Ideas for new sprites / "tribes" (either just recoloured OR completely reshaped)

[Strato Incendus]

With the release of his pack Lemminas, WillLem inspired me to do something that I had been contemplating for a while, especially given the frequency with which my levels refer to geographical locations:

Lemmings 2: The Tribes may be (in-)famous for overwhelming the player with new skill types, but it also famously changed the visual appearance of the standard lemming sprites ever so slightly from one tribe to the next one, giving each of them a unique identity - albeit some tribes are easier to identify (e.g. Highland) than others (e.g. Sports or Medieval).

Thanks to the recolouring feature namida implemented, it's easier than ever to create new lemming populations! Naturally, I tend to think of these options in terms of real-world countries. But you could also create completely different types of lemmings. For example, I've brought up the idea of a "Lemmings Universe" pack before. Wouldn't it be nice to have "alien" lemmings occasionally for a Space level?

This thread is just for brainstorming for now, kind of like the "joke ideas for skills" thread. In contrast to those, though, these new lemming sprites are much more easily implemented - basically, anyone of us could do this. So if there is a particular type of sprite that several people would like to use, why not quickly introduce those?

First of all: When it comes to recolouring, there are basically three things we can change: Hair, clothes, and skin tone. Secondary options would be the Builder / Platformer sack and the appearance of Zombies in that particular tribe.

When it comes to lemmings with a different shape than the default ones, to my knowledge, we can choose between:
- X-Mas
- GigaLem's Millas (with the feather in their hair)
- WillLem's Lemminas

I hope recolouring is enabled for all of those?

I formerly included Arty's Silhouette sprites in here, but I guess those are also a recolouring by now - just that skin, hair, and clothes are all set to the same colour, "black".


Here are some suggestions of mine:

Irish Lemmings
Skin: white; Clothes: green; Hair: red / orange
This is actually something I tried to create as early as Old-Formats Lemmings World Tour for my level "The Irish Rover" - by using the X-Mas sprite and making all the Lemmings athletes (Swimmers, to be exact). I could do this because it didn't affect the solution to that level in any way, and the level obviously was a ship anyway, thus, it seemed fitting. Due to the standard reversal of the colour of hair and clothes, this resulted in red-haired Lemmings (like the L2 Highland ones), but with green robes.
However, now it would be easy to create such sprites based on regular lemmings, as well: Green clothes, orange / red hair. Those would simultaneously also serve as the "Acid Lemmings" from Lemmings Revolution, since we already have the Water Lemmings as part of Arty's Underwater tileset.

English Lemmings
Skin: skin colour, Clothes: white, Hair: red, Builder Sack: red
These could go well with sports levels; should pretty much look like the English national football team. Hence, we need a different skin colour than the default white, otherwise you couldn't tell the difference between the lemmings' heads and their clothes.

Nordic Lemmings
Skin: white; Clothes: blue (default), Hair: yellow
The L2 Polar tileset comes with its own sprites; however, they hardly look like anyone living even close to the Arctic Circle. Having all-blonde Lemmings for "Scandinavian" levels of course would be just as clichéd as the Highland sprites being all redheads, but well, as long as we don't plan to enable sprite mixing in one and the same level, any "tribe" we create will include such generalisations.

(Sub-Saharan) African Lemmings
Skin: dark brown, Clothes: yellow, Hair: green (default); Builder Sack: red (default)
I already made those! They are now the default sprite for my strato_generalmd tileset (select it as "Theme" in the level editor if you want to use them). This tileset is "shipped" as part of Lemmings World Tour and/or Lemmings Open Air (the latter currently still in development).
I went with yellow clothes because, in conjunction with the red builder sack and the standard green hair, those are the pan-African colours (you will notice a lot of African flags actually feature some combination of those three colours).

Soviet Lemmings
Skin: white, Clothes: red, Hair: green (default), Builder Sack: dark yellow
I kind of liked the look of the "red pants" in Lemmings Paintball. But now that the Cold War is quite some time in the past, who says lemmings wearing red still automatically have to be the bad guys?

Chinese / Asian Lemmings
Skin: no, not plain "yellow" , but maybe a slightly different shade than the default white; Clothes: red, Hair: black
I've prepared this level called "The Great Wall of China" for my pack Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll. Currently, the lemmings are still tourists - would be nice to have the option of turning them into natives as well.

