NeoLemmix version of "Copycat Lemmings"

[Essman]

We had a recent discussion about the possibility of new clones, and the general consensus was summed up nicely by an XKCD comic about standards... still, if you can see a space that no existing clone fills (nor is willing to fill) it may be worthwile. (it also has to be considered that this topic involved someone saying "hey, I have these wonderful ideas, you should all make them", not "I'm going to make this...", so there is that difference)

But whether it's on a new engine, or a currently-existing one, I'd definitely love to see more levels from you!

My goal wouldn't be to make one game to rule them all, or to even be compatible with any existing games. My career is software programming and I often work on personal projects, so I would work on something for myself and release it when it's ready. My previous project was a space invaders "clone" available on my site:
http://www.ferretfacegames.com/

Now I'm thinking of a Lemmings-like game... I'll post a link to that site in the future if something is available.

[GigaLem]

I wonder if there could be a Oh no more copycat lemmings

Well... maybe. I sure hope so. After all these years I haven't lost interest in lemmings (although I don't play much anymore, mostly read and watch videos) and I haven't lost interest in writing a new better clone game. It would take a while, but maybe.. 

Copycat versions of ONML tilesets maybe?

[namida]

Cheapo includes the ONML tilesets, but unlike the Orig ones, they're not remade, they're just copied straight from ONML. They do contain some pieces ONML doesn't though, such as 90-degree rotated versions of the straight bars in the snow tileset, and steel in the bubble tileset (well, NeoLemmix / newer versions of Lemmix include steel in the Bubble set nowadays, but vanilla ONML sure didn't).

New tilesets at the moment seem to be fairly rare... there's the odd one showing up now and then for Lix, and there's a decent chance that whenever I announce a new project, it also means a new NeoLemmix tileset or two. Traditional Lemmix, Lemmini and SuperLemmini aren't getting much at all. That being said, expect to see a LOT of the old Cheapo tilesets (and there were a LOT of these) showing up on NeoLemmix too in the near future.

[Essman]

Cheapo includes the ONML tilesets, but unlike the Orig ones, they're not remade, they're just copied straight from ONML.

I drew my own version of the original styles because I didn't know how to take screenshots of a DOS game and use the graphics in my own code. I even drew all the lemming animations myself, pixel by pixel.

[Akseli]

Started this pack last Friday, my solutions are attached to this post. Notes:

- I downloaded this game from DynaLem's post here.
- I didn't know what to expect, but yet again I played a big levelset that surprised me positively. Many nice puzzle levels, no trivial builder-heavy levels at all.
- Though at least in the last rating I pondered in almost every level if I backrouted it in some way because of saving lots of spare skills and lemmings. Otherwise difficulty curve was pretty nice through the game.
- All level titles have capitalization only in the first letter, I'd guess this is not intentional.
- The hardest level was Mayhem 25: "Opposable lemming", where I gave up too early thinking my solution lacks two builders. Like Nepster, I looked at namida's solution. Congrats namida, you beated both me and Nepster.

When was this pack released for cheapo in the first place?
Thanks for this playing experience, guys!

[namida]

About the level titles, I can say for sure there's no issues with converting them (apart from that any titles longer than 32 characters would get cut off, but there again, I think Cheapo had a shorter length limit for titles anyway). So, if they're that way in this version, they would've been like that in the original too. Now that I think about it, IIRC Cheapo displays all level titles in all-uppercase anyway, even though they're not like that in the level files, so it probably wouldn't've been noticable until now.

Mayhem 25, I can only assume that some mechanics difference between Cheapo and NeoLemmix (most likely relating to builders) makes this level much harder in NeoLemmix than it originally was. I'd try it out on genuine Copycat Lemmings if my computer didn't run it really slow... actually, I have a new PC now, I should see how it runs on that (though from what I hear, in general Cheapo / Copycat don't run well on newer PCs).

[Essman]

When was this pack released for cheapo in the first place?
Thanks for this playing experience, guys!

I created these levels in 1998 for a DOS Lemmings clone game that I made, before I wrote Cheapo. Thanks to namida for converting these levels and getting them playable again.

