"Lemmings Redux": A "remake" of official games for NeoLemmix.

[bsmith]

Another idea for this pack.  Should we use the 'Author' field of the level to display which official game a level was first seen in?

[Proxima]

That's a good idea.

Sorry, I've been unwell for a few days, so I haven't gotten round to having a look at the latest version and offering my suggestions for which levels to remove. I certainly oppose removing "Fix the road, quick", which is a very nice puzzle where you have to work out the best way to keep the crowd contained with builders only. Yes, it's true that the crowd-control is made necessary by having a bit where you have to build a long bridge with the worker lemming, but in NL long bridges are just a matrer of click, ten-second skip, click, ten-second skip and so on, no problem whatever.

[bsmith]

New version of the Redux, this one is built for v1.48/10.010.010.

Updates and Changes:
The special graphic set levels use graphic set mixing now.
I removed timers from the majority of levels.
Added entries to the Author field to indicate which release each level was first seen in. 
'Just A Quicky' has been moved earlier in its rank. 
The Extra rank is still present as we still seem to still have discussions as to whether 'Fix the Road Quick' should be included. 
Finally I removed some of the obviously excessive bombers on levels, like the ones given on save 100% levels or bombers in excess of the number of lemmings that can be lost (I left X of everything levels untouched).

[Minim]

The Extra rank is still present as we still seem to still have discussions as to whether 'Fix the Road Quick' should be included. 

Well, looks like Proxima's provided a solid counterargument with 'Fix the Road, Quick' so maybe we should keep this in, even though I'm not a fan of this level myself. Out of the twelve levels in the bonus rank, I think 'Worra load of old blocks' could be brought back, even though there're hidden traps.

Some spoilery comments

The digging down the narrow wall twice concept is rather interesting and unique compared to other levels, unless I'm mistaken for another level.

[namida]

I had a look through bsmith's NXP (finally), here's my thoughts on the ordering, and the levels in "Extra":

-= Too Early =-
0126 "Across the gap"
0130 "Dolly Dimple"
0205 "The Stack"
0206 "Postcard From Lemmingland"
0309 "A Towering Problem"
0412 "Fall And No Life"
0428 "Fall And No Life (Part 2)"

-= Too Late =-
0213 "Going Their Seperate Ways"
0221 "The Crankshaft"
0223 "Pop Your Top"
0229 "Cascade"
0303 "The Needs Of The Many"
0308 "Don't Leave Any Lemmings"
0312 "The Bridge Is Breaking Down"
0317 "Mr Lemmy Lives Next Door"
0321 "Four Play"
0327 "Last Lemming To Lemmingcentral"
0404 "The Far Side" - Would suit position if time limit was restored, I think, but I am not in favor of restoring it (I am definitely in favor of keeping this level though)
0430 "POOR WEE CREATURES"
0504 "Poles Apart"
0508 "Down, Along, Up. In That Order"
0528 "Triple Trouble" - HOW IS THIS IN THE LAST 3?! (I do agree with including it in general, but nowhere near this late in the pack)
0529 "Save Me" - The difficulty from this one comes from the precise assignments near the end, which are no longer as difficult under NeoLemmix

-= Unknown =-
0313 "Let's Go Camping" - I only know the backroute solution

-= Extra =-
0601 "Tribute to M C Escher" - No preference either way.
0602 "2 minutes to midnight" - Slightly in favor of including.
0603 "Jacklemmings" - Not in favor of including.
0604 "It's a tight fit" - Not in favor of including.
0605 "Just A Minute Part 3" - No preference either way.
0606 "Higgedly Piggedly" - No preference either way.
0607 "The Gate Trap Lemmings" - Slightly in favor of including.
0608 "Looks a bit nippy out there" - Not in favor of including.
0609 "With A Twist Of Lemming Please" - Strongly in favor of including.
0610 "Quote: That's A Good Level" - Slightly in favor of including.
0611 "Dolly Dimple?" - Not in favor of including.
0612 "Worra lorra old blocks" - No preference either way.

