Pre-LF Contest Compilation Pack

[kaywhyn]

2000th post! (2001st is my post in the Updated Styles topic ) To celebrate this milestone, I'm going to post a compilation pack of Pre-LF Contest levels for which Nepster updated them for NL. They are attached as a download below I've also attached my replay collection for the pack, as proof that all of these are solvable. I've ensured that they are and for those that weren't I made changes so that they are. Please note these are my solutions to the levels. A lot of these the intended solution is unknown, and as most of these authors aren't even around anymore or inactive, there's no way to know for certain what they intended. 

These are contest levels that were found on various websites. They have been organized into 6 ranks: Crazy C. 1 (Crazy Contest 1), Heaven C. 2008 (Lemmings Heaven Contest 2008), Heaven C. 2010, Welt Group Level, Welt Just Dig C (Welt "Just Dig" Contest), and finally Forum Member C (Forum Member Contest).

Crazy C. 1 - This was a contest held on the Lemmings Crazy website (it's still up and works). According to the info, namida seems to have been the owner of the site, who went by the username steaver370. Consists of 5 levels: 1 by namida, 1 by Insane Steve, 1 by Ben Conway (their level won the contest and yes, I remember playing this level of theirs on Dos back in the days and was very impressed by the solution when I figured it out! ), and two levels whose authors are unknown. If anyone knows the author of those levels, please let me know! There was another Lemmings Crazy contest but it seems that never ever got far or finished?

Heaven C. 2008 and Heaven C. 2010 are two separate contests that were held on the former Lemmings Heaven website that used to be up but has long since been taken down. The two changes I made here for the former are that I added the author for both Derangement of Science and The Rambaldi Eye, Lacktardo and Pieuw, respectively. For the former, you can find that in the Lemmini version of Revenge of the Lemmings as well, while the latter is a level that you can find in Pieuw's PimoLems level pack but under the title "The Eye of Rambaldi." The rest of the levels with unknown authors I couldn't get information for online, so once again if anyone knows who the authors of these levels are, let me know!

Heaven C. 2008 consists of 11 levels by various authors that aren't known except for the two levels I mentioned above, where I do know the authors of them because I've played them before.

Heaven C. 2010 consists of 17 levels whose authors are all known, with the main theme being all about the miner skill. There are 3 levels that needed to be excluded because they won't work in NL due to the intended solution requiring some Lemmini-exclusive mechanics: XXL (Extra Extra Level), Minor Miners, and Technoir.

To my knowledge, I think all of the Heaven contest levels were originally for Lemmini. If you download them from the Lemmings level database website, it should state that they're for Lemmini.

Welt Group Level - Two collaboration levels that were from the LemmingsWelt Forums back in 2005, the second of which appears to be a more refined version of the first one. You can find the first level in the New Formats Revenge of the Lemmings level pack as well According to the RotL readme file, the authors were Timballisto, Conway, Tumble Weed, Insane Steve, Shvegait, and "guest," the last one possibly being ccexplore, but it's not certain.

Welt Just Dig C. - Contest levels that are all based on the layout of Fun 1 - Just Dig from L1, with layout and skillset changes.

Forum Member C. - Two levels, one by Tumble Weed, the other by Ben Conway. I'm not certain what this category is all about, so if anyone knows anything about this, let me know!

Other Changes

There were two levels that needed edits, Perfect Harmony by Dodochacalo and The Lemming Archaeologist by loftyD. While the former was luckily still solvable the way it was, not being able to go up the slanted gold pipe from the left side is unintentional, meaning one needed to spend a builder there. As the level was originally for Lemmini, Lemmings can go up the slanted gold pipe just fine, so it might had been the shift from high-res to low-res that resulted in the hole/gap in NL. Here, I simply imitated mobius' edits to the level that he used for Revenge of the Lemmings (2022).

The Lemming Archaeologist as it was would be impossible in New Formats NL due to the solution requiring dependency on the ceiling, which is deadly in New Formats NL. Luckily, it's an easy fix of simply putting terrain in the way so that the climber falls back down and doesn't exit out the top of the level and die.

The rest of the levels were all possible the way they were. Another major change I made here was I removed most of the time limits. The final level in particular probably has the tightest time limit with a very difficult to find solution on New Formats NL. I did think about possibly leaving it in, but honestly I think it'll just lead to too much player frustration. The ones I kept in were generally in ones with it being the main challenge of the level. Most of these happened to be the 1 minute levels. For others, like Perfect Harmony and Eye of Rambaldi, I checked the level packs where you can find these levels to see if the time limits were removed. For the former, which once again you can find in RotL (2022), mobius didn't remove the time limit, while Icho removed it for the latter, which is found in PimoLems. So, I decided to do the same with keeping the time limit and not keeping the time limit, respectively, for these two levels.

I also thought about removing the time limits for the "Just Dig" remakes, but ultimately I decided to leave them in just because these are pretty much remakes of the first DMA level from L1. None of them are very tight at all and hence theoretically can all be removed for these levels anyway If people want, I could remove the time limits in a future update

Finally, I thought about making changes to "Derangement of Science" and "Patience is a Virtue" due to them not confirming to NL standards because of hidden elements, but for now I decided to leave them the way I found them in when Nepster finished the work on them after these levels were gathered up. If backlash is particularly strong for the former (and I'm pretty sure it will be), I'll make an update for it so that it's completely fair and conforms to NL standards.

WARNING: Completely spoils the level if you haven't played it before!

There is hidden terrain behind the entrance and unfortunately CPM does not reveal it. So, unless you have seen a solution to the level or was told about this ahead of time, it's likely you won't solve the level for a really long time, if ever!

The latter isn't as bad, as it's just an exit that's hard to make out but it is visible due to it standing out thanks to the visual in the bottom half of the exit, though it possibly can easily be mistaken for the green acid of the L1 Marble tileset instead. Even then, it's quite an easy level thanks to skillset giving a bit more than one needs. I've already made an edit where I make the exit completely visible, and again if people want it visible, I'll put the edited level in an update.

Special thanks to:

• Ben Conway, bulletride, Dodochacalo, Ellischant, ftk99, Gronkling, Insane Steve, Juanjo, karmew32, Lacktardo, Lem'ka, loftyD, namida, Pieuw, and Tumbleweed for these levels
• Conway, "guest (possibly ccexplore but it's not certain)," Insane Steve, Shvegait, Timballisto, and Tumble Weed for the 2 LemmingsWelt collaboration levels
• All the unknown authors for the other levels which I couldn't find information on who they're by
• Nepster for doing the work on getting these updated for NL