• Miners can mine through any one-way-wall (cf Taxing 13).
• Climbers climbing up to the top of the level can become trapped in the terrain – I can't think of an effective example at the moment, however.
Turning a builder with a blocker between placing a brick and stepping onto it causes a fake brick to appear for a moment, and leaves a tiny hole in the bridge that lemmings cannot get across.This one is better described with a picture:
Using a hex editor or Lemmix, you can set release rates above 99, up to 250.I'm pretty sure it's actually 255 not 250. Also it's possible to make RR 0 (displayed in the game as blank I think, rather than 0), although that's equivalent to RR 1 and therefore not that interesting.
I think builders are the same as on the DOS version, based on how they acted in my Mountain level.• Miners can mine through any one-way-wall (cf Taxing 13).
Presumably you mean they can mine through any one-way-wall in the allowed direction?• Climbers climbing up to the top of the level can become trapped in the terrain – I can't think of an effective example at the moment, however.
Well, looks like Fun 17 is the earliest level you can test this out on. How about builders, do they react differently to the level top boundary too?
Also also also, it's probably worth noting that I'm now testing what happens at the top of the playfield a bit more and it seems you can only take one basher stroke at a time.
There are a couple of places where builders don't work as expected: in particular, they will always turn around at a wall before you get the chance to bash through that wall, unless they also happen to be on their last step – ie when they transition to shrugger.
• I don't think direct drop exists but I don't know what level to test it on.
I'm pretty sure it's actually 255 not 250.
Also, one can bash the wrong way through the one-way-wall in SNOW JOKE, which I believe is the same on the DOS version. I don't know why this is, however.
So, yes, if there's a one pixel wall, you can make the Climber flip from one side to another of it using Blockers.
Good points allDOS is strange, though; when facing right it allows you to hit the wall with the builder and then bash, but when facing left it will turn back straight away before you get the chance to bash. Essentially, the PS1 version uses the left-facing mechanic of the DOS version for both directions and the Mac version uses the right-facing mechanic. But there are very few situations that I can think of where your lemmings are travelling left in a level, so usually you might as well conclude that the DOS is the same as the Mac version... or something.There are a couple of places where builders don't work as expected: in particular, they will always turn around at a wall before you get the chance to bash through that wall, unless they also happen to be on their last step – ie when they transition to shrugger.
IIRC, that's the same in DOS. The game seems to be more lenient on the last brick when it comes to building into walls, and ceilings as well I think. I'll have to check this.
OK. Maybe another day; I'm going away for a few days and I kinda need to get my stuff sorted out at the moment (also my friend's just flaked out on me at midnight and now I have to find somewhere else to stay. )Quote• I don't think direct drop exists but I don't know what level to test it on.
Tricky 12 is a good one for testing direct drop.
IIRC, that's the same in DOS. The game seems to be more lenient on the last brick when it comes to building into walls, and ceilings as well I think. I'll have to check this.
• I don't think direct drop exists but I don't know what level to test it on.
DOS is strange, though; when facing right it allows you to hit the wall with the builder and then bash, but when facing left it will turn back straight away before you get the chance to bash.
Also, I don't think you can execute the Mayhem 29 backroute on the Mac due to a similar reason; the Mac builders are more symmetrical.
Another well known effect of this asymmetry is that you can't stretch builders as far going left vs going right.Ohhh, I misunderstood – I thought that you could stretch builders further going left. To be fair, I've never actually seen the backroute done, so I wasn't quite aware that you had to dig down first (it wouldn't have occurred to me).QuoteAlso, I don't think you can execute the Mayhem 29 backroute on the Mac due to a similar reason; the Mac builders are more symmetrical.
I'm pretty sure I've tested it before on the Mac and it works fine, if you're talking about the "build left from start" backroute. Because of the water, the Mac version doesn't let you dig down the steel as far as you can in DOS. However the more symmetrical builders in Mac allows you to stretch your builders farther than the DOS version, and the two pretty much cancel out each other, allowing the left route to be viable in each version.
But, this brings up a serious point: surely they must have had the splat distance right at some point during development. Otherwise, how did they get that screenshot?
