Ghost level sharing topic

[Strato Incendus]

Welcome to our testing thread for what might become a new skill for NeoLemmix some time in the future: Ghosts!

A pre-placed ghost lemming

What is a ghost?
- Ghosts walk past any kind of object: Fire, water, and traps as well as buttons, teleporters, updrafts, pickup skills - and exits. Ghosts therefore can't be saved, but they can help you save other lemmings, since they can be assigned skills like regular lemmings.
- Other lemmings are afraid of ghosts and therefore turn around and walk into the opposite direction whenever they meet one.

How can I make a Lemming a ghost?
- Currently, ghosts can only be pre-assigned to a lemming, meaning they are either pre-placed in the level, or they come out of hatches that only release ghosts. Therefore, some regard ghosts as a type of lemming, like zombie; others regard it as a skill, just like climbers and floaters can be pre-assigned to lemmings. The eventual goal of this thread is to introduce ghosts as a skill, to make them more flexible in their applicability.
- The gimmick "ghost on death" allows to turn a lemming into a ghost by killing him, for example with a bomber or stoner, or by having him splat or drown in water. Since the ghost spawns in exactly the same spot the lemming died, you cannot create a ghost by having a lemming fall into the abyss at the bottom of a level. The "ghost on death" gimmick is the closest thing we currently have to making Ghost an assignable skill.

How can I play ghost levels?
Ghosts were created by namida and are only available in an older version of NeoLemmix, 1.43. Everything you need to use that version (player, editor, as well as all styles available at the time) is attached to this post. Please use the styles from this zip-file here in this post, because especially the Lemmings 2: The Tribes and Lemmings 3 graphic sets require these specific versions in order to work in NL 1.43. The download on the NeoLemmix homepage doesn't contain all of them.

Why were ghosts removed?
Ghosts were only around a couple of months, and only namida and GigaLem made use of them during this short period of time. In this thread, we want to explore the potential of this skill. If there are enough ideas for them, thus creating sufficient interest and demand, hopefully ghosts can be reintroduced into the New Formats version of NeoLemmix some time in the future!

Got an idea for some levels involving ghosts? Download the NeoLemmix 1.43 player, editor, and styles from this post, and upload your level here! Everyone is welcome to contribute!


As examples, I'm going to show you some select levels from a pack I created for NeoLemmix 1.43, "Lemmicks - Lemmings with Gimmicks!". All of them are also attached for you to play!


In your hands I commit my Lems - featuring a pre-placed ghost


For the greater good - this one involves the "ghost on death" gimmick


Give up the ghost - here ghosts come out of one of the two hatches


And here, some demonstrations of what ghosts can do:


A ghost walking through fire

A ghost floater falling through a flame trap

A ghost walking through water. If this weren't steel at the bottom, the ghost could even mine or dig here!

A ghost walking past the exit. No need to build over it!

The type of object really doesn't matter - ghosts will walk past all of them. Since therefore, interactions with slowfreeze or radiation aren't possible anyway, nothing gets lost if we bring ghosts to New Formats!

A ghost climber. Ghosts can be assigned skills like any other lemming can.

Intimidation. Other lemmings are afraid of ghosts. Here, this is used to compress them.

Even zombies are afraid of ghosts!

Since ghosts cannot enter exits, once they've done their duty, they are more expendable than other lemmings. You have a bomber and still need to save everyone? That doesn't mean this bomber is a red herring-skill!
Here, the ghost is used to blow up the ground under a trap trigger. Of course, the ghost himself could also walk past the trap safely.

[namida]

For the greater good - this one involves the "ghost on death" gimmick

Is this indicated through pre-level text? During the time when this was a NeoLemmix feature, ghost-on-death or zombie-on-death were always indicated with an in-level sign (I believe the horror set contains the pieces even in the latest versions).

[GigaLem]

I'll be more than happy to set it up and try it out, but It'll take some getting use to.
Because I'll have to get used to some of the problematic speed issues v1.43 had. Like slower rewinds and what not.
but I'd be happy try what ever either of you make.
And Strato, If you make few ghost levels. Take you time making each of them. Push for Quality over Quanity.

Plus I'll need to set up another folder for this too. Because if Ghosts get readded. I'll be brainstorming what I can add to Millas.

EDIT:Mind adding links to the ghost builds of the program?

[Strato Incendus]

Is this indicated through pre-level text?

In the context of the pack, yes . Now, in single level form, I obviously can't do that. It's nice to know about the in-game signs (now I finally know why the Wasteland tileset looks the way it does! ), but since we can't do tileset mixing in 1.43, I guess it's best to just inform people about it in the post where the level is uploaded, as I did above. Wouldn't be too much fun to only restrict ourselves to the Wasteland graphic set for this experiment .

