NeoLemmix versions of original levels for challenges

[Proxima]

Kind of hard to remember a level I probably only ever played once The rest of the game was so... nothingy after being stuck on Steel Mines of Kessel for ten years. There were some levels, they happened, and I doubt I would remember them at all if it weren't for the forum and revisiting them for challenges

Anyway, namida has provided me with a tool for converting hatches and exits to no-overwrite, so I will be doing that in the next update. I should also move this topic to "In Development" as long as it's a work in progress.

[kaywhyn]

Haha all good man. I'm just messing with you. You do bring up a good point that one time things from a very young age tend to not be remembered, especially if the event is a very obscure one. Even though I'm in my early 30s, I'm already at the point where I'm easily forgetting things these days and so my memory isn't as good as it used to be.

[Minim]

* Hail 12 "Merry Christmaze" is harder (but still possible) due to the deadly ceiling.

Speaking of harder but still possible levels, Frost 12 is also possible with the original layout; However namida already fixed the level by adding an icicle in the top-left hand corner. I was able to resolve it again; attached below is the new NeoLemmix replay file for those interested. Should we stick with the current layout, or revert back to the original?

Changes that I am considering or intend to make:

* Should we combine this and Xmas 91/92 into a single pack?
* On Frost 13 "2 minutes before midnight", I should restore the original level width, since the abrupt cut-off doesn't look good. There may be other cases, but this is the only one that stood out on a quick skim through the pack.

* I agree with this combination. Go for it.
* I think Blizzard 7's width should be restored as well. Some players like to solve the level by bashing into the side wall. Instead they have to try breaking through the ceiling.

[ccexplore]

Considering that challenge solutions are often sensitive to the most minute details of physics anyway (just look at the recent comparisons between MASTER-88's SNES results with ours on DOS Lemmings, and those are actually far more similar physics than NeoLemmix), I suppose there's no need to tweak levels for different ceiling behaviors, as long as the level still remains solvable as-is without too much extra work.

In that light I actually would even wonder whether that principle (ie. avoid changing the level for ceiling differences) should apply even to port-unique levels like some in Genesis Lemmings (again, excluding the very few that truly can't be solved otherwise).  How ports chose to include levels of DMA's design (ie. for Amiga, DOS and Atari ST ports that DMA itself developed) were probably somewhat arbitrary, and it's a little strange to say that if a level happened to get ported then we won't bother to preserve ceiling behaviors, and yet if it happened to have never been ported then maybe we should.

For challenge purposes especially, we don't necessarily have to put much emphasis on the intended or most commonly used solutions, since challenge solutions are often less conventional anyway and may well look nothing like the intended or common solutions.

[Minim]

I know we're still undecided on Holiday, but I'm putting my comments on Original and OhNo out there as reserved. I thought it'd be a good idea for me to check through all of these, while still trying to lean my points towards the lenient side of gameplay changes. I also had a look at the whole thread, and I'll hopefully try and help contribute to one of Proxima's earlier posts (About the Genesis Ceiling category) after I finish checking OhNo. I've already been through it once, but haven't tried all the routes yet.

So, here are my comments for Original, which happen to be concerning the Mayhem levels.

Mayhem 4: Skill selection is always set to bombers when the level starts, but a 100% requirement means it automatically makes them useless. It's annoying having to change to the basher every time I play. So, which shall we go for: Removing the bombers, or lowering the save requirement?

Mayhem 26: This level has one terrain piece in a position which is awkward for the lems about half way through the level. (See attachment below) I placed my bomber as far right as I could after building over the water, but the lems turn when touching that left branch. Adjusting my bomber position one pixel to the left seems to be fine. I propose this little branch either be moved accordingly, or delete it. I realise Fun 21 would be left unchanged but shouldn't be too bad.

23, 28, 29, and 30 are now more interesting under NeoLemmix in different ways. 29 is just about still possible building left of the starting platform, but the exact method without diggers cannot be copied on DOS thanks to left-builder mechanics.


And now the OhNo levels. (Edit: Solved all of them now.) The ones I like to see modified are:

Tame 11: Restore the full width. Looks pretty bad on a 4x zoom with 1366x768 res.
Crazy 7: The screen start should be moved to the left a little bit.
Crazy 11: The screen should be all the way to the right edge where the solvable puzzle is visible.
Wicked 3: The width should be expanded on the left to reveal the full length of the chains at the top.
Havoc 20: The left set of lemmings are exposed, so the screen start should be moved to the left entrance.

