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

[IchoTolot]

Then again, if I understand you correctly you are only asking about upcoming levels? Meaning, the question is not whether existing replay files break, but whether any of the upcoming levels are so pixel-precise in terms of Glider use that they might happen to be unsolvable?

Exactly.

A lot of cases were it was breaking in my case was because a simple glider from the ceiling to a ledge was just not making it anymore or anything with glider-updraft interaction.

[Strato Incendus]

Okay, levels that are definitely broken because of updrafts are "Viva Colonia!", "Lemmings in the sky with diamonds", "Wind of change" and "Lemmingrad".

The updrafts are in such positions that the Glider parachute no longer opens up when a lemming drops into them.

In case of "Viva Colonia", I currently have no idea on how to fix this. It was bad enough with the deadly ceiling enforcing a change at the top of the cathedral, and now everything breaks again.

[ericderkovits]

yes, I currently have all of Icho's replays for world tour up to Rockstar 30, Viva Colonia was broken for his replay. but I managed to fix it myself.

I just moved down the pickup skill a tad above cathedral. so now it will work.

here is the level and replay that icho had for Rockstar 15 Viva Colonia.

[kaywhyn]

Well, isn't this fascinating? I just took a look at Viva Colonia and even though the glider physics is broken, I still managed to backroute the level by using all skills except the glider! My solution is the exact same as Icho's,

Spoiler

Except I used a fencer to release the crowd (thanks to a hole in the starting platform where the entrance is) and I built to the miner pickup at the end, and I use a miner to get to the buried exit (only one spot works for that, the lowest before scaling the cathedral). For mining the OWW, I made sure that he gets both pickups and hits the steel to turn around, thus avoiding the need to use a builder to turn him around. For that, I had to dig a bit before mining the OWW for it to happen. Let's just say mine is way more precise in skill assignments and also involves releasing the second climber such that it turns around in the basher tunnel at the top of the cathedral in order to mine the OWW. Me and my extreme pixel precision lol.

I will say this, though, and that is the trigger areas to collect the pickup skills seem very wonky. For the miner pickup at the end, there's only one spot to build to collect it, and that is after he falls twice. Building in the nook above closest to the basher tunnel doesn't get it even though he crosses right in front of the pickup. Similarly, when I was mining the OWW, there were a few times where he crossed in front of the fencer and miner pickups and still didn't collect them.

Oh, and the flag at the start. I didn't know that it's part of the background and not solid terrain! Thus, I dug and bashed underneath it.

So, the level is still solvable even with the broken glider physics and the miner pickup in the original position in the updraft, but still need to fix it. Probably should still be fixed anyway if you consider this a backroute since my solution doesn't even use the glider!

edit: Strato, let me know if you still want my replay for Rockstar 15, but I think the spoiler tag does the job of describing the backroute solution somewhat well.

[IchoTolot]

In my recent replay batch I had to fix "Viva Colonia", but it definitly not broke in an unsolvable way. Maybe when it comes to the intended way though.

[IchoTolot]

More replays and at this point, I definitly want a clear report on which levels are broken that lie before me.

I played up to Legend 4 and here I HIGHLY suspect breakage due to a glider not gliding long enough so another assignment is not in time by 1-2 frames.

Spoiler

The stoner has to contain on the bottom right hatch. The stoner alone is too slow and therefore the glider needs to be used to get the first lemming ahead enough. This fails now by 1-2 frames and you need the other skills elsewhere.

I can be wrong here of course, but before I waste time on an impossible level, I rather stop and ask.

EDIT: I've attached a replay that solves the level with saving 1 less lemming. The lemming would be saved without the glider problem.

So before I continue this pack I want to see either:

1.) A clear report on which levels are broken ahead of me with a textfile of a mass replay check that confirms which replays broke.
2.) A patch that fixes all broken levels together with a textfile of a mass replay check that confirms that everything is solvable now.

If you don't have solving replays to all of yout levels here then take this as a chance to create them as a functioning replay collection is a must have to any pack to confirm solvability and detect any breakage. ´

[Strato Incendus]

If you don't have solving replays to all of yout levels here then take this as a chance to create them as a functioning replay collection is a must have to any pack to confirm solvability and detect any breakage.

Of course I have solving replays for all the levels. Why would anyone not test a level after creating it?

The difference here is that the physics were changed in hindsight (and of course, this also only affects the New-Formats version; the original version for Old Formats, for which LWT was initially created, after all, works perfectly fine).

