ArtLems (Cancelled)

[Flopsy]

Speaking for the Let's Play part of the community which seems to consist of me, yourself and IchoTolot mainly.

Seeing as you're playing my first Lemmings pack on YT right this minute, I've just experienced for the first time what it's like to have someone playing your pack and giving great detailed feedback on it as it comes to them. So for that reason, I can see the lure of having things being YT friendly since watching LPs of someone playing your pack is truly a great experience!

I feel it's important that the music is royalty free and will not cause issues with YouTube videos.
When choosing the music for SEB Lems, I did use music which will get flagged but it will just mean ads can appear on your videos. Now I'm sure there is no one here who is bothered by that because I don't know anyone on here who monetises their videos and it's not really practical to do so because our Lemmings videos will never hit over 200 views in their lifetime!

Now the ones I avoided like the plagued were songs which could get your video muted, I've been caught out before when doing my Lix videos (mostly by Hatsune Miku tracks which are a new can of worms when it comes to licensing - the tracks are listed on YT in Japanese for starters!).

You need to find a good balance between choosing good music that fits the pack, music that you're happy with but at the same time you're not going to have the perfect choice of music to choose from, some tracks are off limits and you just have to live with it. It's not an easy balance to find.

Regarding your choices, I think 1 and 2 are most important to me. I think go to 3 as a last resort if you fail to fully satisfy 2 to your own satisfaction!

[chrisleec728]

Thanks for the update. Also, you're welcome; with all due respect to your art history teacher, I'm honestly not sure what they were talking about or why they would teach such a thing. It seems like pretty common knowledge to me.

[Colorful Arty]

Thanks for the input Flopsy. I will make sure that no music in the pack causes videos to be muted (SubLems had that problem). I'm not exactly sure how to check if music will get a video muted or not though...

[Flopsy]

Thanks for the input Flopsy. I will make sure that no music in the pack causes videos to be muted (SubLems had that problem). I'm not exactly sure how to check if music will get a video muted or not though...

Usually if you're unsure, just upload a short video with the track playing clearly in it. It has to be a video file though otherwise YT won't accept it.

Usually after uploading it, you will immediately know what YT has done with it.

[Colorful Arty]

I'm not sure if that will work, because that one SubLems track that got your video partially muted was not muted for my video.

[Colorful Arty]

Good news! I had a great burst of creativity the past few weeks, and got ideas for many new levels for the pack! After culling a level or two and adding the new ones, I have broken the 50 level mark, so as of now, the pack is a little over 1/3 of the way complete!

Not only that, but there are now lots of levels that I have started making, and when those get finished, I'll be up to over 60 levels.

I'm still debating over whether to release a demo before the pack is completed or not. On one hand, the demo gets people (hopefully) excited about playing the completed pack, but on the other hand, a demo means fewer levels to look forward to come the actual release. Would people like a demo or not?

Alternatively, because I have removed many levels from the pack, I could release a "demo" consisting of the levels that were removed, which are still not bad at all. That would give people an idea of what to expect, without spoiling anything from the actual pack.

[Strato Incendus]

I think the rejected levels you can certainly demo; perhaps some of them might find their way back in? Especially if people come up with more interesting solution than what you might have intended.

[Colorful Arty]

Maybe, but many of the levels were rejected because their architecture were not reflective enough of the art period they were in, so it will be hard for them to make it back in.

[Colorful Arty]

I updated the level preview screenshots (hopefully) for the last time. (See the initial post)

At this point, I have so many ideas for levels (either in terms of architecture or tentative solution) but it's just a matter of getting off of my lazy butt and making them.

[Colorful Arty]

Thanks to everyone who joined in my level design stream for this pack! I had a ton of fun designing levels with an audience, and it's made me realize my own laziness is the main thing slowing down this pack. As such, I'm going to try to set a deadline for myself to finish the pack.

My tentative deadline is to release this on February 14th 2019 (Lemmings Day, the 2 year anniversary of when I announced this pack, and the 3 year anniversary of when I started LPing Lemmings stuff). My hope is giving myself a deadline will force me to work on the pack and not give into laziness. If all goes well, I hope to see you all then with this beauty of a pack finished.

[Colorful Arty]

So... the whole deadline thing has not worked at all. I have no motivation to make Lemmings levels these days, and there is no way the pack will be finished by Lemmings day. I'm not saddened by this, because I know that cancelling the deadline will ensure the pack will be much higher quality because of it.

Because of my lack of interest in making levels, I'm postponing progress in this pack. The pack is not cancelled; but I want to do it right, and that won't happen if I rush it and make levels I am not proud of. My hope is if I come back to this pack in the future, I will be filled with creative inspiration and enthusiasm and give this community a high-quality level pack!

[Colorful Arty]

I've thought a lot about this pack for the past week (Nessy and I had a short chat in IRC about it recently) and I have made several decisions that I think will help the pack a lot in the long run. I think the main problems I am facing with this pack are:

1) Starting in rank 3, I've been trying to have a "Central trick" for every level. I don't think this is a good thing because a lot of people don't like trick levels, there are only so many cool tricks out there, backroutes are nearly impossible to seal while keeping the artistic design of the levels, and my favorite levels from the pack aren't trick levels anyways.

2) The final rank is a mess. It's got a few levels with the Art theme, but also a lot of levels that I feel don't fit the theme of the pack. I feel like the final rank should keep with the Art theme to respect the pack as a whole, and the levels I had planned for the final rank should either go in a bonus rank, or a different pack altogether.

3) I don't have enough music planned for the pack, especially in the Renaissance and Modern ranks.

4) My own laziness. By far the biggest roadblock.

My plans for finishing the pack are to stop worrying about levels' difficulties, since my recent contest entries (like WaterWorks) I didn't think were that hard, but people thought otherwise. Not requiring central tricks to levels I think will not only make the levels more enjoyable, but also a bit easier (so fewer people will be scared of the pack). This may make the ranks less consistent in difficulty, but I feel that's not as important as finishing the pack or keeping with the theme of the pack as a whole.

The Modern rank will likely not include video game music as I originally planned.

I think my biggest next step toward continuing the pack is to just listen to some classical music for inspiration. This will simultaneously help me find music and give me ideas for levels to make.

[chrisleec728]

Not sure how much it'll help, but "Classical Music for Dummies" is one of the best books I've ever read.

[Colorful Arty]

I read that too in highschool! It was absolutely hilarious and insightful at the same time! XD

[607]

This sounds amazing.