Armani's Blog

[Armani]

Hello all lemmings lovers!!
Finally I almost finish my military duty and now I'm on ETS leave.


So I thought I'd just make a blog thread like some other forumers did.


General comings and goings :

It is mandatory for men to serve in the military for 18 months(548 days) here in South Korea. I've worked at a military intelligence of a regiment in a frontline troops. The army base I'm in, is so close to MDL(Military Demarcation Line) so sometimes I was able to hear sounds of broadcasting propaganda using loud speakers along demilitarize zone or firearms trainings from North Korea. North Korea has blown up the joint liaison office recently that was open as part of a deal to help the South and North Korea communicate few months ago. And North Korean army moved into demilitarize zone beween South and North Korea. Over the last few months, tension have significantly escalated between the two countries. I really worried what's going on, but fortunately it seems I can finish my military duty in peace.

I will go back to university in September. I'm a sophomore and majoring in mathematics and statistics. I originally planned to write a long first post for my blog thread but I have no idea what to say. So let me just make a to-do list for now.



To-Do list(in order of importance) :


  1) Traveling to somewhere

Actually, I had a plan of traveling abroad for few months right after I finish my military service.
Countries I've visited so far :
Singapore – Before I enlisted in the army, I went to Singapore. I stayed at Marina Bay Sands Hotel for about a week. You can enjoy spectacular views at the rooftop swimming pool of the hotel. It's just wonderful!

Germany – I visited Berlin to watch World Championship of League of Legends in 2015. I went to Mercedes-Benz Arena, and the team I rooted for won the champion ship.
Japan+China – I went on family trips to Osaka, Fukuoka, Nanjing and Beijing. But I was too young then, so I don't remember much about.
Sadly, I altered my plan to domestic travel this time due to COVID-19 outbreak. I hope this pandemic situation gets better soon. I will go on a domestric trip for about a month and after that I will be more active in forum than ever before.


  2) Making my first custom level pack

Related development topic : https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4956.0
Check the above link for more details! I have made about 25 levels so far. And I'm planning to make a level pack with 100(~120) levels. I wish my pack will cover wide range of difficulty : from easy levels to very challenging levels. First one or two rank will (hopefully)be good puzzles for beginner and final rank will (hopefully again)be a real challenge even for experts. I will mainly use original and L2 styles and some custom tilesets by other forum members. My favorite graphic set to work with is 'Bricks'. There are two main reasons : 1) Red is my favorite colour and 2) almost every terrain piece of Bricks tileset is shimmier-friendly.


  3) Playing some custom packs by other members

The packs I've completed so far(in roughly chronological order) :

Original and Oh No More Lemmings(about 10 years ago )
Dovelems by Dodochacalo(less than two years ago from here)
Pimolems by Pieuw
Lemmings Redux by Lemmings Forum
Geofflems by Geoffster
Lemmings Reunion by Ichotolot
Lemmings Openair Demo by Strato Incendus
Yippee! More Lemmings by NieSch
Xmas Lemmings 2019 by WillLem
Lemmings United by Ichotolot
Lemminas by WillLem

The packs I'm going to play :

Lemmings Plus Series : Namida recommended me to play Omega2 and alpha. So I will start with Omega2 and then to alpha.
Lemmings Destination : I really enjoyed Nessy's LOTY nominated levels('Butterfly Cult' comes to my mind) so I want to play his pack.
If you have any packs in mind, please recommend me! Or you can just recommend the packs made by yourselves! I love challenging levels but I also enjoy easy levels. I prefer packs by currently active members but I don't mind playing packs by inactive members. I'm fond of newly implemented Neolemmix skills(especially I'm one of the biggest fan of shimmier), but I also like levels with classic skills only.


  4) Studying English

It took more than an hour to write this post so far and I know there are many grammatical errors and incorrect expressions. I have no idea how to improve my English but I will try my hardest anyway. I have memorized a lot of English vocabularies so far, so I have no problem in reading and listening English but speaking and writing English is too hard for me. Do you have any good idea?


  5) Making a girlfriend

I got dumped by my ex-girlfriend few weeks ago and I was in the army base back then, so I couldn't ask why and have no idea what was the problem.


  6) Playing some computer games

Of course Lemmings is always my #1 video game.
Other than that, list of computer games I'm playing - Starcraft1, Starcraft2, League of Legends.
I'm quite an expert at Starcraft1. I have played it more than 15 years. I'm in intermediate level in Starcraft2. I'm in Diamond league of 1vs1 and play Zerg and Protoss race. I'm a scrub at League of Legends. But I enjoy playing it. If you play one of these games and want to play with me, feel free to tell me. I'm also gonna try Fortnite and Cyberpunk2077 in the future.



I ran out of idea what to write.   I'll be back  when I have nice idea of what to say .

[mantha16]

well I would say your English is pretty good actually theres a few little things that make me aware you are not a native English speaker but your english is considerably better than my Korean lol.  Only thing I feel like pointing out is Making a girlfriend.  That suggests you are going to build one so maybe Getting a girlfriend or Meeting a girl would be better.  Also the best way to improve is to spend time talking to English speakers especially if they are native speakers.

