How to view Lemmix replay (.lrb) solutions

[ccexplore]

A lot of challenge solutions here for PC/DOS Lemmings are presented in the form of a Lemmix replay file attachment (with extension .lrb).  They are basically like emulator movie files, but based on Lemmix Players, an almost 100% accurate reproduction of the games with all their glitches and quirks.  Here are some quick notes on how to view such solutions, for those who are new to Lemmix.

Part 1: setup and select level

First, download the player EXE for the level in question from this page.  The table on the page details which player EXE contains which levels.  So for example, LemmixPlayer.exe for the original 120 levels of PC DOS Lemmings 1, and LemmixPlayerOhNo.exe for the 100 levels of PC DOS Oh No! More Lemmings.

(Important tip: before you launch the player, note that it runs full-screen.  In order to switch away from the running Lemmix player to some other application like this web browser you are reading this on right now, without having to quit the player, hold down the ALT key and press the TAB key.  This is the Windows hotkey for switching amongst your running applications.  It really doesn't matter which application you switched to, once you switch away from the Lemmix player, the Windows taskbar at the bottom of the screen should become visible again, and you can pick the application to switch to using that taskbar instead.)

The player plays like the actual game and would normally require entering random-looking passwords to go to specific levels.  To bypass that, do the following:

1) On the main menu (the first screen you see when you launch the player), press the F2 key. A password entry screen should appear.
2) Enter with keyboard "CHEATCODES" and press ENTER. At the bottom of the screen, there should now appear something like "Cheatcodes enabled".

You only have to do this once for each player EXE.  The game remembers you've turned on cheat mode (even after you quit and later re-launch the player), so every subsequent time you go into the password screen it will say "cheatcodes enabled" at the bottom, allowing you to do step 3 below.

[Alternatively, you can open the corresponding .ini file (in a text editor) that the EXE creates when it runs, and replace the line "CheatCodesEnabled=0" by "CheatCodesEnabled=1".]

3) Enter with keyboard as a password [rank name][level number], so e.g. "FUN23" or "WICKED7". This directly changes the current level to the one you entered.

Part 2: play level and load replay for level

Once you've entered the level you want, next we start playing the level, and then invoke the "load replay" gameplay feature to play back the replay file you wish to view:

1) Back at the main menu, press the F1 key (or, you can just click anywhere with mouse [left button], even though no mouse cursor is displayed). This will bring you to the preview screen for the level.
2) Click again to start playing the level.
3) Press "L" key.  A standard Windows "open file" window will pop up, use it to browse to the .lrb replay file you wish to view.  Select the file and click OK to load it.
4) The game will instantly restart the level, and will automatically perform skill assignments at the right times to lemmings according to the loaded replay file, as well as automatically making other solution-impacting moves like changing the release rate and nuking, if they were captured in the replay file.  In other words, you are basically watching a movie of the solution captured by the replay file.

Note that some things that are not solution-impacting aren't played back:

• Screen scrolling or jumping--you need to do so yourself in order to view things that would otherwise simply happen offscreen
• Pausing and unpausing of game--if you see the release rate instantly jump from one value to another, or skill assignments taking place very close together in time, most likely the game was actually paused in between by the player when recording the replay.
• Location of the mouse cursor when assigning skills to a lemming--sometimes the cursor must be placed precisely to give the skill to the right lemming, but the mouse cursor position during skill assignments is not displayed in any way during play back

Part 2B: controlling the play back, and exiting the level when done

5) While the game is playing back the replay, you can press either F11 or P to toggle pause and unpause without interrupting the play back.  You can also scroll the screen at will (or jump to a specific part of level via clicking on the mini-map at bottom right) without interrupting the play back.  Do not click anywhere on the level though, or press any of the F1-F12 keys (which would invoke one of the buttons on the skills toolbar), as those actions will instantly stop the play back, and give control back to you the player to continue on with the level.

6) You can also use the following keyboard shortcuts to help you while viewing the play back:

• Press R to restart level.  The replay will still be active so you can jump back to the very beginning of it.
• Press Spacebar to jump forward 10 game seconds.
• Press N to advance time forward by one frame (the smallest unit of time where changes can happen in the level).  This is best used while game is paused.
• Press B to advance time backward by one frame.  Note that the game implements this by actually rewind all the way back to start, and then play everything back as quickly as it can until it reaches one frame before current time.  So it may be more sluggish to make the game step backwards in time compared to forward.
• Press - to advanced time backward by 1 game second.  (Note: only the - key between 0 and =, not the one at the NumPad)
• Press F to toggle between normal and fast-forward mode.  Fast-forward runs the game at 2x normal speed.
• Press S to toggle sound effects on or off and M to toggle music on or off.  You can also change the setting via F3 on the main menu.
• Press ENTER to remember current time, and later press Backspace to seek the playback to that instant of time

7) You can press ESC key at any time to leave the level.  This will bring you to the postview screen for the level, at which point you can press ESC key again to go back to main menu.  You can then go back to same level, or pick a different level via the password entry screen.

8) When you leave the level (even with ESC key), if enough lemmings have reached the exit, the game will automatically move on to the next level.  If you don't want that, you will have to go back to the password screen and type in the level again (ie. see Part 1's step 3 above) to get back to it.

To completely exit the game, press ESC key while on the main menu.

[namida]

6) You can also use the following keyboard shortcuts to help you while viewing the play back:

Also - the minus key (on the main area, not the numpad) goes back 1 second. The Enter key will cause Lemmix to remember the current frame number, and Backspace will jump (forwards or backwards) to the saved frame number - though note that unlike in NeoLemmix, this does not save / load replay data.

I don't think you can change the sound options within the level though, you have to go back to main menu to do it.

S and M are the hotkeys for toggling sound and music respectively.

[ccexplore]

Thanks namida for the additional information, I've added them to my post.

[Minim]

Just saw this today: Great looking resource post. I haven't used LemmixPlayer for a long time. You (and namida) have covered every instruction in fine detail here.

[Simon]

Magnificent resourceful post!

Press U to save a replay during play. (I forgot whether this opens a dialog or merely saves a file without any feedback.)

-- Simon

[namida]

Press U to save a replay during play. (I forgot whether this opens a dialog or merely saves a file without any feedback.)

In vanilla Lemmix, the latter. You can also do this on the postview screen.