[NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour [Difficulty: Medium]

[Strato Incendus]

I've updated the Old-Formats version so that it features all the changes that are going to occur in the New-Formats version (except for the Radiation and Slowfreeze levels, of course, which are always going to remain intact in Old Formats! ).

One level had a cosmetic change - I've finally decided to go ahead and re-colour the flower traps from the L2 Highland tileset to match the title of this level / song (="White Roses from Athens"):


Weiße Rosen aus Athen

These white re-coloured flower traps are now part of my general tileset (the one that features Arty's rain and snow objects, as well as the blue fire traps in Old Formats).
Thus, when you re-download the updated pack from the starting post, also re-download the styles folder! You only need to extract the "general.dat" graphic set into your 10.13 styles folder, though, nothing else has changed.

I've also converted the white flower trap to New Formats right away, where it will be going under my strato_generalmd tileset. A former version of it is already available for the Lemmings Open Air test levels; the one including the white flowers will be uploaded together with the New-Formats release of Lemmings World Tour.

That said, the New-Formats release is indeed ready for release! I'm just not sure whether I should wait until the stable version 12.7? That's what I understood from namida.

[namida]

I'm just not sure whether I should wait until the stable version 12.7? That's what I understood from namida.

If your pack works on V12.6.5, you can release it now. If it only works on V12.7 (eg. you've run it through the "Cleanse Levels" or are using V12.7-exclusive features like antisplat pads, etc), please wait until the V12.7 stable release, although a private release to testers should be fine.

(Of course, this is purely advisory - I can't stop you from releasing a V12.7.0-RC version of the pack if you want, I just advise against it, especially if you don't plan to double-check everything against the stable version as soon as possible after its release.)

[Strato Incendus]

Great, thanks for the explanation, namida!

You guys can expect the release this evening (Central European Time) - I have all the levels in my Dropbox already, but not the updated strato_generalmd tileset with the white flowers yet. I might also alter the logo slightly (call it "Lemmings World Tour Remastered" or so ), to indicate that some levels indeed differ from their Old-Formats versions and have different solutions now.

Weekends seem like an appropriate time to release packs anyway , that means more people have the chance to try them right away!

[Strato Incendus]

Professional 21, "The lion sleeps tonight" has received an emergency fix to finally make it slightly more difficult (maximum release rate plus an additional cat trap).

It's still quite easy for its position, but now you have to at least slightly think about which skill goes where, and practice the ever so slightest form of flow control. I hope it's really just enough to move it from a completely pathetic level to something that can at least be considered "somewhat nice".

Download links are still the same.

[Strato Incendus]

A small update containing backroute fixes to Professional 07, "Holy diver", Professional 08, "Blocking all over the world", and Professional 20, "Rome". Link is still the one in the starting post.

Thanks to IchoTolot for finding these!

[Strato Incendus]

The next update at last! Fixes to four levels for which IchoTolot found backroutes - two each on the Diva rank ("Wrecking ball" and "Total eclipse of the builders") and the Rockstar rank ("Highway to Hell" and "Under bergets rot"). "Under bergets rot" is hard to fix though, and I still believe the intended solution isn't quite being enforced - probably another case of the intended solution being unnecessarily complicated, so that it can always be bypassed by an easier solution...

I've also expanded the pre-level hints on the Noisemaker levels "Glide and joy" (08) and "Rock, paper, scissors" (38), since I felt they weren't providing enough of a help to explain the tricks they are supposed to teach.

Finally, I discovered a minor way on Noisemaker 11 myself that allows to avoid using the central trick during the first part of the level (it still had to be used on the second part of the level). I've decided to go ahead and fix this with a bit of steel, so that it's not possible to dig behind the hatch on the right.

[Strato Incendus]

Another update is here! The link in the starting post is still the same.

This update brings backroute fixes to the Rockstar and Legend rank. No changes to Encore and Groupie (yet).

Changelog

Fixed:

Rockstar 22 (Summer of '69): added steel
Rockstar 38 (Stonehenge): added downward arrows
Rockstar 39 (Holy Mountains): added one-way fields
Rockstar 40 (Dream on): added steel

Legend 01 (Bolemian Rhapsody): added steel
Legend 07 (Lemmingrad): added downward arrows
Legend 09 (Eye of the tiger): added steel
Legend 11 (Living on a prayer): added upward arrows (that act as steel)
Legend 13 (Nothing else matters): added upward arrows (that act as steel)
Legend 17 (Y. Lem C. A.): added steel
Legend 23 (Wish you were here): added one-way left arrows (that act as steel)
Legend 24 (Let my Lems open the door): added downward arrows
Legend 25 (I will survive): added steel next to the exit; however, IchoTolot's awesome alternative solution remains intact; this is just a precaution I wanted to take against possible other backroutes
Legend 26 (Time to say goodbye): added one-way left arrows (that act as steel)
Legend 30 (Knocking on Heaven's door): added an additional exit button
Legend 34 (Purple Haze): shortened one stalactite a few pixels so that Platformers below a certain altitude can't reach it anymore
Legend 37 (Breaking the law): added steel; this might make the final skill assignment slightly more precise (it already is quite precise), but I think there should be enough leeway not to tank on the steel. Sadly, the way I originally wanted to fix this level (with one-way arrows) didn't work, since there was no way of placing one-way arrows that wouldn't have broken the intended solution as well.

Deliberately unfixed:

Legend 05 (Hallelujah): I could have gone with a different exit (a lockable one) and enforce the intended solution slightly more by using buttons, but I decided not to. The Pillar exit used here actually has a locked version in New Formats, but not in Old Formats.
Legend 35 (Scarborough Fair): IchoTolot's timing-based solution uses fewer skills, but is still a clever one, so I decided to continue to allow it

Currently unfixable:
All of these levels are playable, of course; it's just that the intended solution is so complex that it requires more skills than any simpler shortcut currently available.

Legend 02 (Purple Rain)
Legend 10 (Wind of Change)
Legend 15 (Waterloo)
Legend 28 (Just a little bit)

[kaywhyn]

Just started playing this pack last night. I'm essentially using this time in between the contest and testing your LOA pack to catch up on your flagship pack. I just finished the Noisemaker rank, so here are my complete set of replays for the rank and my feedback. Also, I'm well aware that you still need to release an update for the Encore and Groupie ranks. Honestly, you'll probably get that done way before I even get to those ranks.

Feedback on the Noisemaker Rank

Since this is yet again another first rank of tutorial levels, instead of feedback on every individual level (honestly, 40 is a lot in one rank, and I can't even begin to phantom how very long it will take me to write feedback on all 40 levels for each rank, especially the later ones) like I did with Paralems and Pit Lems, I'm just going to focus on a select few.

Being another first rank that's just tutorials, I'll be honest, and that is I was pretty bored with the rank, since I'm pretty much familiar with all of the tricks mentioned in the pre-text associated with each level. That probably means I probably could had skipped the Noisemaker rank entirely, but when it comes to playing packs I play all ranks anyway, so endure it I must. To be fair, this rank isn't the main meat and the real deal of the pack, since I believe the exciting stuff is in the Amateur rank and beyond. However, I believe I also gathered from the OP of this topic that the Amateur rank is similar to the Noisemaker with tutorial style levels, with the first few levels of the Amateur rank I have played so far being quite similar to the first few of Pit Lems in that they're being grouped by type of skills: constructive, destructive, horizontal movement, etc. up until a little over the halfway point of the rank. So, I think with this knowledge I will likely be bored even more until I'm past all of them in the Amateur rank.

Another thing about the Noisemaker levels is that they're also quite challenging. It's like you said, these aren't your very basic skill tutorial levels, there's also a real puzzle on top of introducing the skill mechanics rather than just their basic function. Even the first level already starts off a bit difficult, although I still think Noisemaker 1 is a bit easier than LOL 1 of Pit Lems. Heck, Basic 1 of Lemmicks is the easiest out of these first levels in the first rank. Now, I know that you said that nin10doadict thought Pit Lems got difficult too quickly and that you were essentially aiming for intermediate with LWT. I don't think that has been the case so far with the tutorial levels, but I'm only in the very early stages of the pack, so I'm likely speaking too soon. In particular, I think Noisemaker 4 - Going under is the first level that will likely stump many players, as it really requires you to think about how to get through the multiple obstacles with the extremely limited amount of destructive skills. The level certainly does a great job of enforcing the idea needed, though, it's just a bit harsh with the very limited skillset IMO.

Noisemaker 5 - Over the rainbow might also be another somewhat difficult level for the less experienced players.

Spoiler

I think here the biggest problem is that some will probably try building and then block at the end of the bridge, like I did a few times, only to find that you don't have enough walkers to save the blocker at the end of the bridge later, since you need 3. Instead, the solution involves blocking on even ground and letting a builder build into it to turn around and bridge the gap to the exit. Besides that, the other tricky thing is ensuring that no lemmings are nearby when blocking, as everyone needs to be saved.

I also consider Noisemaker 8 - Glide and joy to be another unusually difficult level, not just because of how to get the trick to turn around on steel with builders and a digger, which you explained in more detail in the most recent update from earlier this year, but also because

Spoiler

digging out the bridge that closed the gap with the steel blocks is annoyingly precise, as you have to dig right at the last moment in order for the glider to make it across the water pond.

Noisermaker 10 - Noel nouvelet is quite a nice somewhat challenging puzzle using only NL skills. I say the only tricky thing here is the placement of the stacker, especially when trying to make sure just the glider slips past and no other lemmings do.

Finally, not a difficult level per se, but I consider the trick needed in Noisemaker 33 - Mein kleiner gruener Kaktus to be an extremely obscure one for less experienced players. I have known it for quite a while, and hence the level is easy for someone like me, but

Spoiler

I think it's not very clear to more casual players that assigning a blocker to a digger that's digging at the very edge such that the center is not digging anything won't result in the lemming blocking but instead releases the digger. Of course, to us more experienced players this makes sense, since if there's nothing being dug at the center where the lemming's feet are, then when it's assigned a blocker it technically isn't standing on anything and hence that's why it's released immediately. To other players, this is quite a leap to deduce.

It's also a pretty nice looking level too, although the giant OWW arrows really stand out and make the cacti not look as nice. 

All other levels in the rank weren't as challenging as the ones mentioned above, although they're still challenging enough to require some thinking on how to solve. I really liked Noisemaker 21 - Rainbow in the dark, which is a really close repeat of Noisemaker 5, using the builder wall trick at the end, which is first taught 3 levels prior.

