Lix Community Level Set

[ccexplore]

(Is it just me, or is the fall height much lower than in previous games?)

Well...in short, yes and no. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/winktounge.gif" alt=";P" title="Wink-Tongue" class="smiley" />

The fall height should match Lemmings exactly (which is equal across many ports including PC, Mac, Amiga, SNES, Genesis etc.)

CustLemm on the PC has a slightly higher fall height (66 px vs 63 px, low-res).

Cheapo has an even higher fall height but I don't remember the exact value (somewhere over 70 px I think?).

Finally, not that it needs any reminding http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/winktounge.gif" alt=";P" title="Wink-Tongue" class="smiley" />, but remember to take into account how block heights may not be the same between Lemmings/Cheapo styles vs. geoo's Lix styles.

[Proxima]

Cheapo has an even higher fall height but I don't remember the exact value (somewhere over 70 px I think?).

I just checked, and it's 75. No wonder Lix's fall height feels low http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/sad.gif" alt=":(" title="Sad" class="smiley" /> Obviously, not the Lix designers' fault since they were making it faithful to the original Lemmings, but some of my levels (including the ones in the above post) will require a lot of tinkering.

After all that's how the so-called "flower" levels come into discussion, that we want some levels more geared towards new players.  I would make a few myself although I just feel that my limited artistic abilities makes me not an ideal contributor for that sort of levels.

My Cheapo sets contain quite a few pairs, as in the original game, using the same layout with easier and harder versions, so I will be contributing a fair number of easy levels http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/smiley.gif" alt=":)" title="Smiley" class="smiley" />

[Nortaneous]

Still working on that other idea. Could take out two of the brick guys and put in a blocker if that bit is too annoying. Still need to add decoration, title, etc. but the puzzle is done unless there are backroutes.

[Proxima]

Nortaneous: Looks good. I don't know whether my solution is a backroute, but I did have skills left over, namely

exploder, platformer and walker

Here's another pair of Cheapo remakes. Let me know if there are backroutes on the harder version.

The originally intended solution doesn't use the steel block just left of the large wall, but I found a second solution that does use that block. It's easier to execute than the intended solution, and requires fewer tricks, but it's still quite elegant and difficult and uses nearly all the skills, so at the moment I'm leaning towards leaving it in, with the originally intended solution becoming a extra challenge. Of course, there may still be a backroute I've overlooked.

[mobius]

I fixed "Elixir" so there's just 3 builders and no diggers. (when I was confused about that solution I was just being stupid http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/sad.gif" alt=":(" title="Sad" class="smiley" /> ). I'll say its final now.

and here's another.

this level has sort of a narrow time limit but its not so you have to hurry, (I didn't hurry). It's just so your forced to multitask.

unrelated but; how do you insert 'spoiler' hidden messages into here? I did this by copying and pasting some one else's message.

Also, are you guys still altering the program? If so, have you thought about being able to have a different number of lemmings come out of different entrances? I won't complain about all kinds of things I'd like to see in the game cause I know how much work it takes.

There would then be too much information that's hidden from the player and requires trial and error to discover. As a one-off, if you really have to, you can simulate it by putting multiple entrances in one place.

I don't understand how that makes a lot of hidden info. I meant how in Lemmings Revolution you can have two entrances where one has most of the lemmings come out and the other only has one or two come out. And each have their own separate release rates. It makes it easy to separate a one or few lemmings from the pack and probably has other applications as well. Of course in revolution you could tell when a entrance was done or not because it lit up.

[ccexplore]

I don't understand how that makes a lot of hidden info. I meant how in Lemmings Revolution you can have two entrances where one has most of the lemmings come out and the other only has one or two come out. And each have their own separate release rates. It makes it easy to separate a one or few lemmings from the pack and probably has other applications as well. Of course in revolution you could tell when a entrance was done or not because it lit up.

I don't think the information would be hidden per se, but as you pointed out yourself, some additional work would be needed to show for example whether an entrance still has more lemmings coming out or not.

More fundamentally, it is totally different model from how entrances work in original Lemmings (or indeed, most of the games in the series before Revolution), which is how Lix is doing entrances right now.  Before Revolution, lemmings are distributed (mostly) evenly across entrances, so that 1st one comes out of 1st entrance, 2nd one comes out of 2nd entrance, etc., and it cycles repeatedly.  There are no per-entrance settings, things like release rates are global.

