but just in case it's an issue with NL or the Editor I have attached screenshots to show that I wasn't using overlapping entrances in the levels you mentioned. I think it's just because the numbers were obscured by terrain and/or directional helper arrows. I'd suggest that the number could maybe go the top left of the entrance hatch, and be made so that it's always visible in front of terrain or other objects.

Regarding the custom shimmery/sparkly teleporters: I will make it so that these have a different colour for IN and OUT in V1.01 so that this is made clearer.

Regarding hidden objects: I will discontinue this practice from here on, except in very particular cases (if I'm remixing Lost Something?, for example) or if I'm hiding pickup skills in Christmas prezzies (which is an acceptable bit of fun, I think!). And, I will of course make the existing hidden teleporters in Backroute To The Future fully visible in V1.01.

Regarding the Lemmina count/size of Worra Lorra Lemminas and The Unnecessarily Tall Pullar respectively: I will reduce the size of both of these levels again, and will reduce the number of Lemminas in the former.

Regarding the Wraparound levels: I have made it as clear as possible in both of these levels that Wrap effect is being simulated, and have used invisible teleporters merely as a tool to achieve this effect. I'm not convinced that this constitutes misleading design, as the visible effect is that the Lemmings walk out one side and come back in the other. I have designed the levels in such a way that the effect is obvious and expected, for instance using the gelato terrain on both sides in the first level, and by titling the levels "Wraparound", thus referring specifically to the effect. Nobody else who has played these levels so far has had a problem with this.

However, I want you to know that I value your advice and feedback and I would love for you to continue playing the pack, so for V1.01 I will add a fully visible custom object graphic for these levels which makes it clear that the player should expect this effect to happen.

V1.01 can be expected once I've received some more feedback from the Tricksy and Pandemonium ranks, as there will no doubt be stuff I'll have to fix in these as well. Off the top of my head, I don't think there are quite as many of these potentially problematic elements in these ranks - certainly no more hidden objects or invisible teleporters - so please do continue with the playthrough and I'll be sure to consider/implement any further advice that you provide.

Comments on Armani's Pandemonium Solutions

Milkshake Party - well done on finding the method to get to the lower platform! You also managed to avoid the trap without needing to use the dolly dimple trick: I might fix this in V1.01, but maybe not...

Nightmare On Lem Street III - this was a joy to watch, making use of all the skills to contain the crowd and avoid the teleporters for a more direct solution. Nice!

Lemgate - this was technically a backroute, albeit one that required precision timing to pull off! :crylaugh: You made it possible by getting the timing just right so that none of the lems got stuck in the teleporter loop - I'm impressed. :thumbsup:

Cherry Cola Conundrum - nice use of builders along the digger tunnel to make the drop safe; this is a record time so far at 1:36.12 as a result of this method: might make it a talisman...

Falling Forever Part II - another backroute; can't believe I didn't think of this one! This is one I'll probably have to fix as it is quite obvious...!

Staircase To Nowhere Part III - marvellous achievement getting both talismans in one with this solution; this must have taken some doing!

With A Twist Of Lemmina Please - fantastic alternative solution, very well spotted - I'll leave this as it is. See if you can figure out the intended solution as well tho! ;P

Save Us! - I've looked as closely as I can at this solution, and I can't figure out how you managed to stop the Lemminas from walking over the unfinished stackers... ???

All other solutions were either as intended or great alternatives. Thanks again for playing through the pack, I hope you enjoyed it!

Comments on IchoTolot's Pandemonium Solutions

Lemmina City Steel Facility - Intended! However, I'll need to tighten the time limit up on this again because it's still possible to not multitask that end section...

Milkshake Party - well done on finding the trick to get to the lower platform! You used the same method as Armani to avoid the trap: I might fix this because I'd prefer players to use the dolly dimple method, but this way is an acceptable enough alternative.

Nightmare On Lem Street III - great solution! Not sure if you can tell, but after your previous feedback I've layered up the teleporters to get the lems through quicker... (and I've done the same in Mary Poppins' Land II). Looks like I probs need to add another one to that left hand side though, still taking too long to get those ones through... Yes, I could lower the lem count, but I like the screen being full of Lemminas for this level, it adds to the chaos!

Rendezvous II - I might add some steel to the marble tower to prevent bashing straight through, but otherwise this solution is an acceptable alternative to the multitasking method (which the talisman encourages).

All other solutions were intended or great alternatives.

Thanks for playing through the Pandemonium rank, I hope you enjoyed these levels and they weren't too easy for you this time around! ;P I'll make a couple of subtle changes here and there for V1.01 but nothing too drastic this time.

I could do with a bit more replays/feedback from Tricksy to see if any more fixes need to be made to this rank. If you get time, that'd be great. If not, no worries - your replays so far have been really helpful in tightening up Pandemonium, so thanks again. :thumbsup:

Just realised after watching Armani and IchoTolot's replays for the Pandemonium rank this morning that The Cherry Cola Conundrum is a great example of a level where a large number of lems is justified:

Spoiler

it prevents digging straight down to the exit.

:lemcat:

Quick question for anyone who's played this pack so far:

Do all the sprite recolourings work for you, in either/both resolutions?

i.e. The Lemminas' clothes should change from Carnation Pink/Wild Watermelon to:

Cornfield Yellow when they're in the cursor/being selected
Medium Spring Green when they're athletes
Lavender Purple when they're neutrals

...whilst the hair remains Electric Blue in all cases.

And the zombies should be:

Skin: Mantle Green
Clothes: Catalina Blue
Hair: Locust Grey

Let me know either way, many thanks! :thumbsup:

QuoteSave Us! - I've looked as closely as I can at this solution, and I can't figure out how you managed to stop the Lemminas from walking over the unfinished stackers... ???

Assign first lemminas a stacker and then assign second lemminas a stacker at the exactly same position as the first one. Then Second lemminas will immediately turn around since she has no place to put down stacks :P

QuoteQuick question for anyone who's played this pack so far:

Do all the sprite recolourings work for you, in either/both resolutions?

i.e. The Lemminas' clothes should change from Carnation Pink/Wild Watermelon to:

Cornfield Yellow when they're in the cursor/being selected
Medium Spring Green when they're athletes
Lavender Purple when they're neutrals

...whilst the hair remains Electric Blue in all cases.

And the zombies should be:

Skin: Mantle Green
Clothes: Catalina Blue
Hair: Locust Grey

Yes all sprite recolourings work perfectly for me in both low/high resolution.:D

Since WillLem has assured me the rest of the pack doesn't contain any more troll levels, I've continued a bit.

Spoiler

Tricksy 1 "Who's Doing What?" - Nice level, a lot better than the version I remember playing when you shared it on Discord a while back. I went back for the talisman on this one, but I've included a replay of my original solution too as it has a walker left over, so might be of interest (or possibly, a backroute).

Tricksy 2 "Lemmina PepsiCola Research Event" - I suggest making the chameleon in the bottom-left no-overwrite. This one clearly isn't an intentional case, but it's still ultimately an issue because without Clear Physics Mode, the player can't see how long this platform is. The first thing I tried, I needed to make a lemmina walk as far as possible that way before turning her back - while this wasn't so precise that I needed to see the exact length in my successful solution, it still shows that this kind of thing is important even when it doesn't matter for the intended route. Even without considering the time limit on it, I couldn't figure out the talisman on this one - it isn't a case of "I didn't try". This is ultimately a good level.

Tricksy 3 "The Milkshake Machine" - Heh, I thought I was outsmarting you by solving it without floaters, but I see that was the gold talisman. Very nice level here!

Tricksy 4 "Konbanwa Lemmina-san" - Not a bad level, but nothing special either IMO. Somewhat easy for this point.

Tricksy 5 "Lemmina Drops" - This level itself was pretty good, though also a bit easy. The talisman seems to mostly be just "do the intended solution but really precisely", though.

These seem pretty good so far. I'll continue tomorrow, most likely.

Continuing on...

Tricksy 6 "Day Of The Daredevils! Part III" - Nice level, but whether you go for the talisman or not, turning around both lemminas at the end requires quite a lot of precision. This level wouldn't lose anything by reducing that a bit.

Tricksy 7 "Easy Peasy Lemmina Squeezy" - I might have backrouted this one, as I had a few skills left over, and one cloner was solely used to meet the save requirement.

Tricksy 8 "Stainless Steel Lemminas" - If this was intentional, I literally spotted this solution right away - far too easy for the rank as a whole, let alone level 8 in it. The gold talisman was a bit more fitting; in this case, I wonder if you'd be better off making the talisman solution into the normal solution instead...?

Tricksy 9 "Poor Wee Creaturettes" - This level wasn't really the greatest. Nice ideas, but in practice, a lot of precision was needed here too to make this actually work out. I'm not sure if this was the intended way though - it might not be, as while I didn't have skills left over, one cloner was used purely for save requirement purposes.

Tricksy 10 "Down The Rabbit Hole" - Not a bad level. Not sure if this is how you intended gold to be done, but it achieves it.

These continue to be pretty good levels. Some require a bit more precision than they probably need to - although this could be that I've just found really precise backroutes - but this is a much lesser concern than misleading elements, it's more a "nicer if it isn't required" thing than "avoid at all costs".

And let's finish off Tricksy.

Spoiler

Tricksy 11 "Lemminas Recurring" - First thing to mention: You might want to take another look at the screen start position on this one (this is a very easy thing to overlook - I've done so countless times myself). This level was quite easy to solve once I spotted that the falls off the left of each platform are safe, but I don't have a clue how to do the talisman here.

Tricksy 12 "Soda Streams" - A huge step up in difficulty from the previous level (and for that matter, from the rest of the pack so far in general), but a great level!

Tricksy 13 "Nessy II" - While infinitely better than Orig's "Hunt The Nessy", I wasn't particularly a fan of this one. In general, open-ended + restrictive skillset + long level tends to be a frustrating combination IMO - although I'll note this is not objectively a bad level in any way, this is just my personal tastes here.

Tricksy 14 "No I In Team" - Another quite difficult one, but also another excellent level!

Tricksy 15 "Just a Second..." - While not a troll level as such, I'd also say this is an example of the kind of thing that should be done only as a standalone "for the sake of showing it can be done" level, rather than a serious level in a pack. And you put such a short level on a slot with the pack's best music track, too...!

Tricksy 16 "The Crystal Cobwebs of Mt Katie" - Is the name a reference to something? Anyway - I suggest modifying the level so that it's possible for all entrances that have the lemminas in immediate danger when they spawn can be seen on-screen at the same time without zooming out much. The back-and-forth scrolling to contain the various crowds at the start was somewhat annoying. Aside from that, this level wasn't bad but nothing special IMO.

Well, WillLem's statement that there's no more troll levels is holding true so far - there's a couple of levels that weren't to my personal taste, but nothing outright trollish. And there were definitely some great levels in here, too! Let's see if Pandemonium continues this pattern...

Spoiler

Pandemonium 1 "Lemmina City Steel Facility" - Might be a backroute. If not - nice level, but the only purpose the time limit serves is forcing you to release the crowd ASAP, which is generally considered one of the strongest examples of how not to use time limits.

Pandemonium 2 "Milkshake Party" - Took me quite a while to solve this one, incredible level! Although this might be a backroute - I didn't use the climber, and only used the cloner to meet the save requirement.

Pandemonium 3 "Nightmare on Lem Street III" - This kind of level is just frustrating - same issues as Tricksy 16, but with much less spare time to secure many of the entrances, and RR99. Therefore, I've chosen to skip this one.

Pandemonium 4 "Lemgate" - Nice idea, but in practice it's a bit luck-dependent whether or not the timings actually work out, which can be a bit annoying - though not enough to overshadow the nice puzzle here. (Note: I have a newer version that WillLem has sent to me via Discord, rather than the version in the current release.)

Response to Namida's Tricksy feedback

A lot of good comments here, very encouraging and helpful so thanks for that. :thumbsup:

It's great that you seemed to enjoy this rank more than Sensational: I think it's probably the best rank in the pack, although Sensational has undergone some changes which I think have vastly improved it.

Most of your solutions to these levels were either intended or decent alternatives; one or two backroutes or backroute-ish elements which I'll of course fix in V1.01.

It's good that you found a few of these quite easy: the idea of the pack is for is to be fairly laid-back difficulty-wise, with the occasional puzzler thrown in here and there. I think for the most part I've achieved this, but I may still make a few tweaks here and there.

Quote from: namida on March 19, 2020, 05:08:38 AM
Tricksy 2 "Lemmina PepsiCola Research Event" - I suggest making the chameleon in the bottom-left no-overwrite.

Ah - the issue here is that the chameleon's body is a separate background object from the trap part of it; I've done this so that the chameleon can appear to be sitting astride the terrain rather than behind it, which I think looks a bit odd. The only way to achieve this (AFAIK) is to set the object to "only on terrain", which is what I've done. The trap part of it is, in fact, set to "no overwrite." If you know another way to achieve the same effect, please do let me know.

That said, for V1.01 I'll look at changing the layout slightly so that the chameleon is sitting on a different perch, so that the edge of the walkway can be clearly seen.

Quote from: namida on March 20, 2020, 04:16:05 AM
Tricksy 6 "Day Of The Daredevils! Part III" - Nice level, but whether you go for the talisman or not, turning around both lemminas at the end requires quite a lot of precision.

Agreed: I've added a button to make it clear that the cloner needs to happen at the start of the level and one lem needs to go up and shimmy across the top; I've also made this shimmy bar longer to give the builder lem more time: it still requires precision to get the gliders to use the star to turn, but there's nowhere near as much time-precision now.

Quote from: namida on March 20, 2020, 04:16:05 AM
Tricksy 9 "Poor Wee Creaturettes" ...I'm not sure if this was the intended way though - it might not be, as while I didn't have skills left over, one cloner was used purely for save requirement purposes.

This was actually a really good alternative solution to this level. I know it's a bit of a fiddly one, especially at the start, but I just love this level: it's an Orig favourite so a Lemminas version of it had to happen really. Is there anything you'd specifically suggest I change/improve?

Quote from: namida on March 20, 2020, 04:16:05 AM
Tricksy 10 "Down The Rabbit Hole" - Not a bad level. Not sure if this is how you intended gold to be done, but it achieves it.

I love your talisman solution to this: excellent!

Quote from: namida on March 20, 2020, 04:16:05 AM
These continue to be pretty good levels. Some require a bit more precision than they probably need to...

Really? I wouldn't have thought that precision is a problem... NL allows for precise actions and the community seems to enjoy pixel-precise-solution levels. Particularly yourself, actually: I've seen IchoTolot's replays for LP Alpha and those levels are infinitesimally precise! ;)

Quote from: namida on March 21, 2020, 11:51:15 PM
Tricksy 11 "Lemminas Recurring" - First thing to mention: You might want to take another look at the screen start position on this one

I've moved the start position as far to the left as it will go... what do you suggest? Do I need to add some space to the left hand side of the level?

Quote from: namida on March 20, 2020, 04:16:05 AM
Tricksy 12 "Soda Streams" - A huge step up in difficulty... but a great level!
---
Tricksy 14 "No I In Team" - Another quite difficult one, but also another excellent level!

Glad you enjoyed these! :thumbsup:

Quote from: namida on March 20, 2020, 04:16:05 AM
Tricksy 13 "Nessy II" - While infinitely better than Orig's "Hunt The Nessy", I wasn't particularly a fan of this one.

You backrouted this massively at the end, I'll have to fix that! I might add some extra skills to this level tho to make it a bit breezier.

Quote from: namida on March 20, 2020, 04:16:05 AM
Tricksy 15 "Just a Second..." ...And you put such a short level on a slot with the pack's best music track, too...!

Hmmmm I might consider replacing these. I do like them, tho... (its 'sequel' is Pandemonium 15). I might do a couple of mini-levels instead. I've had nothing but negative feedback so far for these ones. Maybe I'll save these for the inevitable ExperimentaLems which will no doubt happen at some point. ;P

Quote from: namida on March 20, 2020, 04:16:05 AM
Tricksy 16 "The Crystal Cobwebs of Mt Katie" - Is the name a reference to something?

A close friend of mine used to have a goldfish called Katie - I thought it was hilarious, so I often name things "Katie" just for the fun of it. :crylaugh:

Keep this feedback coming, it's really helpful. I've already made significant tweaks to make V1.01 a much-improved version of the pack.

If anyone else has any replays/comments, your feedback is encouraged and welcome.

All best,

WillLem :lemcat:

And then Pandemonium 5, we have a hidden exit along with an unjustified ultra-high lemmina count, contrary to the claim there was no more of that kind of stuff after the 2nd rank.

This is where I stop until the update is out.

Quote from: namida on March 26, 2020, 09:28:13 AM
And then Pandemonium 5, we have a hidden exit along with an unjustified ultra-high lemmina count

The high lemmina count is justified in Pandemonium 5:

Spoiler

it prevents digging straight down to the exit, and it makes building underneath the hatch to get to the other side more difficult, thus encouraging a multi-tasking solution.

I'll un-hide the exit for V1.01 though.

Quoteit prevents digging straight down to the exit

If I make the first lemmina immediately dig, splatting starts to occur at around the 80th lemmina. So you've justified 80ish - even 100, perhaps. Now what's the reason for the next 200? (In many cases I'd also say "lower, locked RR, with a lower lemming count again", but I do see the value of RR99 in this case.)

Quote from: namida on March 26, 2020, 07:50:26 PM
you've justified 80ish - even 100, perhaps. Now what's the reason for the next 200?

Spoiler

It makes building underneath the hatch to get to the other side more difficult, thus encouraging a multi-tasking solution.
i.e. if the player chooses to contain the entire crowd and send out a single worker to get both buttons, they've got to get the timing perfect in order to avoid building under the entrance whilst there are still lems pouring out of it.

If you honestly think that's not a good enough reason, I'll consider reducing it to 100 lems instead.

Well, this solution suggests your intent with the large lemmina quantity is easily bypassed.