[Proxima]

Hey, Proxima. Are you still thinking of updating the pack?

Seriously? I started less than a week ago and you're on my case because I haven't finished yet. I have a life outside Lemmings. It will take as long as it takes.

[Minim]

Hey, Proxima. Are you still thinking of updating the pack?

Seriously? I started less than a week ago and you're on my case because I haven't finished yet. I have a life outside Lemmings. It will take as long as it takes.

Just saw this reply today. Sorry. I didn't mean to word that like it was a pressure post. I tried to introduce it as best as I could, but wasn't aware that first sentence came out short-temepered. I've changed this now.

[ccexplore]

So, here are my comments for Original, which happen to be concerning the Mayhem levels.

Removing bombers from Mayhem 4 seems reasonable.  I'm less convinced about Mayhem 26, challenge solutions are expected to involve moves every now and then that are pixel- and/or timing-precise.  The change could make sense for something like Redux, but seems unnecessary to me for a version of level specifically for challenge purposes.

[Minim]

I can gladly announce that all official levels have been confirmed possible. The "outdated" PSP levels in the attached file is primarily because of the name change to one of the levels. As for the case of "don't have weird overlaps of steel and non-steel", that hasn't been checked properly yet.

* Sunsoft 16 "Here is Mr. Lemming's House" is one example off the top of my head. The steel bits look like circles. The "New Skills" Challenge will be impossible if the steel blocks overwrite the terrain.
* Mayhem 2 "The Boiler Room" is another annoying example. It has steel pixels guarding the exit pillar and inside the blue wall.

Edit: This has been an enjoyable observation game. I've investigated the rest of the Original levels. Here's what I found for the following:

* Fun 24/Mayhem 3 is an unusual one. It has a steel "Tongue" lurking beneath the floating platform near the bottom. However, because there is steel already on top, and that all players will not use this part of the level at all, maybe we should leave this as is?
* Fun 27/Taxing 22: The steel beneath the starting platform is overwritten by slime.
* Fun 29/Mayhem 9 & Mayhem 28: Steel overlapped diagonally by the pyramid and past the exit platform respectively, but because it's so visually obvious, we should leave these ones.
* Mayhem 8: Steel bits lurking right above and to the right of the exit platform, but it's a clear path to the exit so.
* Tricky 9/Mayhem 6: Steel overlapped on the left edge.
* Mayhem 12 & Taxing 21: Left sides particularly.
* Mayhem 15/Tricky 10: A few pixels from the left steel block are overlapped, but lemmings can't access this thanks to the fire's trigger area.
* Taxing 16 & 24: Some of the steel on the ramp is overwritten. Also for 24: The water beneath the chains is off-centre by a pixel to the left.
* Tricky 28: Right side "platform".
* Fun 21/Mayhem 26
* Mayhem 18
* Tricky 4/Taxing 7
* Taxing 2

Completely irrelevant to this, but on Taxing 4 the trigger area for the right spikes trap doesn't overlap the wall unlike the one on the left, allowing climbers to climb all the way up. However, there are no climbers in this level anyway so not sure.

[ccexplore]

@Minim:  can you remind me where you are downloading the NeoLemmix conversion you looked at, so I can check things out for myself?  Also, do you think your post above (and then my reply here) might be better suited moved to Proxima's "NeoLemmix versions of original levels for challenges" topic?

Thanks for the due diligence. Regarding for the examples you mentioned so far, I've checked the original levels in Lemmix level editor, and would eventually like to see the same NeoLemmix levels you were looking at to compare.  With that in mind, comments so far (w/o seeing the actual NeoLemmix levels):

edit:  in process of updating replies here, now that I've actually had a chance to look at the NeoLemmix levels in question.  Updated sections will be marked [updated].  Sections not yet updated should be disregarded for now, as they may not actually reflect the reality of the NeoLemmix levels in question.  Sorry for the confusion.

Sunsoft 16

[updated]Huh, that's an interesting arrangement, didn't notice the very irregular treatment they've done with the steel.  It's really hard to tell visually whether there's actually a gap in the steel and whether it can be breached with sufficient fencer uses.

Personally I'm leaning towards just having regular, fully square steel blocks there matching the steel areas in the original level (ie. resulting in no breachable gaps).  Admittedly that will kill off the level for new-skills challenge (not involving extreme utilization of nuking).  But I'm not really opposed to the other way either.  I'm now more convinced to change it to regular, fully square steel blocks and not allow the possibility of breaching through that small gap.  It's not possible in the original (since the steel areas fully cover that part of the level), but with the given skills, the gap in NeoLemmix definitely looks exploitable, and at the same time I don't get a strong sense that there was ever any intent for breaching through that area to be a viable solution.