I just thought of a couple of things (in DOS Lemmings) that could be considered "glitches", even though we're fairly well used to them:
- inability to select skills or change release rate with the mouse when paused
- lemmings can survive a fall if they are assigned floaters just before they hit the ground
Bugs, or features?
However, the fact is, the falling and splatting of lemmings would violate real-life physics in the first place: since they fall at a strictly constant speed, by real-life physics the impact force at landing would've been the same no matter what the distance of falling is. So it's reasonable in this case to ignore real-life considerations and accept the floater behavior as just another one of many ways lemmings physics are different from real-life physicsDo you have a master degree in physics?
When the new lemmix engine is there you can make lemmings fall with the falling formula (I forgot it something like a = mv2).
There is really a difference between something being a "glitch" in the sense that it is logically inconsistent or is unintuitive, versus being a "bug" in the sense of simply not intended by the original game designers.
I think what we could do here is just include anything that might seem glitchy in the list, and let the readers decide for themselves whether something counts as a glitch or not (possibly with a tag like "YMMV" on the more debatable ones).
C3 1C 77
3A D0 DB A7 CA 2D 77 DD 7E 07 E6 07 FE 05 CA C1 37 DD 7E 07 C3 03 37
Now that it's a lot easier to perform this glitch, I've found that you can't do this if you're too close to metal blocks or one-way walls (if you're facing the wrong way), and the slide will continue until the lemming runs out of terrain. In fact, the lemming quite frequently gets stuck at the end of it.
Using a hex editor or Lemmix, you can set release rates above 99, up to 250. RR100 releases one lemming per 131 frames (effectively RR-156), and 250 releases one every 56 frames (effectively RR-6). When starting with a 100+ rate, you can turn the release rate DOWN towards 99. The rate displays as 99, so it is difficult to tell exactly what the current rate is. RR99 behaves as normal. A release rate of 0 is also possible - this acts the same as RR1, and displays as blank.
I'm pretty sure it's actually 255 not 250. Also it's possible to make RR 0 (displayed in the game as blank I think, rather than 0), although that's equivalent to RR 1 and therefore not that interesting.
That makes some sense, even from the video, it clearly looks like the lemming is stuck in that phase of basher that moves him forward, while skipping over other phases that does the actual bashing, collision checks, etc. The only thing slightly confusing to me is that you said it doesn't work if you are too close to unbashable obstacles, yet in your video, it looks rather like you start off right next to the OWW facing the wrong way? I guess the obstacle checking works a little differently on the SMS version.
Any chance you can find out if similar feat can be performed with the other skills (eg. mining, digging, building)?
I'd say the behaviour finlay mentioned (climbers turning around at blockers) is intended behaviour, or at least semi-intended, in the same vein as turning builders or miners. Flipping through a wall is definitely a glitch though
Now you mention that, I vaguely recall being able to flip a basher through a wall without breaking it.
Finally downloaded and started playing SMS lemmings. Here's a glitch (attached as zipped AVI file) I found [...]
Another Sega Master System glitch to add to the list - changing the release rate can sometimes do absolutely nothing at all - like in this video.I can't reproduce this. Can you please provide more details?
despite the fact that the starting build brick of the bridge in the dig pit isn't actually touching the pit bottom (at least visually anyway), the lemmings will nevertheless be able to walk up onto it.While testing this, I noticed something else (which I'd guess experienced SMS players know about already): when you dig at a peak in the terrain, the lemming may take out a tiny bit of ground and then stop. Attached is a screenshot of Tricky 1 - compare that to the level screenshot here.
I disagree with some of these glitches, the only one I can think of right now being the interrupted basher making an upward ramp - after all, if it was a glitch, how did it get there? Did the programmers make a mistake? It can be useful, if only very rarely.This forum gets so little traffic that it really doesn't matter. And it tends to only be a problem if it's excessive – bumping a post after two months of inactivity isn't really excessive. Also, tends to be the oldbies that tell the newbies off for it if there is actually a rule against it. Just sayin'.
Oh, and Clam, may I make a friendly suggestion and not double-post? (And anyone else for that matter; Clam's just the only one I saw do it.) Not that it matters, but it, uh, takes up more pages and thus more room when you do? At least I think so. I've been wrong before, I'll admit.
