Pack Themes - post ideas here!

[Strato Incendus]

Since we already have a thread for collecting rank names, I thought a collection of overarching themes for a pack would be helpful, too.

The title is certainly the easiest thing to change about any given level; and paired with a little effort put into the logo and the rank signs, a pack can easily be treated with an overarching theme retroactively, even if the individual levels were originally created in a "bottom-up" way (mechanics first, theme second).

What is the goal of giving a pack an overarching theme?
--> in short: Tying the single levels together so that they seem less random and generic, and instead work more as a union.

For the player, achieving progress in the pack should then hopefully feel more like working towards an ultimate goal, rather than just solving separate individual crossword puzzles .


Here are a couple ideas I've been considering as possible options for future packs, but for which I haven't created any specific levels yet:

HISTORY
Given the large variety of graphic sets to chose from, many of which have historic connotations (IchoTolot's "castle", L2 Medieval, Egyptian, Gronkling's "Ancient", GigaLem's Japanese-looking styles from Freedom Planet, etc.), having levels portray different crucial events throughout human history would certainly provide a great pool to chose from! Anything battle- or combat-related would obviously lend itself well to Zombie levels, but there are certainly enough other things to select from - crossing the Rubicon with a bridge, or digging up a Pharaoh's remnants as part of Howard Carter's excavations, etc.
This could also include some fictional stories, drawing inspirations from (Greek / Roman / Egyptian / Nordic / Asian) mythology, of course .
There are already packs focusing on Art (ArtLems) and Music / Geography (Lemmings World Tour) in development, so perhaps someone is going to take us on a trip to the past in the near future?
Title suggestions: Lemmings History, History of Lemkind
Rank suggestions: reflecting different historic eras, similarly to ArtLems

MOVIES
There have been many single levels referring to single movies, but this has never been done on a systematic level. While the creator is probably going to have to resist the urge of using all the copyrighted soundtracks as music tracks (speaking from Paralems experience here ;D ), basing levels on cinematic stories could certainly result on something epic!
Granted, if the overall topic of movies is a bit too vast, one could narrow this down to a specific genre.
For example, given all the "dark" graphic sets that have been developed for New Formats recently, I could imagine doing a pack focusing on Horror Movies some time in the future. Again, this in particular quite literally screams for Zombie levels, but it doesn't have to be.
Title suggestions: Lemmingwood, Lemmings Cinema, or - in case you should create this for Lix: Netlix!
Rank suggestions: Cameo, Sidekick, Lead, Star, plus a bonus rank "Director's Cut" for removed levels
Alternatively, you could go with awards, ascending in prestige - i.e. starting with the Golden Raspberry and ending with the Oscar!

BIOLOGY
I recently had this weird idea of designing a Flesh graphic set, consisting of terrain pieces that look like human organs (bones could be steel and blood the water, then). Lemmings moving through such levels would then look like little parasites or bacteria moving through the human body. Lead them onto a journey from A to B... wherever that may be . I'd suggest having them arrive at the brain towards the end, so that "brain" levels would also be the most demanding ones for the player's brain, but that's on you if you decide to go with this...
Title suggestions: Lemmings Epidemic, Lemmings Infection
Rank suggestions: Going with the infection theme, I'd pick "Gulp / Nausea / Gag / Choke / Vomit"
These would also go well with the Horror Movie theme, though !

OTHER PC-GAMES
Similarly to movies, countless other PC games have made their way into custom packs as references, or even as complete graphic sets, but no one has ever made a pack dedicated to all these other PC games in general.
Flopsy is now working on a Sonic-based pack - it's only Sonic alone, though (maybe Flopsy likes dedicating complete packs to individuals? ). But we also have graphic sets from Speedy Eggbert and Freedom Planet, plus of course from the other Psychgnosis games (Shadow of the Beast, Menace). Personally, I could imagine Worms showing up in such a pack (given that Team 17 have taken over Lemmings), plus the Mario Brothers, plus Link from The Legend of Zelda, plus maybe the penguins from the Linux-based Lemmings clone Pingus. Linux also had a penguin clone of Mario, btw, SuperTux, can't have one without the other ...
Such a theme would probably be best suited for someone who is really into graphic set making. But it's not mandatory, given that we had preceding levels alluding to other games without copying their tilesets - e.g. Sandopolis Act 1 and 2 from Arty's "SubLems", both of which are built entirely out of the standard Pillar graphic set.
Title suggestions: Nerd Lems
Rank suggestions: My Pit Lems ranks might be quite fitting here: "LOL / ROFL / WTF / OMFG / FML"

MEMES
"You keep using that skill. I don't think it does what you think it does."
While there's lots of potential for very niche insider jokes here, everyone who's somewhat active on the internet nowadays is bound to know at least some memes. Considering there's already a graphic set with the singular purpose of being able to Rickroll people, this doesn't seem too far fetched... I already had lemmings get devoured by Pepe the Frog on one of my levels, so feel free to continue this!
Title suggestions: Lemes / Lememes, Lemistan
Rank suggestions: "P-C / Mainstream / Offensive / Edgy / Shitlord"

COMICS
Superhero films have become an entire subgenre of their own in recent years, but there are of course also many other characters from magazines that never made it to the big screen.
Bring on a Mickey Mouse graphic set!
Title suggestions: Lemmings Animation
Rank suggestions: Just pick some onomatopoetic words commonly used to illustrate fights in comics - starting with something light, like "pow", and ending on something like "kaboom!" Also, there would have to be the typical "explosion star" around the words on the rank signs, quite similar to the bomber animation

SPACE TRAVEL
There are pretty much enough graphic sets out there by now to create an entire Lemmings Universe in whatever way you imagine it! Could there be other worlds beside Lemming Earth that harbour unintelligent life? While the L2 Space and LPIV Space & Martian graphic sets would probably get used a lot in such a pack, there are also tilesets for desert-, snow-, and fire-, heck, even water worlds! (Arty's underwater tileset comes to mind.)
Title suggestions: Lemmings Universe
Rank suggestions: Nepster's "Moon / Comet / Planet / Sun / Neutron Star / Black Hole" would certainly work. I for one tend to prefer adjectives, so I'd link them to Kardashev's three stages of civilisation: Planetary, Stellar, and Galactic

[Nessy]

Fascinating thread and ideas!

You know to be perfectly honest pack themes is something that I have never thought about until only recently. My first pack and my new pack in development so far don't really have any concrete themes and are more of a shallow "collection of my custom levels". I feel like if I design levels towards a central theme I would run out of ideas immediately. Of course this is just ME that feels like this for my own personal stuff. However I do like including certain themes in my individual levels or group of levels but they are mostly about things that I personally like or enjoy no matter how obscure it may come off as sometimes. Therefore I guess you can think of the theme as a theme that revolves around me

However one pack theme that I think would be interesting and maybe something I'll try in the future would be to make a "Lemmings 2" type of pack where you have 10 ranks representing 10 different tribes, but the catch is the tribes aren't the ones from Lemmings 2. The tribes are instead based on other custom graphic sets. For example, maybe an "Underwater" tribe, "Silhouette" tribe, "Dune" tribe, "Cyberspace" tribe, etc.

[Strato Incendus]

For example, maybe an "Underwater" tribe, "Silhouette" tribe, "Dune" tribe, "Cyberspace" tribe, etc.

I was about to reply "Nepster already did that, check out 'Return of the Tribes'"... until I read the second half of that paragraph and thought "yay, that sounds interesting!"