And Strato, If you make few ghost levels. Take you time making each of them. Push for Quality over Quanity.

Is that a hint at anything specific? Or refering to the levels posted above?

As I said, those are all part of Lemmicks, so they were made with quite some time in between, over the course of the whole time period that Lemmings was in development.

I think these three outline quite well the different standard things ghosts can do - and the shapes in which they can come (pre-placed, pre-assigned hatch, on death). There are other levels in Lemmicks requiring things like mining / digging at the bottom of a water pit, however they do so in combination with a gimmick. So I don't upload those here because they would be "confounded": If someone likes such a level, we can't be sure whether it's because of the ghost or because of the gimmick.

[namida]

Now, in single level form, I obviously can't do that.

Looks like you've run into yet another limitation of old-formats; doing pre/post text for a single level is no problem at all in new-formats. Same goes for talismans, too.

It's nice to know about the in-game signs (now I finally know why the Wasteland tileset looks the way it does! ), but since we can't do tileset mixing in 1.43

You can use a VGASPEC, I'm pretty sure 1.43 includes VGASPECs of both the zombie-on-death and ghost-on-death signs. Being able to mix a single VGASPEC, plus normal terrain, in one level was possible in NeoLemmix long before 1.43.

[Strato Incendus]

Looks like you've run into yet another limitation of old-formats; doing pre/post text for a single level is no problem at all in new-formats. Same goes for talismans, too.

Well, if that means we're going to test Ghosts in New Formats instead, happy to!

Oh wait, they need to be introduced first, don't they?

You're putting the cart before the horse here: We are only going back to "very old formats" to see whether ghosts are worthwhile introducing in New Formats. If they already - or better: still - existed in New Formats, we wouldn't need this thread in the first place.

But that info regarding the VGASPEC is a good hint, I'll look into that!

@GigaLem: I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean by "adding links to the ghost build of the program". NeoLemmix 1.43 is attached to the opening post; Lemmicks as a complete pack can be accessed via my signature. Do you need anything else? If so, please specify!

[GigaLem]

@Strato Like Links of the specific versions that supported the ghosts from the official site

[Nessy]

Oh what the heck it's the week of Halloween so here's a quick level I made using a ghost. It's nothing outstanding though...



Afterimage

[GigaLem]

Already solved it and...It's pretty good
Here's the replay. Hopefully it sends undamaged

[Strato Incendus]

Nice, Nessy! You put a lot of work into the aesthetics, too!

I also solved it, may be a backroute, though, because I had one lemming to spare that I could have saved, too, had there been a climber for him as well. So I guess that lemming is supposed to die elsewhere?

@GigaLem: I thought that's what you meant; I did post such a link in the opening post to Lemmicks. However, there were some levels certain players couldn't access, and, since we've head similar issues with Lemmings World Tour in the beginning, I guess that was down to them not having all the required tilesets in versions compatible with 1.43. That's why I put them into the zip-folder and uploaded it myself, so that you can also play e.g. "Give up the ghost", which requires the L3 lab tileset.

[GigaLem]

I'm having the issue of custom sets not wanting to work with V1.43
It keeps giving me this error message

I would've uploaded a level by now but THIS KEEPS PERSISTING

[Strato Incendus]

Which custom sets are you trying to make work? The only ones available should be namida's from Lemmings Plus I - IV (not V or upwards).

Thus, I can use all graphic sets that I've uploaded in the zip-folder in the starting post - no other ones apart from that. So in case you're trying to use your Freedom Planet tilesets or similar: I've tried that as well. Doesn't work .

[GigaLem]

@strato look in the attachments

@everyone else These wont work with V1.43 despite showing up in the editor

[namida]

Any .DAT file will show up in the editor, even if it's not a graphic set at all (let alone a valid graphic set but one that's incompatible with older versions). The editor and game also don't share code, so just because a newer set works in the game doesn't mean it will work in the editor (and vice versa).

The only file type that old-formats has explicit version checking on is NXP files. (Internally, it also can check which format version a LVL file is, but all versions of NeoLemmix - even including new-formats - support all older versions of the LVL format, aside from a very early LVL format that was a slight tweak of the DOS format and IIRC was long gone by the time any custom content other than my own came out.)

[Strato Incendus]

@GigaLem: Yeah, plom garden won't work, unfortunately . Keep the level for 10.13 and/or New Formats in case ghosts get reintroduced.

For the time being, since ghosts are only available in 1.43, for that purpose we have to restrict ourselves to original Lemmings tilesets (Lemmings, ONML, L2, L3) plus namida's (LPI - IV).