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

[Armani]

I solved rank1,3,4 of the pack.  As I can use computer for very limited time, I skipped rank2. I will finished rank2 someday
Here are my comments on individual levels!

For the levels I think are backroutes

Spoiler

Soft2 : I don't use a walker, might be a minor backroute.
Soft5 : lots of leftover skill
Soft6 : I don't use a shimmier and there are lots of leftover skill.
Soft15 : I don't use many skills and don't use top part of the level.
Soft17 : A huge backroute here. I use very limited skills.
Soft22 : Nice one of everything level. But I'm afraid I backrouted it. I don't use a climber and a blocker
Soft23 : A shimmier is left. It maybe a minor backroute..?
Soft26 : I don't use a walker and a shimmier
Heavy2 : I save one more lemming and don't use any bomber. But I really like the concept of the level and the level looks beautiful.
Heavy3 : The craziest backroute I found in this pack! I think this is absolutely a backroute. Maybe you can block it by increasing the total number of lemmings
Heavy4 : I don't use any swimmer.
Heavy5  : I don't use 6 shimmiers, 4 climbers and 2 stoners. And I save three more lemmings than needed.
Heavy7 : I don't use any pickup skills. This level looks awesome and nice combination of many tilesets!
Heavy8 : I don't use any shimmier and climber and I also save one more lemming than required.
Heavy10 : So many leftover skills
Hardcore2 : I don't use any miner and digger. But the concept of the level is so creative so if you enforced the intended solution, this level will surely be very nice level!
Hardcore3 : I don't use any platformer and save one more than required.
Hardcore4  : Another huge backroute. I have an idea on how the intended solutions going. Maybe you can block my backroute by adding some steels on the terrain above the exit.
Hardcore5 : I don't use any swimmer and save 100%.

For the other levels

Spoiler

Soft1 : simple and nice level for first level of the first rank
Soft3 : I learn climber-shimmier combo from this level. Nice one!
Soft4 : A little bit hard level for its position, anyway good level
Soft7 : I use skill that I learn from Icho's lemmings united pack. Really cool level considering that the level only provides builders
Soft8 : The levels seems obvious on where the skill have to be used but I liked the level and it looks awesome aesthetically.
Soft9 : I don't use several skills but maybe be acceptable or a minor backroute, I think.
Soft10 : I'm not sure whether this is intended or not, but (If intended,) using of shimmier to jump up to upstair terrain is really creative!
Soft11 : Shimmier lemming can pass through basher tunnel but not fencer tunnel! Good to know
Soft12 : This is absolutely my favorate level from the first rank! Shimmier-Glider combo to jump up the stacks!
Soft13 : It was easier than the prior levels at least for me.
Soft14 : Lots of left over skill, but might be intended or acceptable I think
Soft16 : Nice one of everything level!! I really enjoyed it
Soft18 : If this is intended, very clever level!
Soft19 : Nice little puzzle level!
Soft20 : Another very clever level. I learn how shimmier can used in so many creative way!
Soft21 : Easier than many levels before.
Soft24 : I save three more lemmings than need. I love the skills that use in this level anyway
Soft25 : I hate levels that give me many stackers! But this level should be an exception!
Soft27 : Nice puzzle level! Second favorite level on the first rank!
Soft28 : It looks amazing and it was tricky level since I had to use every skill very effectively.
Soft29 : This level was tough! And I really like the custom tileset you made!
Soft30 : Another very nice puzzle level though I solve it almost instantaneously.
Heavy1 : I don't use a bomber. It might be a small backroute.
Heavy6 : Second hardest level in second rank I think. I love the aesthetics of the levels.
Heavy9 : Hardest level in second rank! Lack of destructive skill make the level challenging.
Hardcore1 : Nice puzzle level. But I think there are plenty of harder levels in lower ranks. Does it really fit for the final rank of the pack?

I really enjoyed it overall. I recommend this pack to those who
  want to know how the shimmier can be used creatively in so many ways!
  want not only the levels that contains clever skills and tricks but also beautiful looking levels!
  want to play levels with amazing custom tilesets!
I hope my comments will help you to improve this pack

[Strato Incendus]

Wow, what a nice surprise! Thanks a lot for playing, Armani, and for taking the time to write such a detailed (and also positive) review!

Usually my packs don't receive this level of attention prior to official release. I don't have the opportunity to watch your replays right now, so I'll respond to your comments first and address your replays in a second response once I've watched them all.

Spoiler

Soft1 : simple and nice level for first level of the first rank

Thanks! I think it is slightly easier than my other Dirt-tileset 1-of-everything level, "The 8 commandments" from Lemmicks (for NeoLemmix 1.43). It is a little more obvious where the various skills have to go, plus there are no solid level sides confusing the player.

Soft2 : I don't use a walker, might be a minor backroute.

This is one I can already tell without having seen the replay: Yes, the Walker, as of right now, is superfluous. I made a lemming turn around to slip through the gaps between the pillars and land in water - but it is also possible to have the lemming fall down into the water from the lowest pillar. I could change the area around the exit on the right, so that the Glider doesn't turn around by himself, but faces towards the exit, thereby enforcing Walker usage. But at the same time, this would be a pretty dull use of a Walker. Plus, now that we have the 10-skill-limit rather than the old 8-skill-limit, I could actually make a 1-of-everything level featuring all NeoLemmix skills, i.e. including the Disarmer and the Shimmier.

This might also give me the opportunity to introduce the Shimmier before level 3, because...

Soft3 : I learn climber-shimmier combo from this level. Nice one!

...this is currently the very first use of the Shimmier in the pack. I'm relieved to hear the level did its job to show you this interaction! But then again, you probably already knew what the Shimmier does by itself?

A player seeing the Shimmier for the first time on Soft 03 and trying it out in the beginning part of the level, unless the player does so on the one frame where it can be assigned to a Climber, will simply see the lemming jump and fall straight down again, because the ceiling is too high for the lemming to reach without climbing.

In other words: A new player might contract an incorrect view of what the Shimmier skill actually does regularly when trying it out for the first time.

Furthermore, I actually don't want to stress the Shimmier too much; I want it to be perceived as of equal worth as all the other skills. Therefore, introducing it together with all the other NeoLemmix skills might make the skill more inocuous than introducing it with a dedicated level (Soft 03).

So maybe I can indeed solve all these problems in one go by making Soft 02 a level with 1 of each of the 10 NeoLemmix skills? Thanks a lot already for your help with this particular one!

Soft4 : A little bit hard level for its position, anyway good level

I absolutely agree it's hard! I've been thinking about how to make the execution a little easier, but couldn't come up with anything so far that doesn't also result in breaking the level. It's in this position due to its similarity with the original "Now use miners and climbers". You'll notice that for every slot, I tried to use a level in the same graphic set as in original Lemmings at that particular level number. That said, I have another level which only features Miners, is also in the Marble tileset, and is arguably easier. It's currently located in the second rank ("This time"). Maybe I should simply have these two swap their position?

Soft7 : I use skill that I learn from Icho's lemmings united pack. Really cool level considering that the level only provides builders

And now you can probably see why this level is in the same position (and tileset) as "Builders will help you here". This one I also find quite hard for its position. It's definitely not a level designed to teach a first-time player how the Builder skill works - on the contrary: You basically already need to know everything about the Builder in order to solve it. But such is the nature of challenging one-skill-levels. Ever since I played Nepster's "Introducing: Climbers" and "Introducing: Miners", I've tried to come up with the most challenging things I can for various single skills. So far, I've made one-skillers for Builders, Miners (like the above-mentioned "This time"), and Diggers ("Dig pic" from Pit Lems, FML rank 01). I might still be able to work out something using only Bashers or Fencers.

Soft8 : The levels seems obvious on where the skill have to be used but I liked the level and it looks awesome aesthetically.

Thanks! Some might assume this level is called this way because the Miner needs to go "A thousand miles". But the truth is: Everything about this level, from its title to its visual design to the combination of the Pillar and my Autumn tileset is just the result of my random childhood associations. You can clearly tell the level looks a lot like "Only floaters can survive this", which was one of the most iconic Lemmings levels for me as a kid, probably because it featured the most iconic Lemmings track that is the Pachelbel canon (at least on Mac / Amiga). Sadly, the solution became too complex for the level to actually go into position 02 and have that track play on it.

Consequently, years later when I heard two particular songs by Vanessa Carlton, those being "Ordinary Day" and "A Thousand Miles", the melody combined with the strings + piano arrangement immediately reminded me of Lemmings. "Ordinary Day" probably did so even more than "A Thousand Miles", but the latter is the more famous song. Where the association between Lemmings an Autumn is coming from... that probably has to do with the streets in various towns I used to frequent with my parents as a kid. And I most likely played more Lemmings during the colder seasons. Those associations were actually one of the main reasons why I created the Autumn tileset in the first place. Also the reason why the tileset features white pillars... and thus, the circle to the Pillar tileset closes.

Another thing that is weirdly linked to Lemmings in my mind is Star Trek: The Next Generation. However, the explanation for that is rather straightforward: Do you all know what the cursor on a Mac looks like while something is loading up? This little rotating circle / sphere in various rainbow colours? That's pretty much exactly what the icon of the broadcaster (Sat. 1) looks like that used to air Star Trek here in Germany back in the day.

