Crane's resignation

[geoo]

I just want to give a bit of historical context about this trick, which maybe will make you feel a bit better:

The first time I saw this trick mentioned in the community was in the challenges board, I believe by ccexplore. Back then the culture was not to reveal details about obscure mechanics and have other people figure it out on their own. So when it was found the trick was just referenced as the Wild 15 trick/glitch (without description) and used in the maximum saved solution if I recall correctly. Challenges had been going on for a while then. It took a while for someone to find it and apply it in the first place, and even after the trick was referenced, most of the community wasn't aware what the Wild 15 trick was, even though we knew it was used in a specific level to save a certain amount of lemmings (and in principle could have been able to figure out). So while the trick might make sense in hindsight (blockers turn everything), it's not straight-forward to come up with it (as evidenced by its history described above). There's also no clear visual indication that a digger has been turned.

Nowadays it seems to be part of the standard repertoire of expert players, but I wonder what fraction of these players actually discovered it on their own. With challenge solutions floating around, and people playtesting each others' levels and sending solution and backroute replays, I think it's much more likely for someone to come across this trick by seeing it done by someone else than by discovering it on your own. The fact that you haven't found it in 15 years is less a matter of stupidity than not having come across it in someone else's replays you've watched. I would guess that most people would be in the same boat as you if they hadn't seen the trick in some replay or solution description previously.

[ccexplore]

Honestly, if you make enough levels (or even if you only made a few like I did), sooner or later you will end up in the unfortunate position of having one or more levels that you simply cannot backroute-proof as-is, instead requiring some form of either very radical redesign, or accepting and adopting the backroute as intended solution, or just plain abandon the level and design something else.  It doesn't have to involve any kind of tricks you may or may not know about.  Backroute-proofing level can be difficult already as-is, the more so if your intended solution is complex.

Hopefully once you eventually get over the totally understandable frustration of not being able to salvage some of your levels in the way you'd like, you'll find that there are still lots of great levels yet to be designed, and it's not necessary to give up completely upon a few defeats-by-backroutes here and there.  At the same time, maybe it's good to take a little break every now and then and focus your mind on other things, so you're in a more positive and productive frame of mind when you finally feel ready to design new levels again.  Either way, best wishes.

[Crane]

What angered me so much is that it broke the level I submitted to Contest 18, and as a result it's unsalvageable.  I really can't get over it, and thinking about it again is driving me towards a meltdown, because not only did I bring up the revelation of the trick, I revealed that my submission got broken by the trick, so everyone will do it now, so the level is permanently destroyed in reputation and challenge.  And it was a contest level, and the contest hasn't even started, and I revealed it broke the level in my stupidity... and I just have to deal with it.

[Strato Incendus]

Honestly, if you make enough levels (or even if you only made a few like I did), sooner or later you will end up in the unfortunate position of having one or more levels that you simply cannot backroute-proof as-is, instead requiring some form of either very radical redesign, or accepting and adopting the backroute as intended solution, or just plain abandon the level and design something else.

This. My level "Crossing the Nile" is still un-fixable because any backroute possible requires fewer skills than my overly complicated intended solution.

@Crane:

Regarding knowledge of tricks, I hate to exploit your despair for shameless self-promotion, but the first two ranks of my pack Lemmings World Tour are precisely about that: Teaching the player a bunch of obscure tricks.

In fact, I was frustrated about the same thing as you: People using obscure tricks and skill combinations that you either knew about or not, and which, in the latter case, you were more likely to find out about by reading about them rather than by trial and error.

Have you tried fixing your level with pickup skills? If the blocker isn't on the skill panel yet while the lemming is diggging, or you don't have the digger yet when you need to block, you can prevent the player from applying this trick simply due to not having both skills at their disposal simultaneously.

This doesn't always work, of course, but it's usually my first go-to attempt when other factors, such as raising the save requirement to prevent blocker usage etc., don't suffice to eliminate a backroute.