Lemmings Arcade Prototype

[ccexplore]

Some interesting and/or exploitable glitches or unusual behaviors.  Already previously mentioned is the ability to walk on ceiling terrain off the top boundary, and continue from the timer running out will reset skills on current level back to what you start with.  Here are a few more I've run into:

1) This is purely visual, but fun and doesn't even require you to do anything to set up.  Just get to Rendezvous at the Mountain and watch the lemmings on the right do a moonwalk after they do a glitched turnaround against the invisible right boundary of the level area!  See attached video.

As the video shows by assigning skills to the moonwalker, the lemming is really facing left, so it's just a visual glitch.  I also tested the left boundary and it doesn't even turn around lemmings, they'll simply walk off that boundary and fall to their deaths (you can't create terrain off the boundary, not even by building).

2) You can assign a floating lemming any skills while in mid-air, including builders!  So there's a super-cheap way to create a safe landing for any fatal falls from an entrance for example.  On the other hand, you cannot even assign bombers to regular falling lemmings.

[edit: while you can assign bomber to a floater in mid-air, it doesn't actually explode until upon landing.  With regular fallers the bomber assignment attempt won't take at all.  If you want a mid-air explosion with floater, first assign it another skill like builder, and then assign the bomber.  You can do multiple assignments to same or different lemmings while paused in this port.]

3) You can also assign a climbing lemming any skills.  In particular if you assign it a builder while climbing a wall, due to the way it's already positioned while climbing, you will get the lemming stuck inside the wall.  In this stuck state he won't gain height like he could in DOS/Amiga version, but you can continue assigning builders to gradually push the lemming further inside the wall until getting through to the other side (similar to DOS/Amiga version, but somewhat more effective since you can also assign builder while he's in climbing state as well).

An example where this is highly exploitable is "Time to Get Up".  Together with the "skills reset on continue from timer running out", you can theoretically (but very tediously and costly in credits) save all lemmings in that level by getting them all to climb and then use builders to glitch their way through the walls you'd normally have to bomb through.  And even without taking advantage of the skills reset glitch, exploiting the ability to assign builders to climbing lemmings can still reduce the bomber usage to just two (though it also helps that the bomber already takes out a slightly larger area in the arcade port).  There are undoubtedly many other ways you can exploit this, and not just with builders.

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I haven't had much chance to test out other things like known glitches in DOS/Amiga version to see if they repro on arcade port, but here are my observations so far from very limited testing etc.:

- the sliding glitch most probably doesn't work, since lemmings in arcade port don't do the jumping thing over steep steps, instead they instantaneously get up to the top of the step as they walk forward, like in Lemmings 2.

- It doesn't seem to work to use blockers to push lemmings inside/through walls, the lemmings will not move forward into the wall and in effect stays in same position pinned against the blocker and the wall.

- Haven't tested a lot, but bashers seem a lot more sensitive to steel so I have not yet been able to bash through any amount of steel.  But steel is definitely not completely indestructible--bombers, miners and diggers standing on non-steel terrain can take out nearby steel.

[edit: bombers also seem extra sensitive to steel.  It's easy to run into setups like in Compression Method 1, where you can dig down to steel and digger would only stop once steel is reached.  But bomber can be way above the same steel--more than the distance between bottom of bomb crater and vertical position of bomber--and the explosion will still take out nothing presumably because of steel.  Miners and diggers seem least sensitive to steel and bashers seem moderately sensitive.

Although the sensitivity differs, this port still has the same Amiga/DOS Lemming behavior where depending on position of lemming relative to the steel area (and apparently, the type of skill being used)], the game makes a decision for the explosion/stroke-of-skill to either take out absolutely nothing (not even nearby pixels that are not steel) or take out everything (including pixels within range that are actually steel).]

- Blockers do seem to have at least steel-canceling power from very limited testing.  Not sure about ability to cancel triggers of other objects like traps.

[edit: steel canceling by blocker seems to work for diggers and miners, but haven't gotten it to work for bashers and bombers, maybe because their extra sensitivity means more areas are being checked for steel for those skills, and so maybe the blocker field doesn't extend far enough to cancel out all the areas being checked?  Also failed to get trigger canceling by blocker to work on the trap trigger in It's Hero Time.]

Anyway, I'll update this post if I run into or is able to test out other glitches and behaviors.

[Proxima]

Thanks for the extremely detailed post, that's very informativve!

The Great Lemming Caper:  skillset changed to 2 of each skill.

...which is exactly what I decided to do for Redux without even knowing about this version

[LB999]

That's if I remembered the prototype game Arcade Lemmings, but I've ripped the sounds and graphics.

[The Tomato Watcher]

Any chance you could upload some of those sound files? That would be very much appreciated.

[LB999]

Any chance you could upload some of those sound files? That would be very much appreciated.

I made them rips of sounds and voices, I used it with M1 the arcade music and sound player (Multi-Platform Arcade Music and Sound Emulator).

