[Superlemmini] Deceit's Lemmings

[kaywhyn]

UPDATE: I have uploaded V2 of Deceit's Lemmings. The download link has changed. The pack is available as an attachment to download, while the link for music is the same, as it's too large to attach here.

All rightie, I have converted Deceit's pack Deceit's Lemmings to Superlemmini, and so the pack is now available for Superlemmini. The pack originally started out as a Lemmix pack, had an Old Formats NL version, and finally got converted to New Formats NL by Nepster. This means that the pack only uses the OL/ONML tilesets, and so it was a very easy pack to convert to Superlemmini. Also this is just a really great pack that I absolutely enjoy and thought it should receive a Superlemmini treatment. Luckily, the Old Formats NL version is still available for download from the New Formats NL level pack topic. Here I simply used the nxp extractor to get .lvl files and was able to mass convert them to SL. Also, most levels didn't need any editing and could be left as is after mass converting to SL. However, there were still a couple of things I needed to fix on some levels.

Tricky 9 - Stairway Garden According to the preview image of the level in the OP of the NL level pack topic, the sky background missing from the exit is intentional, but I decided to add it in for the SL version just because it looks better with it. The level still worked before I added it in, but IMO it looks really weird without it.

Tricky 13 - And, take a little guess Superlemmini complains when there's a comma in the level title, and so this level has the same title, just without the comma. No changes to the level itself were made.

Taxing 3 - I My Me Mine Miner The steel near the exit wasn't working and hence the level was impossible. I have corrected this so that it's non-destructible.

Taxing 4 - Symmetrical Structure System The exit trigger is either too high or too low and hence the lemmings couldn't exit. I have fixed this by lowering the exit.

Taxing 14 - Bubble Trouble Same as Taxing 4, I needed to lower the exit so the lemmings can exit.

Mayhem 21 - Enter at your own risk... This was the most problematic to fix in terms of what should be the intended solution, as it doesn't work as is. I tried many things to get the intended solution working, and the closest I can get to make it work is by increasing the number of climbers and floaters. Everything else has stayed the same, including number of lemmings, save requirement, and the RR that is the equivalent of New Formats NL's. The solution is just very iconic, and so I wanted to preserve it, even if it means making changes to the skillset to get it to work. Also for some very strange reason when I first solved the level I saved the requirement exactly, but when I ran the replay it now shows me as saving 1 over the requirement

Mayhem 22 - It appears that the level originally intended to have the Superlemming gimmick enabled. Indeed, this took me by surprise when I loaded the level in Superlemmini. I think I remember the Lemmix version having the gimmick enabled, so I decided to leave it in for the level. Even then, the level's still very easy... if you pause! For those who want a challenge, you can try and solve it without using pause, which should still theoretically be possible. Indeed, according to the gimmicks list for the level, it had Superlemming, Frenzy (no pause), backwards walkers, lazy lemmings (builders and destructive skills only happen for a few bricks/strokes), non-permanent skills, disobedience, rising water, and clock gimmick enabled. However, in Superlemmini only the Superlemming one is supported. Maybe one of these days I will try it out in very Old Formats and see how very challenging it is. It makes sense, as otherwise it's an extremely easy level in both Old Formats and New Formats NL.

Also note that Mayhem 22 doesn't have a level title. I don't know if it ever had a title, or if it was always blank. The Lemmix version of the pack might have had a title for Mayhem 22, but I'm not sure. I don't know if I still have it somewhere on my laptop, but I could always look around for it. Then again, it appears that the Old Formats NL version didn't have a title for the level, and so this would indicate that it being untitled is intentional.

