Mike! I want to ask you...

[DragonsLover]

Mike, why you didn't do the multiplayer feature for the PC version? It could be so great if there's the possibility to play with fans, online.

I know that there's already Clones, but Clones isn't Lemmings! (But Clones is a good game too, and luckely, there's a multiplayer lemmings-like game online)

[Mike]

Heh....... and I always thought it was because the way you have to build all the way up the one-way wall resembled Escher's many "house of stairs" pictures.........

Could be... I think that was the picture he had... the one with the stairs going everywhere..?

[Mike]

Mike, why you didn't do the multiplayer feature for the PC version? It could be so great if there's the possibility to play with fans, online.

I know that there's already Clones, but Clones isn't Lemmings! (But Clones is a good game too, and luckely, there's a multiplayer lemmings-like game online)

LOL! You mean in my spare time!

You could do it legaly you know... All you have to do is search for a correctly installed "windows lemmings", then use the data provided there. That way if anyone wanted to play, they have to buy the original.

Then you could get an "actual" networked version of Lemmings.

Add a x2 or x3 scale... (DX will do this for you), and it'll be like old times! You'd have to work something out with the levels... but as long as you dont "supply" the graphics, you could just make new 2 player levels.

Oh...and dont charge for it

[DragonsLover]

Mike, why the song: "How much is that doggie in the window?" (Song number 11 from the Dos version of Lemmings and the 8th from Atari ST) is so different from each version? Which one is the REAL one, the BEST?

It's because I'm sequencing songs of Lemmings in MIDI from the Dos version (if you want to hear them, ask me) and I found that the song from Atari ST is better.

About the multiplayer feature, it's only on Lemmings95? Do you know if there's some players that are playing now?

[Mike]

The Amiga one was the lead version so.... I guess thats the one to copy. The other versions were converted by other musicians so...

I've never played any multiplayer other than the Amiga one...

[Timballisto]

Mike, I need you to do something-

If you could, please give me the following statistics and verify the ones filled in.

Conditions under which a lemming will change directions.
Rate at which lemmings walk
Rate at which lemmings dig
Rate at which lemmings bash
Rate at which lemmings fall
Rate at which lemmings float
Rate at which lemmings mine
Rate at which lemmings bridge
Rate at which lemmings climb
Length of all types of death animations
formula for how fast lemmings are realeased in accordance to release rate
formula for the order of trap doors lemmings come out of
span of a single bridge
tunnel shape created by miners
tunnel height bashers
tunnel width by diggers
area destroyed by a bomber
Conditions in which a lemming will pass a blocker when falling on it
Conditions in which a blocker will become a normal lemming again
height at which a lemming will fall and die-65 pixels
playing field area- 1584 x 160 pixels
anything else involving lemmings physics basically.

thanks

[Mike]

Mmmmm...

Conditions under which a lemming will change directions.
a hill of >= 5 pixels

Rate at which lemmings walk
1 pixel at a time

Rate at which lemmings dig
1 pixel every animation cycle

Rate at which lemmings bash
Depends on the animation+mask...

Rate at which lemmings fall
3 pixels I think.... cant remember this one exactly..

Rate at which lemmings float
2...?

Rate at which lemmings mine
Animation+Mask

Rate at which lemmings bridge
based on Animation

Rate at which lemmings climb
1 pixel.

Length of all types of death animations
lol... no idea... so many... just count the frames!


formula for how fast lemmings are realeased in accordance to release rate
frame rate counter I think... cant remember off hand!

formula for the order of trap doors lemmings come out of
Just loop round from the first to the last (up to 4) and start again

span of a single bridge
Cant remember... juct count from start to end of buyilding...

tunnel shape created by miners
Mask based..

tunnel height bashers
Mask based..

tunnel width by diggers
Mask based..

area destroyed by a bomber
Mask based..

Conditions in which a lemming will pass a blocker when falling on it
This was a "bug" really... based on the 4 pixel collision mask.

Conditions in which a blocker will become a normal lemming again
If the ground vanishes, be becomes a faller....

height at which a lemming will fall and die-65 pixels
Mmm.. dont know off hand.


playing field area- 1584 x 160 pixels
5 screens wide. 1600x160. Some might have been hidden as a scroll area.


anything else involving lemmings physics basically.
No idea

[Shvegait]

formula for the order of trap doors lemmings come out of
Just loop round from the first to the last (up to 4) and start again

However, if you only have three trapdoors, the order is 1, 2, 3, 2 (loop), not 1, 2, 3 (loop).

[Timballisto]

Hm. &#A0;Uh, well, when you give me a number for falling rate, for example 3 pixel, is that per second or per frame? &#A0;Also, what of the masks? &#A0;I could use those too, even if they aren't numerical. &#A0;If they aren't numeric already, then they can be translated into a numerical state (but this would be very annoying).  Also, the thing with the lemmings falling onto a blocker still doesn't make sense to me really.  How much ground needs to be gone before the blocker turns back into a lemming?  I need more numbers.

