My Introduction and my Lemmings History

[kaywhyn]

Hi 607,

So nice to meet you. Wow, floppy disks are still around??? The last time I saw and used one was back in the summer of 2003, so I haven't seen them in almost a good 17 years! I see from your profile that you're from the Netherlands, so I'm guessing that probably has to do with it? I recently had a family vacation to my parents' home country of Vietnam, and nowhere did I see any floppy disks. Then again, I guess there's bound to be someone using something that pretty much the rest of the world has moved on from. A couple of years ago, in class for a group project, I was so surprised to see a group member of mine using AOL. I didn't even think anyone used AOL anymore or that it even existed anymore, but that night proved me wrong. Granted, I was a former AOL user back in the days of dial-up growing up in the 1990s, but that was a very long time ago.

Take your time and do what you need to do in order to pass your classes. Hope the college life is going well. I graduated from college 9 years ago. Are you currently doing virtual learning like pretty much the rest of the world due to the covid-19 pandemic? How bad is it from where you are? It wasn't too bad here in the USA the past month and a half but unfortunately the number of cases has skyrocketed in the past few weeks. We are now #1 in the number of cases We're nowhere near the number of deaths of Italy's and China's, though, but I have a feeling that it will get there given how the number of cases has been increasing so much everyday, as well as the huge size of the USA.   

[Nessy]

Sorry if I'm a bit late but welcome to the forums kaywhyn! This truly is a great community and there's a little bit of something for everyone whether you just want to solve puzzles, make your own content, etc. I'm on the side of the spectrum that seems to love making my own puzzles more solving them because I'm actually not that good at solving I also tend to be more of a traditionalist when it comes to making levels but I'm not afraid to try out new things every now and again like new skills or custom graphic sets.

Look forward to seeing you around the forums

[kaywhyn]

Thanks for the welcome, Nessy! Not at all. We're all adults here who are very busy and have our own schedules, so don't worry about the lateness of welcoming me. I have yet to play any of your levelpacks, but I'll be sure to give them a look sometime. I guess I just dove into the really more difficult stuff first, and while my puzzle solving skills don't come anywhere near the likes of some of the experts here, I consider them good enough that I'm able to get through the difficult packs given enough time. At the same time, I have surprisingly struggled with levels that others have apparently found easy or vice versa. I think it's just a matter of being in the right mindset and just "seeing" things which would somewhat explain my struggles on levels people found easy or vice versa. So really, I consider myself good, but not that good, like probably just slightly better than the average puzzle solver.

[Armani]

What a long post!

Welcome to the Forum Kaywhyn! And thank you for sharing your lemmings history! It was really interesting to read.
Lemmings forum is the most friendly and wonderful forum I have ever seen.
I was really excited to find this community that loves Lemmings, one of my favorite video game. I also found this forum quite long ago (maybe 1.5 years ago from now) and just read posts and play some custom levels from other people, and I registered for this forum recently.

Personally, I'm good at solving puzzles, but when it comes to making them, forget it. I just don't have the skill to make puzzles. I don't know if this is common, though, where there's people who are good at solving puzzles but not making them like me, or vice versa.

And I'm the one who aren't good at making puzzles and I think this is not a rare case. I recommend you to participate level design contest though. There are regular level design contest in the forum and now contest#20 is on submission phase. I found this contest is awesome since I don't have to make whole level pack with many levels. Just make two or three levels and I can get some feedback from various people including level design experts!

Hope you have a good time in the forum!

