glitches in other Lemmings games

[mobius]

• On Win7 I can't even get music to play at all no matter what.
• On Win7, the first time you're on the main menu right after starting the game, no text is displayed on the menu buttons.  This corrects itself after you started playing a level and then go back to the main menu.  Does not repro on XP.
• At the post-level screen where it shows you how many you need and how many you saved, the text is too dark, it's almost unreadable.

if anybody ever finds solutions to these problems please post it somewhere. I can't get any sound either and some of the animation is kinda off. I just can't play the game this way. I tried running it in compatibility mode and also tried moving this file "ir42-something" in windows folder that it mentioned on install but nothing had any effect whatsoever.


anyway I thought of a few more possible glitches I remember from when I played long ago.

-Once I had a climber get stuck for no apparent reason that I could see. I cant remember what level it was but it was climbing up a straight wall and when it reached the top instead of falling it stopped but appeared to keep climbing but he wasn't getting anywhere. I couldn't assign it any skill not even bomber. it stayed there "climbing in place" for the rest of the duration.


-This one is bizarre but more than once I've had lemmings just vanish into thin air. Levels I remember certainly are "Reduce and Simmer" and "Don't let them out". 
In the latter I think it happened at a certain spot where a lemming was bashing near the exit balloon and it just disappeared with no splat sound or graphic or anything. I couldn't investigate it because every lemming that got near that particular spot vanished. I can't remember if the ticker reported a change in the number of lemmings.

Then In "Reduce and Simmer" I had a climbing lemming reach a wall and it began to climb but stopped halfway up and appeared to "mount" the wall when it wasn't at the top then go into the terrain and vanish. It was always at a particular spot so maybe these are glitches with the levels and not in the game in general.

-I never experience the reset a bomber glitch with the teleporter. But I have experienced a situation where when an exploding lemming is right in the vicinity of the teleporter (in other words if the teleporter "beam" appears like hes going to teleport) but he instead successfully explodes the teleporter beam stays there forever and the teleporter becomes unusable /in effect breaking the teleporter. Lemmings just pass through it after that. I think the exit opposing teleporter is effected also.
I should add; I think that the bomb countdown continues while the lemming is passing through the teleporter so they can in effect explode while not visible.

-Some telelporters appear to take longer to teleport than others. I remember on some levels the teleport being instantaneous and other waiting a long time for the lemmings to come out the other side

-this might not be a glitch but if a "sped-up" lemming enters another speed up pad it reverts to normal speed but retains the speedy blur behind him

[ccexplore]

-I never experience the reset a bomber glitch with the teleporter. But I have experienced a situation where when an exploding lemming is right in the vicinity of the teleporter (in other words if the teleporter "beam" appears like hes going to teleport) but he instead successfully explodes the teleporter beam stays there forever and the teleporter becomes unusable /in effect breaking the teleporter. Lemmings just pass through it after that. I think the exit opposing teleporter is effected also.
I should add; I think that the bomb countdown continues while the lemming is passing through the teleporter so they can in effect explode while not visible.

I can confirm the beam staying lit (this happens whether you let it explode or reset it by skill assignment), and explosion while the lemming is not visible.  I'm less sure about "breaking the teleporter" though from my testing.  I did test on 8-2 ("Locked In") and find that lowering the floor all around the teleporter by even just the minimum amount that you can take out using any skill, seems sufficient for a lemming to bypass being detected by the teleporter, so it's possible that might have been what you experienced?  On the other hand, I don't think a single explosion crater would be wide enough to affect the entire length of area (both front and back!) that a teleporter can suck lemmings from, plus this effect won't affect the exit teleporter either.

As an aside, the "lower the floor a tiny bit to bypass an object" trick can work on some other objects as well. For example, if a lever switch is not resting on steel, you can simply dig down once and bash, that will lower the floor around the lever enough for you and other lemmings to walk past the lever without changing it.  Actually, even the traps in original Lemmings work somewhat similarly.

