[Lemmings 2] Quest From Kieran 2

[kieranmillar]

Welcome to my Lemmings 2 : The Tribes level pack, Quest From Kieran 2! This pack replaces all 120 levels in Lemmings 2.

The gimmick of this pack is that each of the tribes has its own set of 8 thematically-appropriate skills, and their levels use only those skills. So each tribe not only looks different, but plays differently too!

Note that this is a "save everyone" pack. Every level has 100% save requirement for gold, except for the Classic Tribe, where the number you are allowed to lose and still get gold is stated in the title for each of their levels.

This pack does not rely on glitches. While every attempt was made to try and prevent glitches from being able to break levels, some may still remain. In particular, the "crawling" glitch is not used anywhere in this pack, so if you solve a level using it, I won't be impressed. Note that using the crawling glitch via the Blocker skill in the Classic tribe was too hard to prevent so it is still possible to break some levels using it.

Thank Yous
This pack would have been significantly worse and were it not for the additional help from a number of people. In alphabetical order:

• geoo - For the amazing L2Suite development tools that made making this pack significantly more enjoyable, and for his extremely comprehensive testing.
• GuyPerfect - For the excellent lgl2 level editor that made this pack possible
• Nepster - Extremely comprehensive testing
• SimonNaar - Extremely comprehensive testing

Meet the Tribes!

Beach
Like, we're totally gonna get you that talisman piece from the clams that stole it dude, but, like, there's this totally sick bunch of waves coming and I'm, like, totally there man! Surf's up dude!


Level 7: Lifeguard to the Rescue

Cavelems
10,000 years ago lemmingkind first roamed the world and survived using primitive tools. Today those lemmings are... clearly dead, I mean come on man, it was 10,000 years ago! However their memory lives on with a bunch of ironic hipsters who forgo modern technology because it's way too mainstream. But the joke's on them, now they have to deliver the talisman and have to travel by foot. Suckers!


Level 8: Dino Might

Circus
Roll Up! Roll Up! Come and see the greatest show on Lemming Island! Watch as the incredible SuperLem takes on the trapeze, without a safety net... or a trapeze! Come see our amazing laser display! And watch with amazement as sixty of our finest clowns try to deliver the talisman piece, with hilarious consequences!


Level 4: Teeny-Weeny Houdini

Classic
Nobody understands these guys. Everyone else has moved on and developed new tricks, as well as a better social understanding that deaths are often unnecessary, yet this tribe continues to do the same old stuff with the same old tricks over and over again. Legend has it that they've conquered thousands and thousands of landscapes and yet they keep on going, and somehow despite the massive losses there are just so many of them that they never go extinct. Lets hope there's still some of them left by the time they deliver their talisman piece.


Level 5: Overflow

Egyptian
Egyptian lore says that one of the gods buried the talisman piece alongside them, but there are so many gods, I guess we'll just have to check every tomb! The Egyptians love their pots, that's why this tribe bought along a whole bunch of them as their only construction skills! Historians are keen to point out that the magic carpet is actually Arabian, and not Egyptian, but the Arabian tribe don't care, they were made extinct a thousand years ago after one of them got drunk and triggered the armageddon.


Level 3: The Climber's Curse

Highland
After correctly predicting the prophecy of the Darkness befalling Lem Island, the Highland Tribe felt a bit upset that they weren't getting quite the level of thanks they'd hoped for. So Jimmy McLemming held an independence referendum for the Highland Tribe to become their own sovereign group. Unfortunately it quickly occurred to them that they were doomed without the other talisman pieces and so the referendum failed. Dejected and defeated, Jimmy McLemming spent the rest of his days drowning his sorrows with cheap bottles of scotch whiskey, so nothing different to usual really.


Level 7: Scaling Lem Nevis

Medieval
The Medieval Tribe prides itself as defender of the realm. Using the swordsmanship, bowmanship and chivalry passed down from generation to generation, Lemming island is safe from all intruders! So who better to deliver the King's talisman piece safely to the ark than 60 of his finest knights? (Actually don't tell them, but the orbital laser satellites launched years ago by the Space Tribe are significantly more effective at defending the realm).


Level 5: Ye Olde Cavern

Outdoor
At last, a tribe that takes place outdoors, if you ignore Beach, Highland, Medieval, Polar, Shadow and Space! And probably Sports too? Is that inside a stadium or in some nightmarish green hellscape dimension? Anyway, don't let the Outdoor Tribe fool you, they love to talk about how they have conquered the great outdoors and live off the land but in reality they've never ventured further than their back garden.


