Lemmings font and green/brown background tile

[ccexplore]

Incidentally, I think the mini-map in the original is something like 112:20 width:height (I didn't count the horizontal pixels exactly so it might be slightly off.)

[Proxima]

Cheapo uses a full-color mini-map and as far as I know no one has complained.  (Well, maybe not yet.  Watch now as Mindless/Ahribar/Jazzem proves me wrong.)

Well, it's made (slightly) harder work for me as a style designer, since I've had to choose a colour for the dotted border showing what corresponds to the visible screen area on each style, trying to make it look good against the terrain colour.

But I admit that tiny complaint is hugely outweighed by the nicer appearance of the colour mini-map when the style is done.

[Mindless]

Well, it's just a quick first layout trial. Indeed, the level preview is monochrome in all original versions (only kind of in the win95 version) though I'm not 100% sure if I will go for that. Benefit would be that the lemmings pixels would be more visible... Maybe I will calculate a gray value for each RGB pixel. We shall see.

Grayscale for the terrain, and green for the Lemmings! That would look awesome!  B)

Also I want to add two scroll buttons next to the preview box as in the amiga version.

The Amiga version had scroll buttons? I'm not aware of any...  ::

[0xdeadbeef]

Grayscale for the terrain, and green for the Lemmings! That would look awesome!  B)

Yes, that's what I had in mind. The Win95 version uses a similar approach.  Then again I could also only fade the colors towards gray or e.g. blue. This would also save the problem of the selection box'/lemmings' visibility.
Last possibility would be to store color information for selection border and lemmings for each tile set. Then I could leave the mini-map colored.

The Amiga version had scroll buttons? I'm not aware of any...  ::

Hm, I'm quite sure there were red decorations left and right of the "mini-map" (reminds me of "mini-me") which you could click to scroll left and right.

[Mindless]

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/_misc/gxplr.zip

...

Edit: all bugs replaced by a lack of eof checking, which is odd since that code is in no way related to the bitmap saving code, I think it may be a compiler bug, but I cannot reproduce it in any other code...

I fixed the bug, so now if you go past the end of the file, it will give you a little "EOF" notice.  Strange division bug. :-/

Hm, I'm quite sure there were red decorations left and right of the "mini-map" (reminds me of "mini-me") which you could click to scroll left and right.

Unless WinUAE has an emulation bug (which is quite possible), the left red decoration does nothing, while the right instantly scrolls you to the right end of of the level.

[0xdeadbeef]

Unless WinUAE has an emulation bug (which is quite possible), the left red decoration does nothing, while the right instantly scrolls you to the right end of of the level.

Hm, probably you're right. I just tried it  in WinUAE as well. Dunno, but I thought these red things would let you scroll.
Anyway, in my version, they'll probably will

[ccexplore]

Grayscale for the terrain, and green for the Lemmings!

Incidentally, at least on the Amiga version of ONML, the lemmings in the mini-map are yellow, not green.  (The terrain is green btw.)

So as you can see, even the game designers themselves know that there is absolutely nothing special (read: not worth imitating) about certain aspects of the mini-map.

The grayscale idea could work, although interestingly, the more I think about it the more I might prefer the "monochrome" one.  The monochrome mini-map in the original game does have the advantage that you don't notice the stretching as much, since the lack of colors and low resolution means you basically can't make out the terrain very well.  It is kinda weird to call this an "advantage", but it does make the stretching much less noticeable.

[0xdeadbeef]

Incidentally, at least on the Amiga version of ONML, the lemmings in the mini-map are yellow, not green.  (The terrain is green btw.)

I know, but they're indeed green on gray in the win95 version.

So as you can see, even the game designers themselves know that there is absolutely nothing special (read: not worth imitating) about certain aspects of the mini-map.

My view is not limited to the Amiga/DOS version. Indeed I take from each version what I like best.  E.g. the hires gfx from the win95 version, probably also the mini-map. But I prefer also some parts of the original Amiga version (e.g. the particle effect, the level description screen etc.)

The grayscale idea could work, although interestingly, the more I think about it the more I might prefer the "monochrome" one.  The monochrome mini-map in the original game does have the advantage that you don't notice the stretching as much, since the lack of colors and low resolution means you basically can't make out the terrain very well.  It is kinda weird to call this an "advantage", but it does make the stretching much less noticeable.

I think this is also true for the grayscale version. I'll have to try how this works out in my case, but it looks ok in the windows version.

[ccexplore]

But I prefer also some parts of the original Amiga version (e.g. the particle effect, the level description screen etc.)

How's the particles different from the DOS and Win95 versions?  :: Don't they all have particle effects for the 4 terrain-removing skills?

Incidentally, I'm curious what decisions you've made regarding music.

[Mindless]

Yes, that's what I had in mind. The Win95 version uses a similar approach.  Then again I could also only fade the colors towards gray or e.g. blue. This would also save the problem of the selection box'/lemmings' visibility.

The Win95 version, strangely, shows the entrance in the minimap but not the exit. O_o

[ccexplore]

Incidentally, I measured the minimap on the DOS/(Amiga?) version to be exactly 104x20.

The playing field is 1664x160 (although horizontally, some parts may be unused).  So basically the mini-map is twice as compressed horizontally as it is vertically.  Not exactly big news, but just for the record so to speak.

[0xdeadbeef]

How's the particles different from the DOS and Win95 versions?  :: Don't they all have particle effects for the 4 terrain-removing skills?

Incidentally, I'm curious what decisions you've made regarding music.

About particles: I mean the particles used when the bomber explodes. Methinks they were the color of random (?) terrain pixels around the lemming while the windows version has particles which change the colour during their lives. The diggers, bashers and miners don't use real particles. These are part of the sprite animation.

About music: well, I will concentrate on this if everything else works. First comes the game, then the sound, then the music. Probably I will go for the midi versions. Though they might sound not as good as the Amiga version in some cases, it will be much easier to implement and consume less cpu time.

[0xdeadbeef]

Incidentally, I measured the minimap on the DOS/(Amiga?) version to be exactly 104x20.

The playing field is 1664x160 (although horizontally, some parts may be unused).  So basically the mini-map is twice as compressed horizontally as it is vertically.  Not exactly big news, but just for the record so to speak.

Hm, sure about the 1664? I use 1600 at the moment...
No big issue to change this though...

[Mindless]

The level area is 1584 x 160.

[ccexplore]

Hm, sure about the 1664?

This is what the DOS game seems to use internally, but interestingly, it won't even let you scroll that far (the DOS version is even less than 1600, and some of the maps have to be cut off more than it does on the Amiga, eg. Taxing 27).  This is something that might differ from version to version.  What's the Win95 version?

That's not really the point though.  The point is the ratio.  If you use the dimensions the DOS/Amiga version uses for the mini-map, since the level area of the screen is 320x160 and you compress twice as much horizontally, a screen worth should be a perfect square in the mini-map.  That's all.