NeoLemmix (Player: V1.26n-C | Editor: V1.26n-B)

[namida]

Welcome to NeoLemmix!

Latest NeoLemmix Version: 1.26n-C
Latest NeoLemmix Editor Version: 1.26n-B

NeoLemmix is an updated version of the Lemmix Player engine which fixes glitches that are carried over from DOS Lemmings, as well as adds a variety of new features and removes or reduces limitations. For the most part, compatibility with traditional DOS/Lemmings content is maintained. As of yet, not much original content has been produced for NeoLemmix but I'm hoping that'll change soon enough; the major exception being Lemmings Plus III which was designed for NeoLemmix from the beginning.

There are NeoLemmix versions available of all official games for which a Lemmix player exists (except Holiday 93, as its levels are included in Holiday 94 anyway), as well as for my own Lemmix-based packs (Lemmings Plus DOS Project, Lemmings Plus II, and Lemmings Plus II Bonus Pack). As well as using the NeoLemmix engine, the levels in these players have been tuned up to take advantage of NeoLemmix capabilities - for example, autosteel is generally used or where not practical more finely-tuned steel areas are in place, and most level sizes have been adjusted to remove excess space. Also, where applicable, the NeoLemmix players use the Amiga version levels as a base, rather than the DOS versions. Specifically, NeoLemmix players are available for the following:

• Original Lemmings
• Oh No! More Lemmings!
• Xmas Lemmings 91 & 92 (combined two-in-one player)
• Holiday Lemmings 94
• Covox Lemmings Demo
• Prima Publishing Lemmings Demo
• "Extra Levels" Lemmix Player
• Lemmings Plus DOS Project
• Lemmings Plus II
• Lemmings Plus II Bonus Pack

In addition to this, there are also NeoLemmix versions of CustLemmix and FlexiLemmix. The former is useful for playing or creating small level packs, while the latter is useful for creating entire fangames. NeoCustLemmix comes with a levelpack designed to show off the new skills; it contains tutorial levels for them (with each level using one new skill, in combination with one or more of the classic skills), as well as one puzzle level that uses most of these new skills.

An overview of some of the new or upgraded features in NeoLemmix:

• Pixel-perfect placements of objects and steel areas
• 7 new skill types
• Levels can contain an expanded number of pieces - 64 objects, 1000 terrain pieces, and 128 steel areas
• Autosteel; removing the need to manually place steel areas in levels
• Gimmicks; supports all gimmicks used in Lemmings Plus II and its bonus pack, as well as many new ones
• Secret levels
• New object types, just to give some examples there's pre-placed lemmings, pickup skills and teleporters
• Expanded palettes; a graphic set can now have up to 24 custom colors instead of only 8
• Easy oddtabling; allowing you to create repeat levels without having to make modifications to both copies of a level if issues arise

There is also an extended version of the Lemmix Editor, very creatively titled "NeoLemmix Editor". This level editor retains compatibility with traditional-format levels, but is specifically intended for use with NeoLemmix. The editor is generally kept in-line with new player releases, to support any new features that have been added. Additionally, unlike the Lemmix Editor which has remained as-is for a very long time now, the NeoLemmix Editor is being actively updated, so any identified issues can be fixed. Recently, the NeoLemmix Editor's capabilities have been expanded to also support editing SuperLemmini levels. Aside from these two, it's also compatible with DOS / traditional Lemmix and traditional Lemmini; though it is not guaranteed that support for these works 100% perfectly, or that it will permanently maintain support for them. It also supports directly integrating with NeoCustLemmix (or traditional CustLemmix) to provide a playtest mode just like the standard Lemmix Editor has, but with full support for all features in the players that were missing from the editor's playtest mode - as it directly uses the players!