Level 7: Rocky's Horror Show

Polar
Why would anybody live in the bitterly cold, frigid Northern mountain range of Lemming Island? Easy, it's because there is enormous amounts of oil. And in the process of extracting it all, this tribe has become the experts of excavation and building tall structures. Now you'd think that this meant that when it came time to deliver their talisman piece, they'd be over in a flash using some motorised technology, but no, they keep trying to stick to tradition and deliver it by ski-courier, which would be fine, if the terrible skier physics meant they didn't constantly get in accidents and need to be rescued...


Level 5: Living Life on the Edge

Shadow
The masters of stealth, nobody knows where the Shadow Tribe are at any given moment. Which is quite surprising really, given the bright yellow balloons and loud explosions that follow them wherever they go. Maybe it's because everyone else is asleep when they travel during the dead of night. I guess you'll just have to hope that they deliver the talisman piece in time.


Level 4: Flee the Nest

Space
Bad news. In order to fund their space adventures the Space tribe sold off their talisman piece to the weasels years ago. It looks like there's only one solution: buy it back blast off on a risky adventure to the nearest wormhole and pass through it to an alternate dimension where they still own the talisman piece. What could possibly go wrong?


Level 3: Blast Chamber

Sports
The Sports tribe actually already have the talisman piece to hand, but they've offered it up as first prize to a tournament, so now they have to go win it! Sure, you could argue that the current need for the talisman is more important and could just swap the prize out for something else, but seriously, that is not how sports work! Disclaimer: I have no idea how sports work.


Level 5: Uphill Obstacle Course

How to Install
Back up your current Lemmings 2 LEVELS folder, then extract the contents of the zip into there, overwriting the existing files.

How to run Lemmings 2 in DOSBox

A Quick Lemmings 2 Refresher

• You have to manually save the game from the main menu. There's no autosave!
• You want to run l2-fix.exe, not l2.exe
• Useful keyboard shrotcuts:
  
  
  
  • ESC: Quick Restart
  • F1 - F8: Skills
  • P: Pause
  • Spacebar: Fan (Note, you have to unpause by pressing Space if you want the fan ready when unpausing)
  • Enter: Fast Forward

Bonus Downloads!
But wait... you'll find more attached to this post:

• QFK2_LostTribe: Because 120 levels just wasn't enough, here's another 10 levels for the Egyptian Tribe that do not follow the standard skill theming as the rest of the pack. This was my opportunity to use some level ideas that simply could not work in the rest of the pack due to the strict skill limits I imposed. There is one level in this pack that does not require you to save everyone, which you'll know because like the Classic Tribe it states how many you can lose in the level title. As this overwrites the Egyptian Tribe, you may wish to create a duplicate of your Lemmings 2 game so you can run this and the main pack simultaneously without having to constantly mess around with the files.
• QFK2_Neoclassic: I have converted the Classic Tribe to Neolemmix in case you want to try the levels without suffering from Lemmings 2's bad UI. It uses the new formats, and to play you extract the folder inside the zip into the levels subfolder of Neolemmix.
• QFK2_Neoclassic_music: Extract this into your Neolemmix music folder and NeoClassic will play the Classic Tribe's music in each level. Without this, it will play random music tracks from those that come with Neolemmix.

[Ste Woz Ere]

Out of the 3 QFK packs, this was the one I was looking forward to playing the most - and it certainly didn't disappoint. Not only is it a whole new L2 game, it also has fixed skill sets per tribe...which is how the original game should've been done IMO. Here's a few observations from my trip around the island, in the footsteps of the little novel that came with the original game.

Highland: Difficult to identify any signature skills for Clan McLemming, but thrower+hopper made sense by association from the original game (and they love their bagpipes ofc). Good use of the thrower too, given it was only useful in that 1 level originally. I was hoping for more twister action in later tribes, but I did get to twist through the ceiling(!) in the first of many backroutes.

Circus: Loved the clowns for a number of reasons.  Superlem was woefully under-used, here we get to do a few tricks along with exploring the full range of laser blasters ("argh, it doesn't go high enough").  Slightly surprised to see a giant club, but I guess they nicked it from the strongman. Good theming overall.

Classic: Hard to say much about these guys really, as they never change. One level was very annoying to time correctly (even with savestates) but otherwise a solid set of puzzles. Also noting that they do seem to have mostly moved on from blowing themselves up, preferring instead to simply walk off the edge.