There are levels that I would like to point out where I didn't really use the trick you intended in your spoiler list. I think Noisemaker 14 - Digital World (I know what you mean in the spoiler list, but I certainly didn't use it, and I have skills leftover), Noisemaker 18 - Stop and stair (I simply brute forced it and so I have a basher leftover, easiest fix here is to increase the number of lemmings so I can't pull off what I did in my replay), Noisemaker 22 - Locked Away (I didn't assign any skills at the top of the walls to stop the climbers, and I don't think there's really any way to enforce this), and Noisemaker 30 - In the Army (I don't know what you mean in the spoiler) are the ones I didn't use the trick you intended. For the last one, unless that's exactly you mean,

Spoiler

I simply used builders to turn around at the end, mined, and then simply bashed under the entire level.

A lot of these levels look really nice, even in the ones that use just the original styles. I got to say the nicest looking level in this rank is Noisemaker 15 - Octopus's Garden, with Noisemaker 39 - Vegas Lights a close second. I absolutely love the former song, as I'm a huge Beatles fan. Written primarily and sung by none other than Ringo Starr too, the one who contributed the least but occasional vocals as compared to his 3 bandmates in their songs. Hidden traps here, but the real saving grace is that it's a very short level and plus the locations of the traps in the octopus are kind of easy to guess at, although the level can still be a bit annoying to pull off. I'm not sure if my very temporary digger pit on the clam is intended, as well as getting past the trigger on top of it, is intended, though.

For the latter, I don't know the song, but I do know Panic at the Disco. Ugh, the excessive repetitive stoning assignments to get past 4 trap trigger areas! Even after that, it can be a bit difficult to isolate a lemming to bridge the gap to the exit. Nevertheless, I do like how you included the Eiffel Tower replica, since it is there when you visit Las Vegas. Speaking of Vegas, the last time I went was way back in 2012, after I had just graduated from college. I should definitely make plans to come back and visit one of these days. Too bad I'm already in my 30s, and it's especially very difficult for me to take vacations nowadays.

Out of the 40 levels in this rank, I recognized 11 of them by title. Others I don't know the song, but I recognized the artist's name. It surprises me that you even know about singers like Katy Perry, Duran Duran, and Joan Jett. You either know them from listening to them a lot on the radio or you really did your research. Others like the Beatles and Wham not so much, since they're from around close to where you are.

One final thing regarding a level. For Noisemaker 38 - Rock, Paper, Scissors, the trigger area of the vine traps seems way off. Instead of being right on top of the vine, it's a little off to the side. Is this intended? I'm not sure if it will affect the level's solution either way.

Finally, a big issue with the pack is that it tends to take quite a while for the level preview to load up. The worst offenders in the Noisemaker ranks are the two artistic levels I just mentioned, Octopus's Garden and Vegas Lights. The latter takes the longest out of all the Noisemaker levels to load up.

Now that I'm on the Amateur rank, hopefully the very exciting stuff is to come. I was definitely very bored with the Noisemaker rank, and them being quite challenging kind of made it a turn-off even more, but then again I am a bit crankier today than I usually am due to finishing the second half and how I'm extremely sleep-deprived. Again, I'm sure the pack definitely gets better with its puzzles. Artistically, obviously many of those are to come, since most of the levels had to get the design right. If that's the case, then I definitely have something to look forward to as I proceed with the pack. I just hope that the pack does keep me engaged as I play more of it later.

Ok pack so far, but again I'm aware that I'm not even into the good stuff yet since I've only played the very boring Noisemaker rank so far.

[kaywhyn]

Just like that, Amateur rank already completed! Here are my replays up to Amateur 40, as well as my feedback on the Amateur rank. Same thing, since it's mostly just tutorial (not really) style levels, I'll probably do the same thing here as I did with the Noisemaker rank, meaning I likely won't give feedback on each individual level until Amateur 29 and beyond.

Feedback on the First 28 Tutorial-Like Levels of the Amateur Rank

Let me start off by saying that it was a huge relief to finally start hearing the other music tracks starting in this rank. I got annoyed with the boring ONML music rotation very quickly in the Noisemaker rank. Don't get me wrong, you did a good job of remixing the 6 ONML tracks, but it was very boring hearing the same 6 tunes throughout the 40 levels of the Noisemaker rank. Indeed, I found myself rocking out to some of your original Lemmings music track remixes in the Amateur rank In particular, I love the music for Amateur 7, as well as the following level, Amateur 8 (Very nice How Much is That Doggie in the Window? remix! ), Amateur 9 (especially the beginning which sounds almost like something from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker Suite, specifically The Flower Waltz), and Amateur 13. Nice job with these! The rest of the tracks I was either partial to or wasn't a fan of. I would probably love both The Can Can and She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain tracks if they weren't as loud.

After I finished the Amateur rank last night, I headed over to the LWT New Formats topic to read the posts on the Noisemaker and Amateur ranks. Apparently I echoed a lot of Icho's feedback for the Noisemaker rank here for Old Formats, so you're going to see me echoing a lot of Icho's feedback for the Amateur rank as well.

In contrast to the Noisemaker rank, the tutorial style levels in the Amateur rank were more enjoyable and weren't nearly as difficult, and the difficulty isn't all over the place. At least after the first 2 levels of Amateur, which I felt were difficult in their own way, although the former not as much as the latter. For Amateur 1 - It's a Long Way to the top, it is a bit difficult to see that 4 stackers is sufficient to get over the first wall. Even if it's difficult visually, I guess it's very easy to deduce that stackers must be used for that, based on the skillset, since 2 builders is obviously nowhere near enough to get over the first wall. Then again, it's always difficult to tell how many stackers are needed to get over any wall, especially since most of us are used to using builders to get over walls.

For Amateur 2 - Timber (It's going down!), the only difficult part is the leftmost entrance. It's not easy to figure out how to delay the lemmings long enough for a worker lemming to mine the tree obstacle before anyone turns back and drowns. The other two entrances are very easy to figure out. Then again, this is also the very first time I have played a level in your Autumn tileset, which means I need to get used to recognizing the objects but most importantly the trap, which blends in very well with the other leaves, although I correctly suspected the bottom one on the left since it really stand out, even if the top trap took me by complete surprise, since I have never played this tileset ever.

After the first two levels, then I say we had a long stretch of fairly easy levels. Amateur 3 - Walking on sunshine will likely look impossible at first glance for most, but then I looked at the number of lemmings in the level, and with two hatches, that means 5 out of each, hence the 5 swimmers. Also, since you later teach that the water breaks falls with Amateur 12 in the pre-text, I'm wondering if these levels should switch positions. The only problem here is that this would break the already neatly placed levels according to movement of skills for the first three levels (up, down, and horizontal), so unless your intention is for the player to figure out that water always breaks falls, I would say this can be a huge step up in difficulty for the less experienced players. Luckily, if the player manages to figure that out, the rest is easy.

Amateur 8 - Who let the dogs out? is quite a difficult level and I would even say is a huge step up in difficulty compared to the previous levels of the rank. It's not easy to figure out how to navigate the terrain and around the dog traps with the extremely restricted skillset. Truthfully, the missing disarmer was the very first thing I noticed in the level, so naturally I scanned the level to find the disarmer pickup. Surprisingly, I couldn't spot it myself, so at first I thought you were trolling and made an error for the level. I did suspect that it was the mound next to the last dog before the exit, but I wasn't certain. It should be obvious to you that I resisted turning on CPM, and I played the entire level without the aid of it. Indeed, the "boing" pickup sound took me a bit by surprise after I passed the mound I suspected where the pickup was. I then rewinded a bit and took another quick look, and I finally did see the disarmer icon in the mound. Quite well-hidden, if I do say so myself.

As for the level, I got to say that it definitely shouldn't be a surprise that indeed there are hidden traps in the dogs, particularly since the pre-text somewhat hints at it. It's also as you say, your animals are hungry for lemmings. I got to say, though, that you did a great job of depicting dog poop at the barrel, and when the trap went off, my reaction was, "Eww, the dog pooped on the lemming and killed it!" There is also some kind of trap that sucks lemmings upwards in the first and last dogs that I encountered in my solution when you get to its mouth. I got to ask, what kind of trap is it that's sucking the lemmings upwards? Especially since the lemming immediately gets sucked up once it steps on the trigger area. Obviously, it's to give the impression that the dog ate the lemming, so I thought that was fun to see. Above all, great looking level!

I say Amateur 13 - Ayo Technology is a pretty difficult radiation level. It's definitely not easy to work out how to manuever the lemmings with the radiation coundown to get them to explode in the places that will get the crowds from either side up to the exit. The save requirement might seem very lenient, but even with the cloners it's pretty tight. Nice looking level though, with the depiction of the atom and referencing lemmings being blown into atoms with the radiation.

Amateur 15 - Ring, ring! can also be difficult, but I say more tricky than difficult. The solution I came up with building into terrain to turn around at the end to bash the OWWs seems to be the more difficult alternative. I read your spoiler list on what you intended on this level after I had saved the rank, and indeed having looked at the level again, I say destructive skills going against the OWW is the much easier option here. Once again, nice looking level depicting a telephone with the number keys.

Amateur 16 - Slide it in can also be difficult as well, especially with figuring out how to get the floaters home since they take a little longer to open up their parachute compared to gliders. I might had overcomplicated the solution tremendously though. Indeed, I just tried it again and saw that there are much easier ways to solve it than the way I did. This was what gave me a lot of problems on Hasty 6 of Lemmicks, and I mentioned that was the hardest level of the rank.

I think Amateur 17 - Float is also another difficult one, especially with figuring out how to get past the flower trap and how to bridge the gap before anyone else arrives and falls into the bottomless pit. I didn't use the stoner, so I wonder what the purpose of it is. Probably means I also backrouted the level, but I'm not sure.

Amateur 18 - Tears in Heaven is yet another difficult level and I would also say is a huge step up in difficulty to the previous difficult ones I just mentioned. The right crowd is easy, but the left crowd is quite difficult. It took me quite a while to figure out how to get all of the left crowd to the miner tunnel on the right side.

Amateur 23 - Fields of gold is a difficult level in figuring out how to navigate the honeycomb and getting the right crowd up to where the left crowd can get up. My solution is probably quite fiddly and there are probably much easier ways.

