Which pack is the next to play? Need your recommendations!

Armani · October 31, 2020, 08:15:31 AM

I'm playing many various level pack from many different authors these days. And I once again, need some recommendations on which pack to play next. Here's the list of the packs I've played so far(in chronological order) and my personal opinions on them.

Dovelems - Dovelem is indeed a great pack without doubt. The pack has very classic type of levels : most of the level use only classic 8 skills and L1 styles.(iirc, there were few levels featuring new neolemmix skills.) The pack starts with very easy levels and the levels get harder and harder toward the final rank. This was the first custom pack I completed.

Pimolems - Similar to dovelem, it starts with mild levels but get quite challenging toward the end.(I myself think Pimolem's most difficult levels are slightly more difficult than those of the Dovelems.) And it is a very traditional type of pack too. And the level "Prisoners of the Pun" from the Hurricane rank is still one of my all-time favorite levels.

Geofflems - It's maybe the easiest pack of this list. The pack gave me the idea of what makes "good easy level" I think making a good easy level is as hard as making a good challenging level.

Lemmings Reunion - Starting with very easy tutorial levels, difficulty increases a lot and ends with very challenging levels. Along with the Nepsterlems, the pack shows it is possible to make very difficult levels only with classic skills, which was quite surprising to me.

Yippee! More Lemmings - This is the first complete pack that features shimmier.(which is my favorite skill!) The pack is not that difficult and the difficulty curve is quite smooth. I very much enjoyed the shimmier levels("Tarzan and Jane" and "Signs to guide you" come to my mind), and I even nominate several levels to LOTY2019.

Xmas Lemmings 2019 : This was the first pack of which I was a pre-tester! Beautiful aesthetic is the strong point of the pack and I also nominate several levels to LOTY2019.

Lemmings United : Ironically, this is the first custom pack I played. I found Ichotolot's youtube videos(creator's commentary on Pacifism rank of the Lemmings United) and registered to this forum to download the pack. I completed first two rank and asked Ichotolot to recommend me some easier packs to play. And those were the Dovelems, Pimolems and Lemmings reunion.
The pack is notorious for its insane difficulty. But I think the first rank is quite manageable to everyone on this forum and the overall difficulty curve is not that steep. So if you are hesitating to play Lemmings United because of its difficulty, I strongly recommend you to actually play the pack.

Lemminas - The pack has musics composed by Willem himself, styles and also Lemminas sprites! It was slightly more difficult than his previous pack; Xmas lemmings 2019.

Lemmings Plus Alpha and Omega2 - LP Alpha is a small pack with only 45 levels equally divided into 3 ranks. Even the first rank is not easy though and difficulty increases quickly. "Troublesome Trio Go To Hell" from the final rank is one of my all-time favorite levels and I even made a level inspired by this. LP Omega2 start with much easier levels than LP Alpha and ends with as difficult levels as LP Alpha.

Lemmings Destination - I really loved Nessy's LOTY2019 nominated levels so I wanted to play his levels more! First rank is not that easy compared to other custom packs. But it's difficulty curve is smooth until the 4th rank and the 5th rank has quite a few hard nuts in it. I'm now waiting for Nessy to fix my backroutes before I play the pack again.

Godlems - It's a very small pack with only 15 levels, and overall difficulty is not so high in my opinion. But the final rank has some hard nuts, and I was really impressed by one of them ; "Hard4 Godlem". It's a small pack so if you want to play a medium-difficulty pack but you don't have enough time to play a huge pack, I would recommend Godlem to you.

Lemmings Open Air - It's still in pre-testing phase, so I don't want to spoil much about the pack. This is the first pack for me to features recently added skill : jumper and I've enjoyed a lot so far!

NepsterLems - This is one of the hardest pack I've played so far.(maybe be the second or third) NepsterLems break my firm belief that it is impossible to make challenging level with only classic skills. And also, most of the levels are small in size and provide very limited skills, but they're still very difficult.

And I'm playing Lemmings Plus 5 recently. I've completed first 3 ranks so far. I'm looking forward to play final level of the pack since I really enjoyed Ichotolot's contest level "Tribute to V".

So, these are the packs I've played. Any kind of recommendation will be very much appreciated. Personally, I almost enjoy every kind of levels. Difficulty doesn't matter at all, I both love traditional levels and brand new levels that full of Neolemmix skills and objects. The only thing matter to me is that I want to remain in New NL formats since I want new NL's technical stuffs.

Proxima · October 31, 2020, 08:50:24 AM

MazuLems is one pack that everyone should play, for the historical context if nothing else, but it also has some great puzzles in it. It's one of the earliest custom packs and contains the first appearance of several tricks that would become standard. You'll breeze through it

I would highly recommend Insane Steve's World, Clammings and The Lemmings Strike Again, all "best of" packs for their respective authors. I haven't fully completed any of them, but they all have really top-notch level design.