Donald Trumps
Skin: orange, Hair: yellow, Clothes: black, Builder Sack: red (default)
Make Lemerica great again!

Lemming Vampires (Lempires)
Skin: white; Clothes: black, Hair: black
We have quite a few castle tilesets now. How about some lemmings that look the spooky part? The L2 Shadow ones are really more supposed to be like Ninjas, and not nearly pale enough to be confused for vampires, even given the proper context of such a castle level.

Alien Lemmings
Skin: green, Clothes: white, Hair: silver / grey
"Alilemms" was just a word in Lemmings 3D. Now we could make it reality! As said before, seems quite fitting for some space levels, especially given that the L2 Space ones don't look all too different from regular sprites.

Trash Collectors
Skin: white, Clothes: orange, Hair: orange
Would be nice though to give them a little hat instead of just orange hair.

Naked Lemmings
Skin: white, Clothes: white, Hair: green
Don't forget to slap an age restriction on your pack if you include these!


And then two more that I think would look nice, without any specific context implied:

Skin: white, Clothes: purple, Hair: yellow

Skin: white, Clothes: red, Hair: yellow


EDIT (29th April 2021): All of my own sprite sets (I can't guarantee for those made by others) have been updated to include recolouring data for neutral lemmings and lemming selected, as required for future use.
You can find all of them in the attached collection. Future sprite sets which already fulfil these new requirements might be released separately in later posts (i.e. I will not constantly update this archive here in the starting post, it's just easier for one quick update now).
EDIT (1st May 2021): Fixed the Zombie recolouring for the YoRHa sprites, they looked too similar to the regular lemmings.
EDIT (14th July 2023): Fixed the Lix sprites, so that they go along with WillLem's updated version of the Lemminas sprites.

[GigaLem]

- GigaLem's Millas (with the feather in their hair)

as a correction, those feathers are actually ears, Basset ears to be exact case in point, image below


The Skies the limit when it comes to recolors though some ideas I probably would've left them unsaid.

[namida]

Default and Xmas have full recoloring support. I know the Milla sprites have at least partial recoloring support, because I helped GigaLem set it up to have just one set of sprites and recolor them for the Festive styles - but I only added the bare minimum needed to make those styles work, so unless GigaLem has added the rest, they don't have full recoloring support. I have no idea how much, if any, recoloring support the Lemmina sprites have.

[WillLem]

Great idea Strato - I'd love to see these in action if you get a full game together with them!

I have no idea how much, if any, recoloring support the Lemmina sprites have.

I can confirm that the Lemminas have full recolouring support: in fact, in-game their clothes are recoloured for Athlete/Lem Selection/Neutral purposes, and the entire sprite is recoloured (skin, clothes and hair) for the one-off zombie Lemminas appearance in Nightmare On Lem Street III.

The theme.nxtm file contains all colour schemes; please note that both the high-res and low res version have two-tone colouring for hair, clothes and skin and although the sprite recolouring does support shades, I found that it was necessary to specify each tone for more targeted recolouring purposes (this has already been done in theme.nxtm, all you'll need to do is specify your new colour for each of the given values).

For easy reference, here are the hex codes for a default Lemmina if you want to have a play with them:

Hair (dark electric blue): 0026FF
Hair (light sky blue): 0094FF
Bobble (banana yellow): FBFF19
Clothes (dark rose): FF476F
Clothes (light pink): FF9EC4
Skin (tan-shade skintone): F4B590
Skin (light skintone): FFD5B3

Just find each code in the theme.nxtm file and change it as you wish! Let me know if you need any help with it.

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks for your cooperation, GigaLem and WillLem (in the sense that you seem to be fine, at least in principle, with people recolouring your sprites ) And special thanks to WillLem for even providing the exact hex codes!

Based on that, I would add the following ideas:

Lara Croft (Lemminas-based)
Skin: skin-tone, Clothes: green / teal, Hair: brown, Builder Sack: brown (like the bagpack)
Nepster has made two famous levels called "Tomb Raider". I think those levels should be playable with fitting sprites!