Amateur 24 - Wonderwall Not necessarily difficult, just tricky, in regards to getting the basher/blocker trick to work at the very beginning, but I was already aware of this trick and so this level wasn't as hard. Definitely for less experienced players it will be a very hard level. The one thing I didn't know about was

Spoiler

a digger turning around when dug directly on top of a one-way field, but I guess this makes sense since this is akin to digging and releasing a blocker, who has the ability to turn a digger in the other direction when you block in the digger pit.

Amateur 26 - Like ice in the sunshine Nice slowfreeze puzzle that gave me a good struggle for about 10 minutes, so it can be difficult and is somewhat a big step up in difficulty, even with the very restricted skillset. Definitely getting the crowd down safely is hard, and also figuring out how to stop them from walking into the trap.

Finally, Amateur 28 - Zombie is quite a difficult level to finish off the tutorial-like puzzles. Once again, compression for the win here and releasing the crowd at the right time to avoid infection. Before that, I kept trying to actually get rid of the zombie by making him drown, but I wasn't able to.

The other ones I didn't mention in the first 28 levels weren't as difficult and were enjoyable and more to my liking. In particular, I absolutely loved Amateur 5 - Sugar Baby Lem (easy level and nice looking level), Amateur 6 - Cliffs of Dover (nice puzzle and how there's two solutions, my solution spares all the climbers), Amateur 7 - Join me in death (I still enjoyed this one despite the stoner staircase and repeated bombing/stoning, at least it wasn't to the extreme and done to death like it was in Paralems), Amateur 9 - Greensleeves (nice, easy puzzle!), and Amateur 11 - Whole lotta Lems (very nice puzzle, although I initially tried to get all lemmings through the pillar for a few minutes until I realized I was going about it the wrong way and that the several climbers provided had a purpose, and the miner placement and timing can be a bit difficult).

My favorite level of the rank in the first batch of 28 levels was Amateur 19 - Holding out for a hero. Decent looking level and also a very nice, easy puzzle on top of it!

I also really loved Amateur 25 - Radioactive. Very nice and easy radiation puzzle!

Lastly, Amateur 24 - Firework I immediately thought of the nuke being required just based on the level title, especially since it does indeed look like fireworks from all the lemmings being applied a bomber skill with the nuke. This is one of the few levels that I have played where the nuke being required for the solution didn't escape me. For some reason, that one level in Lemmicks where the nuke is needed completely went over my head. I think this is the third level that has Katy Perry as an artist, so you're apparently a fan of her, as am I.

Ok, that took longer and I wrote a lot more than I thought I would, but at least the boring tutorial-like levels are done and over with. Now finally onto the open-ended puzzles and the more exciting stuff. The remaining feedback will be on the final 12 levels of the Amateur rank, starting with Amateur 29.


Feedback on the Last 12 Levels of the Amateur Rank, Starting with Amateur 29

The rest of the rank lived up to my expectations of very exciting and well-done puzzles, and so luckily you managed to get my engagement level back up, and so I will definitely be playing out the rest of the pack with joy, unless I start getting annoyed with future puzzles that have stumped me, but I highly doubt it, since so far it's been looking really good It's going to take a while, since I still have 240 levels to go, but I'll get through the whole pack eventually. In the final set of 12 levels of the rank, the hardest level for me was certainly Amateur 37. I still loved the level and solution, though!

Spoiler

Amateur 29 - Seven Nation Army Very easy level to start off the open-ended puzzles of the rank after the previous 28 tutorial-like levels. Somewhat nice looking level too despite the minimal design in the middle.

Amateur 30 - Georgia on my Mind Already difficult with the second puzzle level, but still not overly hard and quite a nice level. Definitely a nice departure from the standard block the crowd in and have a worker lemming forge the path by temporarily delaying/containing the crowd with a miner pit in both directions and bashing to the right before the lemmings get trapped in the windows. I didn't realize those flashing windows is just scenery. Also the flag pole being scenery and not solid. I'm not sure if it's the exact same in New Formats, but I definitely wished something was done to make the flag pole more clearly scenery and not solid. Great looking level too!

Amateur 31 - The Great Indifference The 0 save requirement was what immediately caught my eye. Is that intentional? Upon loading the level I immediately exited. It's still a very easy level, so I might just go back and actually do the level for real later on.

Amateur 32 - Ich und mein Holz Nice level with a great solution! You, Simon, Icho, Nepster, or eric can translate the level title for me.

Amateur 33 - Eagle Somewhat difficult, but still easy. Also a very nice looking level!

Amateur 34 - Levels Easy 10-of-everything level despite the lose 1 save requirement, although can't be wasteful with your skills, especially the builders. I like how you included a level from every rank of the original Lemmings and put them together to make this level: Fun 1, Tricky 1, Taxing 29, and Mayhem 12. It's just like traveling in time in the game here.

Amateur 35 - Black Polished Chrome This one was quite difficult for me, actually. I struggled with this for a good half hour, but finally managed to solve it. Definitely not easy to find an efficient path through all the obstacles with the extremely restricted skillset to reach the hidden (not hidden at all but in the context of the original Lemmings game it definitely would be hidden) exit inside the wall. For the exit, I kept not having a basher to access it. In the end, two bombers and a platformer leftover.

Amateur 36 - Walk this way Nice puzzle involving a temporary stacker to prevent the glider from exiting and then later circling around to bomb the top of it from the right side! Probably my favorite among the final 12 levels of the rank The only difficult thing is platforming so that only the glider makes it across so that it can circle back while the rest of the crowd can still fall down and get to the exit coming from the left.

Amateur 37 - Shipping to Boston By far the hardest level of the rank but I still love the solution and level. Very nice puzzle with a bunch of tricks required! Struggled for a good 40 minutes or so. The key here is realizing that it's possible to give the first lemming enough time to seal up the gap and losing only one lemming in the process by making the second lemming a bomber to contain the crowd. The level is still no cakewalk after that. Other tricks needed are bombing the second wall as the climber either starts hoisting or falls one pixel from the other direction, temporary 1 bridge for the next gap after that, getting up to the steel platform with a combination of a builder and a stack interrupted with a walker, and finally building to bridge the chain gap to turn around and circle back to the crowd to release them. The final builder can be used to get up on the blue square blocks platform. All of these required things make it a very difficult level.

Amateur 38 - The Shocker Nothing special here and way too easy. Nice breather after the previous brutally difficult level.

Amateur 39 - Japan Nice looking level that is somewhat difficult but still a really nice puzzle! I like how the radiation must be used to bomb the gray pillars but then you also have to figure out how to avoid the radiation traps later afterwards. A couple of skills leftover, but I'm guessing these are fine.

Amateur 40 - God gave Rock n' Roll to you Very nice level to finish off the rank. Somewhat difficult and definitely not trivial despite the 5-of-everything skillset of what you're given. At first, I was wondering where the exit was in the level. I spent a couple of minutes digging through the terrain, as well as the guitar picks at the top. I then experimented and tried going to the very last guitar and to my surprise the worker exited. To be fair, this is the very first level in the music tileset that I have ever played, and so I was completely unaware that the vertical standing black guitar is the exit. It should also be clear that I didn't use CPM at all. I simply wanted the challenge of finding the exit without the aid of it

Also, for a while I tried to use the upper path of going on the piano keys for probably about a good 15-20 minutes before I then tried the lower route. I did try the lower route before spending time on the upper path, but I quickly abandoned it when I saw that you need at least two platformers to make it across the gap. Once I did come back to the bottom route, I quickly realized that's where the stacker can provide the few pixels of width to allow lemmings across the gap without using up another platformer, since three platformers are needed to get to the exit.

Most importantly, very nice looking level!:thumbsup:     

For the Amateur rank, I recognized 10 of the songs by title

Overall, the Amateur rank was a huge improvement compared to the Noisemaker rank. It was still somewhat boring, but nowhere near as much, and the difficulty doesn't jump all over the place like it did in the Noisemaker rank. The Amateur rank definitely lived up to its promise of superb looking levels and well-made puzzles after the first 28 tutorial-like style levels. Indeed, I praised almost all of the final 12 open-ended puzzle levels of the rank, so that's certainly saying something. So, it's thanks to those levels (and some of the ones in the first 28 to an extent) that managed to get me engaged and hyped up about the pack again. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the rest of the pack and finishing up the whole thing!

I think from here on out, I'm going to post with my replays and feedback when I get to the halfway point, ie, after 20 levels. As I said before, 40 levels is just way too much to write feedback on all at once. 20 levels at a time should be much more manageable in terms of how much time I waste writing my feedback. Indeed, that's exactly what I did with United, although I sent replays to Icho whenever I got truly stumped, not necessarily at the halfway point, although I did that too!

Onward to the Professional rank!        

[kaywhyn]

Well, I'm halfway through the Professional rank, so I'm back again already with more replays and feedback. Here are my replays up through Professional 20, as well as feedback for Professional 1 through Professional 20. Well, I must say that I continue to be impressed by the high artistic quality of your levels and puzzles that were definitely promised during my playthrough of the Professional rank so far, after finally getting past the boring stuff from the Noisemaker rank and the little over the first half of the Amateur rank I'm probably now going a little way too fast for your liking, especially since I have seem to pick up significant speed, so perhaps I should slow down my playing of LWT a bit so as not to torture you with so much work fixing up levels for LWT as well in addition to LOA.

Spoiler

Professional 1 - I wanna rock! Nice, challenging level to start off the rank! I like how you must dig low enough on the stoner steps in order to be able to fully build the bridges, although the stoner placements can be a bit precise. Skillset is quite tight, and the solution ends up using everything, so you cannot waste anything at all! Also, you must choose correctly for the gap at the beginning, or you're not going to have enough to solve the level.

Professional 2 - Carry on wayward Lem Nice and easy breather level after the previous challenging level. Somewhat a huge builder fest, although builders can be quite tight.

Professional 3 - Sex bomb Not a difficult level, since it was quite obvious to me what needs to be done, just very difficult to execute. I can only imagine how much harder this level would be with timed bombers, so I think this is one of the few to be thankful of untimed bombers. Not to mention that timed bombers won't even work for this level anyway, since the lemmings are too close to the edge of the wall where they start and hence won't be able to make a safe pit in the wall for lemmings to all down safely.

Professional 4 - Fencing Queen Another nice easy level with a great solution

Professional 5 - Vienna Can be challenging due to the extremely limited destructive skills, but even the builders are somewhat in short supply so you need to be efficient with their use as well. It's still an easy level, though.

