Question: Won't this change allow a cloned Fencer to go down the tunnel of the original Fencer (just like a Basher)? Because those should always only have one pixel of height difference on the slope.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing — I'm just pointing it out. Because so far, cloning Fencers was only useful if the lemming stood in between two walls on more or less flat ground. Cloning a Fencer within his own tunnel, meanwhile, so far always leads to the immediate cancellation of the cloned Fencer.

I agree with Simon regarding the level sides. It's really weird to me that you can (ab-)use the level sides in SLX to e.g. bounce a Miner or a Builder around mid-performance.

And placing steel there doesn't solve the problem, because that cancels those skills, and/or provides a wall to turn lemmings around. The only way to still have lethal edges in SLX is to not actually place anything at the edges, but always leave a gap for an abyss in between.

But that's a discussion for a different topic — this one is about the Ballooner.

Just to be clear, this means the balloon cannot be popped from the side, unless it's hit by a projectile, right?

I must admit, I'd kind of expect the balloon to pop when it its the vertical pole from the side. But if we keep things as they are, I wouldn't mind either. In the latter case, I'd just hope there won't be that many levels exploiting this behaviour as a glitch.

Quote from: WillLemThe Batter is actually ideal in this context, because it can be used to sabotage an opponent's attempts to steal your lems without removing the lem from the game.

As far as I've understood it, that's precisely the reason why the Batter was originally added to Lix in the first place. Simon mentioned something along those lines recently.

Quote from: WillLemThis would be fantastic in Lemmings. Could it be distilled to a single action, though?

For the new skills, I'm keen to align them with the maxim of requiring only a single mouse click to perform the entire skill action; it's one of the "L1 standards" that I think is a good one to stick to, and which makes some of the multiple-click L2 skills that bit more "un-Lemmings-like" and frustrating to use.

Glad you like the idea!

The Pole Vaulter in Lemmings 2 is indeed a single action. It's basically to the Runner what the Shimmier is to the Jumper: It does take a running jump, during which it seems to accelerate - much like the Shimmiers in Lemmings 2 perform a Reacher motion very similar to the Jumper's arc. As far as I recall, Spearers take a bit of a running jump in Lemmings 2, as well? Either way, the Pole Vaulter seems related to all of those.

The main thing is that the Pole Vaulter becomes a lot less useful, now that we're going to have Ballooners. Because much like the Ballooner, it's main purpose is to get a lemming over non-Climber-friendly walls.

The Rope Slinger would be an inverted Pole Vaulter, in the sense that it would attach a line of pixels (the rope, rather than the pole) to the ceiling, rather than the ground - and that line of pixels would bend a little as the lemming is moving across the gap.

It would basically be a fairer version of the chain in Lemmings 2, much like updrafts are a fairer version of the infamous fan tool.

Quote from: WillLemI'm generally not in favour of the idea of "single-use permanent skills" - it's one of the reasons SLX won't be getting the skill de-assigners.

Yes, I agree; we've ruled out the Kayaker and Surfer for similar reasons.

If single-use permanent skills were considered useful by a significant share of the SuperLemmix community, something like the non-permanent skills gimmick from NeoLemmix 1.43 would accomplish that same goal a lot more efficiently - rather than having to introduce a bunch of dedicated skills, any given permanent skill could be repurposed for single use. Even without any skill-deassigners in the level landscape. For example, Disarmers could only disarm a single trap before losing their ability again, which would make them less overpowered.

Quote from: WillLemWhilst SLX is shaping up to be a lot like L2, I'd prefer to think of it as "L2, but with L1 characteristics"

I very much like where this is going...

Quote from: WillLemA steel-destroyer is a good idea, but why wouldn't this also go through normal terrain?

To balance out its power, because otherwise, it would be a universal destructive skill that would be hard to stop.

The thing about steel is that it restricts movement differently than one-way arrows. You could create entire pathways or tunnel systems that would only be traversible by Blow Torch, whereas using one-way arrows to create the same path would result in something much more visually confusing.

Sure, you can flip that on its head by surrounding the intended path with steel walls. However, then it becomes impossible to stray from the path at all, which would make it too predictable. A Blow Torch would be fairly free to move within the confines of the steel area, so the player would still have to figure out the most efficient way through it - but without being able to rely on other destructive skills.

