Level Design Contest #19

[Forestidia86]

I think it's rather about the particularly listed skills than the abstract meaning of "permanent skill". Else one could as well ask if sth. like cuber, stoner, ploder is a permanent skill.

[namida]

More importantly, "Permanent skill" has a specific meaning in a Lemmings context, and those are the skills usually considered to fall under it. It's been debated exactly which category Cloner should fall under, but I don't believe permanent has ever been proposed - some proposals have put it in the same category as Walker and Shimmier, while others consider it to defy categorization and be in its own category by itself. I don't recall ever specifically seeing it included with the permanents.

The unambiguous categorizations (current or very-likely-future NL skills only) are:

Movement skill - Walker, Shimmier, Jumper
Permanent skill - Climber, Swimmer, Floater, Glider, Disarmer
Constructive skill - Platformer, Builder, Stacker
Destructive skill - Basher, Fencer, Miner, Digger

Some people would put Bomber and Stoner under destructive / constructive respectively, though it's more common to group the two together under "Fatal skills" or some other term like that. Blocker is sometimes included with these, sometimes included with Movement skills, and sometimes considered unique much like Cloner can be. It has been recognized that the Blocker shares traits with the permanent skills to some extent, though I don't think I've actually seen it considered to be one - such recognition is usually been used more to say "the blocker should be next to the permanent skills on the skill bar".

Of course, this kind of discussion is of limited importance in terms of actual gameplay, as the skill will do the same thing regardless of what category you consider it to fall under. The only time it's had direct relevance to NL is in discussions of how to order the skills on the panel, but so far the only time such consideration has been applied was in deciding where in the order the Fencer and Shimmier should go - the other 8 skills predate much consideration of such, and have just kept the order they were originally assigned (although this does end up quite strongly reflecting the above anyway).

[ccexplore]

I think it's rather about the particularly listed skills than the abstract meaning of "permanent skill". Else one could as well ask if sth. like cuber, stoner, ploder is a permanent skill.

Yeah, fair to say we are going a little off topic relative to this thread; the contest rules are pretty clear about which skills are called out.  Feel free to spin this off to a new thread.

Good call on skills like cuber and exploder.  They do kind of muddy things a little because they also end up always killing the assigned lemming.  But it's really only the dying part that makes it "permanent" and denies you the opportunity to re-assign the same skill to the same lemming.  If you imagine that the physics is slightly different so that the lemming doesn't get killed by the skill's action (eg. the explosion happens but then the lemming continues walking afterwards, like L2's bomber), then it's pretty clear the skill is not permanent in the way climbers or swimmers would be.  At the very least I would look at those deadly skills as in a somewhat different category compared to the climber kind of permanent skill.

You could argue that maybe the word "permanent" is a bit vague in the context, so it opens up the interpretation for some people to include other skills that have some aspects people can think of as "permanent", but not specifically in the ways that skills like climber and floater are.

The unambiguous categorizations (current or very-likely-future NL skills only) are:

Movement skill - Walker, Shimmier, Jumper
Permanent skill - Climber, Swimmer, Floater, Glider, Disarmer
Constructive skill - Platformer, Builder, Stacker
Destructive skill - Basher, Fencer, Miner, Digger

I would call out that these categories aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, though for the particular skills in NL right now, they probably are.  I can for example imagine a permanent-skill variant of a platformer, where you can't explicitly control where the lemming platforms, instead it just starts doing so whenever it is about to encounter a drop long enough for a regular lemming to start falling down, and that happens unlimited number of times for the lifetime of the lemming once skill is assigned..  The effects of the action are very constructive just like the regular platformer.  The described skill is also permanent in the way that, for example, disarmer is.

[Proxima]

I think the important point is: some skills change the internal state of the lemming such that that lemming has a different behaviour from normal walking lemmings: he will carry out X skill at any time if the right circumstances arise. These skills are an important group because the engine needs to (and does) provide information about which permanent skills a given lemming has, so as to avoid hidden information. Whether "permanent skills" is a good or bad name for this group doesn't matter; that just is the name we've adopted.

[IchoTolot]

Finally had time to make my first entry.       Be sure to work on your ones as well!

[IchoTolot]

Remember the deadline just after Christmas! We've got exactly 2 weeks remaining.

[SQron188]

I've got a question: once the Playing Phase starts and therefore levels are made public, could I immediately put the level (still "in" the Contest) in a level pack (though I may not necessarily make it with the level pack before the Contest is over - so I'm not saying I'll do it, just asking what the rule is)?

[IchoTolot]

If the levels are already public, I see no problem puting it in a pack.

[NieSch]

Just in time I got some inspiration for a level using one of these rules. So I'll be joining the contest too.

[IchoTolot]

Only a few days before the playing phase! Get your entries ready.