Soft11 : Shimmier lemming can pass through basher tunnel but not fencer tunnel! Good to know

Yes, and I'm so glad this finally gave me a reason to have a Basher slide down a Fencer tunnel! In Lemmings World Tour, the only way I could enforce this was by using slowfreeze to have several Zombies stone inside the Fencer shaft. And even that might not be backroute-proof. In the absence of slowfreeze and the presence of the Shimmier, I could have come up with a Shimmier-based solution for this Lemmings-World-Tour level in New Formats. But since the pack as a whole doesn't feature the Shimmier at all, I didn't want to introduce it for just a single level, especially not one that comes as late in the pack as the one I'm talking about.

Soft12 : This is absolutely my favorate level from the first rank! Shimmier-Glider combo to jump up the stacks!

Great to hear! That tells me the level is simple but effective, and teaches you exactly what it's supposed to teach. Keep this trick in mind! It will reappear on many other levels throughout the pack! Soft 12 is thus exactly the type of level that also could have appeared on the Noisemaker rank of Lemmings World Tour.

Soft13 : It was easier than the prior levels at least for me.

I'm happy the solution is not as obscure as I originally thought it was. nin10doadict also found it pretty quickly. I might have to move it even further down, then?

Soft20 : Another very clever level. I learn how shimmier can used in so many creative way!

This is another trick repeatedly-featured in the pack: The ceiling is placed at such a height where a regular Walker cannot reach it as a Shimmier - only when you use the one lemming that slips past the Stacker (i.e. over his stack) can that particular lemming actually get high enough for a second to jump up and grab the ceiling.

Again, keep this in mind for later levels, it will be extremely useful for you!

Soft21 : Easier than many levels before.

Yeah, the crowd control in the beginning is a little iffy. Once you get the Shimmier moving, the rest of the level practically solves itself. It's really only in this position because it's a Dirt level, and level 21 in original Lemmings is the first Dirt level after the very first one. Then again, the title "Paradise" also kind of acknowledges it is simple (and in turn, required the Dirt tileset instead of anything else). Thus, it is designed as somewhat of a "breather" level in between the harder ones.

Soft25 : I hate levels that give me many stackers! But this level should be an exception!

I'm relieved to hear that! Indeed, levels can be "Stacker fests" as much as they can be Builder fests - usually if the Stacker is employed in exactly such a way, like a faster, more vertical staircase just for Climbers (or worse, several Stackers cancelled by Walkers or Shimmiers after 6 pixels, to allow regular lemmings to "step up"). This level, in contrast, is more about how to place Stackers in such a way that they actually can hold back Climbers - which they usually cannot.

Soft27 : Nice puzzle level! Second favorite level on the first rank!

I appreciate that, I think it was one of the levels that took the longest to build on this rank. I remember trying out lots of different things, plus that fire trap is literally vital to prevent the nasty backroute of simply building up to the ledge straight from the "low place" the lemmings are stuck in at the start.

Soft28 : It looks amazing and it was tricky level since I had to use every skill very effectively.

I'm glad this level finally worked out! I had tried to create a level called "Ring of fire" for Lemmings World Tour, using the Desert tileset (as well as my Instruments tileset) to make it feel more country-like. I had actually created a perfect circle for the ring, rather than an octagon, like on this level.



But that was when I found out that on-terrain fire objects actually don't get removed when you remove the terrain, they simply become invisible, but still active. So that level was scrapped because my initial idea didn't work.

But in turn, this observation that on-terrain objects become invisible when the terrain is removed is something I then used for a level in this current pack, and that level is waiting for you on the second rank...

Soft29 : This level was tough! And I really like the custom tileset you made!

Thank you very much! In fact, this level uses both of my new custom tilesets made for this pack - the teal blocks and the gold etc. are of course from the Money tileset, but the pillars, rooftops, and brick walls are from the Autumn style. Still, I thought this architecture fit the aesthetic of one of these old, somewhat Greek-looking bank buildings quite well.

Hardcore1 : Nice puzzle level. But I think there are plenty of harder levels in lower ranks. Does it really fit for the final rank of the pack?

Good observation! It was indeed originally intended to be the third level of the entire pack, i.e. all the way down at the bottom. The title was chosen as to highlight the now deadly ceiling. But then, this title refers to a Death Metal song, so there was no way I could put it into the lowest rank. Plus, the solution seemed way too obscure for that position at the time of creation of this level. In the meantime, I've created a lot more complex puzzles, as you noticed.

So this level might actually have to change its name so I can move it further down... I still think a level emphasizing the deadly ceiling is a useful thing to have at the beginning of the pack, especially with it being a follow-up to Lemmings World Tour, which some people might still be playing in Old Formats (as I'm actually advising them to do ;D ). In Old Formats, the ceiling was solid - so I don't want this change to cause confusion.

Heavy6 : Second hardest level in second rank I think. I love the aesthetics of the levels.

Ah yeah, I made that one almost a year ago around Christmas time, as evident - and even IchoTolot said it wasn't easy. Plus, he also found the intended solution. Thus, this was a level I already was a little more confident about than the others...

Heavy9 : Hardest level in second rank! Lack of destructive skill make the level challenging.

So it's not just tough to execute then, it's also hard to figure out - I'm happy to hear that! Whenever I try to make larger levels, especially with a comparatively high skill supply, I always fear I might add so many degrees of freedom to the sheer amount of possible solutions that I open myself up to a myriad of backroutes.

Limiting the supply of one specific type of skill, be it "destructive" or "creative", is pretty much the only way I know to avoid this sudden increase in vulnerability to backroutes, and to do so with some level of certainty.

And now, finally, to your "openly visible" comments:

I really enjoyed it overall. I recommend this pack to those who

First of all, thank you for recommending this pack already at this early stage! That might actually allow me to test this pack "in the field" more easily than previous ones, i.e. finding testers through this thread ahead of release, rather than picking them individually via PM.

want to know how the shimmier can be used creatively in so many ways!

Mission accomplished! Indeed I wanted to make the mere presence of the Shimmier the main selling point of this pack, in direct comparison to Lemmings World Tour, at least.

At the same time, this also tells me I have to create quite a few more levels specifically not using the Shimmier so that it doesn't become over-represented. I did make quite a few in the early phase of development, before the Shimmier had actually been introduced. But I was just coming off of the release of Lemmings World Tour at that time, so I wasn't being terribly creative, and still more connected to Old Formats as well.

The temptation of quickly resorting to the Shimmier when imagining a new level at this point is still in its comparatively large, yet unexplored design space - so many new things we can try out with it that haven't appeared in any full-blown packs yet.

Eventually, I want to make the Shimmier in this pack feel as if it had always been part of Lemmings; it should blend with the rest of the skills organically rather than sticking out. But I guess that's difficult, because it's still a novelty at this point, and therefore bound to stick out - if for no other reason that people actively try to remember new Shimmier tricks they learn, so that they can expand their skill knowledge.

want not only the levels that contains clever skills and tricks but also beautiful looking levels!

I'm flattered to hear that! I was also somewhat curious whether I could pull it off "again", so to speak. Aesthetics were one of the main selling points of Lemmings World Tour, however, more specifically, it was realistic aesthetics: I tried to depict as many geographic locations in the world as possible in a way as a realistic as possible with level tiles.

Your town of residence actually was one of them...

Ganglem style

Now, in contrast, the level shapes are abstract. So except for the few "landscape" levels, like the two Christmas levels, I don't really know what makes them "pretty". Maybe it's just using a handful of different colours and having them change throughout the landscape successively - avoiding too many monochrome parts, avoiding an overload of too many different colours (the Psychedelic tileset has a habit of doing that ;D ), and avoiding too many awkward shapes of terrain, or too many loose, unconnected terrain pieces.

Basically, any level should look as if it had been taken straight out of original Lemmings - while at the same time using the new skills cleverly, and being much more challenging than original Lemmings. That, at least, is the goal.

want to play levels with amazing custom tilesets!

I guess this mainly refers to my own custom tilesets, so thank you for that!

I think I only used two other custom tilesets: one of the Sonic tilesets by Flopsy, and Raymanni's Food tileset. The latter may eventually be shifted to the Lemmings-3D-inspired pack "Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll" though, I'll have to see.

I still want to make a couple more Money and Autumn levels, indeed - Money has only two at this point, and only one that strictly only consists of pieces from the Money tileset itself. But by now, only Hard Rock and Metal songs are still eligible, given I'm working on the two upper ranks, and I currently don't recall any somewhat-famous Hard Rock or Metal songs referring to either of these topics. ABBA's "Money, money, money" is definitely not heavy enough to qualify for these ranks!

Sonata Arctica's "Paid in full" has 17 million views on YouTube, maybe that's famous enough for a Money level on the Heavy rank... Probably a mix with the ONML Snow tileset, though, given the band's name, and country of origin...

I hope my comments will help you to improve this pack

I can assure you they already did!

Thanks a lot again for playing, and good luck on the second rank (Loud) whenever you feel like trying it!

[Strato Incendus]

Alright, then! I've watched all your replays, which covered the entire Soft rank as well as all levels that are currently present in the Heavy and Hardcore rank.

On your solutions for the single levels

Soft 01, "I wanna know what lemmings is": close to intended. You've found a way not to use the Floater and Blocker, but that's fine. The Floater really just helps to isolate a pioneer, and the Blocker is there in case lemmings fall from the platform right under the hatch facing in the wrong direction. This didn't come up in your case, because you dug right away. The intended solution doesn't release the crowd until the very end - by that time, lemmings in the crowd will obviously be facing in both directions, so when you bomb through the platform (rather than digging because the Digger is needed to get the pioneer past the trap), some lemmings will look left towards the water, therefore requiring the Blocker to turn them around.