Basically, the Blow Torch would be the "Inverted Steel" gimmick from NeoLemmix 1.43 as a skill. With that gimmick turned on, regular terrain became steel, steel became destructible. The difference in having this as a skill is that other skills would still be stopped by steel, and would in turn still go through normal terrain.

Alternatively, if the Blow Torch has too many degrees of freedom (since in Worms, you can steer it up and down with the arrow keys), perhaps this might be a way to find some use for the L2 Flame Thrower instead, after all: He could melt some chunks of steel, but only within a fixed area of effect (much like the Bomber or Grenader).


Speaking of gimmicks:
What you said about invincible lems and what jkapp76 suggested for Weasles to me sounds a lot like what Ghosts used to be in NeoLemmix 1.43: They ignore traps / fire objects, and they turn lemmings around.
In the joke-skills thread, I once proposed a similar skill which I named "The Tank": A lemming surrounded in a silver armour that would protect it against fire and traps - but in exchange, that lemming couldn't be made a Swimmer, much like Floaters and Gliders are mutually exclusive. In other words, a Tank falling into water would always drown.

Quote from: WillLemEventually, I'd like to be able to have multiple "tribes" walking around in the same level, each with their own exit. It would be great to have Lemmings and Lemminas in the same level, for example.

Great to hear! I was always hoping for Lemmings and Lemminas to appear on the same level one day - I hadn't actually though about the parallel to Lemmings Revolution, though. Good point!

Considering how much use we've already gotten out of the Lemmings 2-Skills Thread, in this thread, I'm doing the same hypothetical consideration for the Worms games. Given that Lemmings and Worms belonged to the same company, Team 17 (perhaps, both still do?), the parallels seem obvious: Both games deal with small, easily expendable animal creatures.

I'm only referring to the 2D Worms games here (Worms Armageddon, Worms World Party etc. - the latter of which had a non-zero influence on inspiring both Lemmings World Tour, as the name shows, and a select few levels in my earlier packs).

The main limitation here is that, with these being weapons first and foremost, and skills second, a lot of these are basically only variations of the Bomber / Grenader: Their main purpose is to create craters and/or kill enemy Worms (in SuperLemmix, that would be Zombies). However, a few of these are also utility skills, and/or do indeed have the main function of being constructive of destructive skills.



Let's get going!



Bazooka - We've considered it for SuperLemmix already, as a ranged Batter. The discussion is still ongoing.

Mortar - It sucks in Lemmings 2, it also sucks in Worms! The main difference is that it breaks down into smaller projectiles on impact; I'll discuss the potential utility of that further down below.

Homing Missile / Homing Pigeon / Patsy's Magic Bullet - A homing weapon might be more powerful than the Grenader; in fact, also potentially overpowered. Most importantly, though, I don't see how to make this work without an extra click, like the Archer, Roper etc. require it in Lemmings 2: The Tribes.

Sheep / Sheep Launcher / Super Sheep / Aqua Sheep - Launches an explosive animal that either walks, or flies through the air, or can be steered with the arrow keys - much like the Super Lemming can be steered with the mouse. Where the Super Lemming only moves a lemming around, though, this would essentially be a grenade that can be moved around the same way as the Super Lemming (assuming we wouldn't want to bring the arrow keys into the game, since they are already occupied for the purpose of directional lemming selection). An Aqua Sheep is a Super Sheep that can also be steered through water. If applied to a Super Lemming, that would mean he could also fly through water if he happened to be a Swimmer, too.

Grenade - We already have this one in SuperLemmix! The only difference is that it has a fuse / countdown in Worms, rather than exploding immediately on impact.

Cluster Bomb / Banana Bomb / Super Banana Bomb / Salvation Army / Priceless Ming Vase - These are grenades that explode into further splinters, which then in turn do further damage / create further craters. While the Banana Bomb is pretty powerful in Worms, I don't see how this could be implemented in Lemmings - at least not without creating an overly complex skill shadow that also predicts where the shrapnel is going to land.



Battle Axe - Cuts a Worm's health points in half. Not useful in Lemmings, since Lemmings don't have HP.

