Lemmings Revolution clone, anyone?

[WillLem]

There seems to be a bit of an upsurge in forks/clones/romhacks recently, which is great to see

Whilst we're at it, would a Lemmings Revolution clone (complete with level Editor) be a project someone might be interested in taking on?

[mobius]

As for myself; a clone, no, but I am interested in hacking the game/fixing bugs/getting a level editor working.
In the coming days I'll try a few things out and give updates if it looks even remotely hopeful.

In the meantime here's work that's been done so far:

https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=1439.msg38226#msg38226

[WillLem]

As for myself; a clone, no, but I am interested in hacking the game/fixing bugs/getting a level editor working

Wow, taking on the hex editing is quite a feat! I'm not sure how the graphics will translate, but hopefully there will be a way to sort it all out so it's easier to work with.

I didn't realise how lucky we are to have level editors that deal with actual graphics instead of 8 x 8 tiles until I glanced briefly at the world of romhacking! Let me know if I can help in any way.

[mobius]

a few things: I know almost nothing so this will likely take a long time if at all. I didn't realize hex editing was necessary to fix bugs so that might be out.
And to be quite honest I don't even know where to begin.
There already are some decent patches designed by others here years ago to fix a lot of the graphical glitches.

As far as I know Revolution does use some form of tiles but they are quite small. I have said elsewhere however, that at least for designing a game I myself would prefer tiles/blocks over actual pixel physics.

First thing to fix which would be simple but very handy; remove the video files from the game. Reason: ccxeplore said somewhere that the only reason you need the CD to play the game is the movies/videos during game [these play after each level ends] which for some reason is the only asset that isn't saved on your harddrive during installation.
Of course one could somehow fix the issue of them not being saved to harddrive or whatever, idon't care as long as you don't need the CD for the game to run. Personally I find the videos (while cute at first) just get annoying after a while.
---
as to designing an editor I guess I would create a stand-alone program that can create level files to simple put in place of the game files, at least temporarily.

[mobius]

I'm not doing this. My patience for learning to code has completely run out. I do find it fun at all, in fact is nothing but painful. I don't really know how anybody does it.

[WillLem]

I'm not doing this. My patience for learning to code has completely run out. I do (sic) find it fun at all, in fact is nothing but painful. I don't really know how anybody does it.

I completely understand mobius' frustration here, I have felt like this at times whilst tackling various aspects of SuperLemmix's development which have been overly challenging for seemingly very little reward.

I suppose it really does just take patience and perseverence, the answers do come eventually. Maybe a bit of time away from things has provided a fresh perspective?

I probably don't have the patience to take on hex/romhacking to be honest, I need to be able to see the graphics clearly and quickly test changes and developments, which a direct hack of the original game would absolutely not facilitate.

I would, however, be prepared to help with working on a freshly built clone which aims to mimic the original in terms of mechanics, similar to what namida has done with Loap/L3D. If there is some way to rip the sprites from Revolution, then that takes care of the graphics and the engine itself can, in theory, be built from scratch. Doing it this way would also mean that all aspects of the design can be reconsidered as we go along, and the level format can be custom designed for easy editing, etc.

It's not something I want to attempt by myself, as it would be way too much work for one person IMHO. If anyone else is interested and wants to collaborate, though, I'm interested.

[namida]

I would wonder what, besides playing the original levels on modern systems easily, such a clone would offer. Revolution is basically L1 with horizontal wrap and a few new objects types, unlike L2 (huge variety of skills; carry-over lemming counts), L3 (very different philosophy on skills / actions) or L3D (which is, well, 3D); so I don't think it would attract much interest for original levels.

[WillLem]

I would wonder what, besides playing the original levels on modern systems easily, such a clone would offer.

That's basically it, but it's not an advantage that should be dismissed since people clearly still want to play the game, and problems tend to be encountered during setup in enough cases to warrant a "modern PC" solution.

Besides that, Revolution does offer a few unique features such as rising water and horizontal wrap which aren't present in other L1 clones (I suppose Lix does offer it, but its implementation is not quite the same) and of course the block-based physics which are probably closer to L3D than L1.

Like I said, if people are interested and think it's a worthwhile project, then I'm happy to get involved in some sort of team-based initiative to get a clone up and running. Otherwise, I suppose there are still ways to play the OG even on Win11, and we've been able to deal with most enquiries regarding its setup well enough over the years.