Soft 02, "Dreams are my reality": intended. As I said, the Walker is currently redundant. I am probably going to increase the number of skill types to 10 here to include all NeoLemmix skills, adding the Shimmier and the Disarmer. It pains a little to modify a perfectly fine level at such a late stage, but I think this level can accomplish even more in the context of the first rank than it already does right now. So while your solution is fine and was the intended solution up until now, expect this one to change quite a bit.

Soft 03, "Keep holding on": intended.

Soft 04, "Twist and shout": intended.

Soft 05, "Diamonds are a Lem's best friends": There's quite a few degrees of freedom to this level. You dug and bashed in places where I didn't expect anyone to, cleverly combining the various paths and thus saving quite a few skills. This one may require some additional one-way arrows to prevent some of these shortcuts.

Soft 06, "Fire escape": Going along the right side actually seems like the more creative solution - at least when you compare to the intended one, which is quite repetitive, building a snake-like staircase to connect these little platforms on the left and then cutting through them again piece by piece with Bashers, to allow the crowd to pass through from above. This one is an easy enough fix, though - simply put steel into the wall on the right. While your solution would have been perfectly fine in and of itself, it missed the main trick I wanted to teach here, and that indeed has something to do with the Shimmier.

Soft 07, "Across the bridge of hope": intended.

Soft 08, "A thousand miles": intended. Also, I noticed this actually still does have the Pachelbel Canon playing, when it should be "How much is that doggie?", based on its current position.

Soft 09, "Against all odds": backroute. That Climber reached the hatch at the top a little too fast. Thus, he could create a platform so quickly that barely any of the lemmings from the top were in danger. I'll have to prevent the Climber from going up the right hand side, possibly by borrowing some spike traps from the Pillar tileset.

Soft 10, "Walk the line": valid alternative solution! It actually is the intended solution in reverse, to some extent, since that one requires the Shimmier at the bottom first and then the Climber going over the pillar in the middle. Both require all the skills, both are fine!

Soft 11, "Call me maybe": intended.

Soft 12, "Mr Sandlem, give me a dream": intended.

Soft 13, "Lemming in chains": intended. It's actually slightly more difficult now than it used to be when nin10doadict first played it - not only because you have to save an additional Blocker by digging from the very top, but also because one Builder has been cut. Now you need to bash in such a way that the end of the tunnel is curved, i.e. slightly closed, rather than straight and all the way open. Basher tunnels are 9 pixels high (which is also what allows Shimmiers to pass through them), Stackers only build 8 pixels high, that's why you formerly needed an additional Builder for that one extra pixel. But Builders tend to break solutions quickly, so I'm happy I found out about the possibility to consciously manipulate the ends of Basher tunnels like that, by varying the position of Basher assignment.

Soft 14, "Always look on the bright side of life": Almost intended. You're supposed to climb up the cross on the left, not the one on the right. That's probably why you needed a couple fewer skills. Again, the spike trap might help - and this one is even in the Pillar tileset to begin with, so it seems like a perfect match!

Soft 15, "Both sides now": backroute. You're supposed to platform with the crowd at the top, then having a Shimmier from the bottom crowd shimmy along that platform. This level is crucial to introduce the player to the idea of shimmying along platforms and Builder staircases. No idea how to fix this yet, though.

Soft 16, "I need a dollar": intended.

Soft 17, "Don't give up": Oops, that turned out way to easy. How did you manage to get such a large gap between the lemmings? Good job, of course, but this will definitely have to change - the level would be way too easy to be deserving of its title otherwise.

Soft 18, "Lems just wanna have fun": intended. So happy you found this one! Also, clever how you used the indent in the last bar to have the Climber climb in there and stand there to bash. You can actually also bash while on top of the preceding bar, i.e. bashing across the gap, which is what I did. Since Bashers affect terrain slightly in front of them, they can destroy terrain on the other side of a small gap, just like Blockers can block across a tiny gap as well. No way to enforce this minute detail, though. The main tricks are the miner-miner-turnaround, the Stoner-Platformer combination to get up a Miner crossing (also required in the intended solution for Soft 14, btw! ), and turning one Climber around in the Basher tunnel of the other to deal with the one-way arrows.

Soft 19, "Hunting high and low": intended.

Soft 20, "My life would suck without you": intended. You improved the timing of the two pioneers by having a lemming from the crowd shimmy-jump and then bomb the stack away; I always did that with the Glider pioneer, i.e. having him jump, glide on top of the stack, as taught on Soft 12, and then bomb. But of course, you want some more control over when exactly to release the crowd, so that the other pioneer has time to build to the exit again. I'm glad it can be done like this, as well - this reduces the execution difficulty.

Soft 21, "Paradise": Okay, that's even slightly easier than intended. The Digger pit wasn't part of the plan. However, plastering the entire starting area with steel would be impractical. Maybe upward arrows will do the trick?

Soft 22, "No roots": I wouldn't call this a "backroot" , as anticipated, but the intended solution uses two worker lemmings from opposing sides, rather than just one. I don't see a way of enforcing this, though, because you basically just used a Digger in place of a Miner, giving the platformer an easier time. But there is no way to make a piece of terrain Miner-friendly but not Digger-friendly - downward arrows allow for both, and horizontal arrows do as well (they don't prevent skills going through them at a 90-degrees angle, in contrast to vertical arrows). So this level will stay as it is, for the time being.

Soft 23, "Still haven't found what I'm looking for": Not quite intended, but fine. Again, that Glider got an unexpectedly large head-start in front of the crowd. Maybe I never noticed because I had him stack right away after landing, then shimmy to jump onto the stack, yet another time. (I told you this trick would get used repeatedly, so now you see what I meant. ) You also swapped the places of a Builder and a Fencer - the Fencer was intended to free the crowd from below by going through the block of terrain, not to cut off the Builder's staircase. Instead, isolating the pioneer was intended to work here the same way as on Soft 30. But it's fine for this alternative approach to exist here - then it doesn't necessarily feel that much as if I'm repeating myself a mere seven levels later!

Soft 24, "Don't worry, be happy": I knew people's first instinct would be to use the Stoner to break the fall! It's actually intended to provide a foothold for the Basher. I didn't consider somebody bombing + gliding there. Then again, there's no way to prevent this, because no matter how much steel I might put there, the Basher only makes sense if at least a little destructable terrain is remaining - and any terrain you can bash into, you can also bomb into. You still ended up needing all the skills. Plus, that trick of making a six-pixel-altitude non-mountable for the crowd by putting a Builder staircase onto it is not obvious at all, either. This trick was actually part of the intended solution of a Lemmings World Tour level, but I couldn't enforce it.
So I'll simply allow this as an alternative solution. The three additional lemmings you were able to save were simply ones that died from splatting right out of the hatch in the intended solution, where the Stoner is used as the Basher's foothold, therefore requiring Builders to break the fall under the hatch - and Builders take more time than Stoners, hence the slightly more lenient save requirement.

Soft 25, "This is a Lem's world": Close to intended. You spared yourself having to pick up the last Stacker. So far, I don't consider this a severe-enough shortcut to change anything about the level. It's still the first rank, after all, so some leeway is more than appreciated.

Soft 26, "Raindrops keep fallin' on my head": I kind of want to enforce the Climber bypassing the exit by shimmying over it, rather than just building over it, as we have already seen it so often. No idea how to enforce this yet, though.

Soft 27, "Lems in low places": intended. Looks like the time I put in here to patch out that nasty backroute with the fire trap was time well-spent!

Soft 28, "Ring of fire": intended. The Miner's position is slightly different than in my solution: You mined from a slightly higher starting point and then built from within the crowd on the right; I had the cloned lemming drop one step lower, build against the pillar to turn around, and then mine towards the crowd. Nothing really essential to the solution, though. Your approach actually looked more elegant compared to mine when watching it for the first time - you used the slopes in the blue terain to your advantage very cleverly!

Soft 29, "Money makes the Lems go round": valid alternative solution! I was curious why you had skipped one staircase in the beginning and had the pioneer shimmy instead. But you basically just pushed the buttons in the opposite order than intended, and used the crowd on the left to help you by freeing them earlier, rather than at the very end. You also used all the skills, even though I think the last digger wouldn't have been necessary: One of the pillars of the "bank building" was actually protruding, and therefore would have broken the fall of the lemming on the top. Still, the rest of the solution was complex enough, even though it was not the intended path. Actually, it's nice to find out that several solutions of comparable difficulty seem to exist for my larger levels! This is not the only level for which you found one, rest assured...!

Soft 30, "Let's get loud!": intended. You even made the crowd control slightly more challenging for yourself by using a second Builder under the bars for height gain, then connecting the two staircases with a platformer to release the crowd. Depending on where you place the staircase with the pioneer to get him to bump his head on the bars, you can later on also release the crowd with just a single Builder towards the pioneer's staircase.


Heavy 01, "What I've done": intended. The Bomber is just optional - you can blow up the Blocker with the skill or by using the nuke (or just leave the Blocker standing there and press escape! ). The Bomber is really just provided to make this a classic 1-of-everything level, plus to remind you that you can lose a lemming.

