Lemmings Hall of Fame [120/120 levels completed; Test Phase Has Begun]

[Strato Incendus]

EDIT: In the attachment you find all levels which are currently available. The custom music hasn't been finished yet, so all level files refer to the standard Lemmings 2: The Tribes tracks instead.
They don't come with the standard NeoLemmix download, but you can get them here.

I'm opening up this topic now already, even though I haven't completed Lemmings Open Air yet. The reason is the way I am planning these packs to interact with each other.

All good things come in 3s, so they say, and since Lemmings Open Air is going to be the follow-up to Lemmings World Tour, Lemmings Hall of Fame will be the pack to conclude the trilogy of music-themed levels.

All three packs are supposed to work on their own, but still form a union as well:

Lemmings World Tour (LWT) had the Geography subtheme, containing not only songs as level titles, but specifically as many as possible that reference specific locations in the world, with the flags of the countries they're situated in, famous sights, and the skyline of the city. The focus was on the artistic quality of the levels. Heavy graphic-set mixing ensued as a necessity.

Lemmings Open Air (LOA) is supposed to feel as much like Classical Lemmings as possible: It features the standard graphic sets more than anything else, the level shapes are abstract rather than realistic, and thus, the focus is on cognitive challenge rather than aesthetics. Basically, it's Classical Lemmings, but with more skills (and without the annoying execution parts).

Lemmings Hall of Fame (LHF), finally, will try to do the same thing for Lemmings 2: The Tribes.

What does this mean?

• 120 levels, just like Lemmings Open Air (since both original and Lemmings 2 had 120 levels each)
• focus on the L2 graphic sets
• hand-made, real-instruments music again, but this time of the Lemmings 2 tracks instead of the original and ONML tracks from LWT / LOA
• no music rotation, instead each instrument track is tied to its respective tribe
• lots of vertical scrolling (which LOA will explicity not have)
• trying to make the best out of using as many skills as possible, without causing the redundance of skills present in Lemmings 2
• the focus will be on the skills that are shared "new" skills between NeoLemmix and Lemmings 2, meaning Swimmer, Stacker, Platformer, Fencer, Shimmier, (Hang) Glider, and (later) Jumper.
• The remaining NeoLemmix skills, i.e. Disarmer, Stoner, Cloner, and Walker, will also be used, but much less frequently.
• four ranks, and mixture of the graphic sets throughout (not 10 of the same graphic set in a row like in L2, because that gets boring pretty quickly, both visually and musically)
• in short: Make a Lemmings 2: The Tribes pack, but in NeoLemmix, so as to contain custom music, have those music tracks mixed-up, and avoid L2's execution-madness 

So far, I have only seen this done in form of Nepster's "Return of the Tribes". However, there are a couple of noteworthy differences:

• "Return of the Tribes" was created at a time when the variety of skills in NeoLemmix was still much lower, so it still feels closer to Classical Lemmings, simply because not many of the L2 skills were used yet.
• Nepster's pack also stuck to L2's original structure, urging you to play the levels of each tribe in a row rather than alternating between them.
• In L2, however, the difficulty increased within each tribe, so the first couple of levels of each tribe were very easy. With a Classical Lemmings rank structure, it makes more sense to have all the easy levels in the beginning and all the hard ones at the end, irrespective of which tribe they belong to.

Why am I planning this in parallel with Lemmings Open Air?
I want to preserve the feeling of original Lemmings in LOA as much as possible. However, I haven't managed yet to completely stick to original graphic sets in LOA (plus my own graphic sets Money and Autumn, which were deliberately designed to be stylistically similar to classic Lemmings tilesets), and thus, some levels featuring L2 graphic sets have snuck in there.
I'm not saying I'm going to remove all L2-graphic-set levels from LOA and put them into Lemmings Hall of Fame, but now I always have this as an option, if I think a particular level "breaks the Classical-Lemmings feeling" of LOA too much.

