[SUG] Potentially useful Worms weapons as Lemmings skills

[Strato Incendus]

Considering how much use we've already gotten out of the Lemmings 2-Skills Thread, in this thread, I'm doing the same hypothetical consideration for the Worms games. Given that Lemmings and Worms belonged to the same company, Team 17 (perhaps, both still do?), the parallels seem obvious: Both games deal with small, easily expendable animal creatures.

I'm only referring to the 2D Worms games here (Worms Armageddon, Worms World Party etc. - the latter of which had a non-zero influence on inspiring both Lemmings World Tour, as the name shows, and a select few levels in my earlier packs).

The main limitation here is that, with these being weapons first and foremost, and skills second, a lot of these are basically only variations of the Bomber / Grenader: Their main purpose is to create craters and/or kill enemy Worms (in SuperLemmix, that would be Zombies). However, a few of these are also utility skills, and/or do indeed have the main function of being constructive of destructive skills.



Let's get going!



Bazooka - We've considered it for SuperLemmix already, as a ranged Batter. The discussion is still ongoing.

Mortar - It sucks in Lemmings 2, it also sucks in Worms! The main difference is that it breaks down into smaller projectiles on impact; I'll discuss the potential utility of that further down below.

Homing Missile / Homing Pigeon / Patsy's Magic Bullet - A homing weapon might be more powerful than the Grenader; in fact, also potentially overpowered. Most importantly, though, I don't see how to make this work without an extra click, like the Archer, Roper etc. require it in Lemmings 2: The Tribes.

Sheep / Sheep Launcher / Super Sheep / Aqua Sheep - Launches an explosive animal that either walks, or flies through the air, or can be steered with the arrow keys - much like the Super Lemming can be steered with the mouse. Where the Super Lemming only moves a lemming around, though, this would essentially be a grenade that can be moved around the same way as the Super Lemming (assuming we wouldn't want to bring the arrow keys into the game, since they are already occupied for the purpose of directional lemming selection). An Aqua Sheep is a Super Sheep that can also be steered through water. If applied to a Super Lemming, that would mean he could also fly through water if he happened to be a Swimmer, too.

Grenade - We already have this one in SuperLemmix! The only difference is that it has a fuse / countdown in Worms, rather than exploding immediately on impact.

Cluster Bomb / Banana Bomb / Super Banana Bomb / Salvation Army / Priceless Ming Vase - These are grenades that explode into further splinters, which then in turn do further damage / create further craters. While the Banana Bomb is pretty powerful in Worms, I don't see how this could be implemented in Lemmings - at least not without creating an overly complex skill shadow that also predicts where the shrapnel is going to land.



Battle Axe - Cuts a Worm's health points in half. Not useful in Lemmings, since Lemmings don't have HP.

Earthquake - Shakes the ground so that enemy lemmings (=Zombies) might fall off cliffs and splat, go into water etc. Would only work with tumbler physics, i.e., perhaps in Lix, but not in NeoLemmix / SuperLemmix.

Shotgun / Handgun / Uzi / Minigun - We've discussed this idea, but it would basically only serve the exclusive purpose of killing Zombies - which several other skills can do as a side-effect by now.

Longbow - Would be equivalent to the Archer from Lemmings 2; I think we've already ruled this out because of the double-click requirement.

Fire Punch / Dragon Ball - This is a skill I recall proposing in the "joke skill ideas" thread, where a lemming would jump upward, carve out a little path through a ceiling, but could also punch and kill a Zombie in the process. The Dragon Ball, meanwhile, is a projectile that flies in a perfectly horizontal manner. In contrast to the shotgun, this Dragon Ball is large enough that you could reasonably assume it would also damage terrain.

Kamikaze - Another skill I brought up in the "joke skills" thread: The Worm / Lemming goes in a straight line at a fast speed, even across gaps, creating a tunnel in the process, and exploding at the end. Basically a Runner-Basher that ends in a Bomber, but can't fall down along the way.