Pippi Longstocking (Lemminas-based)
Skin: white (default), Clothes: bright green (like athletes), Hair: red
These would be a special type of Swedish sprite. Although they could also simply be regarded as female versions of the Irish / Acid lemmings. Likewise, if you set the clothes back to default blue, they'd be female Highland lemmings.

Indian Lemmings (default-based)
Skin: like my African lemmings, Clothes: orange, Hair: green (default)
I have a couple of levels in Lemmings World Tour that are either located in India ("Taj-a, Taj-a, Taj-a, Taj me", "Kashmir") or make reference to it ("Yoga"), as well as one set in neighbouring Bangladesh (Bang-a-Boomerang). There's also a famous song, Krypteria's "Liberatio", that is kind of tied to the Tsunami that hit Sri Lanka and other nearby nations in December 2004 (similarly to Enya's "Only Time" and 9/11). Tamils (=people from Sri Lanka) often look quite similar to Indians and therefore frequently get confused for them. Either way, the yellow clothes my African lemmings are wearing seem unfitting. Orange is present in both the Indian and the Sri Lankan flag.
Of course, one could set the hair to black, as well - but if the other colours already serve to give a sense of the geographic origin of those lemmings, I'm happy for every type of sprite that gets to keep its iconic green lemmings hair!

Not to be confused with:

Native American / Amerindian Lemmings (Millas-based)
Skin: again, not "orange" (in contrast to the Trump sprites! ), but a slightly darker tone than default, slightly red-ish, Clothes: brown (default), Hair: black
I tried to create an Amerindian tileset in Old Formats, I just never completed it. For example, the exit was a recolouring of the tent from the L2 Outdoor tileset. Having fitting sprites available would be a nice incentive to pick up on that again!

Additionally, acknowledging that those supposed "feathers" are actually ears :

Elvish Lemmings (Millas-based OR Lemminas-based)
Skin: white (default), Clothes: dark green, Hair: yellow, Builder Sack: blue
Elves usually have pointed ears AND long hair, therefore, I can imagine such recolourings for both of the aforementioned custom-shaped lemming sprites you made. One could even make "Christmas Elves", Santa's little helpers, by applying the same colour scheme to the X-Mas sprites.

Speaking of X-Mas sprites:

Arab Lemmings (X-Mas based)
Skin: L2 Beach / L2 Shadow, Clothes and Hat: white, Hair: black
Those are supposed to look like sheikhs, or like Beduin nomads in the desert. It's also easy enough to create female versions of these, using the same sprites...
Skin: L2 Beach / L2 Shadow, Clothes and Hat: black, Hair: black
And just like that, you have lemmings wearing a Nikab!

Monk Lemmings (X-Mas based)
Skin: white (default), Clothes and Hat: brown, Hair: green (default)
Again, a nice design for Castle levels - lemmings in a monastery, wearing appropriate clothes! Now that we do have Lemminas, that only makes it seem more like the default lemmings are male (which would be fitting, because when it comes to soldiers, just like with lemmings, guess who's more "expendable" for evolution... ). With Monk lemmings, you can be absolutely sure they are celibate!

Great idea Strato - I'd love to see these in action if you get a full game together with them!

I'm planning to make excessive use of them in my upcoming pack Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll! Because that pack is going to have geography-based levels again. Once I've made all of these recolourings, I might also add them to the appropriate levels from Lemmings World Tour in hindsight (which is only going to work in the New-Formats version, of course).

For example, I have already added my yellow-pants African Lemmings to the Lemmings World Tour level "Diggas in Paris" (go figure ) from the Diva rank - I think also to Toto's "Africa", which is on the Legend rank, and to "Waka Waka" on the Professional rank. I think I forgot to add them to "I like to move it, move it!" though, which is located in Madagascar... one thing I have to remember for the next update!

Lemmings Hall of Fame, meanwhile, will have to stick to the sprites from the respective L2: The Tribes tilesets, in order to maintain the feeling of that L2 authenticity. Likewise, Lemmings Open Air basically only features default lemming sprites, because it's supposed to look very much like classic lemmings.

some ideas I probably would've left them unsaid.

If you're referring to the Naked Lemmings here, that concept could of course also be applied to any other sprite... ^^ As long as they have a different skin tone or hair colour than default, because the clothes would obviously become irrelevant, or rather identical with whatever the colour for the skin tone is.