Mayhem 2 "The Boiler Room" is another annoying example. It has steel pixels guarding the exit pillar and inside the blue wall.

[updated] Interesting find!  So apparently, it looks like the level designer used the steel plate graphics to fill up the natural tiny dents in the pillar and the wall in question, so that it's perfectly vertical without dents.  Technically bits of steel plates are exposed through the dents being filled, but the intent is clear, they were never meant to be real steel (and had no steel areas in the original level, obviously).  The rest of steel that's obscured by the pillar/wall graphics remain non-steel as intended.

This needs to be fixed.  Thankfully I believe it's easy enough to do so by replacing the use of steel plates with, say, the gray circle terrain graphic, to perform the same job of filling up those tiny dents.

Fun 24/Mayhem 3 is an unusual one. It has a steel "Tongue" lurking beneath the floating platform near the bottom.

[updated]  Good eye! It was really hard to spot even in CPM thanks to its poor choice of colors for terrain vs steel. There is no tongue of any kind in the original because the steel areas actually don't align perfectly with terrain (as is typical, due to the multiples-of-4 technical requirement).  In the original level the entire bottommost row of pixels of the floating pool are terrain (ie. not covered by the steel areas), even though their pixels do all come from the steel plates.

While I agree the "tongue" is really tiny and at a location that's probably not very exploitable, it's really weird to be there and should be fixed.  Given how small it is, I don't believe it'll be hard to get rid of the tongue.

It's also ironically a prime counterexample to the current system's supposed virtue (not that I'm opposed to it, but counterexamples like this needs to be highlighted nonetheless, to illustrate it's not always that simple).  The system presumes that what-you-see-is-what-you-get and therefore more honest.  But I'd wager that no human eyes would've spotted that tiny tongue of apparently exposed steel there without help from CPM.  So for most people what they think they see is not quite actually what they are getting.

Fun 27/Taxing 22: The steel beneath the starting platform is overwritten by slime.

[updated]Thanks to the acid, I'm reasonably sure there is no meaningful exploit of the steel being no longer extending all the way to the bottom.  That said, as a side effect that does open the possibility of exposing the right edge of the acid object via terrain removal, though that's not something you'd naturally do for any typical challenge solutions.

So I can go either way, and laziness suggests leaving it as-is.

Fun 29/Mayhem 9 & Mayhem 28: Steel overlapped diagonally by the pyramid and past the exit platform respectively, but because it's so visually obvious, we should leave these ones.

[updated]Agree, let's leave those as-is, especially for the pyramid in Fun 29/Mayhem 9.

Mayhem 8: Steel bits lurking right above and to the right of the exit platform, but it's a clear path to the exit so.

[updated]Interesting.  Obviously no functional steel areas there in the original level.  The steel are barely visible, and clearly the level designer was merely exploiting the few exposed red pixels of the left/bottom edges of the steel plates, in order to simulate the effect of a red glow of the exit's flames against the gray rocks.

I'd almost go as far as examining whether to try replacing all the steel plates there with other terrain (plus eraser pieces) to end up with the exact same pixels color-wise to get the same visual effect, but without using any steel plates, so that there is no odd-looking functional steel there at all.  That said, the amount of exposed and therefore functional steel is so small, it's unlikely to be exploitable for anything, so probably fine to leave them all in?

Tricky 9/Mayhem 6: Steel overlapped on the left edge.

[updated]That's quite isolated and out of the way.  Seems fine to leave it as-is (so the rocks remove the functional steel where it overlaps), it seems preferable visually, compared to making the entire steel plate be drawn on top of the rocks.

Mayhem 12 & Taxing 21: Left sides particularly.

[updated]I can go either way with Mayhem 12, even visually, since most of the steel in the level (except for the area you noted) are actually drawn fully on top of rocks.  It's another case where the overlapping terrain removing some of the steel doesn't seem very exploitable so leaving as-is seems fine, though it's not so clear in this case whether even visually it matters.

As for Taxing 21, it's really hard to imagine that tiny bit of overlap is intended even visually, it really feels like the level designer forgot to set no-overwrite to the non-steel to keep it behind the steel plate.  I'm inclined to fix it so it doesn't take out any of the steel, just like there's no irregularities in the original level with steel areas.