Earthquake - Shakes the ground so that enemy lemmings (=Zombies) might fall off cliffs and splat, go into water etc. Would only work with tumbler physics, i.e., perhaps in Lix, but not in NeoLemmix / SuperLemmix.

Shotgun / Handgun / Uzi / Minigun - We've discussed this idea, but it would basically only serve the exclusive purpose of killing Zombies - which several other skills can do as a side-effect by now.

Longbow - Would be equivalent to the Archer from Lemmings 2; I think we've already ruled this out because of the double-click requirement.

Fire Punch / Dragon Ball - This is a skill I recall proposing in the "joke skill ideas" thread, where a lemming would jump upward, carve out a little path through a ceiling, but could also punch and kill a Zombie in the process. The Dragon Ball, meanwhile, is a projectile that flies in a perfectly horizontal manner. In contrast to the shotgun, this Dragon Ball is large enough that you could reasonably assume it would also damage terrain.

Kamikaze - Another skill I brought up in the "joke skills" thread: The Worm / Lemming goes in a straight line at a fast speed, even across gaps, creating a tunnel in the process, and exploding at the end. Basically a Runner-Basher that ends in a Bomber, but can't fall down along the way.

Suicide Bomber - Identical to the Lemmings Bomber, except it poisons the Worms around it, so that they slowly start losing health. "Poison" in SuperLemmix means "turn into Zombies", so that would be pretty useless.



Prod / Baseball Bat - Both are ways to shove Worms / Lemmings off a cliff, except the Baseball Bat of course has a much longer range. We're already discussing the Lix Batter for SuperLemmix, so this is basically the same thing.

Dynamite / Mine - You can set these somewhere and run away before they explode. Like the non-lethal Bomber in Lemmings 2. Since Lemmings aren't damaged by grenades, and you can drop grenades right in front of a wall, we basically already have this. Also, I think one graphic set literally uses the Worms Mine sprite as an exit button instead. I've turned that into a joke on my Paralems level "Funny little red buttons", where I placed such buttons and one-use traps side by side.

Mole Bomb / Mole Squadron - These are Bashers / Miners / Diggers turned into projectiles (and the Mole Strike features several of them): You can throw them, they start tunneling, and once they get out of the tunnel, the next time they hit terrain, they explode. That latter part would be optional for Lemmings purposes, I'd say.

Air Strike / Napalm Strike / Mail Strike / Mine Strike / Carpet Bomb / Sheep Strike: All of these are basically just salvos of various objects that drop from the sky at the point where the player clicks in the landscape, create craters of varying sizes, killing enemy Worms (=Zombies) in the process. Too unpredictable for Lemmings - and probably also too powerful for any "kill all Zombies" level. Again, since Lemmings don't have health points, a single "damage" would be enough to take a given Zombie out. Also, since the player has to click where the strike hits, this would fall into the same exclusion criteria as the Archer, Roper etc.

Blow Torch - Now this is where it gets interesting! I once proposed this in the joke-skills thread as a tool that could go through steel (and ONLY through steel). In Worms, it's Basher, Miner, and Fencer in one, because it carves tunnels while the player can steer the worm with the arrow keys. We wouldn't have any need for the latter (it would be too overpowered). But a skill that has the dedicated purpose of going through steel might at least be an idea worth entertaining.

Pneumatic Drill - Worms' version of the Digger, except it also does damage to enemies. I don't think we need a Digger that happens to also kill Zombies. We are still considering a drill as one potential tool an upward Digger could have, though the discussion currently seems to favour a propeller?

Girder / Girder Starter Pack - Worms' version of the Builder / Platformer, which can be rotated freely and placed anywhere in the level manually by the player. No need for this, we already have these functions in Lemmings, it just works slightly differently.



Ninja Rope - A very versatile tool a Worm can use to swing around the level. I once proposed a Rope Slinger as a joke skill, which would be essentially like an inverted Pole Vaulter from Lemmings 2: A lemming could attach a rope to a ceiling (e.g., one that's not Shimmier friendly), or even just a single point of terrain (Spider-Man style) to swing across a gap, or swing up a certain height, with the latter being more like the Pole Vaulter.

Bungee - Another thing I once proposed as a one-time-use Floater, to get a lemming down safely, without turning this into a permanent skill that immediately solves all later splat falls, too. The lemming could also jump off the Bungee rope, and then hold on to walls or ceilings as a Climber / Slider / Shimmier etc.

