Lemmings 2 glitches

[Clam]

Similar to the Glitches in Lemmings topic, this thread is for unexpected behaviour in Lemmings 2: The Tribes, on DOS, Amiga and other platforms.


To start with, here are a couple from the DOS version that were mentioned in the other thread:

• Graphical bug where part of the closed trapdoor image appears over the open trapdoor. The cause is unknown and this has not been successfully reproduced yet, however screenshots are available http://www.lemmingsforums.com/index.php?topic=34.msg5274#msg5274" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">here.
• Invisible wall created when a blocker is counting down to exploding. Story and screenshots http://www.lemmingsforums.com/index.php?topic=34.msg5463#msg5463" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">here.

Another glitch I have noticed is that when you use a diver on an upwards slope, it gets stuck in the terrain. If you make it dive again as soon as it gets up, it moves even further into the terrain. One could argue that this is the only worthwhile use for a diver http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/winktounge.gif" alt=";P" title="Wink-Tongue" class="smiley" />

[Dullstar]

On the graphical glitch, your reproduction didn't work because it wasn't noticed right away.  Which means the game was running a while before I noticed it and paused to take the snapshot.

[Simon]

The following happens at least under the DOS version. However, it's not as spectacular as the other stuff in this thread here.

The screen does not scroll all the way to the bottom. The bottom pixel row will never scroll into view. The pixels are still there and you can walk on them or remove them. You can test this by digging down in Classic 1. This is likely caused by an unexpected height of the OSD panel, which is 41 pixels high.

-- Simon

[Clam]

Another wonderfully accidental discovery! http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/laugh.gif" alt=":D" title="Laugh" class="smiley" />

Check out these pics featuring one of the (supposedly) more useless skills in the game - the hopper.

If you tell a lemming to hop at the exact moment it turns around at a wall, it gets stuck in the wall and "climbs" up one pixel at a time (first pic). You can assign it pretty much any type of skill while it does this, unlike regular climbers or "glitch-climbing" lemmings. And it gets weirder - if the hopper encounters an obstacle on the way up, it starts hopping into the wall (second pic).


By the way, here's more on the diver glitch. It turns out that the wall doesn't have to slope at all for the diver to go in and get stuck. In addition, the lemming falls down into the ground slightly each time it dives, so with a lot of patience (and divers) you can get the lemming to fall through the floor.

[Dullstar]

What level is that?  Is it the practice level or something?

[Minim]

No, I think it's a proper level.

By the way, are the classic lemmings skill glitches been carried forward?

[GuyPerfect]

It's the Egyptian practice level.

[ccexplore]

By the way, are the classic lemmings skill glitches been carried forward?

Good question.  It can be a bit of pain to check though since Classic Tribe isn't available in Practice.

However, it's already known that at least some stuff work differently in Lemmings 2.  For example, if you make a digger dig on steel, he will actually try to dig down once (removing no terrain in the process) and then he'll stop, whereas in Lemmings 1 you won't even be able to make the skill assignment if the lemming is on steel (except in rare cases involving specific glitches).

Another thing to keep in mind is that at least on the DOS and Amiga versions, unlike Lemmings 1, you don't have the "select walker only", nor the "highlight and track a particular lemming" ability that you found in ports of Lemmings 2 like SNES.  So for example, I still haven't even been able to achieve the setup where you have a lemming start digging on steel while within a blocker field, because the game keeps prioritizing the skill assigment to the non-walker.

Finally, some Lemmings-2 specific behaviors occur even in Classic Tribe.  For example, in Lemmings 2, a walker that's stuck or near-stuck will automatically start crawling upwards.

I would guess that a few glitches will probably carry over while others won't.  It'll take a little time to find out which ones.  Once the Lemmings 2 editor is available, it would be a lot easier to test out these sorts of things. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/thumbsup.gif" alt=":thumbsup:" title="Thumbs Up" class="smiley" />

[ccexplore]

Actually, if memory serves, I think I can already safely say that the various steel destruction glitches that don't involve blocker fields, those likely won't work in Lemmings 2, or at least won't work the same way.  I seem to remember testing that out recently and find that when a lemming stands really close to steel (but isn't actually standing right on it) and starts digging, he will dig down one time (and will indeed remove one row of terrain pixels, including excluding those within the steel tile--or did I remember that part correctly?), but then he'll detect the steel and stop.  So you could say it kinda works, but definitely not like in Lemmings 1 where the lemming would've kept on digging.

[LemSteven]

As far as I know, steel is completely indestructable in Lemmings 2.  None of the steel bashing/digging glitches work; a miner will take the a swipe at it but won't remove any steel; and bombers and the like will blast away only the non-steel terrain objects.

I do know, however, that it is possible to have a basher go through the top pixel of steel and keep bashing, only he won't actually remove the steel portion.  This is actually quite useful in "Round the Blox", as it allows your final basher to reach the exit even if you started him a tad too low.

[Clam]

There was something else I observed while playing around in the Egyptian practice level. When I nuked the lemmings (remember that explosions fling lemmings around in this game), I saw some lemmings fly upwards through a solid block of terrain without breaking it. I might see if I can make it happen again and grab a pic...

[ccexplore]

Okay, I tried out a few more Lemmings 1 glitches just now on Lemmings 2, here are the results.  I also discovered a few interesting differences between Lemmings 1 and Lemmings 2.  Some behavior you can actually observe in Cheapo, which isn't entirely surprising since I think Lemmings 2 was Peter Spada's favorite game in the series.