That begs some questions, I guess:

• Am I also going to do real-instruments versions of the Lemmings 3D tracks?
  Currently, this isn't planned, because the sounds used for L3D, even though still synthetic, were already much closer to realistic guitars, drums etc., so the "improvement" (depending on taste, of course) an overhaul with real instruments could provide would be much smaller than for the 8-bit- or MIDI-based instrumentation of Lemmings / ONML / Lemmings 2.
  Some of the Lemmings 2 tracks are a lot less memorable than the Classic Lemmings / ONML tunes, though, so if I really can't wrap my head around making a rock version of a specific track, I may end up replacing that tribe's track with a fitting one from Lemmings 3D.
  
• If namida's editor for Lemmings 3D becomes a thing, will I create a(nother) music-themed pack for Lemmings 3D?
  I would have loved to be able to create Lemmings 3D levels as a kid, so yes, this is definitely an option! Whether I'd create hand-made versions of L3D tracks in that case, or simply resort to the original L3D tracks, I'd have to see then. Currently, I'm mainly curious about to what extent namida might be able to add some of NeoLemmix's conveniences like rewinding, skill shadows etc. to Lemmings 3D, or whether this is "only" going to be an editor that allows you to replace the original levels, which you then access with the original game engine, just like with custom Lemmings 2 packs.
• Wouldn't the logical consequence be that there should also be a Lemmings 3 (All New World of Lemmings)-style pack based on the music theme?
  Yes, it would - however, in contrast to L1 and L2, I have never played L3 during my childhood (never even knew of its existence to begin with), and the concept of having to pick up almost every skill makes this very far from feeling like playing Lemmings to me. Basically, with a NeoLemmix adaptation, the entire pack would have to feature only the three L3 graphic sets (Shadow, Egyptian, and Biolab), and every level would have to be full of pickup skills. Pickup skills always make a level feel more like Super Mario than Lemmings to me, though .

All in all, it's good that Lemmings Open Air is in between, because this allows me to already experiment with the Shimmier, as well as getting more use out of all the tracks I recorded for Lemmings World Tour to create that actual Lemmings feeling. In LWT, it was more about the instrumentation matching the theme of the pack; in LOA, the actual melodies provide the Lemmings feeling more so than the instrumentation, because these melodies are what we've all come to associate with the game from playing it in our early days. At the same time, it's good that these are new recordings, because the original 8-bit- and MIDI-tracks that are the default in each pack are probably also the ones we're sick of listening to by now.

I hope that by the time Lemmings Open Air has been released and I can focus fully on working on Lemmings Hall of Fame, the Jumper as an additional skill will have been introduced or will at least be in the making. Then, the Jumper could become the signature new skill of Lemmings Hall of Fame, just like the Shimmier is the primary new feature for Lemmings Open Air compared to Lemmings World Tour.

And of course, it's pretty much impossible to create the feeling of playing Lemmings 2: The Tribes without the Jumper .

Consequently, if any further suggestions for useful skills from Lemmings 2 come up and can be developed for NeoLemmix in the meantime - I remember we had discussions about using the Roper as a downward Builder, or the Laser Blaster or Twister as an upward Digger, some people also thought about the Lix-like interactions of the Jumper with the Runner - then this would be helpful for the feeling of this pack. To me, the execution in Lemmings 2, especially everything relating to the fanning-tool, was much more annoying than the abundance of skills.

Still, I think we all agree that variety of skills is something that can be overdone easily, so I'd also be happy to just work with what we've got now plus the Jumper.

Thus, by having less skill confusion and no execution trouble, I hope Lemmings Hall of Fame will simply result in an improved, more enjoyable version of Lemmings 2: The Tribes.

[Strato Incendus]

Given the "each level title must be a song title"-rule, and knowing that I'm going to have exactly 10 levels of each tribe, I'm already going to reserve some level titles here so that I don't use them for Lemmings Open Air. I'm ordering them by expected difficulty within each tribe; however, as said before, the eventual order of these levels is going to be mixed between the tribes, and sorted by difficulty into four ranks of 30 levels each, just like in Classical Lemmings.

