It's kind of sad...

Started by Timballisto, August 20, 2004, 03:43:22 AM

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Shvegait

That reminds me...

Back in November when I found out about DOSBox, my friend also linked me to a download of Lemmings (I had it as a kid but on a floppy disk somewhere at home...). I started playing it, my roommate asked for it, and I got this girl on my floor to start playing it. They played it for a while, but got busy with other things.

And then... a couple weeks after, a group of friends played some Trivial Pursuit game. I forget what one it was, it was a DVD version about pop culture or something.

It came to my team's turn, and we got the category Sports and Games. Normally you get a question/hint and then the actual clue shows up. Usually the question/hint doesn't give you much information. Well, here's what it said. "This game's difficulty levels are Fun, Tricky, Taxing, and Mayhem. What game is it?"

Of course I said Lemmings right away, before they even showed the level "Just dig!" (it starts out fuzzy and the picture becomes more clear over a few seconds). The girl whom I introduced to the game was there too on a different team, so she knew what it was as well, and I didn't look like a crazy person knowing that. It was just so weird how that happened. If another team got that question I would've been mad though :P

When I went home for Thanksgiving, which is when I started making levels, I got my sister to help test them. She was a little rusty on Lemmings but at least helped get rid of the most obvious backroutes. And then she started playing the normal Lemmings again. She also played through most of the Holiday Lemmings levels over winter break. Now, this wasn't all completely new to her because we had played Lemmings around when it first came out, but there are still people and will always be people interested in Lemmings, unless something can make it obsolete. That something hasn't come along, and judging by the way the game industry is going, it will probably never come along.

Anyway.. the game companies need to realize what makes good games. They are quickly losing it...

The "problem" that Lemmings has is that it's so simple and perfect in its gameplay that there doesn't need to be a new game that is Lemmings-based. Think of Tetris. Even "new" Tetris games do not change much! That's because Tetris is already in its simplest and most perfect form. You can add new pieces and special effects, but that doesn't make it more interesting in the long run, only the first couple of times you see them. I've never played Tribes, but think of that. Sure there are plenty of new cool skills, but can't you already do so much with just the original 8?

Lemmings can often require precision. If you were to make Lemmings in a higher resolution (higher than Cheapo), say, 800x600, can you imagine how difficult it would be to be precise? Of course you could eliminate the pixel precision, but then it's reminiscent Lemmings 3D, and I'm not sure that's a good thing.

A Lemmings FPS? That takes away the entire point of the game, sorry. If Lemmings were to become merely a type of character, the game misses the point. Better to do something like that with Worms, and keep the puzzle aspect with Lemmings...

Whoops, random long rant.  :-(

Timballisto

Lol. &#A0;That's funny. &#A0;I use my brother for level testing and he isn't very good either &#A0;X_X.

Also, what you say about the game companies is true.

We don't need a new game though, I don't think.

I think we need a new GENRE.  lemmings, was probably so popular because, as far as I know, it was the first game of its kind and it's concept was new.

Like you said, the game cannot be changed because it's in its simplest form. &#A0;I think this "simplest form" thing is simply the overall idea of the game, which is, for lemmings:

"GET X NUMBER OF THINGS (lemmings) FROM POINT A (trap door(s)) TO B (exit(s)) USING TOOLS X Y AND Z (all tools featured in lemmings) AND MANEUVER AROUND AND OR THROUGH THE INACCESSIBLE PIXELS (terrain, steel, traps)"

All we need to do is make a sentence like this, add a theme to it (like with the parenthesis), and *Poof!*- a game concept is made...

Hm...

I do believe this will help me a lot in thinking of new game ideas. &#A0;Maybe I should look further into this...

Make up of that sentence was

1.objective
2.how to achieve objective
3.obstacles in the way of objective

cool. &#A0;I guess it's as simple as that...or not...who knows?

Andi

Maybe they don't make lemminsg games anymore because for lemmings you don't need an Unreal 3 engine and a WTFTHISISFAST graphics card and dozens of Ghz. And especially these things are currently things who makes "good games".
At the moment they only look at graphics. Games with the best graphics, have the worst story. And games with a damn good story have less good graphics. But if you play them some time you forget about the graphics because the gameplay is that good.

To quote G3K: What can I say, it's a kerayzee world


To mention Lemmings FPS: I think I have once thrown that idea into the forum. I dunno what people think but for me it looks like the most think FPS = blood. If I would make a Lemmings FPS it'd contain no blood, but instead a much bigger fun-factor.
(Haha, I can I remember I had the idea of a peanut machine gun. xD)

Timballisto

This is kind of off topic, but because of the original topic, it fits.

Who else has noticed that there has been a great increase in the traffic here?  We've got about 16-17 regulars here now!  This is more than I've ever seen in my time on the lemmings forums.

(Insert that big lemmings banner that is now somewhere else)

Andi

The big Lemmings banner ist still there. you can include it with:
:lem4ever:
:lem4ever:


I removed it because it was too big to fit into the other smilies.