Just getting back into Lemmings, nice to meet you all!

Shrung · April 22, 2018, 12:41:03 AM

Hi everyone! I just found this forum the other day, and I'm so excited that these games still have an active community!

I've been a casual fan of the games all my life, I played Lemmings 2 as a child, and in high school I collected all the Lemmings games I could and got them running on Windows.

I only ever completed Lemmings 2 and The Adventures of Lomax though! I'd like to remedy that, and even get into some of these custom level packs! I'd not heard of Lemmix until a couple days ago, when I stumbled across it while reinstalling all my old games and getting them going again with DOSBox. My brothers and I used to draw Lemmings levels for each other on paper on long car trips, maybe I can find some and transcribe them

I'd like to stream my progress with some of these Lemmings games on Twitch.tv! I'll be starting off pretty rusty though, but hopefully moving forward quickly

My channel is ShrungTV, but is empty at the moment. My first couple streams will be some setup work, making some Lemmings themed overlays and animations! I think this will be a lot of fun, and would love to have people hang out with me while I'm diving back into Lemmings

I gladly welcome suggestions on Lemmings players/level packs, to try out, and will probaby welcome hints when I get stuck on some of the original levels!

Let's Go!
-Andrew

Nessy · April 22, 2018, 01:09:07 AM

Hi Shrung and welcome to the forums!

Yep we are still an active community of amazing people producing and discussing Lemmings content

Lemmix doesn't get much attention now-a-days it seems. People mostly produce content for NeoLemmix and Lix, where Lix is a fan-made Lemmings-like game created by Simon who is another forum member here. It also has competitive gameplay and we arrange sessions once in a while for that, so keep an eye out for that if you are interested.

There are also tons of fan-made level packs for Lemmings and I don't think you will be disappointed but some (like my stuff

) push the difficulty to the extreme, so don't get discouraged and always ask for help with anything technical or level related. There is also a level editor that allows you to make your own stuff and share it with the community.

You can also join our IRC channel using #neolemmix as the channel name and even #lix. We usually hang around there, so don't be shy and stop in to say hi

I also look forward to your streams!

Shrung · April 22, 2018, 05:23:42 AM

Thanks Nessy! Yeah, I meant NeoLemmix, I just got all the levels converted and got it running!

I'm excited to see how far the difficulty has been pushed, I know there is a lot to catch up on, in terms of metas that have been formed and glitches that have been exploited in level design, etc. And of course a lot more difficulty can be added when framestep is available to the player. I'll definitely check out the IRC channel as I get going

namida · April 23, 2018, 05:45:57 AM

Quote from: Shrung on April 22, 2018, 05:23:42 AM
I know there is a lot to catch up on, in terms of metas that have been formed and glitches that have been exploited in level design

This is not something you need to worry about. NeoLemmix makes a point of fixing glitches, so the most unfair thing you'll encounter in NeoLemmix levels is generally either "extreme precision needed" (in the worst of cases, this includes release rate precision) or "very obscure but fair trick is used".

In terms of where to start - if you haven't properly played the original Lemmings games yet, I highly suggest starting with Lemmings Redux. It's a community-built compilation pack of levels from the original game, reordered for a better difficulty curve, and modified to modern fan level standards (such as not having time limits unless really necessary, and not having heaps of unused space on the sides) as well as to guarantee solvability under NeoLemmix game mechanics; a few levels that have particularly serious backroutes also have backroute fixes.

NepsterLems (by Nepster) and Lemmings Reunion (by IchoTolot) are two excellent packs that need to be on your to-do list at some point. The key words here though are "at some point". If you're new to fanmade content, these two will be way too hard for you. They are absolutely amazing packs though, once you're ready to take them on. If you want something a bit easier, my first two packs - Lemmings Plus I and Lemmings Plus II - stick almost entirely to classic Lemmings features, and have generally had very good feedback.

"Classic Lemmings features"? Well yes, all of the above packs don't make much (if any) use of new features introduced by NeoLemmix. I don't know of as many good packs that do off the top of my head - one recent release I've heard is quite good but not overly difficult is SEBLems (by Flopsy), I haven't played it myself yet though. I did play the demo, and was pretty impressed. My own packs, aside from Lemmings Plus I and II, also make extensive use of NeoLemmix features; Lemmings Plus III a bit less so than later entries (it uses a few new object types, but no vertical scrollers or new skills). Lemmings Plus Omega is quite a good pack for someone experienced with Lemmings but relatively new to NeoLemmix features. When you're ready for a new-features-using equivalent to Lemmings Reunion or NepsterLems, try Lemmings Plus Omega II.

Wafflem's levels also tend to be fun, relatively easy, and make extensive use of NeoLemmix features, so check those out if you get a chance. I don't know if they've been upgraded to work with the latest version of NeoLemmix yet, though.

Shrung · April 23, 2018, 01:27:37 PM

Thanks Namida for the overview! I'll definitely start with the original lemmings levels, probably I will just go through the neolemmix original pack, since I can skip and come back if I get stuck anyway. After that I'll probably take a look at some of those more beginner friendly packs you mentioned!

I also have Lemmings 3D, Lemmings 3, Lemmings Revolution, and even Lemmings Paintball to go through eventually, haha.

The past couple days I got some Lemmings overlays set up for my stream, it was way easier than I anticipated thanks to having a level editor!

Nessy · April 23, 2018, 04:21:13 PM

Quote from: namida on April 23, 2018, 05:45:57 AM
I don't know of as many good packs that do off the top of my head - one recent release I've heard is quite good but not overly difficult is SEBLems (by Flopsy), I haven't played it myself yet though. I did play the demo, and was pretty impressed.

