[NeoLemmix] Lemmings Open Air [Difficulty: Medium - Hard]

[kaywhyn]

Indeed, when I pre-tested the pack, I struggled for a good 10 minutes with Soft 7 and thought this level is a huge step up in difficulty and definitely will be for less experienced players. The first part wasn't the problem, but the second part I thought was difficult, but that's likely because I ended up inflicting a lot of extreme pixel precision.

You can do this! Just don't give up.

[ericderkovits]

Ok, I solved 7, this one was just a matter of timing. I didn't even notice your hints until I solved it. I just knew it was a timing one.

Anyways here is my replay for soft 7

Yes the first part was easy, the 2nd part was tricky to get the lead lemming far enough away from the pack like Strato said

EDIT: Oh, I forgot my soft 6, here it is then

UPDATE: Ok I solved it without timing, but builder mechanics. included this replay too

[WouterSmits]

thanks eric
thanks to you i understanted

[kaywhyn]

Little to no timing is needed for Soft 7. All that's needed is knowledge of builder mechanics, especially since it's a builders only level. Now I'm curious about Soft 8 and 9. The former should be obvious, but admittedly it's annoying to execute. On the other hand, the latter was a roadblock for me, and I apparently ended up solving it differently from Strato's. Not pulling any punches at all, am I right? This pack is definitely not for beginners!

In any case, let's wait until there are close to a complete or a full rank of replays before posting, as the last several posts have been nothing but 1-3 replays at a time. Also, don't be afraid to struggle with the pack. As Strato and I have already warned, it's not an easy pack at all.

[ericderkovits]

ok, level 8 here.

This level reminds me of Queztalings in Framlems. The precision is just too high. Although the solution is easy. Everything had to be in the exact spots.

Anyways here is my level 8 solution replay.


Ok, and from this level on I will post when and if I complete the rank.

[Strato Incendus]

Replies to ericderkovits's replays Soft 06-08

06: Intended.

07: I was curious when I heard you used a timing-based solution. You still built to the left before you built up for the second part. However, you actually re-connected the crowd with the first section and had them walk back and forth. The intended solution is to only build to the left until you're under the pillar, so that the crowd keeps walking to the left, then have the last lemming who comes in from the left (i.e. is still looking to the right while falling) land on top of the staircase and build up from there. No lemming from the crowd will be able to follow him because they all continue walking to the left, until you have the crowd build up to the staircase again from the left (=looking to the right) after the water gap has been crossed. Learned this trick ages ago from mobius, tried to enforce it on his Groupie level in Lemmings World Tour, didn't work - but here it's vital!
However, the fact that I now know there is a timing-based alternative means this level has more degrees of freedom. Therefore, I feel it's all the more justified to be on the first rank.
Yes, the level is a step up in difficulty, but even this one doesn't actually enforce the "mobius trick" as strictly as I thought it would .

08: That's basically intended. I just find it curious that nobody seems to want to use the Glider . When you set up the second staircase with a lemming from the left/upper crowd (=letting one slip past the Blocker, making him a Glider, then cloning the Glider before he falls so that the clone still turns around on the Blocker, then both glide down, you stone the first one so that the second one lands on top of the Stoner), it should be easier. Because the Stoner should be in the exact right spot where the second Builder needs to go. On the other hand, sending all worker lemmings from the right means you don't have to divide your attention as much between the two crowds.

Regarding the precision: Yes, making Miners go through is always precise, but believe me... I have both played and designed much worse "Miner marathons"...

[namida]

Okay, taking a look at this.

