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

[bsmith]

The latest build of the Redux is on one of my posts about half way up page 14 with a verbose name: Lemmings Redux 162 v10.010.010 10-23-2016.nxp  I have not made any recent builds since there was little discussion since then until namida rekindled the topic a few weeks ago.

I would love to see more feedback, so please feel free to offer any ideas you have.

[mobius]

played some of it; my thoughts so far:

on Snuggle up to a Lemming: I suggest moving the exit over to the left of the large structure. It only makes the level very slightly more difficult for a beginner and I always though the level was weird with all that non-used space on the left.

All the 6's: I was never a big fan of this level, or any levels like this to be honest. Even though I made one, I no longer like it.

just in case you weren't aware; the empty sides of some levels like "A Spot of Bother" haven't been removed.

Is CindyLand a reference to something? I'm not familiar with this level.

I think Across the Gap should placed a little bit later. It's not nearly as straightforward as the other here imo. Same for Dolly Dimple. Also I suggest changing the name of Dolly Dimple to the Genesis name; "Dangerous Balcony" I like  this level btw, I read some people don't like it; I think it offers a decent challenge for beginners and has a surprising number of solutions. Also I might recommend using the Genesis version I think the decoration is better.
I've always found Poscard from Lemmingland harder than "It's Lemmingentry Watson, I would move that a little later.

Vacation in Gemland; I'm not real fond of this level.

I might have some other levels to suggest replacing later.

[mobius]

more comments on Fun:
I'm super fond of the levels:
Quest for Kieran
CindyLand


Tricky:
The decoration on "No Justice for the Hero" could be better; maybe I'll try to offer something. Also this level may be easier than it's position.

Speed Trap needs the empty sides cropped. I like this level a lot btw; and some of the other new ones that were chosen.

Taxing:
Come Over to My Place is an okay level but I'd prefer it removed if better levels are offered.

random thought:
If Hunt the Nessy were reduced to one a few humps; it would make a good fun level.

[namida]

I think we want to avoid drastic modifications to the level. Things that are standard for NeoLemmix - removing blockers if their only use is to position bombers, removing time limits that don't serve a purpose, etc - is alright, and backroute fixes I think is also okay to some extent; but changes such as those suggested for Snuggle Up To A Lemming / Hunt The Nessy are going too far IMO.

[Dullstar]

I haven't checked if Hunt the Nessy is in the suggestions at this time, but if it is, I would highly suggest excluding it since the solution is trivial and tedious.

mobius's proposed change would probably make it a decent early level, when trivial solutions aren't really a big deal. But it's probably possible to do better.

[mobius]

thoughts on Taxing:

I think "Twins" is a bit easy for here, maybe better in Tricky.
Let's get together too hard
flow control too hard

On the Runaround; the entrances need to be marked no overwrite. I might add decoration to this one too.
too easy

towering problem too easy

Pitfall; not the biggest fan of this level; it's one of those that seems hard at first then turns out to be easy and feels a bit backroutish [not as bad as Let's go camping but Genesis has a ton of these]

The Bridge is Breaking Down -- not particularly outstanding

Let's Go Camping -- only if the backroute is fixed, as I'm expecting you plan to do. Exactly how to acheive that there's probably a couple of ways, one is to make the top platform steel, though that might not be enough...

Plethora of Presents; maybe. This one doesn't really stand out to me.

Tunnel Vision; I'll offer to improve decoration on this one too. Actually I think Lacktardo remade this level once. Way too easy for taxing.

Four Play; It feels like this level could have an interesting solution but has backroutes. At least it turned out to be much easier than I was expecting.

Creature Discomforts: not a fan of this level.

Upsidedown world: not a very big fan of this one.

North Poles; this was a very good one. I see where the inspiration for all these  types of levels came from (in case it's not obvious I've never played Holiday lemmings)


thoughts on rank 4:
Lemmintaschen? I feel like this level was supposed to have some interesting solution but it's very easy and not very interesting.

the price you have to pay; not sure I'm too fond of this level


BTW reguarding that ZX Spectrum level; who is John?

[Ron_Stard]

Speed Trap needs the empty sides cropped. I like this level a lot btw; and some of the other new ones that were chosen.

You're right: according to the official map, it needs to be reduced even more (Level 48) --> http://www.gamesdatabase.org/Media/SYSTEM/Sinclair_ZX_Spectrum/Map/big/Lemmings_-_1991_-_Psygnosis_Limited.jpg

(Also, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0g1tv1gXvk at 2:05:51 on beyond)

BTW reguarding that ZX Spectrum level; who is John?

That level is from NES version, and it's a pun on this 80's song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhHJ4zEKDZY

whose catchphrase allegedly became part of the popular culture in UK. ZX Spectrum Lemmings has a level called "Jon's Mayhem Level" (Level 56), which also seems to pay tribute to this catchphrase.

[mobius]

to be clear; when I said certain levels were too easy I meant they should be moved back; not that they necessarily should be removed.

rank 4:

Emmings no L -- entrances need to be marked no overwrite.
Out of the christmas levels this ones stood out to me.

Old McDonald Had a Farm - not a huge fan of this one

Silence of Lemmings - a bit easy for it's position

Lemming Tomato -- don't like this level.

Snow Joke: I think this is a bit easy for rank 4.

I think POOR wEE CREATURES may fit better in the previous rank.

Onward and Upward; not a huge fan of this one.

Down the Tube: don't like this one.


Some of rank 4 and 5 I would swap, maybe Evil Whisper, Water Proccessing Plant, Synchronised Lemming,

rank 5:

Hero Time; I would put this in rank 4.

Mutiny on the Bounty; swap with 4

Poles Apart; I know the acid on the poles was there in the original but I think this looks incredibly silly.

rank 6:

I don't like "Dolly Dimple?"
I think Worra Load of Old Blocks should go in the main ranks; I liked this level, or it's Genesis remake.

I'm almost done, but I haven't looked through all of rank 5 and 6 yet.

[namida]

"You Live and Lem" is in the pack currently, which is the easy version of "The Steel Mines of Kessel".

Although a bit more awkward, the talisman could still work on this level. Basically would be "complete the level with no more than 10 bombers, 10 builders, no other skills, and saving at least 90 lemmings". I don't see any need to enforce Steel Mines' time limit (which would probably be one that gets removed anyway if the level were to be included).

[mobius]

rank 6:
JackLemmings ; not a fan
It's a tight fit; maybe, I can see this one being removed.

Just a Minute Part 3: this is a classic example of a Genesis level that's not going to work as intended because the physics are different (can't mine on wrong arrows). You could argue that it's still solvable but I don't care for it either way.
But I must argue if you're saying you'd not like to alter a level very much then I don't like the idea of including a level that's going to be fundamentally different because of a thing like this-- even if you're not altering the level directly it's being altered in the end.

Twist of Lemming: As I personally don't have any problem altering a level (and thus would be okay with allowing Just a minute 3; the reason I voted no is because I just don't care for the level itself); I'd love to include this one as long as, and only if the number of lemmings is reduced to about 5 or 10. This is a good puzzle level with totally unnecessary tedium at the start.

The rest except "Dolly Dimple?" and maybe MC Escher, I think can be included in the main game. I'm guessing this extra rank isn't part of the final plan?

[namida]

Just a Minute Part 3: this is a classic example of a Genesis level that's not going to work as intended because the physics are different (can't mine on wrong arrows). You could argue that it's still solvable but I don't care for it either way.

The level has been specifically adapated so it will work in NeoLemmix (if it's not adapted, then most likely this NXP has an out-of-date copy of the level). A bit of non-one-way terrain - enough to mine on, not enough to really use for anything else - has been added.

[namida]

Another thought I've just had, somewhat inspired by the Mayhem 21 issue - the general trend with newer levels is to usually keep the number of lemmings relatively low; whereas 80 or 100 was the usual amount in the past, these days 20 to 40 seems to be far more common. Should we make such changes to levels in this pack, too?

One possible reason against it is that unlike other NL trends, such as the removal of time limits and empty space, this change more often than not seems to not get applied to older levels when being updated for new versions of NL. (On the contrary, Lix does seem to be implementing this when updating, however one crucial difference here is that Lix no longer allows the player to change the release rate, while NL does unless the individual level prohibits it - which older levels won't, due to the feature not existing at that time.)



From a look through various recent NL packs, the general trend in NL seems to be towards 50, but levels with even fewer are starting to become more common very recently - for example, 20 is nearly twice as common as 50 in LPO2, and 30 is also more common than 50). And a point of interest is that Lix is usually a few steps ahead of NL in terms of level design conventions, and in Lix, the most common values (at least based off the LemForums pack) are 20 and 10. I don't know how I feel about using 10 as a standard, but if we do go ahead with this idea, using 20 as a "default" value should work well. Of course, this doesn't at all mean that no level can have a larger amount of lemmings - for levels such as Cascade that need the high number of lemmings to keep the original feel, there's no reason why a higher number can't be used, but I'm just meaning as a general guideline when there's no real reason to have more. (The Sega Master System version of Lemmings also used 20 as a maximum, and only a very small number of levels were worse off because of it. In the case of an NL pack, we can just not apply such a change to levels that would be affected in such a way.)

[namida]

In regards to fitting Mayhem 21 in, I think Sega Four is a good level to consider cutting. Even though it's a good level, it's the only level in the pack using the Sega tileset, which is a tileset many new players may be unfamiliar with. On top of that, it also raises the issue of "Where's Sega One, Two and Three then?"; although this isn't as big a concern, given that Redux is a compilation pack and would advertise itself as such, meaning the (correct) explanation of "they weren't deemed worthy of inclusion" is easily arrived at.

[mobius]

I think decreasing overall Lemming counts (as long as it doesn't negatively effect the level) is okay. It helps a great deal on levels like "With a Twist of Lemming"

[namida]

Since we should ideally move towards getting a final level list (then we can focus more on ordering / fixes), I think we're starting to see a bit more in favor of including Mayhem 21, subject to a reduction in the number of lemmings - which will probably happen anyway not just for this level, but across the board.

With this in mind, we do need to pick one level to remove. Aside from Sega Four (which would be my pick), Proxima mentioned two other candidates in IRC; one of which was Lemmingtaschen (I can't remember the other one). This doesn't mean a different level's removal is ruled out, though. Any input on which one?

One other point that came up is whether or not we need to include the training levels, which if not, could make room for a few more of the borderline case levels - as well as room for Mayhem 21. In the future, I plan to include this pack with NeoLemmix itself, which would also come with the NeoLemmix Introduction Pack - which could simply be expanded into a full Lemmings introduction pack for NeoLemmix. We don't nessecerially need to cut all of them; some can quite easily stand on their own as just easy levels. Fun 3 in particular comes to mind here, and to a lesser extent, Fun 7. Possibly even Fun 5.