Just for reference - if you're wondering "will NeoLemmix ever support (insert Lix / SuperLemmini / other engine feature here)" - your best bet, if it doesn't already support it, is to ask! Some of them I do not plan to add support for, but others I may be open to adding if there's enough interest in it. (On the other hand, if a SuperLemmini feature is not supported in the editor, then unless it was introduced in a very recent release of SuperLemmini (in which case I'm probably already working on it by the time anyone's noticed xD), let me know! The exception is the background terrain feature, which I am aware is missing from the editor - I will implement this at some point but it's not high on my priority list at the moment.)

DOWNLOADS
These are now links to the relevant folders on my DropBox. I am also no longer including all-in-one ZIPs, as DropBox directly offers an option to download all files within a folder as a ZIP - just click the "..." up the top and click "Download as ZIP".

Main NeoLemmix Downloads
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/z1h2vwtu90w8igs/AADmSvmEcoEWuo7ofBjLNvpTa/NeoLemmix" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">General NeoLemmix folder
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/87bdts83f64p1t1/AAAmGNafZCl24Fg97PVWXUjTa" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">Direct link to V1.26n-C Players folder
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/z1h2vwtu90w8igs/AABf_zXwzEll0FEzKNQ0m1_ta/NeoLemmix/NeoLemmix Editor" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">Direct link to NeoLemmix Editor folder

http://www.neolemmix.com/old/neolemmixplayers.html" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">Alternate download location (NeoLemmix website)

Style files
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/z1h2vwtu90w8igs/AABPn0ofw0-JzldxXcN5KkdWa/NeoLemmix/NeoLemmix Styles.zip" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">NeoLemmix Graphic Sets (NeoLemmix-ised versions of Orig, OhNo, Xmas, LPII and Sega styles, plus the LPIII styles)
These are the newest versions; they include the modifications for the V1.26n update.

The link for the Genesis styles has been removed; they are now included in the above download.

Other useful tools
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/z1h2vwtu90w8igs/AAAbH1W9nPy0__1VJCLj2YZCa/Tools" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">Lemmings Tools folder - Both LemMain (for making MAIN.DAT files) and LemSet (for making graphic sets) can be found here. Both of these are not NeoLemmix-exclusive, but are fully compatible with NeoLemmix and capable of using NeoLemmix features. Note that LemMain V6 or higher is required for NeoLemmix V1.15n and higher. Both of these tools are capable of both extracting existing files and compiling new ones from source files, so you can modify existing graphic sets rather than creating them from scratch.

Obsolete
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/z1h2vwtu90w8igs/AAAfDfR-LiEN-aNQ5FiSAQ7qa/NeoLemmix/NeoLemEdit" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">Direct link to NeoLemEdit folder
This is a remake (for Windows) of LemEdit with added NeoLemmix support. This has been discontinued due to interest being far stronger in NeoLemmix Editor.
QuikEdit - http://www.mediafire.com/download/nf9x7eta7l5migd/QuikEdit.zip" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">Download (MediaFire)
QuikEdit is a quickly thrown-together text-based semi-featured level editor for Lemmings. It's NOT something you want to use to create levels, but because it supports NeoLemmix's pixel-perfect steel areas, it can be useful for tweaking levels once you've designed them in a proper editor. No longer being updated due to NeoLemEdit; as of V0.51 of NeoLemEdit, QuikEdit is now completely obsolete.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/z1h2vwtu90w8igs/AAD-qRzEMl8ueugDU6PJbjqAa/NeoLemmix/LPII_Styles_NonRemastered.zip" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">Traditional-graphics Lemmings Plus II styles
These are NeoLemmixised (ie: support autosteel, and have some new objects); they are functionally (but not graphically) identical to the remastered ones up to V1.19n-B. V1.20n onwards, the non-remastered ones are no longer kept in sync; so the remastered ones must be used if you want the newer features such as one-way-down arrows.

Source Code
NeoLemmix: Available on request for V1.11n onwards* (Delphi 7)
NeoLemmix Editor: Available on request for V1.06n-A onwards (Delphi 7)
NeoLemEdit: Source code is available to download from the NeoLemEdit folder
LemMain: Source code is included in the download (QB64)
LemSet: Source code is included in the download (QB64)
QuikEdit: Source code is included in the download (QB64)

May not be available for all minor revisions (eg: V1.14n-B); I only keep one copy of the source code for each major version.