Professional 6 - Walk like an Egyptian Probably my second favorite level of the rank in the first half of the rank Can be tricky to figure out how to get the lemmings down to the lowest floor before the exit, but it's still an easy level with a really awesome solution

Professional 7 - Holy Diver Way too easy and nothing too special here

Professional 8 - Blocking all over the world Ah, there's the level from the LOL rank of Pit Lems all fixed up for LWT. It's definitely harder now, especially since you have prevented me from solving it the same way I did the Pit Lems version. Still, the solution is nice when you can piece it together.

Professional 9 - Dig in a box Nice short and somewhat challenging level. They key here is making sure only one lemming is on the other side of the exit while the rest are on the other side. The RR plays a really important role here in getting all the crowd out in time before the digger finishes and causes some lemmings to splat. The first digger near the exit and builder are somewhat precise.

Professional 10 - Buildy Jean The tricks from Stop and stair return here, builder wall and building to seal off the basher tunnel so only one worker lemming goes ahead and forges the path for the crowd. Nice level!

Professional 11 - Making your mine up Nice level primarily involving miners. You probably intended the miner cancelling trick, but that trick is not required to solve this level, as I solved it without it.

Professional 12 - Block around the clock Too easy. I even got the talisman too even though I have not taken a look at the list beforehand. It's so not a gold talisman, it's way too easy for one.

Professional 13 - Tulpen aus Amsterdam I really like this level too, both the artistic quality and the solution The builder/platformer for both gaps are a bit precise, but luckily you only have to do the combo twice. Here, the flag pole was solid, so something really needs to be done about this in being able to differentiate whether it's solid or not. Although, if I'm not mistaken, only the white ones are non-solid, while any other color pole is?

Professional 14 - Waka-waka Nice 1-of-everything level involving mining into steel to turn the climber around since you have to save everyone here. Non-solid white flag pole, so it seems my guess is correct so far?

Professional 15 - Auld Lem Syne Too easy. Nice looking level, though

Professional 16 - Pompeii You did pretty good depicting the resulting eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii that resulted from it all those years ago. Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of the song by Bastille though. I found it annoying back when it played on the radio a lot. As for the level, pretty easy, with how to get into the exit that's buried by the lava being the only challenging thing of the level. The main critique I have is that the platformer/builder bricks are completely invisible against the purple background.

Professional 17 - Surfin' bird Whoa, that's a cool looking exit. Another easy level.

Professional 18 - Sur le pont d'Avignon If I'm not mistaken, the title is French for South of the Avignon port? I don't really know French, I took Spanish all 4 years of high school. Anyway, another really easy level, as well as a very nice looking level, especially with the lemmings swimming in the lake.

Professional 19 - Atte katte nuva Wow, I really like this level! My favorite level of the rank so far. Not only does it look really cool with the snow falling in the background, I really love the solution! Very easy, and I like the releasing the blocker with the fencer trick from the other side which I recently learned in a United level in the Bonus rank.

Professional 20 - Rome Nice looking level that includes Italy's flag. Easy level. My solution seems to be a backroute? Not sure if you intended the use of the teleporter or if it's a complete red herring.     

I think what I will do is finish up the Professional rank and then dial back and slow down my playthrough so as to give you a chance to catch up on fixing levels for the Encore and Groupie ranks, as well as possibly any that I might had backrouted from the Noisemaker and Amateur ranks. I'm sure making you work, aren't I? I'm going to try not to torture you too much with that. Or I might also finish through the next rank as well, which will leave me at the halfway point of the pack. We'll see what happens.

[Strato Incendus]

Mmh, if you keep going at this pace, you will most likely reach the Encore and Groupie rank before I've had a chance to fix them!

Again, thanks for playing and taking the time to write these long and hugely detailed responses! This will definitely help me as a big memory aid when I go about fixing the levels you have solved so far.

Some remarks to select comments of yours (before having watched your replays):

Being another first rank that's just tutorials, I'll be honest, and that is I was pretty bored with the rank, since I'm pretty much familiar with all of the tricks mentioned in the pre-text associated with each level. That probably means I probably could had skipped the Noisemaker rank entirely, but when it comes to playing packs I play all ranks anyway, so endure it I must.

That is precisely the thing about tricks: If you know them, these levels are easy, especially because the pre-level texts spell them out to you. If you don't know them, the level might stump you despite it telling you what to do at the beginning. But I don't see a way of teaching somebody a trick that doesn't involve "learning by doing".

Of course, skipping this rank is indeed an option: If you know all the tricks - or, more accurately, you believe you know all the tricks that can be done in NeoLemmix (since there might always be at least 1 or 2 you don't know yet ) - you are free to skip this rank. But do so at your own peril. When a later level comes back at you and hits you with requiring the same trick out of nowhere, don't say I didn't accurately prepare you for it.

Of course, "you" refers to any player in this context, because for you (kaywhyn) in particular, I know you are enough of a completionist to play the entire pack no matter what.

Your level of boredom with the Noisemaker rank was likely a little amplified by you having played my easier packs back-to-back with this one. If you're basically waiting 150 levels (Paralems) + whatever number of Pit Lems levels was easy for you + 40 Noisemaker levels for a real challenge, you need quite a lot of patience. This will be less strenuous when the Noisemaker rank is the first thing you encounter from me as a level creator - which I assume will be the case for most players, since only LWT is available for New Formats so far.

I don't quite understand how the Noisemaker levels can be boring and challenging at the same time, though? Unless the challenge is about execution difficulty (I recently played that "I am A.T." remake in Lemmings Plus I), which I tried to avoid as much as possible in LWT, I don't see how these too things can go hand in hand.


NOISEMAKER RANK

Spoiler

I think Noisemaker 4 - Going under is the first level that will likely stump many players, as it really requires you to think about how to get through the multiple obstacles with the extremely limited amount of destructive skills. The level certainly does a great job of enforcing the idea needed, though, it's just a bit harsh with the very limited skillset IMO.

This level uses the same logic as "Basic economics" from Pit Lems, which, granted, appears a lot later in its respective pack. Since it is more efficient at enforcing its solution, though, I think that should make it easier in comparison. I remember it being one of Arty's favourites during his LP.

I also consider Noisemaker 8 - Glide and joy to be another unusually difficult level

I agree, which is why I made the pre-level text more explicit about the required trick.
Sadly, I'm pretty sure the precision you mentioned here is required to actually enforce Glider usage at this point: If the lower platform of steel just stuck out slightly below the steel pillar, you could just build over there regularly and wouldn't need the Glider - a regular Faller would also survive. Can't have that!

Finally, not a difficult level per se, but I consider the trick needed in Noisemaker 33 - Mein kleiner gruener Kaktus to be an extremely obscure one for less experienced players.

This particular trick I actually discovered by accident while playing one of IchoTolot's levels. And that one didn't include an introductory hint.
I agree this trick is obscure, which is why the level is rather late in the Noisemaker rank. But since this is one I actually found myself without any hints from the forums, replays etc. (in contrast to many of the other tricks featured in this pack!), I'm inclined to consider it easier than some of the other tricks the player is supposed to learn here.

I got to say the nicest looking level in this rank is Noisemaker 15 - Octopus's Garden, with Noisemaker 39 - Vegas Lights a close second. I absolutely love the former song, as I'm a huge Beatles fan. Written primarily and sung by none other than Ringo Starr too, the one who contributed the least but occasional vocals as compared to his 3 bandmates in their songs. Hidden traps here, but the real saving grace is that it's a very short level and plus the locations of the traps in the octopus are kind of easy to guess at, although the level can still be a bit annoying to pull off. I'm not sure if my very temporary digger pit on the clam is intended, as well as getting past the trigger on top of it, is intended, though.

Yay! Finally someone who enjoys the octopus level!
I guess that actually makes Vegas Lights the worse offender by public opinion, precisely because of those four fire traps...
But if you simultaneously say these were the two pretties levels in the rank, that's confirmation the nuisance factor of those levels is totally worth it!

It surprises me that you even know about singers like Katy Perry, Duran Duran, and Joan Jett.

Katy Perry was pretty much omnipresent in the charts during my high school years.
Duran Duran's "Ordinary World" was covered by a bunch of other artists I knew (Gregorian and Norwegian singer-songwriter Kurt Nilsen, for example), so that's how I became aware of the original. Flopsy mentioned in his LP that he's somewhat acquainted to one of the band members, if I remember correctly?
"I Love Rock 'n Roll" is simply a classic; I think I've heard it first on the iPod / iPhone game "Guitar Rock Tour 2". Of course, being an actual guitarist, I never would have bought one of these games out of my own effort, but the previous owner of my first iPod touch had it pre-installed, I tried it, and thought it was a nice way to get to know some more songs while enjoying a different form of "finger challenge".

I think this is the third level that has Katy Perry as an artist, so you're apparently a fan of her, as am I.

Not necessarily a fan - it's just that somehow, a lot of her song titles lent themselves well to level names. Plus, given her medial omnipresence, I can always be reasonably confident people will know the song when I name a level after one of them.

Finally, a big issue with the pack is that it tends to take quite a while for the level preview to load up. The worst offenders in the Noisemaker ranks are the two artistic levels I just mentioned, Octopus's Garden and Vegas Lights. The latter takes the longest out of all the Noisemaker levels to load up.

In these cases, it's because of tileset mixing. Occasionally, this may even lead to Old-Formats NeoLemmix crashing, as mentioned in the starting post. It's not going to affect your progress / save game, though; simply restart NeoLemmix and open the level again.

Some of the graphic sets simply have long loading time becaues of high resolution, though, even if you're not mixing them. For example, all of GigaLem's Freedom Planet tilesets. You may have noticed that the Pit Lems levels "Arigato, Lemming-san!" and "You want it, you got it!" also take a good amount of tile to load for this reason.

One final thing regarding a level. For Noisemaker 38 - Rock, Paper, Scissors, the trigger area of the vine traps seems way off. Instead of being right on top of the vine, it's a little off to the side. Is this intended? I'm not sure if it will affect the level's solution either way.

I guess this is the way it has always been in the ONML Rock tileset. I don't even think the trigger area was moved during New-Formats conversion. I definitely didn't tinker with the vine trap; I made my own version of the Rock chameleon trap, because some of these animal traps relied on having just the head available as a separate piece (as it used to be in Old Formats), instead of the whole lizard as one.

Also, since you later teach that the water breaks falls with Amateur 12 in the pre-text, I'm wondering if these levels should switch positions. The only problem here is that this would break the already neatly placed levels according to movement of skills for the first three levels (up, down, and horizontal), so unless your intention is for the player to figure out that water always breaks falls, I would say this can be a huge step up in difficulty for the less experienced players. Luckily, if the player manages to figure that out, the rest is easy.