Beach

• Vamos a la playa (Righeira)
• Sippin' on Bacardi Rum (Groove Connection)
• Sailing (Rod Stewart)
• Fly on the wings of Lem (Olssen Brothers)
• Lembada (Kaoma)
• No Lemming, no cry (Bob Marley)
• Coco Jambo (Mr. President)
• Welcome to St. Tropez (DJ Antoine, Timati, Kalenna)
• Ai si eu te pego (Michel Teló)
• Despacito (Luis Fonsi / Daddy Yankee)

Outdoor

• Welcome to the jungle (Guns 'N Roses)
• Living on a stacks farm (Spinal Tap)
• Jungle drum (Emilíana Torrini)
• Heads, shoulders, bees, and toads (Children's song)
• These Lems are made for walking (Nancy Sinatra)
• Rolling on the river (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
• This land is your land (Woody Guthrie)
• Wild Frontier (Gary Moore)
• What a wonderful world (Louis Armstrong)
• Free bird (Lynyrd Skynyrd)

Egyptian

• Ramses, Pharaoh (Freedom Call)
• Go down, Moses (Louis Armstrong)
• In the name of Amun (Nile)
• Castles made of sand (Jimi Hendrix)
• Inside the pyramid of light (Ten)
• EDIT 2020: Cleopatra (Samira Efendi)
• Can you feel the Lems tonight? (Elton John)
• Sandstorm (Darude)
• Hakuna Matata (Lion King Musical)
• Valley of the Kings (Saxon)

Medieval

• A hard day's knight (The Beatles)
• Walpurgisnacht (Schandmaul)
• Besser du rennst (Subway to Sally)
• Ai Vis Lo Lop (In Extremo)
• Avalon (Nocturnal Rites)
• Lemplars of steel (Hammerfall)
• Heroes of our time (DragonForce)
• Keeper of the Seven Keys (Helloween)
• Dawn of victory (Rhapsody of Fire)
• The name of the rose (Ten)

Classic (=Pillar)

• Ode to Joy (Ludwig van Beethoven / Friedrich Schiller)
• The Lem-Catcher's song (Wolfgang A. Mozart)
• Thus spoke Zarathustra (Richard Strauss / Friedrich Nietzsche)
• Microcosm (Belá Bártok)
• Pictures at an exhibition (Modest Mussorgsky)
• The Well-Lempered Clavier (J. S. Bach)
• Ruins of Athens (Ludwig van Beethoven)
• The Creation (Joseph Haydn)
• Nessun dorma (Giacomo Puccini)
• Hell's vengeance is boiling in my heart (Wolfang A. Mozart)

Circus

• Circus (Britney Spears)
• Theater (Katja Ebstein)
• Super Trooper (ABBA)
• Maniac (Michael Sembello)
• Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite (The Beatles)
• Welcome to the freak show (Ten)
• Blue Monday (New Order)
• Tears of a clown (Smokey Robinson & The Miracles)
• The show must go on (Queen)
• Imaginaerum (Nightwish)

Highland

• Highland Lemmy (Traditional)
• Bonny Portmore (Loreena McKennitt)
• Road to the Isles (Andy Stewart)
• The Mad Piper (Civil War)
• Devil's dance floor (Flogging Molly)
• The gang's all here (Dropkick Murphys)
• Lemmings and mead (Alestorm)
• My spirit flies (Frankie Barranco)
• Isle of Skye (SuidAkRA)
• Flower of Scotland (Fish)

Polar

• Norrsken (Jon Henrik Fjällgren)
• Spirit in the sky (KEiiNO)
• Valley of the Damned (DragonForce)
• Footsteps in the snow (Gregorian)
• The wild Lem of winter (Ten)
• Bloodbound (Hammerfall)
• Black winter day (Amorphis)
• Last of the wilds (Nightwish)
• Inside the winter storm (DragonForce)
• Gliding home for Christmas (Chris Rea)