Other Editors?
NeoLemmix Editor is the only editor that is officially supported for NeoLemmix. NeoLemEdit should also be fully compatible, but cannot edit features added in V1.14n or newer, and probably will not preserve the data of these features when editing levels.
NeoLemmix is compatible with the standard Lemmings LVL format, and can even use previously-unused bytes in it to store the data on a lot of the new features. For this reason, existing editors for DOS Lemmings / Lemmix are compatible to a degree.
If you are developing an editor, or modifying an existing one, and would like to add support for NeoLemmix, I am happy to help you do so. Please first look at the documents in the "Misc Documents" subfolder of the NeoLemmix folder above; then if you need further help, feel free to PM me or ask in this topic.

I want to make a NeoLemmix-based game!
There are three ways you can go about doing this.

The first is to use the basic structure of an existing pack, and simply drop in your LVLs and use the LookForLVLFiles option. This is what many people have already been doing to create their own packs in traditional Lemmix; it works equally well for NeoLemmix. The downside is you must match the avaialble graphic sets and rank structure of an existing pack - for example, if you were to base it off Prima, you'd have to have four ranks of four levels each and be limited to the ONML styles only. Furthermore, also note that the base players may not nessecerially have full support for all features - for example, the included style files often are not patched to include the pre-placed lemmings and pickup skills that are added in the versions in NeoCustLemmix. For this reason it is recommended to use one of the other methods.

The second, which gives you a bit more flexibility (for example, you can define your own custom rank names and level counts, have a custom logo, and if you want, build it as an all-in-one EXE) is to use the Flexi Player or the Flexi Toolkit to create your pack. See the included instructions with either one to create it. Note that you need LemMain (in the Tools folder linked above) to create a MAIN.DAT for a Flexi-based pack; as of V1.25n this functionality will be in the NeoLemmix Editor instead (though you might still want LemMain to customize menu graphics / sprites).

The third, which gives the most flexibility of all, but requires a much higher level of technical capability, is to grab a copy of the source code and modify it for your own player. This is not a task that less-advanced users should try, but for those who are advanced enough, you can do virtually anything this way. The source code is for Delphi 7. I'll probably try porting it to a more-recent version eventually. I tried with both the latest version of Delphi and with Lazarus; results were not good in either case.

[namida]

Currently Known NeoLemmix Levelpacks / Fangames

DynaLem
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uaf7v0167hcigro/AAAjz-VMrvPwtk1tqHGvfMPea?dl=0" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">DynaLem's NeoLemmix Pack #1 (http://www.lemmingsforums.com/index.php?topic=911.msg23048#msg23048" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">Post)

namida
http://www.neolemmix.com/old/lpiii.zip" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">Lemmings Plus III (topic)
http://www.neolemmix.com/old/lpiiibonus.zip" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">Lemmings Plus III Bonus Pack (topic)
http://www.neolemmix.com/old/lph.zip" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">Holiday Lemmings Plus (topic)
NeoLemmix New Skills Tutorial Pack (included with NeoCustLemmix)

[EricLang]

My goal is not a database. This is just for convenient storage of different types of styles / platforms / pictures.
The goal is to create a program which has a level editor AND a playing program in one.
Including the dos clone and including one that does "perfect" mechanics.
Perfect mechanics are only really possible if the storage of levels is changed and goes beyond the dos-limitations.
BTW: the database format is a very simple one and will be well documented.

[namida]

Ah I see. That's still somewhat different - mine is basically exactly the same as the original Lemmix players (versions for Orig, OhNo and H94 - I don't see any reason to stick to H93 - as well as most likely LPDOS, LPII and (if mobius wants) RotL), with the updated mechanics. Of course, in the long run, I would be adjusting minor things elsewhere (for example, aligning all the steel properly, fixing the miner mask, etc), but at this point I'm focusing solely on problems that occur in the player itself, not as a result of the data files it loads.