[kaywhyn]

Nice to meet you, Armani. I had the same feeling of excitement seeing there's a forum dedicated to the game of Lemmings, which was a huge favorite of mine growing up. So thankful for the numerous amount of custom levelpacks that are available. I must extend my congratulations to you for being the very first to finish Icho's Lemmings United. I'm currently on the final level of neutrality. I know that you yourself was stumped and asked Icho for a hint. Though I've been stuck for nearly 4 months on it, I'm absolutely refusing to read his hint he gave you, as I would like to beat the level myself first. Once I do, only then will I view a replay. However, he recently patched up an incorrect route I took in the replay I sent him of the level, so apparently I've kept trying something that was incorrect this entire time but for some I reason never ruled it out as wrong. I'm still thinking it's some kind of trick I'm missing, but in any case I'm going to keep trying, so no hints from anyone yet, please. I think you might currently be the only person who has solved the level so far, though

[The Tomato Watcher]

Perhaps I'm a bit late to this (it has been far too long since I've checked the Forums), but welcome, Ky! You sure did share a lot about your Lemmings experiences! I hope you enjoy your time here on the forums. I registered here a little over a year ago (and I seriously haven't been as active as I should be), but I can confidently say that this is a very nice community of wonderful people. To be honest, I only found out about this game at all a couple years ago, but I'm glad I stumbled across it so I could find this community. I really do think you'll fit right in here.

I can relate to being more of puzzle-solver than a puzzle-creator (even though I'm not very good at either to be honest). I've tried playing level packs and haven't gotten far in any (both because I'm not good and due to time constraints and technical issues), but I've had a lot of fun playing them, and there are plenty more to choose from. I've only ever released one level for a contest, and let's just say it wasn't very highly voted. So, as others have said, there's plenty of room for puzzle solvers.

Also, about the floppy disks. I'm only 15, so I couldn't have remembered them, but I certainly know a lot about them, as well as the systems they ran on (I consider myself a bit of a retro geek).

Anyway, glad you're on the Forums!

[kaywhyn]

Hey The Tomato Watcher,

Great to meet you. Hmm, I'm not sure how I missed your post. Perhaps I did read your post but I have forgotten to reply back. You're not late at all. Some of the other replies came a few days after my first post, so you're good. Yea, you're definitely way after floppy disks have long pretty much phased out. As I have mentioned previously, the last time I saw one was back in 2003 when I was around your age at the time. However, to my surprise I learned of someone here who I believe hails from the Netherlands who currently "semi-regularly" uses floppies, so they're still around apparently. In any case, if you know what usb thumbdrives/flashdrives are, you can pretty much think of floppies as a precursor to them. Nowadays, desktop pc's don't even have a slot for floppies anymore, so they have nearly become obsolete. It's kind of like in the same way most of the world has now moved to laptops and 2-in-1's, but desktops still have their uses, most notably in the business world and those who still prefer to possess one in addition to a laptop. It definitely helps to know a lot about technology, especially in order to survive in this ever so rapidly evolving world, so good for you! Your high knowledge in technology will come in very handy.

How are you managing with virtual learning for your high school classes during this pandemic? Definitely way different from having face-to-face classes in an actual classroom for sure.

[The Tomato Watcher]

Yes, virtual learning is much different than standard class, but I MUCH prefer this to standard class. It feels... more free. Especially since my school requires me to wear a dress shirt normally. I'm not doing so well at the moment because I fell rather far behind during a two-week period where my school didn't quite know what to do about distance learning yet. But I'm working my way back.

Also, I failed to mention that my mother's laptop from c. 2007 had a 3.5" floppy drive in it, even though we didn't really use it. My mother also showed me a floppy of Sim City 2000 she used to play at one point. The desktops my school uses from c. 2010 have spaces for 3.5" drives as well, but I believe they are all empty. And our Technology Lab has a C64 and a 5.25" floppy disk and drive sitting on the (massive) windowsill. So I suppose I have had minimal experience with floppies, if any of those count.