Anyway, I'm still relatively early in the game, I'll keep an eye out as I come into more levels with teleporters.

[ccexplore]

-Some telelporters appear to take longer to teleport than others. I remember on some levels the teleport being instantaneous and other waiting a long time for the lemmings to come out the other side

I suspect the teleporter speed may just be something the level designer can adjust in each level, or possibly even for each teleport.  I just played level 8-5 ("Water way to go.") and not only are the teleporters there faster than the ones I've encountered in earlier levels, but it's also the first time I hear a sound effect for the teleporter!

[ccexplore]

I see another interesting teleporter behavior worth mentioning.  It seems that once a lemming has triggered a teleporter, he must leave the area of detection of either the entering or the exiting teleport, before he can be teleported again.

What this means for example, is that if you set a blocker at the exiting point of the exiting teleport, you can trap lemmings within the detection area of the exiting teleport, and they won't be teleported back (simply walk through the teleporter with no effect) until they can leave and re-enter the detection area.  See attached screenshot if unclear.

This is also probably the basis for walking thorugh the teleporter in the "reset bomber" case.  When the lemming goes "oh no", that aborted the teleporting.  But the lemming hasn't left the detection area of the teleporter yet, so he won't re-trigger the teleporter, instead simply walking or moving past it.  If he wants to enter the teleporter again, he must have moved enough to leave and re-enter the teleporter's detection area.

[mobius]

I've decided to play the game anyway, no music be dammed!

anyway here's a few more:
-bashers: a left facing basher can get a "headstart" on his bashing by bashing close to the wall he will take away a larger than usual chunk on the first bash. (it looks like a total of 3 bashes in one bash).  Right facing bashers can never do this.

-this glitch doesn't effect gameplay as far as I know its only graphical: if two retractable walls are next to each other where one is open and the other is closed; the one will appear to pull the other out of proportion. (like rubber or something) But Lemmings will fall right through the warped door (if it is open). In other words they seem to ignore the glitch.

-I have seen but never actually experienced the fall height glitch. When I played Tanks a lot I never had a problem! and my game wasn't patched. Is it possible they fixed the glitch in later releases of the game? Because i do think i got the game a few years after it came out.

[ccexplore]

-I have seen but never actually experienced the fall height glitch. When I played Tanks a lot I never had a problem! and my game wasn't patched. Is it possible they fixed the glitch in later releases of the game? Because i do think i got the game a few years after it came out.

I don't think I've reached "Tanks a lot" yet, I'm still on column 8 (counting from left to right starting at 1).  The fall height glitch only happens with a specific height, correspoding to digging down exactly 30 times.  I tested this on two different computers, one running XP and other running Win7, with same results, so at least it's not machine specific.  The level I first tested this on was "build 'em up then bring 'em down", where I did the digging right at the edge of the first drop.

About patched versions:  it's interesting you mention it.  I actually got two copies of Revolution from two different publishers, one from GlobalStar (GS) and another from Dice Computer Games.  The GS one did come with a patch, but it has to be manually applied and isn't installed by default.  The other one doesn't have a patch.  I believe I ran a file comparison and without the patch, both publishers have identical files, so I think the unpatched version is most likely the "original".  I have been running the unpatched version so far.

The patch simply updates "Lemmings Revolution.exe" and "patch.box".  If you are using the patch version, the files have a timestamp ("date modified") of 6/26/2000.  The unpatched version has 4/14/2000.  Most of the glitches listed aren't exactly game-breaking, so I don't really expect a lot of differences between the patch and unpatch versions, but it's certainly worth testing.  I should note that the patched version didn't help with getting the game to work well in Win7, unfortunately. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/sad.gif" alt=":(" title="Sad" class="smiley" />

[ccexplore]

I have been running the unpatched version so far.

It looks like I remembered wrong.  I just happened to (re)check the timestamps of the files on the XP machine today, and apparently I have been playing with the patched version with the 6/26/2000 timestamp.