I disagree about the perfect mechanics requiring new formats. A few tweaks to the LVL format is all it needs - and there's enough unused bytes in there, whether they're literally unused (like the 4th byte of steel data, which I'm using to fine-tune positions/sizes of steel areas - the result being that they can now be placed pixel perfect, and this is already implemented and tested and functioning perfectly) or just never going to be used in practice (like the high byte in the graphic set or VGASPEC) and thus can safely be reassigned to another purpose. This also simplifies the creation/conversion process - LVL files (or DATs containing them) can be used as is, and existing editors can be used for the most part with a need to use a specially-designed tool only to fine-tune the newer details. Indeed, editors that are still in active development or at least source code still exists somewhere for (traditional Lemmix editor, Lix, jLevelBuilder - pretty much every editor that supports LVL really, apart from LemEdit) could even add support for these extensions with very little work, whether as a forked version or simply an additional supported format.

I suppose the last motivation is also the fact that it gives me a base code I'm already familiar with and already have set up the way I like, for if I ever am doing new projects - LPIII if that ever happens (am I planning it? Only as far as "I probably will make it someday"), as well as Lemmix players for other people's packs (like I did / am doing for Revenge of the Lemmings - indeed, to some extent, some of the unique needs of it are what inspired me to do this. Which reminds me, I must add entrances where the lemmings face left to the list of added features - already implemented and fully working, just forgot to list it in this topic).

[namida]

Okay now I'd like to ask your guys' opinions on something. For bashers and miners, I'm going to make wrong direction one-way arrows act like steel (currently, they behave the same way they always have - the basher and miner can hit into them a tiny bit before being turned around, I want to make them entirely indestructible instead if you're not facing the right way). My question is what should be done in this regard for bombers and diggers? Should one-way only be destroyable by those if they're facing the right direction? (Or perhaps, should that be the case for diggers but not bombers - or perhaps for bombers, work on a "center outwards" kind of system, that is, it'll destroy one-way left areas to the left of the lemming and one-way right areas to the right of the lemming.) The general rule tends to be that one-way walls have no effect on these two skills, so I'm leaving it that way for now, but does anyone think this should be changed?

[ccexplore]

Did ccexplore's updates add reproduction of this bug? I think he might've mentioned it...

As far as I remember it hasn't been added.  To do so I would need to add a new type of replay record so that the glitch can be captured in replays, and I'm pretty sure I got sidetracked before ever gotten around to that.  So you shouldn't need to worry about it.

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

Off top of my head, one other thing that wasn't noted in the "glitch list" was the slight inconsistency in maximum safe falling distance between walker and non-walker lemmings such as miners, as I think you already noted in the "48 fall distance challenge" thread.  It's not exactly high-priority to fix though.

Depending on free time, I may be able to help with fixing some of the items on the list that haven't been addressed yet.

[namida]

I'm getting through this extremely rapidly - apart from the trigger areas, indestructible steel, left-facing windows, and anything already fixed in LPII, everything you see on that list that's been crossed off was done in the last few hours. Still, thanks for the offer, I might need at least a bit of pointers in the right direction for the more complex ones. Suggestions on what *should* happen are also always appreciated.

(For example - the blockers pushing climbers/bashers through walls - perhaps I should make blockers only affect walkers, fallers, floaters, builders and miners?)

The fall distance, I believe it's a matter of that walkers have already moved downwards 3 pixels before they become fallers, whereas other lemmings generally transition directly to it. Hence why the original game added 3 to their fallen distance - which would in fact imply that OhNo, not Orig, was the one with a glitchy fall distance. In this case, adding 3 to the maximum fall distance and restoring Orig's mechanic should fix the issue. (For the player for Orig, the max fall distance remains unmodified so walkers still splat at the same height they normally would in Orig - I thought this was the case for LPDOS too, but it seems that LPDOS, despite for the most part using Orig mechanics, uses the OhNo falling mechanics. I don't remember making that change, though, unless it's part of ccexplore's Lemmix modifications? EDIT: I see. OhNo and Orig are identical in this regard; only CustLemm has the higher distance.)
EDIT: Some testing would suggest that I'm right with my guess about the underlying cause... Or not, since Orig and OhNo behave the same in this regard... and this glitch is present in Orig, now that I think about it. >_> Still, all I have to do is find the exact distance between what walkers will tolerate and what others will tolerate, and change the 3 pixels to a larger amount...