[kaywhyn]

It's not really yours or the instructors' fault, because in the school setting this has never happened before. Granted, instructors had time to prepare to switch to virtual learning just in case it ever came down to it, but I'm sure no one thought the pandemic was going to get this serious and hence they didn't think they would need to. Teachers already have enough to worry about, especially high school teachers. Believe me, I know. I've worked as an educator for the last 5-6 years for me to know how very stressful being a teacher is due to meetings, taking care of personal things/family, etc. I myself am not a parent, but many teachers are, some of not just one, but multiple kids. Even though it does feel more free, surely this is also a very stressful time for students too. You'll definitely see it's not as bad once you're in college/university, as you're paying for your own education and you don't even need to attend class, although I would advise that you still go to each lecture. Until then, my advice is to enjoy being young while it lasts and to make the most of it, because once you're a 30-something like me, you're not going to have as many opportunities to. I definitely miss being a kid, when I didn't have as much to worry about and wasn't as busy as I am now working a job. Being an adult is very busy, but it doesn't have to be. I simply love staying busy all the time.

I see from your profile that you're also from the USA. Your post definitely surprises me that there's still desktops with floppy slots here in the USA. I'm guessing you're not where I'm from. Then again, you did say they're from back around 2010, which is still long after the last time I saw and used a floppy back in 2003, when I'm guessing that's when floppies were starting to get phased out for the most part. Here in California, even in the many classrooms I have been in for my job, all the desktops I see don't have a floppy slot, and so there's definitely none where I'm from.

my mother's laptop from c. 2007 had a 3.5" floppy drive in it

Now that's a shocker to me. I didn't even know there were laptops with floppy disk slots. Do you remember what brand of laptop it was? That might be why, since I have only owned and used Dell laptops, and these don't have them.

[The Tomato Watcher]

Yes, it is still a bit stressful with all the uncertainty about how the rest of the year will play out, as well as our usual workload being dumped onto us every day, and I know that goes for teachers as well. And I've definitely tried to make the most of my youth, and even now I feel my opportunities fading away. I'm in the highest level program at my school, and the workload is massive.

Yeah, I live in Kentucky. And my mother's laptop was a Toshiba IIRC. Also, there were plenty of laptops in the late '80s and '90s that had floppy drives too. But that probably isn't what you meant.

[kaywhyn]

Ah, you must be referring to AP/IB. Back when I was in high school, my alma mater only had AP classes, which was what my schedule consisted of, starting my sophomore year, culminating in an all AP schedule my senior year. It recently became an IB school a few years ago, so now it offers both pre-IB and IB classes in addition to AP. So, I don't know much about IB, but I have seen the IB content in the times I have subbed at my high school, and boy is it hard! Even in my expertise of math, the IB math problems have managed to stump me. This says a lot, because I have two math degrees. At the same time, they're problems that nowhere near resemble what they were like when I was in high school due to the shift to the new Common Core curriculum. I'm sure you heard of it, since if I'm not mistaken pretty much the entire USA has transitioned to this curriculum. If you want my opinion on this curriculum, I don't like it at all and it's too difficult for students, yet it's going to be something that I need to familiarize myself with once I get a permanent full-time position as a math teacher.

The fact that you're from Kentucky might be why you're seeing computers with floppies but I don't here in California, but I'm not certain. Even when I went to my parents' home country of Vietnam a few months ago I didn't see any computers with floppies. So, it's either because the places I'm in don't use them anymore, or I'm just in the wrong part of the country/world. Speaking of Kentucky, I believe my family and I met a nice couple from Kentucky while we were in Vietnam when we went to Ba Na Hills. 

Your knowledge of technology definitely shows. I'm somewhat tech savvy myself, but I didn't even know that laptops go back to the 80s. Then again, the first laptop I did see was in I believe the early 2000s, when I was in middle school, so I can see this making sense. However, it definitely isn't an 80s one (I just looked up images of them, and they looked way different in the 80s), as it looks nowhere near what they were like in the 80s, and I'm kind of certain it didn't have a floppy slot, but this is probably just me not remembering right. At the same time, it was my dad's, so I didn't really get to study it all that much in detail. In any case, ever since I have prominently seen laptops in the 2000s, I have not encountered one with a floppy slot, so it's clear that I haven't seen the really old ones that do have them. 