Indeed, this is precisely the reason why those levels haven't swapped places. "Smoke on the water" wasn't made to introduce water breaking falls, though - I just needed it to be "about something". When I made the pre-level text, I forgot I had already required knowledge of this trick on an earlier level. A similar thing happened to me in the first version of Pit Lems, where "Blocking all over the world" came before "On the fence", thus casually introducing the Fencer before it was officially introduced. nin10doadict spotted that right away during his LP. In case of Pit Lems, though, this actually let to the levels swapping positions. But it was easier then, because they were already back-to-back anyway.

AMATEUR RANK

Spoiler

For Amateur 2 - Timber (It's going down!), the only difficult part is the leftmost entrance. It's not easy to figure out how to delay the lemmings long enough for a worker lemming to mine the tree obstacle before anyone turns back and drowns. The other two entrances are very easy to figure out. Then again, this is also the very first time I have played a level in your Autumn tileset, which means I need to get used to recognizing the objects but most importantly the trap, which blends in very well with the other leaves, although I correctly suspected the bottom one on the left since it really stand out, even if the top trap took me by complete surprise, since I have never played this tileset ever.

This is not my Autumn tileset, it's GigaLem's remake of namida's Lemmings Plus Tree tileset. So namida is to blame for the leaf trap blending in with the trees (kind of reminding me of the boulder trap from the Dirt tileset) . GigaLem just adapted the trap faithfully.

Amateur 8 - Who let the dogs out? is quite a difficult level and I would even say is a huge step up in difficulty compared to the previous levels of the rank. It's not easy to figure out how to navigate the terrain and around the dog traps with the extremely restricted skillset. Truthfully, the missing disarmer was the very first thing I noticed in the level, so naturally I scanned the level to find the disarmer pickup. Surprisingly, I couldn't spot it myself, so at first I thought you were trolling and made an error for the level. I did suspect that it was the mound next to the last dog before the exit, but I wasn't certain. It should be obvious to you that I resisted turning on CPM, and I played the entire level without the aid of it. Indeed, the "boing" pickup sound took me a bit by surprise after I passed the mound I suspected where the pickup was. I then rewinded a bit and took another quick look, and I finally did see the disarmer icon in the mound. Quite well-hidden, if I do say so myself.

The pickup skill being a leaf, however, was one of the decisions made by GigaLem when he made this stylized version of namida's Lemmings Plus Tree tileset.

As for the level, I got to say that it definitely shouldn't be a surprise that indeed there are hidden traps in the dogs, particularly since the pre-text somewhat hints at it. It's also as you say, your animals are hungry for lemmings. I got to say, though, that you did a great job of depicting dog poop at the barrel, and when the trap went off, my reaction was, "Eww, the dog pooped on the lemming and killed it!"

YES! Finally someone who got to experience a "crap trap" in all its glory!

Although, since you mentioned the barrel, I think you're referring to the dog on the balcony? That is actually supposed to be the dog peeing on the lemming. Hence it's yellow, and there's the little puddle on top of the barrel. I think I used a different water drop trap on another level featuring a dog from either Paralems or Pit Lems.

That said, there is indeed an actual dog poop trap on the level, though, and I used the chocolate trap from namida's Candy tileset to create it... I've also placed a piece of terrain under it that is slightly triangularly shaped. So that it could either be earth or a dog turd.

I say Amateur 13 - Ayo Technology is a pretty difficult radiation level. It's definitely not easy to work out how to manuever the lemmings with the radiation coundown to get them to explode in the places that will get the crowds from either side up to the exit. The save requirement might seem very lenient, but even with the cloners it's pretty tight. Nice looking level though, with the depiction of the atom and referencing lemmings being blown into atoms with the radiation.

Just to be clear, that's not just any atom, it's the "Atomium" structure in Brussels. Hence the Belgian flag. Also, Milow is Belgian, but he only covered this song.

Amateur 18 - Tears in Heaven is yet another difficult level and I would also say is a huge step up in difficulty to the previous difficult ones I just mentioned. The right crowd is easy, but the left crowd is quite difficult. It took me quite a while to figure out how to get all of the left crowd to the miner tunnel on the right side.

Yes, I'm aware - this one also managed to stump Flopsy on his LWT LP.

Amateur 23 - Fields of gold is a difficult level in figuring out how to navigate the honeycomb and getting the right crowd up to where the left crowd can get up. My solution is probably quite fiddly and there are probably much easier ways.

Good to know - I always thought this level was too easy in comparison!

Amateur 24 - Wonderwall Not necessarily difficult, just tricky, in regards to getting the basher/blocker trick to work at the very beginning, but I was already aware of this trick and so this level wasn't as hard. Definitely for less experienced players it will be a very hard level. The one thing I didn't know about was

Precisely, new players would be completely stumped by this if the level didn't tell them about it. I never knew it was possible until I saw it done on a level - a level which I had considered impossible before that. The digger trick you mentioned in the spoiler isn't actually part of the intended solution. Nice to know, though - and yes, given the behaviour of Blockers, it makes total sense.

Finally, Amateur 28 - Zombie is quite a difficult level to finish off the tutorial-like puzzles. Once again, compression for the win here and releasing the crowd at the right time to avoid infection. Before that, I kept trying to actually get rid of the zombie by making him drown, but I wasn't able to.

I've become used to people using timing-based solutions on my zombie levels, but usually I do indeed put in a way of killing the zombie. So getting rid of him is actually part of the intended solution. Compression method is taught on the level right before this one, but good to know that knowledge can be applied again here, too.

My favorite level of the rank in the first batch of 28 levels was Amateur 19 - Holding out for a hero. Decent looking level and also a very nice, easy puzzle on top of it

Thanks a lot; you seem to be in agreement with Colorful Arty on that one! Shipping up to Boston was another one, and you seem to agree about it being challening - you may have found an alternative solution to it, though, I'll have to check.

Amateur 31 - The Great Indifference The 0 save requirement was what immediately caught my eye. Is that intentional? Upon loading the level I immediately exited. It's still a very easy level, so I might just go back and actually do the level for real later on.

Yes, it's completely intentional. This level simply "doesn't mind at all".
And whoever set the minimum save requirement in New Formats to 1 lemming completely ruined that!

So be aware that your current "replay" will not work in the New-Formats version...
There is a talisman for saving everyone, though, in both versions. It's just that New-Formats tells you that right on the pre-level screen; Old Formats didn't have this feature yet, you have to go to the Talisman window to check - or simply save everyone out of your own ambition, as Arty did.

Amateur 32 - Ich und mein Holz Nice level with a great solution! You, Simon, Icho, Nepster, or eric can translate the level title for me.

The translation is already included in the pre-level text: It means "Me and my wood".

Amateur 40 - God gave Rock n' Roll to you Very nice level to finish off the rank. Somewhat difficult and definitely not trivial despite the 5-of-everything skillset of what you're given. At first, I was wondering where the exit was in the level. I spent a couple of minutes digging through the terrain, as well as the guitar picks at the top. I then experimented and tried going to the very last guitar and to my surprise the worker exited. To be fair, this is the very first level in the music tileset that I have ever played, and so I was completely unaware that the vertical standing black guitar is the exit. It should also be clear that I didn't use CPM at all. I simply wanted the challenge of finding the exit without the aid of it

Okay, thanks for your patience, but this tileset is not meant to be obscure at all. I simply had no better idea of what to use as an exit without breaking the music theme - or having to design an exit animation from scratch. I thought the sound hole of an acoustic guitar might still be a comparatively intuitive choice. I probably would have made it more apparent if CPM didn't exist. Note that the exit guitar can of course also be rotated, so on some future levels, it will be horizontal, but it's still the exit.

Sometimes other tilesets can be confusing in this way, too, though. For example, I famously remember Nepster confusing the airlock trap from the L2 Space tileset as the exit on the Paralems level "The Phantom Lemace". And I thought "What? This is a long-established official DMA tileset!" Granted, the actual exit was hidden on that level, but still - I assume everyone knows the official traps...

PROFESSIONAL RANK

Spoiler

Professional 6 - Walk like an Egyptian Probably my second favorite level of the rank in the first half of the rank Can be tricky to figure out how to get the lemmings down to the lowest floor before the exit, but it's still an easy level with a really awesome solution

Good to know, because this particular level used to be very prone to backroutes! Judging from your enthusiasm about it, I hope it may finally have succeeded at enforcing its intended solution...

Professional 12 - Block around the clock Too easy. I even got the talisman too even though I have not taken a look at the list beforehand. It's so not a gold talisman, it's way too easy for one.

That, in contrast, sounds like you've found a backroute. The level is supposed to enforce usage of a previously-taught trick, while at the same time adding something new and complex. However, in doing the latter, it seems to add too many degrees of freedom to continue reliably enforcing the trick.

Professional 13 - Tulpen aus Amsterdam I really like this level too, both the artistic quality and the solution The builder/platformer for both gaps are a bit precise, but luckily you only have to do the combo twice. Here, the flag pole was solid, so something really needs to be done about this in being able to differentiate whether it's solid or not. Although, if I'm not mistaken, only the white ones are non-solid, while any other color pole is?

Correct - the white flag pole is an object from the L2 Circus tileset, whereas the other ones are solid terrain.

This issue goes back all the way to the original design of Lemmings 2: The Tribes: On the Circus tileset, it was just the flag poles. L2 Shadow is an even worse offender with its street lights (switched on or off), phone boxes, clouds, the moon with a face, and the windows from "Georgia on my mind", all of which are objects - while the trash cans and hydrants are solid, as well as the moon from the L2 Polar tileset.

We cannot "fix" these tilesets because they are official ones. I could have refrained from using the Circus flag pole, but too often, an actually solid flag pole would have been in the way, and providing an additional destructive skill to get rid of it might have opened up backroutes. Of course, I could have refrained from using solid flag poles at all, then - but in this case, the landscape was so flat (well, duh, it's the Netherlands ) that I needed to add at least some form of altitude gain to make this more than just a "build across the water canals" level.

Professional 17 - Surfin' bird Whoa, that's a cool looking exit. Another easy level.

Thanks, this is the exit from namida's Mineshaft tileset, turned on its head to look like an owl. One of the reasons why I insisted on exits continuing to be invertible in New Formats.
I think you still can't rotate them, though, so my guitar exit from the music tileset is always horizontal in the New-Formats version, I believe. This may or may not result in your replay for "God gave Rock 'n Roll to you" breaking when you run it over the New-Formats version of the level.