[Nessy]

Welcome to the forums Tomato Watcher (sorry I know I'm late )

I did remember hearing about this arcade game but I didn't think it was actually this put together! It does indeed work well as an arcade game (honestly a lot more than I thought at first), and a lot of changes made seem to make sense given the port. For example, moving the exit in "Steel Works" to be closer since the original level might be too long given the faster-paced nature of arcade games in general. This is probably why the global time limit was also added in... but yeah of course it was also that ploy that every single arcade game did to get players to spent more to keep playing

Also that part at the end of the tutorial section that says "And remember, winners don't use drugs. Just say OH NO" was unexpected and made my day

[ccexplore]

Finally, here are some details on the 2-player levels.  There are 16 compared to Amiga's 20.  Most are just verbatim copies of the Amiga levels though.  That said, there is one 2-player level in arcade version (#4), "Battle at Midway", that is not found in Amiga version.  [edit: added more information about that level]  It was the level from the Amiga Lemmings demo that was dropped from the final version of Amiga Lemmings.  I've attached a picture of the level based on the rip of the level from Amiga demo; I've confirmed the arcade and Amiga demo versions of level are identical.   (The blue/green rectangles around the entrances are obviously just drawn by me to help indicate which entrance is for which player.)

You can refer to jaycee900's book, specifically these pages, to see what the Amiga 2-player levels look like.

(Skillset given as [climber floater bomber blocker builder basher miner digger]; "-" means none of that skill)

1. Still everything to play for  [20 20 5 10 50 50 40 40] (Amiga #2)
2. In the thick of the fray  [10 10 20 20 80 20 20 20] (Amiga #3)
3. Game on!  Choose your tactics.  [10 5 5 10 30 20 20 20] (Amiga #4)
4. Battle at Midway  [1 1 5 5 40 1 1 1] (Amiga demo #2)
5. Good game! Good game! [5 5 15 5 40 10 10 10] (Amiga #5)
6. The Rubbish Dump [50 each] (Amiga #6)
7. and the winner is..... [20 10 10 10 50 20 20 20] (Amiga #7)
8. Any chance of a truce? [10 - 5 10 40 20 20 20] (Amiga #8)
9. The Pipe Room... [10 10 10 10 10 20 10 10] (Amiga #9)
10. The Rope Bridge [10 - 20 - 50 10 5 10] (Amiga #10 modified)
    (modification:  entrances moved to center of "rope bridge", both at same position [so both sides come out at exact same spot])
11. There can be only one [5 5 15 5 20 5 5 5] (Amiga #1)
12. Just for fun or to the death?  [10 10 5 - 40 10 10 10] (Amiga #11)
13. The Crystal Cavern Mark II [10 - 5 10 20 10 10 10] (Amiga #12)
14. Cross-over Point [10 10 10 - 40 40 - 40] (Amiga #13)
15. The Passing Place [2 1 - - 50 20 20 20] (Amiga #14 modified)
    (modification:  center column of steel is inverted compared to Amiga, so in arcade it's 4 steel blocks at the top, then the gap, then 2 steel blocks at the bottom)
16. Take what you can, when you ca [- - 20 10 50 20 20 20] (Amiga #15 modified)
    (modification:  "cones" [like the ones featured at the bottom of this level] added near the ends on both sides of bottom platform)

The title for #16 is not a typo, it really is cut off before the "n" in the game.  I guess the arcade version doesn't have enough room to fit very long titles.

#6 is affected by the glitch where lemmings can walk up and across ceiling off the level area's top boundary (in DOS/Amiga versions, lemmings turn around if they get too close to top boundary).  At the entrance "pit" area, this allows lemmings to walk off on the right side out of the pit, but not the left side (because the terrain is asymmetric, and there is too high a step on the left to walk past).

#13 has an unexpected trap placed to the right of the green (right) exit.  No such corresponding trap is seen for the blue (left) exit.  Not sure if the Amiga version's trap-free, has same one-sided trap, or has traps for both exits.

Finally, the fast-forward/pause function still works in 2-player mode!  In fact each player has their own button to cycle through fast-forward/pause/normal that only affects their lemmings.  Not sure whether they really intended for this.

[Proxima]

"Battle at Midway" is known. I'm not sure where namida got it from, but it's in the Extra Levels compilation for NeoLemmix.

"The Crystal Cavern Mark II" doesn't have any traps on Amiga.

[607]

Woah, that's a lot of information!

[ccexplore]

"Battle at Midway" is known. I'm not sure where namida got it from, but it's in the Extra Levels compilation for NeoLemmix.

Thanks, I should've done a better job searching the forum for past threads.  It looks like the level came from the Amiga Lemmings demo.  It was apparently one of two 2-player levels included, and the one level that was dropped from the final full version.

I've updated the attachment in my previous post with a better picture using the ripped level from the Amiga demo.  I confirm the arcade version is identical to the one in the Amiga demo, down to all the imperfections you may notice (eg. yes, the long walkway leading to right exit is slightly higher than the one leading to left exit).

[The Tomato Watcher]

I'm aware this topic is old by now, but I've found the first ever recorded longplay of the arcade version on YouTube today; check it out if you wish!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr-q6QuGtdo

[WillLem]

Where can this be played? Interestingly, there seems to be no pause button...

[The Tomato Watcher]

You can find the ROM online and you must play it in MAME. There is a pause button, but it's the same button as fast forward. It cycles between fast forward, pause, and play.