Okay, the discrepancy is two pixels for a miner - this might be related to other miner positioning glitches though. I'll see what it is for a basher now... if I'm not mistaken, diggers and blockers quickly transition to walkers for one frame before becoming fallers, right (and same for shruggers if you remove whatever they're standing on)? So they shouldn't exhibit the glitch...

EDIT again: As I suspected, there's extra things at play for the miner - the discrepancy is only *one* pixel for a basher. Do you know any other cases where the glitch occurs? (Ohnoers? Though I don't think they can splat?) If it's just these two, then it shouldn't be too hard to simply chuck start their fall counters at -2 and -1 respectively... although then, that won't work because of how it works in 3-pixel units... :/ perhaps moving them down by that many pixels before transitioning them to a faller is the better option, if it doesn't look too jumpy... Actually, I can think of one more case; climbers when they hit their head. I'll have to look into that one too...

[ccexplore]

Should one-way only be destroyable by those if they're facing the right direction? (Or perhaps, should that be the case for diggers but not bombers - or perhaps for bombers, work on a "center outwards" kind of system, that is, it'll destroy one-way left areas to the left of the lemming and one-way right areas to the right of the lemming.) The general rule tends to be that one-way walls have no effect on these two skills, so I'm leaving it that way for now, but does anyone think this should be changed?

I'm personally inclined to stick with the existing rule where one-way walls only affect bashers and miners.  To me it is always about not allowing you to make tunnels going in certain directions.  I had never thought of it as being selective on which direction the lemming is facing, though I'll admit that is an interesting interpretation.

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

The fall distance, I believe it's a matter of that walkers have already moved downwards 3 pixels before they become fallers, whereas other lemmings generally transition directly to it.  Hence why the original game added 3 to their fallen distance - which would in fact imply that OhNo, not Orig, was the one with a glitchy fall distance. In this case, adding 3 to the maximum fall distance and restoring Orig's mechanic should fix the issue.

I think you are thinking of CustLemm vs Orig.  Both Orig and OhNo has the same max safe-fall distance behavior.  I guess for me, I'd like to see any downward movement during the skill transition being counted as part of the fall (so like 3 for walkers but 0 for miners, roughly speaking).  The current behavior would be more consistent with the lemming lowers himself down the cliff holding on with his hands only, and then releases hands and falls--not at all what is depicted.

Also the tracking of the fall distance is not precise in the current implementation--that's how you end up with only multiple-of-3 safe fall distances for example.

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

Blocker pushing lemmings into/through walls is a tricky one.  It's happening because the walker always moves forward before turning around, and the blocker cancels the turnaround.  So either the walker doesn't move forward before turning around, or the blocker doesn't cancel the turnaround in this case.  Haven't decided which way to go yet.

The blocker-climber interaction is definitely one of the stranger outcomes of the current implementation.  Having climbers be immuned to blockers is one option (though admittedly inconsistent), although I'm actually thinking that maybe the blocker will actually trigger the climber to transition to falling as if they bump their head--it is the only other case where the climber's facing direction changes, so arguably it is at least consistent.

[namida]

That is actually a brilliant idea of how to handle climbers meeting blockers. I hadn't thought of that.

Yes, I realised that the difference was Custlemm-only and edited my post to reflect that (I've edited it a few times, including while you were apparently writing your message). I'm not too worried about the exact details of what's happening behind the scenes, I just want it basically so that, if a walker can walk off the top step of a bridge and land safely, a miner can mine off the edge of it and land safely too, etc. Any method of implementation that acheives this end is fine by me. Hence why I'm most interested in knowing the exact details of why it happens - then I can decide for myself what I think is the best way to tackle it.