I have done a mass replay check and I've already told you above which levels did not receive a "tick". After the initial mass replay check, there were some levels unticked that didn't involve Gliders or updrafts at all and that I could still resolve manually. The reason for this is that the replay files were of course created in Old Formats (I've run the replay-updater tool on them, so I also have a .bak file for each of those replays in the Old-Formats Auto folder).

My New-Formats Auto folder thus includes re-solving replays for levels that had to be slightly adapted to New Formats.

The levels listed in my previous posts are definitely ones with updrafts where my formerly solving replay files don't work anymore: "Viva Colonia!" (Rockstar 15), "Lemmings in the sky with diamonds" (Legend 06), "Lemmingrad" (Legend 07), and "Wind of Change" (Legend 10).

I haven't looked at the mass-replay text file yet (and can't access it right now, maybe tonight). Instead, I went by the level selection menu within the pack (i.e. looked which levels remained unticked and checked those again individually).

Does a mass-replay-check text file include "pass" statements by every replay file checked, or by level in the pack? i.e. does it list the number of levels and label them "passed" or "not passed", or does it include the names of replays instead?

Because in the latter case, I don't think the text file will be of particular use to you: As previously said, I had this mass replay check run over my entire "Auto" folder where all the replays are named by level name (as created by testing in the editor), instead of by rank + level number (as they are named when they are created while playing the entire pack).
This is better for me as the level designer in case levels shift positions in ranks; replays named only "Rockstar 15" don't tell you anything about the level hiding behind that title.

Thus, there are a bunch of replays for other packs in that folder that obviously won't pass any of the levels in Lemmings World Tour.

Also, some of the Old-Formats replays used during the mass replay check running over the Old-Formats Auto folder will have received a "fail", which would then appear in the mass-replay-check results file, but the levels are still solvable using the New-Formats replay.


I can take a look at Legend 04 again tonight and then I'll post the result here.

[IchoTolot]

I have done a mass replay check and I've already told you above which levels did not receive a "tick".
...
I haven't looked at the mass-replay text file yet (and can't access it right now, maybe tonight). Instead, I went by the level selection menu within the pack (i.e. looked which levels remained unticked and checked those again individually).

I think you completely missunderstood for what the "ticks" inside the level selection menu are.

Of course they don't change as the level file itself did not change. Only if you edit the level file or replace it then the tick changes to a yellow tick or a dot.

The ONLY thing you can go by when you check for breakage is the mass-replay check result text file. Only there you can see which levels need investigation --> everything labeled "Failed" or "Undetermined". It does not mean the level is broken, maybe only the replay file needs slight adjustments, but it means the level might be broken.

Because in the latter case, I don't think the text file will be of particular use to you:

Of course it is! It's a proof that every level has been solved by a replay.

The textfile exactly shows which replay is connected to which level and if it solves it. It will show for example that "Great level name" is solved by the replay "Legend45" - so the replay names don't matter. I myself use the level's name as the replay name for my own stuff.
Example
-Passed-
Great level name: Legend45.nxrp (framecount)

I've attached an example of a replay check I did a week ago or so. The one failed replay is because you used the same level ID for 2 different levels and the replay check connected the replay with the wrong level. It solves the other level with the same ID though.
Therefore it is recommended that even for reused levels you at least change the level ID.

I had this mass replay check run over my entire "Auto" folder
...
Thus, there are a bunch of replays for other packs in that folder that obviously won't pass any of the levels in Lemmings World Tour.

Make a folder "Lemmings World Tour" inside NL's replay folder and put all your own LWT replays in there. Then you only have the replays that matter counting.
Replay files need to be organized! Simply putting everything in 1 folder ends in chaos. Every pack you create and solve should have an own folder with replays so that everything is nicely ordered and can be checked easily.

[Strato Incendus]

Okay, I've checked my replay of Legend 04 ("Take me home, country roads"), and it works fine. The reason that yours doesn't is simply because you're making a small conceptual mistake of when to assign the Stoner.

I think you completely missunderstood for what the "ticks" inside the level selection menu are.

Of course they don't change as the level file itself did not change. Only if you edit the level file or replace it then the tick changes to a yellow tick or a dot.

The ONLY thing you can go by when you check for breakage is the mass-replay check result text file. Only there you can see which levels need investigation --> everything labeled "Failed" or "Undetermined". It does not mean the level is broken, maybe only the replay file needs slight adjustments, but it means the level might be broken.