[kaywhyn]

I will go back to university in September. I'm a sophomore and majoring in mathematics and statistics.

Awesome! Another math enthusiast. I was a math major myself in university, but it is geared towards teaching, rather than, say, pure or applied. I had to take a couple of stats courses for my major, but I'm nowhere as good in stats myself. Probability's just too hard for me, as well as the many other stats topics. Nevertheless, if you need some advice/help, feel free to ask.

Countries I've visited so far :
Singapore
Germany
Japan+China

I would love to visit some of the countries you have traveled to, in particular China and Japan. So far, I have only been to Italy, Spain, and France, and, most recently, Vietnam. You should definitely try coming back to Japan and China sometime, especially since you were little and don't remember much. You'll probably enjoy them way more now. Also, if you get the chance, I recommend a trip to Vietnam. A few months ago, I had the luxury of traveling to my parents' home country of Vietnam, and I absolutely enjoyed it, especially since it was my very first time! At the time I went, I was nearing 31, so more than 30 years of my life and I had never ever gone until this year. It was around the time that the pandemic was just starting to emerge, but luckily there weren't any problems other than how some of the places I wanted to visit in the country were closed due to the outbreak. I would definitely love to come back and visit in the future. One thing I can definitely work on before coming back is my Vietnamese. I lost a lot of it growing up once I started speaking English.

Also, definitely make plans to come visit the USA sometime in the future, once the COVID blows over. Depending on where you go, it's way more expensive to travel to, but if you can afford it it'll be worth it. I hail from the west coast in the USA. 

  3) Playing some custom packs by other members

The packs I've completed so far(in roughly chronological order) :

Original and Oh No More Lemmings(about 10 years ago )
Dovelems by Dodochacalo(less than two years ago from here)
Pimolems by Pieuw
Lemmings Redux by Lemmings Forum
Geofflems by Geoffster
Lemmings Reunion by Ichotolot
Lemmings Openair Demo by Strato Incendus
Yippee! More Lemmings by NieSch
Xmas Lemmings 2019 by WillLem
Lemmings United by Ichotolot
Lemminas by WillLem

Like you, Dovelems and Pimolems were the very first packs I played. Before discovering these packs, I played several custom levelpacks on Custlemm. I originally played the Dovelems and Pimolems packs on Lemmini. Pimolems took me a couple of years to beat! I got stuck horribly on Hurricane 3 and gave up in frustration for a few years before I came back to play it again and finally managed to beat the whole pack. It's a great pack, but it definitely gets really hard after the first two ranks. After Pimolems, I played Lemmings Reunion, also on Lemmini. That pack took me about 3 months to beat, in large part due to the limited time I had each day because I was working a job. Fast forward a couple of years to around this time last year, and I finally gave Neolemmix a try, having used Lemmini and Superlemmini for at least 5 years. United is the first Neolemmix pack I played and am still playing.

I definitely have plans to play some of the packs you mentioned in your list, but I guess I just started with the harder packs first because I was looking for challenging packs to play, and I do love a good challenge. Since you managed to beat some of the much harder packs, United included, I was wondering: Do you yourself ever get really stuck on any Lemmings levels? It definitely seems like you're one of the really good level solvers that doesn't ever get stumped. I consider myself good, but not like really good. As a matter of fact, in the course of playing United, I have played several other packs in the meantime once I found myself really stuck. I found that the time away has helped at times in getting me unstuck.

In regards to other packs you should play, since you managed to complete United, perhaps Nepsterlems won't be a problem for you. The author of the pack hasn't been around for a long time, but I still recommend giving it a go, even though I'm currently stumped on a level in the 4th rank. It's just as hard as United, if not harder. I'm currently playing through it myself and am currently stuck on Sun 7, so I'm not anywhere near the last two ranks. I can't imagine how very much harder it's going to get if I'm already stuck in the first half of the Sun rank.   

4) Studying English

It took more than an hour to write this post so far and I know there are many grammatical errors and incorrect expressions. I have no idea how to improve my English but I will try my hardest anyway. I have memorized a lot of English vocabularies so far, so I have no problem in reading and listening English but speaking and writing English is too hard for me. Do you have any good idea?

For someone who's making an effort in learning English, yours isn't that bad at all! Yes, there are grammatical errors, but I know that you're trying. Language isn't one of my strong points, but writing is something I enjoy doing from time to time even though I'm a math person. I started a blog myself on Wordpress.com back in 2009 while I was a sophomore in university. I used to be really good about writing to it almost daily in the first several years, but it is now mostly untouched. I keep a blog mostly as a way to help me remember how to write English, but also because I like detailing my life experiences on anything I like to reflect on.

As for improving your English, I say the best way is to take some time to listen to some English content. This allows you to hear how the language differs from your native Korean language. The same can be said for speaking, where the best thing to do is to practice with native English speakers. After all, a lot of things we can only get better at is by practicing. Acquiring and practicing a new language is no exception. That's why I unfortunately lost a lot of my Vietnamese. I didn't practice it, and my parents didn't really enforce us speaking it in the household while we were growing up. 

