But thru experimentation on the Amiga, I did now come up with a systematic way, different from the random luck that prevailed on the Amiga savestates, A0;to deal with the problem. A0;In fact, it is so effectively that I think you can easily squeeze more than 10 diggers in the space provided.
Hmm...well, it kinda works in the DOS version too, but unfortunately not as effective as squeezing more than 10 diggers in. In fact, I could barely do 7, which fortunately I think is still good enough for the 100% solution.
It is certainly much more difficult on the DOS version, partly because the animation in general seems to go noticeably faster than the Amiga version. One critical element to my method requires you to basically step through the motions frame-by-frame, in order to turn the next walker into a digger as soon as the game allows. The DOS version's faster speed makes this much more error-prone.
Also, even if your reflexes and timing are perfect so that you can step thru the motions frame-by-frame continuously and at ease, it seems that in the DOS version, the way the cursor is handled still doesn't allow you to squeeze the lemmings as close together as the Amiga could. I think you could get maybe a minimum of 3-4 pixels going from one digger to the next [eg. 3 meaning if one digger's at (x,y), the next one's at (x+3,y)].
Because of this difficulty and the lack of savestates, I decided to, instead of going for the full solution, to do a test to see if my method works (and how well it does). That alone still took me nearly an hour X_X, but here are the results:
http://www.geocities.com/guestlevels/lemmings/classic8_test_a.pnghttp://www.geocities.com/guestlevels/lemmings/classic8_test_b.pnghttp://www.geocities.com/guestlevels/lemmings/classic8_test_c.pngThe screenshots demonstrate that squeezing 7 in is possible, and is possibly the best you can do. Although I did make a slight mishap somewhere, so I can't completely rule out squeezing 8 in, but it's doubtful to say the best. 7 if I recall correctly is still enough for 100% though, if you do the rest of the level correctly. (On that note, there are some slight differences between how I did it and how LemSteven's doing it.)
So while I still haven't succeeded, it at least looks plausible on the DOS version, but clearly it will be very difficult and frustrating.
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Oh, the method. It's nothing really. The diggers are placed from left to right. Each time you place a digger, pause the game and move the cursor to the right pixel-by-pixel until the cursor just stop highlighting the current digger. Then do the frame-by-frame until the next lemming walks close enough to "activate" the cursor, then immediately assign him the digger. Repeat. Note that if done correctly, all lemmings should end up starting digging at effectively the same altitude.
This is naturally the best you can squeeze everyone together, barring some unknown glitches/features. A reminder that unlike Lemmings 1, in Lemmings 2, you can assign skills while the game is paused, but the game immediately unpause when you do that or actually, whenever you click the mouse anywhere.