Parachute - Works the same way in Worms as in Lemmings 2: The Tribes, except in Worms, there is wind, which can't be controlled by the player, in contrast to the fan in Lemmings 2. No need for this, we have the Floater, Glider, and Slider.

Teleport - We have teleporters in Lemmings; this would be the same thing as a skill. Again, it would require clicking twice. And in Lemmings, it seems pretty overpowered. In Worms, it's counterbalanced by the fact that the game is turn-based, and teleporting immediately ends your turn.

Scales of Justice - Evens the score of the total health points of both teams. Not applicable in Lemmings, as again, Lemmings don't have HP.



Flame Thrower - In Worms, the flames do damage to other Worms. The Flame Thrower in Lemmings 2 just creates one crater somewhat similar to the Grenader at a close distance. I think we've already concluded that this would be too narrow to add any incremental utility.

Holy Hand Grenade - Basically what happens when you combine the Grenader with the "Nuclear Bombers" gimmick from NeoLemmix 1.43: The crater gets much bigger. Hallelujah!

MB Bomb - Just a big a** bomb that slowly floats down from the sky and moves with the wind.

Petrol Bomb - Explodes and creates flames. I did once entertain the potential use of creating fire object trigger areas with a skill, in order to create an obstacle for Zombies to walk into (or for regular lemmings to walk into in those corner cases where these lemmings would mess up the puzzle solution otherwise). Still, almost certainly too fringe.

Skunk - Poisons enemies, then explodes. In Lemmings, poisoning enemies, i.e., Zombies, is pretty pointless, since poisoning is precisely what turns lemmings into Zombies in the first place.

Mad Cows / Old Woman - Pretty similar to the Sheep / Salvation Army weapons, no additional utility here.



Concrete Donkey - One of the most powerful weapons in Worms, this is a Digger that works at a distance: It falls from the sky and removes terrain in a vertically downward manner until it reaches the bottom of the level (where there is usually water in Worms levels). All enemies in that area take a bunch of damage, and unless they're thrown out of the area by the repeated impacts, they'll probably end up drowning / falling out of the level at the end.

Indian Nuclear Test - This is the "Rising Water" gimmick as a skill: It quickly raises the water level by 120 pixels within just one turn. Could be used to turn water areas into lifts for Swimmers, and/or to kill Zombies, and/or to free Blockers / Freezers that are also Swimmers (see my Lemmicks level "Here comes the flood"). It also poisons all Worms so that they start losing health points (not applicable).

Armageddon - No, this is not synonymous with the nuke: A bunch of meteors fall from the sky, creating a bunch of craters in the process and doing a whole lot of damage. Too erratic for Lemmings.



Surrender - THIS, in contrast, is indeed synonymous with the nuke. Worms actually do explode when they die, too. I'm just not sure if they also die when you surrender, or if they just wave the white flag. Technically, it's closer to just pressing Escape.

Skip Go - Skips your turn. Not applicable in Lemmings.

Select Worm - Allows you to select a different Worm on your team. Not necessary in Lemmings, since we can always freely select lemmings (except for Neutrals and Zombies, of course).

Freeze - Freezes Worms in ice cubes. Guess what, SuperLemmix already has this in the Freezer!




In short, I'd say it's mainly the tools that are interesting to Lemmings, more so than the weapons:

- Freezer (already exists)
- Grenader (already exists)
- Baseball Bat / Batter (being discussed)
- Rope Slinger? (swing across gaps / inverted Pole Vaulter)
- Bungee? (one-use floater)
- Blow Torch? (go through steel)
- Concrete Donkey? (Digger at a distance)
- Mole? (Basher / Miner as a projectile)
- Teleport as a skill? (probably too powerful)
- Kamikaze? (Runner-Basher that explodes at the end)

Thanks! I haven't received any feedback yet from kaywhyn, who is the only tester so far.
So if anyone else wants to test, just say so.

Thanks for the explanation, IchoTolot!

I don't think I've ever consciously used either behaviour in any of my levels created since 2021 (i.e., for my currently in-development packs, since I didn't release any packs in that time frame anyway). But some levels may still break accidentally, because of something else that was potentially changed in order to deal with these bugs.

