Hi everybody,
I just noticed this community level set and, while I'm not very good at making levels, I'd still love to be able to help. So, I'm playing through the level set (might take me a long time) and I'm hoping a fresh pair of eyes will be useful. For now, I'm going to compare this level set (which I presume we could consider the proposed "default" Lix campaign) to the original
Lemmings one.
I've intentionally avoided reading most of this thread so as to keep my perspective unbiased and not to spoil anything. I'll go back and read it later after I've reviewed the first chunk of the levels. So, if I mention something that's already been discussed, I'm sorry.
Starting with the first few levels, here are notes I took about structure and how these serve to introduce the player to lix. I'm assuming the player has at most skimmed the tutorial, and is smart enough to figure out the basic controls.
Levels 1 - 30I like that it starts off with the humble "Any Way You Want" level. If you look at the first ten or so Lemmings levels, each is extremely minimalist and straight-forward to solidify game concepts. I'm assuming here that the starting levels of this pack are meant to serve as an introduction, and the later levels are the puzzling ones. You might even want to follow that pattern -- have a hidden tutorial by making the first 15 levels map to each of the 15 skills. But I like the current setup.
Next up is "Confusing Fractals," which is aptly named. The level is cool and all, but it's very intimidating to a new player despite its simple solution. I feel like topography should be introduced slowly, one axis at a time, and especially not with a mesmerizingly complicated level design. I'd recommend moving this one later on.
Level 3 -- I'm going to bold these now -- "Alternative Methods Recommended" is a clever way of introducing a lot of skills at once. It forces the player not to re-use the same skill too many times -- you might even want to lower the skill numbers down from 10 to 5. One thing I found confusing was the dark/bright pattern of the platforms, which made it look to me like there was a grid of blue dots and not a series of thin platforms. You might want to space the platforms out more and change their texture so that the player can more easily understand what's going on. Certain skills are a little overwhelming, though -- I feel like jumpers, climbers, cubers, and blockers don't belong here.
Level 4, "Lix Potion Number Nine," is a good introduction to traps. I'd nix the red lasers though, as they are distracting and simplicity is important so as not to overwhelm the player.
Level 5, "Building Block Maze," is a perfect difficulty jump. It allows players to re-use the skills they've learned, but makes them think through the level. It also is forgiving with skill number -- players get plenty, so they don't have to worry about running out yet. I'd actually recommend keeping it to just construction and destruction skills and blockers, and cut out the extraneous jumping, running, climbing skills, and parachuting skills, and maybe even remove the cuber and fling-bombers; too many tools is overwhelming. The micromanagement movement skills should be introduced later, I think.
Level 6, "Get Down from There!," is similar to Building Block Maze insofar as it gives the players a large tool-set and lets them explore it. I'd recommend slightly restructuring it so that the lix won't spill over the edge and die until the player is ready, or they might panic. Even then, this level should be moved later on a little; it's about the same difficulty as level 13 (see below). Again remove some of the overwhelming, extraneous skills.
Level 7, "Goblin City," is good. Encourages players to learn how to scroll because of how interesting the rest of the level is. Consider changing the red bar to a different colour, because it looks scary, like a trap or something.
Level 8, "Leap of the Locust" is a bit weird as a tutorial. For one, it's too restrictive on the number of lixes to be saved -- beginning players should be allowed to make some mistakes. Also, there's no way to cover over the pit completely, which gave me the feeling that I hadn't truly "saved" my lixes, like there was still danger lurking there. I don't think it's good to force players to micromanage their lixes this early on to prevent them from dying. Furthermore, it took me a minute to realize what to do here, and since I'm a veteran player that might mean this level is too hard for its placement.
Level 9, "Pipe Dream," is a good level which allows creative solutions, just like 5 and 6. I'd actually recommend putting it right after or right before 5; 5 is a construction-focused level, and this can be a destruction-focused level. Again, maybe remove the extraneous movement skills.