- Though at least in the last rating I pondered in almost every level if I backrouted it in some way because of saving lots of spare skills and lemmings. Otherwise difficulty curve was pretty nice through the game.

Backroutes are not surprising. By now people have figured out lots of tricks to backroute levels in ways that I couldn't imagine back then. As long as it's fun though.

Thanks for the comments!

[Essman]

Mayhem 25, I can only assume that some mechanics difference between Cheapo and NeoLemmix (most likely relating to builders) makes this level much harder in NeoLemmix than it originally was. I'd try it out on genuine Copycat Lemmings if my computer didn't run it really slow...

There is a difference in builder head-hitting physics. Here is an attached picture of the intended solution for Mayhem 25.
The builder was supposed to hit his head after building two steps, not one.

[kaywhyn]

I played this pack several months ago, but I unfortunately didn't have any replays, so I went back and rectified that last night and finished off the rest of the pack earlier today. So, here is my complete set of replays for Copycat Lemmings. This is for NL v1.43, and AFAIK this pack cannot be converted to New Formats for technical reasons, mostly owing to how this started off as a Cheapo pack. So, these replays probably won't be of interest to anyone but Essman, but once again I'm simply attaching my replay set just for the sake of completeness and sticking to how I plan to eventually post my replays for all level packs I play here on the forums, in addition to possibly any LPs or video solutions I upload to my Youtube. Also, I believe the fall distance before splatting is much larger than it usually is in NL? Probably that's the way it is in Cheapo, but I don't know for sure since I have never played or tried Cheapo.

Regarding my experience, besides bsmith's level pack, this is the very first time in months that I have played very old formats NL. The absence of skill shadows took me by complete surprise and so made some of the levels a bit annoying, but at the same time it's at least identical to playing the game on the other platforms/engines, since they don't have it either, so I didn't mind. Fortunately, if one wants this experience of playing without skill shadows, the v12.10 NL now has an option to disable them. Not sure if I'll disable them, though, since I'm very used to them now. The most annoying is how there's no hotkey setting to go to the last skill assignment, and so I had to make do with the 1 and 5 second rewind hotkeys.

Regarding the pack, this is a very well-done pack. Despite the clunkiness of the v1.43 NL player, I enjoyed and liked almost every level in the pack. It's very similar to Geofflems but is much easier IMO. In particular, I absolutely loved the wide variety of levels in the pack, and the solutions of the Fun levels here are interesting and not dull like many of the Fun levels of the original Lemmings. Fun 27 - I know it's around here somewhere comes to mind. As the title suggests, it's a find the hidden exit type of level, but it's very easy and there are indications on where to look. This is a level where the title gets cut off, and I think there are several others, but this is just a drawback of the v1.43 NL player. No real challenge until you get late into the Taxing and Mayhem ranks.

This time around, the pack was a much faster solve for me than I remembered despite not having any replays due to not having the setting to automatically save successful replays at the time I first played the pack months ago. Even for my second playthrough of the pack, I still agree that the hardest level of the pack is Mayhem 25 - Opposable Lemming, although this time I had a much easier time with it, probably because I pretty much still remember the solution from when I first played the level. It's still a difficult level due to the builder checks in this NL version, though.

I don't get the point of Taxing 5 - More armatage shanks, the repeat of Tricky 16 - Armatage shanks, since the solutions are exactly the same.

[namida]

Also, I believe the fall distance before splatting is much larger than it usually is in NL? Probably that's the way it is in Cheapo, but I don't know for sure since I have never played or tried Cheapo.

Indeed. Copycat / Cheapo had a fall distance of 80px rather than DOS's 64px, which is what NL's is based on (minus some inconstencies where in practice, the fall distance would depend on what the lemming was doing before it started falling).

That aside, there is also another minor difference: Lemmings will step up, rather than fall through, a "checkerboard" arrangement of solid and nonsolid pixels. This is also how Copycat / Cheapo behaved, and some levels rely on this.

[Proxima]

This is for NL v1.43, and AFAIK this pack cannot be converted to New Formats for technical reasons, mostly owing to how this started off as a Cheapo pack.

