Guides on designing harder levels

[Minim]

So then, while you're planning to design a bombers only level or wanting to stick with just builders, here are some tips on how to create the perfect "Mayhem" or "Sunsoft" level. This is generally based on skill facts, for example how wide does a digger dig; how big a bomber explosion is; but it can depend on other things like lemming distances.

* Lemmings can jump over a wall of 6 pixels or fewer.
* The bomber blast diameter is 21 pixels high and 16 pixels long. You can blast 8 pixels below ground, 12 pixels above ground, 8 to the right and 9 to the left.
* The right builder can stretch as far as 27 pixels long (26 per stair, as low as one can be used for the right ledge) and the left builder 26 pixels (24 per stair, as low as 2 can be used per left ledge).
* Lemmings splat at a drop of 64 pixels or more.
* Climbers can be held back by a wall after 2 stairs are built immediately at the top (This only works with left walls).

I'm only talking about Lemmix, I'm not talking about Lemmini or CustLemm here. The picture in the attachment shows what I mean by the final hint.

[namida]

Lemmix and CustLemm have the exact same mechanics (except the max fall distance, and that's only 3 pixels difference).

Anyway, most of us know these facts - it's how to use them to make good levels that's the hard part.

[Yawg]

Unfortunately, I think these numbers get abused more than they should be...I know that I have a really bad habit of coming up with levels that require pixel-perfect solutions.

Namida is right, the challenge lies in the combination of mechanics.

[namida]

And in some cases, these numbers aren't needed anyway. For example, not once does "It's Hero Time" rely on specific measurements of skills or lemming abilities, and yet, it's generally regarded as one of the best levels in the original game (I believe in the "best levels" topic, only "No Added Colours Or Lemmings" came out as higher - which, by the way, doesn't rely on such specific measurements either)

That of course doesn't mean a level that relies on these mechanics will be a bad one (I dare anyone to say "Alternative Logic" from the Lemmings Plus DOS Project isn't at least slightly cunning). It just means that levels that don't rely on them can still be excellent levels.