Heavy 02, "A change of seasons": ...which of course means: If you can avoid using Bombers, this allows you to lose lemmings elsewhere - in this case, to let the worker lemming drown. This level really isn't too difficult in general, it's more a graphic-set showoff. I'll leave it like that for the time being.

Heavy 03, "I was made for loving you, Lemming": valid alternative solution! In fact, I was really impressed with this particular one, it's genius! I initially feared you'd exploit a merely decorative element (the balls at the top) for a backroute, as many other players have done on previous levels of mine. But you still ended up using all the skills, used clever timing to isolate the pioneer, plus that final part just combined Builder and Miner so nicely, adding in the Basher-Walker cancel for the final step up. The Stoner was also employed very cleverly to connect to the ceiling and fence from there. The only thing that both of our solutions share is the way the Miner is used to make that one crystal into a straight, climbable wall.
All in all, this solution is at least as exciting as the intended one, if not even more! I couldn't be happier about you finding this one!

Heavy 04, "Eight of swords": valid alternative solution! I didn't get at first why you had that one lemming dig away the entire sword, because he was a Floater. Then I thought you only needed to stall him, to allow the Disarmer to climb out of the crowd before him. Then I realised again that the Disarmer wasn't a Floater, so he actually needed the other lemming to dig to survive his own fall.
This was a very clever timing-based solution! The intended one actually just uses the unidirectional nature of the Fencer, allowing lemmings to walk through the shaft from one side, but no-one who isn't a Climber can get back into the shaft from the other side. That's also why the water and the Swimmers are there: I wanted to give the player a reason to not have the crowd walk into the space between the swords, thus enforcing Fencer usage. You bypassed that by being able to release the crowd before the Floater had dug away the sword. Even though the crowd couldn't have drowned anymore in your solution, they would have gotten stuck on the left side due to not being able to get up the digger shaft anymore that you had created.
So yes, another very clever solution that I'd be happy for anyone to find, even if it skips using the Swimmers! The main part of placing the Stacker under the updraft and platforming over the Blocker to drop and free him by digging is all just as intended.

Heavy 05, "Tear down the walls": backroute. Your supposed to bash from the right as well, not just mine from the right. Nothing that some good-old one-way arrows couldn't fix, though. I can't have the player bypass all this excessive Shimmier use on this level! Thanks for identifying this shortcut!

Heavy 06, "Valkea joulu": Intended. After IchoTolot had already found the intended solution without me having to fix anything about the level, I indeed had hopes that your solution would be the intended one, as well.

Heavy 07, "The bee": You built in a slightly different position than I planned, and also saved some skills. But the important part is that you still used the main trick: Cancelling Bashers with a Shimmier, however, the last Basher needs to be cancelled with a Builder instead - in order to have the pioneer turn around once more and be able to release the crowd. I created a whole topic about this particular design choice: Having a player repeat a certain strategy (here: cancelling Bashers with Shimmiers) so often that they might be tempted to use it one time too many (perseveration), thereby failing the level.

Heavy 08, "Let the bodies hit the floor": Well, you didn't let them hit the floor, but you found another suitable location to trap the Zombies. I guess that's fine.

Heavy 09, "Wooden pints": valid alternative solution! The intended approach is yet another case of a miner going through, using Builders. Instead, you made a Basher go through using platformers, and built at the end of a Digger shaft (with the Digger in mid-air) to break the fall through said shaft. Your solution still required all the skills, so now I'm glad there is a less pixel-precise solution than having to make the Miner go through. Another case of a big level having several, but equally complex solutions, and accidentally so!

Heavy 10, "Hard Rock Hallelujah": backroute. To think I almost would have forgotten to watch this one! I actually had never even tried out whether the lemmings could step up the pillar under the exit all by themselves - and even do so from both sides! This one definitely needs both some one-way arrows and some steel, as well as the exit at a higher altitude.


Hardcore 01, "Forlorn skies": intended. This might indeed be rather easy, but using delayed assignment to get the Glider on the lower floor first to have him build, and then climb back up to glide from the top the second time is maybe not that obvious to everyone. I'll have to see whether this one is actually as obvious as Soft 13 ("Lemming in chains") and deserving of a much lower place in the pack, or whether maybe just you in particular were clever enough to spot the solution to this one rather quickly.

Hardcore 02, "God hates us all": You've shown me what I feared: That it's still too easy to connect all these hatches and break all these falls with just Stoners and Platformers. I can't cut off those paths too easily here, either, because steel pieces can serve as footholds for Platformers and Builders, and one-way arrows don't prevent bombing through these thin bars of terrain. I could make the Disarmers Floaters in addition, thus preventing the player from turning them into Gliders. This would force you to waste two Cloners to get the trap disarmed (one to even get a Disarmer who isn't immediately killed by dropping into the trap; and then, since that lemming would be walking away from the trap after it's survival, a second Cloner who walks back towards the trap and disarms it). However, the Disarmers are only supposed to serve as the starting point- they're not supposed to be the crowd that saves everyone else. I'll have to make up my mind on how to tackle this.

Hardcore 03, "The descent of Lem": Almost intended. Bouncing the Miner of several Blockers is the important part. However, you created a shortcut when you cancelled the Miner by digging straight down at the end. Then again, there are no one-way arrows that can stop Diggers but allow Miners to pass through. Steel can work by forcing the path to "curve" around it, but steel can also be easily abused to cancel Miners that aren't supposed to be cancelled.

Hardcore 04, "Viszlát nyár" (that's how one would actually have to spell it, but the Lemmings font doesn't allow accents yet ;D ): Yes, this is a backroute. While you are indeed supposed to bash over the exit, so simply putting steel there doesn't work, you're not supposed to bash quite as far as you did. Basically, only a Glider should be allowed to sailed above the exit; the regular crowd should not be able to simply drop down on the right side of the exit and free the other crowd. Some one-way down arrows will hopefully suffice to prevent this.

Hardcore 05, "Evisceration plague": Well, that was a lot of stalling with the Diggers on the left! Also, I wasn't aware that lemmings could step through this diagonal bone from below. You turned it into a bridge across the abyss quite cleverly! It's a couple too many spared skills for my taste, though, especially for what is intended to be the very last level of the pack. But still, nice job!

Overall, I'm pleased to see the backroute count is comparatively low so far, especially for a pack still in development that has barely received any third-party testing yet. However, as usual, backroutes have a higher share among the levels from the upper ranks, because complexity adds more degrees of freedom. So most likely, the more levels I add to the Heavy and Hardcore ranks, the more backroutes I'm going to create initially.

I'm not only writing down all of the above comments as a response to you, but also a a reminder to myself, as to which specific things I have to fix about which levels - so I'm killing two birds with one stone here. Now I don't have to create a chaos of paper sheets, to keep track of all the notes on how to adapt these levels. Because most likely, I won't get to do that before the weekend.

This however means that the next update will already feature a couple more new levels, as well - so stay tuned for that...!

[Armani]

WOW.. I was really surprised to see your posts.
What a long and detailed replies they are

I'm sorry that I can't give you detailed answer as you did since my English skill is terrible, especially at writing English.
(Luckily, I have no problem in reading English, so I understood all your replies)
So, instead, I came here with more replays and reviews

I played LOUD rank this time

Spoiler

1 Actually, this first level was one of the toughest for me. At first I had no idea what to do and just clicked repeatedly to dig down without any plan. Then I realize that I can make stairs and 'bash' to the right by repeatedly assigning diggers. I guess my solution is intended and leftover swimmer is for the case when a lemming fall to the water before the builder finished his job.

2 I have two solutions for this level. A stacker is left for one. And two destructive skills are left for the other.

3 My solution is somewhat nasty. I guess the intended solution use both exits; bottom exit for the floaters and top left exit for the climbers. Am I right

4 I solve this level immediately because I got a hint from the level Loud1.

5 Excellent one of everything level! I'm pretty sure this is intended.

6 Another excellent one of everything level!

7 Seems like my solution is not intended. It was nonetheless a tricky and creative level!

8 Few skills are left. Maybe I backrouted.

9 A climber is left. But I think there are still many elements that are intended in my solution.

10. I love x-of everything levels and this packs contains a lot of them. That final stacker-digger trick to provide small height for the miner is genius! I love it.

11 I have two different solutions for this level. First one use all the skills and save the exact number of the lemmings as required. For the second solution, I have few skills left and save one more.

12 Cool puzzle level! Position of the first basher and timing of the final basher were crucial in this level.

13 I think I backrouted it.

14~16 Sorry but I think I got more backroutes here. Many skills are left.

17 Nice puzzle level! I really enjoyed it! Maybe you can enforce player to use final basher to stop digger by adding some more terrain so the swimmer can't reach exit too early.

18 This level was hard one! I hope my solution is intended but if not, you can block my solution by increasing the RR a little bit.

19 Wow another 'only miner level' !

I have another level which only features Miners, is also in the Marble tileset, and is arguably easier. It's currently located in the second rank ("This time"). Maybe I should simply have these two swap their position?

As you said, I agree that Soft4 is way more difficult. How about changing the position of the two levels?

20 Huge backroutes here! I attached two different solutions. Both of them have many left over skills and save 3, 4 more than required respectively.

