Level Design Contest #24

[IchoTolot]

Welcome to another contest of the Lemmingsforums! This time the three rules have been picked by Kingshadow3 for winning contest #23.

A few words to new participants and forum members: If you haven't entered before, I strongly encourage you to try - even if you don't win, it's fun to participate; and we have had cases where first-time entrants have won before! There are three choices of rules given, you may enter one level for EACH one of the rules.
You may either use new format NeoLemmix, or Lix.
If you have more than one entry, they may (but do not have to) be for the same engine. Please make sure you tested your level for basic solvability before submitting and be sure to also submit any custom tileset you are using, so others have no problem playing your level.

Pre contest testing: You can choose 1-2 persons who do a bit of pre-testing for you, so that the biggest backroutes and screw-ups of your levels can be detected before the playing phase. I cannot control this so it's only a guideline, but still I would prefer not everyone knows every level before the playing phase starts.

Here are the rules on how the submission deadlines work:
- Initial submission phase deadline will extend such that it's 72 hours from the time of the last submission, up to the 5th submission (inclusive). After this it no longer changes no matter what.
- Update phase deadline will not extend over the initial dead line!
- Even if you missed the cutoff date for the initial submission phase, late entries are accepted until the update phase ends. There is no penalty for a late entry, beyond that people are less likely to spend as much time on the level before voting begins.


And here is the new ruleset:

Rule 1: The 9th Skill

Make a level with exactly 1 new skill type along with at least 2 of the 8 original skill types.

You can only use 1 of the 13 new skills for Neolemmix (Or in the case of Lix, 1 of the 6 new skills) and 2 or more of the original 8 skills. The quantity of each skill doesn't matter.

- Any pick-up skills used must also follow this rule.
- Pre-assigned skills on hatches/lemmings are limited to Climbers, Floaters, Pre-Placed Blockers. If you chose a permanent skill or the Shimmier (Pre-placed lemmings only) as the new skill they are limited to that skill.
-You are allowed to not put the new skill on the skillset panel if you choose to have a new pre-assigned skill on a hatch/Lemmings except the Shimmier.

Rule 2: Big levels can be fun too

Make a level that is at least 200K square pixels large (800K square pixels for Lix).

Examples of what is acceptable (This is for Neolemmix, Double both dimensions for Lix):
1280W x 160H = 204,800 square pixels
800Wx320H = 256,000 square pixels
600Wx400H = 240,000 square pixels

Note: This is kinda obvious but you cannot just make a level like "Not as complicated as it looks" where it only uses a small fraction of the level. The intended solution needs to use a reasonable amount of the level. I won't be too harsh, but please stay in the spirit of the rule here.

Rule 3: Variety from the past

Make a level with a previous contest rule you never entered for.

This one should be simple to understand. You must make a level that follows a rule from one of the previous contests but you must not have entered for that rule during that contest. From Contests #10 through #19, You were only permitted to enter for two of the rules. This gives you a chance to enter for the one rule you were unable to when that contest ran. If someone didn't participate in a particular contest, they can pick from any of those rules from that contest. In the author field, you will need to enter the past rule you are going with in parentheses after your name.
Example: If you were going with Contest 19 Rule 2 - "Make a level whose terrain spells your username". You would enter in your author field: "[Username] (C19R2)".
For the file name format, instead of putting in User1_Levelname_RXV1.lvl, you would put in User1_Levelname_R3V1(CXXRX).lvl

However any skills, tilesets and features (Such as having 10 skill types in the skill panel) available in the current build can be used for the rule you choose. You are not restricted only to skills and features that existed when that contest ran, so you can still use Jumpers for rules from contests #20 and before or Laserers and Sliders for any of the contest rules despite those skills not existing in a stable build during those times.

For previous contest design rules, Go here!

Some rules are exluded though due to them having become very very easy to satisfy now (most custom tilesets rules) or due to them being very special (Tag Team, Flipped terrain rule):

#1 - Make a level using an unofficial tileset
#3 - Tag Team (one person designs the terrain, the other places objects and assigns stats)
#8 - Make a level with a L2 or L3 style
#12R3 - Make a VGASPEC level
#13R1 - Make a level with tileset mixing
#13R3 - Make a level without using any official tilesets
#15R1 - Make two levels with the same terrain, but one is flipped
#17R1 - Make a level using only tilesets you haven't used before

So please do not choose them!


Submission phase ends November 7th 2021 at 00:00 UTC.

Ruleset in detail again: http://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=2246.0

Send me a personal message with your level/s and if needed tileset/s to participate. It would also be nice to also tell me the rule which each level satisfies.

Please use the following naming format:  User1_Levelname_R3V1.lvl ---> Level "Levelname" by User1   for Rule 3   Version 1 of the level

Prize selection:
- US $5.00
- One month's advertising on the forums news ticker
- Pick next contest's rules

Entries so far: 16

- The Tomato Watcher (3)
- Armani (3)
- mantha16 (1)
- NieSch (1)
- tan x dx (1)
- ericderkovits (1)
- IchoTolot (3)
- Kingshadow3 (3)

[IchoTolot]

Just a little bumb to remind everybody to start gathering some level ideas.

[NieSch]

I'm in! I've come a long way with making one level already. Sometimes you have those days when you just keep building and tinkering without paying attention to the time. (And then at night all kinds of backroutes come to mind that you want to fix as quickly as possible. )

[mantha16]

done one just gotta rewrite the file name so its correct then go back and forth on which previous contest rule to go for

[IchoTolot]

I slightly modified a contest guideline (no panic this won't negatively affect anybody ). It was more of an afterthought:

Pre contest testing: You can choose 1-2 persons who do a bit of pre-testing for you, so that the biggest backroutes and screw-ups of your levels can be detected before the playing phase. I cannot control this so it's only a guideline, but still I would prefer not everyone knows every level before the playing phase starts.

I have thought about a few scenarios where you might want to involve a second person and I don't want to be very strict here as again it is more of a guideline than a rule:

- Your initial tester becomes quite busy and cannot test in time.
- Your initial tester does not respond anymore.
- Your initial tester cannot solve the level and you might want to contact an additional person.
- You want to have different entries be tested by different people.

As my only concern with pre-contest testing is that everybody should not know every level before the contest starts I think it should still be fine overall.

[Kingshadow3]

I slightly modified a contest guideline (no panic this won't negatively affect anybody ). It was more of an afterthought:

Pre contest testing: You can choose 1-2 persons who do a bit of pre-testing for you, so that the biggest backroutes and screw-ups of your levels can be detected before the playing phase. I cannot control this so it's only a guideline, but still I would prefer not everyone knows every level before the playing phase starts.

I have thought about a few scenarios where you might want to involve a second person and I don't want to be very strict here as again it is more of a guideline than a rule:

- Your initial tester becomes quite busy and cannot test in time.
- Your initial tester does not respond anymore.
- Your initial tester cannot solve the level and you might want to contact an additional person.
- You want to have different entries be tested by different people.

As my only concern with pre-contest testing is that everybody should not know every level before the contest starts I think it should still be fine overall.

Another scenario is that the initial tester you chose lives in a timezone vastly different from your own and thus level feedback can end up being quite slow. The person testing my entries was Armani who lives in South Korea while I live in the UK (That's 8 hours ahead). This meant his testing usually happened while I was sleeping and I wake up in the morning to find backroutes everywhere . Luckily it wasn't too bad for me this time.

[IchoTolot]

Just a little reminder that there is not that much time left anymore until the playing phase starts.

[Silken Healer]

Nov 7th right, I still wanna make a level (hopefully I get ideas soon)

[IchoTolot]

Only a few days left. Get your entries in!