Thanks for the explanation. I have run all my replays over the Legend rank "manually" (loading the level and holding down the space bar) and I can thus assure you that, aside from the levels I've listed so far ("Lemmings in the sky with diamonds", "Lemmingrad", and "Wind of Change", i.e. Legend 06, 07, and 10), none of the Legend levels is broken.

I will have a look at the two remaining ranks (Encore and Groupie) soon.

Make a folder "Lemmings World Tour" inside NL's replay folder and put all your own LWT replays in there. Then you only have the replays that matter counting.
Replay files need to be organized!

They are organised - alphabetically. This means I don't have to navigate through a bunch of folders, especially when jumping between different packs. Now that I'm working on several packs in parallel, this comes in really handy. I can just start typing the level name while inside my Auto folder an immediately find what I'm looking for, no matter which pack it is from.

Who would have known that somebody would tinker the physics in hindsight? Don't get me wrong, I understand why the change to Glider-Shimmier behaviour was made (even though I did like that trick with gliding on top of the stack ). It's just that such retroactive physics changes after the official implementation of a skill (in contrast to experimental versions) were one of the things that were for the longest time sure not to happen. So I don't feel bad that my way of organising replays happens to not fit this one weird corner-case of a retroactive physics change.

Without such fundamental changes in game mechanics, I've never felt the need to do a mass-replay check in the first place. During the conversion to New Formats, I re-checked every level once by manually running a replay over it, but that was because I had something to change about almost every level (and if it was just re-adding the backgrounds, many of which were resetted by the converter tool). I wanted to make sure with my own eyes that every level still looked the way I had intended it to in Old Formats, or at least as close at it was possible in New Formats.

In order to now place all LWT replay files into one folder, I'd have to go over the entire list of level-name-based replay files, find the 320 among them that are in LWT - some of them are also included in other packs, though, especially on the Encore rank, so that's an additional thing - before I could isolate them in a separate folder. Hardly worth it.

[Strato Incendus]

The hotfix has been uploaded; Rockstar 15, Legend 06, 07, and 10 have all been fixed now. Thus, the entirety of the Legend rank can be solved again..

In most cases, it was only necessary to move the updraft section down 1 or 2 pixels (and then potentially re-adjust the timing of all skills assigned to that lemming afterwards, but those were of course just things specific to my replay file that no longer meant the level was unsolvable per se). The needed to be high enough for the Glider to start flying, after all.

Thanks to ericderkovits's suggestion for how to fix Rockstar 15, but moving the pickup skill so far below the updraft was not the intended solution.

In case of Legend 10, I had to slightly adjust the terrain as well, because the problem was not just the lemming missing the updraft, but landing on terrain before he could take off as a Glider inside that updraft. This has lead to slightly worse aesthetics on one particularly iconic building from Moscow in that level. But I guess it's hard to notice unless you actively pay attention to it.

[IchoTolot]

Okay, I've checked my replay of Legend 04 ("Take me home, country roads"), and it works fine. The reason that yours doesn't is simply because you're making a small conceptual mistake of when to assign the Stoner.

Ok, good. Updated replay attached.

Thanks for the explanation. I have run all my replays over the Legend rank "manually" (loading the level and holding down the space bar) and I can thus assure you that, aside from the levels I've listed so far ("Lemmings in the sky with diamonds", "Lemmingrad", and "Wind of Change", i.e. Legend 06, 07, and 10), none of the Legend levels is broken.

You really don't have to do that manually when you got the mass replay check, stop the madness! Even your auto folder will be fine as every replay which does not have a level in this pack will be put under "level not found".
Just try it and you'll see that the mass replay textfile is the best and most important source of information about the effects of a new patch! Guess how I find all these bugs so quickly after a new patch/exp version?   Mass replay check --> Textfile --> Look at undetermined/failed replays.

They are organised - alphabetically. This means I don't have to navigate through a bunch of folders, especially when jumping between different packs. Now that I'm working on several packs in parallel, this comes in really handy. I can just start typing the level name while inside my Auto folder an immediately find what I'm looking for, no matter which pack it is from.

I still highly advertise sorting replays for each pack in different folders as the the folder will grow larger and larger and it will get more and more messy (even when alphabetically sorted) and just clicking on the pack's replay folder will be way faster then.
Even when handling my massive ammounts of DNA data at work I rather sort in many diffrent folders than one, because at some point the folder beomes so large that even navigating through it becomes problematic and just a having to click on a seperate folder is much quicker.
Also checks will get longer.