6) Playing some computer games

Of course Lemmings is always my #1 video game.
Other than that, list of computer games I'm playing - Starcraft1, Starcraft2, League of Legends.
I'm quite an expert at Starcraft1. I have played it more than 15 years. I'm in intermediate level in Starcraft2. I'm in Diamond league of 1vs1 and play Zerg and Protoss race. I'm a scrub at League of Legends.

Awesome, another Blizzard fan here! I'm mostly singleplayer, so I will definitely get trumped by you in online multiplayer lol. My favorite race to play is Protoss even though I'm not really good at any race. I take that you have beaten the campaigns on brutal level? Also, give Starcraft: Mass Recall a try. It's basically Starcraft 1 played on the Starcraft 2 interface: unlimited unit selection, better AI pathfinding, etc. Because of these improvements, the vanilla Starcraft campaign is much harder to compensate. In the more recent versions, brutal difficulty was added, so you should probably try playing the original Starcraft on brutal. I've managed to beat both Starcraft and Broodwar on brutal difficulty, and boy some of the levels were extremely hard! Especially the final Broodwar one, Omega! That one required so many reloads and is just near impossible. I say give Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2 a try as well. These two games I also enjoy very much. I grew up with the latter when I was in middle school back in 2000, while the former was when I was in high school.

[namida]

It took more than an hour to write this post so far and I know there are many grammatical errors and incorrect expressions. I have no idea how to improve my English but I will try my hardest anyway. I have memorized a lot of English vocabularies so far, so I have no problem in reading and listening English but speaking and writing English is too hard for me. Do you have any good idea?

나의 한국어보다 훨씬 좋아요. ^^

Learning a second language, unless you learn it as a child, is a very difficult thing - I say this having learnt two myself (the other one is Japanese). I've also done some basic study of language teaching. From what I can gather, between that study and my own experience - simply trying to use it as much as you can is the best way. With that being said: Always remember, the point of a language is to convey information. Unless you're taking a test, what's most important isn't "is my grammar perfect?", it's "can people understand me?" - and so far, I haven't seen any of your posts that are hard to understand.

[mantha16]

English is really difficult to learn too and then its even more impressive when you consider a language that uses a different alphabet.  I don't have the languages ability at all

[mobius]

Glad to hear your military duty is ending and you can do things you love. Sorry to hear things are so tense there. That's not a good situation. I wish there was more everyone could do, but hope for the best.

That pic from Singapore -- are you kidding me? That looks like something out of a futuristic movie! so cool!

You're English is excellent imo. I can understand you just fine.

I'd love to visit the Eastern side of the world one day. It must be a long way off though.

[Nessy]

Hi! Glad to hear your military duty is ending as well and good luck to you when you go back to the university. Also I hope you can accomplish those things on your to-do list especially making your own level pack because I have seen some of the previews you have shown of it and it looks absolutely amazing!

[Armani]

well I would say your English is pretty good actually theres a few little things that make me aware you are not a native English speaker but your english is considerably better than my Korean lol.  Only thing I feel like pointing out is Making a girlfriend.  That suggests you are going to build one so maybe Getting a girlfriend or Meeting a girl would be better.  Also the best way to improve is to spend time talking to English speakers especially if they are native speakers.

English is really difficult to learn too and then its even more impressive when you consider a language that uses a different alphabet.  I don't have the languages ability at all

 Thanks for kind words. I'm spending time learning English because I believe a good level of English will open a world of new opportunities for me. There are many English speaking countries and lots of people even in non-English speaking countries do speak English as their second language. And a good level of English will help me communicate with them. Like I can write a post in this wonderful community for example.  There are many unnatural English phrases when translated directly from Korean to English(and vise versa) like 'making a girlfriend'. Thank you for pointing that out.

I would love to visit some of the countries you have traveled to, in particular China and Japan. So far, I have only been to Italy, Spain, and France, and, most recently, Vietnam. You should definitely try coming back to Japan and China sometime, especially since you were little and don't remember much. You'll probably enjoy them way more now. Also, if you get the chance, I recommend a trip to Vietnam. A few months ago, I had the luxury of traveling to my parents' home country of Vietnam, and I absolutely enjoyed it, especially since it was my very first time! At the time I went, I was nearing 31, so more than 30 years of my life and I had never ever gone until this year. It was around the time that the pandemic was just starting to emerge, but luckily there weren't any problems other than how some of the places I wanted to visit in the country were closed due to the outbreak. I would definitely love to come back and visit in the future. One thing I can definitely work on before coming back is my Vietnamese. I lost a lot of it growing up once I started speaking English.

Also, definitely make plans to come visit the USA sometime in the future, once the COVID blows over. Depending on where you go, it's way more expensive to travel to, but if you can afford it it'll be worth it. I hail from the west coast in the USA.