[The Tomato Watcher]

Now, I don't think I've ever heard of IB before. I certainly know AP by heart, but I've never heard of that. What I was referring to was my school's own advanced program, which is just classes with more work at a faster pace. Usually AP classes are incorporated into it, however. And yes, I have heard of Common Core. I have many, many personal gripes against it... The way they handle math, at all grade levels, is, well, stupid.

I can't say I'm certain about the regional use of floppies this decade , but you're likely right. And I feel like I almost shouldn't know about older technologies as much as I do. I doubt most people my age have done the research I have willingly. Me and my special interests, I guess.

[Flopsy]

I'm also very late to this topic as well it seems. I've been so busy with other things lately that replying on the forums has become neglected for me.

Welcome to the forums kaywhyn, I'm sorry that I didn't formally welcome you when you messaged me a few years back about Revenge of the Lemmings, it didn't occur to me at the time that you were new to the forums.
We've been trying to revive that pack for the new formats of NeoLemmix lately, I launched the project when mobius passed it over to me in the new year then I've passed it onto Proxima since it appeared I didn't have the knowledge and expertise with the pack to make informed decisions on it.

Ironically when I played the Windows 95 version of Lemmings which you refer to as the CDRom version, I never knew about the splat height increase. I always did We All Fall Down the legitimate way and even when I failed, I didn't even wait for the Lemming to splat so I never knew. It didn't even occur to me when I played Steel Works and the Lemmings survived the initial drop from the trapdoor, this was funny because I also owned the SNES version of Lemmings at the time and I didn't even twig then when those Lems splatted from the trapdoor. Anyway I never knew about this splat height increase until I joined this forum back in 2014.

I owned the Amiga version when I was 5 but sadly we didn't have the Amiga for much longer after that but I got to experience the original game for a little while at release (I was born in 1986). I didn't get very far in the game at that time. I didn't get any experience with the game until a few years later where I acquired the SNES version and that was a hard game to plow through. I was stuck at Postcard from Lemmingland for ages, then I have a Cunning Plan, Cascade was even a problem because execution on a SNES controller is awful.
Taxing had problems with Compression Method 1, The Ascending Pillar Scenario and Triple Trouble.
Mayhem I never finished, I got as far as Just A Minute Part 1, while having a lot of trouble with Poles Apart.
I've even played the Game Boy Lemmings and that game is a whole new can of worms, it's a very different experience although watered down. There's even one level which is unsolvable on the EU version of the game (Mayhem 4), USA version is fine. This port is identical level wise and physics wise to the NES version.
I really wish I could LP on YouTube the Gameboy version of Lemmings at some point.

I played through OHNO More Lemmings on the CDRom version so I just did the levels in any order and looked for where there weren't check marks. I do remember There's Madness in the Method, Across the Gap, Looks A Bit Nippy Out There and Scaling the Heights being among the last levels I beat in the game.

On the subject of Floppy disks (nearly wrote Flopsy disk....), I remember the 3.5" ones and I even remember the ones which used to be much bigger and would be used traditionally on BBC computers which were much bigger and were worthy of the title Floppy disk because I think they were able to be bent. A lot of schools I were at in the early days had these BBC computers before upgrading to Acorn Archimedes, which ironically was also an exposure to Lemmings for me, I was able to play Lemmings if I got free time for finishing my work at school.
The computer would be in the classroom and whoever was playing it would have the music on and I'd get to do my school work to the tune of the Lemmings Acorn Archimedes soundtrack. The teacher didn't even mind the music being on, I guess it's because the songs in Lemmings were so catchy.
A lot of the Acorn level codes became common knowledge in school like
IAMNOTGOOD - which allowed you to press space bar to skip levels, needless to say it was abused, whenever someone messed up a level, they would just press spacebar instead of nuking and trying the level again. If you skipped all the way to Mayhem 30 and pressed the spacebar on that level, it would just give you Mayhem 30 again.
DIRTYGIRTY - skipped to Fun Level 30.....seemed a bit pointless because Fun 30 is not a good level and you could just start at Tricky level 1 without a level code.
There was another code which skipped to Fun 21 which is probably a good place to skip to because there are a lot of fun levels from that point to the end of the rank.