Naturally, I would be happy if you played TMChallenge, my only released pack for NL (other than Redux). I have a pack in progress, GemLems, but it won't be finished any time soon.

kaywhyn · October 31, 2020, 10:52:32 AM

Check out Deceit's Lemmings as well. Pretty good pack. Not too difficult until you get into the Taxing/Mayhem rankings, just like the original Lemmings. I have only played it in Lemmix, but the NL version should have the exact same levels and everything. I believe there might had been some changes to account for some changed physics, such as deadly ceiling, in order for all the levels to remain solvable.

Quote from: Armani on October 31, 2020, 08:15:31 AM
Lemmings United : Ironically, this is the first custom pack I played. I found Ichotolot's youtube videos(creator's commentary on Pacifism rank of the Lemmings United) and registered to this forum to download the pack. I completed first two rank and asked Ichotolot to recommend me some easier packs to play. And those were the Dovelems, Pimolems and Lemmings reunion.
The pack is notorious for its insane difficulty. But I think the first rank is quite manageable to everyone on this forum and the overall difficulty curve is not that steep. So if you are hesitating to play Lemmings United because of its difficulty, I strongly recommend you to actually play the pack.

Lemmings United wasn't the first custom pack I played (it was Dovelems), but it was the very first custom pack I played on NL. Prior to taking on the pack, I had completed Dovelems, Pimolems, and Lemmings Reunion, all on Lemmini, and so having already beaten two difficult packs, I felt like I would be able to handle United just fine despite having used Lemmini/Superlemmini for 4-5 years before switching to NL and never having trained myself with the new skills/NL features. Still got pretty far in the pack before encountering my very first roadblock with Neutrality 7.

Quote
NepsterLems - This is one of the hardest pack I've played so far.(maybe be the second or third) NepsterLems break my firm belief that it is impossible to make challenging level with only classic skills. And also, most of the levels are small in size and provide very limited skills, but they're still very difficult.

I'm still playing through Nepsterlems. Currently held back with BH 1. At this point, it'll be really amazing if I manage to solve even just one level in the BH rank. I prefer to play levels in order, though, and so I generally will not jump around in a pack.

Swerdis · October 31, 2020, 01:30:30 PM

To add my 50 cents, I support Proxima and recommend "Insane Steve's world." I completed it in January this year and if I had to create a ranking of my favourite packs, it would occupy the top position. It makes use of more than the nine standard graphic sets and has - at least in my opinion - really good music. In terms of difficulty, it's harder than GeoffLems, DoveLems or SubLems (except for the two levels there I couldn't solve :-)), but easier than packs like SEB Lems, Nepster Lems or United. It makes use of some very nifty tricks, though, which I didn't find in any other pack so far.

namida · October 31, 2020, 06:16:12 PM

If you enjoyed the zombie levels in LPO2 (or any other packs where you've encountered them), add Doomsday Lemmings to your list at some point. (But avoid it if you're not so keen on zombies, as it's specifically "a pack of zombie levels".)

kaywhyn · October 31, 2020, 06:26:52 PM

Quote from: Swerdis on October 31, 2020, 01:30:30 PM
To add my 50 cents, I support Proxima and recommend "Insane Steve's world."

You just reminded me that I still need to finish up this pack. I started playing and stopped playing after a few levels for some reason. I consider this unacceptable for myself, leaving unfinished stuff on the table. In any case, I would love to eventually play all packs that are available on NL (both Old Formats and New Formats), as well as SL.

Before this, I have played his 10 level custom packs on Dos years ago. There were 1 or a few with some levels that I couldn't beat entirely back then, but once I came back and revisited them, I was able to get by them. I remember one with a really clever nuke solution that I eventually figured out. I also remember there was one really frustrating level that was very tight on time. I don't remember the level name, but it was a crystal level and involved a lot of precise bombing. I believe both of these levels were in the same pack.

In any case, I can attest to Steve's levels/packs being quite great.

Armani · November 02, 2020, 03:45:07 AM

Wow. That's a lot of packs!

MazuLems
Insane Steve's World
Clammings
The Lemmings Strike Again
TMChallenge
Deceit's Lemmings
Doomsday Lemmings

All added to my to-play list. Thank you all!
It will take some time but I will eventually play them all

WillLem · November 04, 2020, 02:45:14 AM

Good luck with all those packs Armani! Have you thought about doing some LPs so we can see your solving skills in action? I for one would love to watch and learn!

Armani · November 06, 2020, 03:44:50 AM

Quote from: WillLem on November 04, 2020, 02:45:14 AM
Good luck with all those packs Armani! Have you thought about doing some LPs so we can see your solving skills in action? I for one would love to watch and learn!

Thanks a lot

I planned to do some LPs while I was playing Lemmings United, and I actually uploaded some videos before.
But I delete them all and I think there will be no LPs from me in the near future for some reasons. (There was noticeable lag on my old laptop when OBS is working, my English is not fluent enough to make interesting LP videos, I'm very bad at editing videos.. etc)