Suicide Bomber - Identical to the Lemmings Bomber, except it poisons the Worms around it, so that they slowly start losing health. "Poison" in SuperLemmix means "turn into Zombies", so that would be pretty useless.



Prod / Baseball Bat - Both are ways to shove Worms / Lemmings off a cliff, except the Baseball Bat of course has a much longer range. We're already discussing the Lix Batter for SuperLemmix, so this is basically the same thing.

Dynamite / Mine - You can set these somewhere and run away before they explode. Like the non-lethal Bomber in Lemmings 2. Since Lemmings aren't damaged by grenades, and you can drop grenades right in front of a wall, we basically already have this. Also, I think one graphic set literally uses the Worms Mine sprite as an exit button instead. I've turned that into a joke on my Paralems level "Funny little red buttons", where I placed such buttons and one-use traps side by side.

Mole Bomb / Mole Squadron - These are Bashers / Miners / Diggers turned into projectiles (and the Mole Strike features several of them): You can throw them, they start tunneling, and once they get out of the tunnel, the next time they hit terrain, they explode. That latter part would be optional for Lemmings purposes, I'd say.

Air Strike / Napalm Strike / Mail Strike / Mine Strike / Carpet Bomb / Sheep Strike: All of these are basically just salvos of various objects that drop from the sky at the point where the player clicks in the landscape, create craters of varying sizes, killing enemy Worms (=Zombies) in the process. Too unpredictable for Lemmings - and probably also too powerful for any "kill all Zombies" level. Again, since Lemmings don't have health points, a single "damage" would be enough to take a given Zombie out. Also, since the player has to click where the strike hits, this would fall into the same exclusion criteria as the Archer, Roper etc.

Blow Torch - Now this is where it gets interesting! I once proposed this in the joke-skills thread as a tool that could go through steel (and ONLY through steel). In Worms, it's Basher, Miner, and Fencer in one, because it carves tunnels while the player can steer the worm with the arrow keys. We wouldn't have any need for the latter (it would be too overpowered). But a skill that has the dedicated purpose of going through steel might at least be an idea worth entertaining.

Pneumatic Drill - Worms' version of the Digger, except it also does damage to enemies. I don't think we need a Digger that happens to also kill Zombies. We are still considering a drill as one potential tool an upward Digger could have, though the discussion currently seems to favour a propeller?

Girder / Girder Starter Pack - Worms' version of the Builder / Platformer, which can be rotated freely and placed anywhere in the level manually by the player. No need for this, we already have these functions in Lemmings, it just works slightly differently.



Ninja Rope - A very versatile tool a Worm can use to swing around the level. I once proposed a Rope Slinger as a joke skill, which would be essentially like an inverted Pole Vaulter from Lemmings 2: A lemming could attach a rope to a ceiling (e.g., one that's not Shimmier friendly), or even just a single point of terrain (Spider-Man style) to swing across a gap, or swing up a certain height, with the latter being more like the Pole Vaulter.

Bungee - Another thing I once proposed as a one-time-use Floater, to get a lemming down safely, without turning this into a permanent skill that immediately solves all later splat falls, too. The lemming could also jump off the Bungee rope, and then hold on to walls or ceilings as a Climber / Slider / Shimmier etc.

Parachute - Works the same way in Worms as in Lemmings 2: The Tribes, except in Worms, there is wind, which can't be controlled by the player, in contrast to the fan in Lemmings 2. No need for this, we have the Floater, Glider, and Slider.

Teleport - We have teleporters in Lemmings; this would be the same thing as a skill. Again, it would require clicking twice. And in Lemmings, it seems pretty overpowered. In Worms, it's counterbalanced by the fact that the game is turn-based, and teleporting immediately ends your turn.

Scales of Justice - Evens the score of the total health points of both teams. Not applicable in Lemmings, as again, Lemmings don't have HP.



