Glitches in Lemmings

[ccexplore]

the spinning guinea pigs are too entertaining, I made it my avatar now. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/winktounge.gif" alt=";P" title="Wink-Tongue" class="smiley" />  at least until it becomes annoying.

[finlay]

Now to test the boundaries of the other level stats http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/laugh.gif" alt=":D" title="Laugh" class="smiley" />:

• Winlemm can handle up to 116 lemmings, the game crashes when attempting to spawn the 117th lemming.
• The game can handle any time limit you can input, up to 65535 minutes (that equates to a month and a half!)
• The game can handle any input for number and percentage to be saved. If you set more than 100% required, and save 100%, the game gives you the congratulatory message for saving every lemming, but doesn't let you advance to the next level.
• Skill counts can be set up to 65535, again the first 2 digits show.

Hmm. On the Mac (years ago when I was messing around with it), I never tested out-of-bounds release rates, but I'm fairly sure it couldn't handle double-digit time-limits. I mean I'm sure I must have tried that. I'm fairly sure I never tried setting skills above 99, though. It allows a save percentage of 200% (I have a screenshot somewhere that I made for my amusement). It doesn't crash immediately if you make a level with >80 lemmings, but will start to glitch out in weird ways upon showing the splash screen for the next level.

[mobius]

(on Winlem) sometimes when I click on a lemming to assign it a skill nothing happens. It's not often but (Murphy's law) it's usually at a crucial moment. anyone else experienced this?

also this may be cause I'm using Windows 7 but the game crashes for me sometimes for no reason at all. But usually the longer I have the game running the more likely it crashes. Also I think opening and closing levels quickly can make it crash.

I play the version of Winlem that comes with Paintball, are there other versions? are there any differences?

• One-way wall triggers are too high - yes, you can still bomb and bash under the wall on Fun 11 / Taxing 18 for example.
  

http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/shocked.gif" alt=":o" title="Shocked" class="smiley" /> how do you bash under the wall in Fun 11? (considering there's steel underneath)
EDIT- nevermind just figured it out! using a builder and bomber. wow, never thought of that.

[Proxima]

Hmm. On the Mac (years ago when I was messing around with it), I never tested out-of-bounds release rates, but I'm fairly sure it couldn't handle double-digit time-limits. I mean I'm sure I must have tried that. I'm fairly sure I never tried setting skills above 99, though. It allows a save percentage of 200% (I have a screenshot somewhere that I made for my amusement). It doesn't crash immediately if you make a level with >80 lemmings, but will start to glitch out in weird ways upon showing the splash screen for the next level.

The Mac will crash when the 121st lemming enters a level. (If you have over 100 lemmings and require only 1 to be saved, this displays as 0% required, but you still don't pass the level if you save 0 lemmings!) The splash screen glitch isn't to do with the number of lemmings; on my edited levels, if you play around 20 levels in one go it starts glitching. (First the congratulations messages disappear, though you still move on to the next level as normal; then the data in the splash screen gets replaced by odd symbols.) I think this glitching happens more rapidly if you've made more drastic changes, something like that. I have no idea what causes it.

[mobius]

[This is all Windows Lemmings]
- whenever you assign any skill of blocker through digger, the lemming shifts to the right. (no matter which direction it's going). [even more so than the shift in revolution]
This causes you to be unable to assign skills very close to the right edge of a platform. As if it's treating it as if the lemming is actually closer to the right than it looks.
this also makes it annoying to make a climber bash into a wall from the right.

-if you have the zoom higher (so the screen is larger) when you scroll it sometimes causes black lines in the graphics.

-sometimes, I haven't figured out how yet, you can get the skill buttons stuck, most notably the release rate button so that you let go but it keep go up or down.

-I think they're may be other precision/pixel glitches, as the oh no level; The End is Near is just about impossible for me. If I'm a pixel too high the lemming stops bashing, pixel too low it doesn't break through the ceiling and I can't seem to get in between.

-also just a random note; to go along with the 'way too fast on new computers' if you look at the title screen on a fast computer, the animations are going so fast they're not readable. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/laugh.gif" alt=":D" title="Laugh" class="smiley" />
though at the same time I noticed when playing a level the game slows down very easily.  http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/huh.gif" alt="???" title="Huh?" class="smiley" />

and, this isn't a glitch but you can't right click to select a non-worker lemming in this game at all because right clicking scrolls the screen (in a very not-useful and stupid way I might add)

[namida]

Floaters

• Floating lemmings can enter exits, even if there is no terrain under the exit trigger. This only works from the moment they deploy the umbrella, not in the first few pixels of a fall.
• (Glitch arguable) Floaters always survive a fall, even if they are assigned the skill near the ground and there isn't time for the umbrella to open.

For floaters, I would argue whether the first one is actually a glitch or not. Perhaps they can do it because they have control over their fall.

