Beta version of Pocket Lemmings released

[zennehoy]

Hello all,
not sure how many here actually know I am working on a Pocket PC clone of Lemmings, but I am, and it's running well enough that I thought I'd share its current state and ask for some feedback. So please, go grab the file at
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~zeppenfe/files/PocketLemmings.zip
and let me know what you think.

Don't have a PDA? No worries, there's a regular windows executable included as well! Just don't complain that the screen is tiny and crammed into the top left corner of your screen

This version includes many of the Original Lemmings levels and all the Oh No More Lemmings ones, and adding additional level packs (including custom packs) should be pretty straightforward. See the included readme for details.

The more testers the merrier, so please let me know what you think!
Zen

[EricLang]

LemmingsWin32.exe does not start. Windows (XP) gives me a message (in Dutch) which complains about some "wrong configuration" and not be able to start the executable. Ik don't know the message in english.

[zennehoy]

The only thing I can imagine is that it's complaining about missing DLLs? I'll have to check my compile settings at home, it's possible I didn't link the standard lib statically... Not sure what else could be going wrong, as it works fine on all the computers I've been able to get my hands on. Then again, all those computers had Visual Studio installed.
Can you post a screenshot of the error message?
Thanks!
Zen

[EricLang]

The translation is about this:

The application cannot be started because the configuration of the application is wrong. Reinstalling the application can solve this problem.

(Can I upload a printscreen in this message??)

[zennehoy]

Yup, I didn't statically link the standard C library (at least that fixes the problem on my old laptop which doesn't have Visual Studio installed). Stupid cryptic error messages.

You can either re-download the entire zip, or you can just grab the updated executable directly from:
[file removed, get the complete package from the first post instead]

Looking forward to your feedback,
Zen

[EricLang]

Ok it works.
Don't know if I will give any feedback, because of the insanely small screen .
On first sight mechanics seem ok. I will play around with it a bit coming weeks.

[zennehoy]

I guess there is an alternative: high pixelation...
I'll just upload the executable this time:
[file removed, get the complete package from the first post instead]

No more excuses
Zen

[zennehoy]

I've released a new version of Pocket Lemmings, with support for ODDTABLE levels and level status tracking. I've also added high scores that keep track of the maximum percentage of lemmings saved and the amount of time taken to complete each level.
You can get the updated files here:
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~zeppenfe/files/PocketLemmings.zip

Hopefully some of you will give me some feedback this time around,
cheers!
Zen

[Anatol]

Nice work! Wow, playing this makes me wish I had a PDA.  :cry:

Anyway, here are my comments...

1) When I start a level, if I press any key, it goes back to the menu. If I press it again, the game exits. Is this intentional?
2) It doesn't seem to highlight the current skill I've selected.
3) The screen is kinda blurry, but perhaps that's because it's intended for PDA's.
4) I posted a few more suggestions here: http://lemmings.isamedia.org/index.php?topic=314.0 However, I see you've implemented some of them already. 
5) Hey, it tells you how long it took to pass, and the max percent saved!!!!! Nice!  8) Hmm, but does it save what the record time is as well?
6) Love how it remembers which levels you've passed. It might be nice to either gray out, or make entirely invisible, the levels you don't have access to yet.
7) Are you going to include xmas Lemmings levels as well?

[Mindless]

Hopefully some of you will give me some feedback this time around

I know how you feel

Maybe it's just because I'm running this under wine, but the scaling on the skill toolbar looks kind'a bad.  Also it seems odd to click the <-- button on the intro screen to go to ONML.

Since this is supposed to be a PPC game, maybe you should have left- and right-handed modes and rearrange the interface accordingly.  I don't have a PPC, so I can't say what layout would be best.

[siergiej]

I've played it a bit (Win32 version), and these are some things I have discovered so far:

1. In Taxing 2 level lemmings don't come out from the left trapdoor. I don't know if this problem occurs in the other levels containing more then one trapdoor.
2. In Mayhem 1 level lemmings don't die when they're falling from the trapdoor. Probably it's a matter of max-safe falling distance
3. When you press 'Armageddon' button, it closes the level immediately instead of giving all the lemmings bombers.
4. Overally, the game seems to be ok

[geoo]

[...]
5) Hey, it tells you how long it took to pass, and the max percent saved!!!!! Nice!  8) Hmm, but does it save what the record time is as well?[...]

Apparently it does, at least I found the time that it took me to pass Havoc 1 again in the *.sav file, just hexadecimally, obviously. (Ah, just saw, it is even displayed when I re-play the level. For the record, it took me 2:48, but it seemed much longer, I miss fast forward. And a key for Pause, but I'm nut sure whether this would be doable for the actual PocketPC.)

The physics in Havoc 1 behaved somewhat weirdly at one point: When bashing through the final icicle, the lemming continued bashing through the steel wall even though he only bashed away a height of 2 pixels (low-res equivalent) of terrain.

Yeah, the re-scaled toolbar also looks kind of bad for me; not sure whether it would be the same on the PocketPC.

[zennehoy]

Yay, feedback! *happy*

1) When I start a level, if I press any key, it goes back to the menu. If I press it again, the game exits. Is this intentional?
2) It doesn't seem to highlight the current skill I've selected.
3) The screen is kinda blurry, but perhaps that's because it's intended for PDA's.
4) I posted a few more suggestions here: http://lemmings.isamedia.org/index.php?topic=314.0 However, I see you've implemented some of them already. 
5) Hey, it tells you how long it took to pass, and the max percent saved!!!!! Nice!  8) Hmm, but does it save what the record time is as well?
6) Love how it remembers which levels you've passed. It might be nice to either gray out, or make entirely invisible, the levels you don't have access to yet.
7) Are you going to include xmas Lemmings levels as well?

