Lemmings Speedrunning

[Nihilist Comedy Hour]

Always admired PetaQ's runs for the sole fact lag is an overwhelming factor of consideration.

Running the NES version, it's definitely the easiest so far that I've encountered, due to lack of lag, the grid system which eliminates a lot of necessary precision in some of the other ports, as well as the lack of the ability to change the spawn rate.

A speedrunner by the name NESCadinality has done a lot of the improvements in the NES version as of late.

His times are below:

Fun: 17:38 (WR is 17:12 by crasyfingers as of now).
Tricky: 36:32
Taxing: 40:08
Mayhem: 1:03:12

That's a sum of 2:37:30.

He also complete an All Levels run 3:08:30 a few days ago, so there is only a 31 minute difference between his sum of best 4 sections and his complete run. His run appears to be last time someone has completed the game, recorded, in one sitting for 5 years or so.

I'm still working on trying to improve my Fun / NES time, and would like to complete the next sections as well. Then I might towards doing some runs for the Game Boy port afterward, or get back to doing DOS.

[Nihilist Comedy Hour]

NES / Fun

crasyfingers (22 days ago) [17:12]
me (yesterday) [16:52]
crasyfingers (today) [16:48]
me (yesterday) [16:37]

Down to seconds and frames at this point.

[ccexplore]

Good job! I did have a quick look at the 17:12 video a few weeks back.  At the time I did think a few levels may benefit from some multitasking (plus a lot of other places with minor improvements as well) but didn't have time/patience to try anything out.  It'd be great if you can point out which specific levels that got the most improvements in your latest WR compared to the 17:12 WR, presumably from changes in strategy.  It'd be a little easier than having to watch through two videos in full side-by-side (well, once you put out the video of your latest successes anyway).

[Nihilist Comedy Hour]

crasyfingers lowered his time down to [16:24], so another 13 seconds gone.

Mostly this is due to  better execution. Some of the improved strats though are as follows.

1-4: Nothing
5: Certain timing with blockers can improve a second or so.
6: correct timing of second explosion will keep a lemming from bouncing, saving a second.
7: (and applicable in other instances) cancelling or ending bridges via pickaxe is a couple frames faster for that specific lemming than ending one with bashers.
8: just bashing through without using any blockers saves a second.
9: not much except better timing cancelling out waiting for one more lemming to die.
10: using a blocker at start, then doing the climbing etc., than adding more blockers to continue bunching of lemmings.
11: new strats for bunching lemmings has improved a few seconds there.
12: impossible to improve
13: improved strats for bunching lemmings while bashing and building, and use of pickaxe.
14: small optimization with timing of events.
15: bunching lemmings closer to gate with multiple blockers. using 2 blockers at the beginning makes it basically impossible to destroy one blocker at the correct time without losing the bridge lemming.
16: big change here: instead of just bashing through with one lemming... make first lemming climb and bash where the column is shorter, than make others climb. saves a 5-6 seconds.
17: save a couple of seconds suiciding the last 5 lemmings.
18: better timing
19: better timing through use of bunching lemmings making it easier.
20: suicide the first two pick axes, then suiciding the third right before he uses his pickaxes saves a couple of seconds.
21: no improvements
22: pick axe improvement.
23: new strat is to pick axe first lemming, than use umbrellas; this results in quicker deaths and non releases for lemmings not needing to be saved.
24: this is the bulk of the improvement, and involves using climbers instead of bashers at the beginning to make the final portion easier to time and gets rid of lemmings not needed to beat level.
25: improved bunch and timing.


Hard to type the specific details on any given level, let alone all 25.

[Nihilist Comedy Hour]

Fun / NES [16:16]

This one ain't going to be topped anytime soon. With the exception of a couple of things, this run was basically perfect. So much detail covered on these 25 levels.

[petaQ]

I bumped the SMS Fun WR down to 31:42 even with two resets and some hairy moments. The resets are deceptive: the one in 10 is about a one in twentyfive occurrence and not something you consciously think about during runs. 30 is just a nasty level full stop and if I improve this run I should definitely look at changing the final action to prevent them getting stuck.
5, You Need Bashers is the fastest I've ever done thanks to a pixel perfect web-bash setup and proper nuke timing. Improvement to 11, Keep Your Hair On by bombing the trail bashing lemming rather than one of the advance party to reduce the tail, and check out the perfect in 13, We All Fall Down. I added a defensive bomber position into 14, Origins and Lemmings to enable safe climber assignment; I also found a way to dig/bash from the top of each high pillar and ways to reduce the tail but they're effectively uselessly aggressive in a marathon run. You may also be highly interested in the swagtastic solution to 29, Worra Lorra Lemmings, which relies on both a pixel-perfect bash and a pixel-perfect bomb. Ultimately the time can be put down to very near 30:00 dead, but I'm going to start working on final optimisations of Tricky now which may take a while since everything can now be pixel perfected. I hope to be able to stream in the coming weeks once my tech is sorted out so if I do I will definitely try to showcase our wonderful game to a wider audience.

https://youtu.be/0pnfuAo8sF8

[WillLem]

These ones are for you guys

[Nihilist Comedy Hour]

WillLem, are these levels? How do I play them? I work tax seasons, so will probably be a bit before I get a sec to try them, but I'd like to when I get some free time.

