Reconsider solid ceiling in view of addition of shimmier? [DISCUSSION]

[Strato Incendus]

If jumpers are allowed to go through the ceiling with their head, but climbers will fall down when hitting their head at the ceiling,

That would be inconsistent to me. Any skill should get interrupted when hitting the ceiling, just like it happens when they hit normal terrain above their heads. The reason a climber falls down at that point is because it doesn't have solid ground under its feet; a builder or fencer would simply turn around. Hence, a jumper, like a climber, would fall down again.

With the shimmier, we could go either route - because it would be the only skill thus far which interacts with terrain above its head as its main purpose. You could say a) it hit the ceiling, so the rule explained beforehand applies and the skill gets cancelled, resulting in the lemming falling down again; b) or you could say it grabs onto the ceiling like the climber used to grab on to the sides of levels in NL 1.43, and it would indeed be the level designers job to compensate for the backroute potential here.

Both would restrict the effect to levels where shimmiers are actually introduced; hence, there'd be no need to overhaul a bunch of old level due to a global physics / rules change. Every new skill has its own backroute potential.

Let's take the swimmer, for example: Up to its introduction, water had always been deadly. Swimmers now also bore the potential of creating backroutes in levels where water had been randomly placed as decoration. Yet, there was no need to replace all those water- with fire objects (like the "acid" from the Lab tileset) - because those levels created back then didn't include swimmers in the first place .

Therefore, I don't believe we need a deadly or non-solid ceiling just because the shimmier becomes available. As long as you don't include it in your skillset, everything works as usual. And if you include it, it's up to the level creator to place additional obstacles at the ceiling - fire traps, protruding terrain- or steel pieces etc. - to prevent backroutes. After all, it shouldn't only be the player's mind which has to adapt to the possibilities of the new skill, but also the level creator's .

[Proxima]

Therefore, I don't believe we need a deadly or non-solid ceiling just because the shimmier becomes available. As long as you don't include it in your skillset, everything works as usual. And if you include it, it's up to the level creator to place additional obstacles at the ceiling - fire traps, protruding terrain- or steel pieces etc. - to prevent backroutes.

Thing is, usual backroute-prevention focuses on preventing alternative ways of reaching the exit, not ways of reaching the ceiling. It sounds like you're saying that it should be obligatory for level designers to prevent reaching the ceiling (if there are shimmiers) just so the player won't ever be inconvenienced by there being an edge case. That's too much to demand of level designers (and testers).

Any skill should get interrupted when hitting the ceiling

That makes no sense; why should a lemming get interrupted by hitting thin air?

The only way a solid ceiling could really be justified is if we put the visible playing area in a "frame" so the player can see that there is solid matter above the playing area. (And then we'd have to work out how to indicate whether or not the currently visible playing area is the actual top of the level.) That would require a lot of extra work, though, so I don't think it's the best solution for NL right now.

[Strato Incendus]

That makes no sense; why should a lemming get interrupted by hitting thin air?

That's based on the assumption of the ceiling being thin air - which might make sense from a flavour-standpoint. I however am merely arguing from a mechanical viewpoint, i.e. based on the current mechanics for the current skills. And these say that builders, climbers, and fencers (the only upward-moving skills) all stop once they hit the ceiling.

It sounds like you're saying that it should be obligatory for level designers to prevent reaching the ceiling (if there are shimmiers)

You don't need to prevent the player from reaching the ceiling; that would involve playing through quite a lot of skill combinations, whether reaching the ceiling is somehow possible or not.

Instead, just block the route along the ceiling itself! A fire trap might do it, a triggered trap would also suffice (because like climbers and swimmers, shimmiers most certainly couldn't suddenly switch to disarmer state to get past the trigger). Most of the time something as simple as slightly vertical terrain would be enough for the shimmier to bump against, turn, and fall. In short: Just don't leave the entire ceiling open when you include shimmiers .

[Nepster]

Any skill should get interrupted when hitting the ceiling, just like it happens when they hit normal terrain above their heads.

