[NeoLemmix] Lemmings Uncharted (In development)

[Armani]

Update 12/09/20 : [36/100 levels completed]

I'm working on my first lemmings level pack.



Lemmings Uncharted

- Featuring new Neolemmix skills including shimmier and jumper. And if final 20th skill is implemented before the release, this pack will also feature that final new skill.
- 100 levels divided into 5 ranks (so 20 levels per rank)
- Focus on original L1 and L2 graphic sets and less than 5 levels per rank with custom tilesets by various authors.
- Covering wide range of difficulty : From easy levels that are no more difficult than original game to very challenging levels that require you hard thinking.
- Aiming for a early 2021 release - I have a lot of level ideas in mind but no time to makes them into real lemmings levels now. After I finish my military duty in August, I will roll up my sleeves and get to work



Difficulties
(I haven't decided names of the rank yet)

Rank1

King's Cove :

No introduction levels, few X of everything levels and you will get some puzzle levels very soon. But don't worry. I can assure you that the overall difficulty of this rank will not go beyond the original game.


Rank2

Secretly! Greatly! :

You will encounter slightly more complex terrain and skills combinations. Most of the levels will not be 'anyway you want' levels. But there will no very difficult levels yet.

Rank3

Snow Flower :


From now, you require more thinking. It's getting heavier and sometimes you need to find some totally new tricks to clear the levels.

Rank4

Price of Progess :

Your puzzling power will be tested seriously now. Most of the skills need to be used for multiple usage and the solutions are very unobvious and hidden.

Rank5

The Strategist :

This rank features the toughest puzzle I could make. Several levels will takes days or even weeks to solve. But, you will get satisfying feeling of accomplishment after these ultimate challenge. Keep in mind that you never fail until you stop trying!




Edit:

This pack is now released :
https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5702.0

[NieSch]

Cool! I'm looking forward to it, although I'm sure I will get stuck on the first rank!

[namida]

Oooh, a level pack from the guy who solved United... this is going to be something to see for sure! I'm looking forward to it (though I have my doubts that I'll be able to complete it).

[Strato Incendus]

These look great! Definitely something I'll have to take a look at once you upload some demo levels.

I wasn't aware you had beaten Lemmings United! That explains how you were able to give such detailed and valuable feedback to my in-development pack Lemmings Open Air. So of course, I look forward to returning the favour - if I can...

[IchoTolot]

Well, that's 100% going on my to-play-list.

[Armani]

Some more levels Showcase!

Bee Careful! They Sting! :


System Malfunction :


Fun fact : Both level give you very limited consructive and destructive skills with several jumpers

[Armani]

I had a creation week and hit the 30 level mark.
Here're some more levels showcase.

Crystal Clear :


Simple one of everything levels that will be located in the first rank.


Dead Lems Society :


This level require certain shimmier trick that I found recently.
You can preview the trick in one of my LDC#21 levels when the playing phase start.
I made the set up easy in my contest level, so you won't have too much problem finding the trick yourself!

Kiwi Pie :


The save requirement of this level is less than 10%.
You need to make a safe path before the traps kill all your lemmings.



And I'm thinking of increasing the total levels from 100 to 120.
Maybe I'll left 5 main rank as is and add a bonus rank consisting of 20 levels.
And they will all features 20th new skills that will be implemented later.

[Strato Incendus]

You clearly pay much more attention to designing the visual details of levels than I do. I never would have had the patience to e.g. place all those small green pieces of grass in the dirt level "Dead Lems Society". But it looks awesome! Certainly time worth putting in!

As I said in my previous post here, of course I'd be interested in playtesting this pack once it's complete. Note that the only other pack I've playtested so far was Lemmings United... and I didn't get beyond the first rank, so my testing probably wasn't all too helpful for IchoTolot (but at least I've found some backroutes on the first rank, so better than nothing ). Maybe I was a little harsh on myself back then for being frustrated that I couldn't test more of the pack - little did I know that I was part of a group of players testing the most difficult pack in history.

