Lemmings Open Air [120/120 levels completed - now released!]

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks to Nepster's release of the Shimmier ending the year on a high note, I was able to finish the last couple of levels of the first set of 30 from my upcoming pack.
Obviously, with the Shimmier included, it's going to be a New Formats-exclusive at last!

I hereby announce the successor to Lemmings World Tour:



I'm still sticking to the music theme, as evident - all the levels are still going to be named after songs, and the tracks are still the ones I recorded for LWT.
Hence, please simply download the music pack from the Lemmings World Tour thread (link is in my signature).
You're also going to need my two custom tilesets for this pack, Money and Autumn. Get them here.

However, this pack is supposed to feel more like classical Lemmings again - meaning mostly original and ONML tilesets and more abstract level shapes, rather than the specific geographic locations you can find in LWT.

That's also the reason why I'm going with the classic level distribution of 4 x 30. The rank names so far are intended to be:

Soft, Loud, Heavy, Hardcore

Meaning we don't go from unknown to very popular songs, but levels are arranged in increasing order of heaviness! Which means this time the levels from the lower ranks are probably going to be the more famous ones, because they are more mainstream .

These current 30 levels however are taken from all four ranks, only roughly sorted by difficulty relative to each other and compiled into a single rank called "Demo Tape". Since there are no introductory levels, I as the creator have a hard time assessing their difficulty; I just threw every nasty thing at the player I could come up with .

Hence, I think it's safe to say that knowledge of the tricks from the Noisemaker rank in Lemmings World Tour is required to beat these levels! Whether you've acquired this knowledge by actually playing Lemmings World Tour, or already knew those tricks prior to that from elsewhere, that is completely up to you.



There's certainly going to be a focus on Metal songs in the higher ranks, and that is also the flavour behind this pack: This time, we're not touring the world; instead, all the world is going to gather in one place for a huge open air festival. Hence, I made the logo a little darker and swapped out the globe for an additional guitar that looks the part .
The title is obviously a homage to one of the biggest metal festivals on Earth, Wacken Open Air.

I already recoloured the background and the rank signs. Let me know how you like this darker look; I'm a little undecided on it so far. On the one hand, it seems like a nice switch from Lemmings World Tour; on the other hand, I want this pack to feel like original Lemmings, so using the standard brown- or the green background (like on standard Lemmings for Mac) would increase the Nostalgia.

Since my New Year's Resolution is "I'm going to make my levels more backroute-proof!", here are 30 of the eventual 120 levels for you to enjoy and test.
I'm not going to pick any private testers, I like to test my packs "in the field". Meaning: Everyone who is interested can have early access, but don't be disappointed if you find a backroute! In fact, that's the main purpose of playing at this stage. So if you're someone who enjoys discovering such unintended solutions , you're invited to take a shot at it!

Speaking of shots, here are some example pictures of the "classical" levels in standard styles, plus one of each in my custom graphic sets:


Lems just wanna have fun


I was made for loving you, Lemming


Both sides now


I need a dollar


Wake me up when September ends


"Both sides now" is one of three Shimmier levels so far.
"I need a dollar" showcases the Money tileset; "Wake me up when September ends" is another demonstration of the Autumn tileset, which you may already be familiar with.

One last thing: The first level of this demo is also intended to be the actual first level of the pack, just like the very last level of the demo is supposed to be the last level of the final rank.

Since I already mentioned there are going to be four ranks, feel free to make suggestions on which levels should go higher or lower. The title may probably change in the process, because if a level goes lower, it shouldn't be a metal song, and if it goes higher, I need to find a metal title that goes along with it. But in general, all the levels are free to move around.

Also, I'm always open for suggestions which song titles should go in here! One of the main things I want to avoid at all costs is that this pack could end up just looking like "the rest of all the semi-famous songs that didn't make it into Lemmings World Tour". It should be able to stand on its own as a music-themed pack, still feeling somewhat complete, not like an arbitrary selection of titles where so many legendary ones are missing (because they already appeared in LWT).

Finally, my custom success- and failure jingles are part of the pack again, included as .ogg-files. If anyone knows how to make them work in New Formats, please let me know! Simply putting them in the overarching levels folder apparently isn't enough.