An important thing to consider here is - if you do stuff like this often, even if you might have one level with a legitimate reason, that "one level" will be judged quickly because of all the others that didn't need the unfair / tedious elements. Doubly so when backroutes destroy the reason you thought the level needed it. On the other hand, if the issues with every other level in the pack weren't there and it was only this one - I'd still be calling out the hidden exit, but the 300 lemminas probably wouldn't register as a big deal, and if I didn't see an obvious reason for it, I'd assume I might have backrouted the level in a way that destroys it, rather than just assuming it's unnecessary and "for the sake of it". (This is NOT saying "it's fine as long as you don't do it often", just "it's less likely to be judged as harshly when it's one level rather than a regular occurance, and you'd get more benefit of the doubt that there's a legit reason but a backroute is bypassing it rather than no legit reason". Just as a full disclosure thing - I had solved this level, with this solution, before I posted my comment about "that's where I stop".)

Thanks for the feedback Namida. I'm thinking... OK, if there is a possible solution which renders the high lemmina count irrelevant (and I know of at least 3, possibly 4, and now 5 with your solution!) then yes - maybe it's not really necessary.

I have already revealed the exit's door, which should keep all other known solutions intact, and I will also lower the count to 100 lemminas.

If you manage to get the rest of Pandemonium done in the next couple of days, I'll take into account any further feedback you may have. I've done my best to think about what might possibly be an issue in the rest of the rank, so here are some heads ups (some of this is stuff I've already changed for V1.01):

Spoiler

Falling Forever Part II has a known backroute in which a Glider can be assigned right from the entrance in order to get the unlock button. I've already fixed this.

I'll Just Wait Here, Shall I is another high-lemmina-count level, but is fully justified: in fact, it came about as a result of the discussion we had about high lemming counts: I wanted to see if I could make a puzzle that needed lotsa lemminas. I think I've succeeded with this.

Mary Poppins' Land II has overlapping teleporters purely to help the lems get through more quickly: there is nothing misleading as this part of the level doesn't require any interaction (you'll see what I mean) and there only appears to be one teleporter and one receiver, so the effect is more like that of a portal.

Due to your feedback regarding Just a Second, I've now removed level 15 Think Fast and replaced it with a level I made today. This will appear in V1.01, so you can ignore the current level 15.

Rendezvous at the Mountain II has pickups hidden in presents: the effect is very obvious as the numbers appear next to the presents, and they are only required for the talisman, which is titled "unwrap those presents!" I think this is fair, and as of V1.01 it will be the only remaining example of hidden objects in the entire pack.

So that's it. If you're happy to have a look at it that'd be great, but if not don't worry coz I'm pretty much ready to release V1.01 anyways.

Many thanks again for taking the time to play and review Lemminas in its current state, your feedback has already gone a long way to making the next version a massive improvement.

Quote

Spoiler

Mary Poppins' Land II has overlapping teleporters purely to help the lems get through more quickly: there is nothing misleading as this part of the level doesn't require any interaction (you'll see what I mean) and there only appears to be one teleporter and one receiver, so the effect is more like that of a portal.

Rendezvous at the Mountain II has pickups hidden in presents: the effect is very obvious as the numbers appear next to the presents, and they are only required for the talisman, which is titled "unwrap those presents!" I think this is fair, and as of V1.01 it will be the only remaining example of hidden objects in the entire pack.

Spoiler

Regarding the first one - recall what I explained earlier, that it's not just about what actually happens in the intended solution, but also what the player could think would happen. It doesn't matter if the result is "let the lemminas just walk there, it'll work out", if it doesn't look like that's what will happen. Remember - the player cannot tell, other than through trial and error (and in this case, that trial might not even happen because they wouldn't expect it), that such a setup is there.

Regarding the second one - that's still a hidden object, and if the player cannot see (or have to make an especially strong effort to see) what skills they contain, it's still unfair. Again, "they're only required for the talisman" comes back to knowledge you have as the creator, but the player does not; and even if they're not required, that in no way stops players from trying to make use of them. Hiding what they are just means extra time spent testing each one, memorizing (or noting) what was in it, and then trying to plan a solution while having to refer back to the notes on what they were. I definitely don't agree with your assessment that this case is "fair", and I'd even go as far as to say it might be the most unfair case in the pack.

The high-lemmina case is hard to say without actually trying the level out.

Response to Namida's comments

Quote from: namida on March 30, 2020, 11:59:58 PM
it's not just about what actually happens in the intended solution, but also what the player could think would happen. It doesn't matter if the result is "let the lemminas just walk there, it'll work out", if it doesn't look like that's what will happen. Remember - the player cannot tell, other than through trial and error... that such a setup is there.

OK, fair enough - I'll either reduce it to one teleporter/receiver and adjust the lemmina count such that it doesn't take too long for them to get through at the end of the level, or I'll simply spread the teleporters/receivers out so that it's clear how many there are.

Quote from: namida on March 30, 2020, 11:59:58 PM
that's still a hidden object, and if the player cannot see (or have to make an especially strong effort to see) what skills they contain, it's still unfair.

Another good point, it didn't occur to me that a player might go for the pickups anyway. That said, the process that you describe the player going through to find out what the pickups are is part of the fun of exploring a new level: I'd say this one isn't even that difficult to navigate around, what with its abundance of skills.

What if they were hidden such that the numbers weren't visible either (i.e. by only having single pickups)? That way, a player would have no reason to assume that they were even there until the talisman prompts them to explore, and thus they wouldn't waste time unnecessarily.

I'm reticent to change this one, simply because it's a bit of good clean fun. I absolutely wouldn't mind playing a level with optional hidden pickups - in fact, I'd particularly enjoy playing such a level if it was otherwise fairly straightforward.

With that being said, I still want Lemminas to be a pack that is completely fair, and I know what the likely result of a poll on this issue would be, so...

OK, I'll make the pickups visible. :lemcat:

I'd be interested to know your response to this, though. The idea of "exploration" levels is something I'd like to develop further, hence toying with the idea of a pack where every level has infinite skills and encourages player-led navigation. To some extent, hidden objects facilitate and enhance this idea, giving the player something to find within the level. Is there no way to do this fairly and enjoyably?

As always, thanks for your response. It's an interesting dialogue and I'm grateful for the opportunity to unpack my ideas properly.

QuoteI'd be interested to know your response to this, though. The idea of "exploration" levels is something I'd like to develop further, hence toying with the idea of a pack where every level has infinite skills and encourages player-led navigation. To some extent, hidden objects facilitate and enhance this idea, giving the player something to find within the level. Is there no way to do this fairly and enjoyably?

My suggestion would be a standalone pack, or at least a seperate rank (but honestly I'd lean more towards an entirely seperate pack), that's very clear about the nature of its content. While the pack would still qualify as all of the above; it would be very open about this, and players wouldn't have to worry about which levels are fair vs which ones are not - they can play the whole fair pack, and ignore the whole unfair one (or vice versa).

Version 1.01 is now ready! See OP for download (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679.msg80165#msg80165) :party:

A big thank-you to Namida, Proxima, Armani, IchoTolot and DireKrow for the detailed feedback which has led to V1.01 being a hugely improved version of Lemminas. :thumbsup:

Here's what's changed:

Lemminas V1.01 Changelog

• Added a new graphic which gives levels with wrap effect a gently glowing edge
• Curved the edges of the updraft graphic to give it a more pleasing look
• Made the Continuum teleporters wider and more rounded; also made the IN ones pink and the OUT ones blue so it's clearer which is which
• Removed Pandemonium 15 Think Fast and replaced it with a new level Nothing is Impossible
• Redesigned The Unnecessarily Tall Pillar - there are now 2 much shorter pillars, but the puzzle is the same
• Redesigned elements of Backroute To The Future quite extensively - this is now a much better level
• Added a few Talismans and tweaked others slightly
• Made the Firewall graphic vertically resizable
• Added various new terrain pieces including a steel bar
• Fixed backroutes on the following levels:
  Lemmina Loop Prevention Service
  I'll Go First
  Dimples
  Hurry!
  Day Of The Daredevils Part III
  Lemminas Recurring
  Nessy II
  Lemmina City Steel Facility
  Lemgate
  Falling Forever Part II
  Rendezvous At The Mountain II
  
• Removed/revealed all hidden elements in any levels which contained them: the entire pack is now free of hidden/invisible elements
• Lowered lemmina count on Worra Lorra Lemminas, Mary Poppins' Land II and The Cherry Cola Conundrum
• Minor graphical/layout tweaks and improvements here and there

Quite a lot of work has gone into this update - almost as much as getting the pack together in the first place! (well, maybe not ;P)

I'd say it's well worth downloading this new version even if you have the old one. I've zipped the folders into a single folder via the method Namida suggested, so it should be extractable directly to the NeoLemmix base folder.

Please note that the only folders that are the same in this version are the music and sound: all levels, replays and the style pack contain numerous updates. If you already have it, I would strongly suggest deleting the older version and simply replacing it with the new folder in its entirety to avoid any potential issues.

N.B. Any future updates to this pack will likely be in the form of single levels or graphic pieces, so there will not be any need to re-download the music and sound again after this - apologies to those who've had to download it twice, but I feel this is currently the best way to ensure that everyone who downloads the pack from now on has everything they need.

Finally, I encourage you to enjoy playing this pack in NeoLemmix 12.8.2 with its Hi-Res mode enabled in order to enjoy the lush visuals as intended (if you turn off the HQ minimap, you shouldn't get any lag issues, even on the larger levels).

I look forward to your replays and feedback on this version of the pack, and I hope you'll agree it's a vast improvement.

Thank you for saving the Lemminas!

I've updated to the new version but so many of the levels won't load even allowing for updates online what am I doing wrong.

Quote from: mantha16 on April 02, 2020, 06:46:44 AM
I've updated to the new version but so many of the levels won't load even allowing for updates online what am I doing wrong.

Can you screenshot the error that you're getting, and I'll look into it.

Also, just for starters, make sure you're using at least NeoLemmix 12.8.2 and that your copy of styles>willlem_lemminas>terrain contains the bar_red_large graphic (the last graphic to be added to the style).

N.B. Since I only sent the new style folder over to Nessy last night, it's likely that it hasn't yet been uploaded to the online styles manager. My advice would be to manually copy the entire updated willlem_lemminas folder into NeoLemmix>styles if you haven't already done so.

Can confirm that the style seems to be missing pieces. Magical 8 for instance seems to be missing something on the left side:

Spoiler

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/5cqsckl70kmbur3/missing1.PNG?dl=1)

And Magical 13 near the exit:

Spoiler

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/g7a8v0zdvxrbe4k/missing2.PNG?dl=1)

I'm using the most up to date version downloaded through the NL downloader. It does seem to be missing at least the piece you mentioned:

Spoiler

(https://www.dropbox.com/s/8qweu95sm31mimx/terrain.PNG?dl=1)

EDIT:

QuoteN.B. Since I only sent the new style folder over to Nessy last night, it's likely that it hasn't yet been uploaded to the online styles manager.

Aha, that would explain it.

Ah, OK, that's almost certainly the issue: the version available through the online styles manager hasn't yet been updated.

Anyone who's downloaded V1.01 so far will need to manually copy the willlem_lemminas style folder contained in the download bundle to NeoLemmix>styles. Simply extracting the entire Lemminas V1.01.zip to the NeoLemmix base folder should also achieve this.

EDIT: I have now downloaded the Lemminas V1.01 zip folder myself and extracted it to a fresh install of NeoLemmix 12.8.2 - I can confirm that it works fully.

I have also uploaded the V1.01 zip folder again - it now contains new skill panel graphics as well.

Apologies for the inconvenience there, hopefully the online style will get updated soon.

I did copy the files manually I'm not sure if I have the most up to date player so I'll try updating that see if it helps. Thanks

Btw as I'm a girly I love the girl lem lens ( that's what my hubby calls it when he catches me playing).

Hmm I had the most up to date version but just in case I've messed something up which is quite likely I'm gonna delete everything and start over.

Well whatever the issue was reinstalling everything seems to have worked. Just have to redo all my progress lol.  Also I've never played in high resolution before noticing all these little details I've never noticed before. I'm very much enjoying that.

Thanks WillLem as always

Quote from: mantha16 on April 02, 2020, 01:55:45 PMJust have to redo all my progress lol.

Try using the "mass replay check" feature (F7 on the main menu). It should restore completion ticks for every level where your replay still solves it.

Quote from: mantha16 on April 02, 2020, 01:55:45 PM
Well whatever the issue was reinstalling everything seems to have worked. Just have to redo all my progress lol.  Also I've never played in high resolution before noticing all these little details I've never noticed before. I'm very much enjoying that.

Thanks WillLem as always

This is great news, I'm glad to know you've got it working. :thumbsup:

Thanks for your kind comments, and for giving the Hi-Res mode a try! (if you haven't done so already, be sure to turn the High Quality minimap off if you experience any lag issues).

I'd love to see your replays when you've completed the game. Also, +1 for trying what Proxima suggested re: performing a Mass Replay Check to restore your progress where relevant.

All the best! :lemcat:

This is great news, I'm glad to know you've got it working. :thumbsup:

Thanks for your kind comments, and for giving the Hi-Res mode a try! (if you haven't done so already, be sure to turn the High Quality minimap off if you experience any lag issues).

I'd love to see your replays when you've completed the game. Also, +1 for trying what Proxima suggested re: performing a Mass Replay Check to restore your progress where relevant.

All the best! :lemcat:
[/quote]

I deleted literally everything so there's nothing to restore and to share replays to I just copy the relevant reply files and add them as a zipped file. Sorry I'm quite the technophobe.

Quote from: mantha16 on April 02, 2020, 04:25:47 PM
I deleted literally everything so there's nothing to restore and to share replays to I just copy the relevant reply files and add them as a zipped file. Sorry I'm quite the technophobe.

No worries Mantha, have fun playing through it all again! Let me know how you get on :lemcat:

Bonus V1.01b Folder now Uploaded to OP! (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679.0)

The folder contains graphics for the high-resolution skill panel, plus custom menu background and text graphics:

(https://i.imgur.com/nQNt7lk.png?1)

(https://i.imgur.com/qD8mbU2.png?1)

(https://i.imgur.com/66xRzxg.png?1)

Simply place the graphics directly into the root folder for the levelpack, i.e. NeoLemmix>levels>Lemminas (replace if prompted).

It also contains a backroute fix for Pandemonium 16 - Rendezvous at the Mountain Part II. Place this into NeoLemmix>levels>Lemminas>Pandemonium (replace if prompted).

Thank you for enjoying Lemminas!

Bonus V1.01b Folder now Uploaded to OP! (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679.0)

I finished Lemminas~ (for now). Replays attached. Note that these are all from the previous version, so prior to the Pand 16 fixes (though we already talked about that on the discord anyway). It gets about half of the talismans. I'll get the other half later.

Congratulations on getting it finished and released. Looking forward to seeing more levels from you in the future.

Also, the music is a standout.

Replays for the Magical rank, with all talismans. Really great, fun levels, and I love the music and the new graphics! :thumbsup:

My only suggestion for tweaking: Levels 3 and 4 have talismans that are effectively "use at most N of each skill", but the requirement is set by limiting each skill separately. The editor supports "at most N of each skill" as a talisman type, and this would be clearer for the player -- especially at first sight, when they see "at most 4 walkers, 4 blockers, 4 platformers, 4 builders" and think they have to commit this to memory, not yet knowing that those are the only skill types available in the level.

Quote from: DireKrow on April 13, 2020, 06:34:16 AM
Congratulations on getting it finished and released. Looking forward to seeing more levels from you in the future.

Also, the music is a standout.

Quote from: Proxima on April 15, 2020, 05:32:42 PM
Replays for the Magical rank, with all talismans. Really great, fun levels, and I love the music and the new graphics! :thumbsup:

Thanks guys, really glad you're enjoying the pack!

Quote from: Proxima on April 15, 2020, 05:32:42 PM
The editor supports "at most N of each skill" as a talisman type, and this would be clearer for the player

Got it, thanks Proxima. This'll be implemented in V1.01c.

Some specific comments on the replays:

Proxima's Magical Replays

You've beaten my times for We Like To Dig Too, Lemmina Loop Prevention Service and Revenge of the Ice Cream Monster, so well done there!

Your solution for Pyramids of Lem (Under a PepsiCola Sky) is my favourite so far: I like how you timed the actions so the lemminas flow around and basically don't stop moving.

All solutions are either intended or decent alternatives. I'm looking forward to your replays for Sensational!

DireKrow's Replays
Magical:

You beat my time for We Like To Dig Too, but Proxima holds the current record at 15 seconds. You, however, now hold the record for Lemmina Loop Prevention Service at 1:24.71!

You also hold the record for Lemminas Go Forth at 00:56.41.

Sensational:
Your solution to Backroute To The Future is, in fact, a backroute! :crylaugh: So far no-one who's shared replays has done the top-route solution...

I liked your route and general solution to The Continuum, I was wondering when

Spoiler

someone would take that (not so) secret top route! ;P

Your solution to The Refrigerator makes a perfect smiley face! :crylaugh:

Tricksy:

I like your crowd control solution to The Milkshake Machine, although it did cost you the Gold talisman. Have another look at

Spoiler

where you might need to use that Digger...

Very clever alternative solution for the ending of Day Of The Daredevils III:

Spoiler

I was wondering how you'd get the second glider to turn around, but then he bumped into the wall of the Digger pit. Nice! See if you can figure out the intended ending - it's not a million miles away from this concept, and doesn't need the Digger!

Very subtle, very clever way of ensuring

Spoiler

the Swimmer lemminas don't walk back past the pillar

in POOR WEE CREATURETTES, this was good to see and I wondered why you did it at first!

The very last action you took in Nessy II was a mini-backroute, but it's so obvious that I feel like I should've realised that could happen! :crylaugh: I'll leave it as is, that level's complicated enough!

