Thanks to Nepster's release of the Shimmier ending the year on a high note, I was able to finish the last couple of levels of the first set of 30 from my upcoming pack.
Obviously, with the Shimmier included, it's going to be a New Formats-exclusive at last!
I hereby announce the successor to Lemmings World Tour:
I'm still sticking to the music theme, as evident - all the levels are still going to be named after songs, and the tracks are still the ones I recorded for LWT.
Hence, please simply download the music pack from the Lemmings World Tour thread (link is in my signature).You're also going to need my two custom tilesets for this pack, Money and Autumn. Get them here.
However, this pack is supposed to feel more like classical Lemmings again - meaning mostly original and ONML tilesets and more abstract level shapes, rather than the specific geographic locations you can find in LWT.
That's also the reason why I'm going with the classic level distribution of
4 x 30. The rank names so far are intended to be:
Soft, Loud, Heavy, HardcoreMeaning we don't go from unknown to very popular songs, but levels are arranged in increasing order of heaviness!
Which means this time the levels from the lower ranks are probably going to be the more famous ones, because they are more mainstream
.
These current 30 levels however are taken from all four ranks, only roughly sorted by difficulty relative to each other and compiled into a single rank called "Demo Tape". Since there are no introductory levels, I as the creator have a hard time assessing their difficulty; I just threw every nasty thing at the player I could come up with
.
Hence, I think it's safe to say that knowledge of the tricks from the Noisemaker rank in Lemmings World Tour is required to beat these levels! Whether you've acquired this knowledge by actually playing Lemmings World Tour, or already knew those tricks prior to that from elsewhere, that is completely up to you.
There's certainly going to be a focus on Metal songs in the higher ranks, and that is also the flavour behind this pack: This time, we're not touring the world; instead, all the world is going to gather in one place for a huge open air festival. Hence, I made the logo a little darker and swapped out the globe for an additional guitar that looks the part
.
The title is obviously a homage to one of the biggest metal festivals on Earth, Wacken Open Air.I already recoloured the background and the rank signs. Let me know how you like this darker look; I'm a little undecided on it so far. On the one hand, it seems like a nice switch from Lemmings World Tour; on the other hand, I want this pack to feel like original Lemmings, so using the standard brown- or the green background (like on standard Lemmings for Mac) would increase the Nostalgia.
Since my New Year's Resolution is "I'm going to make my levels more backroute-proof!",
here are 30 of the eventual 120 levels for you to enjoy and test.I'm not going to pick any private testers, I like to test my packs "in the field". Meaning: Everyone who is interested can have early access, but don't be disappointed if you find a backroute!
In fact, that's the main purpose of playing at this stage. So if you're someone who enjoys discovering such unintended solutions
, you're invited to take a shot at it!
Speaking of shots, here are some example pictures of the "classical" levels in standard styles, plus one of each in my custom graphic sets:
Lems just wanna have funI was made for loving you, LemmingBoth sides nowI need a dollarWake me up when September ends"Both sides now" is one of three Shimmier levels so far.
"I need a dollar" showcases the Money tileset; "Wake me up when September ends" is another demonstration of the Autumn tileset, which you may already be familiar with.
One last thing: The first level of this demo is also intended to be the actual first level of the pack, just like the very last level of the demo is supposed to be the last level of the final rank.
Since I already mentioned there are going to be four ranks, feel free to make suggestions on which levels should go higher or lower. The title may probably change in the process, because if a level goes lower, it shouldn't be a metal song, and if it goes higher, I need to find a metal title that goes along with it. But in general, all the levels are free to move around.
Also, I'm always open for suggestions which song titles should go in here!
One of the main things I want to avoid at all costs is that this pack could end up just looking like "the rest of all the semi-famous songs that didn't make it into Lemmings World Tour". It should be able to stand on its own as a music-themed pack, still feeling somewhat complete, not like an arbitrary selection of titles where so many legendary ones are missing (because they already appeared in LWT).
Finally, my custom success- and failure jingles are part of the pack again, included as .ogg-files. If anyone knows how to make them work in New Formats, please let me know!
Simply putting them in the overarching levels folder apparently isn't enough.
EDIT: I've attached my modification of the general tileset - a graphic set that existed in Old Formats for every user to add single pieces. It contains, among others, the Snow object, which was missing from New Formats so far, as well as recolourings of some backgrounds and the Rain object.
Credit for both the Rain and the Snow object goes to Colorful Arty! He said he was fine with me sharing the Snow object again. The recoloured background is from the Angelisland tileset, for which Gronkling to my knowledge no longer claims credit, it simply goes under "Sonic". Finally, I also contributed some builder staircases so they can be pre-placed in a level, like on one level from Lemmings World Tour. Plus, my custom backgrounds for L2 Medieval and Sports (and ohno_brick) are also included, since they haven't been added to the official styles.
You'll need this tileset for at least one of these test levels, so please download strato_generalmd as well if you want to give them a shot! Further pieces may be added to it in the future. I've already removed all duplicates, so there shouldn't be a danger of any pieces getting removed from it. Still, this tileset is preliminary at this point, so I wouldn't suggest building your own levels with those pieces yet.)
I hope you're going to have fun in this Lemmings Rehearsal Room!