Some levels have steel that doesn't function, although they can be solved without interacting with them. Some examples like Mayhem 1 and Mayhem 19, where in the latter I tried using the solution I used in my LP of the New Formats NL version. Thus, no changes were made to them. Most glaring, however, is Mayhem 17, where the solution I used in my LP should work, but it doesn't because the steel doesn't function properly to stop the basher. Nevertheless, the level can still be solved with the given skillset, hence no changes were made. In any case, I tried everything to try and make the steel destructible, but it doesn't seem to work? It might even be tied to tileset, where perhaps the Dirt steel doesn't work? Or maybe I'm just not doing the settings right. In any case, it's quite a hassle to fix, as selecting pieces in the NL v1.43nc editor is very annoying, but if any SL people want to fix the steel, be my guest. There might be far more levels with broken steel, as I haven't checked all of them.

Also, the fall distance was doubled the default in all of the .ini level files when I used the mass converter feature of the NL 1.43nc editor. The fall distance should be correct in all of the levels now.

Since the pack just uses the same ranking names as OL, this made it very easy for me to write up the levelpack.ini file, as I could simply use the one for OL and replace all the level names with that of the Deceit's Lemmings pack.

Download the music here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/d0obudvnc8van4s/Deceit%27s%20Lemmings.rar?dl=1. I would attach the pack here (I have now as of V2), but it along with the music was only slightly over the limit. Therefore, I had to make it a Dropbox link. It contains the level pack and the music. Here, I simply followed the music sequence that plays whenever I loaded up my physical copy of the CD version of the game. My CD bundled both OL and ONML games, but ONML used the first 6 OL soundtracks only. So, I decided to use the 6 Dos ONML soundtracks for this pack in addition to the OL ones. Also, the OL tracks are Icho's copy from his Canadian CD soundtrack. My CD has the exact same soundtracks, but each track has several seconds of silence at the beginning before it plays. Here, I think he said he trimmed out the silence at the start. Thanks again for it

Simply extract the folders to your Superlemmini base directory. Everything should fall into place. Load up Superlemmini, select Deceit's Lemmings, and enjoy!

I went through every level, and yes, all levels are possible. I have working replays for all of them. However, I'm not going to post my solutions at this time, especially since there aren't any intended solutions anywhere, and hence these are just my solutions I found to the levels. I might post them in a few weeks or so. If I ever end up making a pack later on, don't expect me to post replays along with the pack's release My goal is to help people improve their level solving


Update: 6/25/21 My replay collection for the pack is now included, as I felt enough time has passed since the pack's release.   

[kaywhyn]

Just like that, a quick fix is in order. Mayhem 17 - Quintuple Squeeze Machine the left-most entrance has been shifted two pixels to the left, as before they were able to land on the terrain above to turn around. This has been corrected for consistency, as in the Old Formats NL version that didn't happen and they were all falling out to the right as intended.

New Mayhem 17 level .ini file is attached. I have also corrected the download link in the OP. 

[ericderkovits]

oh my gosh, another great pack converted to SUPERLEMMINI. Wow now it seems you are now able to convert packs that are able to be converted to SL.
Now I know, you know the ins and outs of the Superlemmini levelpack.ini and its levels and music. I remember WillLem always wanted to do things with SL but was having
problems with the levelpack.ini. So now it seems 3 people are able to do it now. Also I didn't even know Deceit lemmings was a lemmix pack or even that it only uses the 8 original skills or even that Deceit lemmings only uses the orig/ohno styles. Also I guess you know how to convert the .lvls to .inis using the old lemmix editor.  Also able to adjust exits and stuff. I didn't even know you were working on this conversion. Hopefully it wasn't too difficult with the editing as lemmings reunion took me quite a while to convert to SL due to issues with exits and traps and a lot of climber issues and a couple of levels with the basher not being able to bash mild slopes and a few with the 3 builder wall. Also making sure the levels were solvable the way there were intended.

Note: I know Nepsterlems uses also the original 8 skills but I think I remember it had a few levels using styles not found in SL.


