Level Design Contest #WasteMyTime

[IchoTolot]

My entry is ready.

Level + replay + Music file (put it in the "music" folder) attached.

Buttons, Neutrals, Stoners, Teleporters and Locked Exits with buttons are being used.

[Armani]

I'm in!

[darkshoxx]

@namida @Turrican @IchoTolot @Armani
Thanks for all of your levels!

[WillLem]

I couldn't resist joining in with this one. The level is aptly titled "Clickbait" It's impossible to solve this in under 8m 19s 41ms due to the lem count and locked release rate, and it will definitely waste your time, if that's the goal

Attached is the level, replay, styles, sound and original music (by me ) needed to play it (copy all the files across to the relevant folders in the NeoLemmix subdirectory). Please let me know if you have any trouble getting anything to work, because it would be particularly great to have the music showcased publicly if this is going out on your twitch.

Enjoy!

[mobius]

This is a fun idea. Wish I had time to implement a level.

Long time ago we already discussed how to create levels that take a long time to solve (penultimate paragraph in this post: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=1314.msg34071#msg34071)
This could directly be applied here: just have X lemmings on X platforms of different lengths (see post - some prime P times a fixed amount of pixels L) that need a certain time to synchronize, and require them to bash at the end of the platform to get out. If they are synchronized, they all cluster on the same spot, and can pass a squisher trap with only one lemming dying. Otherwise, some of them will be at least L apart, and if the trap is fast enough it is guaranteed to at least take 2.

But I feel like you could even make a level here that requires no skills and just solves itself, 200x200 might be enough to waste 8 minutes just slowly walking down a zigzag path.

Interesting
I want to set out to make an extremely long taking level now.... A custom level of the game Chips Challenge was made long ago that theoretically would take over 3 million years to complete. As mentioned in the attached thread, as soon as you take multiple game elements that move around and have them synchronize/desync you can quickly start creating exponentially long times of completion.

[WillLem]

Here's an updated version of "Clickbait". This one's better

[kaywhyn]

@kaywhyn
fair enough, I didn't bother to work out the antiderivative so just googled it. Should've been suscpicious that a constant (-1) is added that isn't absorbed into the integration constant. Cursed google just pulled down the exponent ^-1 that was clearly in the page it links to. Since it was displayed directly outside as a subtraction, I added round brackets to clarify, which now make it horribly incorrect. It's listed as ln∣cosx∣⁻¹. I thought for a simple joke I might not be called out on looking something up.
I am fairly ashamed now.

Lemme try to at least rectify why I didn't put an x into the cosine function, as that was done fully intentionally.
To me, the term "∫tan x dx" is a function modulo constants, but it cannot depend on x. It represents the map y |--> _a∫^y tan x dx = F(y) - F(a) = F(y) + k where F is an antiderivative of the tangent function. While you can call that variable y or t or basically whatever you want, to me it is nonsensical to call it "x", as the term _a∫^x tan x dx doesn't make too much sense (which is easily seen when trying to make take the derivate of _a∫^x tan x dx  with respect to x).
Therefore, in a corrected version, I'd be saying -log(|cos|), and as a function, I'd refer to the function that maps y to -log(|cos(y)|).
It would've been clearer to write it as -log(|cos(.)|)

But to be fair, most people (including physicists) use ∫f(x)dx as notation for an antiderivative of f depending on x. Since that is commonpractice notation, I cannot argue against that. Just not the notation I'm used to.

Haven't gotten into that much trouble for integrals in a while

Ah, now I understand where you're coming from. My bad darkshoxx, I didn't intend to shame and call you out on the technicalities. I have a bad tendency to take things so seriously that sometimes I didn't take into consideration that the person might had been joking, though in a way I could had figured you were kind of joking there with your post and that not all of it was intended to be serious. I'm a super detail-oriented person, as I tend to pay a lot of attention to even the minute details of pretty much everything. It's just the way my mind works. Especially in mathematics, I like to be very technical and mathematically correct and precise, as it would be bad if I gave students false info. Mathematicians definitely mean serious business when it comes to defining terms as mathematically precise as possible. Sure, I occasionally let some things slide from time to time and let some students off more easily than others if they get a tiny detail wrong or I catch them on some technicality, but it all depends on the student and the level of math I'm teaching.

Along with that, technically tan x's username is an indefinite integral rather than a definite one due to no upper and lower limits and hence it would be correct to put the x in, but after your clarification I totally understand your intentional omission of it! Again, please excuse me for taking things too seriously here, everything you wrote in your clarification makes sense and I perfectly understand where you're coming from!

Anyway, back on topic, nothing yet and I still don't know if I will participate, but I do realize that I technically have up to about a week should I decide to make something for this. I was watching a bit of your stream today, though I wasn't always there due to avoiding potential spoilers for myself   

[IchoTolot]

@Armani

This might be a partial backroute to Automaton.

[darkshoxx]

Thank you everyone for participating, it was a great success from my perspictive, I've had tons of fun.

The winners are IchoTolot and Mystify in shared first place, with a full score of 500 000 Points, and a total time of 8 m 20 s 000 ms
they both get to choose to Twitch channels to get giftsubs to (can be saved for seasonal stuff like GDQ).

Runner up in third place is WillLem with a score of 499 120 Points and a time of 8 m 19 s 120 ms.

Thanks everyone

[darkshoxx]

Since Mystify has abstained from his prize, I have decided to pass one Giftsub on to Third place WillLem

[kaywhyn]

Hello,

I'm long overdue, but my congrats to Icho, mystify, and WillLem for the top 3 places! Seems like this contest that darkshoxx organized was a success with the participants who entered. I probably would had done one myself, but due to how it was announced a week before, which is just too short notice for me, I decided not to. That's ok, I didn't really have any good ideas myself.

Anyway, I haven't taken a proper look at these entries until now, and I decided to go through them. For convenience, I organized them into a mini-pack so that they can all be played in the NL player so that you don't have to load them one-by-one in the NL editor and playtest mode them. I have attached the compilation here. It contains entries from all the participants except for namida's and niesch's. I decided to leave those out. In the case of the latter, I see that it was later made into an open-ended level and hence I don't have it in the original contest form. All you need to do is extract in the NL directory. Everything will fall into place.

For the styles, you can download them through the styles manager in the NL player. They should all be included in the standard library and hence be playable for you.

I have also attached my solutions. Once again, great job to all the participants!

Finally, here's my recorded solutions to the levels: https://youtu.be/y1p6rQ7qjeE

Participants, feel free to let me know if my solutions are intended or not! My solution to tan x dx's is the only one that feels fishy, particularly since there are times when you can keep the regular lemming infinitely safe without needing to do anything for a while until another zombie enters and ruins that. Even then, it's probably still fine considering the whole point is to keep him safe until the gold is collected and both he and the neutral can finally exit.