EDIT: I've attached my modification of the general tileset - a graphic set that existed in Old Formats for every user to add single pieces. It contains, among others, the Snow object, which was missing from New Formats so far, as well as recolourings of some backgrounds and the Rain object. Credit for both the Rain and the Snow object goes to Colorful Arty! He said he was fine with me sharing the Snow object again. The recoloured background is from the Angelisland tileset, for which Gronkling to my knowledge no longer claims credit, it simply goes under "Sonic". Finally, I also contributed some builder staircases so they can be pre-placed in a level, like on one level from Lemmings World Tour. Plus, my custom backgrounds for L2 Medieval and Sports (and ohno_brick) are also included, since they haven't been added to the official styles.

You'll need this tileset for at least one of these test levels, so please download strato_generalmd as well if you want to give them a shot! Further pieces may be added to it in the future. I've already removed all duplicates, so there shouldn't be a danger of any pieces getting removed from it. Still, this tileset is preliminary at this point, so I wouldn't suggest building your own levels with those pieces yet.)

I hope you're going to have fun in this Lemmings Rehearsal Room!

[nin10doadict]

Custom success and failure chimes need to go directly into the 'sound' folder in the NeoLemmix directory. They must be named success.ogg and failure.ogg respectively. I have a small collection of different ones, so I have an extra folder in there to hold them so I can swap them as I wish.

I might dive into the testing of this a bit later. Tomorrow, perhaps, as I have to go to work soon.

[Strato Incendus]

Yeah, I know you can replace them on a general level, i.e. for all packs simultaneously, by putting them into "sounds" - I'd like to use them on a pack-based level, especially since several users like to swap them out and use individual jingles for their respective packs.

At least that was possible in Old Formats...

[nin10doadict]

Well, I can say one thing...
These levels are way too hard for me to solve without massive time investment. I couldn't figure out any of them.
Seems your levels just keep getting harder. Some might enjoy that. I don't.

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks a lot for the feedback, nin10doadict - and for investing time into trying to solve these!
I hope it didn't get too frustrating for you; if this is not the type of level that you enjoy, my preceding packs with lower difficulty are still available to you, of course!

Given that you were perfectly capable of solving Pit Lems, I think Lemmings World Tour is indeed the next in line on the difficulty scale.

Paralems is way too easy, and I think you already played most of it anyway.
The difficulty of Lemmicks is hard to assess because of the frequently changing game mechanics - some might find it easy to quickly adapt to the changes introduced by the gimmicks, others might not.

LWT seems to fill an important gap between very easy packs, like those by Yung Gotenks, and really hard packs like SEB Lems and Lemmings Reunion. I'd say it's somewhere between Arty's SubLems and Nessy's Lemmings Migration - those are the only packs I was able to beat in their entirety (still with some help) before creating LWT.

Indeed, increased difficulty is what I'm going for now, so your feedback is a valuable hint that this seems to work out so far. (Because I remember you being able to solve the Noisemaker rank, and now this is a step further.)

The goal is to cater to different audiences. For LWT, some users got bored of it because the difficulty remained on the same level for too long (the slope of difficulty increase is there, but so flat over the course of the myriad of levels that you barely notice it). For people like IchoTolot and Nepster, LWT is probably too easy anyway. So maybe Lemmings Open Air is going to be something they might enjoy as well.

I won't say it's necessary to solve the entire Lemmings World Tour before attempting this pack (which one could be inclined to think since this is the follow-up), but the main difference is that I demand a lot of the tricks from the Noisemaker and Amateur rank from the player without prior announcement.

[nin10doadict]

There's also the fact that I tend to take long breaks from the game, which thus causes my skills to deteriorate and make it harder to get back into the game again.

Plus, with my new full time job starting up soon I will have a lot less time to just sit down and bang my head against a hard level. That said, I did figure out the first level within two minutes after taking a second look at it, so it might just take some time to get back into the groove.

I also solved level 3 (the first shimmier level) and I think the bottom block with the water needs left-only arrows on it. Without them the walkers and the second shimmier are unneeded. Replays for these two levels are attached.

I'll see if I can keep chipping away at some of the other levels and post some more replays later.