Yeah actually I'd been meaning to travel there from long before. I originally planned to travel several countries in south east Asia after my military service and Vietnam was also in that list. But Coronavirus ruined all my plan. So maybe after this global pandemic situation over, I can take a trip to Vietnam. Also I always wanted to visit USA when I can afford to it, not now and in near future though.

Like you, Dovelems and Pimolems were the very first packs I played. Before discovering these packs, I played several custom levelpacks on Custlemm. I originally played the Dovelems and Pimolems packs on Lemmini. Pimolems took me a couple of years to beat! I got stuck horribly on Hurricane 3 and gave up in frustration for a few years before I came back to play it again and finally managed to beat the whole pack. It's a great pack, but it definitely gets really hard after the first two ranks. After Pimolems, I played Lemmings Reunion, also on Lemmini. That pack took me about 3 months to beat, in large part due to the limited time I had each day because I was working a job. Fast forward a couple of years to around this time last year, and I finally gave Neolemmix a try, having used Lemmini and Superlemmini for at least 5 years. United is the first Neolemmix pack I played and am still playing.

I definitely have plans to play some of the packs you mentioned in your list, but I guess I just started with the harder packs first because I was looking for challenging packs to play, and I do love a good challenge. Since you managed to beat some of the much harder packs, United included, I was wondering: Do you yourself ever get really stuck on any Lemmings levels? It definitely seems like you're one of the really good level solvers that doesn't ever get stumped. I consider myself good, but not like really good. As a matter of fact, in the course of playing United, I have played several other packs in the meantime once I found myself really stuck. I found that the time away has helped at times in getting me unstuck.

In regards to other packs you should play, since you managed to complete United, perhaps Nepsterlems won't be a problem for you. The author of the pack hasn't been around for a long time, but I still recommend giving it a go, even though I'm currently stumped on a level in the 4th rank. It's just as hard as United, if not harder. I'm currently playing through it myself and am currently stuck on Sun 7, so I'm not anywhere near the last two ranks. I can't imagine how very much harder it's going to get if I'm already stuck in the first half of the Sun rank.   

IIRC, It took years to solve and 'The Race Against Clitches back in the day. . When it comes to custom contents, there are some levels that took me quite long in United . For example, Tension34 Forgotten Refinery is one of the last level I managed to solve. The level requires certain trick and I, by accident, found that trick somehow and the level was self-solving after that. If my memory serves me right , War25 Flesh Circuit and Bone, War39 Hysteria and rankfinisher of War rank also took me quite a while to solve. And of the levels from final rank of United, Genocide31 Sanctuary In dying Light, Genocide 28 It's all about the Pentium and Genocide37 Gate to the inner Sanctum stumped me for quite a while. Especially I can say Genocide37 is the hardest level I have ever seen and Genocide 28 is quite close to it in my opinion. But I think you can eventually manage to beat the whole United. I saw your post that lists the pack you have beaten, and you are an excellent solver without doubt. And thank you for recommendation. I will take Nepsterlem to account.

For someone who's making an effort in learning English, yours isn't that bad at all! Yes, there are grammatical errors, but I know that you're trying. Language isn't one of my strong points, but writing is something I enjoy doing from time to time even though I'm a math person. I started a blog myself on Wordpress.com back in 2009 while I was a sophomore in university. I used to be really good about writing to it almost daily in the first several years, but it is now mostly untouched. I keep a blog mostly as a way to help me remember how to write English, but also because I like detailing my life experiences on anything I like to reflect on.

As for improving your English, I say the best way is to take some time to listen to some English content. This allows you to hear how the language differs from your native Korean language. The same can be said for speaking, where the best thing to do is to practice with native English speakers. After all, a lot of things we can only get better at is by practicing. Acquiring and practicing a new language is no exception. That's why I unfortunately lost a lot of my Vietnamese. I didn't practice it, and my parents didn't really enforce us speaking it in the household while we were growing up.

"After all, a lot of things we can only get better at is by practicing." Good point! Practice with native English speakers is not easy here but listening to some English contents is something I can do by now.

Awesome, another Blizzard fan here! I'm mostly singleplayer, so I will definitely get trumped by you in online multiplayer lol. My favorite race to play is Protoss even though I'm not really good at any race. I take that you have beaten the campaigns on brutal level? Also, give Starcraft: Mass Recall a try. It's basically Starcraft 1 played on the Starcraft 2 interface: unlimited unit selection, better AI pathfinding, etc. Because of these improvements, the vanilla Starcraft campaign is much harder to compensate. In the more recent versions, brutal difficulty was added, so you should probably try playing the original Starcraft on brutal. I've managed to beat both Starcraft and Broodwar on brutal difficulty, and boy some of the levels were extremely hard! Especially the final Broodwar one, Omega! That one required so many reloads and is just near impossible. I say give Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2 a try as well. These two games I also enjoy very much. I grew up with the latter when I was in middle school back in 2000, while the former was when I was in high school.

I mostly enjoy 1vs1 ladder game, but yes I also play campaigns and co-op sometimes. And I'm gonna play Starcraft : Mass Recall and Vanilla starcraft campaign soon! I often complain about inconvenient interface of starcraft1 compared to starcraft2 so playing starcraft1 stuff with sc2 interface sounds really enjoyable!