It can; it would just be a lot of work, and no-one has stepped up to do the work yet. As you noted, the fall distance is higher in Cheapo (as well as other game-mechanics differences), and older versions of NL had a "Cheapo mode" to support Cheapo physics in levels directly converted from Cheapo. Dropping the support for those physics means that every level would have to be edited by hand so it still works in NL physics (and, if possible, so that backroutes that were intentionally prevented are still impossible).

I would be quite happy to do the work myself if no-one else steps up, but it would come behind a lot of other priorities (Redux, NL conversions of the original games, my own packs, and conversions I am working on of other old content).

[kaywhyn]

Thanks for the info, namida and Proxima! Very insightful and helpful.

That aside, there is also another minor difference: Lemmings will step up, rather than fall through, a "checkerboard" arrangement of solid and nonsolid pixels. This is also how Copycat / Cheapo behaved, and some levels rely on this.

I've seen this discussed elsewhere on the forums. I think I know what is meant by "checkerboard" arrangement, but can you expand on this in regards to Lemmings mechanics? Just so I know that what I'm thinking it is is exactly what is meant by it. Yes, I know what a checkerboard looks like.

This is for NL v1.43, and AFAIK this pack cannot be converted to New Formats for technical reasons, mostly owing to how this started off as a Cheapo pack.

It can; it would just be a lot of work, and no-one has stepped up to do the work yet. As you noted, the fall distance is higher in Cheapo (as well as other game-mechanics differences), and older versions of NL had a "Cheapo mode" to support Cheapo physics in levels directly converted from Cheapo. Dropping the support for those physics means that every level would have to be edited by hand so it still works in NL physics (and, if possible, so that backroutes that were intentionally prevented are still impossible).

Yea, I had a feeling it technically is possible. I just didn't think about how it might differ from converting those packs that originally started off as a pack on this NL version but without, say, Cheapo mechanics or anything else that wouldn't be compatible with New Formats. If I'm not mistaken, those are much easier to convert. Now that you mentioned it, that makes sense that converting Copycat Lemmings would be a very laborious task, since the pack relied on Cheapo mechanics and so editing manually by hand when converting is the way to go.

I would be quite happy to do the work myself if no-one else steps up, but it would come behind a lot of other priorities (Redux, NL conversions of the original games, my own packs, and conversions I am working on of other old content).

I understand. i'm not going to do it, though, particularly since I still have not worked extensively with a level editor and have yet to get into level designing myself, which is probably very advisable before I get into stuff like converting. Regardless, I have no interest in converting any pack over. Instead, I rather play levels than design

[namida]

Dropping the support for those physics means that every level would have to be edited by hand so it still works in NL physics (and, if possible, so that backroutes that were intentionally prevented are still impossible).

Not only this, but Cheapo does not store the terrain as a list of pieces, but rather, as a bitmap. So as far as terrain goes, every level is essentially a single large terrain piece. This still doesn't make it impossible - you could use that as a starting point and work with erasers, or just remake the level altogether - but it's yet another problem to overcome.

[ericderkovits]

yes, I wanted to convert it, as I love converting but I found converting copycat lemmings too difficult to do. I think it is as Namida says the tiles are not stored as pieces so I wouldn't even know what to do. And I'm not going to spend the time redrawing the levels from scratch.

[kaywhyn]

Regardless of who does the conversion, whether it's Proxima because no one else wants to or someone else steps up to, for the time being you can simply set up v1.43 and play the pack, if you can get past minding the clunky controls of the NL player. There's definitely no hurry to bring this pack to the New Formats ASAP. It sounds like it'll definitely be done at some point in the future thanks to Proxima (depending on if no else decides to do it), whether it ends up being a really long time from now or not. Doesn't matter to me at all. I'm simply thankful that the older NL players still exist for packs like these so that they can still be played. This is a well-done and very high quality pack with so many great and awesome levels, so that was definitely what kept me going to solve all the pack. Not to mention it's my 2nd playthrough of the pack, and I definitely enjoyed the pack way more this time around. I said the same thing with Lemmicks, where the high quality levels kept me engaged with the pack, and the positives of the pack more than outweigh the clunky v1.43 controls.