Suggestions for a new Cheapo Copycat game

[DragonsLover]

I have more ideas:

1. It could be special to put weather effects in the levels. I mean, imagine a level with rain or snow, lightnings, a sun, a moon, stars... Well, some of them could be background images or, much better, animated background images.

2. During the game, it would be very appreciated to press a key to show all the statistics of the level instead of nuke all lemmings and come back to the level statistics screen. How many lemmings I must save? How many lemmings are on the level and how many left?

3. A Clones idea, but it requires much programmation: It's to show the "ghost" lemmings for the bomber skill. This could work using the right-click on a lemming to select him to put the arrow above his head. Then, by pressing a key, a ghost lemming could appear in front of him to show the place where the lemming will explode when giving him a bomber. Also, in the editor, if you won't that the player uses this feature in a level, just turn it off for the level using an option.

What do you think about all this?

[Proxima]

2. During the game, it would be very appreciated to press a key to show all the statistics of the level instead of nuke all lemmings and come back to the level statistics screen. How many lemmings I must save? How many lemmings are on the level and how many left?

I believe this is control-V or something like that.

- - -

One small thing.

Something is wrong with the priority system. There's one situation where I have a crowd of lemmings and one of them is bashing, and I want to make the basher into a blocker. By rights if I simply click, priority should go to the basher, but at the moment it doesn't.

[guest]

3. A Clones idea, but it requires much programmation: It's to show the "ghost" lemmings for the bomber skill. This could work using the right-click on a lemming to select him to put the arrow above his head. Then, by pressing a key, a ghost lemming could appear in front of him to show the place where the lemming will explode when giving him a bomber.

I never really figured out the key presses to use this in Clones, and moreover, I am bewildered as to how that actually works in Clones.  What really confuses me is, how accurate is its prediction?  For example, say someone is bashing somewhere in front of the bomber, for whatever reasons.  Would it actually take into account the fact that the wall is slowly moving away from the bomber in predict where the bomber winds up?  You can easily imagine more complicated setups.

Basically, to do this really accurately you will need to simulate the entire gamestate forward for 5 seconds.  It can certainly be done but it does sound somewhat tricky.  And I can see a number of level designers who would not want this feature enabled on their levels anyway.

I'll leave it to Essman to decide what to make of this.  I suppose we can always go for something less accurate but still potentially useful, such as simulating that selected single lemming only, assuming no changes whatsoever to the current terrain (including bridges being built).

[guest]

I hate the way replay works in the current version of Cheapo.

Or maybe that's only because I don't know how to properly use it, in which case what I really hate would be the utter lack of help files.

Anyhow, I'd think that there's gotta be a way for you to cancel replay when you restart a level.  Although I definitely appreciate the use of replay in certain situations (having gone thru a series of tricky timed bombings come to mind), there are plenty other cases where it's simply inapproriate for the game to replay my earlier, potentially completely flawed moves.  So, how do I cancel replay (aside from having to go back to the menu to select an entirely different level and then re-select the level I want again).

And while we are on the idea of replay, I think it would be neat in the future version of Cheapo to give the player the option to save successful solutions to a level.  It would practically be just like a replay feature, except it can be recalled on demand.  The really neat thing about this is that it allows for a very easy way for people to communicate about solutions to a level--just distribute the saved-solution file and playback the stored solution!

[Shvegait]

Simply clicking anywhere in the game area will abort replay mode.

Saveable replays sounds like a very cool idea indeed! But why limit it to successful solutions?

[Proxima]

On the game Spacestation Pheta, the author of a level has the option to save his solution as part of the level data -- so the player can replay it if he gets stuck! Ideal for those levels where it's IMPOSSIBLE to explain exactly where you need to do all the fiddly bits.

[okmot]

Greetings from the CLONES developers!  Just letting you know that I've added in the concept of 'Bonus Action' items which the clones can pick up by walking into.  You guys mentioned that in this thread and i remember that from the WORMS games also so i thought i'd include it in CLONES.  I think it will make multiplayer and singleplayer much more objective oriented and will really make designing levels more fun!  In multiplayer each group might have to 'race' to see who can get the extra bazooker actions first as this would be a big advantage for sabotage.

In reply to the post about the 'Ghost clone' ("I am bewildered as to how that actually works in Clones").  The answer is 'yes' the ghost clone takes into account everything that is happening around them including other clones, landscape changes, etc. which accurately shows you where they will be if you give them an explode command.  Basically (as you said) we are advancing the entire gamestate forward by 100 game ticks for that ghosted clone.  In effect, this is like adding 100 new clones which makes it fairly computationally intensive but a very cool effect  Some clone action ghosts require an 'undo' to the landscape as well.  Level designers can decide how much 'future juice' to give on a per-level basis so that if they don't want any ghosting they can set the juice to 0.
Also, you gain 'future juice' by saving clones so the more you save the more juice you get! (this can also be turned off)

I noticed you guys were debating the best way to give priority to lemmings.  In CLONES you can select the clone via leftclick which puts an arrow over their head and then give the action later by pressing the keyboard shortcut or clicking on the action button.  The keyboard is must faster and better for levels that require quick timing.  You can also use the wheelmouse to select clones to the left/right or use the arrow keys.  In addition, all clones very close to the selected clone are alpha blended out so you can see the selected clone very clearly.  This makes it very easy to always select the clone you want!

