NeoLemmix - Returning user experience report

[Nezz]

After a long absence, I came back to update my old NeoLemmix version (1.47n-C2) to the latest release, just to play the old games with a better UI. But as my experience has been terrible, and I know how easy it is for frequent users and programmers to lose sight of how different their experience can be, I thought I'd record it quickly:

- found shiny new website - exciting!
- downloaded new player + new level pack + styles.zip, copied to new folder
- extracting styles.zip took too long and spammed my HD with tons of custom files I don't want or need - annoying!
- and now NeoLemmix doesn't start - BASS.DLL not found, menu font and a dozen other files not found

My point is not to fix these errors; I'm sure I could figure it out somehow. But I don't even want to. The old version simply worked out of the box and didn't annoy me, so I'm keeping it. That might be a problem in the long run.

[Nepster]

Thanks for the feedback.

- extracting styles.zip took too long and spammed my HD with tons of custom files I don't want or need - annoying!

Yeah, I am aware of this problem. Currently we are in the middle of a huge move from binary blobs to text-based files, which will (among other benefits) speed up the level loading procedure. That's why there are these tons of files in the styles download.
The goal is to add an automatic download feature to the NeoLemmix that downloads just the styles currently needed for the level. However (especially as namida our chief maintainer is no longer active) this is currently not available, so sorry for the huge wait while extracting the pieces. It will get better soon!

- and now NeoLemmix doesn't start - BASS.DLL not found, menu font and a dozen other files not found

Thanks for the bug report. Somewhere several files got missing when creating the zip for the download on the homepage. This will be fixed soon. The goal is still to be able to run NeoLemmix out of the box.

As you still had a somewhat outdated version 1.47, I would recommend downloading the lastest stable version 11.13.18. This doesn't require any additional files. Just replace your NeoLemmix.exe from version 1.47 with the NeoLemmix.exe from the download file.

[Nessy]

Hi Nezz,

I'm the one responsible for the website. I want to apologize that you had a bad user experience. I'm afraid that it's my fault. Somewhere along the way it seems that some files went missing when I was trying to convert the downloads to the format that already exists on the server and database.

Fortunately I have fixed everything and here are some steps to make sure you don't run into any more problems:

1) Delete everything NeoLemmix related on your computer.
2) Download NeoLemmix again, and extract its contents into your desired folder.
3) Download the Styles folder again (all unnecessary files have been removed), and extract its contents into the "styles" subfolder in your NeoLemmix folder.
4) Everything should work now. Keep in mind that all levels you want to play must go into a "levels" subfolder in the same directory as your NeoLemmix player, but you should be able to open NeoLemmix right out of the box regardless.

Hope this helps and if it still doesn't work please make another post about it here.

Thank you, and welcome to the forums .

[Nezz]

Thanks for the help!

Currently we are in the middle of a huge move from binary blobs to text-based files, which will (among other benefits) speed up the level loading procedure. That's why there are these tons of files in the styles download.

I see, but does the plan include a way to store them in a package file? Most games do it like that, because tons of tiny, uncompressed files waste a lot of space.

This doesn't require any additional files. Just replace your NeoLemmix.exe from version 1.47 with the NeoLemmix.exe from the download file.

Just what I was looking for! It still required new level packs though, but now it works. Thanks again!

[Nepster]

I see, but does the plan include a way to store them in a package file? Most games do it like that, because tons of tiny, uncompressed files waste a lot of space.

If I was a commercial company and wanted to sell NeoLemmix, then I would certainly do package them and either keep them in that binary blob or would extract them upon installing the game. That is perfectly fine and totally the way to go forward, if one has a game that won't be modified any more and all players have to be satisfied with the current content.

However NeoLemmix thrives mainly due to its custom content. Many users want to design further level and play them, create new styles and even customize the appearance of the main menu. If we would package everything together, then noone could publish their new content themselves, but had to ask me to addit to the bit pack. Then everyone would have to download everything again, even the content they already have. That's certainly not perfect either.
On the other hand, having lots of small files allows fast and easy updating with new content. Yes, the initial installation takes long, but on the long term, it will save us all lots of headache.

Up to now, NeoLemmix did sort of a middle way: Have several packages with either styles or levels. However over time this created problems: Several different versions of styles floating around, noone knowing whether their version is still up-to-date. Level using an old version while the player has the recent one (or vice versa), which yields to errors that noone knew how to fix: Is it a bug in the player, or a bug in my own style file or a bug in the level? Some level packs relied on internally saved style files and got buggy when the user had a different version of the style in their style folder. Some other packs becoming buggy because they relied on an external style, but this style got updated. And the player of these packs wouldn't even be aware of all of this, because they had no way to tell what the level pack requires resp. what was built in.
None of these problems would have been nearly as bad, if everything was easily visible to all users.

And two final remarks:
1) Most of the bigger fan-made projects that allow customization go along this way and have lots of style files, ... Admittedly they usually hide it better, e.g. by displaying a nice preview video while extracting all the files, but all those small files are there.
2) The NeoLemmix files aren't really that big. Currently all styles combined take about a few dozen MB. With usual hard discs having hundreds of GB, that space is negleglible.

[namida]

Looking at the NeoLemmix website, I notice V11.15.21 is listed on the download page as the stable release. Was the "experimental" checkbox not ticked when uploading it? Unless I've overlooked something (and the replies in this thread suggest I haven't), V10.13.18 is still the latest stable release, I think?

[Nessy]

Looking at the NeoLemmix website, I notice V11.15.21 is listed on the download page as the stable release. Was the "experimental" checkbox not ticked when uploading it? Unless I've overlooked something (and the replies in this thread suggest I haven't), V10.13.18 is still the latest stable release, I think?

This has been fixed. Thanks!