Professional 18 - Sur le pont d'Avignon If I'm not mistaken, the title is French for South of the Avignon port? I don't really know French, I took Spanish all 4 years of high school. Anyway, another really easy level, as well as a very nice looking level, especially with the lemmings swimming in the lake.

"Pont" is not port, but bridge. It means "On the bridge of Avignon". And yes, that bridge referenced in the song nowadays actually only covers half of the river it's supposed to cross, just like in the level - the rest of it collapsed. When I was in Avignon in 2012, I only saw it from above and at first confused it for a pier for ships to dock at. Thus, this is not a lake; it's the river Rhone.

This last one I need to put in an additional spoiler tag again, because it contains info about the solution:

Professional 19

Professional 19 - Atte katte nuva Wow, I really like this level! My favorite level of the rank so far. Not only does it look really cool with the snow falling in the background, I really love the solution! Very easy, and I like the releasing the blocker with the fencer trick from the other side which I recently learned in a United level in the Bonus rank.

Yes, this is why I consider the Fencer a criminally underrated skill, and heavily oppose people whenever they claim it's superfluous.
It's a reverse Miner, folks! Use it like a Miner!

[kaywhyn]

Professional rank finished. Attached are my replays up through Professional 40, as well as my feedback for Professional 21 through Professional 40. The puzzles continue to be excellent, and more high praise incoming!

Spoiler

Professional 21 - The lion sleeps tonight Awimbaway awimbaway awimbaway awimbaway (I'm sure that's not correct at all, just what it sounds like to me, but the following is right) "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight." Haha I couldn't resist. Nice short and somewhat easy level, with the very high RR adding a bit to the challenge. I guess the cat trap is the closest that we can get to an actual lion in the game, although I think the tiger is closer to a cat than a lion is. I do have a bomber leftover, but I lost one to a cat trap, which is fine since we're allowed 2 losses anyway.

Professional 22 - Samba de Janeiro O.o nice level and solution! Very nice design. The only tricky part is the right edge of the cross, where a combination of two platformers + a builder is used, and only that must be used. Otherwise, you're not going to have enough for the water gap, and you won't have anything to turn the swimmer around.

Professional 23 - Streets of London Another nice looking level using the city tileset. And of course the most appropriate "London Bridge is Falling Down" tune to boot, since it's all about London. Nice Big Ben design there. Not a very hard level, but it is a somewhat tricky 3-of-everything level, especially upon first glance it might not seem to be enough. Being economical and efficient is the name of the game for this level. If you are, you can still end up with a lot of skills leftover like I did here.

Professional 24 - Malle ist nur einmal im Jahr Very nice level and solution here too! Somewhat easy despite the high RR. This level definitely seems like something Icho would make, only maybe not quite this very short, but how a crowd will be heading into danger, that part reminds me of his style of level making. Maybe it'll be easy for me to guess which levels you tried imitating his style in the Groupie rank. I have a glider and swimmer leftover.

Professional 25 - A Spacelem came travelling Too easy. Nice looking lemming garden gnomes, two of which are blockers and one which seems to be playing dead.

Professional 26 - Budapest This one was quite difficult, actually. The skillset is extremely tight, and all of them are used in my solution. Especially for the right half, the skill placements all seemed very precise. It's also difficult to get the bomber hole in the middle column just right so that the lemmings can travel to the exit, as well as still be surmountable.

Professional 27 - Moskau, Moskau Very nice decorative level! This one was also difficult, although maybe not as difficult as the previous one. I think only the cloning the miner part is very precise, as well as the builder for the very last gap before the exit.

Professional 28 - The Irish Rover Whoa, what a cool looking ship from a distance, and you made the lower decks visible where the lemmings start. Not difficult, but it is very tricky to figure out the best way to navigate through the many obstacles, so the 5-of-everything skillset is quite tight. What did you do so that none of the many sideway barrels don't spawn lemmings? I initially thought they were all going to have lemmings get released, truthfully. Also, not sure why the lemmings are preassigned swimmers, especially since they can't be saved once they do fall in the water.

Professional 29 - Rock you like a hurricane Not difficult as well, just tricky in figuring out how to be efficient with your platformers/builders, and I ended up using all of both! This time, the exit has been rotated sideways, although I believe you mentioned that they're all upright in New Formats?

Professional 30 - Smells like Lem spirit Excellent puzzle! The only difficult part is figuring out how to mine the bottom crowd up, as well as how to bash the upper part of the OWW to get to the exit.

Professional 31 - Bay of Pigs Nothing too special about this zombie level, especially since my solution is probably not intended, as I don't use a glider to get over there to platform to the crowd. Instead, I simply platformed across in the starting area, since it seems that anyone on top of the stack can't get infected by the zombies even when they're climbers but the overhang prevents them from climbing more than 1 pixel.

Professional 32 - Bratislava Lover Very nice looking level and great puzzle! This level does a very good job of teaching the player that instead of using 3 builders to get up to the exit, which would be what most players would do and is perfectly fine if there were more builders, but since we are limited and won't have enough left for the other gaps, one must bash and interrupt it midstroke with a walker so that you can get up to the exit. Excellent!

Professional 33 - Aquarius Another great looking level, as well as a very nice puzzle. It is somewhat tricky, but not terribly difficult to figure out at all. It's obviously clear that only the far left exit is accessible once all buttons have been pushed. The platformers may seem plentiful, but you must be efficient in their use.

Professional 34 - Bang-a-boomerang Another good looking level and a great puzzle on top of it. It is somewhat tricky as well to figure out, but it's not too terribly difficult either. The most difficult part is timing the release of the second climber to block and turn the miner. I like how the miner needs to circle back and release the crowd with a digger and a bomber. It does result in a very long wait, especially since the builders haven't been used yet and the crowd will have to walk all that way, but thank goodness for the time skip (just spam spacebar).

Professional 35 - Iron Maidan Not sure if that's the intended spelling or if that's the correct song title, but I know it as "maiden." Ok looking level, but the puzzle is really great! Nice use of digger cancelling, as well as platforming to the columns instead of platforming near the top surface of the exit area and having to fence repeatedly until you can get high enough to get to the exit. Luckily, the crowd has a long way before reaching the worker lemming in progress.

Professional 36 - Down in Mexico Really nice looking level and also a great puzzle too! A bit tricky to figure out, especially since I initially tried digging and then stopping it with a bomber once it was close enough to the level of the platformer. After a few tries, it was then clear that this wouldn't work out at all since a climber in the pit needs to be released before the bomber explodes but also the worker and climber would be too close to each other that the first one wouldn't have enough time to make the miner tunnel deep enough to turn the other one around to mine down to the crowd. The key here instead is making a bomber hole at the edge of the starting area so that the platformers can close the gap and no one will fall off the bottom.

Professional 37 - Sun of Jamaica Very nice looking level and a very nice solution that comes together quite nicely! Easy level, with the only tricky thing being how to isolate a worker lemming, as well as realizing that you must bash high enough on the second palm tree on the ground in order to be able to access the exit.

Professional 38 - Ovo je Balkan Somewhat hard level with a difficult to spot solution. Still, I love the solution! Good looking level too. I think that digging and bashing under all the mines is a really good red herring. Of course, if you make the connection with the fact that there's 5 mines and that you can lose up to 5 lemmings here, then it should be clear that it's ok to lose a lemming to each one if you remember they're 1-time traps only.

Professional 39 - Taj-a, Taj-a, Taj-a, Taj Me Have you seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show? I saw it sometime ago at a local movie theater, where the actors walk around the stage and engage with the audience. Way too easy, and nice attempt at recreating the Taj Maha of India.

Professional 40 - Queen of Chinatown Good looking level, but most importantly easy and very nice puzzle to finish off the rank! I really love the solution here. A lot easier than the Amateur rank finisher.     

Your level of boredom with the Noisemaker rank was likely a little amplified by you having played my easier packs back-to-back with this one. If you're basically waiting 150 levels (Paralems) + whatever number of Pit Lems levels was easy for you + 40 Noisemaker levels for a real challenge, you need quite a lot of patience. This will be less strenuous when the Noisemaker rank is the first thing you encounter from me as a level creator - which I assume will be the case for most players, since only LWT is available for New Formats so far.

Also, just the fact that the real, exciting stuff actually begins with Amateur 29, while everything before that were simply tutorial-like levels that aren't really tutorials in the sense of teaching what each skill does, but instead skill combinations and tricks. Once I got to Amateur 29, my excitement for LWT really kicked up to 11. Ah, see what I did there? Haha.

I don't quite understand how the Noisemaker levels can be boring and challenging at the same time, though? Unless the challenge is about execution difficulty (I recently played that "I am A.T." remake in Lemmings Plus I), which I tried to avoid as much as possible in LWT, I don't see how these too things can go hand in hand.

Yea, challenging and boring does sound very strange indeed. For sure it applies to execution challenges, but perhaps for difficult levels they are boring when they can't be solved at first? Once again, I expected to be able to breeze through the Noisemaker rank and up through Amateur 28 very quickly just to get the boring tutorial-like level styles done and over with, particularly since I pretty much knew all those tricks already, but that was most certainly not the case. I guess it was more of the fact that the unusual high difficulty put me off more than it usually did, and it is certainly all over the place, with it being much worse in the Noisemaker rank. Also, I think you're right about how I'm currently playing your third pack shortly after I finished both Paralems and Pit Lems. Maybe if I had spaced out the timing of the playing of the packs, maybe I wouldn't be put off as much as I was when I played through the first two ranks. 

I also consider Noisemaker 8 - Glide and joy to be another unusually difficult level

I agree, which is why I made the pre-level text more explicit about the required trick.
Sadly, I'm pretty sure the precision you mentioned here is required to actually enforce Glider usage at this point: If the lower platform of steel just stuck out slightly below the steel pillar, you could just build over there regularly and wouldn't need the Glider - a regular Faller would also survive. Can't have that!

Good point! I totally didn't think about that.

Finally, not a difficult level per se, but I consider the trick needed in Noisemaker 33 - Mein kleiner gruener Kaktus to be an extremely obscure one for less experienced players.

This particular trick I actually discovered by accident while playing one of IchoTolot's levels. And that one didn't include an introductory hint.
I agree this trick is obscure, which is why the level is rather late in the Noisemaker rank. But since this is one I actually found myself without any hints from the forums, replays etc. (in contrast to many of the other tricks featured in this pack!), I'm inclined to consider it easier than some of the other tricks the player is supposed to learn here.