Space

• Anywhere in the galaxy (Gamma Ray)
• Amongst stars (Amorphis)
• At the back of beyond (Visions of Atlantis)
• Walking on the moon (The Police)
• Counting stars (One Republic)
• The dark side of the moon (Pink Floyd)
• Faith of the heart (Rod Stewart)
• Ziggy Stardust (David Bowie)
• Blackened Sun (Freedom Call)
• The last journey home (DragonForce)

Cavelem

• Back to the cave (Lita Ford)
• Wild thing (The Troggs)
• Bright eyes (Simon & Garfunkel)
• The monster is loose (Meat Loaf)
• Fade to grey (Visage)
• Sacrifice (Elton John)
• The Unforgiven (Metallica)
• A face in the crowd (Tom Petty)
• Go with the flow (Queens of the Stone Age)
• Where the wild roses grow (Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue)

Shadow

• In the air tonight (Phil Collins)
• When the night comes (Joe Cocker / Bryan Adams)
• Summer night city (ABBA)
• Howling at the moon (Milow)
• You shook me all night long (AC/DC)
• Atemlos durch die Nacht (Helene Fischer)
• Evening falls (Enya)
• Bad moon rising (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
• A night like this (Caro Emerald)
• Moonlight Shadow (Mike Oldfield)

Sports

• We can win the race (Modern Talking)
• Song 2 (Blur)
• Let's get it started (The Black Eyed Peas)
• Jump around (House of Pain)
• Wavin' Flag (K'naan)
• Start me up (The Rolling Stones)
• Dynamite (Taio Cruz)
• Can't hold us (Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, Ray Dalton)
• Another one bites the dust (Queen)
• Hall of Fame (The Script)

Well, looks like I've already found the title for the last level of this pack - apparently, Sports will have to be the most difficult tribe here as well, just like in Lemmings 2!

And yeah, I found it kind of funny to have the "Classic" tribe be the titles of actual classical music pieces - which isn't so easy, because most classical pieces don't have a proper title at all...

[Strato Incendus]

You know what, given the parallels between Lemmings 2: The Tribes and Lemmings 3D as far as graphic sets are concerned - which I started discussing in this thread - the question whether I should use the L2 or the L3D tracks becomes a lot less clear.

I used a lot of L3D tracks in my pack "Lemmicks", however I selected them on a level-by-level basis, rather than sticking them to certain tilesets (e.g. the L3D Medieval tracks always just in conjunction with L2 Medieval levels, the Alien tracks with L2 Space levels, etc.).

I'm definitely going to release batches of test levels for Lemmings Hall of Fame, much like I'm currently doing it for Lemmings Open Air. This will likely be before all the tracks have been recorded, so I can test what it's going to feel like with the L3D tracks compared to the L2 tracks.

If this actually leads to me recording versions of the L3D tracks, this would be a bigger challenge because there are 2 for each tileset (making it 20 tracks in total, because there are only 10 tilesets in L3D compared to 12 in L2).

This mainly comes down to how much people prefer which tracks from which game, and how easy it is to record real-instrument versions of them. I may even end up with a mix of L2- and L3D tracks.

If I had to pick my favourite music option for each L2 style, I think I'd spontaneously go with:

Spoiler

• Beach - L2
• Cavelem - L2
• Circus - L2
• Classic - original Lemmings "Pachelbel Canon"
• Egyptian - L3D "The Prisoner"
• Highland - L2
• Medieval - L2
• Outdoor - L2
• Polar - L3D "Alpine Assault Course"
• Shadow - L3D "Alilems"
• Space - L3D "Attack of the 50 ft Lemming"
• Sports - L3D "Fore!"

For Beach, Cavelem, and Highland, I pretty much have no other choice than going with the L2 songs anyway, but that's no problem, because I like them all, especially Highland and Cavelem.
The L2 Highland track is a medley of Scotland the Brave and Loch Lomond, I couldn't imagine anything more fitting than that.

The L2 Egyptian track doesn't really create oriental atmosphere to my ears, the other L3D track does it a little more, but "The Prisoner" seems the most fitting.