Medieval: This tribe has a bit of a theming issue for me - knights in heavy armour are not very likely to be climbing, shimmying and sliding around (as opposed to say, athletes or ninjas). Plus they don't dangle off the end of builder bridges, making one level extremely hard to time correctly.  On the up side, the roller actually gets used (only 3 times, but that's 3 times more than originally), the puzzles were decent (esp. skill interactions) and I learned a few things along the way. (including how to glitch 2 levels and use a roller to backroute another)

Egyptian: This one appealed quite a bit due to the unusual building methods, along with the near-useless magic carpet. Some of the advanced glue stuff did elude me, but I was really impressed with the catacomb level and the solution, plus the fact that I got it. (also pleased with a mini-backroute involving precision sand-pouring...which I was surprised to discover wasn't the official method)

Outdoor: Surprised to see this lot not hang-gliding around or digging up the garden with their bare hands...preferring instead to torch it and re-use old WW2 bombs they dug up previously with their shovels. Some of the later levels are quite memorable (even though I missed the final advanced bomber trick having gotten the previous ones) and it was great to see them planting quite a bit, being used in multiple ways too.

Beach: The theming here is among the best, although I don't know how they keep those big red stacks upright on sand. Great to see the most useless skill of all (diver) being used in multiple ways, and some of the hang-glider tricks were great to pull off (including one that I was surprised with - how did it fit through there?).  Not a fan of the short 2-skill levels in the 1st half, but a big fan of most levels in the 2nd half. (even if they all involved rescuing trapdoors who could only escape by burning through a tube of Pringles)

Sports: Not quite as sporty as expected. I hoped to be poking walls with a sabre and making bridges out of arrows instead of more builder/basher/miner action, although this did work well with the expected rock climber/shimmier antics. And the successful use of pole vaulting (the hardest skill to set up a level for) deserves commendation. In fact the puzzles here are top drawer, quite fitting for the only tribe to have a level this hard in the original game.

Shadow: No bazooka? The lack of climber/shimmier/slider action (that got misplaced earlier) also doesn't make sense, but in all honesty the skill set really works well together. And the levels themselves are a vast improvement on the original game - instead of just being a load of dark blue blocks with the occasional building, these levels actually look like part of a city. Some clever puzzles too (a couple of them got me though), overall one of my favourite tribes. (it's also the only one that I failed to backroute at some point, probably because they're ninjas)

Cavelem: Not sure how they got the technology to use parachutes, but otherwise the theming is spot-on. Nice to see the potential of icarus wings, and even another use for spears (apart from splat-bridging). Puzzle-wise it was the most satisfying, probably because it's the only tribe I didn't need any help with. (and the final level was a case of getting there bit-by-bit, using progressively less bridges in a certain spot)

Space: Most of my theming predictions were right for this one (esp. after Shadow ditched their signature weapon), and weren't they used well? Especially the forgotten magno-boots, it was great to see them used a lot. Jetpacks less so, although I did use a long-range one for a backroute (hehe). Some of the puzzles took a while to solve (and the rescue one got me despite expecting some magno-laser interaction), but I had a real blast with this tribe. Oh, and extra points for the best attractor in the game. (2301: A Synth Odyssey)

Polar: And so we reach the tribe of snow...sadly there was some highly frustrating moments in the 1st half, with timing and precision very hard to get right (understandable in the case of skiers, though).  Thankfully the 2nd half was good, with a series of complex building+digging puzzles - some of which were quite memorable (esp. the snowman) and others that were a bit too Classic-like for me (and surely there was room for the odd signature skill, even for a generic purpose like speeding or crossing a small gap).  I managed to beat everything in the 2nd half though, and the very last level was noteworthy - after a valiant effort to bash under the exit and stack into it afterwards (1 skill short for getting everyone in), I went back to square 1 and figured out the correct way.

Overall I was really impressed with this pack - from putting useless skills to good use, through the excellent theming to the high quality of the puzzles.  The only real criticism I have (aside from the odd theming hiccup) is with a handful of levels requiring the use of pixel-perfect timing/positioning* (esp. the Medieval level mentioned above and a couple of Polar levels). Perhaps builder/basher/miner were used a little too much outside Classic, but it made good puzzles and it only got silly a couple of times. (and still far better than the lookalike-skill spam that we saw in the original game)

In short...if you liked Lemmings 2 in any way, you need to play this - it's how the game should've been designed in the first place.