나의 한국어보다 훨씬 좋아요. ^^

Learning a second language, unless you learn it as a child, is a very difficult thing - I say this having learnt two myself (the other one is Japanese). I've also done some basic study of language teaching. From what I can gather, between that study and my own experience - simply trying to use it as much as you can is the best way. With that being said: Always remember, the point of a language is to convey information. Unless you're taking a test, what's most important isn't "is my grammar perfect?", it's "can people understand me?" - and so far, I haven't seen any of your posts that are hard to understand.

Yes you're right. I wish I had studied English since I was a child. But, better late than never! Thanks for your kind words. It seems my English is enough to convey what I have in mind at least.
And If you don't mind, can I ask you for what reason did you learn Korean? You are the first foreigner I've ever seen who can speak Korean! :XD

Glad to hear your military duty is ending and you can do things you love. Sorry to hear things are so tense there. That's not a good situation. I wish there was more everyone could do, but hope for the best.
That pic from Singapore -- are you kidding me? That looks like something out of a futuristic movie! so cool!
You're English is excellent imo. I can understand you just fine.
I'd love to visit the Eastern side of the world one day. It must be a long way off though.

Thanks for your kind words Mobius!
it's not that good situation here as you said but people here become numb to it since North Korea often has used the issue to manufacture a crisis and create a sense of urgency in negotiations before.
Yes the hotel is definitely a amazing place to visit. There are three main tower and they are linked together by rooftop swimming pool called 'Sand SkyPark'.

Hi! Glad to hear your military duty is ending as well and good luck to you when you go back to the university. Also I hope you can accomplish those things on your to-do list especially making your own level pack because I have seen some of the previews you have shown of it and it looks absolutely amazing!

Thank you Nessy! Stay tuned for my upcoming pack! It will be released within the next year. And as I write above, I'm looking forward to play Lemmings Destination.

[kaywhyn]

IIRC, It took years to solve and 'The Race Against Clitches back in the day. . When it comes to custom contents, there are some levels that took me quite long in United . For example, Tension34 Forgotten Refinery is one of the last level I managed to solve. The level requires certain trick and I, by accident, found that trick somehow and the level was self-solving after that. If my memory serves me right , War25 Flesh Circuit and Bone, War39 Hysteria and rankfinisher of War rank also took me quite a while to solve. And of the levels from final rank of United, Genocide31 Sanctuary In dying Light, Genocide 28 It's all about the Pentium and Genocide37 Gate to the inner Sanctum stumped me for quite a while. Especially I can say Genocide37 is the hardest level I have ever seen and Genocide 28 is quite close to it in my opinion. But I think you can eventually manage to beat the whole United. I saw your post that lists the pack you have beaten, and you are an excellent solver without doubt. And thank you for recommendation. I will take Nepsterlem to account.

Interesting. Race Against the Clitches, surprisingly, didn't give me as many problems as most other people, perhaps because I played the CD version of ONML, which has the increased splat height. On versions that don't have this, one of the pillars near the very end of the level is splat height, but if you have the increased splat height then it's safe. As a matter of fact, I didn't know about the intended solution for years and simply sent all the climbers over each pillar at the bottom, where I dug down the second pillar to make the drop safe for the 2 non-floaters. Besides this, the level does have a terrible backroute in that you can simply dig underneath all the pillars, but I never tried that as a kid.

In regards to the United levels, yes, Tension 34 was also a major roadblock for me. If one knows the trick for that level, then it's a very easy level. I certainly didn't, and so it's a very hard level if you don't know it. By Icho's hint I took a detour and played Wafflem's pack to try and find the "certain trick" he was referring to. Even if I didn't, I might had eventually stumbled upon the trick on my own given enough time, but that's not certain. That's why I constantly say that I don't consider myself an expert Lemmings puzzle solver like some of the real masters here on the forums, but rather I consider myself good enough to beat difficult packs given enough time.

I agree with War 39 being a difficult one, although the only very hard part of the level is getting up the left side of the level near the end. I was able to figure out everything else really quickly and it resulted in me solving the level in 1.5 - 2 hours. On the other hand, I'm quite surprised that War 25 gave you problems. Then again, I encountered a similar level to this one in another pack I played earlier this year where it also did the exact same thing with the platforming and so that might be why I found War 25 easy. It still took me a while to get the execution correct, as it's quite fiddly. I don't remember which pack it's in, but a huge difference is that a stacker is provided instead of a builder, hence it's much easier than Icho's version.

I'm also surprised that the War rank finisher gave you problems. I do agree that the rank finisher for War is harder than the previous rank finishers, but surprisingly it didn't take me too long to beat War 41. Probably took me a good hour. The only hard part of the level is the beginning, but once I figured it out then the rest of the level was easy, with the only other tricky thing being the timing in the middle. It might be because I saw the tricks required for the level very quickly.

