Lemmings Plus VI - Development Topic [100% - Preparing Release]

[namida]

Lemmings Plus VI has now been released; click here to go to the release topic.

I've also added images of the release versions of all levels, to any posts in this topic that had in-development images. Some are barely changed (or completely unchanged), others are noticably different.



Note: This segment is the original contents of the first post, when this topic was first created. It's very out of date now.

Well, while I'm still not nearly as active as I once was, I have been finding the odd bit of spare time lately where I feel like making levels. So, I decided to start working on Lemmings Plus VI!

So... what to expect? Well, I noticed a common issue with my most recent packs - Omega II in particular - was that they're simply too hard. Of course, the flipside is that some people loved the challenge of them, too. Nonetheless, I've done plenty of harder packs lately, so for Lemmings Plus VI, I'm going to take a step back and make this one a bit easier (if I happen to come up with any particularly hard levels, I'll save them for a later pack, or maybe release them as a bonus pack).

That aside, I'm going to learn from what's happened with more or less every pack I've made from Lemmings Plus III onwards, and not aim for a ridiculously huge amount of levels. Instead, Lemmings Plus VI will be a smaller pack - perhaps 40 to 50 levels, I haven't really decided yet. When I feel like I've made enough levels, I'll decide how to divide it up into ranks and what total number of levels to have - at this stage, I'm not even attempting to sort the levels into ranks. (The primary reason I did so originally was, in fact, because of the music rotation - I'd feel that certain levels suit certain musics, and thus place levels accordingly. Lemmings Plus VI will continue LPIV and LPV's system of the music being tied to the graphic set rather than a rotation, so that isn't a problem here.)

Due to this smaller level count, I'm also likely only going to make three graphic sets for this one (although this is not final). Of these, one is nearing completion, while work on another has started but isn't very far yet. The third, I only have vague ideas of what kind of environment I'd like it to be, nothing specific.

As of this post, I've made 7 levels so far - five in the nearly-complete style, and two in the other one.



Current progress

Styles
- Note that I am creating these with a system of "If I need a new piece / object, I'll create it" rather than my previous "aim for a certain number of pieces / objects then make levels within those limitations". So I can't give "this style is X% complete" stats like I could with older packs.
- With that being said, I consider the styles more or less complete. Garden and Basement maybe need a few more terrain pieces.

Levels
- 80 of 80 total levels created so far
--- By rank: 20 Sane | 20 Loopy | 20 Manic | 20 Delirious
--- Style usage: 27 Bridge | 27 Garden | 26 Basement

Backroute Fixing
- No current known backroutes
- No current borderline cases
- No current talisman backroutes

Music
- Will be using the same music scheme as LPIV / LPV (ie: each graphic set has a couple of associated musics, which are chosen arbitrarily on a per-level basis)
- The musics will originate from the first three games in the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney series
- Three musics for each graphic set have been chosen
- A potential candidate for final level music has been chosen, though it may be changed if a different final level is chosen

Trivia and teasers
- I entered an LPVI level into the current level design contest, keep an eye out for it.
- The once-per-rank level in LPVI will be a return to the more classic style of "same map, different skills / stats" seen in LPI, LPIII and LPO, rather than the more-unusual concepts for them tried in LPIV and LPV.
- The hardest level I've made so far (which is no longer The Highbridge), would likely be in mid-Spiky if it were inserted into Lemmings Plus Omega II.
- One of the demo levels (other than Rocky Road) has a Part II. You'll have to wait and see which one.
- The first level made in the Bridge style (and first of all for LPVI) is The Highbridge, which can be seen in a post in this topic. The first level made in the Basement style is in the demo, Builderdash. The first level in the Garden style, "A Lost Tale", has not been revealed publicly, though the testers have seen it now.
- The first level of each rank, intentionally, uses the same graphic set as the last level of the rank.
- Garden1 is the most common music in the pack, at 11 levels. Excluding the final level music, Garden3 and Basement3 are all tied for least common, at 7 levels each.
- All but one of the Lemmings Plus VI levels with time limits are Bridge levels.