*To avoid frustration with this, I would recommend using this version of DOSBox which has savestates...it's not NL in terms of player-aids, but better than nothing.
(you'll be especially thankful if you play the QFK pack for Lemmings 3, which I'm currently 1/3 of the way through)

[kieranmillar]

Oh hey, thanks for playing through the pack and giving feedback. Sorry it took me so long to see it and not respond earlier. I'm glad you enjoyed it, this is the QFK that had the most effort put into the level design (not sure it counts as the most effort overall, considering I had to learn a lot of programming to develop the level editor to make QFK3!) If you're looking for more QFK2, there's also 10 more levels in the Lost Tribe.

It does not surprise me to discover there are more backroutes hiding around. Lemmings is actually a pretty difficult game to fix backroutes for and has all sorts of things you can do with pixel perfect timing and precision, and Lemmings 2 is no exception, except it also has a bunch of really difficult to avoid bugs, usually involving crawling. In development I managed to fix a load of backroutes thanks to the brilliant testing from Simon, geoo and Nepster, but you can only do so much. Some of Lemmings 2's skills give you completely ridiculous levels of control, so sometimes, you basically can't do anything at all about it if you want to ensure you use every skill.

Some levels involving too much precision is a shame, I tired very hard to remove as much as possible, but some ideas simply could not be done without some level of precision being necessary, such as that skiing level. That's just how Lemmings 2 goes. Limiting my skills so severely certainly contributed somewhat to making this harder to fix.

On that note: theming, and why I use some "generic" skills a lot across tribes, like Miners and Builders. This is largely due to my self-imposed restriction of setting only a pool of exactly 8 skills that each tribe could pick from, and also insisting that every skill is used in at least one tribe. While I tried to focus on picking some thematically-appropriate skills, you can't go too heavy on this, or you won't be able to make enough good levels. For me, the main "verb" in Lemmings is assigning a skill to a Lemming, so I wanted to focus as much as possible on cool interactions between skills, where using two or more skills in conjunction with each other produces a neat result. So when thinking of what skills to assign, my first thought was to pick a thematically-appropriate skill, then look through all of the skills and think about what sort of things I can do, and build up some level ideas. A good example of this approach is Medieval. Clearly they needed to have the Archer skill. Well what does the Archer do that nothing else does? Attach small chunks of land to walls and ceilings with high precision. Well, what good is this if you don't have skills that interact with walls and ceilings? So the shimmier, slider and rock climber all got added to support some ideas (then it turned out those 3 skills in combination were way more interesting than anything else, go figure). I also needed to add the roller as a way to get lemmings to not use these sometimes, and now I've already used up 5 of my 8 skill slots. Well with all these single-lemming movement skills, I need something that will work as an enforcement mechanism, a reason why you want a lemming to go from point A to B on his own, and it turns out the miner is really, really good at doing this, which is why it shows up in so many tribes.

This is a trend that tended to happen across most tribes. Lemmings 2 has a lot of single-lemming movement skills, and you need some generic building / digging tools in every tribe with my self-imposed restriction, so each tribe gets some thematic movement skills and then there's little room left so the generic stuff has to perform many duties, so you have to rely a lot on the really good generic skills.

It may interest you, after developing QFK2, I ranked every skill and provided additional thoughts: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=3411.0

Again, I want to say, thanks so much for playing this all the way through and writing about it, it means a lot to me. I spent quite a lot of time on this pack so to know someone out there found it and enjoyed it, is really great and means a lot to me.

[mobius]

could I get some general hints for the space tribe? I cannot solve a single level, I feel like I'm missing some major things about how these skills work.

A major point with every level I've tried so far is; how to turn the worker around?? Magnobooter can't do anything in any position other than right side up correct? Are they effected by mortar blasts? Is there a way to turn a jetpacker around?
Level specific hints are welcome as well.

[kieranmillar]

Here are some generic hints about the skills and objects in the Tribe.

Magnobooters can only be cancelled in two ways: You assign a skill when they are right side up, and you remove the ground they are standing on.

Jepacks cannot be turned around when they are on the Jetpack, they maintain the direction they were facing when you assign the skill. You also cannot push them through a 8 pixel tall gap, so if you see small gaps in the walls, it's likely a no-jetpacks-allowed enforcement.

Teleporters have no limit on the number of lemmings that can use them at once, and they maintain their facing direction. Magnobooters persist between teleporters too! Well, only if there's something to stand on at the destination.

Level specific hints:
Level 1: Introducing: Space

Spoiler

You have to send everyone the long way round. Just construct a path and you should be fine.

Spoiler

The most difficult part imo is how to get everybody past the machine gun robot trap. If you're getting mad at execution, then it may help to know that is expected that every lemming use every teleporter.