Haha I didn't even see what you did in Just a Second..., but you got it in 0:00.94 so it must have been right. :thumbsup:

Pandemonium:

There's only one thing you'd need to do differently on Milkshake Party to get the 6 Walkers talisman...! Otherwise, this solution is spot on.

Thanks for getting the intended Lemgate solution!

I liked your carefully considered use of the skills in The Cherry Cola Conundrum to make sure

Spoiler

you had a Walker left to free the Blocker at the end. Nice!

29 Walkers in Staircase To Nowhere III: this is super impressive, I'm pretty sure that's the current record. I can't do any better than 33!

Very nice trick for Save Us, looks a lot neater than the intended solution as well. I might introduce a talisman for this in V1.01c.

There's a much quicker way of

Spoiler

getting through the pillar

on Nothing is Impossible which involves the same trick, but saves a lot of time so you can go for those Cloner pickups!

Your second solution to Rendezvous II is hilarious, I'm definitely leaving this as a possible solution!

All other solutions are intended/decent alternatives. Watching your solving skills generally makes me think you could definitely go back and get a few more of those talismans. ;P

Thanks for enjoying the pack guys, it's great to see these replays. Proxima - do an LP of Tricksy!

Replays for Sensational, with all talismans. This was a nice rank too, and the good levels were trickier and more interesting than the previous rank, but it also had more problematic parts.

Feedback by level

1 "Worra lorra lemminas" -- Cool puzzle, not much to say here.
2 "Dimples" -- Another one where the talisman could just be "2 of each skill".
3 "Backroute to the Future" -- You've had a lot of "stick" over the hidden objects in this level, so let's have some "carrot". Playing this with the teleporter visible from the outset, this was easily my favourite level in the rank (especially the gold talisman) and a serious contender for a LOTY nomination. A really nice, completely fair puzzle that was all about working out what skills I would need to get the pickup skill, and arranging the rest of the solution so I had enough skills to spare.
4 "Pillars of Venus" -- I don't know. The gold talisman was far harder than anything else in the rank, which is okay, talismans can be any difficulty and the difficulty doesn't have to match the level ordering. And it was satisfying when everything came together. My only complaint is that before that, it looked like I would have to do some really precise fiddling to stack at the base of the exit pillar without anyone getting stuck to the left of the stacker, since there were no leftover skills at all for crowd control. My suggestion would be to drop the "save 10" requirement from this talisman.
7 "The Melting Block" -- I'm not a fan of pickup skills in terrain, since it obscures the terrain, especially in a case like this where you need to assign skills rather precisely inside the terrain and need to know exactly how much of it you have carved out. The puzzle is okay and I guess there's not much you could do about that annoyance.
13 "The Unnecessarily Tall Pillars" -- That trick with cloning the platformer was really mean, if it's intended, and could be a reason to move this to the next rank up. I also wasn't very happy that I had to download another style just for a decorative object, but it's your call.
14 "Race to the Top" -- I liked the fact that the talisman required a bit of thinking outside the box, not just optimising. This is when time-related talismans feel most satisfying.
15 "Wraparound Part II" -- Here, by contrast, I was hoping the talisman would require finding a different route, and there were some interesting possibilities to try; but no, it's just optimising the same solution. Admittedly, sometimes there's not much you can do about this, since it's hard to deliberately design things so that one route is faster than another.

I'm also not happy that both wraparound levels are Level 15, so we get comparatively little time with track 7. (Although it did take me a while to meet the talisman requirement, so that made up for it a little.)
16 "Escape from Crystal Mountain" -- While I wasn't wild about the layered objects, I guess it's fair enough, since the skill slot for disarmers makes it obvious there is a pickup available. Other than that, a pretty good level, and it's large and a bit more complex to put everything together without being too much harder than the rest of the rank -- the qualities of a good rank finisher.

Some new records:

Magical:

3 - Mind The Gap... - 1:27.47
4 - Lemdon Bridge - 2:16.65
5 - Lemmina Loop Prevention Service - 0:58.35
8 - Pyramids of Lem (Under a PepsiCola Sky) - 0:56.47
9 - Send Them Soaring - 0:38.94
10 - Just Shimmy! - 0:57.41
12 - Climbing in the Moonlight - 0:34.41
14 - Lemminas Go Forth - 0:48.76
16 - Revenge of the Ice Cream Monster - 1:49.29

Sensational:

3 - Backroute To The Future - 0:53.00
6 - Hurry! - 1:25.18 (Optimisation of Proxima's solution)
10 - The Strange Boutique - 0:56.53 (Optimisation of DireKrow's solution)
11 - The Refrigerator - 2:03.53
14 - Race To The Top - 1:11.76

I'd also like to take this opportunity to give Armani a mention for the Gold talisman solution for The Unnecessarily Tall Pillars. He provided an alternative solution to the original version and the talisman is derived from his solution; the level has changed since then, but the solution is essentially the same. The record in the OP is therefore an optimised version of Armani's solution for this level.

Well done on completing Sensational with all talismans Proxima, I've had a look at your replays and there's some genuinely great stuff in there!

In particular, I loved your solutions to Backroute To The Future, Hurry and your 0-Basher talisman solution for The Continuum - the first two have set new time records (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679.msg80167#msg80167) and the latter a new skills record (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679.msg80167#msg80167), deservedly so. I could tell you were aiming to conserve skills as much as possible, and it made for a very interesting replay.

N.B. Your replay for level 10 seems to be missing from the zip folder.

Response to Proxima's Feedback

Quote from: Proxima
2 "Dimples" -- Another one where the talisman could just be "2 of each skill".

Thanks, I'll fix this in V1.01c.

Quote from: Proxima
3 "Backroute to the Future" -- You've had a lot of "stick" over the hidden objects in this level, so let's have some "carrot". Playing this with the teleporter visible from the outset, this was easily my favourite level in the rank (especially the gold talisman) and a serious contender for a LOTY nomination. A really nice, completely fair puzzle that was all about working out what skills I would need to get the pickup skill, and arranging the rest of the solution so I had enough skills to spare.

I'm really glad you enjoyed this level, and thanks for the kind feedback. You actually now hold the time record for this level, though DireKrow has managed it in slightly fewer skills. You are the only player so far to get the Save 90 talisman though!

Quote from: Proxima
13 "The Unnecessarily Tall Pillars" -- That trick with cloning the platformer was really mean, if it's intended, and could be a reason to move this to the next rank up. I also wasn't very happy that I had to download another style just for a decorative object, but it's your call.

The Platformer clone was not intended: in fact, you've managed to find an alternative solution to this level which I didn't even think was possible! The decorative object is there because it's from Namida's honeycomb style; it's there in recognition of the fact that his comments and feedback have contributed massively to the improved design of this level, and he actually partially created its intended solution.

Quote from: Proxima
15 "Wraparound Part II" -- Here, by contrast, I was hoping the talisman would require finding a different route, and there were some interesting possibilities to try; but no, it's just optimising the same solution. Admittedly, sometimes there's not much you can do about this, since it's hard to deliberately design things so that one route is faster than another.

Ironically, your faster solution wasn't an optimisation of your first solution, and is in fact not the intended fast solution (which also isn't merely an optimisation - it does involve a couple of significant differences!) To add further irony to this, you now hold the record for fastest time on this level as well! :crylaugh:

Quote from: Proxima
I'm also not happy that both wraparound levels are Level 15, so we get comparatively little time with track 7. (Although it did take me a while to meet the talisman requirement, so that made up for it a little.)

Fear not! All of the music tracks will return, along with some new additions, for Lemminas II. I'll make sure I assign that track to some bigger levels next time. ;P

Thanks again for your kind comments and feedback, I'll look at making a couple of subtle tweaks to V1.01c based on what you've said. Since I've started keeping records though, I don't really want to do anything that will affect the current existing replays unless it's something that definitely needs to be changed.

I will certainly get those talismans fixed though, at the very least.

Looking forward to your Tricksy feedback (and LP! ;P)

Lemminas now has its very own Records Table (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679.msg80167#msg80167) for time, amount saved and total skills used.

Have a look and let me know if you've managed to improve on any of the existing records. Please ensure you have the latest version of Lemminas (V1.04 (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4679.0;attach=19459)) and please do send over your replays for record verification.

Thanks!

WillLem :lemcat:

Here's Lemmina Loop Prevention Service with 8 skills. The record for Send Them Soaring should obviously be 12 skills.

Quote from: Proxima on April 16, 2020, 09:13:44 PM
Here's Lemmina Loop Prevention Service with 8 skills.

Well done!

Quote from: Proxima on April 16, 2020, 09:13:44 PM
The record for Send Them Soaring should obviously be 12 skills.

Why? There are 16 lemminas and

Spoiler

each one needs either a Floater or a Glider

Because the save requirement is only 12 :P

Quote from: Proxima on April 16, 2020, 09:18:53 PM
Because the save requirement is only 12 :P

:forehead:

Updated. :P

Lemminas Go Forth: 21 skills

Revenge of the Ice Cream Monster: 20 skills

Backroute to the Future: 5 skills

Pillars of Venus: 11 skills

Hurry!: 11 skills

Magical 1 in 1:32.82
Magical 3 in 1:25.14

Magical 3 in 1:22.71

Lemminas Go Forth: 16 skills

Magical 1 Welcome The Lemminas in 1:31.35
Sensational 4 Pillars of Venus in 1:40.41
Sensational 7 The Melting Block in 0:20.82
Sensational 8 The Continuum in 2:22.82
Sensational 11 The Refrigerator in 1:48.65

Sensational 9 "Delaying the Inevitable" time improved to 1:02.06

Lemminas Skills You Can't Live Without replays.

Contributors:

DireKrow
Proxima
WillLem

Pandemonium records are up (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679.msg80167#msg80167)! :lemcat:

Also, the Skills You Can't live Without records have also been updated (Magical and Sensational ranks have been done so far).

Please note that levels 15 in Magical and Sensational will be replaced with new levels in the upcoming V1.03 update: THIS WILL BE THE FINAL Lemminas UPDATE!

Some updated records for Tricksy:

Tricksy 6 Day Of The Daredevils Part III in 1:32.71
Tricksy 9 POOR WEE CREATURETTES in 1:13.53
Tricksy 10 Down The Rabbit Hole in 0:22.65
Tricksy 12 Soda Streams in 2:04.94 (variation/optimisation of a solution by Armani)
Tricksy 13 Nessy II in 2:42.18 (including DireKrow's end section solution)
Tricksy 14 No I in Team in 0:44.76
Tricksy 16 The Crystal Cobwebs of Mt. Katie in 1:27.06

I will be releasing the final version of Lemminas in the upcoming V1.03 update, scheduled for a mid-May release.

If anyone wishes to make any suggestions for this update, please do so now. I will take all comments/feedback into account.

Thanks! :lemcat:

EDIT: Here is the Jumper sprite for willlem_lemminas (it will be included in the style with V1.03 anyway, along with any necessary updates to the scheme file, but here it is if you wanted to have a look at it in the current NL jumper experimental release (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4718.0) for now).

Some updated Pandemonium records:

Pandemonium 1 Lemmina City Steel Facility in 1:16.29
Pandemonium 2 Milkshake Party in 0:59.71
Pandemonium 3 Nightmare On Lem Street III in 1:36.12
Pandemonium 6 L-PoP in 0:24.24
Pandemonium 7 Falling Forever Part II in 0:43.76
Pandemonium 8 Staircase To Nowhere III in 1:42.59

More updated Pandemonium records:

Pandemonium 9 With a Twist of Lemmina Please in 0:53.82
Pandemonium 10 I'll Just Wait Here, Shall I? in 1:44.29
Pandemonium 16 Rendezvous At The Mountain Part II in 1:22.88 (for save requirement, plus additional time saving 33)

Version 1.03 now uploaded. See OP for download (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679).

This will be the final version of Lemminas! There will be no further changes to the levels after this release (other than compatibility updates).

Here's what's changed:

Version 1.03 changelog

• Magical 15 and Sensational 15 have been replaced by new levels! Say hello to A Jumper Would Be Handy! and Many Jumpers Would be Handy! :lemcat:
• New menu graphics and in-game panel graphics (both resolutions) are now included in the main download.
• The colour of the silverpipe graphics has changed from silver to metallic blue so it's easier to distinguish it from steel.
• Edited talismans for the following levels: Magical 3 Mind The Gap, Magical 4 Lemdon Bridge, Sensational 2 Dimples, Sensational 4 Pillars of Venus, Sensational 14 Race To The Top, Tricksy 3 Milkshake Machine, Tricksy 14 No I in Team, Pandemonium 3 Nightmare on Lem Street III, Pandemonium 14 Save Us
• The following levels have had edits to layout and/or skillset: Sensational 2 Backroute To The Future, Sensational 6 Hurry!, Tricksy 3 Milkshake Machine, Tricksy 11 Lemminas Recurring, Pandemonium 3 Nightmare on Lem Street III
• Some objects and terrain have been removed from the style as they are no longer used.

Please note that records (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4781) have been updated to reflect these changes.

If any serious mistakes, errors or anything that makes the pack not work are noticed, please let me know and I will fix it ASAP. Otherwise, this version is the very last I'll upload.

Once again, apologies to anyone who already has the pack and is having to download the music and everything again. At present, this is the best way to ensure that you have everything you need to play Lemminas as intended. Thank you for your patience and support.

Big thank-yous to Proxima, DireKrow, namida and Armani for the replays, challenge solutions and patient feedback that have helped to make this pack much better, improve the talismans, and remove some of the pack's less favourable elements - couldn't have done it without you!

Enjoy saving the Lemminas!

Level Update

Here's an update for Sensational 14 Race To The Top. I've removed a tiny piece of terrain to the right of the exit which was there by genuine error.

Simply paste the level into NeoLemmix/levels/Lemminas/Sensational and choose Replace.

Thanks! :lemcat:

EDIT: Please re-download Lemminas to get the latest version - thanks!

Graphics Update

So, it turns out that my old laptop wasn't as great at rendering colours as my new laptop, and tended to lean towards a blueish hue. As a result, some of the pink shades in Lemminas are coming out ever so slightly differently.

I doubt most people would notice the difference and/or care, but here are some updated graphics for the menu reflecting the changes. I've also updated the pink "milkshake" water object (which was, thankfully, the only graphic in the actual style set that was affected enough for me to want to change it) - the latter will be available via a styles update in the manager, but I've included here as well for those who don't use online features.

Unzip the menu graphics to the root folder of the Lemminas level pack (NeoLemmix>levels>Lemminas)

Unzip the water objects to NeoLemmix>styles>willlem_lemminas>objects

Thank you! :lemcat:

Skills You Can't Live Without records for the Sensational rank are now in the Record Table (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679.msg80167#msg80167) following a few evenings of play by Proxima, myself and namida.

I have also arranged the SYCLW results so that that Totals are in order of Most > Least Used.

The Skills You Can't Live Without records are now complete (pending future improvements, of course!). Check out the Records Table (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679.msg80167#msg80167) for full records.

Some interesting SYCLW statistics for Lemminas:

Magical
Most Required Skill: Builders (9)
Least Required Skill(s): Cloners, Disarmers (1)

Sensational
Most Required Skill: Builders (12)
Least Required Skill(s): Shimmiers, Swimmers, Disarmers, Blockers (1)

Tricksy
Most Required Skill: Swimmers (14)
Least Required Skill: Stackers (2)

Pandemonium
Most Required Skill: Builders (27)
Least Required Skill(s): Shimmiers, Miners (1)

GRAND TOTALS:

Total Skills: 326
Total Constructive Skills: 130
Total Destructive Skills: 65
Total Permanent Skills: 71
Total Fatal Skills: 0

61 Builders
41 Platformers
28 Stackers
24 Walkers
21 Floaters
21 Fencers
21 Cloners
18 Diggers
18 Bashers
17 Swimmers
13 Climbers
13 Gliders
12 Shimmiers
8 Miners
7 Disarmers
3 Blockers

Played by: DireKrow, Minim, namida, nin10doadict, Proxima, WillLem

Hello WillLem,

I am happy to say that I finally finished your Lemminas-pack today. I got stuck in SEB Lems some weeks ago when I decided to start another pack to experience a new sense of achievement (I normally don't play different packs parallel). I thought that your pack might probably be easier than Flopsy's and I was right, but it took me longer than I had thought previously and I had some hard nuts to crack. Regarding individual feedback, I will restrict myself to the Pandemonium-levels. My favourite one from your pack, however, was not part of this rank. That's "Soda Streams" which is a great puzzle and can well be considered a blueprint how to make a fantastic "Three-Lemmings-Level". There was one level in "Sensational" I couldn't play since I missed a graphic piece.

1. Lemmina City Steel Facility

It may be surprising, but this one was the hardest level for me in the entire pack. I wasted a lot of time at the left side, but I always ran out of resources there. This was supported by a tendency that, whenever I spot a piece with one-way-arrows, I feel it must be bashed through. So I was on the wrong track, before I finally found a way to trap the Lemmings at a different place. Great level!

2. Milkshake Party

I now have some more grey hairs on my relatively bald head due to this level which I would consider the third hardest at least of the rank. It's all about how to bring one Lemming down to the bottom and this was not possible without some acrobatic moves. Easily one of the best levels of the entire pack.

3. Nightmare on Lem Street III

"The Great Lemming Caper" was my favourite Level in the original game and I was curious to see what you made out of that. You transformed it to a totally new experience though I can understand why Namida refused to play it. It feels a little flamboyant with 100 Lemmings, 99 RR-Rate, 4 entrances, zombies, teleporters and a locked exit. I am not the biggest fan of such nick-nack though I muss confess that, when I tried to solve it, it worked surprisingly straightforward. Not my favourite level, but that's of course always a matter of taste.

4. Lemgate

This was one of the harder Pandemonium-levels, at least for me. Nice basic concept. What I don't like about this level is, that there is some degree of luck involved here. I spared one walker in the end, but couldn't reproduce the same solution every time.