The L2 Circus track, in contrast, feels more like circus music to me with those marching drums, compared with both of those melancholic tunes from L3D.

The L2 Classic track is a medley of two songs from Lemmings 1 - but not a particularly well-done one, in my view. I'd rather simply have the iconic Pachelbel Canon here, which I already recorded for Lemmings World Tour. So that's definitely one track less I have to do!

For Medieval, it's a tough choice. I find the L3D track from "It's a Run-Around" a little annoying, the track from "Castle Lemalot" however was one of my favourites as a kid! I've recently come to like the L2 Medieval track very much, as well, though - and thus, this is the first one I've started to record.

It's similarly tough for Outdoor - I like both of the L3D tracks very much, but the L2 one is pretty groovy, too .

The L2 Polar track is simply Rudolph, the Red-Nose Reindeer again. If I had recorded the Holiday Lemmings tracks, I could re-use another one here. But since I haven't, I think a distinction should be made between Christmas levels and just "regular" snow / Polar levels. The L3D track sounds "cold" without sounding like Christmas.

The L2 Shadow track is basically Mission Impossible, which fits the theme - it's just that it can get on your nerves quickly, and the 5/8 measure, while I have no problem playing that, makes the music sound rather "hectic" in the long run. I know that "Alilems" is technically the music for the L3D Space levels, but it just sounds so nice and dark.

In contrast, the L2 Space music is full of happy, bubbly "beep-sounds". It's just pretty chaotic, changing the rhythm several times in the middle of the track. So maybe the "happier" L3D Classic track would be an appropriate replacement?

The L2 Sports track is also iconic - one I always associate with struggling with the hardest levels in the game . The L3D golf tracks feel more relaxed and melodic, so if my Sports levels become tough as well, maybe the L3D "Carribean" tracks would take a little bit of the edge off...

But I'm not sure about it, and as much as I'd like to, I probably won't get to record self-played versions of all of these tracks.

So please, let me know your preferences when it comes to choosing between a Lemmings 2: The Tribes and a Lemmings 3D track for the same graphic set!

[Strato Incendus]

Thinking about the rank names, something with four options that fits to the topic of "fame" would probably be to simply go with the "metals of medals":

Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum

Also, it just occured to me that the Classic tribe is pretty much independent of whether or not we have the Jumper at our disposal, so I could basically go ahead and create that rank already. Unless I also want to break out of yet another corset set by Lemmings 2 in this regard...

We don't have enough different skills in NeoLemmix anyway to give each tribe a separate fixed skillset. Then again, I think that isn't even how it works in Lemmings 2, because it's not like the player were restricted to just a fix set of eight skills per tribe, aside from the Classic tribe, that is. Classic is the only tribe which strictly sticks to the original 8 skills, whereas the other tribes are all over the place (for example, the Jet Pack can be found in Beach, Cavelem, Shadow...).

[Strato Incendus]

...and here's two example levels to showcase what this pack is going to look like !


In the air tonight


Vamos a la playa

[Strato Incendus]

Man, coming up with puzzles that don't involve Jumpers and still feel authentic to Lemmings 2: The Tribes is hard - but I just made this nice little platformer level, which I've kept on my mind the entire day.

As you will notice, I'm sticking to the original L2 backgrounds for this pack, rather than using my custom ones for Medieval and Sports.


Another one bites the dust

(PS: You need GigaLem's Metal Mod tileset for the laser traps, as well as Raymanni's Biolab tileset for the triggered trap; but I think both are part of the standard NeoLemmix styles download by now. )

EDIT: Fixed the level. Turns out Floaters were required instead of Gliders, because the latter were breaking the level.

[Strato Incendus]

Okay, I'll probably have to check back how many one-screeners there are in standard Lemmings 2: The Tribes...


Dynamite

...but to me, personally, this feels much more like Lemmings 2!


Go down, Moses

[ccexplore]

Okay, I'll probably have to check back how many one-screeners there are in standard Lemmings 2: The Tribes...