[Strato Incendus]

No worries! I'm not really making progress on the pack I'm testing for IchoTolot, for pretty much exactly the same reasons . Every level any forum member finds the time to test counts, because that's one potential backroute less the first official release is going to have.

I also solved level 3 (the first shimmier level) and I think the bottom block with the water needs left-only arrows on it. Without them the walkers and the second shimmier are unneeded.

Completely correct. Wow - you've spotted the intended solution and what was missing to enforce it in the same breath! Thanks a lot! This goes to show how I as a level creator can overlook the most basic things.

Doesn't look too good for my New Year's Resolution already...

Level 01 was exactly as intended.

I've added the one-way arrows to Level 03 and exchanged the respective file in the ZIP folder in the starting post.

[nin10doadict]

Progress update!
I can't load a few levels due to missing tilesets. I found your autumn and money sets, but can't find the new format version of Gigalem's Tree-mod set.

I also think I broke a fair number of levels. Most of my solutions that I've found feel like cheese in one way or another.

I'm pretty sure how to do level 4 and level 7, but...

Spoiler

I think they both involve that dreadful miner pivot trick, made worse by requiring the crowd to be in just the right spot when you do it. Level 4 is especially bad with this. I... really hate that trick.

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks a lot again for your replays, nin10doadict!

First things first, about the missing tilesets: All my versions of GigaLem's updated Lemmings Plus tilesets have a change date of 12-31-2018. That was when I installed the latest experimental version with the Shimmier. So I guess the standard download of NeoLemmix includes all these tilesets by now. But to be on the safe side, I've uploaded them again as separate New Formats versions in the respective thread, because said thread only contains the Old Formats versions so far.

Get them here.

On your replays

Level 04, "Twist and shout": Indeed, the miner-miner cancel is required here. I know it's a little precise timing-wise, but I tried several attempts of this myself (i.e. playing the level by hand several times rather than using the replay once I had solved it), and got it to work instantly.
The thing is: Contrary to what I told you back in the day when you LPed Pit Lems (I didn't know better myself back then!), climbers can actually do the miner-miner-cancel, too! You probably remember how this didn't work on "Glück auf" because the climbers wasted time "hugging the end of the mine shaft"?
The first time I saw it working out nevertheless was by accident, on the penultimate level of the Legend rank in Lemmings World Tour as I was testing it.
If you have any ideas of how to enforce this trick in a better way, I'm open for suggestions . I just know that I want this trick in this level in one way or another, because it's about all the funny stuff you can do with miners - and having a lethal water pit somewhere where the lemmings run into if you don't pivot the miner is the only way I know. The level which was supposed to enforce this trick in Lemmings World Tour, "Making your mine up", makes it unnecessary due to the presence of steel blocks.

Level 07, "Across the bridge of hope": This level, in contrast, does not involve any miner tricks. I don't know how this could be the case, anyway - all you have are ten builders .

You probably meant:
Level 08, "Lems just wanna have fun": Well, no, there is no miner pivot required here. The main challenge about this level is how to reseal two miner shafts (to allow lemmings to go up) without using a builder. It's something I tried on a SEB Lems level, and it wasn't actually possible there. But the fact that it wasn't possible inspired me to create a level where it is possible .
Hint: Think about how you can stop the miner, aside from using the miner-miner-cancel. In fact, doing the miner pivot here may actually even lead to a disadvantage!

Now on to the levels you did solve!

Level 02, "Dreams are my reality": Oh, thanks for showing me the Walker is superfluous. I turned around the Swimmer and had him slip through the gaps between the pillars; it didn't occur to me that you could simply let him drop off the lowest pillar. I'll have to see whether I replace the Walker with something else or if I just cut it without a replacement. The rest of the solution is intended, including the stacker-stoner trick at the end.

Level 03, "Keep holding on": I fixed the backroute here, so the replay you sent me for this one doesn't work anymore. But I know you know the solution already .

Level 05, "Diamonds are a Lem's best friend": Alternative solution.

Level 06, "Great balls of fire": Pretty clever timing-based alternative solution.