5. The Cherry Cola Conundrum

This was like a total cakewalk though I think I backrouted this level. I am not sure if's intended to do all the work at the left and the right side with one Lemming only. I still like this level somehow - maybe it's because I appreciate Cherry Cola. It's also the beginning of four very easy levels in a row. But the hammer fell down after this foursome, I can tell you.

6. L-PoP

I didn't go for the talisman here, but after placing a blocker at the right side, I just had to bomb through and watch out for the fall distance. Though I like occasional breathers, this one felt a little TOO easy for the final rank.

7. Falling Forever Part II

Where is part 1? After having understood that these eyes on the left side aren't just pure decoration I could solve this level quite quickly. How to use the cloner here was also quite obvious.

8. Staircase To Nowhere III

This is the second level I feel a bit misplaced in the highest rank. It almost played itself. Of course, it could be made much more difficult by radically reducing the amount of walkers. But from a designers perspective, I can understand that not every level should be made as hard as possible. Just to give the player some leeway.

9. With a Twist of Lemminas Please

Here it is: This level has driven me nuts. I found three totally different ways to save 31 Lemmings, but not 32 Lemmings. Never before, I felt the urgent necessity to transform that stupid Glider into a Floater. One day later, I changed the approach completely and I surprisingly found a way. I'm quite sure, it's not the intended one. Very good level, though.

10. I'll Just Wait Here, Shall I?

Nice idea, but I almost saw the solution immediately. That's because I solved "Tribute to Benny Hill", from Insane Steve's world, my favourite levelpack so far.

11. Mary Poppins' Land II

As one can see from my youtube-video this one took forever, due to pure waiting. Probably I did something wrong - but the solution, which wasn't hard to figure out, worked. Not among my favourites.

12. Erm...

A late highlight of the Lemminas! Though I'm quite experienced in these kind of levels, I had no clue about the approach in the beginning. But then, it dawned on me that it's the stacker which is the key skill here. It's still took a while since this level also demands some timing. Very good work here!

13. Constellations II

I had similar feelings to Pandemonium 3 here, though there were only 4 Lemmings. This level looked extremely fiddly und difficult to solve at first, but turned out be very straightforward. The major problem was where to land with the two Gliders on the left side though they shouldn't turn around.

14. Save Us!

I like this level for it's idea. In my first attempts, I placed the stackers side by side. This trapped some Lemmings - and I hadn't enough bashers to free them. So I decided to place the stacks on each other - which resulted in the talisman.

15. Nothing is Impossible

This is a trick-based level. If you know this trick (like I did) it's incredibly easy, if not, it has the potential to drive people to despair.

16. Rendezvous at the Mountain II

A gorgeous level for its visuals. I was a little shocked when I saw all of these pickup-skills. After giving it a try, I realized that none of them are really required. Since it's also not necessary to work simultaneously from both sides, this level turned out to be fairly easy. Like in the original game and in ONML, the last one is not the hardest - you adhered to this tradition.

I'd like to see more Lemminas one day! Though I most admit that for the moment, I have enough of these pink, purple and pastel shades :-)
All of my solutions can be found on my yt-channel.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Vidusaka/

Greetings, Swerdis

Quote from: Swerdis on July 09, 2020, 04:50:14 PM
My favourite one from your pack... That's "Soda Streams" which is a great puzzle and can well be considered a blueprint how to make a fantastic "Three-Lemmings-Level"

Thanks! It's sort of a remix of Going Up! but I wanted to make sure that Swimmers were used. The Tricksy rank is by far my favourite, I think Pandemonium ended up being quite messy in parts - I was being a bit too ambitious with some of the designs (particularly Lemgate, which was a complete nightmare to put together!).

Quote from: Swerdis on July 09, 2020, 04:50:14 PM
There was one level in "Sensational" I couldn't play since I missed a graphic piece.

Ah yes, looking at your YouTube channel it seems you're missing the styles used in level 10... the downloads manager should be able to sort it (if you have online features enabled). If not, it's namida_psychedelic and flopsy_special that contain the pieces you need... they'll be in the styles download (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4872.0).

Quote from: Swerdis on July 09, 2020, 04:50:14 PM
1. Lemmina City Steel Facility It may be surprising, but this one was the hardest level for me in the entire pack

You're not alone there, a lot of people have said this one and With A Twist Of Lemmina, Please! are the two hardest in the pack. This one's had a few backroute fixes as well; it's one of the few levels I wanted an exact solution for. Despite that, your solution is in fact yet another backroute! :crylaugh: It's very difficult to enforce using the left side of the level. Buuut that's OK, I really like your crowd control method so it's a pass, for sure 8-)

Quote from: Swerdis on July 09, 2020, 04:50:14 PM
2. Milkshake Party I now have some more grey hairs on my relatively bald head due to this level...Easily one of the best levels of the entire pack.

Haha thanks! :crylaugh:

Quote from: Swerdis on July 09, 2020, 04:50:14 PM
3. Nightmare on Lem Street III...You transformed it to a totally new experience though I can understand why Namida refused to play it. It feels a little flamboyant... Not my favourite level, but that's of course always a matter of taste.

Fair enough, this is definitely one of the least popular levels. It's actually one of my favourites, I love how many different possible solutions there are!

Quote from: Swerdis on July 09, 2020, 04:50:14 PM
5. The Cherry Cola Conundrum... This was like a total cakewalk though I think I backrouted this level

Nah, again - this one's intended to be fairly open-ended. Everyone comes up with a totally different solution, so it's all good.

Quote from: Swerdis on July 09, 2020, 04:50:14 PM
7. Falling Forever Part II Where is part 1?

In Sensational :lemcat:

Quote from: Swerdis on July 09, 2020, 04:50:14 PM
8. Staircase To Nowhere III This is the second level I feel a bit misplaced in the highest rank... But from a designers perspective, I can understand that not every level should be made as hard as possible. Just to give the player some leeway.

Yes - I'm all about there being an ebb and flow rather than a consistently increasing difficulty. It's good to have the odd breather level, for sure.

Quote from: Swerdis on July 09, 2020, 04:50:14 PM
9. With a Twist of Lemminas Please Here it is: This level has driven me nuts... One day later, I changed the approach completely and I surprisingly found a way. I'm quite sure, it's not the intended one. Very good level, though.

Your solution was remarkably similar to Armani's - this one and the intended one seem to be the only two possible solutions to this level (so far!).

Quote from: Swerdis on July 09, 2020, 04:50:14 PM
11. Mary Poppins' Land II As one can see from my youtube-video this one took forever, due to pure waiting

I'm not sure why you built over the teleporters... not doing so would have cut the time in half, for sure! Also, not allowing too many lems to group in the lower area helps to avoid a long wait as well. For future ref, I'd advise customising a 50-frame-skip Hotkey to speed up situations like this! ;P For what it's worth though, I apologise for your wait, and I sincerely hope you used to the time to have a cup of tea and some chocolate biscuits :lemcat:

Quote from: Swerdis on July 09, 2020, 04:50:14 PM
12. Erm... A late highlight of the Lemminas! Though I'm quite experienced in these kind of levels, I had no clue about the approach in the beginning. But then, it dawned on me that it's the stacker which is the key skill here.

Another quite popular level - it's actually not one of my favourites, but it's one of those ideas that I got first thing in the morning after a night of playing Lemmings! Your solution is in fact not intended -

Spoiler

it's meant to be solved using animation cancels!

But, it's a great solution nonetheless.

Quote from: Swerdis on July 09, 2020, 04:50:14 PM
15. Nothing is Impossible This is a trick-based level. If you know this trick (like I did) it's incredibly easy, if not, it has the potential to drive people to despair.

Hence the title; the hope is that players won't lose hope! I guess it is a very trick-based level. I'm going to try not to do too many (if any) of those for Lemminas II - I want the sequel to be more consistently accessible throughout.

Btw, was the pack's music included in your download? I noticed that the regular Lemmings music was playing in the videos... totally OK if that's by choice, just wanting to make sure that it's available.

Anyways, thanks for your LPs and your kind comments, Swerdis. I'm very glad that you enjoyed the pack! :thumbsup:

Hey WillLem,

thanks for your reply. I think I will download the missing piece to play the remaining level. No, it was by no means intended to use the regular Lemmings music. To be honest, I almost can't listen to it anymore and I'm happy for every pack that doesn't use it. But for some reason, I didn't get your music working - which is strange, since I never had those problems with any other pack. Yesterday I started SubLems - not to confuse with SEBLems :-) - and among the greatest things of that pack is the unique music that EVERY level has. I'm actually very music-sensitive - and a bad tune can almost ruin an entire level for me :-)

Greetings, Swerdis.

Quote from: Swerdis on July 11, 2020, 10:43:34 PM
But for some reason, I didn't get your music working - which is strange, since I never had those problems with any other pack

I've double-checked the latest download in the OP and it seems to work fine. What seems to be the issue? Let me know and I might be able to help.

Following the release of NeoLemmix 12.10 and its fantastic Menu screen overhaul, I've updated the Lemminas menu graphics (again!) as well as the rank (group) signs, which I felt also needed a bit of a tidy up.

For those who haven't yet downloaded the pack, the main OP download (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679) has of course been updated. However, those who already have the pack and would rather not download everything again, just the graphics have been attached to this post.

Simply drag and drop the images into "NeoLemmix>levels>Lemminas". The rank graphics have been sorted into the individual rank folders, so these will need to be copied across into the correct directory within levels (Magical, Sensational, Tricksy and Pandemonium respectively). When prompted, choose to replace the current images. For the most part, they are simply the current images but with a nicer font and resized to match the dimensions of the new menu.

Please let me know if you have any trouble with this, I'm more than happy to help.

Please note that the Records Table (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679.msg80167#msg80167) has now been merged with this post. I've also fixed all the links I could find in the replies, so this is now the place for everything Lemminas :lemcat:

All rightie WillLem, it's finally time. I have just started LPing Lemminas ;) Here is the link to my LP: Kaywhyn's LP of WillLem's Lemminas pack (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oMYzQg5AbU&list=PLbp2m4KlFpJtNbzINeYlZbTI_B2Uo3gEH).

So far, I have completed all of the Magical rank and half of the Sensational rank. I will post back with my replays and feedback when I get through the rest of the pack. Great pack so far, and as usual I'm enjoying myself a lot with providing the community my LPs. I'm not playing with high-res on, although let me make it clear that I have nothing against it. It's a very welcome addition, and I'm sure the community appreciates you providing the graphics and your expertise on it. It's probably just me exhausted and hence I'm not really thinking clearly, but when I tested it quickly on Part 2 of my LP I didn't see too much of a difference. I guess I expected it to be way more mind-blowing with high-res on than what I did see. In any case, I can make do without it, I'm probably just not getting much out of the experience visually by having it disabled. Perhaps if it was available right from the early get-go of the NL days I would definitely had kept it enabled or if it was on by default.

Thanks for uploading Kaywhyn! I'm really enjoying your LP. Just watched the Magical rank so far but I'll definitely be watching the rest of it as well. I've left the following comment on the video, but here it is for easy reference in case you want to reply here:

Comment on Kaywhyn's LP of Rank 1 - Magical

Nice work Kaywhyn! It's great to see these levels being played 😆 some comments for you:

You are indeed pronouncing "Lemminas" correctly (i.e. 'Lem-ee-nas') 👍

Well done for spotting that stars can turn Gliders 😉

I also prefer Pepsi to Coke 😎

I'm glad you enjoyed "I'll Go First", it's probably this rank's only real "puzzle" level, it seems very suited to your playing/solving style

I sometimes fumble solutions when I'm recording LPs as well, I think it's a normal part of learning to play the game whilst thinking out loud and making interesting comments at the same time. You're good at LPs though, keep it up and you'll get more used to it

Level 13 is purely to demonstrate the updraft/exit combination (which may come in handy later) 😉 It's been a somewhat controversial level, with most feedback saying that it's basically pointless. But, I just liked it too much to remove it from the pack!

The miner on Level 15 is for an alternate talisman solution: a lot of these levels have been designed with multiple possible solutions in mind, mainly to give the pack replay/challenge value

Finally, it is possible to reach both exits on Level 16 - the left one is quicker but more challenging, the right one takes longer but is more straightforward (or so I thought! 🤔) I guess it goes to show that we all find different things difficult, just like you said!

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 05, 2020, 08:35:49 PM
I'm not playing with high-res on

If you're producing a video of you playing the pack, it's definitely worth having high-res on. The sprites were designed in high-res; their low-res counterparts are nearest neighbour resizes which I didn't spend anywhere near as much time on.

Also, high-res mode definitely looks better. I'm sure that less graphically-oriented people either don't notice the difference or don't really care, but I do for sure!

So yeah, if I have only ONE request for anybody LPing this pack: please put hi-res mode on! Thanks! :lemcat:

I'll respond at both places, although here will be to address the high-res :P

Quote from: WillLem on December 06, 2020, 12:39:15 AM

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 05, 2020, 08:35:49 PM
I'm not playing with high-res on

If you're producing a video of you playing the pack, it's definitely worth having high-res on. The sprites were designed in high-res; their low-res counterparts are nearest neighbour resizes which I didn't spend anywhere near as much time on.

Also, high-res mode definitely looks better. I'm sure that less graphically-oriented people either don't notice the difference or don't really care, but I do for sure!

So yeah, if I have only ONE request for anybody LPing this pack: please put hi-res mode on! Thanks! :lemcat:

It was more that I totally forgot to switch high-res on before I started recording/LPing. I guess that's what happens when I download the most recent version of the pack last night, sleep for the night, and then started recording first thing this morning :XD:

Truthfully, I think it has to do with the fact that my laptop display is already stunningly visually impressive. I currently have the latest Dell XPS 15" model, i.e, the Dell XPS 9500, and the display is just visually mind-blowing and a huge improvement over the previous model I had, which is about 2-3 generations behind. The laptop I have is more than just an upgrade of my previously owned model. It's a complete rework. I only have the FHD version, but it's still very nice. Plus I figured that I can make do without the UHD 4k display, which alone increases the price dramatically compared to just the FHD version. So really, even with just an FHD version everything on the display is already very nice looking, which is probably why I didn't notice much of a difference when comparing the high-res graphics compared to the low-res.

This being said, I'm not going to go back and re-record the entire Magical rank and the first half of the Sensational rank with the high-res mode on :P However, I think what I will do is that I'll record the second half of Sensational in low-res, and then I'll finish up the rest of the series with high-res on. In this way, I have 2 3 videos in low-res to compare with at least 2 videos in high-res. Then maybe I'll see the differences better when I'm watching them on my own later. Then again, my cell phone has an OLED display, and truthfully I don't notice that much of a difference either. So, it probably won't matter in the end for me.

As I have said before, though, your work with the high-res is definitely appreciated, and I'm definitely glad you have made it be available and got namida to incorporate it into NL. It was probably one of the most anticipated features of NL that I was looking forward to, coming from how I was a heavy Lemmini/Superlemmini user for the last 4-5 years and have admired the amazing high-res graphics on those engines before I finally decided to dive into NL last year. Too bad that hasn't turned out to be the case after it has been made available for NL :-\ The biggest problem is that no one is forced to use it, it's simply there if one wants to use it. More than how my display is already stunningly pretty even in FHD, though, is how high-res just became an available feature long after NL came into existence, but more than that is because I have been doing just fine with what I do and don't have enabled :P The problem is kind of exacerbated by how it's tucked in the settings menu separate from everything else on the title screen. I haven't really gone into the settings menu for quite a while, as the Level Select menu is the one I see and use more, as I'm sure is true with most others here.

If high-res had been available long before I started using NL, then I would had been more inclined to have it enabled rather than not. Or, even better, if it was on by default then for sure I would had continued using it and not disable it. Of course, as we all know, NL is its own engine and completely different and separate from Lemmini/SL.

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 06, 2020, 01:10:36 AM
Truthfully, I think it has to do with the fact that my laptop display is already stunningly visually impressive. I currently have the latest Dell XPS 15" model, i.e, the Dell XPS 9500...which is probably why I didn't notice much of a difference when comparing the high-res graphics compared to the low-res.

Nice! Although, the basic difference between low and high-res in NL is that high-res is twice the amount of pixels in the same amount of space.

For illustration, here is a low-res and hi-res image of a walking lemming (note that these have been resized for the purposes of comparison). As you can see, the hi-res image (on the right) has much greater depth and detail, allowing for different shades of colour as well as a more defined shape, even though they are the same size:

(https://i.imgur.com/jjMcJlj.png) (https://i.imgur.com/lDkMAMz.png)

So, although a good quality display may make the lemming on the left appear bigger, and perhaps the colours look great as well, you can only get the high-res shape and detail from the lemming on the right.

EDIT: Of course, some people may prefer the low-res look, since it's how the lemmings used to look originally on platforms such as DOS, Amiga and MacIntosh. However, for the purposes of playing Lemminas, since the sprites were designed specifically for NeoLemmix 12.8's new high-res mode, it seems a shame not to showcase them as intended, in all their super-pixel glory! :lemcat:

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 06, 2020, 01:10:36 AM
This being said, I'm not going to go back and re-record the entire Magical rank and the first half of the Sensational rank with the high-res mode on :P

No, of course not! I wasn't suggesting that at all :crylaugh: I like your idea of having 2 videos in low-res and 2 in high-res, for comparison.

Anyways, I'm really enjoying watching your videos so far! Keep up the great work :thumbsup:

Quoteallowing for different shades of colour

Low-res lemming sprites are not limited to fewer shades of color. They just use less shades - but there is no technical limitation forcing them to do so. (The higher detail and smoother shape on the other hand is indeed a feature of the resolution difference.)

Quote from: WillLem on December 06, 2020, 02:05:51 AM
Nice! Although, the basic difference between low and high-res in NL is that high-res is twice the amount of pixels in the same amount of space.

