The Level Design Game: 2nd Edition!

[Nortaneous]

Not sure why you think that. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/huh.gif" alt="???" title="Huh?" class="smiley" />

How did that happen? http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/huh.gif" alt="???" title="Huh?" class="smiley" /> I meant blocker.

Try it with the attached level: make the first lemming out a blocker and let the second walk underneath it, then try to make it a blocker also. I can't get it to work in either Lemmix or Custlemm when the walker is under the blocker until it gets to the platform marked with the arrow, even though the thing at the bottom left says the cursor is pointing to the walker. It doesn't even work if I hold down the right mouse button while clicking.

A bit of experimentation gives 9 pixels as the minimum distance (move the platform above the arrow down a pixel and it should work), and splat height is 64 pixels. 64/9 is a bit over 7, so unless there's a way around the blocker thing, my solution works for a maximum of 7 lemmings. The minimum for the challenge is 10, so that won't work.

[ccexplore]

Yeah, overlapping blockers are not supported in Lemmix/DOS lemmings, it's a limitation of how the game works.  The game will not allow you to assign blocker to a lemming if the resulting field of influence would cause an overlap with an existing blocker's field of influence.

But that's not to say your level has to be totally abandoned because of this.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I see a very easy way to deal with the current problem with your level...... http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/wink.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" class="smiley" />

[Nortaneous]

This is the only way I saw to fix it, but I think it works.

[ccexplore]

Yep, that works. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/thumbsup.gif" alt=":thumbsup:" title="Thumbs Up" class="smiley" /> It mirrors my approach in avoiding floaters.

The other idea I had with making your original level work, is to move the entrance elsewhere, and add terrain to lead the lemmings to the section where you start setting blockers.  Then set it up so that there's a huge drop at the entrance, forcing you to assign floater to every lemming before they get to the section with the blockers.

I've attached my level, which happens to go in the opposite direction, with the blockers being assigned from bottom to top instead of top to bottom.

It's your turn now to either set a new challenge or to call open floor.

[Nortaneous]

Heh, I almost did that, but I ended up trying to add another element at the same time that turned out to be too complicated to be worth implementing.

Open floor.

[finlay]

Heh, I almost did that, but I ended up trying to add another element at the same time that turned out to be too complicated to be worth implementing.

Open floor.

thought i might find you on here... http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/tongue.gif" alt=":P" title="Tongue" class="smiley" />

[finlay]

Since it's open floor, how about this? (I hope it's not already been done... it's probably crap anyway)

Make a level where you have 1 of each type of skill - each must be used in reverse order, so starting with digger and ending with the climber as the last skill.

I've made a level myself but I'm not sure it's quite adequate, as I'm fairly certain you can backroute it and I think you can put climber and floater in the wrong order. But I'm tweaking it and I want to see what you can come up with more than necessarily having it completely foolproof.

The only other restriction I'm putting is that you should have to save at least 50% and have at least 10 lemmings - you will have to lose at least one with the bomber anyway. And I at least won't be making a level that relies on glitches. If you want to that's fine... i guess...

[Gronkling]

I can't really see how to make this work with floaters but I managed to make it so you have to assign a floater before a climber.

[ccexplore]

Hmm, totally forgot about this, I think I was too absorbed with Clones at the time (still is to lesser extent).

Gronkling made some good progress on the challenge http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/thumbsup.gif" alt=":thumbsup:" title="Thumbs Up" class="smiley" />, and now I think I have an idea on how to enforce bomber before floater.  Too lazy to implement it, but below is a rough description:

In Gronkling's level, you block to divert everyone in the crowd (minus the basher who's separated from the crowd long ago) into the area immediately above the exit, where someone in the crowd simply explodes.

Now imagine that it's not possible for the crowd themselves to explode to get to the exit, that instead you need to isolate yet another lemming to do the explosion.  For example, you can have 2 horizontal platforms spaced such that to break through both with one explosion, you can only do it by exploding from the bottom platform, not the top one.  This works due to the shape of the explosion crater.

So instead of blocking to divert everyone in the crowd, you let one through while blocking the rest.  The crowd ends up at the higher of the 2 horizontal platforms, so they can't explode themselves to reach the exit.  Instead, that isolated lemming will have the path to the place where the explosion works, but only after he floats through an otherwise fatally high drop.  Meanwhile, the rest of the crowd not only need the explosion from the isolated lemming, but needs it quick or else they start getting killed by a trap.  And the only way for the explosion to happen soon enough is if you assign the floater at the last few frames of the drop (so the lemming survives w/o any actual slowdowns from the floating), and have the exploder be assigned before the floater so that the countdown reaches 0 soon after the lemming landed.

Finally, the long-separated basher will simply have a path that doesn't need floating, but does include a very long walk that leads to death if you try to assign the final climber any time before near the end of the path, by which time everyone else is already done with their skills.

[Gronkling]

I thought of another way as well. It's certainly not as elegant as ccexplore's solution but it at least it works. (Hopefully)

[finlay]

Haven't yet fired up the game to try it, but how is one supposed to get past this (attached)? It's worth noting that your first version only had the smaller steel areas at the bottom and none at the top where the steel actually is. And your water areas are outside their containers by several pixels. This is where lemmix starts to look bad in my eyes for not enforcing these constraints. Also, the start screen is at x=0 rather than wherever the level actually is...

Edit: also attaching my own level, which kinda sucks really. I haven't been able to force it so that the bomber comes before the floater, or indeed after the blocker, come to think of it. In fact, I'm not sure you even need the floater. So, y'know, feel free to rip it to shreds. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/winktounge.gif" alt=";P" title="Wink-Tongue" class="smiley" />

[Gronkling]

How strange... I didn't even have any smaller steel peices in my level. The picture attached is the level with steel areas and trigger areas shown.
http://i481.photobucket.com/albums/rr179/splootle/fch.png" alt="" class="bbc_img" />

[finlay]

Hmm, yeah the water is off for me. Lemedit corrects it automatically to 8 pixel offsets or something and the game itself bugs out if they're not on these offsets.

[ccexplore]

And your water areas are outside their containers by several pixels. This is where lemmix starts to look bad in my eyes for not enforcing these constraints.

I guess it depends on whether you primarily use Lemmix or CustLemm to actually play the levels, since it's only CustLemm that is incapable of rendering objects at non-multiples-of-8 x positions (though it's still not the best idea even in Lemmix, since the trigger areas are still aligned).  Lemmix does have a "Validate Level" command in the tools menu that will catch these sorts of problems, but it's not enforced in the sense of not allowing you to save the level or similar.

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In any event, there is a minor flaw anyway in Gronkling's level that allows the bomber to be assigned before the blocker.

[Gronkling]

Removed the backroute and I found two small bits of steel right at the bottom of the level so I removed those as well.  I'll try and get the level valid soon.