It's just that such retroactive physics changes after the official implementation of a skill (in contrast to experimental versions) were one of the things that were for the longest time sure not to happen. So I don't feel bad that my way of organising replays happens to not fit this one weird corner-case of a retroactive physics change.

Without such fundamental changes in game mechanics, I've never felt the need to do a mass-replay check in the first place. During the conversion to New Formats, I re-checked every level once by manually running a replay over it, but that was because I had something to change about almost every level (and if it was just re-adding the backgrounds, many of which were resetted by the converter tool). I wanted to make sure with my own eyes that every level still looked the way I had intended it to in Old Formats, or at least as close at it was possible in New Formats.

You should always be prepared for the possibility of slight physics changes. Also, even without mechanic doing a mass replay check after an NL update is highly recommended. You just are on the safe side after it that no weird new bug messed up your stuff. It just takes a few minutes and you got new proof textfiles that everything is solvable.

In order to now place all LWT replay files into one folder, I'd have to go over the entire list of level-name-based replay files, find the 320 among them that are in LWT - some of them are also included in other packs, though, especially on the Encore rank, so that's an additional thing - before I could isolate them in a separate folder. Hardly worth it.

It's extremely worth it when you are doing maintenence and and want to avoid problems in form of too many files in one folder. Trust me it will only get more and more messy in there and problems will form and grow over time.

[IchoTolot]

Alright and that's the lengend rank finished.

Replays attached.

I have to make one rant though!   Legend 27......

1st: The constant sound of multiple teleporters that just gets worse and worse made me mute the sound. Just let the lems die and set the save requirement accordingly.

2nd: The stupid unfair zapper clouds that zap you out of nowhere! The grey clouds should not be traps, they are intended to act like steel! If you just took the bubble zapper for example and put it on top of them - no problem, but nooo everything has to be hidden that the player has no chance seeing the dangers in advance by looking at the level.

[IchoTolot]

Sorry but I again feel the need to rant a bit after the Encore rank!

Solved the Encore rank ... I would have liked to say, but it seems like you still haven't done that mass replay check and informed me that Encore 05 is broken due to the gliders not reaching the 2nd platform anymore.

Please, just run a quick mass replay check and see if a replay fails/is undertermined. Even if you got every replay in 1 folder it still tells you which ones fail and the other not World Tour related ones would fall under "Level not found" anyway! So it would still work.

Otherwise, we've got an exit which trigger area is not visible due to water and you need to keep guessing where it actually is with your stoners. (Encore 13)

An invisible trap (Encore 33)

And a level where you know it's just annoying to play (see postview text of Encore 39) and just blame it on the hard-worker removal. Instead you just could have done one of the following possibilities which would spare the players nerves:

1.) Just making the level smaller with only 1-2 stacker gaps.
2.) Think of an alternative solution to the level and enforce that.
3.) Leave the level out of the pack and put it in Lemmicks instead.

All these options would have been better than a postview text shifting the blame!

My replays are attached.

[Strato Incendus]

Encore 05 is broken due to the gliders not reaching the 2nd platform anymore.

Thanks for informing me! I've had to move and even erase a bit of terrain to make it work again, but it should be barely noticeable. The version with the fixed level is attached.

I had only checked up to the end of the Legend rank, i.e. the main pack, so far. Meaning, no guarantees yet for the Groupie rank. But I will take a look at those as quickly as possible.

Solved the Encore rank ... I would have liked to say, but it seems like you still haven't done that mass replay check

As I've told you above, I've actually done a mass replay check already. It's just that the output file is pretty useless.

I have done a mass replay check

The reason being that a lot of replays in the folder fail not because the level is unsolvable, but because they are Old-Formats replays. There are a couple of levels for which I had to create new replays in New Formats: Levels formerly featuring radiation and/or slowfreeze, some levels requiring a hand-made terrain ceiling (because of the switch from solid to deadly ceiling), and then there were also some levels for which the solution is the same, but slight unknown variations during conversion caused the original replay to fail. Thus, those replays are in the New-Formats folder.

For all the other levels, however, whenever I change something, I do so in Old Formats first, re-run the replay, then either manually implement the change in New Formats or, if I want to be on the safe side, quickly re-convert the level again. Then I run the exact same Old-Formats replay over the New-Formats version, thus ensuring that the same solution works in both versions.