21 Few skills are left and I save more lemmings. But maybe I got the main trick of the level..??

22 A basher is left. I guess the left over bahser can be used at the beginning so I can assign two basher very close together to easily stop and free them by assigning blocker to one of them

23 Genius level!! I definitely like this level most among the whole levels of the pack! Maybe this level even can be my favorite level I have played so far. (Although it hasn't been that long since I played lemmings..)
My little opinion : In this level, there are two lemmings that do most of the job. : a disarmer and an athlete(climber+swimmer). In my solution, I assign bomber to disarmer mid-air to release the athlete.(or I can just explode the blocking athlete) Players can solve the level no matter whom they assign bomber. So I think this level would be slightly more difficult if you enforce the players to assign bomber to the disarmer lemming to release the athlete. Maybe you can achieve that by adding some terrain to make the way only climber-passable.

Spoiler

Like this..??

It's just my opinion.

24 One more backroute.

25 I don't use a climber, but the solution seems intended for me. Is a cilmber a superfluous

26 Huge backroute.

27 I'm not sure if this is intended or not. But I use all the skills and save exact number of the lemmings.

28 Beautiful looking level! I feel like this one was easier version of Valkea joulu.

29 Second favorite level from the rank! I guess I could save a digger since I increased RR to 99 early.

30 There are many skills left over. But I really have fun playing this level and although I had plenty of skills to use, it was really tough level!

Again, I really enjoyed this pack although it is in development yet.
I have a list of lemmings packs that I will play after I finish my military duty. And I added Lemmings World Tour to the list a while ago
Looking forward to play your another pack someday

[Strato Incendus]

Wow, and I'm once again impressed by your replays! On several levels you've come up with way more creative solutions than the actual intended ones - so repeatedly, even though these solutions bypass the main trick, I can't break them with a clear conscience.

Loud rank

Loud 01, "Wait till you see me dig, baby!": The Swimmer is actually intended for the pioneer lemming to go down on the left. A Digger staircase is indeed required, but only to get that pioneer lemming walking to the left while everyone else continues downward and to the right. The way you used several Diggers to instead have the crowd go to the left, i.e. from the shaft on the right to a digger shaft on the left, was truly genious! That's also why you didn't need the Swimmer even just for stalling, because the crowd was already safely contained. I think this is deserving of a talisman!

Loud 02, "Great balls of fire": The intended solution involves a Miner continuing over a Builder staircase. Both of your solutions saved several skills and are thus not really difficult enough for what I planned here. Yet, I once again run into the problem that there is nothing I can put on a piece of terrain that will allow a Miner to pass but not a Digger. Diggers are basically the Joker destructive skill, because they can get through all types of one-way arrows, except upward ones (which, in turn, stop Miners as well).

Loud 3, "Heaven is a place on Earth": I expected somebody would find a way to send all lemmings to the bottom exit. However, I did not reckon it was possible to have a lemming fall through the exit trigger area and stone at the very bottom! I might be able to prevent this by moving the bottom exit almost entirely off the screen, so that only one pixel of trigger area is still within the level borders. But even that might still alow a lemming to stone in there, as long as said lemming is at the last frame before falling out of the play area. Naturally, this stone then covers the exit trigger, so no lemming can exit at that exact spot - however, since the Stoner's head is round, the next-lower pixel is actually on the border of the level itself. As soon as a lemming steps onto this one-pixel-lower terrain, he can still exit (I just tried it in a sample level in the Fire tileset).
In short, there's no way of preventing this, plus you used some rather obscure tricks anyway, so I'll be happy for anyone who finds this solution!

Loud 04, "Wake me up when September ends": intended.

Loud 05, "When I come around": This is actually explicitly not the intended solution; the Climber is provided as a red herring, because if the lemming does "come back around" after mining and is a Climber, he will go over the stack at the end. The Bomber is a red herring in both solutions, obviously, since you have to save everyone. As such, the intended solution actually saves two skills, rather than just one:
It consists of bashing under the water first and then assigning a Shimmier to a Swimmer to have him jump into the water from below and use it as a lift.
You bypassed the whole thing by having the Climber turn around first, and bashing then. This was supposed to be prevented by the wall the Climber goes up being splat height - but of course, since you had the Shimmier left, you could have him go back towards the crystal and drop off in a place where there was no longer splat height.

intended solution

In the intended solution, the Basher needs to come from the left (just like in your solution), so one-way left arrows cannot force the Climber to bash instead and end up going over the stack.

Instead, I had to put a little pillar under the ceiling now to cause the Shimmier to fall down earlier and splat, in case anyone else tries this. I'm sorry, your solution was elegant and fine as it is - but it's the solution any seasoned NeoLemmix player would expect, I'm sure.

intended solution

Having a Swimmer jump into water from below by using a Shimmier requires more thinking outside the box, I believe.

Loud 06, "Notice me, Lempai!": intended.

Loud 07, "Touch the hand of a Lem": Not intended, but close. You used a Bomber in the middle, rather than a Blocker to turn the lemmings from both sides around. They're supposed to fall through the trigger areas on the hands of the Blocker and consequently go towards both exits. I'm impressed by this "turning around inside a Bomber pit" in general, though; you've also used it to solve (or backroute) several other levels. First trick I've learned from you here! (And there's still a second one coming... )

Loud 08: I think this level is still called "Rama Lema Ding Dong" in the current version? Turrican's recent comments in the Lemmings World Tour thread about the Clam Groupie level reminded me that I had actually already used this song title ("Clam-a-Lem-a-Ding-Dong"). Which is why the title has now been changed to Peter Gabriel's "Red rain", and I've added yet another object (guess what, red rain) to my strato_generalmd tileset. I was already wondering why nobody had complained about a msising piece yet - but I haven't uploaded either so far, apparently. Both are going to be included with the next update, though, so there should be no errors!
On the solution, while this looked very elegant once again, it saved too many skills for my taste, and also skipped the main trick, which is really kind of unique here. So I'm going to need one-way left arrows at the bottom and more steel at the top. Thanks for showing me!

Loud 09, "Born to be wild": Again, not the intended solution - but do I really want to cut this off by putting steel or upward arrows on the entire piece of terrain where you mined? You cleverly used the water to prevent the pioneer from splatting (since he needs to be a Swimmer anyway). I think you could have saved one Builder by making him a Climber as well, since he is the only one who needs to go up the rock on the right. Sparing a Climber is not something that might break the level - however, if another player uses your solution and does use the Climber, he will have an additional Builder, which has a much higher chance of breaking levels in general. On this particular one, though, I think the one-way arrows in front of the exit do the most important job already.
The intended solution is to go down the ice wall on the left, re-using one of the Digger tricks from "Wake me up when September ends" to turn the Digger to the right. So it might actually be better if this alternative solution exists, because it means the pack doesn't necessarily have to become too repetitive with the tricks it demands from the player.

Loud 10, "Viva la vida": I tried to enforce a trick here and on "Stop crying your heart out" which I learned from PimoLems - it didn't work in either of these cases, because the rest of the level is just too complex. As such, it doesn't really matter that you released the crowd on the right straight away at the beginning, rather than at the end, as intended.
The Stacker is indeed supposed to provide initial height gain for the Miner, and then be removed with the Digger at the end, who then stops from hitting steel. However, the Digger wasn't actually planned to be assigned while the stack is still being built. This is another trick I've learned from you today, especially since you reused later on! It's funny how the stack will actually be built in the air, because the Digger has already removed the terrain right under him in the meantime.

Loud 11, "One moment in time": This is another one that requires a Miner going through over a staircase in the intended solution. You see what I meant with regards to the danger of my intended solutions being somewhat repetitive? As such, I'm glad that your first solution exists as an alternative (the one where you used all the skills). Stoning right next to the steel piece on the left to turn all the lemmings around above the exit already was very clever! This saved you the hassle of somehow having to deal with the slopes on the bottom that lead direct towards the water ponds. Naturally, that's also the position where you assigned the Cloners at the end, to make up for the losses.
Your second solution, in contrast, saved a couple more skills - a couple too many for my liking, admittedly - by making more efficient use of the Cloners and actually having them perform skills every time they duplicated a lemming.
Since I do like your first solution, though, and there's no way of preventing your second solution without also blocking your first one in the process, I'll leave this level as it is. Instead, I made your second solution a talisman! This means saving an additional lemming by avoiding the use of the Stoner.

Loud 12, "You can't always get what you want": intended. It isn't actually necessary to have the Climber be the one who builds the final staircase - the crowd can complete it before and continue to the exit. But I get that it's easier to time the assignment of the Basher the more lemmings are still running around. Also, there's no way to make the Climber accidentally turn around from building too far into the terrain, because the player can liberally choose the point of Builder assignment.

Loud 13, "The number of the Beast": backroute. I already thought I had been completely stupid by picking the wrong type of one-way arrows. But upward arrows are indeed needed to make the majority of the beginning section Digger proof - only the pillar on the right, through which you fenced, needed to have one-way left arrows instead. Quick enough change, fortunately!

Loud 14, "Reach for the stairs": backroute. I already had identified a very similar backroute myself and fixed it prior to uploading the most recent version. However, I once again wasn't prepared for your turnaround inside the Bomber pit. I was a little confused why you let the first lemming falling down drown, rather than making him the Stoner. But then I realised he had been a Digger before, i.e. falling down in the middle of the shaft, while all the other lemmings obviously fall down at the edge. So you needed the Stoner to fall off the edge as well.

intended solution

The intended solution is building all the way over the water, shimmying down the staircase from the other side (hence the name), then stone under the upward arrows, have another Shimmier bomb a dent into the ceiling. Now you can platform from the Stoner, build up towards the ceiling, and eventually stack into the Bomber's dent, using the Shimmier to grab the ceiling and get the lemming on top of the stack, from where he can fence the crowd out.