With Revolution however, effectively the entrances operate completely independently of each other.  Not only can each spawn a different number of lemmings, but you can control release rates of each entrance individually.  Moreover, it is not a turn-based model where 1 lemming comes out of one entrance before a lemmings comes out of another entrance.  Instead the streams of lemmings from each entrance all start simultaneously and operate in parallel; they are basically independent of each other.

I'm not saying you can't mix and match the two models in Lix, but at the very least, it can get confusing to have something that sort of works in between the Lemmings model and the Revolution model.  We'd for example probably want a tutorial level to demonstrate or explain this.

[Proxima]

New "Elixir" solved. Nice use of the

climb-bomb trick

"Transmigration" is blank. I hope you didn't forget to save your level?

[mobius]

well that was strange... I saved the level but the text file appeared blank but it was actually filled with pages of spaces.  http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/huh.gif" alt="???" title="Huh?" class="smiley" /> My electric went out yesterday while I was on the computer so that may have something to do with it.
Anyway, I fixed it by saving under a different name.

Also that was my intended solution for Elixir.
And I solved "come on down to my place" that's a neat trick that I never saw before. I haven't solved come on down 2 yet though.

does it involve bashing out blockers?

[Proxima]

Completed "Transmigration". Excellent level. and it looks artistic as well! The in-game title contains a spelling error (G instead of S).

Which solution to "Come on down to my place" did you find? There are two,

one using the left L, one using the right L

Answer to your hidden text: yes, well, it would have to really, considering how few different skill types you get, wouldn't it? http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/wink.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" class="smiley" />

[Nortaneous]

A skill swap of Elixir, with a completely different solution: (edit: could probably work with 50 lemmings like the original; I just cranked it down to make it easier to test)

[Proxima]

Completed! A really nice sequel level and I hope both will get included, though there's one part of it I didn't get:

I built a landing platform for the crowd, then dug down towards it -- but because all the available skills were needed elsewhere, I just had to hope that all the crowd would emerge facing right. Is there a way to ensure this -- or have I got the wrong solution concept altogether?

EDIT: Ah, I see it http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/smiley.gif" alt=":)" title="Smiley" class="smiley" />

Time the digger so he breaks through while the platformer is still on screen (that you get one extra platform makes this easier) and time the platformer to explode, flinging any left-walking lemmings back to the right

[Proxima]

So, I just noticed in molasses' post above that "Transmigration" was meant to have a tight time limit to enforce multitasking. It's actually not tight enough to achieve this. I completed the level in 3:03 with multitasking, 4:04 without. (The level provides 4:30.) Neither of these is perfectly optimal, e.g. I didn't bother to assign floaters at the bottom of the drop.

Oddly, when I select the level from the menu it still says 4:16 as my time achieved, even though I've now twice done better. Why is this?

[geoo]

Which pieces? If you mean the white pillars in the top area and the piece named "pillar_top", I avoided that because it has the same width as the pillar body, and I wanted to use a wide top.

What I actually meant was that you could use the piece named pillar_top_shaded directly below the piece pillar_base (which you put at the top). I put the shaded piece in for that purpose (similarly in the sandstone set), but of course it's your choice whether you want to use it.
(I put the levels on the list already, but I can add these shaded pieces if you want; or if you still want to change something else at some point, just attach a new version of the respective level for me to update).

Oddly, when I select the level from the menu it still says 4:16 as my time achieved, even though I've now twice done better. Why is this?

What's displayed are actually the stats of the best solution, where best means fewest skills and lowest time is only the tiebreaker criterion. So probably all your solutions faster than 4:16 used strictly more skills than it.

I put Roundabout, Transmigration, Elixir and Nortaneous' variant of it on the list. Did some minor changes like fixing overlapping steel pieces, hope you don't mind. Also 50 lix instead of 10 in the sequel now, so it's consistent.
Transmigration has a ceiling route, though it's a bit tricky due to the steel piece in the middle.
Also attached my solutions for the two (unmodified) versions of Elixir, a few notes:

I used a faller instead of a climber bomb in Elixir.
For the sequel, I found a slightly different solution from Proxima that ensures no-one falls off the platform: I used the blocker at the platform, held the crowd in a digger pit, and used a bomber to turn the second climber around.
Ensuring everyone walks to the right right out of the digger pit should be possible as well by setting the correct release rate depending on the exact blocker placement.