Thanks for the hint! My existing packs don't feature the Slider yet, but Lemmings Hall of Fame and Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll do.
I don't know what exactly has changed about the Slider, but I'll do a mass-replay check anyway, once I've downloaded the newest stable version.
I haven't had any contact with the new objects at all yet.

Thanks, WillLem! Then I might have a different version, and/or a different Amiga emulator.

I'll happily join in, too!

I don't have any feedback on Lemmings Hall of Fame yet, so here's three more levels for this pack:

GOLF

Trinidad

CIRCUS

What a feeling

CANDY

I believe in miracles

On a related note: In the Amiga emulated version, pressing escape to restart the level doesn't seem to work. Or does anybody know how to accomplish this in the Amiga version with some other key? Because always having to nuke whenever one tiny bit goes wrong is pretty annoying, especially in a game with as much execution difficulty as Lemmings 2...

Great, thanks for implementing this, WillLem! I look forward to seeing how it turns out in practice.

Quote from: WillLemThe exception to this is if the lem is also a Slider, in which case they slide down, dangle, and ultimately fall facing the opposite direction to their approach.

For added utility, at that point you could even assign another Shimmier to make the lemming shimmy back the way he came. This can be useful, since bouncing a Shimmier with a Blocker usually requires some fiddly setup (otherwise, the lemming will easily just shimmy over the Blocker's head). And since Shimmiers don't turn around automatically when hitting regular walls (luckily!), we can use tricks like these to turn them around instead (shimmy, climb, slide back down, shimmy back).

Well, my "Great level of indifference" from World Tour that had a save requirement of 0 in Old Formats already no longer works this way in New Formats. So I wasn't even aware that SuperLemmix would allow for this again.

Since you mentioned Zombies, though, I do wonder whether there might be some levels where "kill all zombies" is the only objective, even if all regular lemmings die, too? On such levels, a save requirement of zero would actually make sense - as long as you can enforce killing the zombies somehow before letting the player advance / marking the level as solved. A talisman is generally just a "nice-to-have" reward on top, not a solving requirement...

Quote from: WillLemI'm all for the idea of SuperLemmix getting simplified levels, in general. The Forum needs some easier levels, and I'm happy to provide a platform which supports this.

Good to know! I was torn about whether any pack I may end up designing for SuperLemmix should e.g. contain tutorial levels. Since my current in-testing pack, Lemmings Hall of Fame, does not have them - it simply assumes any player wanting an easier pack will go to another one of my packs (or someone else's pack) first. But I've always enjoyed making simple, but satisfying tutorial levels, so I'll happily include some in at least one dedicated SuperLemmix pack I might create.

Quote from: WillLemIn this particular example (above ^^^), the lem finds at least 6px of terrain vertically above them and so climbs, but it feels like they shouldn't due to the other staggered overhangs. So... how far up should these overhangs be... i.e. at what point should they prevent the lem from turning and climbing? This seems like a lot of new rules to learn (although, we can adapt the skill shadow to show whether the Shimmier will be able to climb at the end of the shimmy... but, again with the reliance on skill shadows!)

This is one of the cases where, in my view, the lemming should transition from Shimmier to Climber, then bump his head on the ceiling, and consequently fall down, unless you assign another Shimmier. This is one of the obstacles you could overcome by "Shimmier spamming", any time the Climber reaches a new sub-ceiling.

Quote from: WillLemDid you assign a Climber to that same lemming? In my copy of L2 (Amiga version), they Shimmy, turn, and Climb...

Indeed, I also just used the Amiga version. The DOS one currently doesn't open for me. I don't have any problems starting Practice Mode in the Amiga version, though.

As far as I recall, Shimmiers in L2 don't perform any transition animation at all when switching to a Climber - only in the other direction, when transitioning from Slider (=downward Climber) to Shimmier, with the interim step of the Dangler.

If you do want a transitioning animation from Shimmier to Climber, have you thought about reversing the Slider animation? Meaning, the lemming would "swing upwards" from the shimmying position, as if he did an upward circle forwards in gymnastics.

The problem is, while the lemming would indeed end up on the wall to-be-climbed, looking in the appropriate direction (left vs. right), he would do so with his head pointing down, rather than up...