Flame Thrower - In Worms, the flames do damage to other Worms. The Flame Thrower in Lemmings 2 just creates one crater somewhat similar to the Grenader at a close distance. I think we've already concluded that this would be too narrow to add any incremental utility.

Holy Hand Grenade - Basically what happens when you combine the Grenader with the "Nuclear Bombers" gimmick from NeoLemmix 1.43: The crater gets much bigger. Hallelujah!

MB Bomb - Just a big a** bomb that slowly floats down from the sky and moves with the wind.

Petrol Bomb - Explodes and creates flames. I did once entertain the potential use of creating fire object trigger areas with a skill, in order to create an obstacle for Zombies to walk into (or for regular lemmings to walk into in those corner cases where these lemmings would mess up the puzzle solution otherwise). Still, almost certainly too fringe.

Skunk - Poisons enemies, then explodes. In Lemmings, poisoning enemies, i.e., Zombies, is pretty pointless, since poisoning is precisely what turns lemmings into Zombies in the first place.

Mad Cows / Old Woman - Pretty similar to the Sheep / Salvation Army weapons, no additional utility here.



Concrete Donkey - One of the most powerful weapons in Worms, this is a Digger that works at a distance: It falls from the sky and removes terrain in a vertically downward manner until it reaches the bottom of the level (where there is usually water in Worms levels). All enemies in that area take a bunch of damage, and unless they're thrown out of the area by the repeated impacts, they'll probably end up drowning / falling out of the level at the end.

Indian Nuclear Test - This is the "Rising Water" gimmick as a skill: It quickly raises the water level by 120 pixels within just one turn. Could be used to turn water areas into lifts for Swimmers, and/or to kill Zombies, and/or to free Blockers / Freezers that are also Swimmers (see my Lemmicks level "Here comes the flood"). It also poisons all Worms so that they start losing health points (not applicable).

Armageddon - No, this is not synonymous with the nuke: A bunch of meteors fall from the sky, creating a bunch of craters in the process and doing a whole lot of damage. Too erratic for Lemmings.



Surrender - THIS, in contrast, is indeed synonymous with the nuke. Worms actually do explode when they die, too. I'm just not sure if they also die when you surrender, or if they just wave the white flag. Technically, it's closer to just pressing Escape.

Skip Go - Skips your turn. Not applicable in Lemmings.

Select Worm - Allows you to select a different Worm on your team. Not necessary in Lemmings, since we can always freely select lemmings (except for Neutrals and Zombies, of course).

Freeze - Freezes Worms in ice cubes. Guess what, SuperLemmix already has this in the Freezer!




In short, I'd say it's mainly the tools that are interesting to Lemmings, more so than the weapons:

- Freezer (already exists)
- Grenader (already exists)
- Baseball Bat / Batter (being discussed)
- Rope Slinger? (swing across gaps / inverted Pole Vaulter)
- Bungee? (one-use floater)
- Blow Torch? (go through steel)
- Concrete Donkey? (Digger at a distance)
- Mole? (Basher / Miner as a projectile)
- Teleport as a skill? (probably too powerful)
- Kamikaze? (Runner-Basher that explodes at the end)

[jkapp76]

From your short list at the end I think I prefer the BlowTorcher that can cut through steel.

The weapons would be cool if we had more than just zombies.
I've thought about suggesting SLX add the weasels from Lemmings Revolutions. A weasel would be an upright walking weasel much like the lemming itself. They are placed in one location where they walk back and forth without the ability to fall off an edge. If they touch a lemming they simply cause the lemming to turn around. If a weasel was walking in front of the exit he'd need to be removed to allow the lemming to exit. The weasel combined with a weapon pickup skill could make for a cool level. And you could throw a zombie in too.

[WillLem]

Just discovered that Worms Online Multiplayer exists! This is definitely worthy of a Forum topic, we should get some games going

Regarding the Worms-stuff-as-skills, I agree with most of what Strato has said so there's nothing much more to add regarding each individual idea. To address some of the ideas, though...

