New Level Pack - Lemmings Faithful

[Swerdis]

Progress was slow during the past weeks due to familiary obligations, but I still somehow managed to solve "Lemmings Faithful" just before the end of the year.
It was a good decision to leave my well-worn paths for this pack and tried to attack the talismans. I still think the talisman-solutions should be the "real" solutions as only they show the beauty of most of the levels.

My favourite rank is clearly the final one, "Treacherous". It's also the most difficult one and contains the best levels in my opinion. I especially liked Treacherous 4,8,9 and 10. Another candidate for the best level is Simple 8, I also really like Safe 5 and Tricky 1. While I enjoyed the latter one, I think that Tricky is the weakest rank.

Finally I have to praise the tilesets again. They are all great, my favourites are probably "Lush" and "Hoard".

All my solutions can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/@Swerdis

[92Dexter11]

Hi Swerdis, glad you've enjoyed my pack and happy new year!
Sorry for the late reply, I was waiting for you to finish the pack before making a full reply, then I got a bit preoccupied with the holidays.


Here are the solutions I have the most to say about:

Spoiler

SIMPLE:
Fields of Gold - Really creative solution using a stacker staircase to go over the arrows at the start, well done!

House of Fun - This one's always a pleasure to watch people solve due to it being very varied with a limited skillset for the talisman.

Alabashter - Another very nice solution, nice work using a miner to make the staircase at the last obstacle.

Methane Meadows - People often get confused about the many restrictions for the talisman for this level. I should've made the talisman more explicitly clear - it's classic skills only, so no skills that were added in NeoLemmix.

Stepping Stones - Completing this one with only using 3 jumpers is quite impressive. The intended solution is to use the jumpers to jump from platform to platform, but I don't feel the need to enforce it too much, since this pack and especially this rank is supposed to be open ended. Well done!

Dodgy Plumbing - The basher staircase, as well as the miner/digger staircase in the second half of the level to obtain the talisman was fun to see!



SAFE:
Let's Get Down to Business - Another solution which was fun to watch. Very nice idea using the compression method to keep all the Lemmings from spreading out too much and losing time.

Diamond in the Rough - This talisman was originally gold, until I realised that it's much easier if you let the last Lemming collect the cloners, much like you did here.

Enchanted - WOW! This isn't actually the intended solution for the talisman, but it's seriously impressive. Well done!

Doors and Gates - Another level I love watching people solve, especially because of its deceptively tricky talisman. Great work!

Cursed Treasure - The neutralizer is here to enforce the 'one Lemming goes ahead while the rest stay behind' trick - it's very difficult to complete if they all go at the same time. The skill adder is there to make it harder to save every Lemming for the talisman.



TRICKY:
Shantytown - This level also differs somewhat from the intended solution, which I didn't think was possible due to the limited skillset. Well done for finding it!

Which Way, Mr. Scarecrow? - I'm surprised that so many people found this talisman difficult, it was absolutely not intended. There's a trick to win consistently that involves turning a Lemming around at the exact moment it touches a scarecrow. Still, nice solution and sorry for the tricky talisman!

Beware The Serpent! - As Kaywhyn pointed out in the comments, you did a similar solution to him which differs from intended. Still, it's a nice solution and you did disarm the snake. (This level mainly exists to show off the snake disarming animation which I'm proud of and think is funny )

Vive La Revolution - Boo! You didn't guillotine the zombies! (JK, any solution is valid, well done for finding this one! )

Fear Knot - Yet another level which is always fun to watch. If I recall, every person who has solved this has found a different solution



TREACHEROUS:
Long Shot - The talisman for this level is really nasty, and as far as I'm aware there's no other solutions. Great work for finding it!

Pumping Station - The level is by my brother, so I can't really comment on the solution, but this one's always really fun to watch. It's an absolute nightmare marathon to achieve the talisman, very well done!

Sacred Cloisters - Another talisman that I underestimated the difficulty of. Well done!

Bamboo Grove - This one is also by my brother. The reason it's surprisingly easy for its position is due to issues I had with level spacing - (I didn't want two consecutive levels to have the same style, resulting in odd pacing)

Pushing Up Daisies - Nice one! This one differs slightly from the intended solution for the talisman, but it's still impressive to watch.

Subjugation - Very impressive solution - you saved way more than was required!