So I hope this one is going to turn out at least slightly easier than United. If it's as difficult as NepsterLems, that will already be tough, but I've started making progress into the final ranks of that pack, so I probably wouldn't be completely lost.

And I'm thinking of increasing the total levels from 100 to 120.
Maybe I'll left 5 main rank as is and add a bonus rank consisting of 20 levels.
And they will all features 20th new skills that will be implemented later.

Ah yeah, same as with Lemmings Hall of Fame for me. So that means it's still going to be a while until the first test version is available, I assume.

120 levels sounds completely fine to me - just as long as the original. Everything beyond that can become quite tedious, especially if the average difficulty of the levels is very high.

NepsterLems only has 111 leves, and it already feels very long because the average player needs to spend so much time on every single level.

My first own pack, Paralems, may have had 150 levels, but it's an absolute joke with regards to difficulty. The second pack, Pit Lems, I made deliberately shorter (100 levels only), because it was intended to be more puzzling.
Then of course I made Lemmicks (170 levels) and Lemmings World Tour (320 levels), revealing that I'm a total hypocrite when advocating for shorter level packs.
The reason those packs became so long was because of the spectrum I wanted to cover (large choice of gimmicks and a large variety of geographical locations / song titles, respectively). The puzzle difficulty of Lemmicks was also rather accidental; I was expecting the gimmicks to make the pack more whacky and weird, like Paralems. And with Lemmings World Tour, the puzzle challenge always came second to music and aesthetics (which one player also criticised).

Most level designers tend to prioritise the puzzle challenge over everything else ("top-down" level design). And with you having solved United, I assume this is the case for this pack as well.
Even though these levels look astonishingly pretty, so maybe terrain shape and visuals indeed come first for you, and you develop the solution based on that ("bottom-up" level design)?



It's quite fascinating what makes a level pretty when its shape is still an "abstract" one, rather than depicting anything specific or "realistic", as e.g. Colorful Arty likes to do in his levels (where he e.g. painted a train, a toad, a robot etc. with level tiles). Those levels, just like my geography levels, can be judged in aesthetics based on their degree of realism - how accurately they portray what they set out to depict.

In case of abstract level shapes, however, "pretty" seems to arise more from simply a nice mixture of colours, and large chunks of terrain filling out the screen in a satisfying manner.

[Armani]

Let me showcase one more level.
So far, I spent more time to make this level than any other levels.(about 3.5 hours)

Rhythmical :

As I said in my previous post here, of course I'd be interested in playtesting this pack once it's complete. Note that the only other pack I've playtested so far was Lemmings United... and I didn't get beyond the first rank, so my testing probably wasn't all too helpful for IchoTolot (but at least I've found some backroutes on the first rank, so better than nothing ). Maybe I was a little harsh on myself back then for being frustrated that I couldn't test more of the pack - little did I know that I was part of a group of players testing the most difficult pack in history.

Thanks for the offer!
I haven't think of releasing demo version of the pack yet to be honest. I've only made about 30 levels which is very far to the total 120 levels. And as you already mention, I want my pack to feature final 20th Neolemmix skill so it will take some time until the test version is ready.

I haven't played Nepsterlem so I can't say much about that. But I assume my pack will be easier than United. I personally think some of my easiest levels are much easier than those of United and some of my hardest levels are a little bit easier than those of United so far. (If I were to put my contest levels in this pack, I will put them in around 3rd rank assuming that you've played any of my contest levels.)

Most level designers tend to prioritise the puzzle challenge over everything else ("top-down" level design). And with you having solved United, I assume this is the case for this pack as well.
Even though these levels look astonishingly pretty, so maybe terrain shape and visuals indeed come first for you, and you develop the solution based on that ("bottom-up" level design)?

It depends actually, but I lean towards "bottom-up" level design imo. (maybe about 7:3..?) For the majority of the level, I have a clear image of what it will finally looks like before I started to build up something, and carve out some puzzles after that. Among the levels I've showcased in this post, "Kings Cove", "Snow Flower", "Bee Careful! They Sting!", "Crystal Clear" and "Rhythmical" are made in this way.