Level 10, Diamond Dash, is a good follow-up to Pipe Dream and Building Block Maze. Focuses on both construction and destruction. Again, maybe remove the extraneous movement skills.
Level 11, "Little Miner Puzzle (part 1)" is an excellent tutorial to specifically teach mining. It's also a good introduction to vertical scrolling. I'd recommend putting it very early on, possibly even the first level (very first level probably shouldn't have scrolling, though). Definitely before the more open-ended levels like 5, 6, 9, and 10.
Level 12, "Minimalism," is a good way of introducing some of the movement skills; this one is walking and fling-bombing. However, I'd restructure it slightly so that the player can save all the lixes just by using walkers to save half and bombers to save the other half; don't force walking and bombing together, especially since this level requires dexterity and/or repeated pausing to assign the skills in time. The player doesn't even know the skills' hotkeys yet (!).
Level 13, "Snake," is another open-ended level like 5, 6, 9, 10. Note how the skillset is much simpler. It's also a good challenge step up from the others; actually about the same difficulty as 6, which should be moved later.
Level 14, "Fear of Heights", is interesting as it fails under "Just Dig" logic, making the player think more critically what looks like a straightforward level. but remove the floater skill as it's not necessary -- or else make the drop bigger. We still haven't gotten a good floater introduction yet. Also, allow the player to lose a few lixes. Things are starting to get a little tricky.
Level 15, "Snow Really," is another good open-ended level. Teaches about climbers and about sending one loner lix up ahead of the pack to carve the way. This is actually my favourite level so far, I think; feels a lot like
Lemmings. I'd recommend removing the cuber and jumper; blocker and builder work as fine substitutes and I still feel like the skillset should be small. Title should end in a question mark.
Level 16, "The Road Not Taken", is kind of weird. Why is there a door encased in steel? Why does the level wrap horizontally? The random tiny platforms hovering around is also confusing. The level also makes it easy to build into the ceiling (a weird game mechanic that the player shouldn't have to worry about yet) and encourages use of floaters -- something we still haven't introduced properly. I do like that it's another open-ended level, but it has some problems. This should either be moved later on or stricken all together. Sorry.
Level 17, "Think Fast!," is a nice way of building up the player's dexterity and making them consider using hotkeys. Also introduces them to bridge physics - what happens when a lix walks into a bridge from the "wrong" side? Either put this level after the floater introduction (which still isn't a thing), or remove the floater skill altogether. Also, give some more wiggle room on the allowed lix deaths.
Level 18, "Climb to Freedom!," is a nice way of making players think of re-purposing digger-tunnels as up-tubes instead of down-tubes. Also good to show what climbers can deal with (straight walls) and what they can't (bumps). Remove the unnecessary basher, though, and give the player a few more bridgers to use. Death count is still too restrictive.
Level 19, "Cuber Replacement," is a little confusing. Cubers should have been introduced before this level. The spawn rate kind of fast. Also, remove the greyed-out cuber icon; it's also confusing. The builders could be swapped out for more platformers to keep the concept simple.
This level is good for encouraging out-of-the-box thinking with skills, but maybe it should be moved later on after the skills' uses have been more firmly established and reinforced in the player's mind. Plus, it takes a little finesse to get it to work right; seems like medium-difficulty to me.
Level 20, "Escape the Pit," is another good open-ended one, same difficulty as 13 and 6. I especially like how it forces the player to scroll the screen. Maybe this could be the introduction to horizontal screen-scrolling? Maybe remove the explosions, as they haven't been clearly introduced yet. One thing I've noticed is that the levels have been oscillating between explosion and flingsplosions; it should stay consistent until the distinction has been clearly made. (A level with just explosions, but requiring both types, would be really great for this purpose.) The "the" in the title should be capitalized.
Level 21, "Let's block and blow?," good introduction to blockers and bombers. This could go very early on; definitely makes a good explosion introduction. Also, the title is lowercase; is this intentional?
Level 22, "Pitfall," is a good introduction to floaters. Depending on where this level is placed, (if climbers and bombers haven't been introduced yet) maybe instead of forcing the player to use a blocker, instead modify the terrain slightly to force the use of a climber to climb out of the starting plateau.