Mayhem 15/Tricky 10: A few pixels from the left steel block are overlapped, but lemmings can't access this thanks to the fire's trigger area

[updated  Interesting, so apparently the steel plate on the left pillar is misaligned one pixel to the left.  Normally for any other purposes I would move the steel block one over, but for challenge purposes I'm tempted to leave the misalignment as-is so it matches how the level really was in the original.

In the original, the steel area nevertheless still extends past the full width of the pillar.  To preserve that in NeoLemmix while also preserving the misalignment of the steel plate, I'm considering adding a second steel plate there (behind the one that's already there, but in front of the pillar's terrain)

The little bit of terrain that actually ate away a tiny part of the steel plate, that seems like a mistake to me given an almost identical setup is done for the stuff between the middle and right pillars, but in that setup the terrain remains fully behind the steel and does not affect it.  I'd want to fix it.

Taxing 16 & 24: Some of the steel on the ramp is overwritten. Also for 24: The water beneath the chains is off-centre by a pixel to the left.

Tricky 28: Right side "platform"

Sounds like yet more cases of NeoLemmix not respecting no-overwrite with its handling of steel plates overlapping with other terrain.  In the original all the steel plates in question are fully visible and not obscured by any other terrain as far as I can tell.

Fun 21/Mayhem 26

Seems ok and not very exploitable to let the terrain remove some of the functional steel.  I also see some steel-plates-used-as-eraser-pieces which shouldn't be treated as functional steel.

Finally, interestingly in the original level, there is a bare steel area (ie. not overlapping with any actual steel plates) spanning from left of the bridge all the way past the exit).  I believe it's there to (try to) prevent the player from bombing out the terrain resulting in visually exposing the edges of the water object there.  (Although given the original game's poor steel handling, I'm pretty sure you can still set things up to bomb away enough terrain to expose the water object's edges, despite the added steel areas.)  There's no good way to put visual steel plates there to achieve that function in NeoLemmix without adversely affecting the visuals, so I think I'd rather leave it as-is with no steel there in NeoLemmix, even if it means you can, indeed, bomb out terrain and expose the edges of the water object.

Mayhem 18

Taxing 2

Again, a quick glance looks ok to leave things as-is and let terrain remove some of the functional steel.

Tricky 4/Taxing 7

The shape formed by the steel plates is a key visual element, so definitely should leave as-is, once all the mosses are removed so the "ship" isn't so full of cracks.

on Taxing 4 the trigger area for the right spikes trap doesn't overlap the wall unlike the one on the left, allowing climbers to climb all the way up. However, there are no climbers in this level anyway so not sure.

Actually, at least looking at the DOS version, the left trap's trigger is still 1 pixel away from the wall, so I think both walls are climbable (except for lack of climbers given to the level).  That said, it does feel like this is begging for a slight adjustment in the traps' positions so their trigger areas do touch the walls.

Looking at the version you created a while back for the "new skills" challenge, it looks like you did fix the positions of the spike traps?  However, I also noticed you replaced the spike traps with the smaller versions.  While that would match the abnormally small trigger areas in DOS version, it should be noted that on SNES (and therefore probably Amiga, though I haven't tested yet), the regular "big" spike traps do have larger trigger areas that are more in line visually with the spikes.  It seems NeoLemmix had also fixed the large spike traps so their trigger areas basically match Amiga versions.  So I'd say we shouldn't replace the spike traps with the "small" versions.  The abnormally small trigger area in DOS is arguably a bug, it's certainly misleading relative to the visuals of the spikes.

[Minim]

@Minim:  can you remind me where you are downloading the NeoLemmix conversion you looked at, so I can check things out for myself?  Also, do you think your post above (and then my reply here) might be better suited moved to Proxima's "NeoLemmix versions of original levels for challenges" topic?

It's the OP from this thread.

As for Taxing 21, I can't find what steel you are referring to?  The visible ones forming the walls of the "pit" where the exit lies, I don't see any overlaps with terrain?

It is one of the long pieces on the exit platform overlapping the middle steel block on the left side. Given that access is mostly blocked by the fire's trigger area, leaving as is isn't a bad idea.