In short, I'd say it's mainly the tools that are interesting to Lemmings, more so than the weapons:

Yes, absolutely. Weapons wouldn't make sense even in multiplayer, since we still want to save as many of the opponent's lemmings as possible. The Batter is actually ideal in this context, because it can be used to sabotage an opponent's attempts to steal your lems without removing the lem from the game.

- Rope Slinger? (swing across gaps / inverted Pole Vaulter)

This would be fantastic in Lemmings. Could it be distilled to a single action, though?

For the new skills, I'm keen to align them with the maxim of requiring only a single mouse click to perform the entire skill action; it's one of the "L1 standards" that I think is a good one to stick to, and which makes some of the multiple-click L2 skills that bit more "un-Lemmings-like" and frustrating to use.

- Bungee? (one-use floater)

I'm generally not in favour of the idea of "single-use permanent skills" - it's one of the reasons SLX won't be getting the skill de-assigners.

These skills are interesting because they're permanent, and once again I have a preference for aligning with the L1 paradigm.

Also, it's that pesky thing of having two skills which do more or less the same thing again; we want to avoid this as much as possible. Whilst SLX is shaping up to be a lot like L2, I'd prefer to think of it as "L2, but with L1 characteristics" - i.e. unique skills and single-click actions, which ultimately give the game more definition and character.

- Blow Torch? (go through steel)

From your short list at the end I think I prefer the BlowTorcher that can cut through steel.

A steel-destroyer is a good idea, but why wouldn't this also go through normal terrain?

Also, when I suggested that a proposed invincible lem would have the ability to destroy steel, there was considerable pushback against this particular aspect of the idea (i.e. steel destruction), since it breaks one of the most well-established rules of the game. There would therefore have to be significant support for this idea for it to go ahead.

The weapons would be cool if we had more than just zombies.
I've thought about suggesting SLX add the weasels from Lemmings Revolutions. A weasel would be an upright walking weasel much like the lemming itself. They are placed in one location where they walk back and forth without the ability to fall off an edge. If they touch a lemming they simply cause the lemming to turn around.

This is a nice idea. Eventually, I'd like to be able to have multiple "tribes" walking around in the same level, each with their own exit. It would be great to have Lemmings and Lemminas in the same level, for example.

If I ever figure out how to do this, then we could absolutely look at adding enemies into the game, and the Revolutions weasels would be a great start.

It's a very, very big IF though, this one. I'm already beginning to spend less time on SLX in general, and this one would require a lot of very focused effort, particularly on sprite creation, which as you know takes many hours.



In short, I can't see any of this happening for SLX anytime soon, but that's not to say the ideas aren't good. Perhaps with time and a stronger player-base context, some of this could work

[Proxima]

Dynamite / Mine - You can set these somewhere and run away before they explode. Like the non-lethal Bomber in Lemmings 2.

This reminds me that I had a dynamiter as one of the skills in The Light of Horderland, a Lemmings-like game I drew on paper when I was a teenager. It worked as you'd expect: dropped the dynamite, which was non-interactable and would explode after a countdown. The idea, I suppose, was that it would be tricky for the same "horder" to take advantage of the bomb hole; you'd have to either get a second worker, or find a way to bring the first one back. Even though this didn't make your shortlist, I think it could still have puzzle potential in modern Lemmings.

[Strato Incendus]

The Batter is actually ideal in this context, because it can be used to sabotage an opponent's attempts to steal your lems without removing the lem from the game.

As far as I've understood it, that's precisely the reason why the Batter was originally added to Lix in the first place. Simon mentioned something along those lines recently.

This would be fantastic in Lemmings. Could it be distilled to a single action, though?

For the new skills, I'm keen to align them with the maxim of requiring only a single mouse click to perform the entire skill action; it's one of the "L1 standards" that I think is a good one to stick to, and which makes some of the multiple-click L2 skills that bit more "un-Lemmings-like" and frustrating to use.