I did pick a few glitches to test between the patched and unpatched versions today.  The fall height glitch repros on "build 'em up..." in both versions, and teleporting behaviors appear the same so far in limited testing.  Yet there are definite subtle differences.  For example, when testing stuck climbers, at least on one level, I found that on the unpatched version, you don't seem to gain any height that way, only getting the rightward drift.  (Note: they can still climb through platforms that are sufficiently thin, basically thin enough that they won't hit their head, fall and turn.)  Whereas on the patched version, you gain both height as well as the rightward drift.  Given how many glitches are listed so far, it does look like I'll need to go through them all at some point on the unpatched version and see what differences I'll encounter.  I think most glitches will remain the same but there might be subtle differences here and there.

Fortunately all my recent "maximum %" records for Revolution so far remains unaffected by patched vs. unpatched.  If I have any new solutions for that challenge thread, I will make sure to test in both patched and unpatched versions to see if there are any differences.  For consistency I'll stick with using the patched version for now, until I finish the game.

[LemSteven]

If I recall correctly, there was originally a problem with Level 9-6 ("The High Dive") that made it unplayable in the original release of the game.  This may have been the primary purpose of the patch.

Anyway, to complicate matters further, my CD-ROM shows the "date modified" as 7/14/2000, which is completely different from both the versions mentioned by ccexplore.

[mobius]

The patch simply updates "Lemmings Revolution.exe" and "patch.box".  If you are using the patch version, the files have a timestamp ("date modified") of 6/26/2000.  The unpatched version has 4/14/2000.  Most of the glitches listed aren't exactly game-breaking, so I don't really expect a lot of differences between the patch and unpatch versions, but it's certainly worth testing.  I should note that the patched version didn't help with getting the game to work well in Win7, unfortunately. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/sad.gif" alt=":(" title="Sad" class="smiley" />

I lied  http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/XD.gif" alt=":XD:" title="XD" class="smiley" />. My game is patched. It's funny tho because mine says 4/4/2000  . The patch box has the same date.
on another possibly relevant note, this game uses box files which seem to be rare, perhaps that has something to do with it having difficulty working properly on different systems. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/undecided.gif" alt=":-\" title="Undecided" class="smiley" /> maybe the game uses other unusual file types.

anyway, now that I probe my memory, I seem to remember an instance on another level (not Tanksalot) that the glitch happened  http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/huh.gif" alt="???" title="Huh?" class="smiley" /> It was this level I think...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IaViCl31vs#" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">Lemmings Revolution Level 12-11 OMG
^this person also plays the glitched version of Tanks a lot. They dont say anywhere though if they played this level before or after the patch. (they applied their own patch somehow (this level comes after Tanks a lot)).

I dont know if anyone's aware but XP doesnt actually play the game 100% properly either. Originally (on Windows 2000 or 98) all the letters on the main menu were red, the letters in the level were white. Some of the sprites are also changed. The speed at which the entrance box release rate changes increased drastically.

[ccexplore]

I lied  http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/XD.gif" alt=":XD:" title="XD" class="smiley" />. My game is patched. It's funny tho because mine says 4/4/2000  . The patch box has the same date.

Given all these different timestamps I'm hearing, maybe file sizes are a better determination of which version is which?  (Well something like CRC is best for checking this, but maybe another time.)

On my CD, patch.box has size 5,233,355 bytes for the unpatched version, and 8,533,284 for the patched version.  Unfortunately filesizes are the same for "Lemmings Revolution.exe" so we'll probably need CRC with that one for comparing versions.

[LemSteven]

My version's patch.box is 8,533,284 bytes, the same as ccexplore's patched version, and both Tanks a Lot and My Finest Moment play fine (i.e. no splatting to ruin the attempt).

