Hi, I'm 607, and this is my story!

[607]

So, yeah. I wasn't too sure on where to put this, but I thought this would be a reasonable place.
I'm new to these forums! I think I've been registered on a Lemmings forum before, but I forgot where and when. So yeah, I just did a Google search and this looked good to me.

(Warning: this post is kind of long, it might take you some time to read through it, but I'd really appreciate it if you did)

Who am I?
Well, 607, obviously. I'm a 15 year old male, and I live in the Netherlands. Dutch is my mother tongue, but through the internet I've learnt to speak English as well (not flawlessly, but good enough to have a conversation with people,
especially via text).
What is my experience with Lemmings?
I don't fully remember how it started. But I think my dad (about my dad: he passed away last January, but he has shaped a big part of my childhood) once showed me an old magazine about gaming.
I saw a screenshot of Lemmings, and it looked very interesting to me. I asked him what it was about, and I tried to draw concept levels for it, on paper (mind you, I created levels for a game I'd never seen in action. They weren't too great, obviously).
When I showed him, he said it wasn't exactly like I imagined it to be.
I think that was when he got to install it on the Windows 98 pc I used.
He wrote on a piece of paper how I could boot it up, using DOSBox.
I played it, and loved it.
Later I also played Lemmings 2 and 3, but I've always had the original as my main go-to Lemmings game.
After those first few months of knowing it, I think I've not done anything with it for a really long while. By that time I had learnt to install things myself (breaking my parents' rules, but oh well), and my Lemmings folder was a big mess.
I didn't know anymore how to play Lemmings 2 or 3, but I kept playing Lemmings now and then. I also had an Ultimate Lemmings disc from somewhere. I played it for a bit, and got to know Oh No! More Lemmings and Lemmings Paintball, but I didn't really like how either of those played, so I stuck to DOS Lemmings.
Even later I got interested into level editing, and got LemEdit. I found it really cool, but there was one problem with it: you couldn't move the mouse. Because of that I gave up on it eventually.
Since then I had got Lemmings 3D from a friend, but I've never looked to much into that game. It's interesting, but not nearly as fun as the originals, I think. I also discovered my dad actually owned the Atari ST version of Lemmings, which was the one he always played when he was younger. I never really used the floppy though, because there was something wrong with it: you needed to put it in, boot up the Atari, then the Atari would start making weird sounds, you needed to pull the floppy out and put it back in, and then it would boot correctly. I didn't dare doing that myself though, and as my dad was quite late home from work, I still kept playing the DOS version, even though I really like the Atari ST.
Then I moved to Windows 7. It took me some time to get used to it, but quickly I grew to like it quite a bit, although I'm not sure if I prefer it over XP or 98. I was playing mostly online, free games at this time. I also bought Minecraft, which I played a lot (and still do). But the CD-drive never got used anymore. I have tried to install Lemmings, but it said it wouldn't work on a 64 bit system.
Just recently I got back into retro gaming. I started by playing more and more on my GBA, and I got to love it again.
Then I decided to start playing on the Atari again, but my dad said he wanted to move it, because he wanted a rail track through the place where the Atari was standing. So I pitied that.
But then he died. That messed up things quite a bit, and it took a while for my life to get a bit stable again.
Then, about a week ago, I played on the Atari again, and the nostalgia kicked in.
The day before yesterday, I decided to try out old CD-ROMs. Most things didn't work anymore, but I got one game to work, and even more nostalgia kicked in.
Today I looked through all my CD-ROMs, wondering if I had some forgotten gems left somewhere. That was when I found Ultimate Lemmings back. I had completely forgotten about its existence. I played it for a bit, and it felt great to play Lemmings again, even though it wasn't exactly "right". Then though, I found a major design flaw in Lemmings '95. I realised I would always like this version less than the DOS version. So I decided to try installing the original Lemmings, once again.
I installed DOSBox, and looked through the help and things, but I couldn't quickly figure out things. Then though, I realised something. That paper, where he wrote down how to play Lemmings, I must still have that somewhere.
So I searched, and found. Even while my dad's dead now, and I can't ask him for help, he still helped me just then. I got Lemmings to work, and it felt awesome. Even though the levels are the same, the original (being it Atari ST or DOS) feels so much better than any remake to me.
Okay, but now why did I come here?
Well, in the evening, I started to wonder about the level editor again. I have made a new, fresh Lemmings folder, as as I already stated, my old one was a big mess. So I also needed to look for the editor stuffs again. After a while, I got it to work, but realised that problem was still there. I couldn't move the mouse. So I wanted to look for alternatives. That's when I found this.
After looking around a bit, I decided to make an account. But this time also use it, unlike the last time I registered for a Lemmings forum. I think by getting a little active for a bit here, I'll not only to refuel my love for Lemmings, I'll also be able to learn a lot about new advancements that I haven't heard about yet. Because I'm sure there are, looking at the projects sub-forum.
Okay, that was a bit long, I admit. But it felt great writing it, because I haven't written about Lemmings in a long time. I hope somebody took the time to read this, and I'm looking forward to getting you to know a bit!

