Lemmings World Tour Remastered [New-Formats Version] [Difficulty: Medium]

[IchoTolot]

Had a bit of time today, so I added the first 10 levels of the Professional rank to the replay collection.

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks for the replays, IchoTolot! You've found two backroutes; a major one on "Holy diver" (Professional 07), and a minor one on "Blocking all over the world" (Professional 08). The latter was originally part of Pit Lems, so that pack will also be affected. It has already had several backroute fixes, so I thought it would be proof by now... but apparently not.

Spoiler

Professional 07, "Holy diver": Here you could simply bash across the entire level and thus bypass all the obstacles. A simple wall of steel has fixed that, though.

Professional 08, "Blocking all over the world": You were supposed to bomb where you used the Digger. Upward arrows did the trick.

Apart from those two, I liked how on Professional 01, "I wanna rock!", you placed the Stoner on a staircase, repeatedly digging into the staircase and then resealing it to release further lemmings! The intended solution uses the Fallers that continue to arrive, building from the Stoner used to break the fall, then cutting off the staircase behind the Builder with a Digger. What you did is a transfer of the "Blocker on Staircase" tought by "Pull me under", and it also happens to require exactly all the skills. So more than a valid alternative solution!

And I'm so glad you found the intended solution for "Walk like an Egyptian"! Looks like that level is finally backroute-proof... but I may be just as mistaken about that as I was with "Blocking all over the world"...

You saved a couple of skills on "Vienna" and "Buildy Jean", but those are fine as alternative solutions as well.

I've already fixed the levels, but I haven't updated the pack yet; as announced before, I want to do that together with re-adding all the talismans. Hopefully I can get that done this week.

[IchoTolot]

10 more levels solved today. Attached my replays.

This batch seemed easier than quite a bit of the rank 2 stuff to be honest.

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks for playing, IchoTolot! This will give me the opportunity to fix even more stuff in one swoop in the next update.

It seems like a couple of levels in the Professional rank had the Millas sprites without me intending them to have them. For "Auld Lem Syne", they were quite fitting, given that they also have red hair! But I'm going to reset them to the default sprites, now that I know.

Spoiler

Making your mine up and Block around the clock. Both of these are close enough to intended. In order to completely enforce the actual intended solution, we would really need diagonal one-way arrows (which would then be New-Formats-exclusive, of course, i.e. the intended solutions couldn't be enforced completely in the Old-Formats version). The Basher-Blocker-turnaround in the beginning of Block around the clock is indeed intended! I think this is the first time I actually see that as part of someone else's solution to the level. Whatever I did to try and enforce that so far, it didn't work.

Tulpen aus Amsterdam. Intended.

Waka Waka. Close to intended. Digging and fencing at the wall is a nice alternative approach to save the Blocker! My intended solution places the Blocker under the hatch, uses him to turn the Climber around, and then frees the Blocker with a Faller from the hatch, by having him dig + fence (to cancel the Digger). But that's an amount of leeway I consider fine for this rank. How to turn the Climber around after he has removed the one-way wall, that is indeed supposed to be the main challenge here, if you even want to call it that.

Auld Lem Syne. One of many valid approaches to this level. Few of them use all the skills, but most solutions use all except one or so. Acceptable number of degrees of freedom.

Pompeii. This one is open-ended. Your solution is a nice and fresh approach, though, going into the final building from the sides, rather than from the top!

Surfin' bird. Another open-ended one mainly driven by its visuals (the "owl exit" ). You saved a couple of skills here by cleverly steering around the bottom part. Not enough skills unused to be considered a backroute, though.

Sur le pont d'Avignon. Close to intended. The intended solution uses the double-Builder turnaround to isolate the Miner who frees the Swimmers. But I think that's hard to enforce here.

Atte katte nuva. Intended. You simply freed the Blocker with the Fencer at the beginning, rather than at the end, as I did.