[Simon]

The first floater glitch is probably unintended. Early L++ had it as well without intention.

I can't guess whether the second behavior is intended, but it is the user-friendly solution. It does not open backroutes, but prevents restarting and using up skills without any effect.

-- Simon

[Luis]

I think don't the second one is a glitch at all. It just makes it so that you won't have to worry about not turning a Lemming into a floater too late, before it splats. PSP Lemmings does the same thing. They will survive a big fall, when you give them the floater at the last second, which saves time.

[ccexplore]

For floaters, I would argue whether the first one is actually a glitch or not. Perhaps they can do it because they have control over their fall.

I guess that's a plausible interpretation.  As I recall the game specifically looks for certain states to bar exiting from happening, and they check falling but not floating, which is also why it matters whether the umbrella has started deploying yet or not.  (Off top of my head I think drowning may be one of the other states they check but don't quote me on it.)  That still leaves room for other inconsistencies though, for example I'm pretty sure a falling "oh-no" lemming can actually exit, as to the game it's an "oh-noer" and basically just not a faller--the falling is just handled as part of "oh-no" state and indeed has differences like never transitioning to floater and such.

From an animations point of view though, we can at least say that exiting was depicted to be happening on ground level, given that the lemming is depicted as jumping into the exit.

==========

As for the other floater behavior, I think the main point is that the umbrella doesn't even have to begin deploying at all for survival to happen.  It would've still save the user some time but be more realistic, if splatting is tied to whether the umbrella is deployed rather than whether the lemming just merely possesses (ie. given at very last second) the floater skill.  Still, it is indeed possible that like Simon and Luis said, through playtesting they decided it's better to be more "user-friendly" and explicitly programmed the game to allow survival of last-second floaters.

[Luis]

I think it's odd, that the Lemmings can't enter the exit, without a terrain under it. Shouldn't the trigger area save them? The PSP Lemmings are able to enter the exit without floater and terrains, though. Well it's not like there's any official levels that has an exit, that is floating in the air.

[namida]

It would've still save the user some time but be more realistic, if splatting is tied to whether the umbrella is deployed rather than whether the lemming just merely possesses (ie. given at very last second) the floater skill.

I'm almost certian I recall a version of the game that worked this way (they had to fully deploy it to survive). Might've been SMS or Cheapo?

I think it's odd, that the Lemmings can't enter the exit, without a terrain under it. Shouldn't the trigger area save them? The PSP Lemmings are able to enter the exit without floater and terrains, though. Well it's not like there's any official levels that has an exit, that is floating in the air.

This one, I can say for sure Cheapo definitely works that way.

[namida]

This one is the result of a combination of a glitch AND abusing intended mechanics in unintended ways. Basically, you can create a small vertical tunnel by repeatedly alternating a miner with builders or bashers (you can also use a blocker for the last part). I wonder if this has any use in challenges?

I've attached replays demonstrating it in Orig, OhNo and LPII.
The LPII replay pretty much just shows off the trick as is with bashers, while the OhNo one does the same but with builders. The Orig replay also shows another potentially interesting use for the trick...

(Sorry if this trick's old; though I don't think I've heard it mentioned before.)

[ccexplore]

I don't remember seeing this trick used anywhere (at least on levels from the official games) http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/thumbsup.gif" alt=":thumbsup:" title="Thumbs Up" class="smiley" />, so I guess we'd have to go through the levels to figure out if this trick can be applied usefully anywhere.  Here are some general observations:

- It is likely more useful when you have a lot of miners but far fewer diggers, as otherwise you could likely just alternate dig-bash/dig-mine/dig-build instead.
- The very narrow bottom part of the pit is more interesting, but unfortunately it creates a 5-pixel-tall step (and even shorter if you have to terminate using a builder instead of the fall-through miner glitch), and you need 7 to turn the step into a proper wall.  So I think it takes a few more skills (certainly more than 1 builder) if the intent is to create a very narrow pit to trap lemmings.  Still might be useful though.
- Ignoring the bottom part and just using the whole pit, one difference between this vs a regular simple digger pit is that this pit is only 8 pixels wide,vs the regular 9 pixels from a digger.  Potentially that small difference can be useful in some circumstances?

[namida]

I was thinking it could be useful for, say, getting lemmings to a lower area then dropping the miner through (or quickly sealing the gap with a builder, which can be done with a single step, especially if the platform is thin so the wider gap near the top isn't present).

[exit]

Here's a glitch I just noticed in Lemmix (level editor, not sure about player or DOS). When a digger was digging, the whole level was being nuked, and the digger stopped digging (because he ran out of terrain), fell for a bit, and then became an ohnoer because the countdown stopped, instead of instantly blowing up. I've tried to recreate it, but nuke timing is a bit hard.