I believe I also discovered this trick by accident as well in a Lemmini level pack. It might had been Pimolems, or it might possibly had been Lemmings Reunion. I really don't remember.

Finally, a big issue with the pack is that it tends to take quite a while for the level preview to load up. The worst offenders in the Noisemaker ranks are the two artistic levels I just mentioned, Octopus's Garden and Vegas Lights. The latter takes the longest out of all the Noisemaker levels to load up.

In these cases, it's because of tileset mixing. Occasionally, this may even lead to Old-Formats NeoLemmix crashing, as mentioned in the starting post. It's not going to affect your progress / save game, though; simply restart NeoLemmix and open the level again.

Some of the graphic sets simply have long loading time becaues of high resolution, though, even if you're not mixing them. For example, all of GigaLem's Freedom Planet tilesets. You may have noticed that the Pit Lems levels "Arigato, Lemming-san!" and "You want it, you got it!" also take a good amount of tile to load for this reason.

Even the ones that don't tileset mix also take some time to load, although most certainly not as much as the ones that do or the high-res ones. In New Formats, the level previews literally load up practically right away for me, whereas for Old Formats even the classic styles without tileset mixing there's about a 3 second delay before the preview loads up. And yes, the random crashes in Old Formats is quite annoying. Luckily, they're non-fatal and won't erase all progress made. If I'm not mistaken, there's no plans to mitigate or even eliminate the random crashes for Old Formats?

This is not my Autumn tileset, it's GigaLem's remake of namida's Lemmings Plus Tree tileset. So namida is to blame for the leaf trap blending in with the trees (kind of reminding me of the boulder trap from the Dirt tileset) . GigaLem just adapted the trap faithfully.

Oh, my bad. I thought it was a tileset you made for some reason.

Although, since you mentioned the barrel, I think you're referring to the dog on the balcony? That is actually supposed to be the dog peeing on the lemming. Hence it's yellow, and there's the little puddle on top of the barrel. I think I used a different water drop trap on another level featuring a dog from either Paralems or Pit Lems.

Yes, the one on the balcony. What about the trap that sucks the lemming up to the dog's mouth? What kind of trap is it? It's one where lemmings are immediately sucked up once they step on the trigger area, so for sure it's not the sucker trap from the bubble tileset.

Precisely, new players would be completely stumped by this if the level didn't tell them about it. I never knew it was possible until I saw it done on a level - a level which I had considered impossible before that. The digger trick you mentioned in the spoiler isn't actually part of the intended solution. Nice to know, though - and yes, given the behaviour of Blockers, it makes total sense.

Yea, you're right.

Spoiler

I could had simply dug just before the one-way field and then bash. The one-way field will turn it around, effectively assigning a cloner skill on the basher.

Amateur 32 - Ich und mein Holz Nice level with a great solution! You, Simon, Icho, Nepster, or eric can translate the level title for me.

The translation is already included in the pre-level text: It means "Me and my wood".

Oh darn, wonder how I missed that?

Professional 13 - Tulpen aus Amsterdam I really like this level too, both the artistic quality and the solution The builder/platformer for both gaps are a bit precise, but luckily you only have to do the combo twice. Here, the flag pole was solid, so something really needs to be done about this in being able to differentiate whether it's solid or not. Although, if I'm not mistaken, only the white ones are non-solid, while any other color pole is?

Correct - the white flag pole is an object from the L2 Circus tileset, whereas the other ones are solid terrain.

This issue goes back all the way to the original design of Lemmings 2: The Tribes: On the Circus tileset, it was just the flag poles. L2 Shadow is an even worse offender with its street lights (switched on or off), phone boxes, clouds, the moon with a face, and the windows from "Georgia on my mind", all of which are objects - while the trash cans and hydrants are solid, as well as the moon from the L2 Polar tileset.

We cannot "fix" these tilesets because they are official ones. I could have refrained from using the Circus flag pole, but too often, an actually solid flag pole would have been in the way, and providing an additional destructive skill to get rid of it might have opened up backroutes. Of course, I could have refrained from using solid flag poles at all, then - but in this case, the landscape was so flat (well, duh, it's the Netherlands ) that I needed to add at least some form of altitude gain to make this more than just a "build across the water canals" level.

Fair enough. Thanks for letting me know that my guess was correct as to which flag pole is non-solid while the rest are. Of course, you can just not put in the white flag pole and let the flag just fly in the air without one, but obviously that's not possible to do in real life, so realistically it would be very out of place and just plain weird.

Professional 19

Professional 19 - Atte katte nuva Wow, I really like this level! My favorite level of the rank so far. Not only does it look really cool with the snow falling in the background, I really love the solution! Very easy, and I like the releasing the blocker with the fencer trick from the other side which I recently learned in a United level in the Bonus rank.

Yes, this is why I consider the Fencer a criminally underrated skill, and heavily oppose people whenever they claim it's superfluous.
It's a reverse Miner, folks! Use it like a Miner!

Exactly!


Regarding you're still needing to fix and update the Encore and Groupie ranks, I'll probably just play up through the Legend rank then and stop there until the update is released. I'm one of those who hates for my momentum to halt, especially when I'm on a roll with the pack now. I was thinking of just stopping when I finish the Diva rank, but honestly I'm plowing through the levels much faster than I thought I would. I can certainly agree with your assertment that LWT is kind of intermediate in difficulty in regards to your other packs. Paralems is the easiest, LWT in the middle, and Pit Lems hard. Although there are still some levels that are unusually difficult in LWT, for the most part I haven't encountered levels that are very hard other than Amateur 37. So, I think I'm in agreement that LWT has intermediate difficulty overall just based on the first 3 ranks completed so far.

Onward to the Diva rank! Again, apologies if I'm going way too fast for your liking. Once I get to the point where I will stop my playthrough of the pack, I will switch gears and finish up resolving all of United, as well as test your LOA pack and possibly the contest entries that I haven't been able to solve if I haven't figured them out yet. There's only 2 no solves and only one level I need to resolve right now, although the latter may change depending on if the level creator releases an update that breaks my solving replay.

[kaywhyn]

Halfway through the Diva rank, so time for more replays and feedback. Replays up to Diva 20. Wow, excellent levels as usual, but the Diva levels are considerably more difficult than the ones in the previous Professional rank. The hardest one by far before the halfway point of the Diva rank was definitely Diva 19. That one stumped me real good for about an hour.

Spoiler

Diva 1 - Eternal flame Easy and excellent level to start off the rank

Diva 2 - Munich First splat entrance level of the pack, I believe? Pretty easy as well. Truthfully, I thought those black square blocks were steel, but luckily they aren't.

Diva 3 - Hot stuff Somewhat difficult in that figuring out the best way through the obstacles and not running out of builders/platformers isn't easy at all. Still, nice level.

Diva 4 - Lempire State of Mind Obviously a reference to the Empire State Building in New York. I visited it back in 2003 when I went on a Washington D.C trip with my middle school. I think the highest floor we went to that time was the 101st floor out of 116. Artistically, very nicely designed level! This one was another difficult one as well, especially since figuring out how to get up this very tall building is hard. Timing the first builder to have a blocker turn it is a bit difficult. Still, great level.

Diva 5 - All the single Lemmings Excellent and easy level compared to the last two. I absolutely love the solution here!

Diva 6 - Diggas in Paris There's the level from Paralems. I used a different solution in that I simply built over the Eiffel Tower. So much for digging through the tower, which is the solution I used in Paralems.

Diva 7 - Born this way Not a difficult level per se, but rather difficult to execute. Concept-wise, it's clear what needs to happen: Swimmers use the bottom left exit, climbers use the top exit, and floater/gliders use the bottom right exit. Nice level, though.

Diva 8 - Dragonstea din tei Ahaha, I remember when I first found out about this song from my sister back when I was either in high school or in the early years of college. "Numa numa yea, numa numa numa yea" (not sure about the word that's different from the "numas"). Good level, although I might had backrouted this level, since I don't use the blocker or collect one of the basher pickups.

Diva 9 - I won't hold you back Excellent level and solution! I initially tried the bottom left path, but realized it won't work after a few minutes, so that's a pretty good red herring.

Diva 10 - Umbrella Another excellent level with a great solution! I'm not sure if it's possible to solve without raising the RR like I did at the very beginning.

Diva 11 - Don't cry for me, Argentina Easy level. Nothing too special here. Ok looking level.

Diva 12 - Walking in Lemphis Another level from Paralems I believe? I used pretty much the exact same solution here as I did for the Paralems version.

Diva 13 - Brick house Somewhat easy. Nothing too special here either other than it's aptly named.

Diva 14 - Foot of the mountain Nice somewhat easy level. Not very difficult, but at the same time the soluton isn't trivial either. I like how you need to send three lemmings to forge the path.

Diva 15 - If you're going to San Francisco Always a very nice city to visit, although certainly not the place I would permanently settle in since it's too cold for my liking. I'm also very spoiled by the warm, sunny weather in SoCal, having lived in the southern region of California my entire life. This one was difficult, although certainly the hardest part is figuring out the best way to get up and onto the outer parts of the Golden Gate Bridge. Probably would had been better with the pillar tileset since it's pretty close to the "golden" color.

Diva 16 - Puff, the Magic Dragon I really liked this one! Very nice solution, especially with the bombing the wall with a glider and having a glider get into the hole to make a splatform for the crowd. Also, nice hidden zapper trap from the bubble tileset in the dragon itself, which definitely took me by complete surprise. Again, I haven't been playing these levels with CPM activated at all. Really, I'm just taking the hidden elements of surprise as they come. At first, I thought the basher skill shadow being cut short was due to no more terrain to bash through when in actuality it was due to the zapper trap.

Diva 17 - Believe in life after Lemmings "Do you believe in life after love? I can feel something inside me say, I really don't think you're strong enough, no." Couldn't resist here either haha. I also really liked this level! Nice use of two tricks here, sealing a basher tunnel and sending a climber while a basher tunnel is in progress in order to bash the OWW.

Diva 18 - Royals This should be a very bad backroute, considering I don't use the two pickup skills at all.

Diva 19 - Barcelona I don't remember if Barcelona was one of the cities of Spain that I visited when I went on my high school's Europe trip back in 2007. I think we just stayed around the Madrid area. As I already mentioned, this level stumped me real good for an hour, and this is by far the hardest level of the Diva rank so far. There might be some in the second half, but that remains to be seen. I ultimately brute forced it and stopped a digger from the left entrance with a miner from the second entrance from the left and was able to lose two lemmings, one of which a bomber was used, and so I have a bomber leftover.