I disagree with some of these glitches, the only one I can think of right now being the interrupted basher making an upward ramp - after all, if it was a glitch, how did it get there? Did the programmers make a mistake? It can be useful, if only very rarely.It looks like the list on the OP includes both glitches as well as what we tend to now consider "non-glitch tricks". Interrupted basher I definitely do not consider a glitch, as it is clearly the result of the bashing taking multiple frames of animation to complete. The only alternative is for the bash stroke to take out terrain in a single go like a bomber. There are also no precedent in the game for not allowing you to assign skills while it is in the middle of doing something; it may bar you from assigning skills when the lemming is doing some particular action, period, but not specifically around the particular timings of the action in progress.
Oh, and Clam, may I make a friendly suggestion and not double-post?I don't really consider it a double-post when it's almost 2 months apart. The forum system doesn't show edits under list of recent posts, so without posting no one would know that salient new information has been added to a thread that hasn't been last posted on months ago.
I disagree with some of these glitches, the only one I can think of right now being the interrupted basher making an upward ramp - after all, if it was a glitch, how did it get there? Did the programmers make a mistake? It can be useful, if only very rarely.
Oh, and Clam, may I make a friendly suggestion and not double-post? (And anyone else for that matter; Clam's just the only one I saw do it.)
idk if this could be considered a glitch but in the windows version of original Lemmings, the speed up button is WAY too fast. In other words it speeds up the level to a point where its impractical to use.Fast forward isn't intended to be useable, though – it's just supposed to mitigate waiting time after you've cleared a path to the exit but your lemmings still have to walk there. And I haven't seen a decent ff function since the Mac version, where you activate it by holding down shift (and caps lock too in ONML, although then you have to remember to turn it off before starting the next level) – having it as a function that toggles when you hold down something is better IMO than having it as a function that goes on when you press a button, and comes off when you press the button again. (the Mac's ff function also had fun bits because it worked by skipping i think 3 of every 4 frames, and at certain release rates including 88, on Fun 8 for example, you can make the lemmings walk "backwards" by holding shift)
idk if this could be considered a glitch but in the windows version of original Lemmings, the speed up button is WAY too fast. In other words it speeds up the level to a point where its impractical to use.Fast forward isn't intended to be useable, though – it's just supposed to mitigate waiting time after you've cleared a path to the exit but your lemmings still have to walk there.
because the FF function doesn't work very well for me on Wine (it works by literally speeding up the processes to the maximum rather than frame-skipping like the Mac version, but doesn't work at all if the game is lagging, which it does when there's 80 lemmings out).
idk if this could be considered a glitch but in the windows version of original Lemmings, the speed up button is WAY too fast. In other words it speeds up the level to a point where its impractical to use.Fast forward isn't intended to be useable, though – it's just supposed to mitigate waiting time after you've cleared a path to the exit but your lemmings still have to walk there.
I'll have to see if I can dig up Windows Lemmings on my machine again, but I do distinctly remember (way back when I played around with it briefly) the WinLemm FF being quite freakish. I think specifically for WinLemm, it may be a case where back when the game was released, machines were slow enough that the FF wasn't quite as exaggerated.
I'll have to see if I can dig up Windows Lemmings on my machine again, but I do distinctly remember (way back when I played around with it briefly) the WinLemm FF being quite freakish. I think specifically for WinLemm, it may be a case where back when the game was released, machines were slow enough that the FF wasn't quite as exaggerated.
that makes sense! newer computers are working faster so it makes ff faster. (well makes sense in computer logic).
I think the PS1 version was sort of based on the Windows version, although I'd have to check that. It shares the high-res graphics and level list (for the most part – it doesn't contain the special levels, one iteration of We all fall down, Tricky 21, Tame 17-20, and Wicked 2).
What levels would I go to to test these glitches, by the way? Particularly the sliding glitch and direct drop. I would also quite like to confirm whether they work on the Mac.
What levels would I go to to test these glitches, by the way? Particularly the sliding glitch and direct drop. I would also quite like to confirm whether they work on the Mac.
Correction: the miner does take out a pixel of terrain, but it has to start an even pixel height above the steel (rather than odd, as in DOS). This is because, strangely, the miner only goes down by one pixel on the first swing.
