"Lemmings Redux": A "remake" of official games for NeoLemmix.

[SQron188]

In this case I shall (partly change my mind and) be in favour of:

+ "Keep all enemies out"
+ "Worra load of old blocks"
+ "Tension Sheet": one of the miners -> digger
+ "It's all a matter of timing": not sure, but keep it as is just to stick to the original, I guess?
+ Special graphics levels: Amiga versions if Genesis ones are cut in some manner.

I hope this helps.

[Proxima]

The poll for And now the end is near / Exodus stood at 5-0 in favour of Exodus, which is strong enough to call it early. Also, it seems we've reached a decent consensus on most of the remaining questions: we will use Keep all enemies out and Worra load of old blocks, I will fix the backroute on Tension Sheet, Good Idea, and I will duplicate the middle hatch on It's all a matter of timing to keep the original behaviour.

The one question left to resolve is Amiga v Genesis versions of the special graphics levels. I'm seeing some support for both sides, so I've put this question to a final poll, which will end this Sunday (48 hours from the time of this post). By then, I should have all the editing done, so that will also be the release date for the finished level pack!

Huge thanks yet again to everyone who's been part of this.

[bsmith]

Do you have stuff planned for the cosmetic items like title screen graphics and custom rank graphics?

Also, when I was leading this project I used the Author field of the level info to put in the game/version the level was originally found in. Do you plan to something similar?

Then the scrolling text crawler at the bottom of the title screen.  I put in a line recognizing myself and namida as project leaders.  Is that something you would include, now crediting three project leaders?

[Proxima]

Thanks, those are good final questions. I wouldn't be able to do the art myself, but I'll see if anyone feels like doing some for us. It's not vital to have it in place for the first release.

Yes, that's a good use of the Author field. A couple of the "authors" are problematic, though, given that the field is limited to 16 characters. How do we abbreviate "Lemmings 2, Classic Tribe" within that limit? Should levels from the original game be credited as "Original Lemmings"  or "Amiga Lemmings"?

And yes, I'll add that to the scrolling text.

* * *

With the vote now at 6-2, it's safe to say we will be using the reduced Genesis versions for Beast and MENACING, Amiga for the other two.

[Proxima]

So, we're using the Genesis versions of A Beast of a level and MENACING !!. One thing I just noticed is that these have slightly different stats from the Amiga versions:

A Beast of a Level
Amiga: 100 lemmings, 80 to save, RR 50. Skills: 20 of each
Genesis: 100 lemmings, 80 to save, RR 80. Skills: 20 of each

MENACING !!
Amiga: 80 lemmings, 70 to save, RR 50. Skills: 10 of first four, 15 of last four
Genesis: 80 lemmings, 40 to save, RR 87. Skills: 20 of each

(For the record, there are no stats or skillset differences in the other two special graphics levels.)

So, do we use the Genesis stats, since they belong with that version of the level, or use the Amiga stats, since the reason for preferring the Genesis versions wasn't to do with the skillset, but the shorter levels? I won't put up a poll for this, as I want to get this pack finished by, at latest, tomorrow. So if anyone has an opinion, please chime in Otherwise, I'll just go with the Amiga stats, since I don't see why MENACING !! should get a much lower save requirement, nor extra skills that aren't really needed.

There are also a couple more skillset issues I've noticed in this last round of editing. Again, I'll just go ahead with these changes unless anyone voices disagreement. (EDIT: Got feedback in chat supporting these changes, so I'm going ahead with them.)

Let's go to the moon: This has 10 of each except bashers, which were removed to prevent the short route. However, they don't completely prevent it, which is why I added steel. With that done, the absence of bashers doesn't serve any purpose, and the skillset would look neater if I put them back.

Out, away from the tune: I'm inclined to remove the blocker, which is only there so as to make the bomber untimed.