I've turned the Bomber into a pickup skill as well now. This might not fix everything, but it should at least enforce building the giant staircase to shimmy along, thus validating the level title.
Your method of isolating the pioneer was as intended, though - a reverse Builder, followed by a Shimmier using the ceiling to pull himself onto the staircase. This is another thing the title hints at - the first time you reach to get onto the stairs, the second time you actually reach for the stairs themselves.

Loud 15, "Fallen leaves": This is not too far off, but still a little easier than I wanted it to be. Maybe I can carefully place a couple more one-way down arrows - I need to be careful though not to place them too far down, lest they might cut off the Basher's intended path.

Loud 16, "Breakfast at Tiffany's": Once again, just wow! At first I thought the lemmings would slip between the staircase and the lemon - you only had one Platformer remaining, which wouldn't have been enough to close the gap behind the lemon, plus a Blocker, which you couldn't use, because you had to save all remaining lemmings. I suspected the lemmings might be able to step from the lemon onto the staircase by slipping through it, but I wasn't sure until I actually saw it. Yet another talisman to your credit! (Solve with just 3 Platformers and no Blockers - the latter needs to be specified because of the Cloners).
The Blocker is provided to cancel a Digger without terrain under his feet, much like in another level from this rank. Once again, I'm glad this alternative solution exits so that trick repetition is not enforced.

Loud 17, "Stand by me": valid alternative solution! I thought you were going for the intended one, because the beginning is exactly as planned. Then, you had the Swimmer do another round after freeing the Blocker. When you had the freed Blocker platform over the gap, at first I smelled a backroute. But eventually, you still used all the skills, and your solution required a similar amount of timing (digging to temporarily break the fall of the Swimmer) as the intended solution. You can only tell that it isn't the intended one by the fact that I didn't understand at all what you were saying about the Swimmer reaching the exit too early at the end.
This was so much fun to watch - first the positive anticipation of what initially looked like the intended solution, then the sudden surprise, and then, still fell everything into place so nicely, but in a slightly different way than expected!

Loud 18, "Lems, Lems, Lems": close to intended. You used the Climbers and Shimmier merely for stalling, and very cleverly so. It is however also possible to have the Climbers go up the bars on the right and then shimmy onto the platform with the exit. The obviously need to do this before the pioneer bashes through the bars at the bottom and closes off the Climber path with a Builder at the top. But this is by no means a "Great Lemming Caper" exercise in timing. It's just that, rather than having to merely delay the lemmings that would otherwise be too close to the worker lemmings and die, you can already save some of them in advance, if you want to. The rest - the Swimmer and Glider, the one lemming that needs to build over the firetrap, sealing off the Basher tunnel with a Builder etc. - was all as intended.

Loud 19, "This time": The upper crowd is supposed to get contained behind the block first. You used a timing-based solution to stall the crowd a little more, so that only one lemming could slip out of the Miner tunnel towards the exit, and even though that lemming then needed to make his own Miner tunnel, you still saved 1 of the 5 overall Miners. That sounds like another talisman! Especially since you agreed with my already-made suggestion of swapping this level with Soft 04, "Twist and shout". Having slightly more challenging talismans on the lower levels is a nice way to spice them up a little!

Loud 20, "Bonfire": backroute. Both times, as you correctly identified. That was some serious fiddling going on, though, with fencing into the Stoner, cancelling the Fencer with a Shimmier, then bombing away the rest of what held the lemmings back with a Glider from above in mid-air. The second solution made it easier by having the pioneer turn around on the chains in front of the exit by platforming, fencing up (which is indeed intended), then bombing away the terrain under the fire pits. I had already tried and made sure that the fire pits were wide enough to prevent going under them just by using Bombers.
The common denominator in both of your backroute solutions, though, is that the lemming platforming over the fire pits shouldn't be able to drop down on the other side in the first place. I've moved the fire pits to the right, all the way to the edge of the block, so that the Platformer can't safely drop down there. You can of course still cancel the Platformer with a Shimmier once he gets beyond the firepits. Then he'll drop down towards the level of the exit - but based on the skills you've used so far with this method, at that point you'll have a hard time turning him around again in order to fence everyone out.

intended solution

This should only be possible for a lemming shimmying over the firepits under the platform. The Glider and Stoner are required to even build a platform at sufficient height in the first place.

Loud 21, "I believe I can fly": Totally not intended - but the interaction of the Climbers on the top and the Swimmers from below was quite clever! I could easily interrupt this by putting more steel into the pillar on the right. But for the time being, I'd say if anyone voluntarily wants to make a Stoner staircase, like you did, they can knock themselves out! It's not like the intended solution weren't a bit of a hassle, either.

Loud 22, "Three times a lemming": Close to intended. The additional Basher is indeed to stall the crowd a little more, so you don't actually have to crank up the release rate and do the second half of the level with the last lemming of the crowd, just to have enough time for everything. Maybe worth a Bronze talisman to solve it sparing one Basher.

Loud 23, "Everything I do (I do it for Lemmings)": close to intended. Again, at the very end you made a slight modification compared to my solution, which is why I didn't immediately understand what you were suggesting. I did indeed try various ways to make it important which of the two pioneer lemmings does what (Climber vs. Disarmer).
Only now did I realise that you opened my level yourself in the editor and added that one block of terrain to show me what you meant! I definitely appreciate the effort!
Freeing the Blocker by bombing the other pioneer was actually never part of the plan! In fact, you just have a plain, good-old Walker at your disposal for that. The thing is that you "wasted" it earlier to turn the one lemming back around after platforming. This wouldn't have been necessary, since he's a Climber and could easily get back up again. You only would have had to wait a little longer before assigning the Shimmier to the Disarmer.
I've attached my replay for this specific level. As you can see, both the Disarmer and the Climber are alive and well at the end. I could still make it important who of the two gets to platform over the water and who platforms towards the Miner shaft. However, my current solution would require an additional Miner.
I've now realised though that I wasted a Miner where you wasted a Walker! I initially planned to have the left crowd get into the Miner shaft by bombing away the remaining altitude from the top. But none of the two pioneers actually gets back on top of this section. As such, the first Miner in my replay is useless. Instead, it can be used for precisely what you proposed, without me having to provide an additional Miner that might have ended up breaking the level. Simultaneously, I could remove the redundant Walker you used to indeed enforce the mid-air bombing you did!
The screenshot was indeed really helpful! That little slope you put next to the block the lemming is mining through was really important! I had tried just the block first, and it was either too high to mine from, or too low to enforce Climber usage.
I think this is the biggest contribution any tester has ever made to one of my levels! I cannot thank you enough! I'd happily put you into the "Author" line as a co-author... if it weren't occupied by the performing artist, as is the case in general with all of my music-themed packs. But you've already earned yourself your spot on the credits roll anyway, of course!
PS: Your replay will unfortunately break as a result of this - I just had to replay the level myself, due to the slight alteration of the terrain. Closing the last couple of gaps with Platformers at the end now also requires a little timing, but simply using the last lemming of the crowd for this should give said lemming enough of a head-start to that nobody can fall through the gap the Shimmier-Clone needed to bomb for himself earlier - they will only get there once the Platformer is done re-sealing it.

Loud 24, "Stop crying your heart out": backroute. You weren't supposed to be able to bash through the block over the water pit. But that's an easy enough fix, just some good old steel straight through the middle of the block. Consequently, this means you can't build across the pit straight away - the lemming will bump his head and turn around. This is also the reason why you weren't supposed to be able to simply assign a Climber to isolate a pioneer lemming. Now, however, you shouldn't actually be able to do that anymore - because the Climber, after bumping his head on the now-Basher-proof block, will turn around and fall down. If he's a regular lemming (just a Floater), this isn't a problem; Climbers, meanwhile, are going to go up the wall and run straight into the fire trap.
So this is a semi-red-herring. The Climber still has to be used, but later - thus, isolating the pioneer lemming has to be done differently. This is how I want to finally enforce the PimoLems trick I mentioned above.

Loud 25, "With a little help from my Lems": close to intended. The Climber is just there so that the lemming can get over his own stack. I didn't consider that you could simply turn around on the wall first, build the stack while looking into the opposite direction, then turning back. Of course, if the lemming actually is a Climber, this doesn't work, because then he'd go over the stack and into the water. As such, depending on how you approach this level, the Climber is either a red-herring, or strictly necessary. I kind of like that, actually!

Loud 26, "Euphoria": backroute. Oh, my gosh, this level has been uploaded for ages, and this is actually the same backroute nin10doadict had already used a long time ago. How come I never noticed or remembered to fix that? Emergency treatment with downward arrows is in order!

Loud 27, "November rain": valid alternative solution! There goes your signature "digging under a Stacker-in-creation" trick again!

Loud 28, "In the bleak midwinter": close to intended. I think I did a little more fiddling around with that dog; you used the Miners and Platformers in a much more efficient way. The way to clear a path through the Christmas trees, and to turn around inside the tower with the exit, was all as intended, though.
And yes, this was indeed designed as a slightly easier version of "Valkea joulu" (which, btw, is just the Finnish version of "White Christmas").