"Four Easy Pieces", as Proxima already mentioned, still looks somewhat plain, but is a nice level apart from that. Not having anything above the underworld entrances also makes them look even more odd than they already do.

I really like Nortaneous' "bluh" level, only thing is that perhaps you could make the central section a little shorter so that the level doesn't need scrolling. And perhaps the triangular extensions at the side could be made a little wider, so you got a bit more flexibility with the cuber placement.

I also solved the ComeOnDown/Edge pairs. I actually found the second ComeOnDown level easier than the first one, two solutions of it are attached. Edge gave me a whole lot of trouble until I solved it. I also attached a previous attempt which only saves 45. Not sure about backroutes, I didn't read your solution description yet because I want to try it again in case you add a backroute fix. Really great levels, these four. Just a few remarks on Edge: The water should be moved down a little as its top parts are visible above the steel blocks, the pier the exit stands on a slight to the left as right now it looks like the lix could walk down below it, and the goldmine exit has a top piece that you could add, it's included as decoration (top right button in the editor).
btw, knowing the fall height and being able to measure them in brick/block sizes really helped me here. I guess you already found out by now, but in Lix the safe fall height is 126px (a little less than 4 32px blocks, or 8 16px bricks). A bomber takes 75 frames before exploding, which 15x5 frames. When walking, 15 frames is a little less than a 32px block, and when falling it is a little less than 4 32px blocks.

Just some notes:
When putting the levels in the list, I choose the file name to be the level name, all in lowercase, without spaces or special characters, and truncated if too long. The reason for this is so the levels appear in the level list in lix in alphabetical order (in Lix, all uppercase letters are sorted to come before the lowercase letters. Thinking of it, having each word in the level name start with a capital might have improved readability, but now I've gone with all lowercase).
I'll usually remove time limits, unless they are really important for the level, e.g. as backroute fix or if they make a notable portion of the challenge in the level (like in Just a Minute). There was some topic on the matter where Simon explained the rationale behind this.

Current list is here: http://geoo89.github.com/lixlfpack/" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">http://geoo89.github.com/lixlfpack/
Again, if you find some levels where you think the difficulty is majorly off, e.g. you feel from two levels rated the same one is significantly harder, or two similarly rated ones are of notable different difficulty, tell me. Especially for my own level it's very hard to get an estimate. We don't want to end up with with a difficulty curve like in ONML.

Whereas with most of your blocks, creating a custom block size from them is more like trying to create a custom-size steel block in the Lemmings styles.  It's not impossible per se, but certainly would take a bit of work, to the point where level designers are not likely to do it unless absolutely necessary [...]

Hahaha, you of all people have to say this. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/laugh.gif" alt=":D" title="Laugh" class="smiley" /> (Though I see you're referring to all level designers here).
That's what the busy beaver and the reference to Top Gear was intended for in my previous post, you made yourself a lot more work than necessary by not using the grid, so sure you'd also be willing to take up the work to make custom-sized blocks? http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/tongue.gif" alt=":P" title="Tongue" class="smiley" />
As for Tricky 19, my style also contains 4x8 and 8x4 blocks (low-res) like the walls in Tricky 19 are comprised of. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/tongue.gif" alt=":P" title="Tongue" class="smiley" /> Though there are easier ways to make steps of arbitrary multiples of 4 (low-res) than recreating this pattern with individual blocks...
Apart from that, you seem to be reading quite a bit into that line I wrote referencing Top Gear. Cropping the black shadows of the blocks by overlaying them with other blocks is a design choice I respect (as I demonstrated by keeping it and putting up with the chore of having to position everything precisely without a grid when I showed off the fine-grained 7x7 block grid to aid miner placement), and nowhere did I imply you should hurry updating your level. Sorry if you somehow thought I did.

