THIS LEVEL PACK HAS BEEN RELEASED. THE RELEASE THREAD IS HERE! Welcome to NepsterLems - A big level pack with 111 challenges!
All levels have been created and playtesting will start soon. However for the first public release you will likely have to wait until NeoLemmix V2 is finished.
A few words on the structure of this level pack:
There will be no introductory levels - you can find excellent ones in DoveLems, but as well in most of the recent level packs. Instead NepsterLems starts with two ranks of 15 levels each, all sharing two basic concepts:
- Each level has 5 respectively 10 of each skill.
- Each level puts several obstacles in your path, but they can be overcome in many many ways.
After that you will find 4 ranks of 20 levels each and a final "boss" level. Throughout these ranks your skill sets are quite limited and so is the number of (intended) solutions. Mostly the levels are quite small and designed to display a specific theme, quite often specific skill interactions or lemming movement.
Rank 1: (Screenshots will follow at some point)
You always have 5 of each skill. The terrain usually gives you many options - and be sure to use them. Despite being the first rank, you will find only very few any-way-you-want levels.
Rank 2:
Now it is up to 10 of each skill - and much more complex obstacles. Even more so than in the first rank, planning a general route at the beginning is advisable.
Warning: The last two level of this rank are MUCH harder than many of the levels in the following ranks. So do not let them discourage you!
Rank 3:
Ok, let's start with giving you less and less freedom to solve the levels. The first levels start around Tricky/Taxing difficulty, but soon progress to Mayhem.
Rank 4:
Now you need more and more tricks, unusual combinations of skills, etc. However the solutions are not yet overly convoluted (main word being "overly").
Rank 5:
By now all the levels can easily compete in difficulty with late Mayhem or late Havoc. Be prepared to use non-linear approaches or (and?) heavy multitasking.
Rank 6:
These levels should give headaches even to the greatest experts. Go and let the lemmings perform a complex dance on your screen!
Technical stuff:
I will use NeoLemmix V2, so no special modifications are needed any more.
The final version will (hopefully) run on a slightly modified NeoLemmix engine. The most prominent changes to usual NeoLemmix will be:
- Less strict terrain checks for builders. They will behave more like in original Lemmings.
- Slightly relaxed terrain checks for climbers, e.g. climbers may "climb" through the stairs in the Pillar tileset.
- Direct drops to the exit are removed: You lemmings will splat instead.
The levels in the teaser promo will likely differ slightly from the final versions.Many thanks to...
- DMA design for inventing the game Lemmings,
- Eric Langedijk for creating Lemmix, which was used to create all my levels,
- namida for providing the NeoLemmix engine,
- all other level designers for all their level ideas, which inspired my levels
- and everyone on LemmingsForums in general, for keeping Lemmings alive. It was you, more than anything else, that spawned the idea of NepsterLems in my head.
I apologize...
- to all other level designers, because one should read the "ideas, which inspired" above as "ideas, that were blatantly copied".
- for always making so hard levels. If you fail to solve some level, you are totally correct in blaming me for this. But always keep in mind that I am not forcing you to deal with my levels - you are free to ignore them or damn to the Lemmings hell
.
- for not being any faster in creating levels. NepsterLems is now almost one year in making and when I told möbius in January about releasing it in "about 2 or 3 months", it seems that "about 5 or 6 months" would have been a better guess. PS: Turns out, that even this guess was more than optimistic
.