PS: oh, and what's the answer to this captcha: "Please enter the name of the level found once in EVERY rank in Original Lemmings on the Amiga/DOS version. (Without punctuation other than spaces, not case sensitive)"?
I really wouldn't know.

[namida]

You won't see the captcha's anymore. They only appear:
- When registering
- When making your first post
- When sending a private message, if you haven't posted any messages yet


Anyway, welcome to the forums! I'm namida, the "head admin" here so to speak, though I'm quite new to that position - only had it since a server move (from lemmingsforums.com) about 3 months ago. Aside from that I'm also the developer of NeoLemmix, and the "Lemmings Plus" series of fangames (as well as "Doomsday Lemmings").

I'd highly recommend checking out Lemmix if you want to play the DOS games on new systems. There isn't a dedicated subforum for it here, but you can download the Lemmix players here. They're basically near-perfect Windows clones of the DOS games. There's no equivalent for L2 or L3, sorry - you'll just have to DOSBox those.

As for level editors, the NeoLemmix Editor is probably your best bet, although if you liked LemEdit, there's a modified version floating around somewhere that doesn't have mouse problems (requires DOSBox). There's also another one called "jLevelBuilder", which is also pretty neat. If you become confident at level designing, there's regularly level design contests on the forums with prizes up for grabs.

If you're after some new levels, a good place to start is DynaLem's Fangame List. Aside from my own packs (of course xD), I'd highly recomend "Oh No! More cLemmings!", "cLemmings Ultimate Edition", and most of all, "GeoffLems".

[IchoTolot]

Well, Hi there! 

I'm relatively new to the forum, too!
Personally I'm sticking more to the Lemmini/SuperLemmini side, but I am also getting into NeoLemmix, too.
The Packs I can highly recommend (or I have played through and liked [they should be all in DynaLem's list]):

Lemmini: "PimoLems" from Pieuw;  "FranLems" and "DoveLems" from Dodochacalo; "MobiLems" from möbius; PacGuy765's challenge Pack and of course the big "Revenge of the Lemmings" community pack from various members of the forum.

NeoLemmix (I'm relatvily new to that platform, so not very much I have played through there): "The Lemmings Plus series" and "Doomsday Lemmings" from namida.

I myself am creating a new (my first) Lemmini pack with various custom tilesets at the moment (115/150 level done) and I am also doing playthroughs of some packs (and sneak peaks of my own levels) on my Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4Elfo3E1jTl-SHlOy97kwA).

NeoLemmix/Lemmix and the editors you can easily get from namida's webside or the dedicated forum thread.
Lemmini on www.lemmini.de  . (the "Lemmings for Windows files" you need for Lemmini: I've put them in my dropbox at some point for some friends of mine: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ugpmlpv4x6urg72/AAADQ3X8m--M4or_akcmeUo2a?dl=0)

Looking forward to see you enjoying some packs here, or even creating your own levels  (if that is the case you should check out the designing contests here).

