Anticipated Jumper behaviour

[IchoTolot]

For 1): I don't have a strong prefereance here to be honest, but leaning to that gliders should start at the end of the jump just as floaters.

For 2): I would be against it if assigning a shimmier gains another vertical reaching jump during the jump. That just seems totally weird to me, jumping vertically while in mid air. Just clinging to a close ceiling while jumping makes sense though and is a nice combo (like with the climber). I am for that.

for 3): No, strong opinion. Especially the extra turning around involved here feels wrong to me. Also swimmers shouldn't jump out of the water as well.

[Proxima]

That said, it is indeed inconsistent with current faller behaviour. There currently is no way of turning into a glider or floater without being a faller first (see below), and there's no skill that can skip the faller stage (see the shimmier)...

"There is currently no way" is not a consistency argument. Or we could equally well say "There is currently no way to start climbing a mid-air wall, so obviously jumpers should not be able to do this."

...hence, this would require merging the jumper animation with that of a glider opening his parachute (and then the same for the floater as well, again because of consistency). Because the only current parachute-opening animation starts from being a faller.

Basing the gameplay on the animations is even more absurd. Let's not go there at all.

Indeed, the shimmier's jump is the closest thing we have for comparison now

Perhaps, but it's very unlike. The shimmier is primarily assigned to reach a ceiling and start shimmying along it, so making the shimmier start gliding would be an annoyance.

But again: each skill's mechanics should be based on what makes sense for that skill, not "closest comparison" with existing skills.

[Dullstar]

In regards to the glider issue, to me the most natural behavior would be for the gliding to begin at the peak of the jump.

Climbers jumping away from the wall: I don't see any compelling reason not to allow this, and jumping is an option you'd have in real-life climbing if you can't reach the next hold. Generally you wouldn't be jumping away from the thing you're trying to climb, but really, my main point is that it doesn't seem physically unreasonable to allow this behavior, and I think it could create some interesting interactions.

Assigning a shimmier shouldn't cause a double jump, but if the lemming manages to touch the ceiling I don't see a problem with allowing it to transition to shimmier. The cleanest way I can think of to do this, as a failed assignment would do literally nothing except consume the skill, would be to require the skill to be assigned on the frame the jumper makes contact with the ceiling, and make it subject to the normal invalid skill assignment buffering rules (e.g. if you attempt to assign a builder to a faller, it will begin building once it touches the ground assuming it doesn't splat). As far as I'm aware, the buffering lasts indefinitely (I don't think it should, but that's another issue), but if it doesn't, or if this behavior is changed, the shimmier-assigned-to-jumper should be a special case where the shimmier assignment will be guaranteed to be buffered through the full duration of the jump.

[namida]

For 2): I would be against it if assigning a shimmier gains another vertical reaching jump during the jump. That just seems totally weird to me, jumping vertically while in mid air. Just clinging to a close ceiling while jumping makes sense though and is a nice combo (like with the climber). I am for that.

Oh, let me be very clear - the "extra jump" is NOT a proposed idea (or at least, not one I'm considering) in any way. It would have to be the situation of "the jumper is already close enough to the ceiling to grab on" for sure.

The cleanest way I can think of to do this, as a failed assignment would do literally nothing except consume the skill

A failed assignment would not even consume the skill.

[ccexplore]

The only thing a little annoying with jumper + shimmier is that doing that combo assignment will always be a little bit of a hassle.  Either you pause first and then do the various assignments all under framestepping mode, or you need to quickly pause after the jump and then assign shimmier.

Not that it's a strong reason to not allow it, but it's a little annoying to me that you are kind of forced to use pause and/or framestep on a move that isn't actually a precision move in and of itself, just because of having to assign 2 skills within a short window to achieve the effect.  Almost make me wish we would've just incorporated jumper behaviors directly into the shimmier instead.

Climbers wall-jumping sound intriguing, but also starts potentially taking the game into much more action-heavy directions that might be a little troublesome for some.  Will we end up seeing a lot of levels that may involve having to do a lot of annoyingly precise wall jumps to get a hero lemming somewhere in order to solve level?   Then again, I suppose with just regular jumps you could already make similar annoying levels involving very tiny landing spots.  Basically all the goods and bads that come with 2D platformer-style games may now come to NeoLemmix as well.

[namida]

Climbers wall-jumping sound intriguing, but also starts potentially taking the game into much more action-heavy directions that might be a little troublesome for some.  Will we end up seeing a lot of levels that may involve having to do a lot of annoyingly precise wall jumps to get a hero lemming somewhere in order to solve level?   Then again, I suppose with just regular jumps you could already make similar annoying levels involving very tiny landing spots.  Basically all the goods and bads that come with 2D platformer-style games may now come to NeoLemmix as well.

NeoLemmix having skill shadows might help here. I definitely see the jumper as a skill that will benefit from that.

[Strato Incendus]

So, I just checked back with the schedule, and namida said as a rough estimate that the Jumper might be introduced with the next odd-numbered version, namely 12.9.0. According to the schedule, this would be around May next year. Does this still seem realistic?

The reason I'm asking is that I think I will be able to finish my pack Lemmings Open Air before that. Hence, if it's another half a year until the Jumper might be introduced, I'd prioritise Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll (the Lemmings-3D-inspired pack) first after LOA, because the Lemmings 2-inspired Lemmings Hall of Fame would certainly require the Jumper on a lot of levels.

However, in case of the Shimmier, the official introduction (meaning as part of a stable version) also occured only recently, with the skill being available for testing much earlier.

Hence, my second question would be whether the aim is "12.9.0. is planned as the official stable release featuring the Jumper", or whether it's "12.9.0. will be the first time the Jumper becomes available at all, i.e. at that point just for testing".

[namida]

So, I just checked back with the schedule, and namida said as a rough estimate that the Jumper might be introduced with the next odd-numbered version, namely 12.9.0. According to the schedule, this would be around May next year. Does this still seem realistic?

I'm not committing to any specific time at this stage. However, there's no other major physics changes / additions currently being considered, and odd-numbered updates are generally where such things would be introduced from now on, so that makes Jumper a very likely candidate for V12.9.0's "big one".

Assuming that holds, testing would be in the form of V12.9.0-RC. If I think the RC phase alone won't be enough testing, prior to that I might release an experimental specifically for the Jumper (which would likely be, Jumper aside, essentially somewhere between V12.8.X and V12.9.0).

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks for the information!