I've seen some discussion on here about converting some L2 levels to NeoLemmix. That got me thinking: what about L3? Sure, the physics are entirely different from both L1 and L2, but that doesn't need to be a problem as long as you redesign the levels to better fit NL physics. The enemies could be replaced with zombies in most cases, and with all the new skills in NeoLemmix nowadays, almost every skill in L3 is in NeoLemmix in one form or another, minus a couple of the more situational or finicky ones. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say the that the entire game, more or less, could be converted to NeoLemmix. So that's what I set out to do. And so far, it's going quite well.
At the moment, I've converted the first 10 levels from each of the 3 tribes. When possible, I tried to preserve the look and layout of the original level, but whenever that caused a problem, gameplay always took priority. Some of the recurring changes you'll see are...
- 8-pixel-tall stairs being made less steep or replaced with slopes
- Traps added to enforce something close to the original solution (though a few levels have mostly different solutions to avoid absolute insanity and hideous looking levels)
- Tall levels being shortened due to the shorter splat height
- Big levels being miniaturized in general
- Entirely different ways of dealing with enemies/zombies due to a lack of a certain copyrighted fireball...
Egyptian 8 - Choose Wisely... (heavily miniaturized)I also did a few things to get closer to the original gameplay, where pick-up skills are individual instead of global. In some cases, if said skill was an L1 permanent skill, I put it on a pre-placed lemming instead, and made sure that skill wasn't available anywhere else, so only that lemming can do the task you need. I should also note that I didn't strictly follow L3's rules for skills. By that I mean, in some levels, walkers, blockers, and/or jumpers are finite, or skills that aren't those three are available right away. Additionally, the straggler lemmings are required to be saved to move on (unless one has to be a bomber or something). I have a feeling most people here would agree that that's the right move, but if someone presents a convincing case for them to be for talismans instead, I'll reconsider. I've also given the levels new titles, as, weirdly, L3 is the only mainline Lemmings game that doesn't title its levels at all. I'm proud of some of them, but I'm definitely open for suggestions there. Finally, I condensed the story and lore from the bloated intro cutscene into a few preview screens.
The attached .ZIP is the initial demo. This demo contains the first 10 levels of each tribe (probably a bit much but whatever). Later levels will definitely need more drastic changes and a few may need to be outright replaced, so before I mess with all that, I'd like to see how you all like the idea and what you think of my current progress. Again, I'm open for any suggestions you may have.
The music can be downloaded from here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wpj2rggwirovhlg/L3Remastered.zip?dl=1. The music is from the CD-ROM version of the game, with two tracks from different versions of L2 to make all the tribes have three tracks. Unzip the levels into your levels folder, unzip the music into your music folder, and enjoy!