Loud 29, "You keep me hanging on": close to intended, valid alternative solution!

intended solution

The intended solution is more "epic", because it has the Shimmier travel all the way: He prepares his own path by platforming, collects all the pickup skills, glides down, and then becomes a Shimmier already at the water pond on the right. He then shimmies along his own previously-built Platformer bridge, into the Miner shaft coming from the crowd on the left, up into the Basher tunnel, grabbing the platform and then the staircase and finally continuing towards the ceiling over the water on the left. Because he is a Glider, he will also bump against the pillar in front of the exit when falling down, thus turning around automatically so that he can bash the crowd out.
The tricky part is getting the Shimmier from the Miner into the Basher tunnel: If you just assign a Miner to a Basher, the Miner will actually create a 2-pixel-increase at the point of convergence with the Basher tunnel, which will result in the Shimmier dropping from the ceiling right there. So instead, you have to get the Miner slightly lower - by very shortly assigning a Digger to him before he actually can start mining.

I'm still happy though that this one was still complex enough to be one of your favourites in the rank! And since you also used all but one skill, I think this one is fine and more than difficult enough for the end of the second rank.

Loud 30, "Heavy cross": Oh, boy, there was so much stuff going on here. I think this is the first time I saw somebody else use a Glider like a Shimmier (here:to collect one of the pickup skills). This was originally just a joke I made in my pack Lemmicks (for NeoLemmix 1.43), where on the level "Coming soon: Shimmiers", Gliders would move along the bottom of a Platformer bridge due to an updraft.
While this feels a bit like a backroute, it's still anything but obvious, and you also said yourself that it took you a while to figure out. Since I don't see any way either of preventing this solution, even if I turn even more of the skills into pickups, I'll leave this one as it is for the time being, as well. Many other packs indeed just provide enough of a challenge by creating levels with very "iffy" terrain shapes. I usually can't figure out anything on those. And this odd, diagonal cross-shape is definitely a good candidate for me to finally have a level with "iffy terrain" myself.

I haven't implemented all of the changes yet, which is why there is no update to the pack yet with all your backroutes fixed. You can expect it in the next couple of days, together with a couple more entirely new levels!

I'm sorry that I can't give you detailed answer as you did since my English skill is terrible, especially at writing English.
(Luckily, I have no problem in reading English, so I understood all your replies)

Don't worry, I understand you perfectly, and as such I'd say you're skills are definitely far from "terrible" . In fact, a major portion of the forum members are non-native English speakers. I don't know whether they're in the majority - there are a lot of users for whom I assume they're from the US, but I'm not sure. We could use an actual "Lemmings World Tour map", to get an overview where everyone's from! I only know for certain that there are a bunch of Germans and Finns around here.

Speaking of them...

I have a list of lemmings packs that I will play after I finish my military duty. And I added Lemmings World Tour to the list a while ago

...I believe our Finnish forum members can still empathize with that. Germany suspended the draft around 2010-2011 or so, like most European nations.

I'm honoured you want to try Lemmings World Tour as well! It will definitely be a lot easier for you, given with how much ease you're already not only solving, but improving the levels here on Lemmings Open Air! But maybe that's just going to be a well-deserved "breather" after you're done with your service.

There would only be a slight anachronism - because Lemmings World Tour does actually contain a level referencing Status Quo's "In the army now" ...

[Strato Incendus]

Another update! I've fixed all the backroutes that Armani had found, allowing alternative solutions or even turning his solutions into talismans where feasible. As such, there is a talisman window on the main menu screen now, for the overview.

Changelog

Soft 04, "Twist and shout" swapped places with Loud 19, "This time". The levels themselves haven't changed, so you can just rename your replays accordingly.

Soft 09, "Against all odds": Added Pillar spike traps to the walls to prevent Climber shortcuts.

Soft 15, "Both sides now": Adapted the skillset to prevent the Stoner from breaking the level. In particular, the two Stoners were replaced with a Stacker and a Bomber, due to the different originally intended uses. The Floater was replaced with a Glider, since Floaters can land on Stoners, but to land in Bomber niches in walls, you need a Glider.

Loud 04, "Wake me up when September ends" / Hardcore rank, "Viszlát nyár": Background set to black for uniformity with the rest of the levels; additionally, "Viszlát nyár" had some one-way arrows added to it.

Loud 13, "The number of the Beast": Turned one of the upward arrows into leftward arrows.

Loud 14, "Reach for the stairs": Turned the Bomber into a pickup skill. Background set to black for uniformity with the rest of the levels.

Loud 15, "Fallen leaves": Downward arrows added.

Loud 20, "Bonfire": Moved the fire pits slightly to the right.

Loud 23, "Everything I do (I do it for Lemmings): Adapted the solution based on Armani's suggestions.

Loud 24, "Stop crying your heart out": Added steel to the block over the water pond.

Loud 26, "Euphoria": Added downward arrows.

Heavy rank, "Tear down the walls": Added one-way arrows.

Heavy rank, "Hard Rock Hallelujah": Added one-way arrows and steel, made the pillar with the exit slightly higher.

On some of the more open-ended levels on which Armani saved quite a few skills, I haven't decided yet on whether I want to fix them, and if so, how. But all the most devastating shortcuts should be gone now.

Aside from that, I've added eight further levels to the Heavy and Hardcore rank, one of which is a re-run, resulting in "only" seven screenshots:


Let me entertain you


Hero
This is my first level featuring Neutral lemmings!


Les fleurs du mal
Quite a unique Disarmer puzzle that justified the borrowing of the flower traps from the L2 Highland tileset. They also seem to fit nicely with the Dirt tileset, anyway, being orange and green.


The other side / Mourning palace


To Hell and back
Another case of innocuous tileset mixing - I've combined Fire and Menacing before, though .


Make total destroy
The second half of the level is a shameless replication of a NepsterLems level (just in the opposite direction). But it includes a lot of Shimmiers, so it's not an identical solution!


Prayer of the refugee

[Strato Incendus]

I'm sorry, I forgot to add something:

Please re-download the strato_generalmd tileset. I've added another rain object (red rain, for the eponymous level referring to the Peter Gabriel song; it is the level formerly known as "Rama Lema Ding Dong", which has been renamed after me discovering that I had already used this title for "Clam-a-Lem-a-Ding-Dong" in the Groupie rank of Lemmings World Tour).

I've noticed that somebody downloaded the newest version of the pack (most likely Armani?), but not the tileset again. Since Armani is already past the level, he probably didn't notice yet. But I did fix a backroute on that particular one, and you won't be able to replay it without the rain object, because then the level can't be drawn - even though the rain is just a cosmetic feature.

[Armani]

Finally I got around to playing new levels!

I'm afraid many of my solutions are backroutes

Spoiler

Let me entertain you
I got 2 solutions and second one seems to be more intended. I doubt turning the crowd by using 2 bombers is intended. I think this make it possible to save many skills.

Hero
This is absolutely a backroute. Maybe you can add some traps or water to prevent shortcuts

Les fleurs du mal
Really nice and also challenging level! And I can see many people getting stucked here .  It looks like flower trap from other tileset looks good with dirt level!

The other side/Mourning palace
It was surprised to know that it is possible to make totally different two levels with same terrains and objects! Great job. Both levels are well made and have some clever tricks in them

To hell and back
I'm sure this is another backroute

Make total destroy
Shimmier is so powerful skill sometime even more than walker I think. Using miner to make wall climbable and using shimmier to send several pioneer lemmings to the exit seems intended. And I',m not sure rest of my solution is intended.

Prayer of the refugee
I think I backrouted this hardly . If mining directly to the exit is not intended, maybe you can block it by adding some steel.

[Strato Incendus]

Thank you once again for playing, Armani! Yes, indeed there are quite a few backroutes among your solutions - but that's what pre-release testing is for, after all! So the more you find, the better!

Spoiler

Let me entertain you. You made me realise that most likely, my intended solution cannot be enforced. At least the ending, which is supposed to work the following way:
- Send a Shimmier over the steel block, bomb him on the ground
- the Bomber pit now cancels the Basher when bashing from the left
Your second solution could be enforced by putting one-way-left arrows on the terrain under the exit. But it requires the Shimmier to be cloned, and the Cloner is actually supposed to go in a different place.
Turning around in front of the rope trap is supposed to happen via the Miner, not two Bombers. But there's no way to make terrain Miner-friendly without making it Bomber-friendly as well.

Hero. Fortunately, the most glaring backroutes usually have the easiest fixes. Just some one-way-right arrows on the terrain above the regular-lemmings hatch, to make it un-fenceable.

Les fleurs du mal. Very close to intended. You actually managed to dig through the stacks in such a way that you weren't required to make use of the anti-splat pad at the bottom. This one is fine as it is!

The other side / Mourning palace. Well, this is just a re-run, as they appear frequently in original lemmings. Neither of your two solutions were intended, but they still required all the skills, or rather, in one of them, you didn't use one Bomber, but still had to let one lemming die, who simply got trapped in a place from where he couldn't escape anymore. I'm fine with leaving tightly skill-restricted levels somewhat open-ended, as long as all the solutions are equally challenging.

To hell and back. Yes, another glaring backroute with an easy enough fix. This time I found fire traps to be most fitting. I set them to "overwrite" so that they are visible on-terrain, rather than being hidden inside the terrain, because I don't want to troll, of course. Looks a little weird now, but fitting with the hell-theme, and it serves its purpose.

Make total destroy. This one required some one-way arrows in opposite directions, to make it a little more challenging than simply mining through everything in one piece.