[Proxima]

And I've finished adding the version each level comes from to the "Author" field. In case anyone's interested, here's the final breakdown:

Amiga Lemmings: 47
Genesis Lemmings: 46 (of which 4 shared with SNES Lemmings)
Oh No! More Lemmings: 36
Holiday Lemmings: 12
PSP Lemmings: 6
Lemmings 2 (Classic): 3
Budget Amiga Lemmings: 3
NES Lemmings: 2
Prima Publishing Demo: 2
Macintosh Lemmings: 1
ZX Spectrum Lemmings: 1
SMS Lemmings: 1

The one level unique to SNES Lemmings, Ohayo Lemming-san, was not used, and no levels were used from Covox Lemmings.

[Dullstar]

Amiga stats are fine with me.

The main appeal of the Genesis version is less unnecessary space where you're just waiting for lemmings to complete tasks (bashing/walking)

[Proxima]

Version 0.4.1. This is almost, but not quite, finished. I haven't yet looked through to see on which levels namida removed decorative terrain, and copied the originals back in; but everything else is done. That is:

* Fixed the backroutes on Let's go camping and Tension Sheet, Good Idea
* Replaced And now, the end is near and The Stack with their Genesis equivalents. (I forgot Time waits for no lemming; I'll do it in the next update.)
* Duplicated the middle hatch on It's all a matter of timing
* Made skillset changes to Let's go to the moon and Out, away from the tune
* Replaced A Beast of a level and MENACING !! with their Genesis equivalents, but with the Amiga stats / skillsets (with reduced lemming counts).
* Used levels' Author field to indicate the version that level comes from.
* Added the following to the scrolling text on the main menu:

A compilation of favourite levels / from the original Lemmings games, / including ONML, Genesis and others. / Edited by bsmith, namida and Proxima / with help from the forum community.

(I hope the above text is okay with everyone?)

I hope I haven't made any mistakes in indicating levels' versions of origin. I'll have a look over it myself, but it would be good if someone else could have a look too. Then I just need to fix Time waits for no lemming and levels with decorative terrain, and we're done

[Proxima]

And we all know what namida's favourite number is, so it's fitting that the final finished version should be 0.4.2

It turns out that namida removed far less decorative terrain than I thought, and I only needed to restore three levels: Get a little extra help had the right edge trimmed too much, and was restored just by expanding the size of the level (the terrain was still there). For Have a nice day! and Save Me, I had to paste in untouched copies of the levels -- fortunately I had no trouble getting hold of these, since mobius and I once made a challenge pack in which exits and entrances were moved into the decorative terrain.

So, this is it. After 18 months of discussion and a fair amount of editing work, Lemmings Redux is finally complete.

I'm now going to start a topic for the finished pack in Level Packs; any further discussion should go there. Flopsy has decided to make Redux his next Let's Play, and eventually there will be the small matter of converting the pack to new-formats but for now, I'm going to take a well-earned rest.

[Proxima]

One more slight change. I've set the RR on Triple Trouble to 70, which addresses two issues:

* The reduced lemming count makes it harder for solutions that depend on getting work done before the last top lemming comes out. With this change, the last top lemming spawns 1062 frames after the first lemming, which is comparable to the original (1014 frames on versions with 80 lemmings, 1274 with 100).
* The ABCABC order, with RR 80, puts the first two top lemmings only 39 frames apart, making the first digger unnecessarily precise in order to trap the second lemming. With the original ABCB order, these two lemmings were 52 frames apart; the RR 70 puts them 54 frames apart.

Instead of this change, I could have restored the original lemming count and ABCB order, but I preferred the RR change for a couple of reasons. ABCABC order is standard in NL for 3-hatch levels, and we want to get the player used to this. We made an exception for It's all a matter of timing, because the order completely changes how that level behaves. When it's only a matter of altering the spacing of two specific lemmings, the RR change is good enough. Secondly, I don't like giving 3-hatch levels a lemming count that's not a multiple of 3

[Flopsy]

First day on this pack and I'm finished the first 3 ranks already and managed to win 17 out of the 20 talismans that I've encountered already.

I'll try to get the first video up on YT asap

[Flopsy]

I'm locking this topic now, please direct all discussion to the release topic

https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=3542.0