Diva 20 - Only time Much easier than the previous level. Nice use of preplaced radiation zombies to free the top entrances.

Needless to say, the difficulty has ramped up considerably from the Professional rank. The levels started getting really difficult as I got closer to the halfway point, and there were certainly some tough ones in the first 10 as well, although not as much. Well, let's see how the second half of the Diva rank goes. 

[kaywhyn]

Diva rank completed and thus halfway (160/320 levels solved) through with the pack already. Here are my replays up through Diva 40 and feedback. In contrast to the first half, I felt the second half of the Diva rank was overall much easier.

Spoiler

Diva 21 - Let it go Excellent level! I really liked this one and the solution I did have some trouble, but that's only because I kept placing the platformers in the wrong places. The animating falling snow is great too. Elsa's made an eternal winter in the level.

Diva 22 - Wrecking ball Nice and easy level as well. Not sure what the stoner is for. It's very easy to save everyone.

Diva 23 - YerushaLem shel zahav Ok level, although I probably made it harder than I needed to. In my solution, there is a tiny piece of land that the glider lands on in the digger pit so that it's able to glide into the exit. Without it, it will die to the bottomless pit.

Diva 24 - Rolling in the deep Ok, this was pretty frustrating, not because of the hidden traps (already know that from the first version played earlier in the pack) but how to get past all the traps while only losing 1 lemming. Probably the hardest level in the second half of the rank. I initially tried compression, but I would always end up losing 1 too many, and so I ended up using a different solution which involves fiddling with the RR so that I could bomb the second lemming on the stack early enough so that the stacker lemming can progress further without being hindered by the stack. The rest of it was avoiding the triggers by going underneath or building over them before the rest of the crowd can catch up. According to Arty's LP, he was able to get compression to work. Turns out that I had the stacker in the wrong place. Nevertheless, both versions of the octopus level are quite difficult.

Diva 25 - Touch my body My solution seems a bit fiddly and I might had backrouted it? Lots of skills leftover. It's practically the same as Arty's, except I take advantage of the fact that you can stone the blocker and bash the terrain it makes.

Diva 26 - Simply the best I'm not sure what the point of this level is Way too easy.

Diva 27 - It must have been Lems Way too easy as well. Nice level, though!

Diva 28 - Call me Yet another really easy level. Not sure what blocker pickup is for. I didn't even use it!

Diva 29 - Cotton-Eye Joe Somewhat easy. The only thing I'm quite surprised by here is how the cloned glider was able to not get stuck in the updraft if assigned at the right time.

Diva 30 - Something in the water I've heard this reference before, but I forget what it's referring to. A fish or shark maybe? Of course, I'm sure it refers to what the pickup skills resembles. Anyway, too easy.

Diva 31 - Burn Somewhat difficult in that you can't waste any of your platformers. Also have to cancel a miner with another. Being able to assign a platformer to a miner will probably escape many players, although I've known this fact for quite a while, and hence the level wasn't as hard.

Diva 32 - Weisse Rosen aus Athen More tricky than difficult in that it's not easy to figure out how to get both crowds up to the exit. The right entrance is easy, the left isn't that much harder, but it will need help from the right entrance.

Diva 33 - Titanium Nice easy level! Definitely deviates in that normally one bashes/mines OWWs, but here it is necessary to build over the OWW at the top, as you don't have enough bashers for all the OWWs.

Diva 34 - Out of L.A Ok level in that it's a bit tricky to figure out. Builders may be plentiful, but don't be fooled, as pretty much almost or all of them will be used. Here, I had 1 leftover. I don't suppose the level isn't any specific location in LA but rather just how there's a lot of skyscrapers? I attended college in LA for 4 years.

Diva 35 - Total eclipse of the builders Nice repeat level that's definitely different from the original. Not that much harder, it's still easy, and I like the solution.

Diva 36 - Horehronie Way too easy.

Diva 37 - Ebony and ivory "Live together in perfect harmony." Great song. Once again, builders may seem plentiful, but all of them were used in my solution. Skillset is also quite tight, but overall it's not a difficult level, just tricky to figure out the best route to take.

Diva 38 - Set fire to the rain O.o I like the falling rain in the level, and it definitely makes the level aptly named. Very nice puzzle! I absolutely loved the solution here. The left entrance can be quite tricky to figure out, but I didn't find it that bad. Plus the skillset lends itself extremely well so that one can quickly deduce what needs to be used to temporarily contain them while one goes on ahead.

Diva 39 - My Lems will go on Very nice level, both the design and puzzle! 1-of-everything to boot too. Nice recreation of the Titanic and the infamous iceberg that sank her. Clearly the title is a nod to the movie Titanic, which features the title track "My heart will go on." I love Celine Dion. Great and powerful voice. I surprisingly haven't seen the movie! As for the level, the only difficult part is with the leftmost hatch in how to isolate a worker lemming while ensuring no one else slips past the stack. This was probably my favorite level of the entire rank.

Diva 40 - So Wat? (I'm still a rockstar) Somewhat easy to finish off the rank, although can be a bit tricky to figure out. It's a nice looking level, though.     

Onto the Rockstar rank!

[kaywhyn]

Rockstar rank half completed. Here are my replays up through Rockstar 20 and my feedback. Lots of really good levels in this batch despite the difficulty being somewhat high or about the same as the Diva rank!

Spoiler

Rockstar 1 - Heavy Metal Universe Good somewhat easy puzzle to start off the rank.

Rockstar 2 - School's out This was a pretty good level that is a bit tricky to figure out. Initially I kept trying to block at the very end on the lower level, as well as bomb a faller and digger the top wall so that it's not splat height, but it doesn't work too well, especially since if any turn back they'll fall into the quicksand.

Rockstar 3 - C'mon Lemming, light my fire! This was also a very nice, short and easy puzzle. I like how one climber needs to be sent up to bash, another needs to turn around in the basher tunnel to mine the crowd out, and a third climber needs to bash the miner tunnel made so as to avoid the fire coal box.

Rockstar 4 - Staying alive Ah, I love this song by the Bee Gees. I really liked this level! Though it may seem counter-intuitive, you want to delay the glider assignment so that a cloned glider can get onto one of the honeycomb tiles to make a splatform for the crowd that comes out of the hatch fast. This still gives the worker lemming enough time to platform the water gap before any drown. This level took me about 7-10 minutes to figure out.

Rockstar 5 - Ace of Spades This was tricky, but it's still a nice level. I like how you depicted each of the four different card suits here. The hardest part is containing the crowd at the very beginning. It involves quickly bashing first, then digging down, then bashing with the next lemming that comes just as it falls into the digger pit so that the following lemming can still turn around and get trapped in the digger pit. Once you are successful with that, the rest of the level is easy.

Rockstar 6 - Crazy train More tricky than difficult to figure out, but still a nice looking level and puzzle hopping from train section to train section.

Rockstar 7 - Otherside I really liked this one too! Probably my favorite of the first half of the Rockstar rank.

Rockstar 8 - Highway to Hell Way too easy. I also liked this one. 1-of-everything, but the only skill I didn't use was the climber.

Rockstar 9 - Leaving on a jet plane Not a difficult level, just tricky due to the travel suitcases. A bit builder heavy, but it's fine.

Rockstar 10 - Another brick in the wall I think this is a really bad backroute. So many skills leftover.

Rockstar 11 - Banditi di Praga This one was a bit difficult, with the middle with red brick structure the most difficult part and also ensuring that you have enough destructive skills for the end. Really nice looking level, though!

Rockstar 12 - I want out Excellent level! I really loved the solution here. Not too difficult but at the same time not trivial either. This is probably my second favorite of the first half of the rank.

Rockstar 13 - Under bergets rot Not too different from the original version in terms of the skills provided, but the major difference is that here you cannot delay the crowd and keep them in the starting area. Still a good level.

Rockstar 14 - Boulevard of Broken Lems Whee, splat hatch level. Still very easy, though.

Rockstar 15 - Viva Colonia! Ah, there's the level that Icho found that was broken due to the glider opening its glider too late in order to use the updraft. In the New Formats version, I was able to solve it without using the glider, meaning the level was still solvable even with the broken glider physics. Still, since it ruins the intended solution, the best thing to do was to fix the updraft placement so that the lemming can use it to glide upwards. As for the level, it can be a bit tricky, but it's not too terribly difficult.

Rockstar 16 - Sweet Lem o' mine O.o this was an excellent level with a cool solution that managed to stump me for a long time, about half an hour or so. At first, I thought the right entrance being preassigned swimmers was pointless, but it turns out that it's necessary in the solution. Nice! I also kept incorrectly assigning the climber to the first lemming in the right hatch, but after a while I figured out that it needs to be a glider instead. This definitely seems like a level Icho would make, so you certainly got a bit of him in your level making

Rockstar 17 - The final countdown On first glance, I was like this is too easy, but after a few seconds playing the level I noticed there was a time limit, which then quickly changed my mind. Even with the very tight timer, it's still very easy. Very nice level and solution. I really liked this one. If you're not aware, I love time limits in this game, so it was very satisfying to beat the clock here. It's appropriate considering the level title anyway.

Rockstar 18 - In the shadows I was a bit annoyed with the repeated stoning to avoid the stomper traps, but luckily only 3 each are needed for both. Other than that, I really liked this level as well. I think this is the very first level where I see that a swimmer will climb a wall instead of dive underneath if assigned one, so I got to keep that in mind. I did realize that a climber needs to scale the wall, but for a few moments I wasn't sure if it could do it, since I assumed (incorrectly) that it would dive underneath instead of climb. Guess climbing takes precedence?

Rockstar 19 - Run to the hills This was a really good zombie puzzle! Another level with a timer, but definitely justified to ensure that the player doesn't wait around for all the zombies to die to the dragon trap before solving. This was actually tricky and a bit difficult, especially since it's not easy to figure out how to avoid zombie infection, whether they're coming towards the crowd or avoiding them around the dragon trap area. Just when I thought I had the level all figured out, the crowd gets infected by a zombie as they're coming down the staircase towards the dragon trap. I probably could had saved a lot more time instead of finish with a few seconds to spare. I might had even made the solution more difficult than necessary.

Rockstar 20 - Any way you want it More tricky than difficult, but this was a really good level. The timing is quite tight for all three sections, especially for the left crowd with the bashing and the miner for the right-most entrance, but the key is delaying the second lemming in each section with a builder to allow the first lemming in each section enough time to break through or to contain the crowd in the case of the digger pit at the top.