[Andi]

Should be one pixel in the air to make a blocker a faller.
And the faller: Just think. 3 pixel per second? XD of course per frame.

[guest]

Conditions in which a lemming will pass a blocker when falling on it
This was a "bug" really... based on the 4 pixel collision mask.

If that was a "bug", then what is the intended behavior?  That lemmings can walk on top of the blocker?  Would you be able to stack multiple blockers like Lemmings 3D?

[guest]

Length of all types of death animations

This seems rather pointless.  The lemming is destined for death and can't do anything or affect anyone, no matter how long it takes to die......

Incidentally, you probably know this already, but with deaths caused by triggered traps (beartrap, 10-ton, etc.), the lemming dies (meaning the number of lemmings out is updated immediately) as soon as the trap is triggered.  The "lemming" that you see in the death animation is actually just graphics included in the animation frames of the death animation.

[Shvegait]

If that was a "bug", then what is the intended behavior? &#A0;That lemmings can walk on top of the blocker? &#A0;Would you be able to stack multiple blockers like Lemmings 3D?

The bug that (I think) he is referring can be seen more clearly when the blocker is right next to a wall that should not be passable. A lemming falling on the blocker can walk past it and through the wall.

<somewhat off-topic observation>
You can do this experiment if you have access to LemEdit:
Make a simple level in the Fire graphics set using the thing bar pieces for vertical walls. Have two windows, one that would be the source of the blockers below, and one above that would be the source of lemmings falling on top of blockers.

Experimenting with different positions (to the pixel) of walls and blockers, the outcome of whether or not the lemming will be able to walk past the blocker will change. Also, sometimes the lemming will walk past the blocker and hit the wall, and sometimes it will walk past the blocker, and past the wall. (I exploit the latter trick in one of my levels.) I suppose this has something to do with the alignment of the collision masks.

Let me be clear what I mean about different positions of the walls. I'm talking about their specific X coordinates, which changes the behavior of lemmings walking past blockers. (That is, by shifting my aforementioned level by 1, 2, or 3 pixels (I'm not sure which is the number that will prevent the trick from working) either to the left or to the right, the level can be made impossible.
</somewhat off-topic observation>

About your question, I think the intended behavior would be that the lemmings would always be pushed to one side or the other when falling from a specific position. As it is now, a lemming falling from the left and a lemming falling from the right that both land near the center of a blocker will both continue on their normal ways. The desired behavior might have them always be pushed in the same direction, but personally I think the "bug" has its advantages, and it's not too unrealistic either.

A lemming facing to the right would turn to face left after falling on the blocker, not that it would be able to walk on top of the blocker itself. This is just a guess though.

[guest]

The bug that (I think) he is referring can be seen more clearly when the blocker is right next to a wall that should not be passable. A lemming falling on the blocker can walk past it and through the wall.
<snip>
About your question, I think the intended behavior would be that the lemmings would always be pushed to one side or the other when falling from a specific position.

Actually, if that was the bug, I think Cheapo's current behavior makes the most sense.   (Lemmings at the center of the blocker will walk thru it, but are still affected by any walls nearby as usual.)

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

On a side note, it's interesting that even weirder behavior occurs with Lemmings 2 when you have a setup where a lemming land at the center of a blocker and walk towards a wall nearby.  Whereas in Lemmings 1 the lemming merely gets trapped inside the wall, in Lemmings 2, anytime a lemming gets trapped like this, he will start climbing up inside the wall until he's untrapped!  (This is basically an incorrect application of the behavior where if you had a lemming fill up a deep pit with glue/filler, he will be able to climb up out of the glue/filler when done.)

[Mike]

okay..... I might miss some but here goes...

All speeds are based on frame rates. The game runs at 3-50Hz frames per game cycle. Or about  16.5-17fps.
L2 runs at the same speed... but due to the interupt driven "smooth scrolling", its not nearly as noticable.

The MASK's were graphical mask that were applied to thge background mask. The background mask is invisible, but is what the lemmings walked on. This allows you to add or remove walkable surface easily. You could also easily add invisible ground if you really wanted to.. we never did BTW. I cant give these out as its part of what makes lemmings ... "lemmings" ... as it were. And thats owned by Sony. They were just solid graphics though, so you can probably extract them from the game.

Yes... Once the lemmings hit a trap, they were killed off, and the trap animation played.

The trap door thing sounds like a bug, one we never noticed.  

Blocker collision was based at his feet. So if a Lemming fell just to the right, he'd go right etc.

What "should" have happened, is a lemming should have turned round if it hit any part of a blocker. But this didn't happen, and the implementation we used, provided better playability so...

If you dig away 1 pixel at the blockers feet, he will turn into a faller, and then become a normal lemming again. This was to stop having lemmings floating in mid-air.

L2 did have a "fix" to stop lemmings becoming stuck. The "climing" thing was by design. It was too easy to get Lemmings stuck in Lemmings #1.