Possible feature: Achievements

[namida]

With regards to the 98% on Tricky 23 suggestion - this is possible on NeoLemmix after all. But only if you go by the letter, not the spirit, of the challenge. 98% on this level in traditional Lemmix is lose-1, due to the level having 80 lemmings there. The NeoLemmix version, due to being based off the Amiga version of the game, has 100 lemmings, so 98% is lose-2 - this is possible. So far, lose-1 doesn't seem to be possible on this level under NeoLemmix.

There might still be room for improvement though - using the exact solution used for 98% under traditional (if I'm remembering it correctly) only got 94%, but some tweaks to it were able to bring it up to 98%. So squeezing out an extra 1% might be doable. I'll keep trying and see what I can do.

[Proxima]

I would put the requirement for the challenge at 95% -- that shows you've found the solution and doesn't require fiddly tweaks.

95% is probably the maximum possible in Mac Lemmings, for example.

[namida]

Okay, nevermind! 99% on NeoLemmix Tricky 23 confirmed possible.

[ccexplore]

Okay good, because I was just going to say with the possible exception of one trick that only affects one lemming, I would expect the lose-1 solution should work regardless of total number of lemmings, assuming details like basher/miner masks and exact timings are the same in NeoLemmix of course.

It is true that the lose-1 solution may not be possible on Mac Lemmings, but that is actually due to subtle changes in the miner mask there (partly due to the higher resolution graphics), which as I recall may lead to requiring an additional miner stroke (when using the "lose-1" method) to contain the crowd, and thus result in a few additional losses.

[note: I don't have NeoLemmix set up so I haven't looked at the replay yet]

[namida]

There's no difference in the shape of the masks (except bomber mask, which is now symmetrical), but the placement of the miner mask slightly differs. The biggest difference is to do with lemmings hitting a wall and turning around - there's basically an extra frame in traditional mechanics, since when they turn around, they're effectively one pixel inside the wall; this doesn't happen on NeoLemmix (they'll be in the exact same spot as before, just facing the other direction, which is where they'd be one frame later under traditional mechanics). Climbers are also slightly more sensitive to overhanging terrain; I'm not sure if the difference is enough to have an effect here.

Bashers are also don't need quite as much terrain in front of them as under traditional mechanics (but the trade-off is that they check every stroke, not every two strokes), but this difference isn't significant enough to affect this solution; you can still do the dig-bash at the end and be low enough for the crowd to step up from the top of a builder's bridge.

[namida]

I'm going to start work on implementing this - hoping to have it ready by LPIV's release, even better if it can be ready before LPIV goes into testing.

I'm also going to make it more challenge-foucsed; in other words, all achievements will relate to a single level only, and will be only available when none of Challenge Mode, Timer Mode, Forced Gimmick or Forced Skillset are active (ruling out any based on use of those). (EDIT: On second thought, all of these aside from Forced Gimmick probably don't matter, as they can be limited within the challenge's criteria if need be.)

The conditions that may be attached I'm planning for so far are:
- Saving a certain minimum number of lemmings
- Completing the level in under a certain time
- Limiting the total number of skills used (ie: "solve this level with no more than 10 skills total")
- Limiting the number of specific skills used (ie: "solve this level without using more than 5 builders or more than 3 bashers")
- Solving the level while keeping the release rate within a certain range (this would obviously need to only take the release rate into account between the time the first lemming spawns and the time the last one does, particularly to allow the player to get within the needed range at the start of the level)

These can be either a standalone one (eg: "Save 100% on this level"), or multiple of these in combination (eg: "Save 95% in under 2 minutes while using no more than 10 skills total and no more than 2 builders and/or 3 bashers while having the release rate between 60 and 70 the entire time", to give a really extreme example).

Any other ideas you'd like to see implemented?


Initially, achievements will be limited to Lemmings Plus packs, with later additions to the NeoLemmix versions of the official games (to give more time for community input on what these should be, as opposed to Lemmings Plus where I'll be choosing all of them myself, though I'll give consideration to any suggestions that are made). Support for their use in custom Flexi-based packs will come last. I do not plan to support them for NeoCustLemmix level packs. In keeping with the challenge theme, I'm going to ditch the whole thing of giving them names.

EDIT: I take that back about Flexi. It'll probably be supported long before the NeoLemmix versions of official games have any achievements.

[namida]

Progress on adding this:

- A tool to edit achievement data has been made and is fully functional.
- The player is fully capable of loading achievement data from this file, and determining when a player has unlocked an achievement.
- I haven't yet made it disable achievement unlocking when forced gimmicks or LookForLVLFiles are active. Have now.
- There's currently no notification that an achievement has been unlocked. Is now; a notification replaces the "All lemmings accounted for" text on the postview screen if you got one.
- There's a glitch relating to the save file in regards to these - either loading or saving (or both) is not working properly. Thus, achievements are reset when the player is restarted. FIXED!
>>>EDIT: Confirmed it's the loading that has the issue; saving works fine.
- There's also no proper way to view the earned (and not-yet-earned) achievements yet.

(In terms of knowing that they're unlocking properly, I wrote some temporary code that dumps achievement progress data to a human-readable INI file. This is just for testing purposes; it'll be viewable in-game once this feature actually goes live.)