                       

[kaywhyn]

Hey eric, yea, the conversion was far simpler than I thought it would be. For the most part, it was a simple mass conversion that fortunately many of the levels ended up not needing any further changes/tweaks. I originally was going to ask you if you were interested in helping me convert Deceit's Lemmings to Superlemmini, but since it turns out to not be as difficult as I thought, I went ahead and did it myself. I did have the problem of the level image being left aligned when loading the levels up in Superlemmini, but it turns out that instead of selecting Lemmix as the source, the fix was to select Neolemmix. Now the levels are correctly displayed in the center of the preview screen, and the empty spaces on either side have been trimmed accordingly.

I've used Superlemmini since 2017, so I have taken time to analyze the levelpack.ini during all that time. They are annoying to write up, but one can simply take a look at a sample. There's also some documentation available as well, so I took the time to read stuff over. And yes, I remember WillLem having problems as well when he first started out, but he seems to have gotten the hang of it now.

Hopefully it wasn't too difficult with the editing as lemmings reunion took me quite a while to convert to SL due to issues with exits and traps and a lot of climber issues and a couple of levels with the basher not being able to bash mild slopes and a few with the 3 builder wall. Also making sure the levels were solvable the way there were intended.

That's interesting that you mentioned Reunion, as I'm now currently going through the pack on New Formats NL. After much debating with myself, I've reached a decision, and that is I'll play through the pack on NL off camera and do the commentary video series, and as a trade off I will LP your Superlemmini version of Reunion. I agree with Icho that both an LP on NL and a commentary video series is just overkill. I did it for United, so I only thought it was fitting to do a series for Reunion too.

I think WillLem also expressed interest in LPing your conversion of the pack, but it's been a while since he stated his interest, so I'm not sure if he still was planning to do it. At least the first rank for his series. In any case, I'll be more than happy to LP this converted pack as my first one for Superlemmini. Perhaps I can also help you out with your replays there, as I see you are quite close to the end. 50 more levels, I think? I remember being there every step of the way while you were converting the pack and helping out wherever was needed in your quest.

Note: I know Nepsterlems uses also the original 8 skills but I think I remember it had a few levels using styles not found in SL.

Indeed, Nepsterlems uses just the classic 8 skills and only the OL/ONML tilesets, so you can indeed convert the pack over to Superlemmini if you wish. I'll let you handle that one, since I'm still currently playing through it, just been stuck on the Black Hole rating.

[Proxima]

Mayhem 22 - It appears that the level originally intended to have the Superlemming gimmick enabled. Indeed, this took me by surprise when I loaded the level in Superlemmini. I think I remember the Lemmix version having the gimmick enabled, so I decided to leave it in for the level. Even then, the level's still very easy... if you pause! For those who want a challenge, you can try and solve it without using pause, which should still theoretically be possible. Indeed, according to the gimmicks list for the level, it had Superlemming, Frenzy (no pause), backwards walkers, lazy lemmings (builders and destructive skills only happen for a few bricks/strokes), non-permanent skills, disobedience, rising water, and clock gimmick enabled. However, in Superlemmini only the Superlemming one is supported. Maybe one of these days I will try it out in very Old Formats and see how very challenging it is. It makes sense, as otherwise it's an extremely easy level in both Old Formats and New Formats NL.

I don't know how the level came to have all the gimmicks enabled, but since the pack was originally for Lemmix, it seems that it probably wasn't intended by the original author. It may have been done in the conversion to make the level more challenging -- although the clock gimmick in particular makes me think it may have just happened by accident.

[kaywhyn]

I don't know how the level came to have all the gimmicks enabled, but since the pack was originally for Lemmix, it seems that it probably wasn't intended by the original author. It may have been done in the conversion to make the level more challenging -- although the clock gimmick in particular makes me think it may have just happened by accident.

You thought I enabled all of those gimmicks just for Mayhem 22 during the conversion? Actually, I saw a YT comment from Gigalem on Icho's video of the final level of the pack where he stated all the gimmicks that were enabled. This took me by surprise, as I was totally unaware of all those other gimmicks that were enabled for this level. I opened up the gimmick window in the really old editor, and sure enough all of those gimmicks stated in the OP were listed as enabled. If you look at the level pack topic that Nepster started in the NL levels board, the pack version for NL v1.43 up through v10 is still available for download.