Level 2: Anti-Gravity

Spoiler

A simple spot-the-trick level. With so few skills you don't exactly have many options. It should be clear what two skills are required for the crowd to walk to the exit so that will reduce your options further. If you're still stuck, re-read my generic skill hints above.

Level 3: Blast Chamber

Spoiler

The place you use the platformer should be the most obvious skill use. The rest of the level is a turn-the-lemming-around puzzle.

Spoiler

Multiple turn-the-lemming-around puzzles actually. And how are you going to cancel the attractor? Might need some double-duty skill use.

Spoiler

If you can't turn around your jetpacker after using it, what if you turned the lemming around before using it?

Level 4: Space Elevator

Spoiler

Hopefully it is clear your goal is to get someone to teleporter 3, and you can only do that by magnobooting from teleporter 1. Well, you'd like to, but something else needs doing first.

Spoiler

You'll need somewhere to stand to do that though. Sadly there is no elevator. Well, maybe you can use a series of steps.

Level 5: Friendly Fire

Spoiler

There are a range of solutions here. Hopefully it is clear how you dig through the ground, you just need to find a safe way to do it.

Spoiler

I send a magnobooter the long way round each side, to construct a safe ceiling on the opposite side.

Spoiler

If you're struggling to get the last blasts done, you can send one group to the bottom and dig out the other side from underneath.

Level 6: Gravity Chamber

Spoiler

The attractor isn't only useful for crowd control. It also indefinitely stalls a lemming until you use another skill on it.

Spoiler

If you can't create a hole to detach a magnobooter in, try doubling up on bazooka shots.

Spoiler

If you're struggling to find a good place to use the laser blaster, maybe you're using the wrong lemming.

Level 7: Satellite Junk

Spoiler

The most direct path for the crowd is the best one, but there are some issues constructing platforms in the correct direction. Yes it's another turn-the-lemming-around puzzle!

Spoiler

The first suitable place to turn around a lemming is closer than you think.

Spoiler

There is no suitable turnaround place in the second half of the level. Maybe you need to make one.

Level 8: Space Rescue

Spoiler

OK, there's a lot going on here. First concern is the main trapdoor, the lemmings will make their way over to teleporter 1 quickly. You need time to construct a platform to the exit, but there's no crowd control. And a platform isn't even long enough! Is this correct? How are we rescuing the upper-right trapped group if we don't do this? Do we really have to use the laser blaster to free them?

Spoiler

Well, we have 20 Jumpers which can cover the extra distance the platform can't, but we still need to delay some lemmings, and we can't spare any jumpers. Or wait, can we? Are we actually sending 20 lemmings to teleporter 1?

Spoiler

Sure would be nice to get someone over to teleporter 3. And it would be great if they could take their sweet time. Shame about the machine gun robot. How can you avoid this?

Spoiler

You don't need to save a magnobooter for the other side of teleporter 3 if you are already using one, so if you need to delay even more lemmings at the start, and also don't have enough jumpers, then why not give the other lemming some company?

Level 9: Space Station Skylem

Spoiler

At first this is another turn-the-lemming-around puzzle, but with magnobooters. And it is, but there's a little more going on here. Remember: if you can't find a place to turn a lemming around, you can always make one.

Spoiler

Should be clear we are eventually going to need to platform our way over to the teleporter, either directly or in a way we can magnoboot into it. But this offers us up another problem, if we cover up all the gaps to get to the exit, how do we laser blast a way into the exit at the end?

Spoiler

Not every gap needs to be completely covered up. But you are thinking too close to the exit. Think further out.

Level 10: Alternate Dimension

Spoiler

This level looks familiar. Why would I repeat a level? Let's be real here, I wouldn't make you do this twice unless it was a very different solution to the first time. I mean very different.

Spoiler

If you were wondering if the first level had a really devious and sneaky backroute, with the trapdoor being so close to the exit, you're right! Well, it wasn't possible before, but you can do it this time.

Spoiler

There's nowhere to turn a lemming around near the entrance. So we'll just have to find somewhere further away. Much much further away. What's the quickest way to get there?

Spoiler

If you were hoping you could skip the majority of the level, well, someone's going to have to traverse it all eventually. You should have the tools to take a totally different path this time.

[jkapp76]

I have created a portable version of Lemmings 2 the Tribes for anyone running Windows.
I've included an option to play with Kieran's level pack.

Just unzip this game to a folder and run Lemm2 (or QFK2 for Kieran's level pack)

https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZAHhOVZqUmQzmyvPnRJqtcULY4T5L8sNvkX

This should make playing this awesome level pack easy and available to anyone.