You got me curious, and here are the results:

Cavelem: 6
Classic: 1, 2
Egyptian: 1
Highland: 3, 4, 5
Outdoor: 1, 2, 4
Polar: 2
Shadow: 3, 4, 5
Sports: 2, 6

[remember you can go here to get a quick look at what each level looks like]

So 16 out of 120.  I have to say, a little more than I thought there are.  Also interesting that for the tribes that have more than 1 one-screeners, those levels tend to occur consecutively or very close to it.

Incidentally, is your Dynamite actually a one-screener in NeoLemmix?  Seems wider horizontally than the one-screeners in Lemmings 2.

It's striking how much more colorful and vibrant the Lemmings 2 graphics are.  Tastes may vary, but I feel like it's so much easier to make levels look good when you use the Lemmings 2 graphics compared to Lemmings 1 or ONML.   Keep up the good work!

[namida]

Incidentally, is your Dynamite actually a one-screener in NeoLemmix?  Seems wider horizontally than the one-screeners in Lemmings 2.

It would depend on the user's screen resolution (or what the resolution appears to be to a DPI-unaware app, to be more precise - NL has intentionally remained DPI-unaware for performance reasons), and NL zoom settings - there's no consistent measure of what's "one screen" for all users. For me - default NL settings, 4K display at 200% OS scaling (so, NL thinks the resolution is 1920x1080) - "one screen" is 384x184; Dynamite is 400x160, so it's slightly more than one screen wide and slightly less than one screen tall.

[Strato Incendus]

Ah yes, Dynamite is a one-screener on my PC - but it's larger than the official one-screen format 320 x 160. That's because I usually don't like grey space on the left and right side of my levels. I don't mind it that much at the top or bottom, because that's something I'm used to from widescreen movies and such. Grey space on the sides, in contrast, looks to me like a watching an old movie in 4:3 format on a modern widescreen TV.

I also probably should have clarified: I'm mainly thinking about levels involving vertical scrolling in Lemmings 2 vs. those that don't. As outlined in the starting post, I considered vertical scrolling one of the signature elements of Lemmings 2 distinguishing it from original Lemmings and ONML. It just seemed to me like most levels without vertical scrolling in Lemmings 2 were also one-screeners, i.e. not involving scrolling of any kind.

But that link to the overview of all the screenshots is just perfect for this, thanks a lot, ccexplore (also for the overview of actual one-screeners, of course)!

[Strato Incendus]

I had a creative run this weekend. Now that the Jumper is available for testing, that was precisely the kick-start this pack needed!

(Some of these are also a little older, but I hadn't shown them to you yet, so I'll simply put those up as well. )


Jump around


Let's get it started


Start me up


Can't hold us

Some levels will also be plays on original Lemmings 2: The Tribes levels. Can you recognise the following two?


Take a bow


Cleopatra

Here's the final level of the pack:

Spoiler

Hall of Fame

...and some more in a couple of other tribes!


Ruins of Athens


Summer Night City


Walpurgisnacht


Besser du rennst


A hard day's knight


Bloodbound


Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite


Welcome to the freak show


The show must go on

[Strato Incendus]

...and yet a couple more! Once I have 30 levels together, I'll upload them as a first collection of test levels!


Amongst stars


Anywhere in the galaxy


Back to the cave

This next one is another one inspired by an original L2 level ("Successive division"):


Bright eyes


Ode to Joy

[Strato Incendus]

I've modified the menu and font to make it look more like Lemmings 2, as well.

Menu screen

Pre-level screen

[WillLem]

I've modified the menu and font to make it look more like Lemmings 2, as well.

Menu screen

Pre-level screen

That's cool! I'm guessing you put the background image in the levelpack's root folder?

[Strato Incendus]

Yes, simply name it "background.png". For anything you want to replace, you can always look what the respective file is called in the "default" folder, and then simply put something in the root folder of your pack that is called the same way. NeoLemmix will then use that file instead, without you having to overwrite the default file. (For example, as you can see, I also did this with the level font, which is normally blue, but since it's also just a .png file, I could easily repaint it to green.)