Basically, the main reason I'm so reluctant adding such blocks is that it means work for me, where I don't see how the gain makes up for that, if there is any at all. In the dozens of single and multiplayer levels I've designed in Lix, I've never come across a situation where I felt "Damn, I'd really love to have a 12n x 12m block now" for some integers n and m.
Out of curiosity, next time you stumble across a situation where you just long for one, tell me. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/tongue.gif" alt=":P" title="Tongue" class="smiley" />

That said, I'll try to have the 24x12 block for Proxima and 12x12/24x24 blocks done for the next lix update. Think I have to do them manually, as it's only the concrete blocks that I did by processing the texture through eidblot.
A candy/desert style sounds interesting, best thing is chocolate pieces come in blocks! Though if I'll do something like this, it'll be at the bottom of my list, as I first want to get some objects (like some of Proxima's traps) done, extend the abstract and shadow style, then I got another pretty unique style in the workings (that even allows you to make blocks of any size you want easily http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/smiley.gif" alt=":)" title="Smiley" class="smiley" /> ), and add some minor things.

[mobius]

Completed "Transmigration". Excellent level. and it looks artistic as well! The in-game title contains a spelling error (G instead of S).

Which solution to "Come on down to my place" did you find? There are two,

one using the left L, one using the right L

Answer to your hidden text: yes, well, it would have to really, considering how few different skill types you get, wouldn't it? http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/wink.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" class="smiley" />

-That's probably because I created 'transmigration' in Lemmix and tested it the long way there and never actually did it in Lix. Is it just me or are their some minor speed differences?
Do you think a time limit forcing multi-task would make it significantly harder? If not than I'll leave it the way it is.

I got it using the left L.

Ive only played them a few times, as well as everybody eles's levels. I've been too busy.
-nice remake of my level. I didnt get to play it yet. I actually intended (or wanted) it to be a level that could be easily modified for more solutions.
-sorry that my levels don't use the new skills much, but I haven't gotten used to them yet. Just realized that platformers aren't turned around by walls. Is that the way they wanted it?
-here's another. this one I modified at the last minute to remove an alternate solution. But there still may be others. It's another one I'm still working on, maybe making sequels to or if anybody else wants to feel free. Also thought of a good level title: Lix Luthor  http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/tongue.gif" alt=":P" title="Tongue" class="smiley" />

edit- almost forgot; if I made "Four Easy Pieces" look better (actually I was thinking about changing some what drastically (to "Five easy pieces" since that is the name of the movie...) would it be a good level? if you don't want it at all that's fine.

[Proxima]

Firstly, comments on geoo's replays:

Come on down to my place: That's the correct solution using the right L.

Rumble to the bottom: First solution is intended. I may modify it to remove the other.

Close to the Edge:

Ingenious idea of making the top blocker a walker! I'd thought you would have to explode him (to reduce the fall height a little further), timing this and fiddling the release rate so that the last lemming out could be the second exploder in the wall, while all the others walk back to the left; he'd have to explode after the worker had climbed past his target spot but before the worker had done the build/bash from the top bomb hole. As this is all very fiddly, I'm very glad you found a way to circumvent it!

The 45/50 solution is actually very close to the correct western solution.

Odd Jobs: Completed. Pretty easy, actually:

I just bashed into the far left wall, then mined down.

The level looks pretty good, but you could reduce the empty space on the far right.

Transmigration: It depends.

Did you intend the worker to have to build all the way to the left wall? He doesn't. He can stop building when he's under the top holding area, and float down; to get the crowd down all facing right, dig, then switch to mining for the last stroke. The multi-tasking really isn't hard, especially with queued builders, but the tighter time limit would force the player to find this idea.

Four Easy Pieces: I think it's a good level. Pretty easy, but there's nothing wrong with that.

Yes, it says in the tutorial levels that platformers are meant to continue walking the same way if they hit terrain. This certainly makes some puzzles more interesting http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/smiley.gif" alt=":)" title="Smiley" class="smiley" />

geoo: Is "LIX" really that easy? It's intended to require the climb-bomb and steep staircase tricks, both of which may be difficult for people who haven't seen them to come up with. Although I haven't played many of the other levels, so I don't really have much of a feel for what your number system means yet.

Thanks for explaining about the level stats thing http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/smiley.gif" alt=":)" title="Smiley" class="smiley" />