NepsterLems - Level creation finished

[Nepster]

THIS LEVEL PACK HAS BEEN RELEASED. THE RELEASE THREAD IS HERE!


Welcome to NepsterLems - A big level pack with 111 challenges! 

All levels have been created and playtesting will start soon. However for the first public release you will likely have to wait until NeoLemmix V2 is finished.

A few words on the structure of this level pack:
There will be no introductory levels - you can find excellent ones in DoveLems, but as well in most of the recent level packs. Instead NepsterLems starts with two ranks of 15 levels each, all sharing two basic concepts:
- Each level has 5 respectively 10 of each skill.
- Each level puts several obstacles in your path, but they can be overcome in many many ways.
After that you will find 4 ranks of 20 levels each and a final "boss" level. Throughout these ranks your skill sets are quite limited and so is the number of (intended) solutions. Mostly the levels are quite small and designed to display a specific theme, quite often specific skill interactions or lemming movement.

Rank 1: (Screenshots will follow at some point)
You always have 5 of each skill. The terrain usually gives you many options - and be sure to use them. Despite being the first rank, you will find only very few any-way-you-want levels.

Rank 2:
Now it is up to 10 of each skill - and much more complex obstacles. Even more so than in the first rank, planning a general route at the beginning is advisable.
Warning: The last two level of this rank are MUCH harder than many of the levels in the following ranks. So do not let them discourage you!

Rank 3:
Ok, let's start with giving you less and less freedom to solve the levels. The first levels start around Tricky/Taxing difficulty, but soon progress to Mayhem.

Rank 4:
Now you need more and more tricks, unusual combinations of skills, etc. However the solutions are not yet overly convoluted (main word being "overly").

Rank 5:
By now all the levels can easily compete in difficulty with late Mayhem or late Havoc. Be prepared to use non-linear approaches or (and?) heavy multitasking.

Rank 6:
These levels should give headaches even to the greatest experts. Go and let the lemmings perform a complex dance on your screen!


Technical stuff:
I will use NeoLemmix V2, so no special modifications are needed any more.
The final version will (hopefully) run on a slightly modified NeoLemmix engine. The most prominent changes to usual NeoLemmix will be:
- Less strict terrain checks for builders. They will behave more like in original Lemmings.
- Slightly relaxed terrain checks for climbers, e.g. climbers may "climb" through the stairs in the Pillar tileset.
- Direct drops to the exit are removed: You lemmings will splat instead.
The levels in the teaser promo will likely differ slightly from the final versions.

Many thanks to...
- DMA design for inventing the game Lemmings,
- Eric Langedijk for creating Lemmix, which was used to create all my levels,
- namida for providing the NeoLemmix engine,
- all other level designers for all their level ideas, which inspired my levels
- and everyone on LemmingsForums in general, for keeping Lemmings alive. It was you, more than anything else, that spawned the idea of NepsterLems in my head.

I apologize...
- to all other level designers, because one should read the "ideas, which inspired" above as "ideas, that were blatantly copied".
- for always making so hard levels. If you fail to solve some level, you are totally correct in blaming me for this. But always keep in mind that I am not forcing you to deal with my levels - you are free to ignore them or damn to the Lemmings hell .
- for not being any faster in creating levels. NepsterLems is now almost one year in making and when I told möbius in January about releasing it in "about 2 or 3 months", it seems that "about 5 or 6 months" would have been a better guess. PS: Turns out, that even this guess was more than optimistic .

[namida]

Played through these levels and (surprisingly) was able to solve them all, though I'm sure a lot of these solutions are backroutes. Nice levels either way. PM'd you the replays.

[Akseli]

Everyone is working on with humongous levelpacks!        

These posts are those cases when I frantically spammed karma to people when it was a thing still.
And that that this was a surprise and I didn't expect this, even better. Stupendous. 

[Akseli]

Here are my solutions for the teaser pack, played in Custom Lemmings viewer style (I assume it's the correct one, even though there were no ONML graphic set levels for some reason?) in traditional Lemmix. Not a single bad level there, and the biggest smile on my face made "Jump in the Ring!" in particular. Nice nice nice!

Also, my levelpack file has only 9 levels, not 10, is this intentional?

[namida]

NeoLemmix version definitely has 10 levels, but indeed none of them are in OhNo styles.

[mobius]

I gave this a quick look and play [I'm sorry to say a quick play is all I could afford in my busy schedule] but the levels look fantastic.
the first level I liked the from the beginning, great concept, and it's not too easy [which is usually what happens to me when I try to make levels like this.]
The last one also looks very nice [and hard]. I like the "fence".

Don't feel bad at all that it took a long time to make your pack. At the rate mine is currently going it won't be released for quite a while. Too many other things going on, plus lack of inspiration can halt progress.

@Akseli some of the levels [the first one at least] has no time limit-- that's probably the one that's missing, it shouldn't work at all in old Lemmix. [you normally can't open a single level file that been saved with NeoLemmix. I don't know about packs]

[namida]

A lot of the levels have no time limit; I'd guess in the traditional Lemmix version he just set a really high time limit for them (I can't say for sure as I only downloaded the NeoLemmix version).

EDIT: Had a look. The missing level is the 5th one, "Pillar of Lemkind". I'm not sure why it's missing; it wouldn't even be the infinite time thing as it's the only level in the pack that does have a time limit in the NeoLemmix version.

[Nepster]

Sorry for not answering earlier, but I was away over easter with little internet.

Also, my levelpack file has only 9 levels, not 10, is this intentional?

No it is not - just my mistake in not including one level. As already noticed by namida, almost no level in NepsterLems will use the ONML-styles and there will be only very few with time limits. And apart from (missing) time limits, there are actually quite a few changed details between the two versions.

I will PM namida and Akseli with detailed comments on their solutions, but as of now only the first four levels have not been backrouted . However I might end up changing Crystal Math only slightly and making it into an open-ended level. Upload of an improved version of the Demo is coming soon...

[namida]

FWIW, as-is I found Crystal Math to be an excellent level that would fit very well into a mid-difficulty (or even early-Mayhem-type) rating.

[Nepster]

Finally I found some time to remove backroutes. An improved version of the demo is attached to the first post. Hopefully this time, both versions will contain 10 levels .

As there were so many non-intended solutions to the demo levels, it might be a good idea to give NepsterLems first to some beta-testers. If you would like to be one of them, please PM me.

[Akseli]

My (mostly) new solutions for levels 5-10, played in Lemmix Custom Lemmings viewer style as usually.

Pillar of Lemkind spoilers:

Spoiler

In Lemmix, this solution is impossible because of RR99 and the lack of directional select: Use möbius' Inventions and Dimensions or ccexplore's 100% Built by Lixes builder set-up at the beginning, the first builder in the holding pit directing to the left, then a falling lemming builds two times to the wall, bashes, builds to the exit, and a blocker turns the crowd on the builder set-up.

[Nepster]

Just a brief heads-up: I just finished making the last level for NepsterLems.

My current plan is to do the basic backrouting soon using the current NeoLemmix engine, but to wait for NeoLemmix V2 for the first official public release.