Level 09, "Viva la vida": You did the required steps in a slightly different order, but this is basically the intended solution. There's one trick from a PimoLems level I tried to enforce here, but I guess it won't work since it's possible to have the right crowd escape towards the exit first. But now I feel justified in (re-)using that trick elsewhere again!

Level 10, "Fallen leaves": That however was a couple too many leftover skills. I've added downward arrows to the top bit of the building on the right.
The annoying part is: Anytime I change anything about this level inside the level editor, the info about the moving background objects (the leaves) gets lost, and I have to manually copy it back in from one of my backup files. I hope support for moving objects inside the editor gets re-added soon!

Level 12, "Born to be wild": The beginning was intended. Platforming over a Digger shaft to reseal it is also intended - but not in the place where you did it . This level required even more steel than it already had.

Level 14, "What I've done": That was the weirdest backroute I've seen in a while! I had no idea you could cancel a Miner with a Stacker mid-swipe like that. I exchanged the Stacker for a Stoner and hope this will suffice to prevent this.

Level 16, "Lemming in chains": Again, it's possible to have the crowd slip by towards the exit first. But that doesn't really affect the solution, it's just a matter of taste. What you did with the last lemming is basically the intended solution. I like how you saved a Builder by assigning the Basher in such a way that a piece of terrain remained at the end, allowing the Stacker to close the shaft! That's something I'll keep in mind for later, thanks! The extra Builder allowed you to turn the climber around in a different way; I simply bashed against the steel under the trap.
You also showed me that the part I intended at the end, i.e. after platforming towards the chain, was redundant: You can simply dig down straight from the platform. The intended solution requires to seal this gap with another stacker and then dig from the top. So I made the digger a pickup skill to enforce this. I hope it doesn't give away too much about the solution now.
How long did it take you to figure this one out, if I may ask? You did create "Journey to the Core", after all, which is this kind of level on steroids...

Level 21, "Wait till you see me dig, baby!": Intended. The timing is a little surprise, but I'm glad you made it work!

Level 28, "The descent of Lem": Totally not intended - but pretty damn awesome! I think I can allow this as an alternative solution, and possibly even make it a talisman.

The updated version is attached to the starting post!

[nin10doadict]

Replies:

Spoiler

As to level 4, the issue I'm having is having a part of the crowd sneak past and die off the right side while I'm trying to do the pivot. I can't spare a miner to make the right side safe. Just controlling the RR at the start to get the crowd to the lower level is already a pain.

Level 7 I've got nothing. Must require something very obscure that I don't know about.

As for level 8, I might be approaching the arrow bars incorrectly? I can get through with one bomber, 2 climbers, a digger, and a basher. That might not be the way to do it.

Level 16 took about 10 minutes. As soon as I saw the lemming and the chain, realizing that I had to dig from the top was instant. The only troubles were figuring out how to get the single Lemming up there, which didn't take that long. I found this one pretty easy overall, which I'm fine with. It's a good level.

I also just solved level 22, which took about 3 minutes. Pretty sure my solution is intended, I needed everything and it felt solid.

Also, level 15 is desperately broken.

[Strato Incendus]

Level 22 is intended.

Level 15 was another case of me forgetting badly-needed one-way arrows. Luckily, that also consequently means it was an easy enough fix . The updated version is attached!

Spoiler

Level 04: Yeah, you need to start the miner to the right while the crowd is still far enough away, so that no one walks over it all the way up on top of the steel platform.
Or do you mean the crowd falls into the water? If they do, that's already too late to do the pivot, obviously . So I think the first scenario is what you meant. Otherwise, please save a replay manually up to the point where you got, so I can see it first hand!

Level 07 is not a trick, it's just logical combination of what you can do with builders. But I do admit it's pretty obscure .
The builder wall at the beginning probably could be regarded as a trick.
The way you isolate a pioneer lemming however uses the same logic as "Dolly Dimple" to force the crowd to continue going into one direction only - meaning the opposite direction than the pioneer lemming.
I hope that's enough of a hint without being a complete spoiler ^^. I learned this from a level from MobiLems.

