Out of all of the proposed skills I think I like shimmier the best, not sure that it will be most useful though. Jumper is the most useful I think but I understand why it’s difficult to introduce.
Shimmier:what I was thinking with the shimmier was that if you click on a lemming to shimmy but no ceiling is there; nothing happens at all; he only jumps when a appropriate ceiling is present.
This contradicts the expectations of players: For all non-permanent skills (with the exception of miners/diggers on steel) the lemming tries at least one cycle of the respective skill: Airbashing, laying one brick, ... This at least shows that the skill assignment was successful. So the player would except the lemming to at least try to reach a ceiling. And even the player themself profits from such tries, because they see how close they are to reaching the ceiling. Otherwise they don't know if the ceiling is 8 pixels too high up, or just one single pixel.
First of all; your first argument isn’t true at all; plenty of skills have situations where you click on the lemming and nothing happens; assigning platformer on a flat ground not near ledge (Which I still don’t care for btw) or mining/digging on steel.
But I have a better solution anyway;An animation of the lemming simply reaching his arms up briefly (without jumping or moving up at all). This happens if there is no terrain (8 pixels or whatever) for him to shimmy to.
I don’t have a good answer for terrain in between the lemming (below 8 pixels). All possibilities seem to have pros and cons. I'll think about it more.
Jumper I know you discussed this with Simon a lot. I don’t know what was said but I have a few points/arguments: (which are all purely theoretical)
I don’t see a strict need for introducing “tumbler” mechanics.
-The jumper has an animation; when it ends the lemming simply falls as normal. Yes; it may not look as realistic as in Lix; but it’s easier to implement and easier for the player to make determinations/projections on the lemming’s path too (I’m assuming). (It can get very tricky in Lix (in certain situations) imo).
-If the lemming jumps into a wall; it can either do one of two things I’m thinking:
(assuming the lemming is NOT a climber—if it is; it will climb the wall)
1) ricochet back; the animation, mirrored.
2) the lemming stops and falls immediately.
All of these suggestions limit the power/usefulness of the skill somewhat. But maybe that’s a good thing? I felt like it’s a little overpowered in Lix. At least; several times when I designed levels I found them backrouted with jumpers (among other things). Of course this could merely be because I’m too unfamiliar with the skill.
pourer skills:
(this is quite harder than it seems at first. I have no final thoughts here at all, just musings)
Since we are encouraging each skill to be diverse (you guys made the platformer not gain any height to be more different from builders). I’m thinking of ways of doing the same here.
At first I thought I leaned toward the filler. The gluer as you said has very weird rules and is perhaps overpowered; it can essentially do what the platformer does in hyper mode. The sand pourer seems best for gaining height; what the builder can already do well. Kieran’s level really putting these to use was interesting but also looked very tedious. But to settle on the filler seems also boring and not very helpful. I’m having a difficult time determining a ‘favorite’ pourer skill. They all have different positive and negative attributes. I think some kind of hybrid is the best answer.
proposal-material is poured in front of lemming firstly in such a way that the lemming will not get stuck in terrain. Even if we went with a sand pourer like mound that is formed its apex should be away from the lemming [not directly under the pouring]; even if this looks a little unrealistic.
-once the lemming beings pouring; the material falls, when it first touches ground it runs away from the lemming; it continues running until it hits a wall; touches a pixel; at that moment it becomes solid (terrain) thus future running material hits it becomes solid.
In this example if a pourer (facing right) is used on a flat surface with a wall to the right; the lemming pours and simply a thin 1 pixel tall layer of material will be poured and set on the ground to the lemming’s right. If there is no wall; the material will run off and be lost. This example also means pouring can be used to gain height but only very little at a time, kind of like Lix’s platform. The glue mechanic is totally lost.
Finally all of these pourer-skills need a huge amount of new code, because we currently don't have anything resembling a single non-solid pixels that moves around and turns solid at some point.
I have a possible solutions:1) during the animation the pixels are ignored/regarded as decoration; they aren’t interacted with at all. They only become solid, instantaneously, when the animation is finished. This would lead to problems. As each “portion” becomes solid? This will depend on how the above is decided. Say if the filler is filling up a small hole; it could harden in layers. Any part that is moving/animating is ignored until it stops.
another skill that I sort of liked from L2;
attractorIts function is very similar to the blocker, but with some important differences.
-you can assign other skills to an attracting lemming to cancel it.
-similar to a blocker you can use it to merely stall a lemming but have the added side effect of affecting other lemmings in the area.
-if this was introduced; a shadow for the effected area should be made.
I only really mention it because from a coding standpoint I think it'd be easy (compared to these other suggestions) to create. You don't even really need "dancing" animations for the other lemmings; they could just walk in place or something.
I'm not really crazy about adding this or any of these to the game right now; just want to discuss them