The so-far supported factors for unlocking achievements are all the ones mentioned in the previous post; I didn't add any others yet, but I did design it in such a way that other factors could be added later. It should be noted that (and this is intentional) that stuff that shouldn't usually be possible in the level, but is through Challenge Mode, Timer Mode or Forced Skillset, will still unlock the achievement, as will results that don't actually reach the normal save requirement. However, this can quite easily be averted by putting the standard requirements for these as part of the achievement's criteria; the achievement editor can load the "normal" stats from a LVL file, and additionally there are shortcuts of that if the save requirement or time limit for the achievement is set to zero, the level's save requirement / time limit will be used.


EDIT: So at this point, all the behind-the-scenes stuff is there, as well as a notification on the postview screen when you unlock an achievement; and all the design-side support is done too. All that's left is making a menu to display a list of achievements.

[namida]

Achievements are now fully functional. Or, "Talismans", as I actually called them (I think I mentioned earlier that I was considering this name), to keep a Lemmings theme to it.

The only thing currently missing is I haven't added any way in-game to distinguish between Bronze, Silver and Gold. That will come later; but for now, you can see the list of them, and which ones you have / haven't received. That probably will not be implemented in the first version to have these, as it'll require a MAIN.DAT modification to store the graphics of the various types.

Just for reference, the way they're saved in the save file does allow changes to be made to the talismans without players losing them, including reordering them or changing their ranking (bronze/silver/gold).



Anyway, let's get some suggestions going for the official game ones, now that we have a solid decision on how they actually work! Remember, they must relate to a single level only, and the factors may only be (but can be a combination of multiple of these options):
> Number of lemmings saved
> Time taken
> Quantity used of specific skill(s)
> Quantity used of total skills
> Keeping the release rate within a certain range

Let's avoid ones that require forced skillset to use the NeoLemmix skills; but using larger quantities of skills (or more than the usual time) is fine, since Challenge Mode / Timer Mode can be used for these. Forced gimmicks can't be used for them.


Other factors can maybe be added if there's good challenges for them.



In terms of those for Lemmings Plus and Doomsday Lemmings, feel free to give suggestions there too (note that I don't plan on adding talismans to Lemmings Plus Flashbacks) but I'll be putting less weight on community-suggested ones there than I will be for the official games. I've already come up with 23 for Lemmings Plus I, but ideally I'd like to come up with two more (so that it's a round multiple of 5, as that's how many the talisman record screen can display at once).

[namida]

I had a look back through the topic and added most of the Orig ones that are feasible under the way talismans work to the suggestions list in the first post.

- Taxing 30: with only 20 diggers (instead of the current "Falling Down" achievement suggestion)
- Mayhem 13: with only 6 skills

While these two are both completely feasible, I didn't add these two because
Taxing 30 - NeoLemmix digger mechanics are more in line with Amiga / Genesis digger mechanics than DOS ones, and as such, all versions of We All Fall Down can be completed with just two diggers.
Mayhem 13 - The normal solution to this level only uses 6 skills, doesn't it? 1 Climber, 1 Floater, 2 Builders, 2 Bashers...



I also tried most of these myself, and I must say the Mayhem 25 with 5 builders one was pretty interesting.

[Proxima]

Mayhem 13 - The normal solution to this level only uses 6 skills, doesn't it? 1 Climber, 1 Floater, 2 Builders, 2 Bashers...

This level has a very elegant and beautiful main solution, but unfortunately has lots of backroutes that are easier to find but use more skills. Requiring only 6 skills to be used (for the achievement) would help people who might otherwise never find out about the main solution to discover it.

[Nepster]

Interesting! Up to now, I thought that you need at least one additional skill to delay the athlete in the main solution...
The solution I had in mind uses 1 climber, 1 blocker, 2 builders, 1 basher and 1 miner. See replay (NeoLemmix version 1.33).
Either way, I agree with Proxima's reasons for including this achievement.

[namida]

Nope; the solution with just those skills is definitely possible in NeoLemmix. I'm also 99% sure I remember it being possible in traditional Lemmix too - although the difference in basher range means the lemming gets there quicker, the climber->faller positioning bug means he'll still land on the bridge.

Anyway, added it to the list.

[namida]

Here's a pic showing the talisman screen, with one talisman of each color unlocked (yeah, I added them already xD).

I'm considering also adding an overall score (basically, a percentage of how many talismans the player has unlocked, with some system like bronze = 2pts, silver = 3pts, gold = 5pts, and working it out as a percentage of the total points available).

EDIT: I've released an update to Lemmings Plus I with the talisman feature added. Give it a go and let me know if you think there's anything that needs improving or changing. If all seems well, I'll release the full set of V1.34n updates (though the official games will be without talismans at first; they'll be added over time; they'll be usable in Flexi right away).

One thing in particular I'd quite like feedback on is the in-game ordering of them. Currently, the game doesn't sort them in any way - it just keeps the same order they're in in the data files. However, I'm tossing up two possible options:

1) Sort by level order
2) Sort by color (bronzes first, then silvers, then golds)

[Wafflem]

This is a really excellent feature and adds a lot of challenge to the Lemmings games!

I think the sorting by color is a better idea - it keeps things tidy.

By the way, even after you release the other Lemmings Plus players with the Talismans, will you still accept more suggestions for them (as well as those of the official games)?

[namida]

For the Lemmings Plus games, they're likely to be considered finalized once they're released. The official games I could possibly be a bit more flexible on.