[namida]

Here's the first level I made for it. It's also probably the hardest of the levels I've made so far, and will likely end up being in the final rank.

"The Highbridge"
10 Lemmings, 9 to save
Spawn rate 50 (not locked)

10 climbers, 1 glider, 3 builders, 2 stackers, 1 basher, 1 miner, 1 digger

Release version

[GigaLem]

This came in like an E3 announcement, and on top of that, I am loving the new graphic you just made for it.

Now about that whole difficulty thing you said for it, make an extra rank for it if you can.

Lastly, this is more of a me thing but um, for music. Please no more midis, at least none without sound fonts because there are some midis from LPOII that just was ear grading IMHO.

[namida]

Now about that whole difficulty thing you said for it, make an extra rank for it if you can.

Lastly, this is more of a me thing but um, for music. Please no more midis, at least none without sound fonts because there are some midis from LPOII that just was ear grading IMHO.

I'd rather not. The problem with making it as an additional rank, is that people often have a desire to complete entire packs. In the case of LPO2 for example, most people are able to complete the first two ranks, but don't have such luck with the last two; especially with late-Sharp where the difficulty gets crazy even by LPO2 standards. So, I'd rather this be a pack that an experienced (but not super-expert level) player has a reasonable chance of completing the entire pack. Then, the super-hard levels can be seperated into a bonus pack, or perhaps saved for if Lemmings Plus Omega III is ever a thing (don't hold your breath, though).

Very few of the LPV musics were of midi origin, although all the LPIV ones were. At any rate, all the musics for this one will be OGGs. I won't say where they're from yet, although I'll say that similar to LPIV, the entire soundtrack will come from a single game - or at least, in this case, from a single series of games, with all musics used by LPVI coming from the same "generation" of entries in that series.

[607]

At any rate, all the musics for this one will be OGGs.

Aw. This is also more of a me thing, and Giga's probably more relevant than I, as I'm not a fan of NeoLemmix (I think it's really good, I just personally don't enjoy it)... but when I did use NeoLemmix, I made sure to only use .it's and .xm's. I did use one midi, but I converted that.

[namida]

Reveal another graphic set?

Sure, why not.

I won't give much information on the level beyond it's name though, but I will say that this is LPVI's once-per-rank level. Also, the rocks are steel - I made sure there's a level that can go very early in the pack, that makes this very clear to the player. (Of course, Clear Physics Mode would reveal it anyway.) And the last thing I'll say - this level has identical terrain / objects in all its iterations; only the save requirement, skills, and (for one version) the spawn rate differ.

The name of the level is Rocky Road. I realised soon after creating the level that there was already a level in ONML with that title, but eh, it's hardly the first time a pack has re-used an official game level title.

Release version

[GigaLem]

Nice progress, though I think the Garden set could look better IMO then again this is early on. If you want to ask how should it be improved, feel free too

I'm trying to brain storm an Idea for a forth tileset if you do make one and so far I thought of these

Rally - A Racing themed Graphic Set with Tires, Track pieces, gates, cones and the like
Gemstones - Stones of all shapes and colors other than the one in crystal, weather a cluster or clear cut necklace
Hospital - Beds, Monitors, Needles, Doctor Tools, and modern art you might see in certain hospitals
Military Base - Tanks, Training and Mine Fields, loads of weaponry, maybe a Tank for a Trap
Yarn - Strings of yarn, spools, sewing needles, patches of clothing, Buttons, and my favorite idea, a Sewing machine Trap
Palace - For this one, why not something elegant? The most beautiful looking castle set you can think of with chandeliers and what not. I know the Nicky Boum set already exits but why not something more..."Castlely"

I Hope this helps, this was the best that I could come up with, Jot these down if you want. Anyways I look forward to whatever next shows up on this topic

[namida]

As usual, also, I'm always interested in hearing who'd like to do some testing - whether you're interested in "test the occasional level here and there", "test the pack as a whole before release", or both. Let me know via PM if you're interested. It may be a while before I send any test content yet, though, but always good to get a few people in mind. As usual - doesn't matter how skilled you are at Lemmings; feedback and replays from less-skilled players can be just as valuable sometimes (for example, in previous packs I've found less-skilled testers have often discovered backroutes the more-skilled players missed).