Rome. This is the only true backroute from this bunch. I was actually pretty sure I had tested out whether it's possible to build across the gap between the Coliseum and St. Peter's Dome? Then again, on second thought, I probably left the two buildings that close to each other deliberately, to trick the player into try to build across. Because when you actually build all the way on top of the dome, you no longer have the Digger you'd need to get to the exit from there, because you're forced to use it earlier, for crowd control. I hadn't factored in anyone trying to build across and then go to the exit from the side, using the Stoner to get down. I'm going to add one-way-down arrows to each of the pillars to prevent that. This is actually such a quick fix that I can do it manually in both the Old- and New-Formats version, without having to re-convert the level.

I'm trying to upload the next fix as soon as possible; Lemmings Open Air took precedent during the last couple of days, because with that pack still being in development, any backroutes people find there are usually much more glaring, and therefore in more urgent need of fixing.

This batch seemed easier than quite a bit of the rank 2 stuff to be honest.

Yes, this is consistent with the feedback I've received from Colorful Arty and others. The main reason is that there are more open-ended levels here, especially the landscape-y ones. The few specific puzzles with a tight skill restriction, such as "Atte katte nuva", seem to enforce their solution pretty reliably, though.

Also, the tricks taught on the first two ranks are supposed to prepare you for the entire pack. The third rank then requires some of these tricks without prior announcement... (like the one you used on "Block around the clock") - but of course not all of them, right out of the gate.

As such, the sum of the difficulty in the Amateur rank definitely exceeds that of the Professional rank, because there's simply more to learn on Amateur, whereas Professional is the first rank where you're actually "free to play (all by yourself".

[IchoTolot]

And as my preemptive christmas gift, here is the rest of the rank.

As such, the sum of the difficulty in the Amateur rank definitely exceeds that of the Professional rank, because there's simply more to learn on Amateur, whereas Professional is the first rank where you're actually "free to play (all by yourself".

Well, if the tutorial is harder than the levels that rely on the lessons learned after that, then those levels fail as tutorials.

The ammount to learn should not matter for the rank if the lessons are easy enough. Some of the lessons are (even with the pretext) simply too hard to count as tutorials.

They are good levels, don't get me wrong, but fail as tutorials.


After the last bit of Professional was quite a cakewalk, levels like 3 26, 3 27 take the difficulty up by several ranks, while 3 40 is very easy again. So even with liking a lot of the levels here I must say the packs difficulty curve can be best described with this:



Maybe the next level is easy or hard the rank is not really a reliable hint at this here.

For the level types:

I must say I like the non-landscape levels a lot more than the landscapes as often the puzzle falls a bit shorter there (that london bridge for example is waaaay too long than it has any right to be ).
Often the style overshadows the solution and takes away from it and I play lemmings for the puzzles first and the style comes second. For me the style should add to the solution and try to not take away from it.

Again I like quite a lot of the solutions, but those landscape levels are currently the weak link here.

In terms of song references, I get about 50% of them.

Also those flagpoles..... I assumed them as solid first, then discovered they are non-solid and then found one in a level that was solid!    That pole should get an animation of some sort to make it clearer as an object or maybe move the flagpoles out of the active playing zone where they don't disrupt anything.

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks, IchoTolot! I'll have a look at them this weekend, and then I'm simply going to fix the entire rank, along with the talismans.

Well, if the tutorial is harder than the levels that rely on the lessons learned after that, then those levels fail as tutorials.

The ammount to learn should not matter for the rank if the lessons are easy enough. Some of the lessons are (even with the pretext) simply too hard to count as tutorials.

They are good levels, don't get me wrong, but fail as tutorials.

I think the problem is more rooted within the fact that, once a level gets more complicated, specific tricks that are part of the intended solution become more and more difficult to enforce. For example, "Block around the clock" from the Professional rank is conceptually much more difficult than the levels that teach the tricks you're required to know for this level (namely, "Lemmy I hardly knew ya" and "Wonderwall"). However, due to the fact that all these elements are combined in a single level, more degrees of freedom are added to the solution, so that there is no longer jus one specific sequence of actions that works. I've already tried to enforce the intended solution on this level through the use of pickup skills, as well as toying around with on-terrain fire traps that ended up getting removed again, because they weren't fulfilling their purpose.