For example, take the L2 Beach sprites and make the clothes identical to the colour of the head --> voilà: now you have lemmings from the Naturism beach!
Do the same thing for the Lemminas --> welcome to Lemmings Baywatch!
Or we simply call them "Brazilian Lemmings", coming straight from a carnival parade.

And then, finally, when my aforementioned yellow-pants Lemmings show up... but without those pants... all the regular default lemmings are probably going to hide in shame...

[WillLem]

Lara Croft Lemminas is a great idea, I'll definitely give that one a go!

[WillLem]

A quick look at the Lara Croft Lemminas

[Strato Incendus]

These look precisely like I imagined them! Great job, WillLem! One less I have to take care of!

Can you share those as style folders?

I'm uploading my Asian and African sprites with this post. Since we're now going for many different sprites, it no longer makes sense to have the African sprites come with just my strato_generalmd tileset.

The colours for the Asian tilesets are in line with what I suggested above, but the specific shades are taken from the example picture created by Armani in the Lemminas thread. So credit goes to him for that!

[Strato Incendus]

...and here's Soviet, Indian, and Trump!

While designing the Soviet lemmings, I noticed that default lemmings actually aren't completely white, they have a slight skin-tone shade to them. These Russian lemmings, in contrast, really have #ffffff, i.e. complete white, as their colour!

For the Indian lemmings, somehow the reflection on the Builder's sack is red. I don't see anywhere in the recolouring options in the "theme" file where you can change this?

And for the Trump lemmings, don't worry, I didn't actually create that level just to show them off... this is an old level from Paralems called "The Wall (Part II)", converted to New Formats, and it might actually make its way into Pit Lems remastered, just to have all three "The Wall" levels in one place...

[WillLem]

These look precisely like I imagined them! Great job, WillLem! One less I have to take care of!

Can you share those as style folders?

Thanks! I'll need to sort out the low-res versions and the recolouring for athlete/selection/etc first, then sure, I'll share them here.

Haha the Donald Trump Lemmings are brilliant.

[ccexplore]

The Trump lemmings look very spot-on and are especially ironic, since I imagine the lemmings will end up getting past a wall in the level, literally behaving like the illegal immigrants Trump loves to hate on.

I was expecting a more pure reddish clothing for the Asian one from your initial verbal description; the current shade seems more pink.  But the clothing color is kind of arbitrary anyway.

[ccexplore]

Forgot to mention:  notice from the screenshots the lemmings icon/graphic left of the "number of lemmings remaining in the level" count is still the standard lemming graphics with blue clothes, white skin and green hair.  Wondering if the recoloring should be affecting that icon/graphic as well?

Though I guess it would create an issue when one of the recoloring uses black, since the background for that icon/graphic will always be black.

[ccexplore]

Trash Collectors
Skin: white, Clothes: orange, Hair: orange
Would be nice though to give them a little hat instead of just orange hair.

Hmm, is that a German thing, the orange clothes?  Here in the US I don't think there're any standard uniforms for trash collectors.  Although the orange jumpsuit is quite commonly recognized as prisoner clothes.

[WillLem]

As promised, here are the Lara Croft sprites in both resolutions and with the recolouring sorted out for use in-game.

Enjoy!

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks a lot, WillLem! I was wondering how I could specify the different shadings for high-res for my sprites as well, but I think this is probably a unique property of your Lemmina sprites? Or is there a way to do this for the default sprites as well, by simply specifying two consecutive lines per hair-, clothes-, and skin colour?

Because at least Armani's suggestion for the Asian sprites actually seems to have been set up that way (with two different shades of red for the clothes and two different shades for the skin).

Hmm, is that a German thing, the orange clothes?  Here in the US I don't think there're any standard uniforms for trash collectors.  Although the orange jumpsuit is quite commonly recognized as prisoner clothes.

Yes, trash collectors actually have to wear warning wests in Germany for their own safety. Simply have a look at the images you get when you look for the German term, Müllabfuhr.

In contrast, prisoners can wear their own clothes in Germany, meaning it's exactly reversed.

But feel free to use these sprites as "Prisoner Lemmings" instead, once they have been created and uploaded here, if you happen to live in the US ...