Any other levels from other packs that managed to stump you for a time? Like maybe from Pimolems or Reunion? Also, I think I can recommend you Lemmings Stampede by bulletride, who also hasn't been around for a long time. The only thing is that the pack is only compatible with NL old formats, i.e, v10.13 or lower, but it's still a really good pack. The rank names are the exact same ones as ONML. It starts out easy with the first two ranks, Tame and Crazy, but the difficulty ramps up considerably with Wild and stays difficult for the rest of the pack. Havoc especially is much harder than the original ONML's. Took me a few months to beat, but only because one Wicked level managed to stump me real good, which I managed to solve a few months later once I came back and revisited the pack.

I mostly enjoy 1vs1 ladder game, but yes I also play campaigns and co-op sometimes. And I'm gonna play Starcraft : Mass Recall and Vanilla starcraft campaign soon! I often complain about inconvenient interface of starcraft1 compared to starcraft2 so playing starcraft1 stuff with sc2 interface sounds really enjoyable!

You're going to love Starcraft: Mass Recall then. I must say the developers did a really good job of recreating the SC1 and Broodwar campaign maps as closely as they could while making them playable in the SC2 engine. Especially the cutscenes and cinematics are well done IMO.

[WillLem]

You are the first foreigner I've ever seen who can speak Korean! :XD

I love the Korean language. I have a song with a Korean phrase (not sure if it's actually 100% correct to be honest though because I used Google translate!), and I enjoy South Korean drama movies.

Also, my car is a Hyundai (a Coupe SE 2.0)!

[namida]

not sure if it's actually 100% correct to be honest though because I used Google translate!

It probably isn't, unless you translated from Japanese. Machine translation into / from Japanese and Korean, except for between each other, tends to be good enough to understand what's being said but usually quite far from accurate. Although maybe they've gotten better in the last few years.

[Armani]

Happy new year!


It's been about half a year since I wrote my first post here. I think it's good time to see how many things in the above to-do list I've done successfully and how many things I've failed. So let's see...


1) Traveling to somewhere: No

Well, first no already. But it's not my fault! The pandemic has messed us all up for past years. I didn't think this pandemic would get this serious and I thought it would be over in several months or so. But it's been over two years and even worse, it's not letting up! The newest omicron variant arose and many countries are tightening the restrictions on social distancing again or even considering lockdown. It seems like there's no choice other than just waiting for things to go back to normal.
Actually, I'm planning to travel abroad several times this year. I'm gonna visit some countries I have never visited before! And my first destination is Turkey, more specifically Istanbul. My parents went to Istanbul several years ago and they said they got to visit a lot of beautiful locations and everything they ate was fantastic. So I might go on a one month-trip alone in march, it's not 100% sure yet but most likely. My 23-years-old birthday is in march of this year and it will be a good present for myself. I've been learning to speak basic turkish so I can meet locals and get along with them. I find it really difficult to socialize with the locals without speaking their language when I travel abroad. English alone hasn't been enough. And Turkish prices has gotten really cheap for foreigners lately. Well this is not the first time the lira has fallen but it crashed to extreme low level recently since Turkey's currency crisis is getting worse. Definitely great time to travel to Turkey considering everything will be cheaper for foreigners. I'm sorry for the situation of people living there btw. Hope things improve for Turkey.


2) Making my first custom level pack: Yes

I made two NL level pack last year so definitely yes! My first level pack is "Lemmings Uncharted". And I'm pretty happy with that. Of course it's far from perfect. It includes some of the earliest levels I created and my level designing skill and style has improved and changed a lot. So the difficulty and the quality of the levels are kind of wonky and all over the place as a result. But it's OK to make mistakes as long as you learn something from them, isn't it? And I made this pack for the enjoyment of doing it and I absolutely had a lot of fun! Also I have to give massive thanks to kaywhyn for LPing this pack! He uploaded multiple long videos everyday and it was near to impossible for me to catch up all of them but I really loved watching the series. Hopefully I will have free time so I can re-watch the series without being pressed for time. There's also my second NL pack "Xmas Lemmings 2021" which was released last month! Look at my forum signature if you are interested in. I don't think I'm gonna make another level pack anytime soon, but I'm planning to make my own NL style. It will take a while though.


3) Playing some custom packs by other members: Yes

I've played quite a few level packs! I played LemRunner by tanxdx and dexter, Lemmings Stampede by bulletride, Long Live Lemmings! by NieSch, GOTTA GO FAST by flopsy, Lemmings Quartet by Apjjm and some unfinished packs that are still in development phase. I find it really interesting and surprising that so many people are still playing and actively making custom contents for this 30 years old game! This awesome game never gets old!
I'm also one of those people who are still enjoying this game. Normally when I start something new, I tend to get a little carried away by that for short period of time and lose interest in everything quite easily. But that doesn't hold true for Lemmings. I'm still having fun playing it and will continue to do more. If there's one thing I hope for custom Neolemmix level scene, it's that there were level packs with higher difficulty. There were some difficult level packs but they weren't as difficult as I had hoped. To be honest, it normally takes only a few hours to complete a pack for me. I'm still hungry and craving for higher level of challenges.