Feedback for Soft 1 to 10

Soft 1 - Nice level gameplay-wise; the visuals feel a tad rough (mostly the starting area). Surprisingly tricky for the first level.
Soft 2 - Not as hard as the first one, but still very tricky. Very nice level. I love the music!
Soft 3 - Easiest one to this point. Not a bad level, but not overly great either - that's okay, it's pretty normal to have levels like such in larger packs, mine are certianly full of such levels too.
Soft 4 - Okay, I'm definitely convinced the levels are getting easier as they go along.
Soft 5 - Crystal one-way arrows (well, all one-way arrows really) are quite tricky to tell the direction of on that terrain. Note to self: give CPM a way to show this more clearly.  That aside - looks like I spoke too soon about the difficulty curve, this level was quite tricky.
Soft 6 - And, back to fairly easy for the most part. The Shimmier trick took a few seconds to spot, but aside from this it was pretty straightforward. Another one with great music!
Soft 7 - Okay, this is insanely hard compared to the others so far. It's an excellent puzzle, but it's hard even by the standards of (most of) the other levels so far.
Soft 8 - Not impressed with this one. It's very finnicky, and the only purpose that the high RR seems to serve is to, combined with the lemming count, act as a time limit in disguise.
Soft 9 - Interesting, might have backrouted it. A bit tight, but again, that might be down to the specific route I took.
Soft 10 - First thing I notice: The one-way arrows don't quite cover the whole pillar in the middle. This looks a bit awkward. That aside, this was a pretty good puzzle - took me a while to figure out, not as hard as the last few.

[kaywhyn]

@namida - Yes, thank you for doing this! Several levels and replays, instead of just 1 or a few at a time over and over like the last several posts Regarding your feedback, 100% agree with almost all of it, especially Soft 7 and Soft 8.

update: Ok, I just watched your Soft 9 replay and I definitely like your solution far better than mine. I overcomplicated it and even did something fancy with a fencer assignment and taught Strato something

[ericderkovits]

ok here are my soft 1-11 replays. currently stuck on 12.

Soft 10 I managed to solve without using the glider

[Strato Incendus]

Responses to ericderkovits

Soft 09: Completely different than intended, but perfectly fine! This is basically an open-ended level where the iffy terrain shape and the lethal drop for the central hatch are the main challenges, no matter how you overcome them.

Soft 10: That's a nifty little trick you used there! I think Armani did something similar with the Glider, showing me that Reacher-Glider tricks still work (especially with updrafts) even after the physics change. You however didn't even need the Glider, because you instead exploited the fact that Reachers can jump through small stripes of terrain. I think WillLem was the first one to demonstrate this to me. This isn't actually required on any of the levels in this pack (I did make a level for my upcoming pack Lemmings: Hall of Fame, though, where it is indeed relevant ). I guess this means that while standing on top of the Stoner, the lemming was actually already under the wooden stripe of terrain. If you had used the Glider, you could even have done it a couple of pixels earlier, i.e. before the lemming was under the stripe of terrain.
Neither trick is required to solve this level, though; you can also just use the Glider and all the Shimmiers for their normal applications.

Soft 11: This is the first time I see an alternative solution for this one! The intended way is to widen the Fencer tunnel with a Basher going down the slope, so that the Shimmier can continue all the way to the pillar on the left. You instead used the Stoner to isolate him while disarming the traps and saved the Basher for cutting through the Stoner later on. I don't think there would be a way for me to prevent this, even if I wanted to. But I'm actually fine with such alternative solutions, especially if they still use all the skills. Sometimes it can come back to hurt a player later though, if they miss an opportunity to learn a certain trick (in this case: widening a Fencer tunnel wish a Basher so that Shimmiers can pass through) that may be required again later on...

Okay, taking a look at this.

... and the grand master himself is here! Thanks a lot for taking the time to do this, namida!

Responses to namida

Soft 01 - Intended (Talisman).Yeah, that left side looks a little "loose". It's to enforce the Floater usage, but of course, the talisman solution doesn't require it.

Soft 02 - Intended. I am very confident this level is harder for the average player than the first one, simply because that Stacker-Stoner trick is still not that well-known yet. And here there is literally no other way of freeing the crowd at the end.

Soft 03 - Intended. Don't overlook one thing: This level is the first to introduce direct Climber-Shimmier transitions. I actually added the Shimmier to level 02 to get one regular application out of it first, i.e. where the ceiling is low enough so that the Reacher can get to the ceiling on his own. Because if level 03 was the first time a player encountered the Shimmier, they might think it was just a "vertical Jumper", or even that "Reacher" was the actual skill name. For any player who wasn't already here during the discussions leading up to the introduction of the Shimmier, it may not be obvious at all that Climbers can transition into Shimmiers directly. Especially because NeoLemmix doesn't use the "dangling from the ceiling" animation, as Lemmings 2: The Tribes does.