Looking at the version you created a while back for the "new skills" challenge, it looks like you did fix the positions of the spike traps?  However, I also noticed you replaced the spike traps with the smaller versions.  While that would match the abnormally small trigger areas in DOS version, it should be noted that on SNES (and therefore probably Amiga, though I haven't tested yet), the regular "big" spike traps do have larger trigger areas that are more in line visually with the spikes.  It seems NeoLemmix had also fixed the large spike traps so their trigger areas basically match Amiga versions.  So I'd say we shouldn't replace the spike traps with the "small" versions.  The abnormally small trigger area in DOS is arguably a bug, it's certainly misleading relative to the visuals of the spikes.

I don't remember myself modifying the spike traps. This might be a case of two users downloading different versions of these levels.

[ccexplore]

As for Taxing 21, I can't find what steel you are referring to?  The visible ones forming the walls of the "pit" where the exit lies, I don't see any overlaps with terrain?

It is one of the long pieces on the exit platform overlapping the middle steel block on the left side. Given that access is mostly blocked by the fire's trigger area, leaving as is isn't a bad idea.

I see.  So another case where NeoLemmix doesn't seem to honor no-overwrite when deaiing with steel overlapping with non-steel.  As a matter of principle this should be fixed or worked around.  The steel plate is fully visible and should therefore be functionally steel throughout its entire square area.

I don't remember myself modifying the spike traps. This might be a case of two users downloading different versions of these levels.

You're right, that was an unwarranted assumption.  Anyway, it was the level taken from attachments in the first post of the challenge thread.  I believe you only updated the skillset of each level.  I guess the level itself originally came from the formerly-official set of levels that namida used to maintain but no longer?  Wonder who made the edits then.

[ccexplore]

Ok, I've had a chance to start looking at the NeoLemmix versions of levels, and finally got a clearer understanding of what's happening.  To summarize, so far where I've looked, NeoLemmix is handling things all as expected.  It's just that sometimes the steel that looks like is completely hidden, actually had tiny bits of exposed pixels, and vice versa.

I'm going to start editing my earlier reply post to account for what the actual differences are as seen in NeoLemmix.  I'll make it clear when I've finished the edits there.  Sorry for the confusion and the apparently unwarranted digs at NeoLemmix regarding steel handling.

Aside:  can user customize the colors used for clear physics mode?  At least in the editor?  The light gray vs dark gray for terrain vs steel is utterly horrible contrast for spotting the kinds of things Minim is pointing out, so much for "clear".    The old Lemmix editor uses blue for steel which wouldn't have this problem.

[Proxima]

I have updated the PSP levels again. (Download link is in the post below this.)

* All trapdoors and exits have been set to no-overwrite, except for the trapdoor in "No justice for the hero".
* The levels now use the new feature that allows tracks to be selected randomly. Each style has three associated tracks, and each level will select randomly from the tracks for its style. (I understand this is how the actual PSP version works, although the PSP music folder also contains three tracks called "oldtune" 1, 2 and 3. Under this system, these tracks will never play. Does anyone happen to know which levels they are meant to play on?)

This download doesn't actually include the music -- I'm just posting the levels themselves as and when each group is done in case anyone notices any changes that need to be made. Once I am ready to put the whole pack together, it will include all the relevant music.

[Proxima]

I've gone through everything in the old "Extra Levels" pack -- there weren't too many changes needed here. These won't be called "Extra Levels" any more; now that NL supports more complex pack structures, these will be groups that are each part of the main "Original Lemmings" pack, and some of them will contain subgroups.

Changelog:

Genesis

* "Two ponds" has the rightmost trapdoor doubled, not the middle one as on the old version.
* Replaced trapdoors and exits in the special graphics levels with the level-specific versions.
* Instances of crystal trap 3 (the "POOR WEE CREATURES" trap) have been raised one pixel for visibility. (The actual Genesis version has these traps even higher, but then they would be inert on NL. I placed them on the highest pixel where they will be triggered, as in Redux.)

Present / Sunsoft

* No changes needed, other than the crystal trap just mentioned.

Sega (SMS)

* Renamed the folder to "SMS" to avoid confusion, since the Genesis is also a Sega console.

2P

* Levels have been sorted into subgroups for Lemmings, ONML and Genesis, each with the correct music.
* Lemmings 2P levels arranged into the correct order.
* Genesis 2 and 3 were both called "A task for blockers and bomber". While that is their authentic title, I don't like having two levels in the same rank with the same title, so I renamed Level 3 to "Graffiti" (since it is the equivalent of the Amiga 2P level with that title).

Other Levels

* "Going Their Separate Ways" replaced with an authentic rip from Macintosh Lemmings, the same as in yesterday's update to Lemmings Redux.
* Trimmed a lot of unused space from "The Apple Computer Level".