Right ;)

Quote
For illustration, here is a low-res and hi-res image of a walking lemming (note that these have been resized for the purposes of comparison). As you can see, the hi-res image (on the right) has much greater depth and detail, allowing for different shades of colour as well as a more defined shape, even though they are the same size:

(https://i.imgur.com/jjMcJlj.png) (https://i.imgur.com/lDkMAMz.png)

So, although a good quality display may make the lemming on the left appear bigger, and perhaps the colours look great as well, you can only get the high-res shape and detail from the lemming on the right.

Thanks for this. I definitely see a big difference here. However, since I'm playing Lemminas, surely it would had been better to provide a comparison of the Lemminas sprites in low-res and high-res ???

Unfortunately, the color purple is a huge turn off for me. It's a color I dislike and so it confuses me why some people like it. Of course, we're all different, and I'm certainly not going to hate on those people who do like purple :laugh:

Quote
EDIT: Of course, some people may prefer the low-res look, since it's how the lemmings used to look originally on platforms such as DOS, Amiga and MacIntosh. However, for the purposes of playing Lemminas, since the sprites were designed specifically for NeoLemmix 12.8's new high-res mode, it seems a shame not to showcase them as intended, in all their super-pixel glory! :lemcat:

I grew up with the Dos version of Lemmings, and this has nothing to do with me preferring to play in low-res at all. Instead, my reason for doing so is just because I've been doing so well with the settings I have enabled and those I don't for a really long time that it kind of made me reluctant to go into the settings just to enable high-res. Also because everything already looks great due to my laptop display which still manages to look really good even in just FHD. For that reason high-res I likely can't get a whole lot prettier looking visually than it already is. Plus if I was so bent on getting very good looking graphics then I would had gotten the UHD 4K display for my laptop instead of FHD, of course. However, I decided that I don't need a breathtaking UHD 4K laptop display, as I can do just fine with the FHD display. The higher cost of the UHD 4K display is a reason I didn't get it, but it's not the only reason. Just that I really don't need a 4K laptop display. Especially since I already kind of have that in a way with my cell phone with how the display is OLED, which honestly isn't as impressive I thought it would be :crylaugh:

Again, it's not because I have anything against it, because I do love high-res, as I have said that I liked Lemmini/SL for that very reason. Like most others, I absolutely appreciate the effort and lengths you went to get high-res available for NL :thumbsup: It's kind of like how yes, I'm like you in that I don't mind playing with skill shadows disabled, especially since pretty much everyone here grew up with the game without the convenience tools, but truthfully I'm kind of reluctant to disable it just because I'm so used to them showing before it became an option to enable/disable when they have been enabled by default for so long :P

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 06, 2020, 01:10:36 AM
This being said, I'm not going to go back and re-record the entire Magical rank and the first half of the Sensational rank with the high-res mode on :P

Quote from: WillLem on December 06, 2020, 02:05:51 AM
No, of course not! I wasn't suggesting that at all :crylaugh: I like your idea of having 2 videos in low-res and 2 in high-res, for comparison.

I know you weren't suggesting that. I was just letting you know that I have no intention to go back and re-record the videos of my LP in high-res mode. It's not worth my time and especially in this one my LP will no longer be as authentic since it won't be a blind LP anymore due to how I now know 32 of the levels ;)

Quote
Anyways, I'm really enjoying watching your videos so far! Keep up the great work :thumbsup:

Thanks a bunch for the kind words :thumbsup: Also thanks for watching me take on your pack on video. More to come, of course ;)

Quote from: WillLem on December 06, 2020, 02:05:51 AMEDIT: Of course, some people may prefer the low-res look, since it's how the lemmings used to look originally on platforms such as DOS, Amiga and MacIntosh.

Macintosh Lemmings was hi-res. Indeed, there was a suggestion at some point to use the ripped graphics from that version for the standard tilesets in NL; I'd be happy to help that happen but, as with so many things, it's really hard to find time....

Quote from: namida on December 06, 2020, 02:38:18 AM
Low-res lemming sprites are not limited to fewer shades of color. They just use less shades - but there is no technical limitation forcing them to do so.

I think I was referring more to the example given, but quite right, you can absolutely use different shades of colour for low-res sprites. In fact, the Lemminas low-res sprites are multi-shaded. Case in point:

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 06, 2020, 02:48:07 AM
I definitely see a big difference here. However, since I'm playing Lemminas, surely it would had been better to provide a comparison of the Lemminas sprites in low-res and high-res ???

I copied the above example from another post. But, absolutely, here is the same comparison but with a walking Lemmina:

(https://i.imgur.com/efKrFJI.png) (https://i.imgur.com/CcPPiy8.png)

Although the low-res sprite can indeed be multi-shaded, the finer detail afforded by the double pixel density of the high-res sprite still allows for a more accurate and more pleasing use of shading.

Quote from: Proxima on December 06, 2020, 02:56:00 AM
Macintosh Lemmings was hi-res. Indeed, there was a suggestion at some point to use the ripped graphics from that version for the standard tilesets in NL

I was referring to the old black & white version:

(https://i.imgur.com/1LRKban.png)

Looking more closely though, the lemmings sprites actually do look like they might be the higher resolution kind - they look chunkier and more detailed than the Amiga/DOS versions.

I have solved all of the pack. So, here is my full set of replays for all 64 levels. I've already provided the link to my LP several posts above, but for convenience I'll go ahead and leave the link here as well so that all the replays and LP are in the same place.

Lemminas LP link: Kaywhyn's LP of WillLem's Lemminas level pack (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oMYzQg5AbU&list=PLbp2m4KlFpJtNbzINeYlZbTI_B2Uo3gEH&index=1). Enjoy! Note that the solutions in the replays are the exact same as the solutions you see in the LP ;) The advantage of the LP is so you can see solutions to multiple videos at once, while for the replays you would have to load the game up first and then find the replay for each level, which can definitely be slower this way, but at least you can time skip and fast forward parts of the solution.

Feedback on the Pack

Regarding the pack, what more can be said than what I have already said over and over in the video descriptions? This is quite a well-done and excellent pack. I absolutely had a blast playing through it and LPing it so much :) The only thing I'm disappointed about is how Pandemonium 9 took several videos before I finally solved it, while all other levels took only 1 video to solve :XD: At the same time, the LP ended up being 11 videos long, just like 2 of my other LPs: Doomsday Lemmings and Lemmings Migration. It seems like 11 videos is the magic number here when it comes to me LPing :D

Truthfully, other than Pandemonium 9, the only other hard level in the pack for me was Tricksy 9. Interesting the hardest levels in the pack both happened to be remakes of two levels from the original Lemmings. The only other one I struggled with was Sensational 13. Obviously Pandemonium 9 was the hardest for me due to how it took 3 videos before I finally solved it. For Tricksy 9, the video unfortunately is not the original recording, as I found out, to my horror, after I had played through Tricksy 9-13 that I didn't have OBS open :forehead: So, the only video that isn't the original is Part 5 of the LP. The rest of the LP is the original recording. I actually ended up struggling with Tricksy 9 far longer than what you see in the video. Probably an extra 10-15 minutes added on top of how long it took me to solve the level in the video is accurate. As a matter of fact, in the Tricksy 9-13 batch, except for Tricksy 11, I ended up taking longer than what you see in the video on all of the levels. Probably anywhere from 5-10 extra minutes would be accurate. Tricksy 12 was another difficult level, although I say the solution is a bit more obvious and hence even in the original recording I didn't take anywhere near as long as Tricksy 9. Tricksy 13 is another, although only the end part is difficult. Everything else before that is easy. 

Honestly, Pandemonium wasn't that difficult at all. It was definitely a letdown that the final 3 levels of the rank/pack that's in the final video of the LP were so much easier than some of the earlier levels of the rank and Tricksy. However, I would say that Tricksy is probably your best rank of the pack, followed by Pandemonium being a close second. Some of the Tricksy levels are much harder than many of the Pandemonium levels. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed the challenges offered by the last two ranks of the pack very much ;)

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Feedback on the Magical Rank

This was quite an enjoyable first rank! Pretty good variety and very well designed levels to boot :thumbsup:

Magical 1 - Welcome the Lemminas! Excellent level to start off the pack! :thumbsup: Great design too.

Magical 2 - We Like to Dig Too! Nothing too special other than just one skill and done.

Magical 3 - Mind the Gap Another great level

Magical 4 - Lemdon Bridge Great destructive skills only sans digger level. Somewhat more difficult than the previous 3 levels, but this one's still very easy.

Magical 5 - Lemmina Loop Prevention Service Great level and introduction to the teleporter for the tileset and pack. I wonder if the teleporter/receiver graphics can be better made to make it clear that the animated star sprinkles is a teleporter/receiver, as I originally thought they were just background decoration. If anything, they can almost be mistaken for the culled slowfreeze/radiation. To be fair, I paused just before the preplaced lemmina touched it and hence it took me by surprise.

Magical 6 - Just Keep Swimming Another great and easy level, although nothing too special.

Magical 7 - Lemminas Luv M.C. Escher First level of the pack to use neutrals, as well as buttons that need to be pressed to unlock the exit. I love the unlock exit sound :thumbsup: Very easy, although as you have seen I totally forgot to clone before the level ended in the first attempt :crylaugh:

Magical 8 - Pyramids of Lem (Under a PepsiCola Sky) First real puzzle where you have a full 8 skillset. Even then, it's an open-ended level and still quite easy. Love the level design and the PepsiCola at the ceiling.

Magical 9 - Send Them Soaring Too easy. Nothing special other than making sure all of one entrance gets all of one floater skill, while all of the other entrance gets the second floater skill type. Determining which entrance gets assigned what is quite easy, but one needs to be aware of the key difference between the floater skills. Perhaps it can be made clearer that the gliders will turn bounce off the star and go in the other direction instead of land and continue walking to the right, as I honestly thought they were going to keep walking on to the right and die. To be fair, it can be quite difficult to tell if gliders will land and keep going forward, or if they're going to bounce off and glide in the other direction.

Magical 10 - Just Shimmy! First level of the pack to make extensive use of the shimmier. Very nice and easy level here! :thumbsup:

Magical 11 - I'll Go First... Probably my favorite level of the rank, and definitely the level that made me think for a while before I realized the solution. Excellent puzzle! :thumbsup:

Magical 12 - Climbing in the Moonlight I'm not much of a fan of using stackers to get up the level, since most of the time you need way more stackers than builders to get up the level. Not to mention spamming the same skill over and over with the same lemming gets dull and repetitive quite quickly. Levels that have a lot of stackers also tend to be difficult for me, but I think it's more to how I'm not as familiar with the stacker mechanics than the other skills.

Magical 13 - Believe in Yourself! The only no skills level in the pack and the first to use an updraft. I still stand by what I said about this one being completely pointless, but of course I did read your reason for including the level instead of removing it. If anything, this could probably work better as a first level of the rank rather than late in the rank like this. Strato did something similar in a LWT level, although it taught about using the RR to reduce losses to traps.

Magical 14 - Lemminas Go Forth Probably the hardest level of the rank, although it's still somewhat easy. I'm sure there are better ways to do the bottom right crowd than the way I did it. One can still finish with a lot of skills leftover despite the somewhat limited skillset.

Magical 15 - A Jumper Would be Handy! Interesting remake of Take a Running Jump from the original Lemmings. Also another 1 Lemmina level. Very easy considering that you only have platformers at the start. Also the level that made me realized that I forgot to enable high-res before recording due to the wall of text on the right side of the level :forehead:

Magical 16 - Revenge of the Ice Cream Monster Very nicely designed level! :thumbsup: It's still cool that you included a locked and an unlocked exit in the same level. You already addressed whether it's possible to get to the right exit, which I concluded too quickly that it isn't. Quite an easy level for the rank finisher.

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Feedback on the Sensational Rank

Not that much harder than the Magical rank, as this was still quite an easy rank.

Sensational 1 - Worra Lorra Lemminas! Another excellent level to start off the rank! :thumbsup: I really liked this level a lot even if it was a short one. Not sure why it's necessary to have 300, although I got to admit the level looks cool with all of them on the screen.

Sensational 2 - Dimples Too easy as well. Nothing too special here, although I can certainly see why the level is named Dimples due to the gray circles on each side :laugh:

Sensational 3 - Backroute to the Future Clearly a play on the movie Back to the Future. Just to let you know, I haven't seen any of them, although I did go on the ride at Universal Studios in Hollywood a really long time ago. Love the Tetris pieces you put in the level! :thumbsup: As the title suggests, very easy to backroute.

Sensational 4 - Pillars of Venus Way too easy. Love the way it looks like a remote control with the button on top of the steel block.

Sensational 5 - See You On The Other Side Somewhat difficult, but only because I made an incorrect assumption about the glider walking on to the right instead of bouncing off and gliding in the other direction again for the end part. Even before that, this level still takes some thought to solve. Still a nice level, though. I would definitely consider moving the unicorn statue out of the way, as one can easily make the mistake of thinking it's solid, like I did, when it is actually background and non-solid. However, it is animated by blinking, so perhaps that's a giveaway that it's background ???

Sensational 6 - Hurry! Too easy. Love the sense of urgency of preparing the way with the bottom Lemmina for the top Lemmina before she arrives. The time limit even creates that adrenaline rush, hence the level title.

Sensational 7 - The Melting Block Very easy as well, though I have a feeling this isn't quite intended as it's probably not supposed to be that easy.

Sensational 8 - The Continuum A bit more difficult than the previous levels, but it's still easy. Made easier by how the Lemminas in the middle are stuck in an infinite loop, and so you need to use the lone lemming at the far left to do most of the work at first. After that, you could use any to forge the rest of the path, although I kept using the lone one to do the rest of the level.

Sensational 9 - Delaying the Inevitable Very nice puzzle and solution! :thumbsup: Another favorite of mine. Once again, love how you have the Tetris pieces scattered in the level.

Sensational 10 - The Strange Boutique Nice looking and somewhat easy level, with the fireboxes at the top and the car with pickups at the bottom in the water, as well as the interesting looking grass vine trap from the rock tileset. Might be an altered version of it. This time, you have the unicorn out of the way so that it doesn't interfere with the level, although it looks cool with it above the exit. Level makes very good applications of the cloner skill.

Sensational 11 - The Refrigerator Easy level. Nothing too special here. I like how you have to release both crowds from below.

Sensational 12 - Falling Forever Ok, another somewhat pointless level, since it's initially another no skills level until you collect the pickups. It's quite easy, but I can see that it can be difficult for a less experienced player, if one isn't aware of teleporter overload. Also, I think this might be the first level that I have seen where multiple teleporters can go to the same receiver.

Sensational 13 - The Unnecessarily Tall Pillars Probably the hardest level of the rank despite a somewhat minimal design and being a 1-of-everything level, giving the appearance of a deceptively difficult level Indeed, the level stumped me good for a time, and it certainly didn't occur to me to clone after the builder is done, which explains why I struggled, but I still like this level very much ;)

Sensational 14 - Race to the Top! Can be tricky but it's still somewhat easy. One must multitask and work on both sides simultaneously to ensure you won't run out of time. I believe long after I have solved this level I found out that you had a modified version of the level that removes an overhang that prevented the left Lemmina from climbing into the water? This certainly took me by surprise when she fell back down instead of getting into the water. Probably would had been better to simply pack the modified level into the level pack itself rather than offer it as a download, particularly since I didn't find it until much later and it requires going through a lot of the pack topic itself, meaning it's quite difficult to find it.

Sensational 15 - Many Jumpers Would be Handy! Somewhat more difficult than the Magical version, but it's still easy. Solution is definitely different from the first version.

Sensational 16 - Escape from Crystal Mountain Reminds me of Magical 16 due to how there's two exits again, one locked and one unlocked. This time, it's much clearer that both exits are possible, not like in Magical 16. Easy for a rank finisher as well. Very nice level design as well. The fire blowtorch trap was a nice addition to the unicorn statue placed near the tip of the horn. Again, I would move the statue out of the way so that it doesn't interfere and there's no confusion as to whether it's background and non-solid or solid.

---

Feedback on the Tricksy Rank

Now the levels are finally getting hard and challenging me appropriately. Most of the hard levels I remember are from this rank.

Tricksy 1 - Who's Doing What? Nice puzzle to start off the rank. I definitely had to think here in order to solve the level.

Tricksy 2 - Lemmina PepsiCola Research Event Nice and easy one. Hidden trap here, but the dripping animation gives it away. The only critique I have is it's impossible to tell whether she is close to falling off the left side at the bottom due to the lizard trap. I think namida suggested to use "no overwrite"?

Tricksy 3 - The Milkshake Machine The only difficult part is the beginning, easy and nice level otherwise, especially the design is nice.

Tricksy 4 - Konbanwa Lemmina-san Obvious reference to Konbanwa Lemming-san from the original game. Definitely harder due to the many buttons scattered all over the level. Also the level is closer to the Mayhem version rather than the Fun version due to the time limit, but it most definitely requires 2 minutes, as it's impossible to do in just 1 minute.

Tricksy 5 - Lemmina Drops The level doesn't look anywhere like the Lemming Drops version of the original game, so I'm not sure if the title is supposed to reference that level. Somewhat easy level, though it can still be difficult. Here I say more tricky than difficult. I totally didn't realize that there was more of the level in height.

Tricksy 6 - Day of the Daredevils! Part III Probably one of my favorites of the rank. Somewhat difficult, but I think the only hard parts are knowing when to clone so that the pickup can be collected, as well as a somewhat precise builder assignment for the end with one of the gliders to make her bounce off and turn around. Luckily, this has been observed a few times in some earlier levels, and so it didn't take me too long to realize this at the end.

Tricksy 7 - Easy Peasy Lemmina Squeezy No disarmer solution here. I say the level is somewhat ironically named, as it can still be somewhat of a difficult level. Still easy, though, so it's still aptly named to an extent.

Tricksy 8 - Stainless Steel Lemminas Somewhat easy level. I solved this level without the basher pickup, although watching my video now I realized that it was incorrect to say that the pickup is a red herring. Indeed, it is possible to collect it and so save everyone rather than lose the regular Lemmina.

