Here I Go Again!

[ccexplore]

The Blocker is merely a graphical change. It can be dislodged, overlapped or whatever. The only thing you could hope to achieve with it is to keep a Lemming from walking off the edge.

So basically a blocker that doesn't block but otherwise behave more or less the same.  This is actually still somewhat useful and interesting as long as you don't think of it as a blocker, but instead as sort of a new skill ("waiter" or "idler" if you want).  There are already existing custom levels out there, even for Lemmings 1, that don't use blockers for their blocking functionality (and I don't mean glitches either), so there's a precedence for this.

[GuyPerfect]

Before you get any fancy ideas... The editor I'm making will disallow Blockers to be used on any tribe but Classic and will disallow any Classic stages from being more than one screen tall. This is not negotiable.

[Mindless]

Before you get any fancy ideas... The editor I'm making will disallow Blockers to be used on any tribe but Classic and will disallow any Classic stages from being more than one screen tall. This is not negotiable.

That's rather moot since you can't take away ccexplore's hex editor.

[ccexplore]

That's rather moot since you can't take away ccexplore's hex editor.

Yep, besides, as I said, it's not exactly an innovation to use blockers to stall individual lemmings rather than to block other lemmings.  There is a rather well-known custom level (which I was alluding to in my previous post) for Cheapo (and now Custom Lemmings) that was all about this concept.  It's not that unfair either if I simply put a note with my levels clearly stating that the blockers are in fact "idlers", just with their skill names "misspelled" in the game.  From what you've told me so far there are no glitchy behaviors of any sort, that they are simply blockers without the blocking.

And don't forget that I can program too, so there's nothing to stop me from writing a program that let other people use blockers on non-Classic stages, I'm afraid.

[GuyPerfect]

Time for community input again!



This is a screenshot of the skill selector program I made in Visual Basic to apply whichever skill assignments I desired to the current level. This is not part of the editor, and the editor needs something with the same functionality.

As a bit of practical humor, I would love to use the picker box for selecting the level's skills. However, there still needs to be a different piece of the user interface for storing the settings and letting the user decide how many of each skill to use.

Now's your chance to suggest a feature, since I have no particular leanings as to what will be implemented!

[Dullstar]

I like that idea.

[ccexplore]

The VB interface you've shown is actually reasonably acceptable for a first stab at this.  Some thoughts:

1) Since there are like 50 different types of skills, having only a dropdown list for the combo box to select skills from may get a little tedious (though I suppose with only 8 different types skills to set, it may be tolerable).  If possible I'd like the ability to actually type with keyboard the skill name into the combo box, and have it autocomplete once you've typed enough letters.  Keep the dropdown though for the case when I totally forget the name of a skill I want, or if I want to actually browse through the list to find something that might interest me.

2) Not a high priority, but I think I might like the idea of being able to re-order a skillset without actually changing the type and number of skills (eg. swap the ordering of "basher 5" and "swimmer 6" so that in the game, the swimmer icon is shown left of the basher).  There are a number of ways this can be implemented, with drag and drop being the most natural (if your UI framework supports that).

=======================

A completely different UI would be to follow the "Practice Mode Skills Selection" screen in the actual game, but with full drag-and-drop capability.  So you'll have a 10x5 grid of skill icons at the top, and below that you have a row of 8 slots resembling the skill toolbar in the game, with an edit box for number of skills at the bottom of each slot.  You drag from the 10x5 grid onto a slot in the skill toolbar to add a type of skill, use the edit box and keyboard to enter the number, and maybe have a garbage bin as a drop target for deleting a type of skill from the toolbar.  Rearranging skills within the toolbar would be just another drag-and-drop.

I can totally understand why you may be opposed to this idea though, since it likely takes more coding to implement and probably a little more testing effort as well.  It also takes up more screen real estate, although that may be acceptable if it's a modal dialog box that must be brought up and dismissed.

=================

Yet another possibility would be sort of a hybrid:  same basic interface as your VB program, but instead of a drop-down list, the chevron button, when clicked, actually pops up a floating pane showing the 10x5 grid of skill icons.  You then click on the one you want, the pane goes away, and the combo box now shows the name of the skill you've just selected.  You might want to change the graphic of the chevron button to something else to indicate that it's not a normal dropdown.

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[edit: one more idea]
[edit2: idea withdrawn]

[namida]

Yep, besides, as I said, it's not exactly an innovation to use blockers to stall individual lemmings rather than to block other lemmings.  There is a rather well-known custom level (which I was alluding to in my previous post) for Cheapo (and now Custom Lemmings) that was all about this concept.

And even predating that, the idea for the level came at least partially from a well-known backroute to Mayhem 13.