After the last bit of Professional was quite a cakewalk, levels like 3 26, 3 27 take the difficulty up by several ranks, while 3 40 is very easy again. So even with liking a lot of the levels here I must say the packs difficulty curve can be best described with this

Interesting to hear! Neither "Budapest" nor "Moskau, Moskau" looked particularly difficult to me when I watched Arty play them.

I must say I like the non-landscape levels a lot more than the landscapes as often the puzzle falls a bit shorter there (that london bridge for example is waaaay too long than it has any right to be ).
Often the style overshadows the solution and takes away from it and I play lemmings for the puzzles first and the style comes second. For me the style should add to the solution and try to not take away from it.

This is the reason I'm creating Lemmings Open Air! It will be pretty much only abstract level shapes, which are free to be shaped based entirely on the solution, i.e. "top-down" (starting with the solution, then creating the terrain around it).

Lemmings World Tour, in contrast, was designed "bottom-up", for the most part - i.e. starting with the terrain, then coming up with a solution that fits. Regarding the landscape levels as a group, I think I can at least say that each of the solutions for them is rather unique; there is not much repetition of tricks or similar going on between the various landscape levels. But they usually have a little more leeway than smaller, abstract levels where the skills are exactly accounted for.

In terms of song references, I get about 50% of them.

That's quite a good share! It's set up in a way that everyone should be able to get some of the references; nobody will get all or even just the majority of them.

You might start recognising more and more titles the higher you get, though, because the higher levels are based on more and more famous songs. On the lower ranks, meanwhile, I snuck in the occasional obscure reference that probably just I will understand, given the small size of our community. I was actually surprised anyone got the reference "Na zdorovje Lem" from Pit Lems (someone in the comments section of nin10doadict's LP). But that level is also included in LWT as part of the Encore rank.

Also those flagpoles..... I assumed them as solid first, then discovered they are non-solid and then found one in a level that was solid!    That pole should get an animation of some sort to make it clearer as an object or maybe move the flagpoles out of the active playing zone where they don't disrupt anything.

The default one used is the L2 Circus flagpole (the white one), which is always an object. As such, whenever something else is used to hoist the flag, it's always solid, and usually so for a reason. Hence, in those cases, the flagpoles can't actually be moved out of the playing area, because they are part of the solution.

I agree that a secondary animation for L2 Circus flagpole would be helpful in general, but I don't see how that's possible with the pole itself? The checkered flags from L2 Circus that are supposed to be attached to them are of course moving.

Thus, a part of me fears namida will at some point just merge the flag and the pole into one object, thereby breaking the flag animation on any LWT level that uses the L2 pole.

But fortunately for me, I think this is not possible - because the flag pole by itself must continue to exist in order to vary the length of the L2 Circus flags, as well. Simply using the "height" parameter for objects, like for water areas, won't work, because in that case, the entire object would just repeat itself, thereby putting a second waving flag under the first one.

My suggestion for a secondary animation for the L2 flag pole would therefore be a shimmer / reflection of some sort? This could go up or down the flag pole, making it look as if it were reflecting the sunlight.

[Strato Incendus]

The updated version is attached to the starting post. The last version had 20 downloads (still visible from the strato_generalmd tileset having the same number of downloads), so I take it that comparatively many people are playing this pack at the moment. Thank you all for your continued interest in the pack!

Professional 07, 08, and 20 have had backroutes fixed, a couple other levels have had their sprites and/or backgrounds adapted. The latter changes are exclusive to the New-Formats version, because they were basically just about restoring these levels to the state they were in in the Old-Formats version. Meaning, the Old-Formats version already has these levels with the desired sprites and backgrounds. For example, the stars on the American flag on the level "Bay of Pigs" weren't displaying correctly in New Formats, this has been fixed, as well.

Also, all the talismans that are present in the Old-Formats version (10 in total) are now also included in New Formats!

[IchoTolot]

Solved the first 10 Diva levels. Still need to resolve the fixed ones as over the holidays I completely forgot the update.

[IchoTolot]

Alright, resolved the fixed levels and also solved further ahead to Diva 20. At the current state, the Barcelona level was the hardest for me so far.