First, let me repeat the list of glitches:

• Giant Leap - Jumper lemming climbs up through a wall after the gap it was about to jump into is closed up by a builder
• Blocker pushing lemmings through a wall
• Nuke glitch - When you nuke the level the game calculates your percentage based on the number of lemmings that have entered the level, rather than the total number in the level
• Miner falling through terrain while leaving it intact
• Climbing up when stuck inside terrain
• Miner crossing 1-pixel gaps
• Climber comes away from the wall slightly when it hits a ceiling and falls
• Blockers make steel areas destructible
• Climbers transition to walkers for one frame when the terrain they are climbing on is removed - you can then make them build in mid-air
• Right one-way walls cannot be mined
• Various steel-destruction glitches where the terrain that the lemming tries to destroy is not part of the steel area. EXAMPLE: Top 7 rows of a steel area can be bashed through - this includes the top of the level and in fact cannot be prevented by better placement in this case http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/XD.gif" alt=":XD:" title="XD" class="smiley" />

And here are the results:

• Giant Leap - no longer applicable, because it looks like jumpers no longer exist in Lemmings 2--the lemming takes a single frame to go up a traversable step no matter the step height.  On a related note, the max traversable step height is 4 pixels in Lemmings 2, not 6 (ie. a 5-pixel step is enough to cause a walker to turn around, compare with 7 in Lemmings 1).
  
  Of course, you don't really need this glitch anymore in Lemmings 2 anyway, since stuck walkers automatically crawl up.
   
• Blocker pushing lemmings through a wall - I haven't gotten this to work so far, and I'm fairly sure it doesn't work based on what I'm seeing.  Will test more thoroughly once editor is available.
  
  I also noticed two more differences with blockers: 1) With 2 blockers as close as possible, walker lemmings trapped in between do not turn left and right, but stay in the same facing direction, just like in Cheapo.  2) When you explode a blocker, the blocker no longer blocks during "oh-no-ing", just like in Cheapo.
   
• Nuke glitch - no longer applicable since game no longer deals with percentages.
   
• Miner falling through terrain while leaving it intact - this one is interesting.  The miner glitch, in terms of the positioning of the miner, still works in Lemmings 2!  However, the slight difference in walker mechanics means that when you apply it specifically for the "fall thru terrain" move using a blocker, the lemming will actually be able to walk up onto the terrain rather than falling down from it.  You could indeed make the lemming fall through if you make him explode rather than blocker, but of course that's less useful since he won't survive for long.  But at least that trick still works when you don't have blockers.
   
• Climbing up when stuck inside terrain - not yet tested, but probably no longer applicable because lemmings automatically crawl up when stuck inside terrain, whether or not they are climbers.  I don't think you can assign skills to these "crawlers" though, so it's still nice to check whether this climber glitch still works or not. Okay, I've just tested this and it doesn't work.  The climber does not crawl up like a walker would.  He would do the same climb-fall-climb-fall routine that a stuck climber would in Lemmings 1, only in Lemmings 2, the climber never moves up as a result, instead staying at the same altitude he started from.
   
• Miner crossing 1-pixel gaps - not yet tested.  1-pixel gaps may be hard to come by in Lemmings 2 anyway, now that terrain has to be aligned to tile boundaries rather than on arbitrary pixels.  Creating the setup to test this will probably require doing something annoying like stacking builders.
   
• Climber comes away from the wall slightly when it hits a ceiling and falls - yep, it still works!
   
• Blockers make steel areas destructible - no longer works.  I tested this with a setup where a walker will explode standing at the same location where a blocker is standing, on top of steel.  No steel is destroyed.
   
• Climbers transition to walkers for one frame when the terrain they are climbing on is removed - you can then make them build in mid-air - no longer works.  Looks like climbers transition to faller when that happens (but still facing the same direction he was when climbing).
   
• Right one-way walls cannot be mined - not applicable since there are no one-way-walls in Lemmings 2.
   
• Various steel-destruction glitches where the terrain that the lemming tries to destroy is not part of the steel area - I haven't tested all the possibilities, but from what I've seen so far, I believe it no longer works.  In Lemmings 2 it looks like they actually check every tile for steel before removing terrain pixels from it, unlike Lemmings 1 where it is all based on only the 1 pixel the lemming is standing on.  Just like in Cheapo.
   

[Dullstar]

There's a lose only one lemming solution for one of the Classic Levels (whichever one loses four lemmings most of the time) that uses the push lemmings into the wall with a blocker trick.

[ccexplore]

There's a lose only one lemming solution for one of the Classic Levels (whichever one loses four lemmings most of the time) that uses the push lemmings into the wall with a blocker trick.

You're thinking of Classic 7 ("So close but so far away"), and if I remember correctly, it doesn't really cause the lemmings to be pushed into the wall.  Instead it just gets the lemmings stuck between the blocker's right hand and the wall, which triggers the "crawl up when you're stuck" behavior.  If I remember correctly, this means for example, you can't put the blocker too close to the wall, otherwise the walkers actually turn around at the wall instead.  Try it out yourself and see.

Anyway, this one (particularly the push through thin wall part) is much easier to test with a custom level, so I'm probably gonna wait until the editor's available to do further testing on it.  Similarly with the direct-drop move, which you can try testing on in Classic 6, but would be much easier when you can position the exit directly above the entrance.

[Clam]

• Miner crossing 1-pixel gaps - not yet tested.  1-pixel gaps may be hard to come by in Lemmings 2 anyway, now that terrain has to be aligned to tile boundaries rather than on arbitrary pixels.  Creating the setup to test this will probably require doing something annoying like stacking builders.
   

I just noticed that scoopers can come out quite a way (maybe 4 pixels) from a wall after they finish digging through it. So I guess there's a good chance it will work with miners too (to a lesser extent of course).