[ccexplore]

[edit: one more idea]

For something totally different, you can actually just have a single multi-line edit box with text selection support.  The user actually just type in the skillset into the edit box like this:<snip>

Upon further thought, that's a terrible idea.  While there are keyboard shortcuts to handle text selection, cut, copy and paste operations, the keyboard shortcuts are not standardized across platforms, so what is familiar to some people might be unfamiliar to others, not to mention the likely majority of users who uses the mouse for that sort of things.  And without select, cut, copy, paste operations, you might as well go back to the first idea mentioned (combo boxes with autocomplete keyboard entry allowed).

[Clam]

As a bit of practical humor, I would love to use the picker box for selecting the level's skills. However, there still needs to be a different piece of the user interface for storing the settings and letting the user decide how many of each skill to use.

Now's your chance to suggest a feature, since I have no particular leanings as to what will be implemented!

I think just an alphabetical drop-down list would be fine. With autocomplete of course. For deleting a skill, you could have a blank (or <no skill>) option in the drop-down list. And instead of dragging and dropping to swap skills, you could add buttons to move the selected skill up or down in the list.

Re blockers: if they lose their primary functionality outside the Classic tribe, then it's probably better not to have them available elsewhere. Yes, there's the hex editor again, but remember there are other ways to make a lemming sit there and do nothing, like:
- attractor (possible side effects)
- twister
- ballooner stuck in terrain
plus a whole bunch of temporary stalling methods (eg. jet pack).

[geoo]

From what I've seen using blockers in non-Classic levels (well, only Sports 1, more precisely), there's more to it than just no blocker field.
There are some places in the level where it's just impossible to place a blocker (i.e. you cannot assign the skill to any lemming at certain positions); also trying to free the blocker, be it by removing terrain underneath, or a nearby explosion, crashes the game.
So except after testing possible positions and removing blockers in a level, I guess it isn't a good idea to use them.

Yet I'd not be in favor of preventing an editor to allow setting that skill, or making larger vertical Classic levels in that regard, if merely for allowing easier experimentation.
I think an appropriate way to handle settings that might glitch up the game would be to issue a warning to the level designer in that case.

[GuyPerfect]

I think an appropriate way to handle settings that might glitch up the game would be to issue a warning to the level designer in that case.

It's increasingly apparent that Classic levels were intended to only be one screen tall and that Blocker was only intended for Classic levels. Manipulating the game to behave otherwise can lead to a better understanding of the game's mechanics at the most, and entertain one's curiosity at the least. For the editor to say "This is a bad idea, but I'll let you do it anyway" falls into the category of "do it because you can," and that's not always a valid rationalle.

For what it's worth, though, considering that there are legitimate uses for doing things that are otherwise a bad idea, I'll toss in a switch that enables the user full access to all features available in the level format that will be activated by a command line argument.

[ccexplore]

The command line argument sounds like a fair compromise.  As for blockers on non-Classic tribes, since it sounds like it's actually pretty buggy too according to geoo, I now have to agree it's a bad idea to make it so freely available in the editor.  Even I would have trouble justifying something that can potentially crash the game.

[GuyPerfect]

Got a new level, this time using the Cavelem set. It's attached as LEVEL020.DAT, and will replace Cavelem level 1.

This one should be challenging for at least a couple minutes before you Lemmings masters figure it out. (-: 100% is reasonably easy to pull off with time to spare, so if you're stumped, keep at it!

Cavelems: Spelunk 'n' Dunk
Time: 4:30
Skills: 4 Swimmer, 5 Glue Pourer, 20 Builder, 1 Parachuter, 3 Flamethrower

[ccexplore]

Cool.  I won't be able to try out the level until later, but it definitely looks interesting!

I also did some quick prototyping of the skill picker interface ideas myself in VB.  I found that even with 51 skills, picking the desired skill out of the alphabetized dropdown list is not too bad at all.  Keyboard entry into the combo box would be nice but I'd even say that's not absolutely necessary.  I believe there's no need for anything fancier.

I think ClamSpammer's idea of having an item in the list corresponding to "remove this skill" has merit.  In my prototype I put it as "(None)" at the top of the list.  With that, you can even eliminate the checkbox if you want.  Or you could keep it but have it only disable/enable the skill count edit box, and sync its state with the combo box's selected item (ie. uncheck the checkbox if user pick "(None)" in the combo box, and vice versa, and so forth).

In my prototype I set the dropdown list size to show about 27 items, which is enough so that more than half the list is shown at once.  This makes it very easy to use the scrollbar to jump to the top half or the bottom half, although I might increase the list height a little more to ensure that it doesn't cut off in the middle of an alphabet (eg. the first half should end with for example, the last "M" skill).  On a 1280x1024 screen it takes up about half the screen's height, so it should still fit in 800x600 I think, depending on font sizes.

I'd say go with the simple interface, and if enough people complain then we can do something else for version 2, but I doubt there'll be much complaints.