I must say if you've beaten every level in Lemmings Reunion then you are far superior to many other solvers on this forum (including myself), I have yet to beat the last 2 ranks of that pack at the time of writing and I don't think I ever will have the patience to do so. I think if you can beat that pack then you are more than qualified to beat a lot of other packs on the forum. I think there are only a few packs which are universally deemed harder than this pack (NepsterLems and Lemmings United come to mind, and you are already playing the latter ).

Don't worry, there are many people on these forums who don't create level packs themselves and are just solving the levels created by others, some turn out to be very good at solving the levels and are among the best solvers on here.
Creating levels isn't for everyone, a lot of people have different styles of creating levels so I find that it you enjoy levels by a certain level creator, you should stick to those for now. If you switch to a pack by a different level creator, you tend to go outside your comfort zone sometimes as soon as you start the level pack I find and it can be quite scary.
On the other hand, making levels or even trying things in the editor can help you discover things you didn't know Lemmings could do so it could increase your solving skills, I've learned a lot from making nearly 2 huge level packs. It has really transformed the way I look at levels nowadays.

Anyway, welcome to the forums and enjoy working your way through the vast amount of custom content we have

[kaywhyn]

Now, I don't think I've ever heard of IB before. I certainly know AP by heart, but I've never heard of that. What I was referring to was my school's own advanced program, which is just classes with more work at a faster pace. Usually AP classes are incorporated into it, however. And yes, I have heard of Common Core. I have many, many personal gripes against it... The way they handle math, at all grade levels, is, well, stupid.

It definitely sounds like Honors courses, which is similar to the discussion on AP and IB, but is not as rigorous as the latter 2, just faster pace like you mentioned. I don't know all the details of IB, but what I do know is that IB stands for International Baccalaureate. It is similar to AP but considerably more difficult. It makes AP look like a pushover, even though AP courses can be just as difficult since they are college preparation courses. Also, in contrast to AP, which is found only in the USA, IB programs are worldwide, both here in the USA and abroad (hence the "international" part of IB). As such, IB is considered much more valuable than AP, although having both certainly doesn't hurt when it comes to applying for colleges/universities. Just be aware that some programs will only accept IB, so this is where it helps to do your research into the schools you would like to apply to and possibly attend in the future. At the same time, not all high schools offer IB, and so you'll essentially only have AP credits to rely on. So far, my alma mater is the only high school in the district to offer IB. Lastly, while AP exams are graded on a scale from 1-5, with a passing of 3 or higher, IB exams are scored on a scale from 1-7, and I believe the passing score is at least a 4 (if not a 4, then at least a 5 for sure).

I don't blame you for hating the Common Core curriculum, as I too hate it but from a teaching perspective. As I have said before, it's way too difficult for students and causing more harm than good. Admittedly, I'm a math person, but even I don't always understand the way elementary schools teach the math under this curriculum. Several months ago, I subbed in an elementary classroom where the math lesson the students were learning for the day uses something called bundling for addition and decomposing for subtraction. When I was going through school once upon a time, under pre-Common Core I learned it as the terms carrying and borrowing, respectively. It's not that I don't understand the content, but rather the way the concepts are taught under Common Core. I hate it myself, but alas it's something that I'll need to teach to students when I get my own classroom. Also, I'm apparently hearing of students learning of math concepts much earlier than usual I. Like I believe students now learn the Triangle Sum Theorem (sum of the 3 angles in a triangle equals 180 degrees) in the 3rd or 4th grade, something I didn't learn in school until at least the 5th grade or later. I'm also seeing divisibility rules being taught in middle school, even though students won't ever need to use it unless they take some kind of number theory course in college.     