Heard it through the grapevine - Another level by my bro. He's very proud of this one, and for good reason - it's an outstanding level like you mentioned. The talisman solution is correct, well done for finding it!

Ring of Fire - I'm very proud of this one. Glad you liked it, and very nice solution, even though it differs from what I intended.

Thanks once again for your playthrough and kind words!

[IchoTolot]

Here are my talisman solutions for the updated pack with the 2 new ranks!

Some really amazing levels in here! 

[Plodderuk]

An interesting and enjoyable pack, with some levels using more recent NeoLemmix features such as Portals, Neutralizers and Skill Removers. I went for the talismans. My solutions are mostly similar to those of IchoTolot, Kaywhyn and/or Swerdis, but there a few levels where I diverged. In the Tricky and Treacherous ranks I particularly enjoyed Tricky 7 "Vive La Revolution!," and 10 "Zen Rock Garden" and Treacherous 2 "Long Shot," 6 "Pushing Up daisies" and 10 "Ring Of Fire." Some comments on a few levels:

Spoiler

Like Kaywhyn, I found Tricky 3 "Which Way, Mr Scarecrow" the most difficult level – it took me a long time. Each lemming has to navigate 3 bi-directional splitters to get home, so – even ignoring the Zombies - there are 8 potential paths, of which 2 need no intervention, 4 need one, and 2 need two. So 8 lemmings would need 8 skills, and 20 need 20 – which leaves only 5 skills free for evading Zombies. I suspect that is impossible, so some lemmings need to be helped by either a Zombie or an earlier lemming turning the scarecrow in the desired direction. I looked for a pattern with the first splitter encountered: alternate left and right, or alternate in groups of 2, 3 or 4? Unfortunately I tried 3 of these options before finding the one that worked. With the help of 92Dexter11's tip about turning lemmings around, I eventually found a solution that uses just 23 skills.

Treacherous 3 "Pumping Station" initially looked like one of those levels where the required strategy is clear but execution is time-consuming and tricky – having to send up a succession of perfectly-timed Climbers to make sure that later-spawning lemmings do not splat. But it turns out there is a solution that avoids any risk of these splatting and only needs 2 Climbers (maybe only 1, but that would make timing very tight).

Treacherous 6 "Pushing Up Daisies" is ingeniously designed and provides quite a challenge for the Talisman. But it's one of those levels where you can get close and then do some final tweaking to avoid running out of Platformers.

Treacherous 10 "Ring Of Fire": a nice challenge to end on. I was having trouble rescuing the lemming that acquires the Jumper pick-up without causing problems elsewhere, so I looked to see if there was a solution not requiring the Jumper. And there is.

LemFaith_Plukz.zip

[92Dexter11]

Hi Plodderuk, I'm glad you enjoyed my pack, thank you for your response and replays!

Here are the solutions I have the most to say about:

Spoiler

Shantytown - I'm surprised that you managed to find yet another solution for this level - I really didn't expect this level to have so many unique solutions due to its very limited skillset. It was quite fun to watch!

Vive La Revolution - Damn, another solution in which the zombies don't get guillotined... Well done - your solution of using the laserer to cause the zombies to drown was really creative!

Long Shot - Both of your solutions differ from what I had intended, especially the first one. Great job for finding these, I thought for certain that the talisman solution for this one was completely airtight!

Pumping Station - This one was made by my brother. Your solution differs heavily from the intended one, but it's quite ingenious! Very well done!

Pushing Up Daisies -  Both your solutions here are seriously impressive, let me try to explain. The solutions that you did here are very similar to what the original talisman solution was going to be - relying on precise timing to get the lemmings to fall off the side of the platforms to hit the switch. I changed it in the final version, adding shimmiers so the player wouldn't be reliant on timing. The fact that one of your solutions managed to do it without using shimmiers is mindblowing, well done!

Dragon's Nest - Another one by my brother. This one was very fun to watch due to your unique solution.

Ring of Fire - Your solution differs quite heavily from what I intended, but all of these levels are designed to be somewhat open ended. Well done for finding this solution!

[Plodderuk]

Hi 92Dexter11, many thanks for your kind comments on my solutions. Playing this pack was so enjoyable. I'm looking forward to exploring your and your brother's other creations in due course.

[92Dexter11]

Just posting this to mention the two new ranks - see the OP for details! 