4) Studying English: No...

There's not much to say really. My English has hardly improved. Granted, I start off the year full of ambition as always but not a lot of follow through. All the lectures at my university are offered in English but I don't really pay attention to them, and I'm not at all exposed to English other than Lemmings Forum.


5) girlfriend: yes

We've been dating for the last several months. I was her private math tutor when she was a high schooler(and before I entered the army) so we naturally got to talking a lot. I think I had got friendzoned by her but somehow we were spending time together after she got into university last year. We baked some sugar free chocolate cookies last christmas. She didn't know the first thing about Lemmings when we first met but she has picked it up by watching me playing or making levels. Pimolems is the only pack she has played and she has made a level and you can find it on my pack Lemmings Uncharted! (it's the final level of the Aquarius rank)


6) Playing games: MASSIVE yes

I've played so many games. I've played Starcraft1&2, Apex Legends, Overwatch, Valorant, Age of Empire4, League of Legends, Dark Soul series, Lost Ark, some rhythm games, some indie games and mobile games... hard to name them all. I'm sure there're more I can't remember at the moment.


So what is the new year's resolution for 2022?

To be honest I'm not a well-organized person at all. And I realized that there's absolutely no chance of me spoiling the plans if I don't make any right? (no need to applause! I know I'm a genius ) Actually you guys were really lucky to got witness me making a to-do list last year. It's really a rare event that you only get the witness once or twice in a lifetime like a meteor shower or something like that. So I won't make any specific plans for this year but I'd like to be more adventurous in general.

[mobius]

great to see you accomplishing your goals

Somehow I actually managed to travel somewhere when I haven't gone on vacation in YEARS (like a big vacation that is) and during covid no less. Don't worry I didn't come into contact with many people. I visited the mid west US for the second time in my life.

A one-month trip alone sound like fun but also scary! I don't know if I could do it alone myself. Also be careful. I wonder if anyone's able to visit Gobekli Tepe; it's a excavation site in Turkey for one of the oldest found ruins in the world; 10,000 years old

I plan to check out your levelpack sometime soon. Gotta muscle through finishing ROTL first... Though if you're levels posted in the level sharing topic is any indication I suspect them to be super hard

I assume you're talking about spoken English cause your typed English seems fine to me (better than some native speakers actually )

[kaywhyn]

Happy new year!


It's been about half a year since I wrote my first post here. I think it's good time to see how many things in the above to-do list I've done successfully and how many things I've failed. So let's see...


1) Traveling to somewhere: No

Well, first no already. But it's not my fault! The pandemic has messed us all up for past years. I didn't think this pandemic would get this serious and I thought it would be over in several months or so. But it's been over two years and even worse, it's not letting up! The newest omicron variant arose and many countries are tightening the restrictions on social distancing again or even considering lockdown. It seems like there's no choice other than just waiting for things to go back to normal.
Actually, I'm planning to travel abroad several times this year. I'm gonna visit some countries I have never visited before! And my first destination is Turkey, more specifically Istanbul. My parents went to Istanbul several years ago and they said they got to visit a lot of beautiful locations and everything they ate was fantastic. So I might go on a one month-trip alone in march, it's not 100% sure yet but most likely. My 23-years-old birthday is in march of this year and it will be a good present for myself. I've been learning to speak basic turkish so I can meet locals and get along with them. I find it really difficult to socialize with the locals without speaking their language when I travel abroad. English alone hasn't been enough. And Turkish prices has gotten really cheap for foreigners lately. Well this is not the first time the lira has fallen but it crashed to extreme low level recently since Turkey's currency crisis is getting worse. Definitely great time to travel to Turkey considering everything will be cheaper for foreigners. I'm sorry for the situation of people living there btw. Hope things improve for Turkey.

Awesome, my birth month is also March!

Yes, due to the pandemic there isn't much that we can do about traveling, especially with the restrictions that are in place, some stricter than others. I've been wanting to come back and visit my parents' homeland of Vietnam ever since i first visited the country back in February 2020. If not this year, then hopefully next year or even 2024. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that the situation with the Covid will be getting better anytime soon

2) Making my first custom level pack: Yes

I made two NL level pack last year so definitely yes! My first level pack is "Lemmings Uncharted". And I'm pretty happy with that. Of course it's far from perfect. It includes some of the earliest levels I created and my level designing skill and style has improved and changed a lot. So the difficulty and the quality of the levels are kind of wonky and all over the place as a result. But it's OK to make mistakes as long as you learn something from them, isn't it? And I made this pack for the enjoyment of doing it and I absolutely had a lot of fun! Also I have to give massive thanks to kaywhyn for LPing this pack! He uploaded multiple long videos everyday and it was near to impossible for me to catch up all of them but I really loved watching the series. Hopefully I will have free time so I can re-watch the series without being pressed for time. There's also my second NL pack "Xmas Lemmings 2021" which was released last month! Look at my forum signature if you are interested in. I don't think I'm gonna make another level pack anytime soon, but I'm planning to make my own NL style. It will take a while though.