I will probably make the fall tracking pixel-precise, doesn't make sense for them to not be when the trigger areas are.


In the case of the turning around, I have coded it so (and this is part of the HandleWalking code, not the TurnAround code, so it *only* happens in the case of a walker meeting a wall or the sides of the level) that after turning around, the lemming is shifted one pixel forwards. This eliminates the backstroke basher (and somewhat the miner too; the other half, I consider to be a problem with the miner mask, not the game mechanics, and thus that'll be something to worry about when I get up to the data files - obviously, there'll be plenty of work to do there, such as fine-tuning steel areas etc).

Random fact - almost all the testing I've done so far has used Cheeky 1 as a sort of sandbox to test things in. Only things relating to elements that that level doesn't have (steel, one way, traps, etc), I generally test in other levels - Nice 2, Nice 3, Nice 7 and Nice 10 are my usual go-to's, depending on what I need. (When I was testing LPDOS's fall distance and concluded it was the same as LPII (and thus OhNo), I instinctively went to Psycho 28 because I know one of the falls is exactly one pixel too high - then realised "builders will be really useful for this" and jumped over to its easier version instead. Then for more precise testing... it was back to the actual modified version, and back to Cheeky 1. xD)



EDIT: I implemented your idea with the climbers. It actually works quite nicely.

[Proxima]

Wonderful!  http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/thumbsup.gif" alt=":thumbsup:" title="Thumbs Up" class="smiley" />  This is just what Lemmix needs, in my opinion, to make it worthwhile again as a platform for level creation -- with Lix being almost entirely glitch-free and much easier to use (as well as having a kickass multiplayer mode), Lemmix had just fallen too far behind. Now, both have advantages and disadvantages -- the advantages of Lemmix being music, the traditional intro and wrap-up screens, use of the original styles (which are available in Lix but not allowed for any levels that are to be distributed) and the absence of some fine-control features, as this encourages level design based on strategy rather than precision, while keeping the "fake difficulty" of precision available for the occasional level to add variety. (Not that I would advocate removing these features from Lix; when playing geoo's or Clam's harder levels they tend to be necessary!)

Now for some suggestions and requests.

* How about making direct drop and instant bombers available as options that can be set on a per-level basis? I wouldn't insist on removing direct drop from the game entirely when you've used it in your levels, but it being possible can be very annoying from the de-backrouting point of view.

* "Perhaps I should make blockers only affect walkers, fallers, floaters, builders and miners?" Not sure if you're aware of the history of this -- on the old forums, when ccexplore discovered that blockers turn diggers, this was considered a glitch and was one of the glitches that he referred to by level (this one was "Wild 15") to avoid revealing its nature. When the secret came out, other people (LemSteven, maybe?) said "I don't consider that a glitch", and this seemed to become the consensus. Lemmini, however, disallows it. Lix keeps it, and I've used it in one level, the Lix version of Rhapsody in Blue (it's not needed in the RotL version). It's very useful for challenges, but it is unobvious and a little counterintuitive, so I don't have strong feelings either way -- I'd marginally prefer it to be left in, but perhaps I'm biased because I'm used to it by now.

* I strongly feel bombers and diggers should affect one-way wall regardless of direction faced. That's what we're used to from original Lemmings, and it makes sense, as ccexplore said. Bombers aren't really facing any direction as they explode, and diggers "face" downwards.

* You mentioned music in connection with gimmick levels, but I'm still not entirely sure how music works in general in this version. I know that your Lemmix players for LPDOS, LPII and RotL fixed the DOS version bug where failing a level resets it to the first level's music (thank you very much for this!) but it would be good to have more control over the music.

* Could you add steel to the bubble terrain set? And perhaps some of my traps / deadly objects from Cheapo?

