Flopsy plays Lix's lemforum pack

[Flopsy]

After the video this Friday, I will be putting my Lix videos on hold temporarily so I can upload an LP of the LOTY nxp which I will run on Tuesdays and Fridays until it is complete.

After I finish that LP, the Lix schedule will resume as normal

[Forestidia86]

Video not considered in the first post until now is:

Daunting 6

[Proxima]

Daunting 7-9, includes backroute on "Backslash".

[geoo]

Flopsy, a little hint that might make Merge Sort more enjoyable for you:

Spoiler

At some point, it was suggested to turn the red square blocks into steel blocks, to remove red herrings. This should be a hint for one, but I'd also be curious about your opinion on such a change.

Nessy: I saw you commented on YouTube, did you play through the community pack? How did you feel about this level?

As for Backslash, the solution is different from intended, but it's interesting in its own right so I don't even mind so much.

[Nessy]

Nessy: I saw you commented on YouTube, did you play through the community pack? How did you feel about this level?

Yes, every once in a while I would play through some levels in the community pack. I completed the first three ranks and about half of Daunting and some Vicious levels. I even started my own thread where I posted some replays about certain levels I wanted feedback on solution-wise.

About "Merge Sort"

I personally don't think the red squares should be changed into steel blocks. I did find "Merge Sort" very tricky to spot the main miner usage that made everything fall into place, but it is still a miner usage that one can figure out eventually after realizing that no matter what they do on the red squares nothing will end up working and thus a player must figure out a new strategy. At the same time, the red squares does allow the solution to "hide in plain sight" without being overtaken by the red herrings it creates at the same time. Changing them to steel might remove too many red herrings and make the solution too clear and take away the puzzle aspect of finding out how to merge the crowd effectively which is how I saw the main idea behind this level.

However, this change might be more sensible if the level has to be moved down a rank. In this case the steel blocks would compensate this down-rank.

[Simon]

I agree with Nessy.

Another idea for Merge Sort

I'd like to keep Merge Sort as-is and not downrank. If Merge Sort must change, maybe like this:

I want to remove the earth blocks that encourage bunkering.
I want to keep high the number of possible miner locations.

-- Simon

[geoo]

That's an interesting change, I quite like the idea of this.

Spoiler

The miner placement has to be a little bit more careful now as you might break through the floor on both sides of the vertical bar, but maybe this can be alleviated by making the vertical bars a bit wider. It still allows for a range of possibilities of what to do, but pushes the player in the right direction in terms of what to explore/think of.

[Simon]

Attached is the new Merge Sort. I've tried to make this accepted change more beautiful.

Image of Merge Sort

-- Simon

[geoo]

After trying the level maybe the thicker bars aren't necessary, my concern from the previous post is not really an issue.

Pros and cons:

Spoiler

Pro: Thicker bars look prettier than thin bars, probably?
Con: They limit the options of the player as they cannot split the crowd into two separate holding pits with a single miner.

What do people think?

[Simon]

Spoiler

I like the fewer options than with thin walls: It's good that you can't create 2 holes with one miner. In Lix 0.9.17's Merge Sort, you can't create 2 holes with 1 miner either, and it's still hard.

-- Simon

[Flopsy]

Ok, sorry for my long hiatus from my LP, I'm now ready to return to it following solving a lot of levels after revisiting them. I have now solved Merge Sort (in its original form I attempted on video) and Snowball Battle! I have solved other levels also which stumped me which I will demonstrate in my next video

I do admit that I didn't spend enough time on merge sort and it really was not as bad as I expected. I say keep the original layout to contribute to the original discussion but if you have changed it then don't worry.

I feel like I have improved at Lix during my time playing and attempting levels during my evenings while on holiday.
I feel like the LP might stall soon because of the difficulty of the levels getting intense but I'm more determined than ever to hammer on now.
I'm not going to make any video commitments on regularity of videos anymore so just expect videos sporadically.

I will aim to get another video out by the end of the month at the latest, hopefully much sooner than that though.

Also thanks a lot for the feedback on my LP replays, it makes me happier knowing my videos are contributing to the upkeep of the already high-quality Lemforum pack.

[Forestidia86]

Flopsy made another video:

Daunting 10-11 (before v.0.9.12)

Really clean and nice solution to "Go West!".

[Simon]

Round Trip

Glad to see Flopsy return to the Lix pack! It's been a while and your videos have always helped me judge the difficulty curve. (Also happy to see the level title in the video title!)

Spoiler

The digger in Round Trip is hard to spot and the solution fell into place nicely once you found that digger.

-- Simon

[Proxima]

More video links:

Daunting 12-14
Daunting 15
Daunting 16-17 (does not solve Derailed Level)
Daunting 18-19
Daunting 20-22

Simon already started a discussion thread on "Slipping Again". It's a while since I watched 12-15, don't remember what solutions Flopsy found. All other solutions are intended.

[Flopsy]

It's been a while since I have uploaded some videos for this pack, one went up on my channel a week ago now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4MLbf_2gu4
(this video was actually recorded over a year ago and I never got round to uploading until recently)

I've tried recording some more Lix videos recently but I am having great difficulties with recording Lix with OBS without the frame rate tanking randomly.
I may have to continue the LP in Post Commentary format, because it is too risky to do a live video on Lix at the moment, is there a chance that Lix has options to lower the performance in any way, this might be a favourable option for me recording this because even when I record post commentary videos, the videos randomly mess up.
I have recorded 3 Lix videos recently and only ONE ended up not being messed up by OBS when it was finalised.