- When digging through terrain and into steel, the digger goes one pixel too far and takes out a row of steel. Curiously, mining into steel doesn't destroy it, even when it would in DOS (eg. when building one step and mining to turn around).
I can't remember how I learnt it although it must have been early on. I saw an addendum note along with the version of Holiday Lemmings that I downloaded noting its late addition to the game – hence it may not have been in the manual. There was a lot of trial and error involved, I think, because there are quite a few hidden hotkeys: ` and P both pause, Z/X and the left/right keys select the next skill in line, and the up/down arrows control the release rate. Handily, on British Mac keyboards the shift, `, Z and X keys are all in a line.Just remembered the other one: the Mac version uses option (alt) instead of right-click to select a non-worker, mainly because Apple was and is still too stubborn to produce two-buttoned mice and trackpads. (I use a logitech mouse...)
It's just, if Simon is reading this, I'd like to suggest using a hotkey for non-worker selection in Lix rather than the right mouse button, or have a choice.Yep, took note of it. You want a mappable key that must be held during the assignment, and which does nothing when pressed on its own, i.e. without a simultaneous left click? I might actually make such a key do whatever the right mouse button does, such as scrolling if the user has enabled that.
The game can handle any time limit you can input, up to 65535 minutes (that equates to a month and a half!)
<Clam_Spammer> SimonN: what's with the spinning guinea pigs? :D-- Simon
<SimonN> absolute joy about the long long time limit :)
Now to test the boundaries of the other level stats :Hmm. On the Mac (years ago when I was messing around with it), I never tested out-of-bounds release rates, but I'm fairly sure it couldn't handle double-digit time-limits. I mean I'm sure I must have tried that. I'm fairly sure I never tried setting skills above 99, though. It allows a save percentage of 200% (I have a screenshot somewhere that I made for my amusement). It doesn't crash immediately if you make a level with >80 lemmings, but will start to glitch out in weird ways upon showing the splash screen for the next level.
- Winlemm can handle up to 116 lemmings, the game crashes when attempting to spawn the 117th lemming.
- The game can handle any time limit you can input, up to 65535 minutes (that equates to a month and a half!)
- The game can handle any input for number and percentage to be saved. If you set more than 100% required, and save 100%, the game gives you the congratulatory message for saving every lemming, but doesn't let you advance to the next level.
- Skill counts can be set up to 65535, again the first 2 digits show.
how do you bash under the wall in Fun 11? (considering there's steel underneath)
- One-way wall triggers are too high - yes, you can still bomb and bash under the wall on Fun 11 / Taxing 18 for example.
Hmm. On the Mac (years ago when I was messing around with it), I never tested out-of-bounds release rates, but I'm fairly sure it couldn't handle double-digit time-limits. I mean I'm sure I must have tried that. I'm fairly sure I never tried setting skills above 99, though. It allows a save percentage of 200% (I have a screenshot somewhere that I made for my amusement). It doesn't crash immediately if you make a level with >80 lemmings, but will start to glitch out in weird ways upon showing the splash screen for the next level.
FloatersFor floaters, I would argue whether the first one is actually a glitch or not. Perhaps they can do it because they have control over their fall.
- Floating lemmings can enter exits, even if there is no terrain under the exit trigger. This only works from the moment they deploy the umbrella, not in the first few pixels of a fall.
- (Glitch arguable) Floaters always survive a fall, even if they are assigned the skill near the ground and there isn't time for the umbrella to open.
For floaters, I would argue whether the first one is actually a glitch or not. Perhaps they can do it because they have control over their fall.
It would've still save the user some time but be more realistic, if splatting is tied to whether the umbrella is deployed rather than whether the lemming just merely possesses (ie. given at very last second) the floater skill.
I think it's odd, that the Lemmings can't enter the exit, without a terrain under it. Shouldn't the trigger area save them? The PSP Lemmings are able to enter the exit without floater and terrains, though. Well it's not like there's any official levels that has an exit, that is floating in the air.