[Proxima]

Sorry for taking so long to get round to this. I've had a look through the pack now, and I think as regards selection, the current "main 150" is a very solid selection and there's only one more change I would suggest making: Havoc 3 "It's the price you have to pay" should be dropped and either Mayhem 21 "With a twist of lemming, please" or Crazy 15 "Worra load of old blocks" re-included.

Reasons for this change:
* Minim was the original proponent of including Havoc 3. On page 12 of this topic he says this was "only in case of emergency", i.e. it could easily be scrapped in favour of a different level.
* Havoc 3 is not a very well-designed level, with too many alternative solutions / backroutes.
* Pro Crazy 15: The main solution is interesting (as Minim noted above; Flopsy also noted this much earlier in the thread). The main thing against is the hidden traps (however, you discover them very early in playing the level). There are alternative solutions, but they are harder than the main solution, so not really backroutes.
* Pro Mayhem 21: namida is in favour. The solution is interesting, and the annoyance of selecting a right-facing basher is fixed in NeoLemmix. The main thing against is the annoyance of assigning 50 floaters. In NeoLemmix we could change it to a floater-spawning hatch (though maybe this is a bit "off" as it introduces a new mechanic for a single level).
* As an alternative, I've suggested using the SMS level with the same terrain as Mayhem 21. This has an interesting solution that requires building a landing platform instead of assigning 50 floaters. There hasn't yet been any discussion of this proposal, so no points have been raised against.

Regarding namida's comments on the other "Extra" levels: fair enough, some of them are somewhat interesting, but re-including any of these levels means dropping one of the current main 150. Except for Havoc 3, I would rather keep all the current main 150 in preference to any of the Extras.

* * *

Now onto ordering. A quick look through the pack suggests that Rank 1 is fairly solid, but the other ranks have many cases where I disagree with the ordering. I think the best thing to do is to make final decisions on selection and Rank 1 ordering, then look in detail at which levels should move up or down a rank, then work on the ordering within each rank.

So for now I'll only comment on Rank 1. Only two levels here felt out of place -- the same two namida highlighted, "Across the Gap" and "Dolly Dimple". These are not Rank 1 levels.

Moving them up means two levels have to move down. I would have suggested "The Stack", but I see namida disagrees. Instead, I will propose "It's lemmingentry, Watson" and "Going Their Separate Ways" -- the latter is a memorable level that would be suitable for being the last of a rank.

[namida]

The main thing against is the annoyance of assigning 50 floaters. In NeoLemmix we could change it to a floater-spawning hatch (though maybe this is a bit "off" as it introduces a new mechanic for a single level).

Alternatively, we could reduce the level to 10 or 20 lemmings.

So for now I'll only comment on Rank 1. Only two levels here felt out of place -- the same two namida highlighted, "Across the Gap" and "Dolly Dimple". These are not Rank 1 levels.

Moving them up means two levels have to move down. I would have suggested "The Stack", but I see namida disagrees. Instead, I will propose "It's lemmingentry, Watson" and "Going Their Separate Ways" -- the latter is a memorable level that would be suitable for being the last of a rank.

Going Their Seperate Ways sounds like a good choice, especially if used as the rank-ender. Perhaps Cascade is another good one to put into late Rank 1?



Another level that IIRC was left out but I would like to see included is "The Steel Mines Of Kessel". The biggest reason for this - it provides a GREAT opportunity to add a talisman challenge; specifically completing the level without blockers. (At one point this level didn't have blockers in the NL conversion of Orig, but I readded them after realising how much harder it made the level - it was definitely still possible though.)

[bsmith]

I was thinking of removing "Let's go camping" due to its backroute, but I have figured out a way to remove the backroute with a small terrain change and removing the digger.  I think "The gate trap Lemmings" is a good level, but as stated earlier what do we remove if we want to keep the pack to 150 levels.

"You Live and Lem" is in the pack currently, which is the easy version of "The Steel Mines of Kessel".  I have in my notes levels I want to include talismans for and this is one of them.  Alternately, "Don't leave any Lemmings" is in the pack and has the builder/blocker/bomber theme that Kessel uses. I think Kessel is more interesting and if we include a talisman for Live and Lem then Don't Leave could be removed.