[Armani]

I played through the newly added Steady and Turbulent ranks!   It's pretty obvious to me now that your levels are right up my alley. I may come back to play the rest of the pack once I finish playing the level packs I'm currently working on. Here are some comments on the individual levels:

One thing I noticed though: the main puzzles of the levels are all hidden in the talismans. Without the talisman, the levels are either too simple or just plain build-and-bash-to-the-exit type levels. Especially a level like River Styx is a complete joke without the talisman and all the carefully fine-tuned object placements and neutral lemmings become a total waste. If anyone misses the brilliance of this level just because they don't care about the talismans, that would be a real shame.

Spoiler

Steady

1. Penumbra: Relatively simple first level of the rank. Even with the talisman, this one is quite easy. The new tileset is gorgeous. I can see myself using this tileset often.

2. Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!: One of my favourite tilesets from this batch. I'll definitely use this tileset for my own levels. The various water-pipe terrain pieces and water objects allow level designers to make complicated, maze-like swimmer routes, which, in my opinion, no NeoLemmix style has allowed so far. The level itself was quite tricky. You have to release the blockers in the correct sequence otherwise the skills run out pretty fast.

3. Sweet Tooth: The solution came to me quite quickly. Turning the faller mid-air was the key, and the rest of the solution came naturally.

4. Serpent Shrine: Surprisingly tricky 2-of-everything, classic-skills-only level. The low save requirement was the hint that implied you don't have to waste skills on containing the crowd.

5. Dark Mire: Time cruncher, except that the time limit was much more generous than I initially thought.

6. Hey Presto: Beautiful level design. The solution was straightforward.

7. Lost in the Desert: That was some fun use of the shimmiers.

8. Lost in the Dessert: Wow, I love the design of the new limited exits! The talisman says not to use any shimmiers and I was wondering how a shimmier could be helpful in this level anyway.

9. Frozen Hearts: Nice touch with all those frozen blocker objects! It felt a little funny to me that removing the terrain beneath the blocker doesn't free it and it just stands there like nothing happened!

10. Chamber of Horrors: What the heck is that new trap animation?!   It's so gruesome and since this level requires the compression method to solve, you have to sacrifice at least one lemming to that trap! Genius level design to showcase the new trap...



Turbulent

1. Can I Have a Peppermint?: The Turbulent rank is a big step up in difficulty compared to the Steady rank and the first level is already a hard nut to crack!

2. Lemmings of the Caribbean: That's a very nicely designed ship! Also, I love the Kraken-like creature near the exit!

3. The Belfry: Very repetitive overall. Pretty obvious what needs to be done. That spam of cloners on the glider to gain height was fun and something new, though. So, credit where credit is due!

4. Sugar Rush: Very clever solution. Making the fall temporarily fatal, then making it safe again at just the right moment. I had a lot of fun figuring this level out.

5. Lem Academy of Science blah blah: Making a long shimmier path is one of the coolest things you can do in NeoLemmix of couse!

6. An Omen of Doom: Phew, that was close! I love how the zombies are catching up and you have just enough room to avoid them in extreme urgency!

7. Bumbly Breach Bazaar: The biggest and most complicated level in this pack so far. (I'll give the "most difficult level" crown to Turbulent 9, though.) I don't see how having the glider is helpful anywhere, so I wonder if the glider assigner is just there as a trap to avoid or if there's something I missed. Very chaotic and so many things happen at the same time, but if you carefully eliminate the possibilities, there's only one route the crowd can take.

8. Ice Nine: Relatively easy one regarding the positioning. The key was figuring out that you have to laser from both sides to release only one shimmier and nobody else.

9. River Styx: My favourite level from this pack, and probably the hardest level in the pack too. I rather quickly figured out that I couldn't let the neutral collect the button, but it was still tough to control the flow of a crowd consisting of both allies and enemies. Looking back at the replay, I wasted a lot of skills near the floater assigner at the end...

10. A Tale of Two Cities: A truly epic finale to the pack! 02:00 would have been possible had I optimized a little bit more.

[92Dexter11]

My brother sent me a link to your playthrough on your youtube channel, it was great fun seeing you solve them! Well done and thank you!

One thing I noticed though: the main puzzles of the levels are all hidden in the talismans.

This is mainly true for most of the newer ranks. The very first ranks (Simple and Tricky) are more open-ended in their talisman solutions.

