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

[Strato Incendus]

Even I thought the Hardcore rank wasn't all that very hard, except for Hardcore 11 that you showcased for the rank in the OP

"Symphony of destruction" is now Hardcore 20; it only used to be Hardcore 11 when you first tested it, but as you might remember, it has swapped positions with "Charred remains" .

[kaywhyn]

"Symphony of destruction" is now Hardcore 20; it only used to be Hardcore 11 when you first tested it, but as you might remember, it has swapped positions with "Charred remains" .

I definitely remember reading the level swapped positions. Guess I kind of have forgotten and didn't fully think about the possibility that it did indeed switch positions with another level before posting Especially since it happened several versions ago during pre-testing There haven't been that many levels changing positions anyway.

[ericderkovits]

ok, I finished the Loud rank. Here are my replays for Loud 21-30. In this rank I think level 2 and 15 were the most difficult for me. Still these last 10 levels were pretty tricky though.

And I did get the Talisman for level 22. So the only Talisman I still don't have in This rank is level 1

[Strato Incendus]

...and here's the next update, since two more fixes were in order as a result of your replays !

Changelog

Loud 21: added yet even more steel. People really seem to hate Stoner staircases, so I want to avoid any suspicions that such a thing were required to solve this level. And I can only do that by blocking any possibility to create one as rigourously as I can .
Loud 29: added slightly more steel.

Responses to ericderkovits (Loud 21 - 30)

21: could have been an alternative solution, but Stoner staircases are absolutely not the thing required here. I've added a really ugly long vertical steel wall to hopefully limit the space too much for a Stoner staircase to work. Also, I continued it all the way up to the ceiling, just to be on the safe side. Since you only have 5 Climbers on this level, I don't see a way this steel wall could be exploitet for backroutes by itself.
22: Intended (talisman).
23: This is the same alternative solution somebody else (I believe Gronkling?) has already found, so this is fine.
24: Small variation on the intended solution (again, similar to Gronkling's): You bashed to connect the two crowds at the very bottom, instead of bashing right behind the Builder to cut off his staircase behind them (Pieuw's signature trick), which would have been the intended solution.
25: Intended. The Climber is optional.
26: Close to intended. You could have spared that Blocker if you had made use of the splitter to turn the Miner around instead. However, in order to get to the splitter from the left to flip it once, you would have had to expend a Bomber, so it still would have resulted in a lemming loss.
27: Open-ended, fine solution.
28: Open-ended, fine alternative solution; the way you got over the exit with a Stacker and a double Miner was a little different from my approach: I just mined away the exit trigger first with a single Miner, then later on re-connected with it using a Platformer.
29: This is the first backroute that uses every skill. Specifically, the backrouty part is the Digger on the left, that was close enough to the edge of the water that a Glider could simply get over there. I maybe could have allowed this as an alternative solution earlier, but I've already gone so far out of my way to enforce the intended solution (among others, by making the Shimmier a pickup skill, too) that I might just as well go all the way. Very sorry to have to break this solution! But the intended one is truly one of a kind, so as long as I do see clear ways of enforcing it, I simply have to take it. In this case, that meant adding a little more steel so that now, the earliest place you can dig is still too far away from the edge of the pool to safely glide over it.
30: Yeah, this one pretty much has to remain open-ended, because the only way to enforce the intended solution without completely ruining the levels appearance through a bunch of rectangular steel blocks would be if we still had manual steel... One-way arrows wouldn't cut it here, because basically all alternative paths I've seen anybody take on this level invole Bomber shortcuts.

[ericderkovits]

ok, I resolved levels loud 21 and 29.

These 2 levels were hard. But loud 21 was very hard to execute.

Yeah your right Loud 29 is a special one. I loved this solution.

[David]

Thank you for these comments/feedbacks Strato Incendus. So, I remade Soft 11 and Soft 26 (see replays).
And I got to Loud 20, but I'm missing a talisman (Loud 1). I'm totally stuck at Loud 21.

For Loud 15, I imagine there is an easier solution... as I found this level particularly hard !

Otherwise, I really liked all of the levels but... Loud 5's solution is a bit "wacky", anyway !

[Strato Incendus]

Responses to David

Soft 11: Intended.
Soft 26: Close enough to intended.