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks again, IchoTolot!

"Holy Diver" and "Blocking all over the world" still seem too easy. But I currently don't have any idea on how to fix that; specifically, on "Blocking all over the world", you created another shortcut with Bombers, and since Bombers don't care about one-way arrows in any direction, those are pretty much impossible to prevent. This is also true regarding your solution to "Don't cry for me, Argentina" on the Diva rank. Steel stops Bombers completely, one-way arrows don't stop them at all. So basically, the only way to prevent Bomber shortcuts is making the Bombers pickup skills. But even that isn't always feasible.

The majority of your solutions to the first 20 Diva levels, however, are either intended (levels 01, 05, 08, 10, 12, 16, 17, 18), or valid alternative solutions (02, 03, 06, 07, 09, 13, 14, 15, 19).

Spoiler

Diva 06, "Diggas in Paris": I remember this trick from your L2 Let's Play, where you repeatedly assigned and cancelled Stompers (which are basically synonymous with Diggers) to move horizontally. But that almost would have deprived you of a way to remove the last bits of the Eiffel Tower, forcing you to spend Builders on that. Pretty clever!

Diva 07, "Born this way": I think you mainly just swapped the use of a Stacker and a Builder here, in comparison to the intended solution.
Also, I noticed that the labels for the pre-assigned-skills on the hatch overlap in New Formats, so I might have to bring back the old style of labelling the hatch with pickup skills, so that the order in which Climbers, Swimmers, Floaters, and Gliders appear becomes apparent again.

Diva 09, "I won't hold you back": You cleverly used the Glider to give the Fencer a head-start in front of the crowd. In the intended solution, you can't prevent the second Lemming released from the hatch from turning around in the Fencer tunnel; that lemming then becomes the Glider instead, bouncing off the dart arrow to land on the lower platform, and then he completes the path from the other side. But since both solutions require all the skills, both are fine!

Diva 13, "Brick house": Totally not intended, but that was pretty darn clever! Especially the tiny piece of terrain you left over on the left side, so that the Climbers don't splat from falling straight into a Digger tunnel. I could prevent this by adding steel to the bottom layer, but I found this pretty amusing.

Diva 14, "Foot of the mountain": I never expected anyone to use the left side of the level - the intended solution basically just creates one long Fencer tunnel. But directing the lemmings back and forth from one side to the other looks very elegant, as well, especially with the way you used the (cancelled) Fencer for crowd control instead.

Diva 15, "If you're going to San Francisco": When I saw the beginning of this solution, I thought it would be another backroute; but you still ended up using all the skills, and there was just as much timing involved as in the intended solution, if not even more. Getting on top of the bridge through the lower part on the left was definitely efficient, but then you needed more skills towards the end. Very clever alternative solution!

Diva 16, "Puff, the Magic Dragon": Ah, yeah, that lightning trap from the ONML Bubble tileset is now joint with the engine that creates it; in Old Formats, it was just a single pixel of a dot that I could hide in the dragon's eye. Now it looks as if he were holding some kind of goblet on top of his head. Is the dragon now guarding the Holy Grail?
Since the trap is somewhat relevant to the solution, I can't simply hide it. And if I make it "no overwrite" again, the lightning would be displayed behind the dragon terrain, I think, rather than on top of it.

Diva 17, "Believe in life after Lemmings": You spared one Builder and one Basher by using timing to isolate the first pioneer; the intended solution re-seals the Basher shaft in the beginning behind the pioneer, with a Builder, which then consequently needs to be cut through with the remaining Basher later on. Apart from that, this is the intended solution.

Diva 19, "Barcelona": That was quite a complex approach, but valid nonetheless! This level still unintentionally featured the Millas sprites, I'm going to swap those out for the next update. I don't have any issue with them per say, far from it; I just don't think they particularly fit to Spain.

Diva 20, "Only time": This was another radiation-based level in the original, so the intended solution can't really be replicated in New Formats anyway. I upped the save requirement to increase the challenge; in the original version, a bunch of lemmings die, because the radiating zombies free them before splatforms can be built. Without those radiating zombies, the 9/11 reference (which Arty correctly identified during his Old-Formats Let's Play) obviously also gets somewhat lost in New Formats.

