0.6.11 uploaded.

• lemforum pack: Updates by Proxima, geoo, Nepster. Fewer lix in Hopeless. geoo has rebuilt Spin Geometry with completely new terrain, and renamed it to All Aboard the Pain Train. Off the Rails is now Railroad Plot, and Derailed Level got a derailing locomotive as decoration.
• Fix #117: Name-asking menu for new players exits with plain Esc. I don't display anything for this.
• Fix #131 and #111: Simpler starting zoom. Depending on your game resolution, either all levels start as 1x or all levels start as 2x. Test and see if you like the zoom for your resolution.
• Fix #122: When you continue from a saved replay, then win, or save manually, the new replay goes into the correct directory and points to the correct level file.
• Fix #133: The singleplayer menu shows the player's best score: Lix saved and skills used.
• Fix #138: Editor hotkeys work even while you're dragging. The buttons on screen are disabled for the mouse during drag.
• Fix #127: I hide dot-files, like .git, in level directories.

-- Simon

Merged.

-- Simon

Quote from: Proxima on August 05, 2016, 01:29:33 AM

Quote from: möbius on August 05, 2016, 01:07:53 AMapparently the consensus is now that repeats are dumb

I don't think such a consensus exists. I think what you're seeing is that people who don't like X (for any value of X) are liable to be vocal about not liking X, whereas people who like X or are indifferent might not see the need to say anything.

This. I have ranted against repeats in IRC. Except for Akseli popping in shortly, I haven't seen any support against repeats. There are several arguments on both sides.

Whoever wants to know details, they're welcome to start a dedicated level design thread.

-- Simon

I would like to criticize level repeats in Lemmings games. A level repeat is a level that copies another level's terrain verbatim, but allots different level constants and skills. I don't like repeats, but others like repeats. This is good thread material, I should make a fresh thread.

Level repeats violate the principle of low coupling. I find this easiest to explain with programming code. Maybe you can already guess how the corresponding level design argument would look like.

---

For horizontal alignment, do you ignore neighboring lines, and align each line by itself?

    x = 20;
    width = 10;

Or do align horizontally according to neighboring lines?

    x     = 20;
    width = 10;

The horizontal alignment brings a maintenance problem. What happens when we insert a third line, or modify the name of an existing variable?

    x     = 20;
    width = 10;
    height = 30;

If you require horizontal alignment, you have to edit 3 lines now instead of 1 line. You have created an unnecessary dependency between all 3 lines. This is Christmas light code: One line goes out, they all go out.

Christmas lights are lovely metaphor for many things, and I should compare more things to christmas lights.

When you work on this code with several people, and several people change unrelated lines, the non-aligned code will still merge automatically. The Christmas light code, however, will give merge conflicts, and needs manual resolution.

These whitespace issues are the least problematic types of coupling in code, but the easiest to reason about.

More severe is semantic coupling in code: Module X depends on module Y, and module Y depends on module X. When one changes, the other may have to change. Can you cut the dependency in one direction at least? Can you make a new module Z with the common functionality, then have X depend on Z only, and Y depend on Z only? This way, because Z will often be small and require fewer changes, you can change X or Y each to your heart's delight.

Keep coupling to a minimum.

-- Simon

Thanks.

#141 Icons too tiny on 1366x768: Yes. Even though I load the 1.5x file data/images/scale150/skillico.I.png, this file has the unscaled 1x icons in 1.5x-sized cells. I've never got around to scale them to 1.5x. But this has become important. 1.5x is common and I should support it better.

Describe skill: Reasonable. I want tooltips in the game anyway.

Black outline: I want to scale the icons to 1.5x first. If that's not enough, I'll look into this.

-- Simon

Quote from: geooSolutions for those three levels are attached.

These 3 replays all solve. The entire pack is 100 % covered. I've updated my replay collection in the first post.

Backroute-fixing or execution-easening can break replays again. Let's preserve the perfect coverage by sending proofs of solvability along with every serious change.

About Trading, from IRC:
Simon: geoo, your hatch order is a local optimum? Every hatch is exactly as you want it, or could you make execution easier still?
geoo: hatch order is probably the only one that makes my solution work
geoo: execution is not that bad the way it is I think, once you figure out the moves

-- Simon

Make an extra directory rank, dump everything in it. Then you aren't pressed to remove anything, unless the level is bad by itself.

Hint for From the Brink

This level comes from vanilla Lemmix. You have more skills than the numbers in the panel imply.

-- Simon

0.6.10 uploaded.

• All 240 levels in the lemforum pack are solvable!
• Fix #116: Editor shows the top-left point of a multiple selection, the minimal coordinate each in both the x- and y-direction.
• Fix #130: After state-loading a different timeline, framestepping moved back to the undesired timeline.
• Fix #91: Editor buttons are disabled when dragging.

-- Simon

I culled VSI and time limits to make the overall game more satisfying. According to my experience, geoo's, and Flopsy's, the game has become better. On the flipside, I demand more constraints from level designers.

Oh no not again obviously doesn't fit unmodified. You can try to salvage it because you deem it a great level, which can't be diminished much by the necessary hacks.

But you shouldn't salvage it only because it's already in the pack. We included it because it worked in C++ Lix with the time limit. Try to make the pack as good as possible, don't merely try to convert every level from the C++ pack, included for C++-Lix-reasons, to D Lix. It's a different game.

-- Simon

Quote from: ccexploreBecause I wasn't aware for example that anyone ever gave you one for "Won't Get Fooled Again"

Yes, Akseli's replay from C++ Lix solves the D version. We have changed the save requirement from 93/100 -> 23/30, there aren't any other changes.

I haven't looked at the replay, and Proxima doesn't like spoiling either. Once we declare 100 % solvability, we will live with uncertainty for a while: The solving replays may be painful to execute, and we wouldn't know.

-- Simon

Adaption of We're in this one together to fixed SI, and proof of solvability with Steve's intended solution. I believe the entrances don't allow backroutes. Skillset is the same as before.

-- Simon

Thanks! Updated the list.

Proxima will have a better view than I have over levels that need work.

-- Simon

By 2016-08-01, the entire pack is 100 % covered.

-- Simon

I maintain replays for the community pack, lemforum/, on github:

Download replays as zip archive or
git clone https://github.com/SimonN/lemforum-replays

These replays won't help you in C++ Lix. geoo has 800 C++ Lix replays with 100 % coverage.

-- Simon

0.6.9 uploaded.

• lemforum pack updated by Proxima, first 5 ranks solvable.
• Option: Do fast mouse movements untrap the mouse from windowed Lix?

Flopsy shall uncheck this option when he records.

-- Simon