Loud 01: Intended.
Loud 02: Almost intended. (I bashed while standing on top of the previous "prison bar" on the left, i.e. bashing across the tiny gap in between, but you can also have the Climber climb up into the dent the Bomber makes into the final pole as well)
Loud 03: Almost intended. (I used the Basher at the top to stop the Climber from going over the rectangular block on the right; you used it on the bottom to free the "crowd", which is in this case just a couple.
Loud 04: Intended. The pickup skills kind of give it away, but everything else allows to use the Blocker and Digger in much simpler ways.
Loud 05: Intended. The Climber and the Bomber are red-herring skills.
Loud 06: Intended.
Loud 07: Valid alternative solution; the intended one is hard to enforce.
Loud 08: Close enough to intended.
Loud 09: Wow, you still found a way to shortcut to the bottom by bashing through your own Builder staircase. I used to allow these types of solutions as alternatives, but decided a while ago that I would regret it later on it I keep doing that. Most of the backroutes could be broken by the steel, but in your case, I'll have to move the flame thrower over even further to the right.
Loud 10: Yay, you're the first one who got the intended trick from PimoLems! Swap the Miner and the Basher and you basically have the intended solution. I'll have to enforce that, though, so your replay will probably break...
Loud 11: both solutions are fine
Loud 12: Intended.
Loud 13: Almost intended. Just the way you turned around the pioneer at the beginning was a little different.
Loud 14: Talisman as intended, the regular solution is a slightly alternative one.
Loud 15: A very awesome alternative solution that still uses all of the main tricks! And yes, many easier solutions (i.e. backroutes) existed for this one - I've just broken them all successfully , it seems.
Loud 16: Close to intended. The additional Shimmier I provided to have the Climber shimmy back and forth again at the end after going over the stack, that is the Shimmier you used to have the pioneer on the right shimmy twice. In the intended solution, you have the pioneer lemming turn around on the Stoner first while he's still part of the crowd, and then he jumps into the teleporter via the Reacher animation once he's already looking to the left.
Loud 17: Alternative solution; you had the worker lemming continue looking to the right when he arrived on top of the crystal, instead of shimmying over to turn around and mine down first.
Loud 18: Almost intended, just saved two Shimmiers that you could have used to lead the Climbers to the exit earlier than the crowd.
Loud 19: Intended.
Loud 20: This is the first time I have to say "invalid solution". Since it relies on the already known Shimmier bug I reported recently. namida has already announced he will fix this, with unanimous support from the community, so expect your solution to break as a result of that, without me having to do anything.

[Strato Incendus]

The next update is here with three level fixes:

Changelog

Loud 09: moved the fire trap over a little bit to cover the entire gap, added steel on the left as a preventative measure against any possible new backroutes opening up there, as a result of me moving the fire trap over. I added a little more steel than necessary to keep the aesthetics more consistent.

Loud 10: added downward arrows

Hardcore 23: added steel and one-way arrows to fix the backroute found by Gronkling

[ericderkovits]

ok, here are my replays of the first 10 levels of Heavy.

Some of these were tricky but nothing super hard. Also got the Talisman for level 3

[Strato Incendus]

Responses to ericderkovits (Heavy 01-10)

01: Fine alternative solution.
02: Intended.
03: Slight twist on the intended talisman solution.
04: Very close to intended.
05: This one is open-ended, glad to see you had to use all the skills.
06: Nice alternative solution!
07: Same alternative solution that Gronkling found, with the Basher stopped at the very first frame to create a Climber-friendly niche for the Fencer to isolate him from the crowd.
08: Very close to intended, except that the Miner going through over the Builder staircase and tanking on the steel to turn around (so that he doesn't climb up and die) is identical with Gronkling's solution.
09: Very nice alternative solution that uses all the skills! First time that I see this one!
10: Another nice alternative solution, you basically just swapped the Fencer and the Basher compared to the intended one. Good to know that making everyone a Shimmier still works with this approach.

Also, a note to everyone:
You can use the style manager within the NeoLemmix player to update the Autumn tileset. I've added a secondary animation to the one-use leaf trap.

In particular, I just took namida's secondary animation from his Tree tileset, since the trap of that tileset is what the one-use leaf trap is based on, and recoloured it from green to orange to match the autumn colours. Thus, credit goes to namida for creating the original version!

I've sent the updated version to Nessy and he told me that going via the styles manager should work now, but in case it doesn't work for anyone of you, please don't hesitate to report that .