Prayer of the refugee. I didn't expect anyone to use the Shimmiers for mere delaying purposes. I might have to swap out the sloped ceiling for something else. For the time being, I just prevented mining in the place you did through the addition of upward arrows, but that might not be enough.

The update is attached to the starting post! I've also fixed "Fire escape" on the Soft rank, I had forgotten about that one the last time.

The current update also features one additional level in the Money tileset called "Paid in full". I can't make a screenshot at the moment, so you'll have to see for yourself...

I'm pretty sure it's rather vulnerable to backroutes, as well, though - at least now, in its first iteration...

[Strato Incendus]

3/4 of the pack completed now! Check the attachment in the starting post for the update!

I was intending to wait with another update until the entire Heavy rank was completed, but 90/120 is also a nice number, so why wait?

These small updates also allow me to show you all the new levels. First, here's the one that I added as a single additional level (No. 84) the last time:


Paid in full


And now for the six new ones:


Needled 24/7


Chop Suey


Eruption


Poison


Davidian


Enter Sandman*

As you can see, we're dealing almost exclusively with Metal titles now. The challenge is finding a balance between my personal favourites, and some reasonably famous titles, even if I may not be their biggest fan.


*Maybe, now that we have recolouring available, we can turn this dude into an own set of "sand-lemming" sprites?

[Strato Incendus]

After working on Lemmings Hall of Fame and Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll for a long time, things are finally picking up here on this "classical" pack again! Feeling that I had pretty much reached the bottom of Shimmier-related design space, I did a bit of thinking back and forth whether I should add another skill. But eventually, of course, the Jumper has also found its way into Lemmings Open Air.

I could have snuck in an introductory level for the Jumper on the first rank - but given that the first two ranks had already been completed prior to the Jumper's implementation, I thought it would be weird to introduce a skill and then not use it for two ranks. (Granted, I've done similar things in the past, but only with fringe objects, like splitters and anti-splat pads.)

Therefore, the Jumper is now introduced on the second level of the third of four ranks. I think this gives people enough time to familiarise themselves with the Shimmier for the first two ranks, before puzzles start factoring in Jumper-Shimmier interactions.

Here are some of the new levels; the download hasn't been upgraded yet, because there's only one more level missing until the Heavy rank will also be completed. So I feel I should do that first, then there will be three complete ranks plus the first seven from Hardcore.


High tide

This is the Jumper-introduction level (Heavy 02). It's pretty obvious where everything has to go if you're already familiar with the Jumper; but for a player learning about the skill for the first time, it might still be challenging to figure out the behaviour of a new skill. That's why I've added in as many things as possible that the Jumper can do, including jumping at and off a wall, and transitioning from a Jumper to a Shimmier.


Lems burst into fire

There are a bunch of flame-throwers on this level that you can't see in the standstill screenshot, but they are not "hidden". The flames clearly come out of the walls, just the shooting devices are buried within the walls, because otherwise the fire areas would have been too long for what I had in mind here.

Then I made a couple of marble levels with more advanced Jumper stuff. This first one is just one more to hammer home the possibility of Jumper-Shimmier transitions. After that, things quickly get even more obscure, much like with my Shimmier-trick levels.


I believe in a thing called Lems


The evil that Lems do


Still loving Lemmings


Come as you are

I'm also experimenting with red-herring skills on some of these Heavy levels. Sometimes, these skills are provided just to distract or lead the player up the garden path, by making them think of a solution that doesn't actually work. Sometimes they will actively backfire and blow up in your face if you use them! Especially Climbers have a habit of going over one wall too many...

[Strato Incendus]

I've been keeping things quiet in this topic for another couple of months. But now, there are only 9 more levels to go! (One of which is already pretty much finished terrain-wise, now I just need to come up with a solution worthy of being in the final rank.)

First and foremost: As I announced before, the level "Breakfast at Tiffany's" from the Loud rank has been moved to another pack of mine, "Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll" (LDR). The reason is that it used the Food tileset, which would be a flavour break (pun intended ) in this pack, but goes very nicely with all the other Candy levels in a Lemmings-3D-style pack, which LDR is.


Breakfast at Tiffany's - moved to "Lemmings, Drugs, & Rock 'n Roll"

The following level has been created as a replacement on the Loud rank:


We didn't start the fire


And here are a bunch of further metal titles for the Hardcore rank!
Bands featured this time are Fleshcrawl, Amaranthe, Debauchery, At The Gates, Megadeth, Kreator,
Meshuggah, All Shall Perish, Autopsy, Keep of Kalessin, In Flames, Napalm Death...
...as well as a certain one-man band called "Bounding Innards"...
...and the band this one-man band was trying to imitate .


Beneath a dying sun

Probably too much pop for the Hardcore rank, but the rhythms are complicated enough... plus, I think this one might be comparatively well-known.
And I do need some "famous" songs on the Hardcore rank as well, otherwise, what's the point of naming my levels after songs?

The Nexus

In honour of Paralems's beloved "Death Titan", I present to you...

Blood God rising

Nessy makes a guest appearance on the Rock tileset. This one might be a little easy for its position, we'll have to see.

Under a serpent sun

This is one I'm quite proud of - I think this is the most complicated solution I've ever come up with that doesn't involve any constructive skills.

Symphony of destruction


Hordes of chaos

Another instance of subliminal tileset mixing...

Clockworks

Just like original Lemmings, this pack is going to have two "Beast" levels. One is "The number of the beast", and the other one is this one:

The True Beast


Charred remains

Here's the most brutal one of all of them...

Wipe your ass with sandpaper

Yes, that on the left is the toilet-paper roll; on the right, there is a shower; in the middle is the John, and the Lemmings spawn inside it. You need to get to the sandpaper roll to pick up the skills to solve the level.


The divine land


The puzzle


When all is said and done

And because the former final level was too easy, it has been relegated to an earlier spot. Meaning, this is the final level now:

It's still a Cannibal-Corpse song, of course...

Hammer-smashed face

[kaywhyn]

Can I just say that these levels look great! You certainly have a knack for making such great artistic levels, something I wish I could say and do. Then again, I haven't done any level designing just yet, so I'm probably speaking too soon. I'll definitely be giving this pack a go come release time. It'll probably be after I take on your other packs, most likely. Meaning, Pit Lems, Paralems, and both versions of LWT. What I have in mind is do all the older level packs first and then make my way up to the more recent ones. This pretty much means finish Old Formats packs first, then work my way up to New Formats packs. So, it'll be a long time for me before I get to Lemmings Open Air. Heck, I plan to eventually give every pack a go. That's going to be quite a task, though.

[Strato Incendus]

I admire your ambition in this regard, kaywhyn! Thanks for the kind words!

Considering the packs you've solved already, Paralems would probably be something you could breeze through in a single session (if it weren't for its length, 150 levels). Maybe some of the references in there might appeal to you, but apart from that, I almost fear you might be bored by it.

Pit Lems is slightly mechanically challenging - and I certainly won't mind if people continue playing it in Old Formats, because it has some of the best radiation and slowfreeze levels I've made so far. The same is of course also true for Lemmings World Tour.

Lemmings Open Air will of course go through a little more testing prior to release. A lot of levels have thankfully already been tested by Armani, but the final rank is almost completely untested. And considering how many backroutes IchoTolot found on the Legend rank of Lemmings World Tour, I definitely want the final rank of Lemmings Open Air to be more backroute-proof from the getgo.

[kaywhyn]

Considering the packs you've solved already, Paralems would probably be something you could breeze through in a single session (if it weren't for its length, 150 levels). Maybe some of the references in there might appeal to you, but apart from that, I almost fear you might be bored by it.

Pit Lems is slightly mechanically challenging - and I certainly won't mind if people continue playing it in Old Formats, because it has some of the best radiation and slowfreeze levels I've made so far. The same is of course also true for Lemmings World Tour.

Thanks for the info on your smaller packs. I doubt I'll be bored by Paralems, considering that I just really love the game in general. Plus, it just might be the break I need, considering that I've been playing nothing but just extremely difficult levels for the last several months with United, LPA, and Nepsterlems. I'm so close to finishing the third pack, but I'm already held back by the very first level of the Black Hole rank! I was definitely right when I said that it would be amazing if I manage to solve even just one level in the final rank of Nepsterlems.

I personally don't mind slowfreeze and radiation, so I'm definitely looking forward to those levels when I get to them in Pit Lems and Old Formats LWT. IIRC, I pointed them out as some of the best levels in the Nostalgia rank of Lemmicks. So far, there has only been one radiation level that has annoyed me, but I can assure you that it's not in any of your packs that I have played thus far. It was a level from one of the Gigalems packs that I played, where I just got annoyed with it after a certain point but eventually managed to solve. It was a nice puzzle, but the solution was just too fiddly.

Lemmings Open Air will of course go through a little more testing prior to release. A lot of levels have thankfully already been tested by Armani, but the final rank is almost completely untested. And considering how many backroutes IchoTolot found on the Legend rank of Lemmings World Tour, I definitely want the final rank of Lemmings Open Air to be more backroute-proof from the getgo.

Not a problem. I rather pack authors take their time with their packs than rush the release and it turning out not as good as it should. Not to mention that I myself don't like being rushed and hence I don't like rushing others either. That being said, I be happy to offer to backroute test the final rank of Lemmings Open Air whenever it's ready!