Level 23, "Put your lix on ice," is a good, simple level, not too challenging. Remove the extraneous skills (i.e. bomber, floater, jumper, batter), and put this level earlier in the list. It shows how climbers can be used to climb steep slopes, not just straight walls; this should go before 15 ("Snow Really"). There is a small, one-pixel lip on the left-hand hill which halts climbers, but it's hard to notice; either make the bump bigger (and perfectly flat on the bottom so that it's obvious the climber will be reflected), or flatten it out with dark antimatter terrain. Um, this title also has strange capitalization.
And uses the discouraged pluralization of "lix." Edit: nevermind, lix has many correct plurals; thanks, Proxima.
Level 24, "Downpour." This level is flingsane and belongs way farther down the list. I don't know what it's doing here. We haven't even been introduced to jumpers properly yet.
Level 25, "Go Ahead and Help Yourself," is another good open-ended one. Another small difficulty step up from 6, 13, and 20. Remove some of the unnecessary skills cluttering the skill list, though, especially the ones that haven't been introduced yet. Good introduction to multiple hatches.
Level 26, "Let's all go down the Strand"; Same difficulty class as 6, 13, 20, etc. Jumpers should be introduced before this level, though. Doesn't need modification.
Level 27, "Setting a Fundament"; The basic use of cubers needs to be solidified (no pun intended) before this more complicated use.
Level 28, "Suicide Attack" -- what is this flingsanity? There needs to be a simple flingtroduction level first.
Level 29, "You'll Get Over It," is a good difficulty; it's open ended, has a simple skillset. Belongs maybe just after 6, 13, 20, 26 in terms of difficulty. (i.e. it's well placed.)
Level 30, "Against the Wall."
So many colours aah! Actually, I like this as an introduction to toroidal levels. It's simpler than level 2 ("Confusing Fractals") and the player already has a handle on basic use of skills (except flinging, jumping, cubing, and blocking, which haven't had a proper introduction yet) and is ready for a new concept.
Summary- All-in-all, pretty good progression with a few oddball hard levels in there (2, 8, 16, 19, 24, 27, 28, and to a lesser extent 6) that need to be moved.
- (Edit:) Don't overwhelm players with huge numbers of (extraneous) skills in the early levels.
- (Edit:) Also, be merciful and allow players to let some lixes die; in Lemmings, fun and taxing levels had success rates which were usually "bare minimum," not "par."
- Skills need to have simple introductions before they are used in levels. They don't necessarily need to be introduced one-at-a-time (although Level 11 ("Little Miner Puzzle (Part 1)") works well in that regard); I actually quite like how swathes of skills are introduced in each level. Level 3 ("Alternative Methods Recommended") is good that way.
- There are some good, open-ended levels that allow for diverse solutions:
- Level 5 ("Building Block Maze") focuses on construction
- Level 9 ("Pipe Dream") focuses on destruction
- Level 10 ("Diamond Dash") combines construction and destruction
- Level 13 ("Snake") is like 10, but a little more tricky.
- Level 6 ("Get Down From There") Belongs in the same difficulty tier as 10.
- Level 15 ("Snow Really") same category as 6 and 13, but also teaches the player to send one lix on up ahead of the rest of them. Very good.
- Level 20 ("Escape the Pit") is in the 6, 13, 15 class.
- Level 25 ("Go Ahead and Help Yourself") is another step up in difficulty. Good introduction to two hatches.
- There still needs to be an introduction for: jumpers, blockers, runners, batters, bombers, and fling-bombers.
- Do not switch between bombers and fling-bombers until the distinction has been made clear.
- Keep in mind that early players won't know basic things like hotkeys. "Minimalism," for example, is tough as-is without hotkeys.
Everything is really good so far and I look forward to playing the rest. Maybe I could contribute "Sanity Threshold" (pictured) from the
occult tileset, if that makes it into the game?