Nice progress, though I think the Garden set could look better IMO then again this is early on. If you want to ask how should it be improved, feel free too

You're always welcome to make suggestions, though it'll be up to me to decide whether or not I take them.

[GigaLem]

So with the way your garden set looks right now, its a bit muddled. So here's my input
Dirt could more "Grainy" and less like a splotch of paint, unblurr it a bit too.
Grass, make it less blurry and more lively with the color pallet
If you want Rocks to be steel, Make the steel rock have a bit of a bedrock color to em and the non steel rock are way lighter
Background is honestly the worse, It's on the confusing side and  I think the BG should contrast with the terain so you could tell what's the sky and what's the terrain. Maybe instead of trippy flowers and green bits, Try a Blue sky with a picket fence and if possible a hedge behind the fence/

[grams88]

That's good that they are more graphic sets getting made, I might maybe have a go at creating one sometime, I have a few ideas which might be okay but see what happens. I like the whole basing the ideas around other video games like sonic or superplex and many other video games.

I noticed Gigalem mentioned about a hospital set, there was a hospital set in Worms Armageddon which would look kind of cool as a lemmings set.

Good luck with it all Namida.

[Strato Incendus]

Worms tilesets? Hell, yes!

[namida]

I like the whole basing the ideas around other video games like sonic or superplex and many other video games.

I certianly see how such tilesets appeal to some people, but there's plenty of other people creating those tilesets already.

The LPVI tilesets were originally intended to use alpha blending, too, to make them look better. However, it appears there's no intent to properly support alpha blending on terrain, so that had to be ditched. However - alpha blending already works perfectly fine on objects, so it's still in use there. (That's basically what I was getting at when I mentioned how "there are no sets making use of them" is because it isn't properly supported, rather than being a reason that proper support isnt' worthwhile.) If you look closely at the objects in the above level images, you might notice it.

[namida]

You may have noticed that the backgrounds so far, wouldn't really work well with vertical scrolling levels.

You may also have realised I probably thought about that already.

"Peak Point"
40 lemmings, 30 to save
Release rate 70
No time limit
5 bombers, 5 blockers

Release version

[namida]

So, demo. Always a concern sooner or later with my packs, right?

But I decided to go one step further this time. Instead of just having the final release pre-tested, I'm even having the demo looked over by testers - a few of whom have just received the first draft of it today. And of course, immediately after sending it out, I found a major backroute in one of the levels, so they've received a second draft too.

Demo will contain five levels, and two graphic sets (Bridge and Garden, of course). Since I'm not dividing the pack into ranks yet, I can't really say much about how many levels from which ranks, of course - but I'm making sure they span the difficulty range so far, fairly well. And of course, it will include one iteration of the once-per-rank level.

Shouldn't be too long before it's ready. Maybe a few days, but this does depend on how often I'm in the mood to work on Lemmings stuff (and have the time to do so).

===

Update: Got the first batch of replays back, and glad to report - no backroutes! The tester in question did solve two levels in a way that wasn't intended as such, but I'd consider both of these solutions acceptable nonetheless - one has similar complexity, the other is the same as the intended solution on the major details and differs only on some more-minor points.

[namida]

Alright. I'm pretty happy with the feedback; I had wondered whether these levels were a good enough set for the demo, but based on tester feedback I'm now convinced they are.

So, here you go! 5-level demo. Features three Bridge levels and two Garden levels. (And even the testers didn't get to see what the soundtrack was yet, so this will be a surprise even to them. )

https://www.dropbox.com/s/apa7w3v59es3ct2/LPVI_Demo.zip?dl=1

Please note that the styles may be subject to further changes, so I strongly advise against creating your own levels using them at this stage, and doubly so against releasing such levels.

On a side note, one likely talisman will be for the first level in this demo: Complete the level without using any blockers.