Consequently, when I run a mass replay check over the Old-Formats folder that contains all the LWT replays, of course this results in a bunch of failed messages for Replays from Paralems and Pit Lems, as well as for Old-Formats LWT solutions that don't work in New Formats, but are still perfectly fine replays for the Old-Formats version.

I maintain those in parallel (e.g. Arty already told me he's going to continue playing the pack in Old Formats), and therefore of course don't delete those replay files from the Old-Formats folder. And especially with the Encore rank, there is even more overlap with replays for Paralems and Pit Lems.

In short, the mass replay check file on the Old-Formats replay folder gave out so many errors that I would have to re-check a ton of levels again manually anyway, because these failures can be caused by a multitude of reasons listed above, and only a fraction of them is due to the Glider-Faller physics change. And most of these are issues that I have of course already fixed in the New-Formats version - it's just that those fixed levels have dedicated New-Formats replays as a consequence, which are not in the Old-Formats folder. The few levels that are affected by the Glider-Faller physics change are thus a needle in a haystack of replay files failing for various other reasons.



Instead of manually identifying and copying all the 320 Old-Formats replay files to the New-Formats replay folder, I went the faster opposite route and copied the few replay files which are dedicated New-Formats replay files to the Old-Formats folder. Now I could run a second mass replay check over the entire Auto folder once again, so there should be at least one solving replay for every New-Formats level in that folder. This will take a while, though, because there are obviously still a bunch of replays from other packs in that folder.

Otherwise, we've got an exit which trigger area is not visible due to water and you need to keep guessing where it actually is with your stoners. (Encore 13)

Yep, this is always the issue with underwater levels - be the water real or an updraft, like in Arty's tileset - it's trigger areas covering traps and/or exits that's the problem in general. Perhaps it would be a worthwhile suggestion to have trigger areas of different types of objects change colour in true-physics mode whenever they overlap? Meaning, two overlapping updrafts / water / fire areas etc. would not change colour, but an exit inside an updraft, a trap inside water etc. would (e.g. one could be pink, the other one green, to create a strong contrast).

Note though that "Dark fate of Atlantis" used to have a hidden trap, which is set to overwrite / on terrain now. So with all the water that the level calls for, it's as fair as it can currently get.

Speaking of hidden traps, though...

An invisible trap (Encore 33)

I don't know what you are referring to here. The smasher trap on "We are the Lempions" is clearly visible above the water. The levels before (Lost in Space) and after (Fire in the hole) don't even have any traps, just fire areas, and those are also visible.

Are you referring to a different level, maybe? Or is there something different in your version of the level compared to mine? "We are the Lempions" is from Pit Lems, after all, and in that pack I tried to be as mechanically fair as possible (even fairer than on some select LWT levels featuring a certain octopus ).

And a level where you know it's just annoying to play (see postview text of Encore 39) and just blame it on the hard-worker removal. Instead you just could have done one of the following possibilities which would spare the players nerves:

1.) Just making the level smaller with only 1-2 stacker gaps.
2.) Think of an alternative solution to the level and enforce that.
3.) Leave the level out of the pack and put it in Lemmicks instead.

All these options would have been better than a postview text shifting the blame!

The level "Brothers in arms" actually already is part of Lemmicks (on the Eternal rank featuring the hardworkers gimmick, obviously).
This was just the best way I could re-create it in 10.13 and New Formats, given that "Brothers in arms" is a very famous song that I hardly wanted to leave out.

The original plan in Lemmicks was to have a Basher bash alongside with a Platformer platforming - hence the level title. Didn't quite work how I wanted it to, even in Lemmicks, but the title remained. And thus, now it's here on the Encore rank.

Now you know what I meant when I said in the opening post that the Encore levels were not selected for quality - only because they happened to be previous levels that had also been named after songs.

That said, I obviously wouldn't have included the rank if I hadn't had the impression that a good amount of them are at least worthwhile. Some I even really like quite a lot (e.g. "Na zdorovje Lem" and "That's the name of the game").

[ericderkovits]

Cool, now that Encore 5 is fixed, I solved this one, since it was easy. Also I redownloaded the Pack from the new uploaded link. Also redownloaded Icho's replays. All passed the Mass Replay checks.
As Rockstar 15(Viva Colonia) is now changed, Icho's replay for this level is now good also. So now I'll be waiting for any new uploads for the pack if there are any to correct any glider issues in the
final rank Groupie. Once that is done and Icho posts replays for the Groupie rank, and I turn everything green, then I can officially say I have this pack as another completed pack with replays.