[Proxima]

I looked back through the earlier discussion, and it turns out, we did discuss Havoc 3, and namida proposed a way to de-backroute it, namely reducing builders to 1. So I'm not entirely against including this level any more.

Well, we have a number of levels that are on the fringe of inclusion/removal, but we have to make a decision, so maybe we should regard everything except Havoc 3 as fixed, and have a poll between Havoc 3 and the suggested alternatives (Crazy 15, Mayhem 21, SMS version of Mayhem 21) and then a separate poll for Don't leave any Lemmings vs Kessel?

* * *

EDIT: I just had another look, and there's another level I think should be removed: Wicked 7 "Last Lemming to Lemmingcentral". This becomes trivial with instant bombers (because you can bomb in the first five seconds from leaving the hatch).

* * *

I don't think Cascade should be down-ranked. In earlier discussion, Nepster agreed with this and said it was, in his opinion, the hardest Tricky level.

Another candidate for the second level to down-rank would be "Pillar talking".

[Proxima]

Sorry, I just spotted another problematic level:

In 'Lemmintaschen?' (currently rank 4 level 2) it is possible to bash between two of the steel blocks.  Is this a backroute due to Neolemmix steel?  I think I remember in the DOS version that the steel area covered the snow between the visible portions of the steel pates.

If it shouldn't be possible, place extra steel between them. Make sure it isn't possible on DOS first (or that it doesn't significantly affect the level's solution).

With that being said, let's leave level modifications until we're more or less settled on a level list.

Yes, on this level (picture here) it's possible to build to the long horizontal bar, then bash all the way across. That said, other solutions (the one pictured, or build up and bash the top bar) are just about as easy. Either down-rank this level to Rank 1, or remove it entirely.

[Ron_Stard]

It seems that the levels I adapted from ZX Spectrum and NES (currently located at Fun 22 [A Spot Of Bother], Tricky 28 [Speed Trap] and Havoc 24 [Hello John Got A New Lemming]) have a small preview screen than the rest of the levels in this Redux pack. I suppose that happens because they were built with the 1.43 editor, right? Should I rebuild/save as with a current NeoLemmix editor, or there is another explanation?

[bsmith]

Opening your ZX remakes in the editor shows the levels use the original size of 1584x160.  Most of the levels in the redux pack were taken from namida's versions of the classic lemmings packs in which he has cropped out the unused space.  I have added cropping these levels to my to-do list for the next build of the redux pack.  If you do compile all your ZX remakes into a single pack you may want to crop all your levels at that time.

[namida]

It seems that the levels I adapted from ZX Spectrum and NES (currently located at Fun 22 [A Spot Of Bother], Tricky 28 [Speed Trap] and Havoc 24 [Hello John Got A New Lemming]) have a small preview screen than the rest of the levels in this Redux pack. I suppose that happens because they were built with the 1.43 editor, right? Should I rebuild/save as with a current NeoLemmix editor, or there is another explanation?

bsmith pretty much got it. If you change the level size (in the editor's Level Properties method), so that there's no excess space, it'll work better. This was possible already in the V1.43 editor (though upgrading is highly recommended).

[Ron_Stard]

Opening your ZX remakes in the editor shows the levels use the original size of 1584x160.  Most of the levels in the redux pack were taken from namida's versions of the classic lemmings packs in which he has cropped out the unused space.  I have added cropping these levels to my to-do list for the next build of the redux pack.  If you do compile all your ZX remakes into a single pack you may want to crop all your levels at that time.

bsmith pretty much got it. If you change the level size (in the editor's Level Properties method), so that there's no excess space, it'll work better. This was possible already in the V1.43 editor (though upgrading is highly recommended).

Thank you! Here are the modified versions, I remove almost all redundant void space in the three of them:

Speed Trap
(Mayhem 3 from ZX Spectrum Lemmings)


A Spot Of Bother
(Taxing 6 from NES Lemmings)


Hello John! Got A New Lemming?
(Mayhem 16 from NES Lemmings)

[mobius]

I feel like looking through the list and giving some thoughts; is bsmith's nxp the most up-do-date?