Without the talisman, the levels are either too simple or just plain build-and-bash-to-the-exit type levels. Especially a level like River Styx is a complete joke without the talisman and all the carefully fine-tuned object placements and neutral lemmings become a total waste. If anyone misses the brilliance of this level just because they don't care about the talismans, that would be a real shame.

This is intentional - the pack is intended to be very easy and suitable for absolute beginners, while the talisman solutions are considered to be the 'true' puzzles intended for more experienced players. This does mean that some levels become trivial for the non-talisman solution as you mentioned, however I don't personally see a problem with this. The pack is primarily meant to be a showcase of the new styles and I feel if a puzzle was too difficult it would discourage new players from seeing the later levels. Ergo, I feel that the talisman solutions are a good compromise which satisfies both new and experienced players.


For all the levels which had specific solutions for the talisman, every single one of them was the intended solution, well done!
Here are the solutions I have the most to say about:

Spoiler

1. Penumbra: Your solution of digging down to prevent the lemmings from turning around is a way better and more obvious idea than what I did for the official solution!

The new tileset is gorgeous. I can see myself using this tileset often.

Thank you, and I look forward to seeing what you create!


2. Welcome to the World of Tomorrow! This one was a joy to see you try to solve! (The talisman solution has exactly enough shimmiers! )

The various water-pipe terrain pieces and water objects allow level designers to make complicated, maze-like swimmer routes, which, in my opinion, no NeoLemmix style has allowed so far.

Thank you! I feel that swimmers are seriously under-utilised in neolemmix, so all three faithful batches have included a 'water' themed style ('Mosaic', 'Brass' and now 'Freezer') to try and encourage more swimmer usage.


3. Sweet Tooth: Intended solution, nice one! I'm very proud of this level and it was very fun to watch you solve.


4. Serpent Shrine: Another one that was really fun to watch you solve, great work!


8. Lost in the Dessert: Very nice solution, I hadn't realised you could send all the lemmings across to the top left, since the love hearts above the hot air balloons were added after I had already recorded a solution for this one!

Wow, I love the design of the new limited exits! The talisman says not to use any shimmiers and I was wondering how a shimmier could be helpful in this level anyway.

Thank you! I'm really proud of those exits and this level exists mainly to show them off. (The shimmiers are used in this level near the start for getting towards the grey balloon and for traversing the underside of the candy canes.)


10. Chamber of Horrors: This level was made purely to show off the new traps and their disarm animations. (Both the regular and talisman solutions rely on lemmings walking through the traps! ) Your solution was slightly more efficient than the official solution due to using the compression method and a walker at the beginning - nice one!




Turbulent:
2. Lemmings of the Caribbean: Differs slightly from the intended solution, but my brother says that this is fine. (I also love the kraken creature, I was quite blown away when my bro first sent me the level and I saw it for the first time )


3. The Belfry: Nice solution on this one. Originally, the talisman solution was much harder as it also forced no more than 10 walkers. I made it easier as I thought this rank already has way too many difficult talisman solutions.


6. An Omen of Doom: Watching this on youtube, I thought for sure that you were going to backroute this one, but you managed to get the intended solution. Well done! (The timing is really tight on this one, I struggled a bunch when I was solving it for myself!)


7. Bumbly Beach Bazaar: I agree that this one is extremely convoluted. It's basically impossible unless you manage keep track of the lemming with the disarmer.  I was certain that this level would have a ton of alternate solutions, however your solution seems quite similar to mine, so perhaps not?
(You are correct in that the glider is just a trap to be avoided, I don't think it's possible to save any lemming that becomes a glider due to the way the exit is positioned.)


8. Ice Nine: My brother and I were both extremely shocked that you managed to figure out the correct solution for this one so quickly! (It differs slightly from the intended solution but is still acceptable) Great work!


9. River Styx: Another one that was very fun to watch you figure out! I'm very glad you like it, it's another one I'm very proud of, thank you!
You mentioned earlier in the post that this level is very easy for the non-talisman solution, but I disagree. The neutral lemming will interfere with the splitter if it's not taken care of. The zombies also need to be killed off in order to get to the lower exit which makes it quite a tricky level in my opinion.


10. A Tale of Two Cities: I agree that this is a great finale to the pack. My brother insisted on designing a Celestial level to finish the pack off with, and I think he did a great job

I look forward to seeing you tackle the other ranks!