Level 08: I'm really sorry, I got something mixed up here and lead you up the garden path with my first hint! I thought you had an additional bomber to stop the miner, but if I provided one, that would probably enable a backroute in which you go through the arrow bars with just two bombers.
With just a single bomber, the miner pivot trick actually is required here, but it should be a lot easier to pull off than on level 04, given you have the whole upper crowd at your disposal to find a lemming who can do it.
The digger is not required to get through the arrow bars. This takes two climbers, a bomber and all three bashers.
Though I can imagine an alternative solution involving the digger in this position, if you use one of the bashers instead to get into the wall on the right. You just need to find some way to get regular terrain under the lemming's feet before you can assign the miner, because this doesn't work on steel, even if he's right next to a wall of destructable terrain.

Glad you liked Level 16 without finding it too difficult! That gives me the feel it should probably stay in the first rank.

[Strato Incendus]

Update! Here's 10 more levels with lots of Shimmier-related goodness! Check the starting post for the current version!

Here's one for you Sonic fans out there - because the title I had in mind for this solution just so happened to fit a theme song! Consequently, the tileset to be used was pre-destined.


Reach for the stairs

And one more in one of my own tilesets (actually, it combines parts from both Money and Autumn):


Money makes the Lems go round

[Strato Incendus]

Finally, here's another update with 10 more levels! Check the attachment in the starting post

This brings the second demo rank "Rehearsal" up to 20 levels (=you'll find the new levels at the end, after what you may have played so far already).

On the one hand, I hate that I'm making such slow progress with this pack. On the other hand, the levels I do come up with feel rather new and unique to me, like nothing I've done in Lemmings World Tour or before.

I must watch out not to overuse the Shimmier too much, but on the other hand, there's still not that much content out there featuring it, so why not have him do some overtime?

Note: You're going to need GigaLem's mod of namida's Sky tileset for these levels - get it here.


Heaven is a place on Earth


Hunting high and low


Paradise


Lems in low places


Tear down the walls

[Strato Incendus]

Halfway done now! Ten more levels have been added, giving you two full ranks of 30 levels each to test!

They're not ordered by difficulty yet, though, but simply by chronological order of release. If you've already tested some of these before, again simply jump to the first level in the Rehearsal rank you haven't tried so far.

Regarding actual ranks, the Soft rank is complete now, and I've already made up my mind about a rough level order. Basically, I'm trying to have the tilesets appear in the same order as in original Lemmings! That means starting with Dirt, then two Pillar levels, Marble, Crystal, Fire, then Marble again, etc. That would leave me one special-graphics level per rank, like e.g. the Sonic level. But I'll have more than that, not only due to my own tilesets Money and Autumn breaking the strict pattern, but also due to some levels in ONML tilesets thrown in here and there.

Here are some more screenshots of the most visually unique levels among the new ones:


Ring of Fire


Always look on the bright side of life


Breakfast at Tiffany's
Note: This level might be shifted to the pack "Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll", since it is a Lemmings-3D-inspired pack, and L3D has a Candy / Food tileset as one of its characteristic styles.


Heavy cross


A change of seasons

The last level requires my modified tileset strato_generalmd! It's attached to the starting post, just like the updated pack folder!

You'll need it for the Rain and Snow objects that you see in the image. The Rain object is actually the original one - I think it underwent a slight colour and movement change, the one included in namida's Sky tileset now looks a little different. Both of these objects were created by Colorful Arty.

[Strato Incendus]

Another update! Development has proceeded far enough for me to discard the Demo Tape / Rehearsal ranks and continue with the actual rank names!

The first two ranks - Soft and Loud - are complete and in a preliminary intended order. The difficulty curve isn't perfectly linear yet, though.

That's why I haven't adjusted the music rotation yet, though, because doing this for every individual level anytime the order slightly changes is a huge hassle. I've edited the standard rotation, but it always includes the ONML tracks as well, which I really only want to be special occurences. The main rotation should consist only of the 17 tracks from original Lemmings (or, more accurately, my rock versions of those).

The last two ranks have fewer levels so far - the Heavy rank 10, the Hardcore rank only half that many, i.e. 5.

This means we're already at 75 of 120 levels! Here are some more screenshots of the youngest additions:


With a little help from my Lems


Stop crying your heart out


Everything I do (I do it for Lemmings)


Hard Rock Hallelujah


Stand by me


God hates us all