[mobius]

to be clear; will this effect the player *inside* the editor? So when I want to test my level quickly it'll have these changes?

I vote to let bombers and diggers remain the same as regarding 1-way-walls. I think it'll get too complicated the other way+it works well as is. In the future, with newer features there could be things like non-bomb-able but otherwise destructible terrain and etc...

I'm also for letting some things be optional; changeable in a txt file or whatever.

* Could you add steel to the bubble terrain set? And perhaps some of my traps / deadly objects from Cheapo?

this reminds me how I was doing this myself before my PC crashed months ago  http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/sad.gif" alt=":(" title="Sad" class="smiley" /> I'd really like to get back to this soon. I may in a few days/weeks. There are a bunch of graphical fixes and additions I'd like to make.
I recommend copying the steel from Pillar, that looked the nicest, unless someone feels like drawing new but the steel from pillar actually fits pretty appropriately.
I liked that bubble-blower trap from Cheapo.

http://www.rubynerd.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/thumbs-up.jpg" alt="" class="bbc_img" />

[Minim]

* Could you add steel to the bubble terrain set? And perhaps some of my traps / deadly objects from Cheapo?

I apparently have the picture of the steel pieces all bundled together in one image in case anyone's interested; not the traps though because I don't have Cheapo.

[namida]

Wonderful!  http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/thumbsup.gif" alt=":thumbsup:" title="Thumbs Up" class="smiley" />  This is just what Lemmix needs, in my opinion, to make it worthwhile again as a platform for level creation -- with Lix being almost entirely glitch-free and much easier to use (as well as having a kickass multiplayer mode), Lemmix had just fallen too far behind. Now, both have advantages and disadvantages -- the advantages of Lemmix being music, the traditional intro and wrap-up screens, use of the original styles (which are available in Lix but not allowed for any levels that are to be distributed) and the absence of some fine-control features, as this encourages level design based on strategy rather than precision, while keeping the "fake difficulty" of precision available for the occasional level to add variety. (Not that I would advocate removing these features from Lix; when playing geoo's or Clam's harder levels they tend to be necessary!)

Lemmix, no fine control features? Don't know what planet you've been living on, it seems to have the most powerful fine control of any Lemmings version I've played... or were you referring to Lix there?

I should also mention that I'm only working on the *player* side of things, although I am happy to cooperate with any level editor authors who want help with adding support for the extended LVL format. If no one does, I'll probably make a little tool to tweak the newer points, though I don't know that I have the patience to make a full-blown editor. (As far as I'm aware, I don't have the source to the Lemmix editor, only the players - otherwise I'd quickly hack up a version of that to handle edit, even though Lemmix isn't my preferred editor (but let's face it, we're not going to be able to add much features to LemEdit...))

* How about making direct drop and instant bombers available as options that can be set on a per-level basis? I wouldn't insist on removing direct drop from the game entirely when you've used it in your levels, but it being possible can be very annoying from the de-backrouting point of view.

That's a good point. Though I don't know that I'd feel comfortable enabling the sort of thing where direct drop works in one level then makes your lemmings splat in the next. I might feel more okay with allowing it to be somehow globally set for a level pack (so for a single level pack, it's a matter of all levels allow it or none do).

* "Perhaps I should make blockers only affect walkers, fallers, floaters, builders and miners?" Not sure if you're aware of the history of this -- on the old forums, when ccexplore discovered that blockers turn diggers, this was considered a glitch and was one of the glitches that he referred to by level (this one was "Wild 15") to avoid revealing its nature. When the secret came out, other people (LemSteven, maybe?) said "I don't consider that a glitch", and this seemed to become the consensus. Lemmini, however, disallows it. Lix keeps it, and I've used it in one level, the Lix version of Rhapsody in Blue (it's not needed in the RotL version). It's very useful for challenges, but it is unobvious and a little counterintuitive, so I don't have strong feelings either way -- I'd marginally prefer it to be left in, but perhaps I'm biased because I'm used to it by now.