[Strato Incendus]

I uploaded a merely cosmetic update: My dark-skinned Lemmings are finally back! They are now a recolouring scheme that is part of my strato_generalmd tileset.

This is what they look like (example level, not part of any pack):



Three levels have had their sprites changed to these lemmings: "Waka Waka" (Professional rank), "Diggas in Paris" (Diva rank), and "Africa" (Legend rank). I've also changed the sprites on "Barcelona" back to default, because they were accidentally still the Millas sprites.

You will have to re-download both strato_generalmd and the pack to make these changes visible. If you only re-download the styles, your versions of the levels will still point to the default-coloured sprites. If you only re-download the pack, I guess the sprites will fall back to default on those levels that now have strato_generalmd selected as their theme.

The colour of the one-way arrows on "Waka Waka" has also changed as a consequence, plus, the blue background from the Shadow tileset is actually not a background, but merely a picked colour. Hence, "Diggas in Paris", with the theme no longer being L2 Shadow, now has a slightly darker background (egypt sky).

The version of strato_generalmd in the development thread for Lemmings Open Air has also been renewed, so you can use either of these downloads; both will work.

Finally, the zombies have had their skin set to completely white (colour code #ffffff), to make them more distinguishable from the standard zombie skin. This is also based on feedback I got from the first time when I shared these sprites.

Originally, the zombies were supposed to represent mummies, as these sprites were intended to go with the Egyptian style. Hence, their skin is brighter. But of course, they could also be evil colonial landowners... Interpret that as you wish; just know that this change was made mainly for game-mechanical reasons.

I tried it out on one of the levels I'm developing for the L3D-inspired pack Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll - and since Zombie Blockers are only labelled as "Blocker" when hovering your mouse over them, it was really close to impossible to tell normal dark-skinned lemmings apart from zombies. Now, there should no longer be any confusion between the two.

[IchoTolot]

After playing  for LOTY and other stuff I played further on here and solved 10 more Diva levels.

It made me quite angry and frustrated, because you can't see when you actually went over/under trigger areas (or where they are in the first place). I guess you know which level I mean here.

[Strato Incendus]

Yes, I know which level you mean . But since this is a rerun, I can assure you everything is exactly in the same place as it was the first time. So I think this criticism is actually more relevant to Noisemaker 15. Sure, in this case it's different because there is no Disarmer, so you have to e.g. build over some traps. But that's what skill shadows are for - you can clearly distinguish a staircase that leads the lemming into a trap from one that goes over it, because the latter should show its full length as a skill shadow, whereas the former is shortened, going only as far as up to the trap trigger.

I'll have a look at your replays soon and see whether anything needs fixing! Thanks for returning to playing this pack!

[IchoTolot]

Finished Diva and as the last time I posted replays was over a month back I also sloved Legend 39&40 on top of it (I have skill left over though).

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks for the replays! A couple of leftover skills are no problem if the basic idea is that of the intended solution; this has also happened multiple times on Arty's LP.

Now you've caught up with that LP though, so everything from the Rockstar rank and onwards is uncharted territory! Definitely expect a lot more backroutes on the last two ranks, since I haven't received any replays for those yet...

Your solutions to the last two levels of the Legend rank are compeltely fine, though, and very close to the intended solutions.

In the second half of the Diva rank, there were only two backroutes, and only one major one:

Spoiler

"Wrecking ball": Here you went into the ground and under the obstacles. I've already added steel to the level file to prevent this; I just need to upload the new version, and I have a couple other changes I want to make before that - mostly referring to pre-level texts and sprite choice, nothing about the levels themselves.

"Total eclipse of the builders": I wasn't aware you could chain several destructive skills like that to prevent any lemming from turning around while going through the pillar! At release rate 99, there isn't much I can do about this, aside from making a couple of these skills pickup skills. Pickup skills are usually the last resort to backroute fixing, after one-way arrows. But one-way arrows won't solve anything here, since there is no type of one-way arrow that allows Bashers to pass but prevents Miners from doing so.