Soft 04 - Intended (Talisman). Well, I for one had quite a lot of trouble getting used to this logic of "using Miner tunnels to turn around while they are being created", so maybe I overestimate the difficulty of such puzzles . It's mainly in spot 04 though as an homage to "Now use Miners and Climbers" .

Soft 05 - Valid alternative solution. Glad to hear you found this one a little trickier, because it was backrouted countless times during testing .

Soft 06 - Intended. Using Shimmiers + Gliders to turn a lemming around is indeed the new thing that's supposed to be taught here. The trick was even less obvious before you implemented the physics change Because that bar on the left could still look like all the other ones back then. After the physics change, in order to give the Glider sufficient height again to bump into the wall and turn around, I had to do this weird carved-out part that you see now, which gives away a little more that you need to do something special there.

Soft 07 - Intended. Yes, it's probably what "Glide and joy" was in Lemmings World Tour. A potential early roadblock. It's in position 07, again, as an homage to "Builders will help you here".

Soft 08 - Intended. Thanks, you were the first one to use the Glider solution!

Soft 09 - Very close to intended. You managed to pull it off without the Miner.

Soft 10 - Intended. Yes, I remember from your feedback to the Groupie level I had made in your style for Lemmings World Tour that the extent to which one-way arrows cover chunks of terrain is one of your signature concerns. In this case, it would bother me if not the entire height of the pillar was covered; but it's just one pixel-width on the left and right side each, which actually makes it look quite symmetrical to me.

[Gronkling]

Is there a way to turn that rain effect off? Turning off background images doesn't turn it off. I find the levels with this on actually unplayable, even looking at it for half a minute was enough to give me a mild headache.
I'm finding this fun otherwise though!

[Strato Incendus]

The fact that you're asking about rain objects gives me an idea of how far you've already progressed into the pack... I can't say I'm surprised though, that you got this far so quickly - given that the pack you were working on, Lemmings Evolution, was also expected to be one of the most difficult ones out there.

If the rain is distracting you or actively causing you health issues (do we need an epilepsy warning on levels featuring certain objects now? ) - well, you could always open the level file and delete all instances of the rain object... either in the text file or by opening it in the editor.

I know it's a bit of a hassle, but that's one of the great advantages about the New Formats, with the loose levels files being the same ones that are actually being used in the game. No more "loose level file first, then compiled into a pack" etc. You could change anything you want about a level before you play it: Sprites, background, music...

Of course, that also allows to modify a level to make it easier to play, but I think everyone here on the forums understands that they're just fooling themselves if they "cheat" that way .

Assuming that you'll want to modify the level files, which are ordered in the folders alphabetically by name, not by rank and level number, I'm just giving you the titles of the levels that contain rain objects, so that you can edit them all in one swoop:

Levels with precipitation ;D

Soft rank: Raindrops keep falling on my head
Loud rank: November rain; Red rain; In the bleak midwinter (snow)
Heavy rank: A change of seasons (both rain and snow)
Hardcore rank: Hammer-smashed face; Wipe your ass with sandpaper

I'm finding this fun otherwise though!

Thanks a lot, great to hear!

[Gronkling]

It's not a serious health issue I just get headaches easily

[namida]

^ It would be far less effort to just blank out the PNG file of the rain object.

[Strato Incendus]

Little did namida know that I have actually used several different rain objects in different colours...

Guess what, on a level called "Red rain", the rain will be... red. That's part of my strato_generalmd tileset. And Lemmings World Tour had "Purple rain", for eponymous reasons.

And for the regular rain, I sometimes used the one from Arty's new special tileset, sometimes his older version of the standard rain object, which I had integrated into my strato_generalmd tileset. The reason for that is that the new rain is more transparent, but also more "shaky", which actually makes it more distracting to me sometimes than the old version of the rain object with full opacity.

So Gronkling would have to blank all rain objects in his styles folders. They should only be in arty_special and strato_generalmd at this point... however, I remember that for a while, the rain object had been moved to namida's Sky tileset. I don't think it's there anymore, though. I think I recall that I had to change those references in the level files after an update.