I've already dealt with that glitch as per ccexplore's suggestion - if a climber encounters a blocker, it acts as though it hit its head and starts falling. The only other one that's really glitchy is the bashers - in this case, it really might be easiest to just prevent bashers reacting to blockers (the only other idea I can think of is making them just stop bashing if they encounter a blocker).

* I strongly feel bombers and diggers should affect one-way wall regardless of direction faced. That's what we're used to from original Lemmings, and it makes sense, as ccexplore said. Bombers aren't really facing any direction as they explode, and diggers "face" downwards.

This does seem to be the general consensus. Your idea about the diggers facing downwards just put an idea in my head though - one-way down walls, anyone? My thinking on this is destroyable by diggers or miners in either direction, but not bashers. (One-way up is obviously pointless unless we add new skills, which I'm not planning on doing, it'd essentially just be "destroyable only by bombers".)

* You mentioned music in connection with gimmick levels, but I'm still not entirely sure how music works in general in this version. I know that your Lemmix players for LPDOS, LPII and RotL fixed the DOS version bug where failing a level resets it to the first level's music (thank you very much for this!) but it would be good to have more control over the music.

Well, if I'm compiling a dedicated Lemmix player for a specific project, then music can be handled however is desired for that player. However, to simplify playing fan levels in general I'm hoping to be able to also create something along the lines of a Lemmix-based Custlemm (that loads external files). I'm aware the LemmixPlayerRemake in the source at least has elements of this, but some parts of my extra code I've only specifically written the parts for OhNo, so any player I make basically has to be based off that one rather than Remake as such. (EDIT: Or not. I tried compiling Orig in the NeoLemmix folder, and it compiled just fine, all fixes included, etc. So it would appear my fixes aren't dependant on the OhNo variant at all.)

Also, the reset music bug doesn't occur in any version of Lemmix, it was never reproduced by it.

* Could you add steel to the bubble terrain set? And perhaps some of my traps / deadly objects from Cheapo?

Modifying the existing graphic sets is outside the scope of this project at this stage, I might consider it later (to add the new object types in, and then it'll be easy enough to add other things at the same time - in the case of adding steel to the bubble set, it will mean I'll have to extend the graphic set format to support more than 64 terrain pieces, at the moment (keyword, at the moment) my priority is on functional, level-related stuff. If/when I do upgrade the graphic sets though, I'll gladly add your steel pieces to it (this is a one-off thing, apart from that I won't be modifying terrain), but I don't plan to add any objects unless they're of the new types (might fine-tune trigger areas on existing ones, though at the moment graphic sets are still limited to 4x4 resolution for defining trigger areas, it's only their position in the level that can be pixel-perfect).

Now that being said, if you're wanting make extensions yourself to any graphics set, LemSet might be of interest to you. Not the most user-friendly tool in the world, but when it's the only tool that exists for this purpose (and it's not *too* bad...)

[namida]

to be clear; will this effect the player *inside* the editor? So when I want to test my level quickly it'll have these changes?

If I can get a copy of the editor source code I will most certianly try to apply the updates to its playtest mode as well, but at the moment, it looks like it's limited to Lemmix Players. Still, you can test pretty quickly by simply saving your level as 0101.lvl, turning on LookForLvlFiles, and starting Fun 1 (or Nice 1 if you're using an LPII style).

I vote to let bombers and diggers remain the same as regarding 1-way-walls. I think it'll get too complicated the other way+it works well as is. In the future, with newer features there could be things like non-bomb-able but otherwise destructible terrain and etc...

Yeah, I'm gonna leave these as is.

[Proxima]

Lemmix, no fine control features? Don't know what planet you've been living on, it seems to have the most powerful fine control of any Lemmings version I've played...

I said it lacks some. Maybe I'm wrong about some of these, but I don't think it has zoom or slow motion or a true priority invert, and although replays come with a text version, I don't think you can just edit them and play the edited versions back as you can in Lix (and Simon considers this a legitimate tool for level-solving).