Yes SEBLems is another great pack to start with especially if you want to learn more about the new NeoLemmix skills. However it does get quite challenging in later ranks in my personal opinion, but you can always play the first few ranks to get a handle on the new NeoLemmix skills (and fan-made content in general) and you can always come back to it later to finish up tough levels you couldn't before. It is still being converted to new formats but the updated old format version is available.

GeoffLems is another great pack to start with. Only thing is that it is a very traditional pack in the sense that the first rank is 20-of-everything and there are harder repeats. I think that is one thing that really drew me in when I started off here: the familiarity. Also I love harder repeats. I can understand the arguments against them, but it won't change my mind

Just a heads-up though that because of this it does not have new NeoLemmix skills and it isn't in new formats yet.

Quote from: Shrung on April 23, 2018, 01:27:37 PM
I also have Lemmings 3D, Lemmings 3, Lemmings Revolution, and even Lemmings Paintball to go through eventually, haha.

If you ever stream Lemmings 3D in the future please let me know

I love that game!

Shrung · April 23, 2018, 07:41:14 PM

Thanks for all the tips! I just played through the original fun and taxing levels, and it was great to see some of you in chat! Because I had issues running L3D in the past, I never played more than a few levels, so I'm excited to jump into that one too! I'll send you a PM or something when I plan to play that one, or if you follow me on twitch, I'll be sure to mention it in the title when I go live.

I'm gonna hop back online for a bit and stream some other games as well

namida · April 24, 2018, 12:30:06 AM

Lemmings 3D was a great game IMO. My only complaint is that the difficutly isn't really that high for the most part, until the 5 or so levels which suddenly have a HUGE difficutly spike compared to the rest of the game. Unfortunately, there's only been one fanmade L3D level ever that I know of, and no editor or clone exists (the file format is known, but everything has to be done by hand in a hex editor).

There are also a lot of backroutes, but it's generally very easy to tell intended solutions apart from backroutes.

Shrung · May 03, 2018, 02:36:51 PM

I've made it through the original levels, I don't think there were any that really had me stumped for any time, having the ability to back up and fix mistakes definitely made it easier! I played through a few from MazuLems as well, they are definitely a step up from the orginals!

This evening around 8pm ETC I'll be livestreaming some Lemmings 3D! Please feel free to come by and hang out at twitch.tv/ShrungTV After a while of that game, I might look at some more MazuLems, and possibly some other games.

Tiduas · May 03, 2018, 07:13:45 PM

Thank to this thread I started to play Lemmings (NeoLemmix) for the first time in like forever as well, I'm grateful for the sudden burst of inspiration Shrung. I'm currently going through the first Lemmings Plus-pack included and has completed all the levels up to Wimpy 12 (I believe). The last few levels are the first that have really needed more than two seconds of thought so hopefully the difficulty ramps up soon to a level that suits me (which will probably go fast as I'm not very experienced with Lemmings outside of the two first games and 3D).

namida · May 03, 2018, 08:12:21 PM

You'll be fine for a while yet. There's a few hard levels here and there at this point, but it isn't until mid-Medi that the difficulty really starts to pick up and stay there.

Flopsy · May 04, 2018, 05:58:02 AM

Quote from: Tiduas on May 03, 2018, 07:13:45 PM
Thank to this thread I started to play Lemmings (NeoLemmix) for the first time in like forever as well, I'm grateful for the sudden burst of inspiration Shrung. I'm currently going through the first Lemmings Plus-pack included and has completed all the levels up to Wimpy 12 (I believe). The last few levels are the first that have really needed more than two seconds of thought so hopefully the difficulty ramps up soon to a level that suits me (which will probably go fast as I'm not very experienced with Lemmings outside of the two first games and 3D).

Keep at it and don't give up, I feel the Lemmings Plus packs are always a good starting point to custom packs because they seem to teach you the tricks you'll need to tackle ANY custom Lemmings pack on these forums. namida made these packs really well.

The Lemmings Plus packs in general have a very easy start but then they get really hard towards the end, way harder than any Lemmings level from the original games. I'd say in general, the last 2 ranks in the packs are the hardest with the occasional hard levels outside of these ranks.

I'd say the packs which are harder packs in general are Lemmings Plus IV, V, Omega and Omega II (especially this one!).
And I don't care what namida says about LPIV, I think it is just as hard as LPV is!

Tiduas · May 04, 2018, 05:32:33 PM

Like you guys say it's a very good pack made by Namida! I'm chugging on and just completed Medi 8 which is by far my favorite level so far as it had me wondering for a little while (while still convincing me that the solution was within my grasp). Since the engine is a lot more flexible than the one found on the SNES (which is the one I'm used to) the levels also require more use of really tight timings which I'm quite fond off. I love the fact that one can go back a few frames in case a silly mistake was made near the end of the level with letting a builder drown or something like that. I always was more fond of planning my route through the levels in Lemmings rather then perfecting the execution, this suits me better.

Edit: Also, has there been any review threads made for the Plus levels? I couldn't find anything with the search function and it would be fun to see what you guys think of the levels as well.

Nepster · May 04, 2018, 05:42:33 PM

Quote from: Tiduas on May 04, 2018, 05:32:33 PM
Edit: Also, has there been any review threads made for the Plus levels? I couldn't find anything with the search function and it would be fun to see what you guys think of the levels as well.

A review thread for LemPlus I exists, however we are still stuck on the very first rank there. In addition to that, the (now locked) release thread has some more comments and opinions.

namida · May 05, 2018, 06:32:49 AM

Quotejust completed Medi 8 which is by far my favorite level so far

It's very interesting that you say that; as at one point, that level actually got removed from the pack due to it being considered (by me) "low quality". It was later restored when I made some further alterations to the pack at one point (Danger 28 is another level that got restored at that time). Although in its original form, Medi 8 had 7 of everything, not 6.