Indeed, I tried the level just now in v1.43 NL (since these gimmicks were removed after v1.43), and yup, the level is harder, but it's still not too difficult, considering you can lose up to half, which is a huge amount because you have 1000 lemmings. I still ended up saving around 900 of them. The walking backwards lemmings is what makes it hard, though, along with the inability to pause and Superlemming, among others. I think you might be right about the clock gimmick being by accident, though. For Superlemmini, only the Superlemming gimmick is compatible, and so only that one is enabled for Mayhem 22 in that engine.

It definitely makes sense that Deceit intended all those gimmicks to be enabled, as there's no reason why you would have an infinite amount of all 8 classic skills otherwise. It goes from laughably very easy to save everyone on the New Formats NL version due to no gimmicks enabled because they all got culled save for zombies to theoretically impossible to do the same on v1.43 with all those gimmicks enabled. The 60 minute time limit is quite amusing, though. In the current New Formats NL version, it takes about 10 minutes for all the lemmings to come out of the hatch and to exit, therefore you still have about 50 minutes remaining. I didn't see any rising water during this time, so probably it's rising at an extremely slow rate or perhaps like the clock gimmick by accident as well.

Besides the final level of Deceit's Lemmings, the only other level I know that has all gimmicks enabled is the final level of Lemmicks, which I have played through all of it, btw I think one other level before it comes quite close to all of them enabled. Might be the penultimate level, but I don't remember.

[Proxima]

You thought I enabled all of those gimmicks just for Mayhem 22 during the conversion?

No -- the conversion to old-formats NL. I'm not sure who did that (maybe namida?) -- I did a forum search and the only other topic I found for Deceit's Lemmings is the one by Nepster you mentioned. In it, he says that he converted the pack to new-formats, but doesn't say who the old-formats conversion was done by.

It definitely makes sense that Deceit intended all those gimmicks to be enabled

It might make sense, but since the pack was originally for Lemmix, not old-formats NL, it's also impossible.

[kaywhyn]

No -- the conversion to old-formats NL. I'm not sure who did that (maybe namida?) -- I did a forum search and the only other topic I found for Deceit's Lemmings is the one by Nepster you mentioned. In it, he says that he converted the pack to new-formats, but doesn't say who the old-formats conversion was done by.

Indeed, I slightly misremembered, as it doesn't go all the way back to v1.43. In that topic, it says it starts at v1.47 NL, therefore the gimmicks didn't exist from that point on. Also too bad there isn't any trivia info on Mayhem 22 in that topic by Deceit other than from some other topic I found where he said he used a hex editor to be able to edit the level in Lemmix to have 1000 lemmings since Lemmix normally doesn't allow it. Perhaps one of these days if Deceit does end up coming back on here he can provide more info.

It might make sense, but since the pack was originally for Lemmix, not old-formats NL, it's also impossible.

That pretty much means there's some conflicting info on the final level then. Gigalem mentions the gimmicks enabled in Icho's solution video of it, which the gimmick window in the editor indeed shows, but at the same time the pack started off on Lemmix, which I think doesn't support any gimmicks besides Superlemming. This would probably mean then that whoever was doing the conversion to a very old NL version decided to simply enable as many gimmicks as possible just to make a ridiculously easy level much more of a challenge for the final level of the pack. Or, it might just be something with the editor showing as all of them enabled. Even then, they wouldn't be unless someone actually went into the editor and ticked those boxes for the gimmicks.