1) One of the first things I did was to ensure that in case something goes wrong, it is still possible to quit the game, since there's no Ctrl-Alt-Delete on a PDA. This is something I'll change when I make the configuration menu, which will allow for customized key assignments for all items on the skill bar (including pause etc.), scrolling, menu navigation (any more I missed?) etc. Just try not to hit a key when you've almost completed a level
2) Ah yes, that's because I still haven't figured out how to draw lines/boxes. It definitely belongs on the todo list though.
3) The game was designed for a resolution of 320x240. This is doubled to 640x480 in the Win32 version, and unfortunately modern graphics cards don't simply scale pixels but interpolate between them (doesn't technology suck :winktounge: ). Not much I can do about this I'm afraid; I think I'll make the dialog box asking for full-screen ask for 320x240 vs 640x480 instead. (Or does anyone run it in fullscreen mode?)
4) And I hope to implement more suggestions as they come in...
5) Yes, it saves both the time taken and lemming percentage rescued. If you click on the column heading in the main menu it will switch between displaying the two. I should probably mark this in the GUI somehow, maybe a small down arrow as in typical drop-down lists?
6) Yeah, I agree a better differentiation between available levels and unavailable ones would be nice. What's planned is that the main menu's "Play" button changes to "Code" when an unavailable level is selected, and clicking on it will prompt you for a lemmings level code for that level. I'm also considering placing a checkmark before the name of all completed levels, though I like the grayed out idea as well. I'll have to try it out to see what looks best.
7) Adding levels (including custom levels) is pretty simple, just add a directory with all the required .DAT files and create a levels.ini indicating the level order. So yes, I'll add other level packs, the game mechanics have a higher priority for now though.

8 ) Maybe it's just because I'm running this under wine, but the scaling on the skill toolbar looks kind'a bad.  Also it seems odd to click the <-- button on the intro screen to go to ONML.
9) Since this is supposed to be a PPC game, maybe you should have left- and right-handed modes and rearrange the interface accordingly.  I don't have a PPC, so I can't say what layout would be best.

8 ) Yeah, the skill toolbar is basically still a placeholder graphic. I originally intended to use the win lemmings graphics for this, but the style just didn't match. Having to click the left arrow on the main menu to go to the next level pack is kinda strange though... what level pack shows when you start the game? The pack order is dependent only on the order in which windows returns the level directories, which so far has always been original followed by oh no. Since there is no hard-coded information about level ordering etc. I'm not quite sure how else this could be done, perhaps an .ini file in the top level directory containing the order.
9) This is definitely planned, and will be as soon as I add the configuration menu.

10) In Taxing 2 level lemmings don't come out from the left trapdoor. I don't know if this problem occurs in the other levels containing more then one trapdoor.
11) In Mayhem 1 level lemmings don't die when they're falling from the trapdoor. Probably it's a matter of max-safe falling distance
12) When you press 'Armageddon' button, it closes the level immediately instead of giving all the lemmings bombers.
13) Overally, the game seems to be ok

10) Whoops, another item missing on the todo list. Currently only the last entrance object is used for all lemmings. This'll probably be one of the first things I fix.
11) Ah yes, falling distance... I've seen three variants, 60, 63 and 66 pixels. The DOS version I originally used to derive game mechanics used 66 pixels, but since this made the we all fall down levels trivial, I downed it to 63 when I found out that different versions used different safe fall heights. Does anyone know the officially "correct" choice?
12) Yup, on the todo list, and one of the next things to be implemented.
13) I guess that's ok...

14) Apparently it does [save the record time], at least I found the time that it took me to pass Havoc 1 again in the *.sav file, just hexadecimally, obviously. (Ah, just saw, it is even displayed when I re-play the level. For the record, it took me 2:48, but it seemed much longer, I miss fast forward. And a key for Pause, but I'm nut sure whether this would be doable for the actual PocketPC.)
15) The physics in Havoc 1 behaved somewhat weirdly at one point: When bashing through the final icicle, the lemming continued bashing through the steel wall even though he only bashed away a height of 2 pixels (low-res equivalent) of terrain.
16) Yeah, the re-scaled toolbar also looks kind of bad for me; not sure whether it would be the same on the PocketPC.

14) Addressed in 5). You can click the main menu column header to change between percent saved and time taken. I'll try to make this clearer in the next version.
15) I'll have to give this a closer look, thanks for the heads up. This is exactly the type of issue I especially need help with, since noticing all these (sometimes minor) differences is often a matter of luck and supreme knowledge of the way the levels should play (which I definitely lack).
16) Yup, it's a placeholder graphic, see 8 (gah, automatic smilies can be annoying)

Thanks for all the excellent feedback so far. Looking forward to more,
cheers,
Zen

[Anatol]

Would it be possible for you to use the old Lemmings cursor, instead of the generic arrow cursor? Maybe you can turn off the default cursor, and blit a bitmap of the old Lemm cursor to mouse_x and mouse_y

2) Ah yes, that's because I still haven't figured out how to draw lines/boxes. It definitely belongs on the todo list though.

I don't know Delphi, but if you get desperate maybe you could just create a bitmap of a box.

[siergiej]

11) Ah yes, falling distance... I've seen three variants, 60, 63 and 66 pixels. The DOS version I originally used to derive game mechanics used 66 pixels, but since this made the we all fall down levels trivial, I downed it to 63 when I found out that different versions used different safe fall heights. Does anyone know the officially "correct" choice?

I'm almost sure that in Original Lemmings it's 63. I haven't checked if it's the same in Oh No!