[607]

Hm, why would you prefer Lemmix or Lemmini above DOSBox? I read some of the "clones" have got bugs fixed, but if there are any bugs in the original Lemmings, I'm probably used to them.
Also, those level packs sound really interesting (and I understand that I'll need Lemmix/Lemmini to play those), but I think I'm going to try to finish the original Lemmings and Oh No! More Lemmings first.

[Simon]

Hm, why would you prefer Lemmix or Lemmini above DOSBox?

Better controls, better user interface. Action replays combat the artificial difficulty of executing solutions for long levels. With Lemmix, you get 100 % DOS physics nonetheless.

If they're compared against L1/ONML and not Custlemm, then they're also faster to access the desired level. Level passwords have become obsolete technology.

This doesn't make Dosbox a bad choice, use that if you're used to it already.

-- Simon

[IchoTolot]

Hm, why would you prefer Lemmix or Lemmini above DOSBox? I read some of the "clones" have got bugs fixed, but if there are any bugs in the original Lemmings, I'm probably used to them.
Also, those level packs sound really interesting (and I understand that I'll need Lemmix/Lemmini to play those), but I think I'm going to try to finish the original Lemmings and Oh No! More Lemmings first.

It's the best idea to finish the basic game first before you handle the custom packs (they are mostly a lot harder). Also Lemmini has the basic game implemented as standard, if you want to use a better interface, controls etc for them. (examples: you can chosse with the arrow keys which direction the Lemming should look when assigning a task, as Simon said replay function [the most important]...)

I would further recommend to try out Lemmini AND NeoLemmix (with editor), because they both have their pros (and more important exclusive packs) and you can choose your favorite.

[namida]

Apart from better compatibility with non-Windows systems (and maybe easier recording of gameplay videos), I can't really think of any advantage DOSBox has over regular Lemmix; the latter replicates DOS Lemmings more or less perfectly, including bugs. The other three big ones all vary somewhat from the traditional mechanics, even outside the realm of glitches.

Three of the four custom engines have implemented as standard virtually every known official Lemmings level (Lemmix, NeoLemmix and SuperLemmini), including those from other versions such as Amiga and Genesis, while the fourth (Lemmini) still has all of Orig and OhNo as standard, and most other levels are available for it somewhere or other. For SuperLemmini, it already comes with everything apart from the Genesis levels, which are provided by the author as a seperate download. Lemmix and NeoLemmix are split up into multiple "players" (basically, all-in-one EXE files that contain (usually) a single Lemmings game), generally one per game; specifically there's a player each for:

- Original Lemmings
- Oh No! More Lemmings!
- Xmas 91 / 92 (these are combined into one player)
- Holiday Lemmings '94 (which also contains the 93 levels, just like the DOS version does)
- Covox Lemmings Demo
- Prima Publishing Lemmings Demo
- "Extra Levels" - this contains various other official levels; the majority of its makeup are the levels unique to the Genesis version, but it also has levels from PSP, Sega Master System, various Amiga editions, etc

As mentioned, traditional Lemmix functions more or less exactly the same as the DOS versions, but is a native Windows app. It also can run under WINE on Linux.

[Ben H]

Apart from better compatibility with non-Windows systems (and maybe easier recording of gameplay videos), I can't really think of any advantage DOSBox has over regular Lemmix

DOSBox will let you run Lemmings on Android though.

You could run Lemmix though, if you:
a. Rooted your Android device
b. Installed Linux
c. Installed WINE

But really, DOSBox is much simpler for on-the-go.

Another (even worse) option is using a Java emulator on Android to run Lemmini/SuperLemmini. Because most of these are all still pretty buggy and either don't run well (or don't run at all) .

[namida]

Apart from better compatibility with non-Windows systems

Anyway, have they improved mouse support on Android now? I remember DOSBox being very awkward to use on Android for mouse-using games in the past, even with a USB mouse. But it's possible Android 4.4 or 5.0 might've fixed this.

And, if I'm not mistaken, running Lemmix through WINE would only work on an x86-based device (most Android devices are ARM-based).