Dear levelmakers/players
We always try to build nice looking levels, because we believe that's part of the concept.
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Just piling up elements doesn't look (and feel) right, and it seriously breaks down enthousiasm solving the levels offered... at least that's our experience....
We think it's better to upload 8 good looking and playable levels instead of 80 piles of elements with a solution hidden in it somewhere, where the lucky click is needed", though it takes much more time.
That's how we see it, think about it. It would be nice if this game could go on and even grow a bit.
Hi, we agree with the principles you're espousing. But I think you come off as rather condescending in your post above. I don't pretend to have looked at all the levelsets out there for Custom Lemmings but I would hardly characterized most of them as "just piling up elements". To say so is just blatant insult to the hard work most level designers put in their own levels, whether or not you like the visual design in some of them.
And I don't know what exactly you have in mind when you say "a solution hidden in it somewhere where the lucky click is needed". I think it's clear as a counterpoint that if you make the most visual stunning level, and then put the entrance trapdoor right next to the exit so that the lemmings just have to walk from point A to point B, that's hardly a good level even though there's (obviously) no "lucky click" or "hidden" involved. To some extent, the level's solution needs to engage the player's mind a little (or a lot, depending on the level of difficulty you're aiming for) for it to be worth playing. Otherwise you might as well just making a picture of the level in Paint and gaze as it. And typically when you need to design a level around a solution (or solutions) you have in mind, that alone is enough of a constraint that it's simply impossible to merely "pile elements around" randomly.
It's of note that even in the official Lemmings game, different level designers have obviously different visual designs. Some levels are very minimalistic ("Tightrope Cicy") while others are elaborate eye candy ("Lemming Drops"--just a randomly selected example). Different people simply approach level design differently, and it's good to get a variety of levels of different design styles. And a bad level will be a bad level no matter how much one tries to "dress it up" visually--good level requires both the level's visual design and puzzle design to be interesting.
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All that said, I'm sure the community looks forward to hubbart8
(though it's a mighty quiet community these days--when's the last time someone here played a new custom level?!?
)