Tricksy 9 - POOR WEE CREATURETTES! Remake of POOR WEE CREATURES from the original game. Hardest level of the rank. As previously mentioned, I ended up struggling with this level longer than what you see in the video, since I don't have the original recording (OBS wasn't opened). I would say an extra 15-20 minutes longer than what it took me here is accurate. I did see your intended solution and I definitely ended up overcomplicating the solution by how some parts of it are quite fiddly.

Tricksy 10 - Down the Rabbit Hole Another difficult level, although not overly hard. Quite intimidating due to the sheer height of the level. Probably an extra 5-10 minutes longer than how long it took me here is accurate.

Tricksy 11 - Lemminas Recurring The easiest level of the Tricksy 9-13 batch. Solving time here should be close to how long it took me in the original recording that I unfortunately don't have.

Tricksy 12 - Soda Streams Somewhat hard level, although this is another favorite of mine. Very nice level and puzzle that definitely required me to think about in order to solve. Probably an extra 5-15 minutes longer than how long I took is accurate here. There's the structure from Going Up as well as with the ghostbuster trap instead of the electric orb trap.

Tricksy 13 - Nessy II Somewhat difficult, although I say more tricky than hard. The only hard part is the end part. Certainly more interesting than Hunt the Nessy. Probably an extra 10-15 minutes longer than how long I took here is accurate.

Tricksy 14 - No I in Team Starting with this level the rest of the rank and pack is authentic with the video being the original recording. Excellent level and puzzle! :thumbsup: One of my favorites as well. Easier than the previous batch of levels (Tricksy 9-13).

Tricksy 15 - Just a Second... Definitely reminds me of namida's The Longest Second level, so I wonder if you got inspiration from that level? Way too easy if played while paused, impossible otherwise. I especially love the creative use of using a shimmier jump for the far right one to get into the exit :thumbsup: Not sure if it's possible to finish before the alarm clock ringing sound goes off.

Tricksy 16 - The Crystal Cobwebs of Mt. Katie Another nicely designed level. Yet another very easy rank finisher level. This time, only 1 exit.

---

   
Feedback on the Pandemonium Rank

As previously mentioned, I felt the final rank was easier than the penultimate rank, hence Tricksy was your strongest rank of the pack.

Pandemonium 1 - Lemmina City Steel Facility Yet another excellent first rank level! :thumbsup: One of my favorites of the rank. Not hard but at the same time not easy either. Bashing into the steel can be hard to realize, though, especially since it almost looks like he won't be able to bash into it.

Pandemonium 2 - Milkshake Party Another great level which is probably my favorite of the rank. Difficult but not overly hard. It definitely took me some time to think about how to get a Lemmina down to the exit area, and I absolutely loved what you wanted to achieve it. Well done! :thumbsup:

Pandemonium 3 - Nightmare on Lem Street III There was a second one? I wasn't too much of a fan of this level, although it's still a fine one. Can be difficult, but it's still not too hard.

Pandemonium 4 - Lemgate Nice level. It's hard to tell that inside the rings the blue stuff is background, though. Still, this was a visually nicely designed level. Not a hard level at all, but at the same time not easy either. I somewhat liked it.

Pandemonium 5 - The Cheery Cola Conundrum Somewhat nice looking level, if only a bit dull because of mostly just the red color. Bit difficult, but it's still somewhat easy.

Pandemonium 6 - L-PoP Pointless level, as it's simply bomb repeatedly until you get down safely. Made really easy due to untimed bombers and a very lenient save requirement. I can only imagine with timed bombers how much more annoying and difficult the level would be.

Pandemonium 7 - Falling Forever Part II Somewhat difficult, but this was somewhat another favorite of mine. The solution is just awesome to watch when it comes together correctly.

Pandemonium 8 - Staircase to Nowhere III Where were the other two versions? A level that's annoying for me due to repeatedly spamming the same skill over and over so many times, although admittedly I probably could had made the level less annoying on myself. I definitely sounded very bored while palying the level :P

Pandemonium 9 - With a Twist of Lemmina Please By far the hardest level of the rank and of the entire pack. It's surprising how I ended up struggling so much with this level, when I didn't struggle anywhere near as much with all the other levels. The only level of the pack that required multiple videos. I later realized that while writing the feedback for Pandemonium 2 that the trick I used in that level ended up being used here when I was finally successful. Not sure why it took me so long to figure that out. I also watched your replay and the only difference is I swapped the walker for the cloner for both the beginning and end.

Pandemonium 10 - I'll Just Wait Here, Shall I? Very good level! :thumbsup: Another favorite of mine for sure. Much quicker solve than the previous level. I realized the solution almost right away.

Pandemonium 11 - Mary Poppins' Land II Clearly a remake of the original Mary Poppins Land from the original game. Another very easy and quick solve, making two quick ones in a row. Nothing too special here, though. The end part resembles Feel the Heat, particularly with the two fire blowtorch traps from either side.

Pandemonium 12 - Erm... Not as quick of a solve as the previous two levels. My solution uses two extremely precise skill assignments. It nearly fails had the wall still been too high in the top left and middle right. I watched your replay after I solved this level and I can't believe I didn't see solving the level in that manner when I have played so many levels of getting into fencer/miner tunnels by canceling midstroke with a walker to create a staircase and leaving the terrain in the tunnel intact.

Pandemonium 13 - Constellations II I wasn't too much of a fan of this level due to all the building that needs to be done. It can also be a bit fiddly due to the tiny stars. Very easy level once you get all the pickups. Also finally confimred that the fairy is background. You can tell from watching the series that I resisted turning on CPM to confirm my guesses on what was background.

Pandemonium 14 - Save Us! Easy level as well, though I was a bit annoyed with having to constantly spam stackers. I definitely could had made the level easier by deploying the bashers after containing the crowds, but I went for a stackers only solution. Indeed I wonder if that's the talisman I unlocked. I also mentioned that levels that give lots of stackers tend to be hard for me, but this one wasn't that bad at all. This is also why I usually avoid using stackers if I can help it.

Pandemonium 15 - Nothing is Impossible I believe you made another level with the exact same title, and so the level was rendered easy due to how I remember that level uses diggers to horizontally bashed. The only thing is that all the diggers have to be place precisely, i.e, right when the lemming is touching the wall every time, in order to get through the OWW. Even if I hadn't played the other level before, this level is still very easy to figure out, since it's impossible to go over the top due to the time limit. You'll run out of time long before you do. Obviously the level was inspired after I showed you the Snow Palace level for Superlemmini.

Pandemonium 16 - Rendezvous at the Mountain Part II Easy level for the final level of the pack. As a matter of fact, I said that the final 3 levels in the final video of the LP that it was a complete letdown that they were very easy, final levels compared to some of the other ones that were harder. At least this level is way more interesting and harder than the original Rendezvous at the Mountain, which was the final level of the original game, due to the save requirement. Nice use of inaccessible exits.

---

Once again, excellent job with this pack, and one I can highly recommend to others to play if they haven't yet. This pack seems to be way better now than the earlier versions from what I read, although I probably would not had liked to play the early versions of the pack when most of the levels were suboptimal than they are now due to how there were elements that are generally not liked by most of the community, in particular the hidden stuff, since I'm one of those players who thinks everything required to solve the level should be visible from the get-go. Like you, I don't mind the occasional hidden traps, but if it happens a lot in a short amount of time, then I will mind and will start getting annoyed. Occasional use is fine for the variety.

Wow, thanks for the detailed feedback Kaywhyn, I'll have a proper read of it at some point. Just a quick reminder in the meantime - it's worth putting spoiler tags around your feedback just in case it gives away the solution for others!

I really appreciate you taking the time to LP this pack, it's really useful watching through the videos and seeing how different aspects of the levels and tileset are interpreted by another player. It will definitely come in handy for Lemminas II ;)

Quote from: WillLem on December 08, 2020, 10:11:09 AM
Wow, thanks for the detailed feedback Kaywhyn, I'll have a proper read of it at some point. Just a quick reminder in the meantime - it's worth putting spoiler tags around your feedback just in case it gives away the solution for others!

That's why they're not in spoiler tags because I deliberately avoided giving away any of the solution! Obviously I put them in spoiler tags otherwise :P

Quote
I really appreciate you taking the time to LP this pack, it's really useful watching through the videos and seeing how different aspects of the levels and tileset are interpreted by another player. It will definitely come in handy for Lemminas II ;)

My pleasure. Thanks for the suggestion of your pack to LP ;)

I know I promised my replays to this ages ago, but it seems like those were among the things that got lost when my laptop crashed for good in autumn. So I just played the first two ranks (partly "again") tonight. Replays are attached.

In some cases I'm a little confused about lemmings not splatting when I absolutely expected them to...

Spoiler

Specifically on the levels "Believe in yourself!" and "Falling forever"

I guess that's intended, but it feels a bit like trolling. :P

I'm very happy to see another change, though...

Backroute to the future

...that the teleporter on "Backroute to the future" is no longer hidden ;)

Quote from: Strato Incendus on December 08, 2020, 08:52:44 PM
In some cases I'm a little confused about lemmings not splatting when I absolutely expected them to...
---
I guess that's intended, but it feels a bit like trolling. :P

If you look carefully, you can see that there is an updraft layered in front of the exit door, which prevents the lems from splatting and enables them to drop directly into the exit. It's a design choice which I made purely for aesthetics, there was no intention to troll the player whatsoever.

In response to other feedback already given on these levels, which suggested I place the updraft above the exit (rather than in front of it), I've created a bunch of exit graphics which make "updrafts above exits" look better, and I'll use these from now on to prevent any such confusion in future.

I will note, however, that the first of the levels you mentioned is a self-solving level specifically designed to inform the player as clearly as possible that the updraft in front of the door will prevent them from splatting. I'm surprised you missed that detail, tbh... ;P

Anyways, thanks for the replays! :lemcat:

Yeah, of course it's a self-solving level, but seeing that something can be done is no use when you don't understand why. Because then you can't rely on it working when you're trying to make that part of your planned solution. Or are you telling me that literally every single exit in this pack has an updraft in front of it? ;)

Because while the updraft is visible, it looks different from the standard updraft, so it's no easily identifiable as one. Plus, if you hover the cursor over it in clear-physics mode, it only says "EXIT", not "UDPRAFT". That is of course a general issue, because updrafts are never labelled in CPM. But in this case, that makes it even harder to tell.

Maybe Magical 13 should show a normal exit next to the updraft exit, to help the player notice the difference. I agree that it is too subtle, and it caused me some trouble on a later level when I didn't realise that an exit had an updraft covering it.

Just getting back briefly to an earlier point:

Quote from: WillLem on December 06, 2020, 11:09:44 AMI was referring to the old black & white version:

Looking more closely though, the lemmings sprites actually do look like they might be the higher resolution kind - they look chunkier and more detailed than the Amiga/DOS versions.

Not just the sprites; the terrain is clearly high-res. Compare it to NL low-res graphics:

(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/598671586203271219/786195182894841896/resolution.png)

(Also, the b/w Mac version isn't "older" than the colour version; they were released together.)

Quote from: Strato Incendus on December 09, 2020, 09:11:55 AM
Because while the updraft is visible, it looks different from the standard updraft, so it's no easily identifiable as one.

Quote from: Proxima on December 09, 2020, 11:39:17 AM
Maybe Magical 13 should show a normal exit next to the updraft exit, to help the player notice the difference.

I won't be changing the layout of the levels now, V1.03 is the final version in that regard. However, what I have done is included a preview text on level 13 to explain what's happening with regards to the updraft, in order to address this issue.

Once again, it was never my intention to troll the player with this feature, I just honestly think it looks better for the updraft to fit over the "doorway" of the palace in the exit graphic.

Attached is the updated level, with preview text. I have of course also replaced the level in the OP download (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679).

Ah, yeah, aesthetics over strict game fairness. That's my own creed, too, so... touché ;) .

Quote from: Strato Incendus on December 09, 2020, 02:15:24 PM
aesthetics over strict game fairness

Again, there was no intention for the level to be unfair. The updraft is clearly visible, and the effect it has is (almost) impossible to miss. The only strike against it really is that I'm using a custom updraft graphic, which could (and has) cause(d) confusion.

Anyway, the situation has now been rectified. My mission is to achieve good aesthetics and good game fairness, in equal combinations. If something looks good but isn't fair, scrap it. If something is fair but looks bad, improve it. Simple! :lemcat:

So... it's come to my attention that a level I thought I'd fixed in V1.03 is still broken.

Sensational 16 Escape From Crystal Mountain should have only 1 Lemmina spawn from the far left entrance, and 15 Neutral Lemminas from the far right.

See attached for the fixed version of the level - it definitely works now. The error was due to a bug in an earlier version of the editor which didn't save lemming counts in entrance hatches after an Undo command. As far as I know, the latest version of the editor (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5195.0) has this sorted.

I have of course also re-uploaded the pack to the OP (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679.0) with the fixed version of the level included.

Apologies for anyone who may have struggled with this level in its unintended state. Thankfully, it is solvable. However, the intended, fixed version is far better! :lemcat:

Ah, I was already wondering if it was really supposed to be that fiddly. Thanks for the quick fix! :thumbsup:

Even though I have to re-solve it now, it should be much easier to execute this time.

Quote from: Strato Incendus on December 09, 2020, 10:53:11 PM
Ah, I was already wondering if it was really supposed to be that fiddly. Thanks for the quick fix! :thumbsup:

Haha the Sensational 16 I solved was still really easy. Should be even easier now that there's only 1 regular Lemmina :P

Eesh! I just hope that nobody feels too put-out by it. I'm glad the pack is getting a bit of attention at the moment, or I might not have spotted it!

To be fair, 8 and 8 makes for basically the same solution, it just involves fiddly crowd control at the beginning. Not sure how that would affect the Talisman, though...

Anyway, it's fixed now (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679.msg88331#msg88331)! 8-)

Even better that there is now an LP of the pack. No need to load up the game this way. Just need an internet connection :P

Alright, here's the third rank added. Strangely enough, I probably found Tricksy 02 the most difficult one. That was the only one I had to skip for a while and come back to again later.

Replays for rank 3 are attached; I deleted my old solution for Sensational 16 since it obviously no longer works since the fix.

Stylistically, this is a nice pack to play during Christmas time, without it being an outright Christmas pack! :thumbsup:

Quote from: Strato Incendus on December 11, 2020, 10:15:57 PM
Stylistically, this is a nice pack to play during Christmas time, without it being an outright Christmas pack! :thumbsup:

Thanks! I guess it does have holiday vibes :lemcat:

And thanks for the replays. I'll wait until you've finished the pack before reviewing them, and I'll keep an eye out and see if you've beaten any of the current records.

@Kaywhyn - that reminds me, I will do the same with your replays as well :)

No worries, WillLem. Take your time. I know you're a busy man. I'm just happy to hear that you're enjoying my LP of your pack. There's a reply to a video comment that I would like an answer to when you get to it, though ;)

And here's the Pandemonium rank, that's the pack completed! :D

Feedback

I skipped some levels initially, because based on my experiences from the previous ranks, I already expected Pandemonium not to be linear in puzzle difficulty either. I didn't have to skip around within the rank though, looking for whatever I can solve first (as I do when facing a genuinely hard pack). Instead, I only skipped over 2-3 levels, then solving the rest chronologically, to return and solve the skipped ones later.

In fact, that entire rank could probably be turned on its head! :P The first two levels are two of the most difficult ones in the pack (though Pandemonium 01 is a lot easier than 02, given that 01 I could still solve all by myself, whereas for 02 and 09 I needed a hint from kaywhyn's LP).

Pandemonium 09 is definitely the hardest one of the entire pack. Having seen how long even kaywhyn struggled with this one, I don't feel ashamed I didn't figure it out myself all the way. I tried a lot of different things, but all of them fell short just ever so slightly.

The rest of the Pandemonium levels however include a lot of execution-heavy stuff (like "Save us"), or provide very much leeway. Even the last level does, although the comparatively tight restriction of destructive skills provided at least some challenge here.

A part of that seems to be due to the trend of the ever-present 8 Walkers or so. Sure, sometimes they're genuinely needed for the puzzle and actually accounted for, so that you need to think about where you use every single one of them. But sometimes, they just give you additional chances to salvage things that probably shouldn't be available, at least not on the final rank. And I'm not actually referring to the Walker as a cancel skill here (as the Shimmier and Jumper can also be used for that), but specifically to the "turning around part".

Packs that get to a certain level of difficulty and maintain it consistently from there usually find a way to limit the number of times certain lemmings are allowed to turn around on a level. This can even be a great way to enforce a certain sequence of actions in a level without having to resort to time limits or pickup skills: The lemming just has to do A first, B second, otherwise he will come out facing the wrong direction at the end.

In short, the difficulty on Pandemonium felt all over the place to me, and a lot of these levels seemed like they didn't really belong into the same rank. ;) Sure, it's nice to be able to solve more levels in a row for a change, instead of getting stumped by every single one of them. But that feels much less rewarding when you immediately realise the reason you could solve these levels is because they weren't designed to be tightly-restricted puzzles, but instead focused on execution stuff or just had a time limit slapped onto them.

For example, for the "Staircase to nowhere" level, I had a cool solution mind to contain the crowd, exploiting the staircases to allow those lemmings who slipped past the Stackers to get back behind the stack with the rest of the crowd. Sadly, this didn't work, because all the Stackers were needed to turn around at the end of each staircase. Instead, you just provided a bunch of Floaters so that the player can just allow all the lemmings to stroll around. With two Stackers more, but without any Floaters, this could have been a much better puzzle. Because it would have forced you to find a creative way to contain the crowd by using the given terrain to your advantage (as the one I just suggested), instead of just letting the lemmings wander about.

I'm not really sure what to think of the label "hard" now as a difficulty description for level packs. SEB Lems, my own Lemmings Open Air, and Lemminas all claim to go up to "hard".

