Level Design Contest #30

[IchoTolot]

Welcome to another contest of the Lemmingsforums! This time the three rules have been picked by Armani, kaywhyn and myself this time.

A few words to new participants and forum members: If you haven't entered before, I strongly encourage you to try - even if you don't win, it's fun to participate; and we have had cases where first-time entrants have won before! There are three choices of rules given, you may enter one level for EACH one of the rules.
You may either use new format NeoLemmix, or Lix.
If you have more than one entry, they may (but do not have to) be for the same engine. Please make sure you tested your level for basic solvability before submitting and be sure to also submit any custom tileset you are using, so others have no problem playing your level.

Pre contest testing: You can choose 1-2 persons who do a bit of pre-testing for you, so that the biggest backroutes and screw-ups of your levels can be detected before the playing phase. I cannot control this so it's only a guideline, but still I would prefer not everyone knows every level before the playing phase starts.

Here are the rules on how the submission deadlines work:
- Initial submission phase deadline will extend such that it's 72 hours from the time of the last submission, up to the 5th submission (inclusive). After this it no longer changes no matter what.
- Update phase deadline will not extend over the initial dead line!
- Even if you missed the cutoff date for the initial submission phase, late entries are accepted until the update phase ends. There is no penalty for a late entry, beyond that people are less likely to spend as much time on the level before voting begins.


And here is the new ruleset:

Rule 1: New tilesets, new levels! (Armani)

Make a level using a tileset that you haven't used before in a level you have publicly published.

- In the case that you have published levels that collectively use every tileset, make a level with a tileset you have used less frequently.
- Tileset mixing and VGASPECs are not allowed.

I can't exactly remember every level published by every person so please be nice and try to follow the rule.

Rule 2: Tools of Mass Destruction (kaywhyn)

- Use bashers, miners, diggers, laserers(NL) and fencers(NL). (You can use just 1 of these skills, any 2, any 3, any 4 or all 5 is also fine)
- Use bombers | For Lix: Use imploders
- Don't use any other skill

Rule 3: The Classic Tribe (IchoTolot)

- Make a level in the "l2_classic" style and use only the tiles and objects present in there. Further restriction here:
  Tiles: The tiles are all allowed except for "gray_block"!
  Objects: The NeoLemmix standard objects (owa_down, owa_left, owa_right, lemming, pickup, button, updraft, flag_blue, flag_green), trap_01 and trap_02 are not allowed! 
- Have a Lemming count of 60 and a locked RR. (Timer is not nessesary though)
- Only use the claissic 8 skills (you do not have to use all though)
- Use the music track attached to this post for the right ambiance.

For Lix: Simply use the "standstone" style (terrain, exit and hatch) instead of "l2_classic" (the music is not required here). Thematically it is quite close.

Maybe we can make a nice little Classic tribe for this rule.

Submission phase ends June 7th 2024 at 00:00 UTC.

Ruleset in detail again: http://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=2246.0

Send me a personal message with your level/s and if needed tileset/s to participate. It would also be nice to also tell me the rule which each level satisfies.

Please use the following naming format:  User1_Levelname_R3V1.nxlv ---> Level "Levelname" by User1   for Rule 3   Version 1 of the level

Prize selection:
- US $5.00
- Pick next contest's rules

Entries so far: 19

- JRT (3)
- Armani (3)
- IchoTolot (3)
- ericderkovits (3)
- geoo (2)
- kaywhyn (3)
- Crane (2)

[Dullstar]

Tip for replicating L2's style: Lemmings 2's terrain is strictly grid-aligned; this is why L2_classic is not a direct port of orig_pillar: orig_pillar's tiles would not have been the right size for L2's grid, and many of them don't align nicely with any grid size, so they had to redesign them. If I'm not mistaken the smallest size piece you can place is 16x8.



Is disallowing Water in Rule 3 intentional, or is it an oversight (since the stated reasoning is "Anything that was not available in Lemmings 2 is not allowed")? Water is present in L2 and the Classic water tiles are not unused in L2: they appear in 9 of the 10 official Classic levels.

There are also several unused tiles and objects in the set, which I still chose to include when I put L2_Classic together (using a rip made by... I think it was Icho?), but it's probably worth clarifying if these tiles are allowed. To my knowledge they are:

Steel: steel_01, steel_02, steel_03, steel_06, steel_07 (basically, just the small 16x16 square and one variant of the tiny 16x8 rectangle is used).
Wood: wood_14 to wood_24 are unused.
Misc: gray_block, pillar_end_03, pillar_end_05, pillar_end_06
Objects: trap_01, trap_02 (plus NeoLemmix standard objects: owa_down, owa_left, owa_right, lemming, pickup, button, updraft, flag_blue, flag_green)

It's probably easiest to allow all the blocks and objects that are in the style, but personally this is what I would consider:

Allow variants of used tiles:
- steel_06, steel_07 (variations of steel_05), pillar_end_03 (it's the right-facing version of left-facing pillar_end_02)

Gray area (use sparingly):
- steel_01, steel_02, steel_03 (these steel pieces are larger than the ones that were used), pillar_end_05, pillar_end_06 (the vertical pillar ends 7 and 8 were used, but maybe these horizontal pillar ends didn't work nicely with the grid?)

Don't use completely unused tile types:
- gray_block (it doesn't even fit with the rest of the style), wood_14 to wood_24, trap_01, trap_02

[IchoTolot]

Is disallowing Water in Rule 3 intentional, or is it an oversight (since the stated reasoning is "Anything that was not available in Lemmings 2 is not allowed")? Water is present in L2 and the Classic water tiles are not unused in L2: they appear in 9 of the 10 official Classic levels.

I was a dummy here: Water is allowed!

I was just going through the "standard objects" in my head the editor adds when they are not present in a style -> Water still appears in the circus tileset as an example. But yes, here it is no problem as the style has actually dedicated water.

For the tiles I try to make it simple:

Tiles: The tiles are all allowed except for gray_block!
Objects: The NeoLemmix standard objects, trap_01 and trap_02 are not allowed!

[IchoTolot]

Just a little reminder to keep working on your entries.

[IchoTolot]

As I just got my entries ready:

Another little reminder to keep working on your entries.

[IchoTolot]

I will put the pack together next weekend and therefore delay the playing phase for 1 week (June 7th) - preparing the voting for LOTY 2023 at the same time turned out to be a bit more time consuming.

So you got 1 more week for some more entries!