I have two concerns:
1) With this logic walking lemmings should not turn around.
2) Shimmiers usually won't stop when they hit a ceiling when jumping upwards, because they actually want to reach a ceiling. So the rule "Any skill should get interrupted when hitting the (terrain) ceiling" will no longer hold. So why should it hold with respect of the ceiling of the whole level?

Instead, just block the route along the ceiling itself! A fire trap might do it, a triggered trap would also suffice (because like climbers and swimmers, shimmiers most certainly couldn't suddenly switch to disarmer state to get past the trigger). Most of the time something as simple as slightly vertical terrain would be enough for the shimmier to bump against, turn, and fall. In short: Just don't leave the entire ceiling open when you include shimmiers .

There are several problems here:
1) If one just adds terrain bumps, then partial progress on the ceiling may still create backroutes.
2) Even now level designers miss similarly unintuitive game mechanics: The best example may be the crawling routes in kieranmillar's L2 pack. kieranmillar knew about the crawling from the beginning on, but forgot time and again to check for backroutes using them. Another example is bashing at the bottom through all the obstacles, which I remember using to backroute at least one of your levels.
3) If we all agree that shimmying along the ceiling is unintuitive and shouldn't be used, then why allow it in the first place? It only creates more work for level designers and players, both.

[Strato Incendus]

1) With this logic walking lemmings should not turn around.

Well, usually they don't. A builder bumping his head on the ceiling will leave a gap there, because he can't finish his skill, and walkers will just slip through it, no matter how tiny it is, and keep moving forward.

The only case where walkers would turn around on the ceiling is when a fencer clears a path right to the top of the level and you have a lemming walking up that slope. Then again, now that the walker is also a skill of its own, you could say that skill of walking gets interrupted once the lemming hits the ceiling. And a skill being interrupted this way usually leads to the lemming turning around, as it also happens with a miner or basher hitting steel.

2) Shimmiers usually won't stop when they hit a ceiling when jumping upwards, because they actually want to reach a ceiling. So the rule "Any skill should get interrupted when hitting the (terrain) ceiling" will no longer hold. So why should it hold with respect of the ceiling of the whole level?

You're right that a skill wanting to interact with the ceiling is the unique and new part about this, which creates an exception to the rule. Bringing back the example of the swimmer, it would mean "all skills get cancelled once a Lemming's feet touch water", and the swimmer is the only skill which can still be assigned when the lemming is already in the water (stoners, bombers, and cloners can only be assigned in water once the lemming has been made a swimmer).

So here comes the philosophical question again of whether the ceiling is a steel wall. Most skills can't interact with steel. So it could be worth contemplating whether the shimmier shouldn't be able to shimmy along steel surfaces. It would make sense from a flavour perspective, at least - one a plain steel surface, he'd have nothing to grab onto . Mechanically however, I think of the shimmier as a horizontal climber, and the climber can of course hold on to steel.

I'm certainly not advising for a change of the climber mechanics here, that would be insane . Rather, we could create a difference between shimmier and climber here, similarly to the builder vs. platformer-discussion which popped up recently. Here also the L2-feature of the platformer gaining height was removed on purpose. So perhaps a shimmier shouldn't interact with steel, even though it is able to in Lemmings 2? Like with the platformer, we'd weaken the skill in comparison to L2, but thereby would also make it differ more from an existing one.

L2 blurred the lines anyway by additionally introducing the diagonally climbing rock climber, plus the option of assigning the shimmier to a lemming hanging from the ceiling. If I understood your plans correctly, this isn't supposed to be possible in NeoLemmix. So instead, it would have to be done with a piece of terrain next to the wall, making the climber a glider so he lands on top of it, and jumps at the ceiling as part of the shimmier skill from there. Or, as I like to do it in many of my levels, one would have to use two climbers, making one of them a stoner with the other one landing on top of it, so he could start shimmying from there.

How is the ceiling regarded in the current stable version, anyway? Does it count as "terrain", i.e. do lemmings do terrain checks with it the same way they used to do with the level sides in 1.43?