Yet, SEB Lems has a bunch of levels that still have me stumped completely.
Lemmings Open Air seems a little easier for me (but Flopsy might see it exactly the other way round ;D ).
And Lemminas isn't really that hard at all, except for 2-3 levels that are miles above the rest in difficulty. This is not due to the fact that Lemminas starts out as very easy - that's completely fine - it just stays in the "Medium" field very long, and actually goes back into Medium difficulty on the highest rank after the most difficult puzzles have already been solved (assuming you want to play them chronologically - which, as said before, I didn't do, precisely for that reason :P ).



This however should not detract too much from all the positive things I have to say about this pack! ;)

First of all, mad respect for all the effort you've put into not only designing the custom sprites (which I've already made use of myself with recolourings of the Lemminas), but also the trap animations, the exits, the recoloured terrain etc. All this comes together really nicely to create this weird, kitschy but also still inviting Candy world that, as I said before, fits nicely into the Holiday season without actually being a Holiday Lemmings pack (because we've definitely seen enough of those!)

Similar to Holiday packs though, Lemminas suffers a little from using pretty much the same tileset throughout the entire pack (with Holiday packs, that's usually the ONML Snow tileset, which is largely identical to the Christmas one). Of course, I know that many of the recoloured pieces were taken from different tilesets originally, but since they've been recoloured, they form a new unit. A unit that looks very cohesive, but at the same time, that also makes it more repetitive, because parts from Crystal, Marble, Snow, Brick etc. no longer differ that much in colour. They all have some shade of purple to them, so you can blend them with each other easily, but that comes at the cost of the designer basically no longer being able to switch to a different tileset at all. It basically looks like a recoloured version of the "Epic" tileset, which used to exist in older versions of NeoLemmix (and I believe it's originally from SuperLemmini? Since I've definitely seen it appear in Arty's SubLems, and those particular levels were part of both engines).

My favourite pieces are therefore probably those that you added as completely new ones, like the ice cream, the Melter trap (sure, that's a modification of that one Crystal trap, but only the trap itself is, not the animation), and the ice-cream ball that is a twist on the retractable Boulder trap from the Dirt tileset. :thumbsup: This "creamy" look definitely makes for much more realistic ice cream than what I achieved when I used the lollis from namida's Candy tileset, sticking them behind the tight yellow fence pieces from the Bubble tileset to create ice cream in a waffle for the Lemmings World Tour level "Bon appetit!" :D Similarly, I still had to stack the chocolate water from namida Candy to create a class of coke for that same level. Your water here is supposed to be actual coke (Pepsi), so indeed, it looks a lot more "fizzy" :thumbsup: .

Speaking of namida's Candy tileset: All the sweet ingredients from the Lemminas tileset should generally blend well with the existing Candy tilesets (that is namida Candy, Rayman Candy, and Raymanni Food). So thanks a lot for contributing to the Lemmings buffet! ;)

I could even imagine the Lemminas becoming the unofficial new "standard sprites" for Candy-themed levels. (I'm not saying they should be linked to e.g. the namida Candy tileset automatically when that tileset is selected; I'm just predicting a lot of people might choose "Lemminas" as a level theme when they just design a regular Candy level.) Then you would basically have created a "Candy Tribe", to put it into L2 terms. :thumbsup:

Since Lemmings 3D had a Candy tileset (better known as the Jelly Belly one), don't be surprised if some of these pieces show up in my upcoming "Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll"! ;) (I'm pretty sure the L3D Candy levels only have chocolate water, though, no coke... but I have no problems expanding on those original L3D pieces if it fits both in terms of flavour - pun intended - and visual appeal. :D )

Congrats Strato! :thumbsup: I definitely agree with your assessment on Pandemonium 9 being the hardest in the rank. It's fascinating, since the trick used there is quite similar to the one used in Pandemonium 2, which I figured out fairly quickly. Otherwise, I thought the only other very hard level in the pack was Tricksy 9, the remake of POOR WEE CREATURES. I actually ended up struggling with that level slightly longer than what you see in my LP video, since I had forgotten to open OBS before recording! :XD: The entire Tricksy 9-13 video is not the original recording as a result. Interestingly, it seems all the remakes of original Lemmings levels were the hardest ones. I guess Pandemonium 3 also falls into the hard category as well, although it's more due to how there's a lot going on in the level more than anything, as the difficulty is offset by how it's an 8-of-everything.

I think you're also in agreement that Tricksy is the pack's strongest rank. I was definitely expecting the Pandemonium rank to be far more difficult, especially given how I completely underestimated the difficulty of the Apocalypse rank of Doomsday Lemmings. Not a bad thing that the entire rank wasn't very hard. It still slowed my solving time significantly, but in a good way of course ;)

Quote from: Strato Incendus on December 16, 2020, 05:09:33 PM
I'm not really sure what to think of the label "hard" now as a difficulty description for level packs. SEB Lems, my own Lemmings Open Air, and Lemminas all claim to go up to "hard".

Yet, SEB Lems has a bunch of levels that still have me stumped completely.
Lemmings Open Air seems a little easier for me (but Flopsy might see it exactly the other way round ;D ).
And Lemminas isn't really that hard at all, except for 2-3 levels that are miles above the rest in difficulty. This is not due to the fact that Lemminas starts out as very easy - that's completely fine - it just stays in the "Medium" field very long, and actually goes back into Medium difficulty on the highest rank after the most difficult puzzles have already been solved (assuming you want to play them chronologically - which, as said before, I didn't do, precisely for that reason :P ).

I definitely agree with you to an extent about hard possibly not as good of an indicator of an upper range to Lemminas' difficulty. As mentioned above, only 2-3 levels in the pack I found hard as well, with Pandemonium 9 the most difficult. Even Swerdis says it was hard for him, and I absolutely agree. So, this appears to be the universal agreement of what's the hardest in the pack.

The fact that some SEB Lems levels currently have you stuck really makes me want to speed my LPs along so that I can get to SEB Lems ASAP and help you out with the sticky parts of the pack. However, this will likely not be for another 2 weeks or so :P

Some response to the recent feedback from Kaywhyn and Strato. Note that this specifically responds to the written feedback, as I have yet to watch Kaywhyn's full LP and view either sets of replays - this is something I'll specifically set time aside for at some point in the not too distant future.

I really appreciate the time you've taken to provide this feedback, and I'm sure it will help my future packs to be even better :lemcat:

Response to Kaywhyn's Feedback

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
The only thing I'm disappointed about is how Pandemonium 9 took several videos before I finally solved it, while all other levels took only 1 video to solve

Well, it is the final rank, what did you expect? :crylaugh: I didn't want the entire pack to be a walkover, even though I was aiming for a more moderate level of difficulty. It's gratifying to see that the pack didn't give you too much trouble, generally.

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
Truthfully, other than Pandemonium 9, the only other hard level in the pack for me was Tricksy 9. Interesting the hardest levels in the pack both happened to be remakes of two levels from the original Lemmings.

Quite honestly, I think I both prefer, and find it easier, to remix existing levels rather than create totally new ones. If I already know a level's solution, I have more fun modifying it and giving it a new flavour than creating new puzzles totally from scratch. So, it makes sense that these would be the most interesting/challenging levels in the pack.

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
I found out, to my horror, after I had played through Tricksy 9-13 that I didn't have OBS open :forehead:

Eeesh! I feel your pain, brother. I've been there, too! :forehead:

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
Honestly, Pandemonium wasn't that difficult at all. It was definitely a letdown that the final 3 levels of the rank/pack that's in the final video of the LP were so much easier than some of the earlier levels of the rank and Tricksy.

I'm glad that it wasn't too difficult - my aim was to make this pack no more than moderately difficult, and accessible to a range of solving abilities. So, that part of the comment I'm actually happy with. I will try next time to balance the final rank so that the biggest challenges are at the end, though. That seems to be a unanimous feeling amongst the feedback I've received so far.

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
I would say that Tricksy is probably your best rank of the pack

Agreed, it's my favourite, too. Taxing is my favourite rank from Lemmings and Wicked is my favourite from Oh No! More Lemmings - it seems that the penultimate rank is a bit of a thing for me. I definitely found this rank the easiest and most enjoyable to put together.

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
Magical 5 - Lemmina Loop Prevention Service Great level and introduction to the teleporter for the tileset and pack. I wonder if the teleporter/receiver graphics can be better made to make it clear that the animated star sprinkles is a teleporter/receiver, as I originally thought they were just background decoration

Quite honestly, my feeling here is that the level was specifically designed to establish that graphic as a teleporter/receiver: the player cannot possibly avoid it, and anybody that doesn't spend too long with the level paused at the start will discover what's going on very quickly. I've already modified this graphic as much as I'm going to. I do appreciate what you're saying, but I think there's only so much you can do when it comes to custom graphics: at some point, you have to draw the line between what you find visually pleasing as a creator, and what the player needs to know just by looking. Start the level, press play, see what happens - it's a motion-based video game, not a picture puzzle! Sorry for the abruptness here btw, this is just something I feel very strongly about! Whilst I have come round to the way of thinking that everything should be clear to a player at first glance where possible, there are certain things that can only be discovered by actually playing the game.

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
I love the unlock exit sound :thumbsup:

Thanks! The locked exit for this style is something that I feel I got just right, so it's nice to have it appreciated :lemcat:

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
I'm not much of a fan of using stackers to get up the level, since most of the time you need way more stackers than builders to get up the level. Not to mention spamming the same skill over and over with the same lemming gets dull and repetitive quite quickly

Yes, I agree. This is something I'll definitely aim to avoid in future packs.

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
Not sure why it's necessary to have 300, although I got to admit the level looks cool with all of them on the screen.

That's exactly the reason :lemcat:

The 300 lemmings thing is another that's come up fairly regularly in response to this pack, though, so - again - something to avoid for next time!

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
It's quite easy, but I can see that it can be difficult for a less experienced player, if one isn't aware of teleporter overload. Also, I think this might be the first level that I have seen where multiple teleporters can go to the same receiver.

Yeah, it occurred to me that players might get stuck on this one if they're unaware of how teleporters work. Hopefully, since the only thing you can do is change the release rate, this is something that may help certain players to discover the trick. That's what I'm hoping, anyway.

The receivers are actually overlapped - another thing I'll try to avoid in future so as not to cause unnecessary confusion.

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
Sensational 13 - The Unnecessarily Tall Pillars Probably the hardest level of the rank despite a somewhat minimal design and being a 1-of-everything level... I still like this level very much ;)

I have to give some of the credit to namida here - his solution is the intended one (the level was originally designed with a totally different and much more straightforward solution, but then namida made me realise I could use the cloners in a very interesting way) - that's why the bee is there near the exit: as a "hats off" to namida for helping me with this level.

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
The only critique I have is it's impossible to tell whether she is close to falling off the left side at the bottom due to the lizard trap. I think namida suggested to use "no overwrite"?

Another case of aesthetics vs. level clarity. Since this part of the level is never used (and is in fact impossible to use as part of any solution), I figured aesthetics ought to win. Another thing I'll watch out for in future, though - it's been noted already.

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
Tricksy 6 - Day of the Daredevils! Part III Probably one of my favorites of the rank. Somewhat difficult, but I think the only hard parts are knowing... the end with one of the gliders to make her bounce off and turn around. Luckily, this has been observed a few times in some earlier levels, and so it didn't take me too long to realize this at the end.

Yes! Well spotted! I'm glad that you noted this; I tried to make it as obvious as possible several times throughout the pack before actually making it part of a puzzle. This is a version of a level I entered into a contest last year, hence why it's my name in massive letters!

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
Tricksy 13 - Nessy II Somewhat difficult... Certainly more interesting than Hunt the Nessy

Thanks! Although, I'm one of the very few players on the forums who enjoys the original Nessy - it makes a great challenge for playing pause-free, each of those Builder assignments gets more and more intense if you play it that way, and it becomes a much more interesting level.

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
Tricksy 15 - Just a Second... Definitely reminds me of namida's The Longest Second level, so I wonder if you got inspiration from that level?

I was aware of namida's level at the time I designed this, but the idea for creating a level called "Just a Second", which is only a second long, is one I've had for a long time. It's something I'd guess pretty much every level designer thinks of at some point, since it's such an obvious tribute to Just a Minute.

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
Pandemonium 2 - Milkshake Party Another great level which is probably my favorite of the rank... It definitely took me some time to think about how to get a Lemmina down to the exit area, and I absolutely loved what you wanted to achieve it. Well done! :thumbsup:

Thank you, I appreciate that. This is probably my favourite Pandemonium level as well, and in hindsight it probably should have been much later in the rank, maybe even the penultimate level. The solution was actually based on a trick I discovered whilst playing original Lemmings using only the new skills: there are plenty of times when this trick comes in handy for that challenge!

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
Pandemonium 4 - Lemgate Nice level. It's hard to tell that inside the rings the blue stuff is background, though. Still, this was a visually nicely designed level.

This is my least favourite level in the pack. It's one of those times when I think I had a good idea, and made it look pretty, but the finished product is such a ridiculous mess. Finding the balance between good ideas, looking pretty, and being a decent level is something I'm working on all the time! :lemcat:

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
Pandemonium 7 - Falling Forever Part II Somewhat difficult, but this was somewhat another favorite of mine. The solution is just awesome to watch when it comes together correctly.

Yes, thanks! I love levels like that, where you can watch the solution back and see it all happen perfectly. I aim for that kind of thing a lot, but not too much - I don't like levels to be too prescriptive.

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
Pandemonium 8 - Staircase to Nowhere III Where were the other two versions? A level that's annoying for me due to repeatedly spamming the same skill over and over so many times... I definitely sounded very bored while palying the level :P

I think this one's an example of my tendency towards execution difficulty making it into the game. I still like the level, but I can see why players might find it somewhat tiresome. I'd encourage you to just see levels like this as something a bit different that you can just play your way through.

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
Pandemonium 9 - With a Twist of Lemmina Please By far the hardest level of the rank and of the entire pack. It's surprising how I ended up struggling so much with this level, when I didn't struggle anywhere near as much with all the other levels. The only level of the pack that required multiple videos. I later realized that while writing the feedback for Pandemonium 2 that the trick I used in that level ended up being used here when I was finally successful. Not sure why it took me so long to figure that out. I also watched your replay and the only difference is I swapped the walker for the cloner for both the beginning and end.

You're not alone in this assessment of the level. It's definitely the one I'm proudest of in terms of its actual puzzle, and I clearly did very well to backroute-proof it. I'll aim to put more levels like this in the final ranks in future (but not too many! ;P)

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
Pandemonium 13 - Constellations II I wasn't too much of a fan of this level due to all the building that needs to be done. It can also be a bit fiddly due to the tiny stars.

Yeah, this is another example where I favoured looks over substance. It's so ridiculous - the stars at the beginning are supposed to spell out "WL" when you connect them! Eeesh! I won't be doing many more levels like this in future, I assure you!

Pandemonium 15 - Nothing is Impossible... Obviously the level was inspired after I showed you the Snow Palace level for Superlemmini.
[/quote]

Indeed it was - well remembered! And, thanks for the inspiration - I would never have come up with this puzzle had it not been something I tried in order to solve Snow Palace. I still think that level is impossible, btw...

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 07, 2020, 08:30:33 PM
Once again, excellent job with this pack, and one I can highly recommend to others to play if they haven't yet. This pack seems to be way better now than the earlier versions from what I read, although I probably would not had liked to play the early versions of the pack when most of the levels were suboptimal than they are now due to how there were elements that are generally not liked by most of the community, in particular the hidden stuff, since I'm one of those players who thinks everything required to solve the level should be visible from the get-go. Like you, I don't mind the occasional hidden traps, but if it happens a lot in a short amount of time, then I will mind and will start getting annoyed. Occasional use is fine for the variety.

Thanks for your comments, and yes - I am glad that I responded well enough to that early feedback to make the pack much more community-friendly (and, admittedly, much better generally!) Lemminas would not be what it is now without a lot of help, support and strongly-worded suggestions from the forum long-timers, for sure! I also agree that it could be even better in many ways, but - that's what future packs are for. We all have to start somewhere :lemcat:

Response to Strato's Feedback

Quote from: Strato Incendus on December 16, 2020, 05:09:33 PM
In fact, that entire rank could probably be turned on its head![/b] :P The first two levels are two of the most difficult ones in the pack

Agreed. I generally like level 1 of a rank to be quite challenging, but level 2 should definitely have been later. I think it would have made a good one to come before the Rendezvous level (which was always going to be the finale, of course!).

Quote from: Strato Incendus on December 16, 2020, 05:09:33 PM
Pandemonium 09 is definitely the hardest one of the entire pack.

This seems to be unanimous - as I said in response to Kaywhyn's feedback, I'm glad this level's puzzle is intact enough to have been a challenge for pretty much every player. I wouldn't like to have too many levels like this in a pack, even in the final rank, but I'm happy that this is one that worked well as a "puzzle level" :lemcat:

Quote from: Strato Incendus on December 16, 2020, 05:09:33 PM
The rest of the Pandemonium levels however include a lot of execution-heavy stuff... or provide very much leeway. Even the last level does
...
it's nice to be able to solve more levels in a row for a change, instead of getting stumped by every single one of them. But that feels much less rewarding when you immediately realise the reason you could solve these levels is because they weren't designed to be tightly-restricted puzzles
...
Lemminas isn't really that hard at all, except for 2-3 levels that are miles above the rest in difficulty. This is not due to the fact that Lemminas starts out as very easy - that's completely fine - it just stays in the "Medium" field very long, and actually goes back into Medium difficulty on the highest rank after the most difficult puzzles have already been solved

Execution-focused stuff is kind of bound to make its way into my packs, because I enjoy that style of gameplay. I'll try to limit it in future, but it's not something I can totally eliminate from my creative output.

As for the difficulty level, the pack is supposed to be at the "easier" end of the spectrum generally, so I'll take all of the above comments as testimony that I achieved that particular goal, for better or worse.