Aww, I'm quite touched by your kind words. It was my pleasure to LP your Uncharted pack. I'm still in disbelief that I managed to get through the entire LP, because honestly I thought the difficulty was going to be too much for me and that the pack would defeat me at some point and hence the LP would be left incomplete and hanging in the balance. I still don't consider myself extremely good at solving, because yes, I may be up there in the ranks of top solvers by this community, but again let's say that given enough time I can eventually get any level solved. Some obviously just take far longer than others because they're that hard. This being said, I still haven't managed to solve Black Hole 1 from Nepsterlems! It's already been 1.5 years since I've reached the level and I still haven't gotten myself unstuck on it. AND, I absolutely refuse to look up a replay, that's how very stubborn I am when it comes to solving and wanting to solve any level I haven't solved on my own first before looking at a replay! I have been nearly tempted to at times because I just wanted to throw the towel in, but I will fight and refrain myself from looking up a solution.

Fun fact, I'm amazed that my first Uncharted video has almost 100 views!  

3) Playing some custom packs by other members: Yes

I've played quite a few level packs! I played LemRunner by tanxdx and dexter, Lemmings Stampede by bulletride, Long Live Lemmings! by NieSch, GOTTA GO FAST by flopsy, Lemmings Quartet by Apjjm and some unfinished packs that are still in development phase. I find it really interesting and surprising that so many people are still playing and actively making custom contents for this 30 years old game! This awesome game never gets old!
I'm also one of those people who are still enjoying this game. Normally when I start something new, I tend to get a little carried away by that for short period of time and lose interest in everything quite easily. But that doesn't hold true for Lemmings. I'm still having fun playing it and will continue to do more. If there's one thing I hope for custom Neolemmix level scene, it's that there were level packs with higher difficulty. There were some difficult level packs but they weren't as difficult as I had hoped. To be honest, it normally takes only a few hours to complete a pack for me. I'm still hungry and craving for higher level of challenges.

What??? A lot of us, myself included, consider these packs to be quite difficult and are already struggling so much as is with them, and you want the challenge to be even greater? Well, I guess you're out of luck there, because other than United, which managed to stump you hard and for long periods of time, I don't think any pack's going to come close or even exceed the difficulty of that for quite a while! Other than your Uncharted pack, but that's your pack You're just that good at solving, Armani

That being said, I would love to see a pack that can exceed either United or Uncharted's difficulty as well, though like you I like playing packs of any difficulty. I mean, it's not impossible, but I don't know any other level designer here other than Icho who would be capable of creating such a pack, though I think he's done going for making super hard packs for a while. I could be wrong, though.

4) Studying English: No...

There's not much to say really. My English has hardly improved. Granted, I start off the year full of ambition as always but not a lot of follow through. All the lectures at my university are offered in English but I don't really pay attention to them, and I'm not at all exposed to English other than Lemmings Forum.

That's interesting, I didn't know about lectures at your university in Korea all being done in English. Then again, I think it was the same when my sister was in Korea for grad school for just a semester, though I haven't asked her.

Unfortunately, the best way to learn any language is to simply hear it more and more, as well as try and get yourself to converse in the foreign language. It can be difficult to do though, especially since it can be hard to motivate oneself to learn a language different from one's native tongue. 

6) Playing games: MASSIVE yes

I've played so many games. I've played Starcraft1&2, Apex Legends, Overwatch, Valorant, Age of Empire4, League of Legends, Dark Soul series, Lost Ark, some rhythm games, some indie games and mobile games... hard to name them all. I'm sure there're more I can't remember at the moment.

I love the Blizzard games, as well as AoE, though I haven't tried AoE4 yet. I was thinking of buying it, but it's quite expensive right now

So what is the new year's resolution for 2022?

To be honest I'm not a well-organized person at all. And I realized that there's absolutely no chance of me spoiling the plans if I don't make any right? (no need to applause! I know I'm a genius ) Actually you guys were really lucky to got witness me making a to-do list last year. It's really a rare event that you only get the witness once or twice in a lifetime like a meteor shower or something like that. So I won't make any specific plans for this year but I'd like to be more adventurous in general.

Haha, love your wit. You probably are a genius with an IQ in the appropriate range anyway

I love keeping and making lists, as they're a nice way to stay organized and keep track of things.

I plan to check out your levelpack sometime soon. Gotta muscle through finishing ROTL first... Though if you're levels posted in the level sharing topic is any indication I suspect them to be super hard

Uncharted indeed is quite a difficult pack. It's pretty much up there with United in difficulty, although because I found so many backroutes I say that it's just a tid bit lower than United's, but it's quite close. With them properly patched up, it likely even exceeds its difficulty. I'm not sure about that, as I haven't gone back and resolved any patched up levels after finishing my LP of the pack. I'm still in disbelief that I got through my entire LP of it

So, I'm not sure how far you'll be able to get, although I definitely wish you the best of luck if you decide to go through it. Don't let the very high difficulty discourage you, just keep at it and you can get through it too