And I feel like I almost shouldn't know about older technologies as much as I do. I doubt most people my age have done the research I have willingly. Me and my special interests, I guess.

Definitely nothing wrong with this. Some people are just more curious than others, and the more knowledge you have, the better off you are in general. In the same way that we all have our own interests.

I'm also very late to this topic as well it seems. I've been so busy with other things lately that replying on the forums has become neglected for me.

Welcome to the forums kaywhyn, I'm sorry that I didn't formally welcome you when you messaged me a few years back about Revenge of the Lemmings, it didn't occur to me at the time that you were new to the forums.

Thanks for the welcome, Flopsy! No worries on the lateness. Since the time I messaged you for RoTL, I have been reading the discussions here on the forums in stealth for about the next 2 years before I finally decided to make myself known to the community and make my first post here.

Ironically when I played the Windows 95 version of Lemmings which you refer to as the CDRom version, I never knew about the splat height increase. I always did We All Fall Down the legitimate way and even when I failed, I didn't even wait for the Lemming to splat so I never knew. It didn't even occur to me when I played Steel Works and the Lemmings survived the initial drop from the trapdoor, this was funny because I also owned the SNES version of Lemmings at the time and I didn't even twig then when those Lems splatted from the trapdoor. Anyway I never knew about this splat height increase until I joined this forum back in 2014.

Is the Win95 version really the CD version? Interesting.

Taxing had problems with Compression Method 1, The Ascending Pillar Scenario and Triple Trouble.

Oh man, how could I forget Triple Trouble? That level from Taxing also gave me many problems as a child.

On the subject of Floppy disks (nearly wrote Flopsy disk....), I remember the 3.5" ones and I even remember the ones which used to be much bigger

Oh yes, you're referring to the 5.25" ones that Namida mentioned that can be bent.

I must say if you've beaten every level in Lemmings Reunion then you are far superior to many other solvers on this forum (including myself), I have yet to beat the last 2 ranks of that pack at the time of writing and I don't think I ever will have the patience to do so. I think if you can beat that pack then you are more than qualified to beat a lot of other packs on the forum. I think there are only a few packs which are universally deemed harder than this pack (NepsterLems and Lemmings United come to mind, and you are already playing the latter ).

Well, I'm honored. My solving skills are definitely nowhere near the likes of the masters here, as I don't play the games that rigorously and as such I don't really care too much about the challenges or the talismans. It doesn't mean that I'm not interested in the results, but rather I consider my skills not good enough to even achieve many of them, such as the lose 2 solution of Mayhem 29 Save Me. With me, as long as I solve the level in any way, that's good enough for me. Also, there have been many levels that I really overcomplicated and then I see a replay of another person who solved the same level in a much better and efficient manner than me. Most of the time, I find myself saying, "Omg, I can't believe I never thought of that or that I didn't see that at all!" Currently, I'm stuck on Sun 7 of Nepsterlems and the 17th level of the third rank of Lemmings United, so for the time being I appeared to have hit a roadblock with both packs.

making levels or even trying things in the editor can help you discover things you didn't know Lemmings could do so it could increase your solving skills, I've learned a lot from making nearly 2 huge level packs. It has really transformed the way I look at levels nowadays.

I cannot for the life of me create and put a good puzzle together, although I might still make some attempts at it from time to time.

[Proxima]

It doesn't mean that I'm not interested in the results, but rather I consider my skills not good enough to even achieve many of them, such as the lose 2 solution of Mayhem 29 Save Me.

It should be said that that is one of the hardest max saved challenges, especially to work out from scratch. It requires good knowledge of the glitches involved and an ability to strategise far beyond anything required in the main game. Even the glitch and challenge experts took a while to work that one out for the first time (Also, lose-2 specifically is not possible on all versions of the game, so it depends on what version you are playing.)