In any case, it's not going to matter at all for the Superlemmini version, as only the Superlemming one is enabled and compatible with the engine. It's still a very easy level regardless of the Superlemming gimmick, so therefore I'm just going to leave it be. One could also impose no pause, but even then still easy. Heck, it's still a very easy level in v1.43 even with all those other gimmicks enabled, in large part due to the extremely lenient save requirement and an infinite amount of all skills. As I said before, I still ended up saving about 400 over the requirement There's just a few gimmicks that make it much harder and way more annoying than it should be  

[kaywhyn]

Deceit's Lemmings for Superlemmini has finally received a long overdue update. V2 of Deceit's Lemmings is now available! Download it in the OP. I have changed the pack download to an attachment instead of a download link, while the music link is still the same, as it's too large to download as an attachment. In addition, I have attached my replay collection for the pack. You can download it in the OP.

edit: Sorry, I reattached the pack download, as I wanted to make it easy for people so that you just need to extract to your Superlemmini directory just like the instructions in the OP says.

The following levels received a fix:

Fun 2 - Living' Large! OWAs weren't showing up in the Superlemmini version. This has now been fixed.

Fun 4 - Romeo and Juliet - Same issue. OWAs now display correctly.

Taxing 13 - Around and Around Same problem. OWAs now display correctly.

Mayhem 1 - Island over the horizon Fixed the steel so that you cannot destroy it. This was done by inserting "steel" areas manually.

Mayhem 5 - Critical Cross OWAs now display correctly.

Mayhem 14 - Lemmings Fever OWAs now display correctly.

Mayhem 17 - Quintuple Squeeze Machine Manually inserted "steel" areas to the first steel block you get to going to the left, as well as to the right of the trapdoors so that the basher stops like it should.

Mayhem 18 - The Enigma OWAs now display correctly on the grey pillar.

Mayhem 19 - Was it worth? Manually inserted "steel" area to the steel blocks at the bottom of the level.

Mayhem 21 - Enter at your own risk OWAs now display correctly. Steel also works properly, though here I didn't have to manually insert any steel areas.


In the cases where the OWAs weren't displaying correctly, it was interestingly a simple matter of checking the one-way inversion box in the level properties dialog window. From research I have done, it simply means that you can insert OWAs to any terrain piece, even to those which you normally can't put any on. Honestly, I don't see why this fix works, but the arrows do now show up like they're supposed to. The other thing I'm confused about is why they don't show up properly when converting from Neolemmix to Superlemmini.

Mayhem 21 is a really interesting case. The one-way inversion box was already checked, but unchecking it makes the OWAs display correctly. Even more, the steel now functioned properly and hence was indestructible as a result. I'm quite confused by this, but it seems now the level can't be broken by any cheesy methods even though there's only one way to solve the level even when the steel didn't function correctly.

For the other levels that don't have OWAs, I simply fixed the steel, as they were destructible before when they shouldn't be. For some reason, even though autosteel is checked for the affected levels mentioned, the steel didn't work by being indestructible. To fix this, I had to manually insert the steel areas where the steel blocks are placed in the level. Therefore, this makes Mayhem 1 a bit more precise and the solution a little more intended and ensures that you cannot shortcut your way in that level.

For Mayhem 19, it's not really needed, but it does allow the solution I used in the New Formats NL version to work, and hence I felt the need to still fix the steel in the level anyway.

In any case, the pack has finally received a long overdue update. I left it hanging after finishing the conversion and simply didn't bother to check to make sure there weren't problems with the OWAs. I apparently have forgotten that plenty of levels have OWAs from the NL version but didn't notice them not showing up correctly in Superlemmini. That was an oopsie on my part, although it would had been nice if I was notified of it. Then I would had released an update much earlier than I did

Granted, there still might be some problems, but I think I might had gotten them all. Still, please let me know if you notice any more issues with any of the levels, and I'll make sure to look into them and get a fix out. I'm still learning plenty of things with the 1.43nc editor, but this is still good practice for me in case I ever do end up making a Superlemmini pack. Probably not likely, since it seems the editor's very clunky to work with and I often have been frustrated by it. Perhaps the jlevel editor will be more friendly to work with in regards to Lemmini/Superlemmini?