[mobius]

wait, how can u have a patch box if it's an "un-patched" version?  Are you saying they all contain this file "patch.box" even before the patch? http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/huh.gif" alt="???" title="Huh?" class="smiley" />

in any case mine is: 5,233,355. what you say is "un-patched". But I swear I never had a problem. But I am playing the game again so I'll wait and see when I get to these levels.

for another glitch: The steel in "The Abyss" is bomb-able. try nuking the level. You dont have any bashers, miners or diggers so you cant test it that way. (maybe that's why, they just never bothered to code the steel correctly. But then why make it steel in the first place?  http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/undecided.gif" alt=":-\" title="Undecided" class="smiley" />)

-it seems that when u assign a lemming basher, they will shift slightly to the left. (no matter what direction they're facing). I didnt test it out much yet. This explains the "headstart" glitch (or whatever u want to call it) and possibly being able to "bash" through steel. No, scratch that cause you can get through steel in either direction. anyway this could be useful I suppose.

[ccexplore]

wait, how can u have a patch box if it's an "un-patched" version?  Are you saying they all contain this file "patch.box" even before the patch? http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/huh.gif" alt="???" title="Huh?" class="smiley" />

When I said "patched"/"unpatched" it's really relative to my game CD.  On my game CD, just running setup from the CD installs the 5MB version of files, which also matches the ones on the CD itself.  In a separate directory (folder) on the CD is a patch with the 8MB version of files (and a short document explaining what to do to install the patch), which you have to manually install (pretty much you extract/copy the files over the original ones installed from the CD).

So I'm calling the 5MB version "unpatched" and the 8MB version "patched", and yes, both versions contain patch.box.  I don't know if there's yet some 3rd version out there that doesn't have patch.

=======================

this game uses box files which seem to be rare

Just wondering, have you seen other games that use box files?

[mobius]

this game uses box files which seem to be rare

Just wondering, have you seen other games that use box files?

I have not. (Before posting that^ I looked ".box" up on a file extension info site and didn't find much of insight. However just now I looked it up again on a different sight and found something which may be very interesting.
What I did find was a mention of our game and link http://www.elberethzone.net/en/dup-supportedgames.html." class="bbc_link" target="_blank">http://www.elberethzone.net/en/dup-supportedgames.html. Which is some person's site who makes a program that supposedly lets you open and hack game files. I'm probably leaping to conclusions but this may just allow you to modify the game, even make an editor! (I would myself but my knowledge of programming is extremely limited) Anyway I'm going to test this program out later.

and to get back on topic more glitches;
-you kinda of touched on this when u explained blockers I just I thought I's give a little more detail.
as to freeing a blocker: if you dig 3 digs down (4 digs is the best way btw) and bash across the blocker will stop the basher. But you can still bash your way through by "forcing the lemming" (it takes a few bashers) you'll get through but the basher will leave a tiny space of terrain where the blocker stands (thus not freeing the blocker.

-the "disappearing steps" thing I posted about;
 this only happens when you attempt to build in an area where terrain once was (in which a basher is still currently bashing through). So it could be handy for having one lemming build and be alone (the others will fall through the steps that "vanish". I don't think this happens at all with miners or diggers

[ccexplore]

(Before posting that^ I looked ".box" up on a file extension info site and didn't find much of insight. However just now I looked it up again on a different sight and found something which may be very interesting.
What I did find was a mention of our game and link http://www.elberethzone.net/en/dup-supportedgames.html." class="bbc_link" target="_blank">http://www.elberethzone.net/en/dup-supportedgames.html. Which is some person's site who makes a program that supposedly lets you open and hack game files. I'm probably leaping to conclusions but this may just allow you to modify the game, even make an editor! (I would myself but my knowledge of programming is extremely limited) Anyway I'm going to test this program out later.

Cool. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/thumbsup.gif" alt=":thumbsup:" title="Thumbs Up" class="smiley" /> Let me know if it works for you.  I'll try myself later this week.  It'll certainly be helpful I think, even if it's just a pretty small step towards a goal of game modification.