[ericderkovits]

ok here is the next 10 replays of heavy.

17, 19 and 20 were very difficult. Level 20 was extremely hard to get that 2nd stoner placed precisely with the swimmer climber basher. rest of level was easy. Took several trys.

level 17 was hard because of the bomber must be placed so lemmings not only go left but also don't go right(due to tiny slit in terrain near hatch)
level 19 was hard to get the 3 stackers and 1 stoner placed properly (right set of flamethrowers) so jumpers can land on them precisely. (I managed to get the Talisman for 19)

Got Talismans for 11, 18, and 19.

[Strato Incendus]

Great job, ericderkovits! I'm happy to hear those were some tough nuts to crack, even if you've found slightly more skill-efficient solutions on some of those levels so that the replays look easier than those solutions actually were to find out first, according to your description.

The only level I felt needed a tiny fix was Heavy 12, Burning the witches (the update has been uploaded already). This is the first time I actually removed some steel again from a level - because guess what, steel can also be exploited for certain things compared to if it wasn't there. However, the main backroute that was present here for ages is fortunately gone, so your solution was already infinitely better than anything that came before! I could have accepted it as a slightly easier alternative solution, but in this case, I saw an easy way to fix the level, so I went ahead and did it.

I must say I don't quite remember though what this steel that I have removed now was there for originally... maybe it was just another attempt to break that persistent backroute that I ended up breaking some other way eventually. But maybe, it also served a different purpose... I hope I haven't opened up another shortcut by removing it (and replacing it with the regular 7-pixel-wide brick blocks from the Fire tileset so that my own replay wouldn't be negatively affected ). If it does more harm than good, literally taking this level out of the frying pan and into the fire, then the steel might be re-added again and I would accept your current solution instead.

Complete overview of responses (Heavy 11-20)

11: Intended (talisman).
12: The left side is all as intended, just the way of turning the pioneer around should be a little more complex than just bashing into steel (something that no type of one-way arrows could prevent either). Hence the change of removing the steel entirely.
13: Thanks for being the first one to actually make the bodies hit the floor!
14: I guess I can accept this as an alternative solution - making the Shimmier go over the exit was a move I didn't see coming, I liked that! You also used more of the right level side than Gronkling did, so that's already an improvement. Unless I resort to pickup skills, I don't think I can enforce anyone incorporating the entire right side of the level.
15: This was very close to intended, you just dug at a slightly different position in that chunk of rock under the exit (I dug right under the exit). But I was happy to see both the crowd control and the beginning and the method of freeing the Blocker at the end enforced!
16: Very nice alternative solution, re-connecting the Fencer tunnel with the staircase you used to seal up the Digger shaft. The intended solution sends the pioneer down on the right side. I could prevent what you did with upward one-way arrows, because in the intended solution, the Fencer alone suffices. But I like cases where skills pay double duty (in this case the Builder, both sealing up the Digger shaft and connecting with the Fencer tunnel). So even though you saved a Floater and, more importantly, a Builder, I'm more than happy with this!
17: You're the first one to build such a long staircase to get the crowd up into the skull. Sounds like it was difficult enough, and it used almost all the skills, so this is fine by me!
18: I think this is the most efficient solution I've seen for this level so far. Talisman well-deserved!
19: Yes, pretty close to the solution by one of my testers that originally inspired this talisman.
20: This is the same "trap the Climber inside the Stoner to bash" alternative solution that Gronkling used. Not the intended one, but fine by me!

[ericderkovits]

ok, how about this for heavy 12. I used the platformer at start (instead of builder), so I can use the builder to turn around  pioneer

[Strato Incendus]

That's better...

Heavy 12

...since the Platformer at the start is indeed intended. However, I didn't really until now that you could just use the Builder (which I had to use to replace another Platformer so that people wouldn't just platform under the low ceiling instead of using the Shimmier) to turn around early.

However, I've gone so far to enforce the intended solution here that I might just as well go all the way. Bring out the pickup skills (as you know, that's the last resort)!

(I didn't make the Builder a pickup skill, though, only the Basher, but I'm pretty sure this should suffice).

The update has already been uploaded.

[ericderkovits]

ok, here is my new replay again for heavy 12, now that you added the basher pickups, since my 2nd replay broke.
Now I used all the skills.