To respond more directly to one particular thing you mentioned...

Quote from: Strato Incendus on December 16, 2020, 05:09:33 PM
A part of that seems to be due to the trend of the ever-present 8 Walkers or so. Sure, sometimes they're genuinely needed for the puzzle and actually accounted for, so that you need to think about where you use every single one of them.

Levels which provide you with lots of skills AND require them all to be used in a very specific way are my least favourite kinds of levels. 1-of-eaches that do this are fine, maybe even 2-of-each can still be enjoyable depending on the complexity of the map and how many types of skills there are. But, if I've provided 8 of a skill it's because I want to encourage the player to get creative and find their own way of solving the given map; not every level has to be an out-and-out puzzle, even in the later ranks - I'm a firm believer that sometimes, the maps themselves can present their own challenges.

Quote from: Strato Incendus on December 16, 2020, 05:09:33 PM
For example, for the "Staircase to nowhere" level, I had a cool solution mind to contain the crowd, exploiting the staircases to allow those lemmings who slipped past the Stackers to get back behind the stack with the rest of the crowd

I'm not sure what you mean. If you're happy to edit the level and show me a replay of the solution you had in mind, I'd be more than happy to consider it for a sequel level (if you'd be happy for me to do that, of course)! ;P

Quote from: Strato Incendus on December 16, 2020, 05:09:33 PM
This however should not detract too much from all the positive things I have to say about this pack! ;)

Gee, I hope this comment isn't followed by yet more criticism...! :excited:

Quote from: Strato Incendus on December 16, 2020, 05:09:33 PM
Similar to Holiday packs though, Lemminas suffers a little from using pretty much the same tileset throughout the entire pack... They all have some shade of purple to them, so you can blend them with each other easily, but that comes at the cost of the designer basically no longer being able to switch to a different tileset at all

Oh :eyeroll:

I jest, of course. It's a valid comment, and I'm aware that the Lemminas style is in danger of being very much viewed as "the purple one" (despite the fact that it also features lots of blue, red, green, orange, and various other colours as well - albeit in admittedly much smaller quantities!)

It's something I'm very much going to address in Lemminas II - I want the sequel to be much more visually varied!

Quote from: Strato Incendus on December 16, 2020, 05:09:33 PM
First of all, mad respect for all the effort you've put into not only designing the custom sprites (which I've already made use of myself with recolourings of the Lemminas), but also the trap animations, the exits, the recoloured terrain etc. All this comes together really nicely to create this weird, kitschy but also still inviting Candy world that, as I said before, fits nicely into the Holiday season without actually being a Holiday Lemmings pack (because we've definitely seen enough of those!)
...
My favourite pieces are therefore probably those that you added as completely new ones, like the ice cream, the Melter trap (sure, that's a modification of that one Crystal trap, but only the trap itself is, not the animation), and the ice-cream ball that is a twist on the retractable Boulder trap from the Dirt tileset. :thumbsup:

Thank you for these kind comments, I'm really glad you enjoyed some of the visual elements of the pack, as I admittedly probably worked far more extensively on these than some of the puzzles (as is likely evident!) :crylaugh:

As stated though, in future I'll aim for more variety, in both the aesthetics and the level designs.

Thank you both once again for your comments: it's all very useful stuff which will help to shape my future output. Above all, I'm glad that you seemed to enjoy the pack overall, and after some time since I released this pack I'm coming to regard it as a flawed but beautiful effort.

I've modified the suggested difficulty of this pack in response to your feedback, also. Having encountered a lot more custom content over the past few months, I'd have to agree that Lemminas is by no means a "hard" pack (apart from those levels, of course ;P)

Many thanks!

WillLem :lemcat:

Quote from: WillLem on December 17, 2020, 12:15:51 AM
Well, it is the final rank, what did you expect? :crylaugh: I didn't want the entire pack to be a walkover, even though I was aiming for a more moderate level of difficulty. It's gratifying to see that the pack didn't give you too much trouble, generally.

It has to do with how I managed to get through every level of the pack with just one video while Pandemonium 9 took more than one more than anything. Especially since none of the other levels in the Pandemonium rank were too hard for me except that one.

Quote
Quite honestly, I think I both prefer, and find it easier, to remix existing levels rather than create totally new ones. If I already know a level's solution, I have more fun modifying it and giving it a new flavour than creating new puzzles totally from scratch. So, it makes sense that these would be the most interesting/challenging levels in the pack.

I totally understand! Certainly nothing wrong with taking an existing level and making a new puzzle out of it :P I kind of suspect that I might end up doing most of my levels that way if I ever get into level pack creation. I'm certainly no artist myself, and so creating new original levels will be quite difficult for me.

Quote
the player cannot possibly avoid it, and anybody that doesn't spend too long with the level paused at the start will discover what's going on very quickly. I've already modified this graphic as much as I'm going to. I do appreciate what you're saying, but I think there's only so much you can do when it comes to custom graphics: at some point, you have to draw the line between what you find visually pleasing as a creator, and what the player needs to know just by looking. Start the level, press play, see what happens - it's a motion-based video game, not a picture puzzle! Sorry for the abruptness here btw, this is just something I feel very strongly about! Whilst I have come round to the way of thinking that everything should be clear to a player at first glance where possible, there are certain things that can only be discovered by actually playing the game.

No worries, you weren't abrupt here. I'm not saying you should change the graphic for the object at all. It's just to me it looks like it can easily be mistaken for something animating in the background and cannot be interacted with. However, it is a fault of my own for planning out the solution in my mind before I let the level play out for a few seconds to see what happens. Also, it's another I need to familiarize myself with the objects of a tileset. After all, the more exposure of seeing the same object over and over, the more familiar it gets. Again, there's plenty of tilesets that I have yet to play levels in. In particular, there were a few contest entries from a few months ago that had that. IIRC, mantha16's R2 and Nessy's R3 levels were all in unfamiliar tilesets to me.

Quote
Another case of aesthetics vs. level clarity. Since this part of the level is never used (and is in fact impossible to use as part of any solution), I figured aesthetics ought to win. Another thing I'll watch out for in future, though - it's been noted already.

Then you need to watch my replay, since I do use that part of the level in my solution :P

Quote
I think this one's an example of my tendency towards execution difficulty making it into the game. I still like the level, but I can see why players might find it somewhat tiresome. I'd encourage you to just see levels like this as something a bit different that you can just play your way through.

I definitely have high respect for you for liking the challenge of execution. I don't mind them either, and I certainly like them to an extent, so I don't outright necessarily hate such levels so much. This particular level happens to be a type that I hate due to repeatedly spamming the same skill just to save lemmings you can't afford to lose over and over in a very short amount of time. That's the kind of level that gets boring and annoying to me very quickly. In other words, it's obvious what the solution is, the execution is difficult/fiddly.

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 17, 2020, 01:30:29 AM
It has to do with how I managed to get through every level of the pack with just one video while Pandemonium 9 took more than one more than anything.

I haven't finished watching the LPs yet, it's definitely on my to-do list though. I'm looking forward to seeing how you got around to solving this one, and it's great that you filmed the entire process :thumbsup:

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 17, 2020, 01:30:29 AM
I totally understand!... I kind of suspect that I might end up doing most of my levels that way if I ever get into level pack creation. I'm certainly no artist myself, and so creating new original levels will be quite difficult for me

Remix levels are a great way to get started with it. It's very inspiring and you'll likely end up finding that you modify a level to such an extent that it basically is a new level. At that point, change up the tileset and you've got yourself an original level!

Another idea is to simply put a map together totally instinctively - just go with whatever you feel is right, then give yourself tons of skills and solve the level. Then, reduce the skillset to whatever you used: instant puzzle! Granted, this isn't always the best way to make levels but it's another good way to get started.

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 17, 2020, 01:30:29 AM
Then you need to watch my replay, since I do use that part of the level in my solution :P

Duly noted, I'll watch out for that! And - again, in future I'll make sure the player can always see the terrain regardless of aesthetics. In fact, level 3 of WillLem's SUPERLEMMINGS has all the lizards set to No Overwrite for this exact reason, even though I think it looks daft when they're all behind the rocks :P

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 17, 2020, 01:30:29 AM
I definitely have high respect for you for liking the challenge of execution. I don't mind them either, and I certainly like them to an extent

Thanks :lemcat:

Quote from: kaywhyn on December 17, 2020, 01:30:29 AM
This particular level happens to be a type that I hate due to repeatedly spamming the same skill just to save lemmings you can't afford to lose over and over in a very short amount of time. That's the kind of level that gets boring and annoying to me very quickly. In other words, it's obvious what the solution is, the execution is difficult/fiddly.

Again, duly noted. I'll likely avoid this sort of thing in future :lemcat:

QuoteI'm not sure what you mean. If you're happy to edit the level and show me a replay of the solution you had in mind, I'd be more than happy to consider it for a sequel level (if you'd be happy for me to do that, of course)!

I don't like to mess around with other people's levels in the editor, so I thought I would just save a manual replay of the solution as far as it gets before failing.

But thanks to the truly excessive amount of Walkers you provided on this particular level, the crowd-control method can actually still lead to a working solution. :D Maybe this was even intended, because I unlocked another talisman with it. Although you really do have to many Walkers that most likely, the talisman can also be achieved without containing the crowd at the bottom.

Replay is attached.

Quote from: Strato Incendus on December 17, 2020, 07:03:40 PM
But thanks to the truly excessive amount of Walkers you provided on this particular level, the crowd-control method can actually still lead to a working solution. :D Maybe this was even intended, because I unlocked another talisman with it.

That is indeed one of the intended solutions! There is, however, a reason I deliberately didn't provide enough Stackers to play out the whole level like this...

Quote from: Strato Incendus on December 17, 2020, 07:03:40 PM
Although you really do have to many Walkers that most likely, the talisman can also be achieved without containing the crowd at the bottom.

...and that's exactly it. The original level had only Walkers and Builders, with the idea being to juggle the crowd all the way to the top using only these skills, and create a safety bridge in the meantime. However, this just made for a level which even I thought was way too ridiculous, repetitive and spammy. So, I added Floaters and reduced the number of Walkers available, so that lems could float down and then meander their way back up the staircase.

The level existed in this version for pre-release testing, and feedback was uninanimous - the level sucked! So, I added enough Stackers to allow for easy crowd-control solutions, whilst still retaining some of the spirit of the original version of the level, i.e. it's still necessary to use Walkers to juggle the crowd some of the way.

In hindsight, the result is a level which is neither one thing nor the other: it's a fairly easy control-the-crowd/prepare-the-route level with a bit of execution-focused stuff at the end. It's very much an example of a level that I either should have just stuck with the original idea but maybe reined it in a bit, or scrapped it altogether. I only kept it in because I love the layout, and it has multiple possible solutions which made for somewhat interesting Talismans.

Anyways, thanks for the feedback. This is still a level I have a certain fondness for despite its obvious flaws, and I hope to create a much more interesting version of it for the sequel :lemcat:

I solved all the levels and talismans.

Brilliant stuff! Thanks Proxima. I'll go through your replays with Kaywhyn's and Strato's at some point. I'll look out for if you've set any new records as well. I'll likely make time for that sometime this week :lemcat:

Many apologies for this, but I haven't changed the scroller text since V1.01, meaning that all versions uploaded since then still display V1.01 :forehead: :forehead: :forehead:

To be absolutely sure you have the correct final version, simply download V1.03 from the OP (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679.msg80165#msg80165), which now has the corrected info file.

If, however, you already have Lemminas and don't want to download everything again for the sake of 1 file, I've attached it here as well. There are 2 ways you'll know if you already have the latest version:

1) Firstly, check NeoLemmix/levels/Lemminas. In this directory, there should be 2 PNG files called sign_group_down and sign_group_up (alongside all of the other content).

2) Next, go to the player and load up the level Sensational 16 Escape From Crystal Mountain. There should only be 1 lemmina which spawns out of the left entrance hatch (a pre-assigned Swimmer).

If both of these apply to your copy of Lemminas, then you already have the latest version :thumbsup: simply download the file attached to this post, place it into NeoLemmix/levels/Lemminas and choose Replace.

Your scroller should then read "Lemminas V1.03" when you fire up the pack!

Lemminas has now been updated to V1.04.

Barring some phenomenal celestial event which disrupts the entire space-time continuum (or, similarly, a NeoLemmix physics update), this will absolutely be the final version of Lemminas! :lemcat: ;P

1.04 features some swish new menu cards and a couple of level fixes for NL 12.11.

(https://i.imgur.com/rD6hqoM.png)

If you have Lemminas, it's definitely worth making this update. Head to the OP (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679.msg80165#msg80165) for the download if you haven't already.

Thank you for saving the Lemminas! :lemcat:

The willlem_lemminas style has been updated. It now includes an improved low-res Blocker sprite and more extensive recolouring data in scheme.nxmi (for use when creating your own custom-coloured lemminas!).

I have included the updated style in the OP download, and it is also available via the NeoLemmix style manager (make sure you have online features enabled in NeoLemmix) if you already have the pack and would prefer not to download the entire contents again.

Many thanks for playing Lemminas :lemcat:

Lemminas has now been updated to V1.05.

A recent NeoLemmix physics update has made one of the levels impossible in its previous version, as Shimmiers can no longer exit in midair.

If you have Lemminas, it's definitely worth making this update. You can download Lemminas V1.05 here (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4679.0;attach=19507), or alternatively place the attached level into NeoLemmix/levels/Lemminas/Sensational and choose "Replace," then update the "info" file in levels/Lemminas so that it reads V1.05.

---

The Lemminas Records Table has also been updated!

I finally got around to Mass Replay Checking all available replays for Lemminas from various players, and have now updated the records table (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679.msg80167#msg80167) accordingly. Note that, if you previously held a record, it may either have been matched, beaten or outdated following either pack updates or NeoLemmix physics updates.

Please download the latest version of Lemminas (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4679.0;attach=19507) to keep your records up to date. Thanks! :lemcat:

I've added a poll to get some feedback about a possible revision for this pack (such a revision would result in a number of levels being either updated or replaced).

You can choose 2 options in case you feel ambivalent about it, or you can choose just 1 if you feel more strongly about it. Please do vote, especially if you've completed Lemminas or are currently playing it. Thanks :lemcat:

Hello, I seem to have a problem with "Just a second" level.

I'm using NeoLemmix 12.12.4 and Lemminas V1.05, yet in this level:

Spoiler

If I make the rightmost Lemmina a shimmier on the very first frame she still won't have enough time to exit the level. I thus have to use a walker on her in addition to the shimmier so she exits the level in time. But then I won't have enough walkers to use on other Lemminas

I am kind of a newbie so maybe I'm missing something and there is nothing wrong with the level (in which case do not tell me how to solve the level as I want to figure it out myself).

Hi MilloCZ, welcome and thanks for playing Lemminas.

I'd advise updating to the latest version of NeoLemmix (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5673.0) and the latest version of Lemminas (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4679.msg80165#msg80165). There was a fix at some point in NeoLemmix which meant that the "reacher" state of the Shimmier skill could no longer exit (despite being in contact with the exit trigger), so the level had to be updated.

It's a change which I protested (and, which I have reversed in SuperLemmix (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=6180.msg98179#msg98179)); it makes earlier versions of this level impossible in NeoLemmix.

Update the pack, and let me know if you have any further problems.

Best, WillLem :lemcat:

Hello Mr,

Thanks for a quick reply.

I updated NeoLemmix to 12.12.5. Seems I was already playing the newest Lemminas (1.05) but I re-downloaded it just in case.

The problem still persists, I include it in the attachment - shimmier does not have enough time to exit the level, she gets stuck.

Even WillLem's replay he included for that level failed in 12.12.5

The reason it failed is because jumpers and shimmiers cant exit without ground underneath anymore.

WillLem's replay does work in Superlemmix 1.1.2    Shimmiers and jumpers can exit on the way up in Superlemmix 1.1.2

Quote from: MilloCZ on March 11, 2023, 07:50:00 AM
Hello Mr,

Thanks for a quick reply.

I updated NeoLemmix to 12.12.5. Seems I was already playing the newest Lemminas (1.05) but I re-downloaded it just in case.

The problem still persists, I include it in the attachment - shimmier does not have enough time to exit the level, she gets stuck.

Hi MilloCZ,

Welcome to the Forums! :thumbsup: I have confirmed the problem you're having and hence see that the level is currently impossible. This is because the level required a behavior which used to exist, where reachers and jumpers (the latter doesn't apply since the level doesn't even provide jumpers) were able to exit when hitting the trigger on their way up or on the last possible frame when coming back down while he still hasn't transitioned into a faller until it was decided to patch these behaviors out in NL v12.12.0. Thus, it's rendered impossible due to a NL physics change. WillLem did update the level to account for it but perhaps forgot to take into factor the speed of the shimmier and how it's impossible for it to exit until it has touched the ground again, which is apparently a frame too late, even if you assign at the very start of the level with it paused and no movement has occurred yet. Even then, his post a few up seems to imply that he checked the level is possible after making the change, which might had meant that he added another walker (see below) but for some reason the level didn't save correctly.

@WillLem

I seem to recall that after the change that Armani (edit: ah, no, it was DireKrow) reported on Discord that the level is "impossible" and that a fix to this would be to provide an extra walker. I checked with moving the terrain with the exit up a pixel and that apparently is high enough for the shimmier to hit his head underneath the pole. It would had worked otherwise but would run out of time right on the dot at the exact same time the rightmost Lemmina counts as having exited.

All in all, goes to show that it's absolutely imperative to check that the levels are 100% possible via proof in a form of a replay whenever making a change! ;)

OK, it seems that the latest version of Lemminas doesn't actually include the fixed level after all :forehead:

Here it is, I've updated the main download to include it as well.

When I eventually port Lemminas to SuperLemmix, I'll will be able to use the original version of this level, since I've re-introduced "Jumper/Reacher can exit" physics :lemcat: