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

[Proxima]

I'm sorry this has taken so long I've had other (non-Lemmings) projects keeping me busy, and also it's been difficult to know how to proceed.

In chat just now, Nepster asked if this could be ready when the new-formats version is, so that it can be the default pack loaded. That would be great, so let's try to speed this along.

Deciding about the ordering is too big a task to do all at once, and we all have different ideas about ordering and we're not going to reach a consensus. So what I've decided to do is this: I've attached version 0.2.3, in which just the first rank is reordered according to my own preferences, also taking into account the original order and Nepster's suggestions. "The Crankshaft" moves down from rank 2 to rank 1, and "A Spot of Bother" moves up. Please have a look and tell me if this order is okay, and if so then I'll do the same for rank 2, and so on.

Full list of rank 1 levels, with original positions, Nepster's positions and namida's suggestions where different:

Gentle

1 Just Dig
2 Only floaters can survive this
3 Tailor-made for blockers
4 Now use miners and climbers
5 You need bashers this time
6 A task for bombers
7 Builders will help you here
8 Snuggle up to a lemming (O: 9 N: 8)
9 Get a little extra help (O: 10 N: 11 namida: 9)
10 Downwardly mobile lemmings (O: 8 N: 9 namida: 10)
11 Keep your hair on, Mr Lemming (O: 12 N: 10 namida: 11)
12 A block from home (O: 11 N: 12 namida: 12)
13 Darkness of the royal family (O: 24 N: 22 namida: move earlier)
14 CindyLand
15 Lemming toast (O: 29 N: 18)
16 A beast of a level
17 Patience (N: 20)
18 You live and Lem (N: 21)
19 Let's be careful out there (N: 16)
20 Where do you see Lemmings? (O: 13 N: Rank 2 namida: move later)
21 Rainbow Island (N: 13)
22 The Crankshaft (O: Rank 2 N: 24)
23 Lemmings in the attic
24 Pillar talking (O: 25 N: Rank 2)
25 Careless clicking costs lives (O: 15 N: 25)
26 Catch more floaters (N: 30)
27 Quest for Kieran (N: Rank 2)
28 Turn around, young lemmings (N: 26)
29 Doomsday (O: 20 N: 29)
30 Going Their Separate Ways (N: 28)

[nin10doadict]

Seems pretty solid but I feel like "Downwardly Mobile Lemmings" should move down a bit because it really just feels like "Tailor Made for Blockers" except easier.

[Proxima]

Thanks. I appreciate the feedback, but I want to keep the skill training levels as they are. For new players, it's nice to isolate the skills so the player is not in a position of having to try out unfamiliar skills, and possibly get the lemmings killed by doing the wrong thing.

Anyway, Nepster approved my rank 1 list, and I've also played through it and feel it works well. So, I'm going to move on to rank 2, but feedback on rank 1 is still welcome.

This is a much harder rank to arrange, because once we get into the puzzle levels, our perceptions of difficulty are coloured by how much we, individually, struggled with each level, and that varies a lot. The best I can do here is make a first draft that feels more or less right, and come back to it later and see how much I want to tweak it

Also, I know we said the selection of levels was final, but looking again, "A Towering Problem" really doesn't look like a good choice. It's a bomber-timing level without timed bombers. I would like to replace this with "Have a nice day", a personal favourite level that I think may have missed out in the voting topics because it's not much harder than its repeat, which isn't a problem for Redux. Would anyone object to this?

Version 0.2.4, with my first-draft ordering for rank 2, is attached. Full list of levels:

Quirky

1 Pop Yor Top
2 It's lemmingentry, Watson
3 Vacation in Gemland
4 Go for it!
5 The Stack
6 Just a Quicky
7 The run around
8 A Spot of Bother
9 With a little help from my Lem
10 Plethora of Presents
11 DON'T PANIC
12 Over the wall
13 A TOWERING PROBLEM / Have a nice day
14 Meeting Adjourned
15 The Needs of the Many
16 MENACING!
17 Mr Lemmy Lives Next Door
18 And now, the end is near
19 Tunnel vision
20 Perseverance
21 Down the tube
22 The Far Side
23 Emmings (No L)
24 Time waits for no lemming
25 No choice but to follow them
26 Take care, Sweetie
27 Five Alive
28 Speed Trap
29 Cascade
30 And then there were four

These levels included in rank 2 would be moved up: Izzie Wizzie Lemmings Get Busy, Watch out there's traps about, Dolly Dimple, Postcard from Lemmingland, I have a cunning plan, The Long Way Around, KEEP ON TRUCKING, Tension Sheet Good Idea, Across the Gap, LEMTRIS, Mind the step, Compression Method 1, No justice for the hero.

These levels Nepster suggested for rank 2 would appear later: Izzie Wizze Lemmings Get Busy, The Long Way Around, Thebridge is breaking down, Last one out is a rotten egg, No world without you.

[Nessy]

I didn't know this project existed, pretty cool. I was actually doing something similar for fun whenever I'm at a loss for original ideas, but the levels have harder solutions (like a higher save percentage for Pillars of Hercules). However, I don't think I will ever publish it as it really isn't my original work.

Anyway, Rank 1 is pretty solid in my opinion. For rank 2:

- I agree and move Dolly Dimple up. It can be a real hard nut for beginners. The trick used in the intended solution may not be obvious to new players.
- Also agree about moving Keep On Trucking up. I don't know why but that level to this day still gives me so much trouble .
- Replace A Towering Problem with Have A Nice Day! I like that level too even though it is a little builder heavy, but with NeoLemmix it shouldn't be a problem. After all, I think it's a good puzzle because it's not obvious for beginners how to navigate the strange terrain and how to contain the lemmings because you have no bombers if you use blockers. If anything A Towering Problem can make a good late first rank puzzle.
- I think And Then There Were Four would make an excellent last level for this rank.
- I think The Run Around should be earlier (maybe the third or fourth level ), as I don't think it's trivial, but not harder than It's Lemmingentry Watson in my personal opinion. But like you said this is when opinions start to contrast more.

[nin10doadict]

Knowing the solutions to many of these in advance makes it hard to judge, but I do know that I just got stuck on 'with a little help from my Lem' for a half hour. Then I came back to it after playing some other levels and solved it in 30 seconds. I don't know why this happens to me sometimes.
"The needs of the many" either needs to have the backroute fixed or move down. I can see what the level wants me to do but you don't have to use the builders at all. A bomber at the very top of the wall will let you bash through the whole thing.
The rest of the ordering seems fine.

[Proxima]

Thanks, both of you Nessy, you should definitely post your project to the forums; NeoLemmix as a whole is technically a copyright violation, but no-one here minds that, as we're all just having fun with one of our favourite games. Anyhow, I'd like to see it

I've played through my first-draft rank 2 now, and only two levels stood out as badly misplaced:

With a little help from my Lem: I underestimated this level; it is quite hard to spot the correct solution. Nepster also suggested moving it later, so I'll do that in the next version.

Down the tube: This was originally rank 4, and Nepster suggested bringing it down to rank 2. Having tried that out, I think it really belongs in the intermediate rank 3. Of the possibilities to bring back down to replace it, I'll think about it some more, but I'll probably go with "Izzie Wizzie" just because bsmith and Nepster agreed on this being a rank 2 level, even though I found it harder than that.

[Nessy]

Nessy, you should definitely post your project to the forums; NeoLemmix as a whole is technically a copyright violation, but no-one here minds that, as we're all just having fun with one of our favourite games. Anyhow, I'd like to see it

Oh okay that's good to know. I might just publish it then sometime in the future after I finish fixing my first pack and adding some new levels to it.

With A Little Help From My Lem and No Justice For The Hero were my favorite Special levels from the PSP port. I underestimated it as well, and it was my first major roadblock in the Special rank. I think a good place for it would be as one of the last levels of Rank 2 or one of the first of Rank 3, and I'm leaning more to have it just before Cascade.

As for Down The Tube I don't remember if I had trouble with that one. There are several solutions to it, and looking at them, from a beginner's point of view, definitely a middle Rank 3 level.

Izzie Wizzie Lemmings Get Busy is tough for me to place. It's a good puzzle where crowd control is not as easy as in some other levels, but I don't think it's a Rank 3 puzzle. Maybe another late Rank 2 puzzle? I say, for sure, middle of Rank 2 at minimum.

By the way, I am unfamiliar with a lot of the Genesis levels on the list, which is strange because the Genesis soundtrack is my favorite . I actually started playing them now in NeoLemmix. One of the first levels I played was Lemmings' Ark because I remember everyone saying that it was one of the hardest official levels... and yes it was. That one stumped me good for a while . Definitely a late last rank level.

[Proxima]

Yeah, Lemmings' Ark will most likely stay near the end, because several forum members consider it one of the hardest levels. If it were just me, I'd probably make it the rank 4 finisher, but in this case I'll probably end up deferring to consensus

Anyway, I've had another look and think over the levels for rank 2, and there are a few more I have doubts about:

Five Alive. This is another one it's tempting to drop entirely; it's much easier than intended in NL, since you can bomb at the terrain/steel edge to turn the lemmings. Could just keep it as an early level, but I wouldn't mind dropping it. If we drop it, I'd like to consider moving down another level and reintroducing another level in rank 3 or higher, because there are a couple of candidates for moving down:

Postcard from Lemmingland. This was in early rank 2, and got moved up because in original Lemmings, it was a roadblock for many players. However, in Redux, there are earlier levels like "The Crankshaft", "Mr Lemmy Lives Next Door", "Emmings (No L)" using the idea of mining down to pick up the crowd, so it should be much easier to think of this solution in "Postcard".

Lemmy in the cold, cold ground. bsmith had this as a late rank 5 level, but... it's really easy. Might this be moved down to rank 2?

[Nepster]

Lemmy in the cold, cold ground could work as a rank 2 level. It just looks a lot more threatening than it actually is. However I would move the screen start a bit, so that the hatch next to the gap is visible and the player sees where their lemmings die.

Postcard from Lemmingland still seems harder than rank 2. In my opinion most of the difficulty comes from the fact, that the builder is just used for turning around in a digger pit (has this occured before, btw?), which is at first glance a very weak usage for the builder. And I don't think a new player will find the solution where one actually builds over the pit...
Actually, "Solve the level in less than 1:30" or "Solve the level without a floater" might make for a very nice talisman on this level.

[Nessy]

Personally I would keep Five Alive as I think it could be a good puzzle level in Rank 2 even though you can just bomb next to the steel plate. I don't think beginners would know to do that right away or even if something like that could work, but I'm a little neutral on that if it gets dropped then that's fine. I just can't think of a good replacement.

How about if Postcard From Lemmingland were one of the last ones in Rank 2? You do use the reverse miner trick from Crankshaft, but I feel like it is more obvious that you have to do it there than in  Postcard From Lemmingland. Even if it were still obvious it isn't as easy to turn the lemming around to do that trick like in Crankshaft where you more skills and options to accomplish that than in Postcard From Lemmingland. Maybe it should take the place of Five Alive and Five Alive can be one of the first few levels of Rank 2.

By the way I agree that a good Talisman for Postcard From Lemmingland would be to solve the level without a floater. Taking out the floater means that you can't just climb and reverse mine to free the lemmings because that climber would die falling from the pillar on the far left.

[Nessy]

By the way...

Yeah, Lemmings' Ark will most likely stay near the end, because several forum members consider it one of the hardest levels. If it were just me, I'd probably make it the rank 4 finisher, but in this case I'll probably end up deferring to consensus

What do you consider to be a good final level for this pack if Lemmings' Ark was a Rank 4 finisher?

[mobius]

Postcard from Lemmingland still seems harder than rank 2. In my opinion most of the difficulty comes from the fact, that the builder is just used for turning around in a digger pit (has this occured before, btw?), which is at first glance a very weak usage for the builder. And I don't think a new player will find the solution where one actually builds over the pit...
Actually, "Solve the level in less than 1:30" or "Solve the level without a floater" might make for a very nice talisman on this level.

I can agree with this; look at old topics, this *is* the level that stumps most people their first time playing, including myself. I also really like those achievement ideas. I didn't even know about this solution until about a year ago I think. It still amazes me.

[Nessy]

I also really like those achievement ideas. I didn't even know about this solution until about a year ago I think. It still amazes me.

Is that the solution where...

You give one lemming a climber and he builds over the gap. Another climber climbs up that first step, digs a little bit, bashes, and the other lemmings walk pass him and up the stairs?

If so, then I didn't know about it until recently as well. Pretty cool solution.

There is another solution that doesn't use a basher...

You send one climber and he digs right before falling into the  gap. He then builds so that he reaches the top of the gap, but turns around as well. He then uses the miner on the first step.

This wouldn't achieve the talisman, but it's pretty cool how this level is the Tricky version of The Great Lemming Caper: many solutions, none of them easy to spot at first, and when you get more experience with the game you find even more crazy solutions.

[Proxima]

Heh. I solved Postcard the hard way originally, and didn't know about the reverse miner solution until joining the forums.

What do you consider to be a good final level for this pack if Lemmings' Ark was a Rank 4 finisher?

Fall and no life (Part Two) would be my choice, especially now that we've tightened it to remove some of the solutions.

[Nessy]

Haven't played Fall and no life (Part Two) yet, only part one. I'm going to try it out as soon as I can.