[WillLem]

WillLem, are these levels? How do I play them?

They're new-format NeoLemmix levels, they can be played in any NeoLemmix version from 12.7.0 upwards (and a few previous versions as well I think); it's definitely worth getting the latest stable version if you don't already have it.

When you run NeoLemmix, press F2 to go into the level select menu, then click the "Add Content To List" button at the bottom. This will allow you to browse to wherever you've saved the levels and then open them.

Or, you can simply paste the levels into the NeoLemmix>levels directory and then they'll appear in the F2 menu that way.

Enjoy!

[WillLem]

If any fans of speedrunning fancy chiming in on this discussion, that'd be great. I'd like to know people's opinions from all sides of the debate, whether you agree or disagree.

[Eddykas]

So opposing views are welcome? That's refreshing! I love this place already. haha

[namida]

So opposing views are welcome? That's refreshing! I love this place already. haha

Generally speaking, yes. Rules are a bit tighter on the NL Suggestions board, but mostly only to the extent of "if I've said it's not happening, don't suggest it here" - you can still discuss it as a "what if" on a more-general part of the site, and the closing it down on the suggestions board is more a "this won't be happening in NL", not a "you aren't allowed to discuss it".

Although rare, there have even been cases where such discussions have lead to the rejection being overturned, too.

[petaQ]

I started the final round of work on Tricky SMS a while ago and have been able to incorporate the walking on water glitch from Squidgy in to a solution already, so thanks to him for that discovery! I made very good progress with a few levels thanks to pixel perfects. I've been able to go super aggressive but also very safe in various methods so far. Perhaps my favourite optimisation among the first 12 levels is for Been There, Seen It, Done It. It perfectly showcases the p-perfect accuracy of these solutions as well as the need to pragmatically pause the game if you need to make such a setup. I would LOVE to be able to do this at a marathon event one day, it would look so good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjTxeC1mWls

Meanwhile I have started streaming at www.twitch.tv/petaq_src and many of these streams include some Lemmings Tricky practice, which will soon move on to actively optimising levels 13-30 ahead of WR runs. I will try to make some of these streams US-timezone friendly and I would love to see anyone who is interested in this sort of work pop in and enjoy the inner workings of the game.

[Nihilist Comedy Hour]

Hey y'all.

It's been a bit. After some time improving my streaming set up, getting more original hardware; I'll be back up and running harder than ever once my busy work season is over this spring. Just wanted to congratulate WillLem's Amiga runs which are top notch.

A bit of an update in the Lemmings Speedrunning World, since there are been more increasing interest in the game as time goes on. Here's where we stand on known runs:

Amiga:

Fun: (36:31) by WillLem (emulator). This was a 3+ minute improvement from the previously known fastest run.
Tricky: (46:54) by WillLem (emulator). WillLem set up the first time here a couple days ago.

MS-DOS:

All Levels: (6:14:41) by TTDLX (emulator). This run was set 6 years ago.
Fun: (37:21) by crasyfingers (emulator). Ran about a year ago, it was a great improvement on earlier attempts.
Tricky: (1:16:25) by NihilistComedyHour (emulator). This was my first attempted run some 3 years ago.

NES:

All Levels: (3:08:30) by NESCardinality. Set a year ago; still no one brave enough to attempt beating it.
Fun: (16:16) by NihilistComedyHour (emulator).
Tricky: (29:10) by NihilistComedyHour (emulator).
Taxing: (40:08) by NESCardinality.
Mayhem: (1:03:12) by NESCardinality.

(As a side note, I know have a NES and the game, and plan on running and improving all NES times on original hardware).

SNES:

Fun: (35:36) by ApG77 (emulator). This has become a surprisingly popular, with 7 runners currently on the board. ApG77's impressive run is over 4 minutes faster than the next.
Tricky: (49:25) by ApG77 (emulator).
Taxing: (1:05:04) by ApG77 (emulator).

SMS:

Fun: (31:42) by petaQ (emulator).
Tricky: (54:09) by petaQ (emulator).

Genesis:

Fun: (31:31) by PhoenixOfGrunvale (emulator). Recently improved the time by 1:08. It was discovered that using the European version of the game provides an advantage because the reduction in lag offsets the slower frame rate.

And that's where we currently sit!

[EricLang]

A funny speedrun could be done with Lemmix. With the new 'z' key function (run until the end) you can run a level within seconds :-) Would love to see that.