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks for providing some insight on your level design approach!

So far, I spent more time to make this level than any other levels.(about 3.5 hours)

I can imagine! I assume a majority of that time went into carving out those musical notation signs?

Since we spoke about NepsterLems, I know that Nepster's level "A study in scarlet" (quite a visually striking one, being made entirely of red square blocks) was actually pieced together out of the red letters from the original Fire tileset and then cutting away excess by using the erase-terrain feature. I guess this was done because NepsterLems was developed when only original tilesets were available (or even in a completely different engine than NeoLemmix?). Today it would be much easier to create such a level made out of red square tiles using e.g. the L2 Circus tileset.

I haven't played Nepsterlem so I can't say much about that. But I assume my pack will be easier than United. I personally think some of my easiest levels are much easier than those of United and some of my hardest levels are a little bit easier than those of United so far. (If I were to put my contest levels in this pack, I will put them in around 3rd rank assuming that you've played any of my contest levels.)

No, I haven't engaged with the level design contest at all. I prefer to play complete packs instead of these "community compilations". I did play some Level-of-the-Year nominees a while ago, but none from the regular level design contests. So feel free to put your contest levels in the pack, and I will be able to approach them with a fresh mind and completely "unbiased"!

[Armani]

I notice that I haven't updated any of my progress here in the topic for a long time. although I I post some updates on discord.

I managed to get up to around 90+ levels. :
- Aries : 20/19
- Gemini : 20/19
- Leo : 20/19
- Libra : 20/17
- Aquarius : 20/18
(Yes, I took the rank names from astrological signs. )

The pack would have 10~15 levels featuring new skills.(slider/laserer)
So after the stable version with new skills is out, I think I can release my first pack sooner or later.

what I still need to do :
- make 8 more levels(including epic final level )
- give some nice titles for 50+ untitled levels.(This is the thing that keep me up at night these days.)
- search for some bgms that will make you hyped.
- make logo/rank signs/backgrounds etc.

The overall difficulty is a lot harder than I originally planned.
First three ranks would have [Medium~Hard] difficulty and there's a huge difficulty spike between 3rd and 4th rank.
So probably [Very Hard~] for 4th rank.
And there's another HUGE difficulty spike between 4th and final rank.
So for now, I'm planning to put difficulty description as [Medium~Extreme]
Of course this difficulty description could be changed later based on feedbacks.
I wanted to have my pack to have smooth difficulty curve but it seems like I failed successfully

I want to release this pack as soon as possible, especially since I will be busier from the end of this year due to university stuffs.
So there will be no demo version, no pre-test, and I will just release the full pack immediately when it is ready.


What's next?

I had an idea of making a easier pack.
Here're rough plan for the pack :

- Have 4 ranks and each rank has 20 levels.
- Difficulty is [Easy~Hard] and levels would increase in difficulty in one rank but difficulty is reset every rank.
- First rank has only the classic 8 skills and uses only L1 tilesets.
- Second rank has classic 8 skills + original 8 additions and uses only L2 tileset.
- Third rank has every skill other than slider/laserer and uses only custom tileset.
- Final rank has no limit. It has every skill and uses all kinds of tilesets.

This is only a rough plan so everything can change at any moment for no reason.

[NieSch]

Exciting stuff. I'm sure this will be a great pack. (And way too hard for me.)

[kaywhyn]

Must be very exciting to be so close to the end now. I'm getting quite excited to be trying the pack really soon once it's released, although I'll likely end up struggling a lot with it. You currently have it advertised as a difficulty slightly less than United, but truthfully from my experiences I consider almost all the levels of yours I have played so far harder than Icho's, and that says a lot coming from me In any case, I don't mind really hard levels, as they're my type of levels that I like playing, but I certainly will not expect this pack to be a quick solve. I'm certain it will keep me busy for a while, considering I'll likely get stumped frequently and for long periods of time.

Anyway, thanks for the update, and looking forward to the release!