Glad you like the idea!

The Pole Vaulter in Lemmings 2 is indeed a single action. It's basically to the Runner what the Shimmier is to the Jumper: It does take a running jump, during which it seems to accelerate - much like the Shimmiers in Lemmings 2 perform a Reacher motion very similar to the Jumper's arc. As far as I recall, Spearers take a bit of a running jump in Lemmings 2, as well? Either way, the Pole Vaulter seems related to all of those.

The main thing is that the Pole Vaulter becomes a lot less useful, now that we're going to have Ballooners. Because much like the Ballooner, it's main purpose is to get a lemming over non-Climber-friendly walls.

The Rope Slinger would be an inverted Pole Vaulter, in the sense that it would attach a line of pixels (the rope, rather than the pole) to the ceiling, rather than the ground - and that line of pixels would bend a little as the lemming is moving across the gap.

It would basically be a fairer version of the chain in Lemmings 2, much like updrafts are a fairer version of the infamous fan tool.

I'm generally not in favour of the idea of "single-use permanent skills" - it's one of the reasons SLX won't be getting the skill de-assigners.

Yes, I agree; we've ruled out the Kayaker and Surfer for similar reasons.

If single-use permanent skills were considered useful by a significant share of the SuperLemmix community, something like the non-permanent skills gimmick from NeoLemmix 1.43 would accomplish that same goal a lot more efficiently - rather than having to introduce a bunch of dedicated skills, any given permanent skill could be repurposed for single use. Even without any skill-deassigners in the level landscape. For example, Disarmers could only disarm a single trap before losing their ability again, which would make them less overpowered.

Whilst SLX is shaping up to be a lot like L2, I'd prefer to think of it as "L2, but with L1 characteristics"

I very much like where this is going...

A steel-destroyer is a good idea, but why wouldn't this also go through normal terrain?

To balance out its power, because otherwise, it would be a universal destructive skill that would be hard to stop.

The thing about steel is that it restricts movement differently than one-way arrows. You could create entire pathways or tunnel systems that would only be traversible by Blow Torch, whereas using one-way arrows to create the same path would result in something much more visually confusing.

Sure, you can flip that on its head by surrounding the intended path with steel walls. However, then it becomes impossible to stray from the path at all, which would make it too predictable. A Blow Torch would be fairly free to move within the confines of the steel area, so the player would still have to figure out the most efficient way through it - but without being able to rely on other destructive skills.

Basically, the Blow Torch would be the "Inverted Steel" gimmick from NeoLemmix 1.43 as a skill. With that gimmick turned on, regular terrain became steel, steel became destructible. The difference in having this as a skill is that other skills would still be stopped by steel, and would in turn still go through normal terrain.

Alternatively, if the Blow Torch has too many degrees of freedom (since in Worms, you can steer it up and down with the arrow keys), perhaps this might be a way to find some use for the L2 Flame Thrower instead, after all: He could melt some chunks of steel, but only within a fixed area of effect (much like the Bomber or Grenader).


Speaking of gimmicks:
What you said about invincible lems and what jkapp76 suggested for Weasles to me sounds a lot like what Ghosts used to be in NeoLemmix 1.43: They ignore traps / fire objects, and they turn lemmings around.
In the joke-skills thread, I once proposed a similar skill which I named "The Tank": A lemming surrounded in a silver armour that would protect it against fire and traps - but in exchange, that lemming couldn't be made a Swimmer, much like Floaters and Gliders are mutually exclusive. In other words, a Tank falling into water would always drown.

Eventually, I'd like to be able to have multiple "tribes" walking around in the same level, each with their own exit. It would be great to have Lemmings and Lemminas in the same level, for example.

Great to hear! I was always hoping for Lemmings and Lemminas to appear on the same level one day - I hadn't actually though about the parallel to Lemmings Revolution, though. Good point!