Save One : do you have what it takes to save one Lemming ? (16 levels, medium)

[JawaJuice]

Keep in mind that the Medium difficulty classification for Guigui's pack was suggested by Icho, who is quite possibly the best level solver in this community. He made Lemmings United, one of the most difficult packs currently in existence, and for which I'm one of three people who solved all of it. Icho was also the one who pre-tested Guigui's pack.

Hey kaywhyn Apologies, it wasn't my intention to question Icho's judgement or ruffle any feathers, but as someone who has completed literally every other pack on the forum with 'Medium' designation, I thought I would offer my perspective. I'm aware that Icho is one of the best solvers on the board, as well as a very accomplished creator, but is it not possible that what someone of his skill considers 'not too difficult', many others like myself might struggle with? I believe it was Icho that designated DoveLems Medium as well, and I found that pack pretty hard towards the end. Ultimately, difficulty designation is subjective and depends entirely on who's playing it. I would also just mention that Icho initially said on this thread that he thought this pack should be either Medium or Medium-Hard. I feel the latter is more appropriate but yes, that's just one man's opinion. Everyone is of course free to disagree!

Yea, Quest From Kieran is a very difficult pack. If you gentlemen had been struggling so much with it, I think my suggestion to Kieran that the pack is Medium - Very Hard is quite accurate then! I pretty much knew from the very first level that it was going to be a hard pack. I also struggled in plenty of places but eventually was able to get to the end.

Yes, I think you were spot on in suggesting Medium-Very Hard for that one. It let me know going in that it was gonna get really difficult, but I still thought I'd give it a crack! I enjoy Kieran's approach to level design.

Finally, I silently took a look at the two levels that you reported from LemFan's pack as not possible to solve and I too couldn't solve them. You're absolutely right that it seems due to either not enough skills or the wrong skill types provided that make them unsolvable. That report of yours was what made me make a topic on the NeoLemmix Main board about always making a solving replay for any completed levels an author makes

Ah! If someone of your solving ability is saying that as well, then I think that settles it - I'll check out your topic. I also tried LemFan's Lemmings Obliterated pack and while I finished most of it, there are about half a dozen levels I don't believe are solvable. I would have posted about it, but I didn't think anyone would be too interested since no-one has mentioned playing the pack.

Incidentally, I don't know whether you missed it, but I also posted my replay for your AWESOME Fire Level to the random levels thread. I'd be interested to know whether it's the solution you intended.

[kaywhyn]

Hey kaywhyn Apologies, it wasn't my intention to question Icho's judgement or ruffle any feathers, but as someone who has completed literally every other pack on the forum with 'Medium' designation, I thought I would offer my perspective. I'm aware that Icho is one of the best solvers on the board, as well as a very accomplished creator, but is it not possible that what someone of his skill considers 'not too difficult', many others like myself might struggle with? I believe it was Icho that designated DoveLems Medium as well, and I found that pack pretty hard towards the end. Ultimately, difficulty designation is subjective and depends entirely on who's playing it. I would also just mention that Icho initially said on this thread that he thought this pack should be either Medium or Medium-Hard. I feel the latter is more appropriate but yes, that's just one man's opinion. Everyone is of course free to disagree!

Nah, you're good. I know you weren't questioning Icho's judgment on the difficulty of Guigui's pack Indeed, difficulty is quite subjective. What some people find easy, others may find hard, or vice versa. Similarly, one's idea of medium difficulty may be quite different from someone else's idea of medium difficulty. I would agree with you on DoveLems being on the high end of the medium difficulty especially near the very end. Here, the classifications were made according to the average difficulty of the pack as a whole. Yes, there are some individual levels in there that I would consider to be "Hard" difficulty, but as a whole the average of all the difficulties of every level of the pack is around "medium" since there's a bunch of levels that are considered "easy" as well. Thus, when you take the average (arithmetic mean) of all the easy, medium, and hard levels of the pack, it comes out approximately medium

PimoLems I would also consider on the higher end of the medium difficulty especially near the end, though I personally consider it a Medium - Very Hard pack instead as I feel like it has way more hard and very hard levels than DoveLems. Thus, a case of while most of the time Icho and I agree on the difficulty classification of the packs, there's still some where we slightly differ on that, and that's ok Hence harking back to how difficulty is subjective as you mentioned  

Incidentally, I don't know whether you missed it, but I also posted my replay for your AWESOME Fire Level to the random levels thread. I'd be interested to know whether it's the solution you intended.

Yes, I did take a look at your solution to my AWESOME Fire Level, and this backroute you found is quite similar to another solution I was provided months ago. I simply haven't gotten around to fixing it up yet, and same thing with Hero Time Again? You can probably tell that I don't like backroute fixing, it tends to be stressful for me. Especially as I often find myself spending way more time backroute fixing than the time I spend solving levels and packs What should be simple decisions on how to patch a backroute I generally find myself overthinking or some not very nice way of fixing them  

[Guigui]

You're right about Neo 1 not being too bad (although I have no idea how to get the talisman solution) and I did finish 3 (Eroded Ark) - very clever design that one, well done! As for the other three levels, I'm completely stumped! Level 5 actually caused me to rage quit, which doesn't happen too often! I just can't see how any of these levels are possible. Obviously they are, as people have done them but I'm afraid they're beyond my ability to solve I stand by what I said: this ain't a Medium pack, it's either Medium-Hard or straight-up Hard imo.

Ouch, sorry for the ragequit on NEO 5. I must admit this level was designed to be kind of stressfull and tough on timing, or else it would not be called The 6'' Escape Plan


(By the way for those keen on extreme music, just search for Panasonic Youth by The Dillinger Escape Plan on the interwebz ; to find the original 'song' that has been 8-bit remixed for this level)


If you feel like coming back to NEO rank later, I can give as a general advice that all intended solutions use the crowd to help save one Lemming, no Lemming going to the exit by itself is allowed. Now for more specific but still vague advices if you wish :

Spoiler

NEO 2 So Many Spikes : this one may be the toughest of the rank. Do know that at least first and last lemming have an important role

NEO 4 Tower Of Sacrifice : created by IchoTolot so blame him for the difficulty ! Once you made one Lemming a climber, you must notice that the music is "I Will Survive". So please make him survive at any cost. Really nice level design by Icho where things fall into place by themselves afterwards.

NEO 5 The 6'' Escape Plan : one of them Lemming has to Escape this very poor level design. Via thE uppEr or downEr routE is your choicE.

[JawaJuice]

Ha, rest assured @Guigui, I never give up on a pack for good - just sometimes, you need a break and move onto something else that you can do, you know?

Your clue to NEO 5 might be a bit too cryptic for my little brain to process but I appreciate the annoyance of this level was intentional - it's kind of a troll level, no? As for 4, I can almost do it but always come up one skill short, which is a common experience for me with Icho's levels and typically means that I'm almost there but haven't quite got one element of the solution right.

Spoiler

NEO 2 is haaaard man I get the basic idea, but whatever I try, I always finish up a lemming short of the target. It's funny because there aren't really that many options, so it's clearly just some detail I'm not catching there. As I say though, I will come back to the pack at some point and try again