Here's a glitch I just noticed in Lemmix (level editor, not sure about player or DOS). When a digger was digging, the whole level was being nuked, and the digger stopped digging (because he ran out of terrain), fell for a bit, and then became an ohnoer because the countdown stopped, instead of instantly blowing up. I've tried to recreate it, but nuke timing is a bit hard.
As far as I'm aware the programming of Lemmix is quite simplistic and doesn't do anything at all to compensate for speed--if it takes longer than normal to process one frame then you'll simply see it slow down on that frame, but otherwise I believe all processing that would occur does.
There is a possibility that the digger ran out of time on the exact frame that he became a faller (as namida stated), and the game rendered him graphically as a faller, while still thinking of him as digger, when the next update came in, he became an ohnoer, because as namida said, the digger somewhat "stands" on any of the nine pixels in the destruction mask, but when he becomes an ohnoer he falls, because he can't stand on the pixel that the digger was standing on. This would result in the fake faller becoming an ohnoer, making it seem that the digger actually became a faller, but was actually a digger. That makes this a graphical glitch.
Speaking about graphical glitches, in lemmixplayer, the explosion confetti sometimes stays frozen in the air. But, if another explosion occurs, the confetti disappears.
I have not tried to reproduce it in those players (I don't even use those), but I won't, because there is no need to (you already confirmed that this is impossible in those versions). And I don't think this will work in the lemmixplayers, because (as you said) the lemmixplayers update internally before they update graphically. But, you did say that this might be possible in the test editor, and, since the Main dat file is from custlemm, I think this is even more possible. I won't test it in the editor though, because that sort of timing is literally "pixel-perfect", and I do not want to try it.
Here's another glitch; while I was playing my levels in the LemmixPlayer (I'm not sure about the editor), I found out (I actually already knew this, it just occurred again) that you can raise the release rate with your mouse, pause using function11, and the release rate will continue being raised. This is more of a bug, though, because it's really easy to recreate it. Just thought I'd get this out here for people to see.
Most likely you'll end up with something like 256 or 128 "ratings", by virtue of what can fit in a byte (8-bit integer).
I don't know if this is widely known but here's a useless fact that I discovered by accident (playing ISteve's "Hammer Time") I found it really funny:
You can have a situation where a basher is in between two blockers with terrain around and the basher keeps turning back and forth and bashing forever.
As far as I know, it works as long as you assign the blocker while the lemming is standing in mid-air. The lemming will revert back to walker right away, but also somehow will turn itself around as well. It's possible this only works if the lemming was facing left before assigned blocker, I'll have to test more to see.
Miners
- Miners are positioned one pixel too low during the first few frames of their animation. This makes it possible to have the miner fall through the floor while leaving it intact for other lemmings to walk on, by assigning a blocker or bomber at the right moment.
Although to be fair, I couldn't be sure it would work on SNES since as you know, SNES miner behaves a little differently compared to other versions like DOS or Amiga. And since very few people have played SNES version the glitch had not been tested/confirmed on it previously.
Here I will attempt to compile a list of all known glitches in Lemmings. This thread is for the first-generation Lemmings games: Lemmings, Oh No! More Lemmings, and Xmas/Holiday Lemmings. Lemmings 2 has its own thread, <a href="indexdc94.html?topic=199.0" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">here</a>.The link to L2 glitches doesn't work. Just so you know.
Blockers can push lemmings through walls. This happens because lemmings cannot move towards the center of the blocking area (which is how blockers work), so a lemming inside this area can't turn around until it leaves the area - even if there is terrain in the way. (Combined with climbing in walls, this is known as the "Tame 20" glitch, after the level where it was used to achieve a no-builder solution. Note that you have to remove the blocker for this to work.)
And I strongly suspect that's why the DOS version was nerfed so it had 20 of each skill instead of 10 (because the main wall was extremely difficult to bomb through normally with only 10).
(assuming it's the right trick I'm thinking of, which is shown here)
Nice find! :thumbsup: Fortunately this doesn't happen in LemmixPlayer, as the replay shows that terrain is destroyed from the two bombers with both lems dying. We've yet to see if this happens on DOS though.
(To perform this trick correctly, assign the second bomber on the second frame the 4 is shown in the countdown to allow a falling bomber to detonate at the same time as the walking bomber.)