[Nepster]

1) With this logic walking lemmings should not turn around.

Well, usually they don't. A builder bumping his head on the ceiling will leave a gap there, because he can't finish his skill, and walkers will just slip through it, no matter how tiny it is, and keep moving forward.

The only case where walkers would turn around on the ceiling is when a fencer clears a path right to the top of the level and you have a lemming walking up that slope. Then again, now that the walker is also a skill of its own, you could say that skill of walking gets interrupted once the lemming hits the ceiling. And a skill being interrupted this way usually leads to the lemming turning around, as it also happens with a miner or basher hitting steel.

Sorry, but that is somewhat far-fetched, as in all other situations walking lemmings are considered as using no skill at all.

So here comes the philosophical question again of whether the ceiling is a steel wall. Most skills can't interact with steel. So it could be worth contemplating whether the shimmier shouldn't be able to shimmy along steel surfaces. It would make sense from a flavour perspective, at least - one a plain steel surface, he'd have nothing to grab onto . Mechanically however, I think of the shimmier as a horizontal climber, and the climber can of course hold on to steel.

I'm certainly not advising for a change of the climber mechanics here, that would be insane . Rather, we could create a difference between shimmier and climber here, similarly to the builder vs. platformer-discussion which popped up recently. Here also the L2-feature of the platformer gaining height was removed on purpose. So perhaps a shimmier shouldn't interact with steel, even though it is able to in Lemmings 2? Like with the platformer, we'd weaken the skill in comparison to L2, but thereby would also make it differ more from an existing one.

Yes, I deem the difference to climbers problematic. And what we call "steel" are more often iron blocks with nails instead of smooth steel surfaces. So your favour argument isn't 100% spot on.

How is the ceiling regarded in the current stable version, anyway? Does it count as "terrain", i.e. do lemmings do terrain checks with it the same way they used to do with the level sides in 1.43?

I had to check the exact usage and the ceiling is actually non-removable usual terrain. For basher (and miner, fencer, ...) terrain checks it counts as usual terrain, but it cannot be removed in any way. And yes, all skills do terrain checks for the level borders in exactly the same way as they do them within the level, too. The only difference is, that the sides and the bottom always return empty air and the top always returns usual terrain.

[Strato Incendus]

I had to check the exact usage and the ceiling is actually non-removable usual terrain. For basher (and miner, fencer, ...) terrain checks it counts as usual terrain, but it cannot be removed in any way. And yes, all skills do terrain checks for the level borders in exactly the same way as they do them within the level, too. The only difference is, that the sides and the bottom always return empty air and the top always returns usual terrain.

Okay, so that means it would indeed make sense for the shimmier to grab the ceiling. Which for me clearly makes it the level designer's job to take care of this .

2) Even now level designers miss similarly unintuitive game mechanics: The best example may be the crawling routes in kieranmillar's L2 pack. kieranmillar knew about the crawling from the beginning on, but forgot time and again to check for backroutes using them. Another example is bashing at the bottom through all the obstacles, which I remember using to backroute at least one of your levels.

Yes, you're absolutely right, and I had to react to that by adding further steel pieces at the bottom. I will have to do the same for another level nin10doadict managed to backroute on "Pit Lems". And that's how I'm used to it: Backroutes in the end are always the level designer's fault. Part of "educating" people to become good level designers is to allow them to make these mistakes, because only that way they learn to spot potential backroutes themselves, rather than having the software ensure that they can never commit that mistake in the first place.

I've learned from Pit Lems that I really need to factor in the additional deaths cloners allow the player when setting the saving requirement, rather than just going with "number of lems = number to be saved" because it feels more convenient. I've learned to watch out for stoners creating shortcuts due to their potential of easily breaking falls out of thin air. With the shimmier, all of us will have to learn to watch out for potential backroutes along the ceiling.

The attached level only shows the most radical way of doing this. I doubt such extreme measures will be required for most shimmier levels.