You've also mention the concept of saving solutions.. this was a feature in CLONES since day 1  Every level you play is automatically saved to the savegame folder.  We are also working on a feature where you can load up a savegame and then resume it from any point which would allow you to see if you could have won had you tried something different!
In fact, we have recently received a number of singleplayer solutions from fans who have completed the ultrahard levels.. it was very entertaining to watch them and several levels were solved in ways in which we did not intend!  We plan to post the best solutions to ultrahard levels on the website too.

We are working on new levels and a new release with the Bonus Actions so watch for it soon!

[guest]

I thought it might be useful to have a fast forward that automatically cancels itself when there's a bridge near completion (eg. the last 3 bricks being laid).  That way, I can fast forward bridge building without having to estimate when to cancel fast forward.

Why builders?  With other skills it's less critical since:  1) you can generally tell when the skill is near completion [eg. bashers stop bashing when there's nothing more to bash];  2) with other skills you're in less danger of losing a lemming [whereas when you build you often run the risk of the lemming falling to its death if you don't give it a builder again in time]

[Proxima]

The obvious problem with that is that if you have a long solution and want to replay most of it because you got the last bit slightly wrong, you're screwed if it stops after the first builder.

[DragonsLover]

I guess fast forward mode is enough like this! Don't need to cancels with the builder.

[guest]

Yeah, let's scrap that suggestion.  In fact, what we really need I guess is savepoints/checkpoints, which is basically just saved replays except the fast forward is instantaneous and stops at a specific point.

Another suggestion:

As I played through the 120 levels converted from the first Lemmings clone, it just occurred to me how the "enhanced" input handling in the current Cheapo has made moves possible that truly weren't possible (or at least much much harder) in the original Lemmings game or the first clone.  As a result, certain levels became slightly easier after the conversion process, where in places you can substitute a straightforward maneuver using the "enhanced" input handling, instead of needing to be a little more clever about how to do it without the enhanced input handling.

I'm specifically talking about things like the arrow-clicking, which has no analog whatsoever in the original Lemmings game or the first clone.  Even the right-clicking to single out a lemming as high priority is not really something you can do in the original Lemmings game or the first clone:  it's far more powerful than the mere capability to select a walker when there's already a skilled lemming in the cursor.

Now, I know that later Lemming games, starting from The Tribes, has analogous features, and I'm not suggesting to go back to the dark ages.  However, I think in some cases it might be useful if the level designer has the option to disable the more advanced input methods, forcing the use of only the input methods available from the original Lemmings game.

This is not so different from, say, someone's request to incorporate "future Lemmings" for predicting the result of timed bombings.  That request also mentioned that the feature should be made optional so it can be disabled by the level designer on a per-level basis.  I'm suggesting here that the more "advanced" input methods be put into the same category of features that can be disabled by the level designer.  Although I anticipate most level designers will choose to leave it enabled.

[guest]

1. It could be special to put weather effects in the levels. I mean, imagine a level with rain or snow, lightnings, a sun, a moon, stars... Well, some of them could be background images or, much better, animated background images.

Actually, I guess in a way this is already possible, but requiring a bit of work.  You can always create a custom animated object in your style for the rain/snow/lightning/sun/moon/stars etc.  It will be a harmless decoration object just like the "hint arrow" objects in the default styles.

...just a very very large decoration object that happens to cover the entire level (for the weather effects anyway).

[Proxima]

One thing I'd like to see is a fixed-width window with a monospace font for entering hints and intro screens. Then I don't have to keep back-and-forthing between editor and game to check how it will appear on the real thing.

[guest]

Following DragonsLover's suggestion about snow effects and animated background objects, here's a suggestion that truly cannot be done in the current version of Cheapo:

parallax scrolling backgrounds

You know, like the ones that are a hallmark of Super Nintendo games.  Where the background scrolls at a different speed from the foreground.  You find this in the SNES version of Lemmings 2 The Tribes for example.

I don't know how easy or hard it is to do this but I'd guest that it should be reasonably doable given you have reasonably good enough graphics card (it could well be that the requirements for Cheapo to run is already sufficient).  And the program can always turn it off (that is, have the background scroll at the same rate as the foreground) if it is not supportable in certain computers.

[namida]

How about support for MP3 music? Or at least the capability of adding plugins to support other music?