Congratulations to the winners!

1st place: BulletRide's "Precision" (Choice of rules for next contest)
2nd place: Apjjm's "Live And Let Diode" (Advertising)

As a reminder, the choice of prizes available are (with 1st place getting priority if both winners want the same prize):
- $5.00 USD
- A month advertising on the forum's news ticker for a project you're involved with (Lemmings-related or not)
- Your choice for the next contest's rules


An honorable mention also goes to Proxima's "A Necklace of Raindrops", who achieved by far the best result we've seen yet from a Lix level (and was the highest-achieving Rule 2 level; with 1st and 2nd being from Rule 1 and Rule 3 respectively).

A new contest will be up when a winner chooses to pick the rules and tells me what their choice is, or if neither winner picks that prize, within a few days of them both picking their prizes.


Also, as usual, if you entered NeoLemmix level(s) and aren't planning to use them in any of your own packs, consider donating them to the NeoLemmix Community Pack.

I've floated this in discussions a few times, thought about it a lot, and come to the conclusion - if there's anything that's justified in being added as a 17th skill, it's a Fencer - I'm not sure where I got that name from (L2? Hamsters? Clones? Not really sure), but it would basically be a destructive skill that creates a tunnel at an upwards angle - essentially a miner, but in reverse.

What I'd like to discuss on this (and it may be a while - possibly including later than just at the big update - before it actually gets implemented, so there is plenty of time to discuss these things) is:

1. Do we want to (without considering what they may be) add any further skills at all? We don't want to end up like L2, but on the other hand, while some of the first 8 new skills might not be too useful *coughstackercough*, in future any new additions would be much less rushed - as can be seen from that this is the first time since V1.16n that I've proposed adding anything more.

2. Assuming we do want to leave open the possibility of more skills, is Fencer a good choice? Keep in mind that essentially, it would be like a miner that starts from the bottom instead of the top. However, this alone may be worthwhile because while we currently have horizontal, diagonal-down and vertical-down skills, we don't have any destructive skill that goes upwards (unless you count the bomber).

3. And finally, if we do implement it, how exactly should it work? For example - how many "slashes" can he take without moving upwards before he gives up, or should he be able to keep going (essentially acting like a basher) even without upwards movement, just as long as he destroys something and hasn't hit steel? Should we introduce one-way up arrows that are only destroyable by the fencer (and perhaps any future skill that also destroys in an upwards direction, though I don't see a very high likelihood of introducing any others)? Even the finer details of the masks - should the terrain removal be from bottom to top unlike other skills (which also gives Fencer another unique property compared to miner or basher, in that it can't be used to create staircases by interrupting mid-stroke)?

I want to stress again that this is not a gateway to suddenly exploding to L2-like quantities of skills. Like this one has been (and will continue to be, via your input now rather than just mostly my own thoughts), any additions will be carefully considered, and quite possibly even trialled before officially introducing them into the game; and I don't expect them to become a very regular thing - as I mentioned, this is the first new skill I've considered in a long time. I know I've repeated this point many times, but I feel it's important to do so, as I don't want a potentially useful skill to be rejected just because people are afraid it will open the gate to an influx of relatively useless ones like L2.

So, in regards to backgrounds images (not mere colors) - I'm wondering how this should be handled.

Current experimental code allows a theme to specify a background image; all levels using that theme would have the same background image. (For those who aren't up-to-date on the development side of things - you can pretty much think of a "theme" as being the primary graphic set of a level (since it's now possible to use multiple sets in a level)). This means - assuming level designers do indeed ensure their theme is chosen based on the "primary" graphic set - users don't have to get used to many different backgrounds for the same set. (Of course, there'll be an option to disable backgrounds for those who find them annoying.)

The suggestion has been floated more than once that the decision should be per-level, rather than per-theme. I see both good and bad sides to this - more flexibility, but it does mean we may end up cluttering up the "backgrounds" folder with images that are only used for a single level. Mind you, there's nothing stopping someone from achieving the same under the current system - just that the clutter would be with extra whole themes, not just extra backgrounds.

A midway proposal is to still tie the selectable backgrounds to the theme, but allow a theme to offer more than one background. However, this really just feels like a "jack of all trades, master of none" solution and I feel like it would be better to go towards one end or the other here.

What's everyone else's thoughts on this?

Alright, it's time to start voting!

This is going to work by essentially having a mini-voteoff (in the usual format) for each rule seperately, to get it down to two levels from each. Once this is reached (or a tie between 3 levels can't be resolved), the voting for the next rule will begin, and once we have the qualifying levels from each rule, we'll have a voteoff between the winners of each rule. There are too many levels to do it any other way; plus doing it this way will allow us to not only determine the best overall level (while still allowing for that 1st and 2nd might come from the same rule), but also the best entry for each rule.

Due to the large amount of rounds here, please be aware that the time each vote is open for will be only two days (instead of the usual three), until we get up to the round where we combine all qualifying levels from every rule. (EDIT: We are now in the semifinal, so voting is open for 3 days.)

Rule 1 Levels (Create a level with no permanent skills)
BulletRide's "Precision" (NeoLemmix)
Colorful Arty's "It's A Bad Counting Day" (NeoLemmix)
Flopsy86's "Synchronised" (NeoLemmix)
Gronkling's "Lost Umbrellas" (NeoLemmix)
IchoTolot's "The Drunken Knights of Clausthal" (NeoLemmix)
mobius's "In the Pale Moonlight" (NeoLemmix)
Proxima's "Tailor-made for athletes" (Lix)
Simon's "Long Division v24" (Lix)

Rule 2 Levels (Create a Fun/Tame/Tricky-type level)
BulletRide's "Pyramids Again" (NeoLemmix)
Colorful Arty's "Capture the flag" (NeoLemmix)
Dullstar's "Across the Ball Pit" (NeoLemmix)
Flopsy86's "13 Little Skulls" (NeoLemmix)
geoo's "Marching Band" (Lix)
Gronkling's "Playing in the DIRT" (NeoLemmix)
Minim's "Temple of Versatility" (NeoLemmix)
Nepster's "Just the right skills..." (NeoLemmix)
Proxima's "A Necklace of Raindrops" (Lix)

Rule 3 Levels (Create a level using at least two NeoLemmix-exclusive object types)
Apjjm's "Live And Let Diode" (NeoLemmix)
Dullstar's "Lem-17 Bomber" (NeoLemmix)
IchoTolot's "Beware of the Overload!" (NeoLemmix)
Minim's "If you can't reach 'em..." (NeoLemmix)


Semifinal
Apjjm's "Live And Let Diode" (Rule 3, NeoLemmix)
BulletRide's "Precision" (Rule 1, NeoLemmix)
BulletRide's "Pyramids Again" (Rule 2, NeoLemmix)
Gronkling's "Lost Umbrellas" (Rule 1, NeoLemmix)
IchoTolot's "Beware of the Overload!" (Rule 3, NeoLemmix)
Proxima's "A Necklace of Raindrops" (Rule 2, Lix)

Final
Apjjm's "Live And Let Diode" (Rule 3, NeoLemmix)
BulletRide's "Precision" (Rule 1, NeoLemmix)

As a reminder, the choice of prizes for the top two places are:
- $5.00 USD
- A month advertising on the forum's news ticker for a project you're involved with (Lemmings-related or not)
- Your choice for the next contest's rules

(First place gets first choice. To clarify on the last one, if you choose a three-rule type contest (which is recommended unless your idea has a reason not to), you get to pick all three of the rules.)

I think it's clear enough that I have no plans to remove the RR mechanic from NeoLemmix; but I'm wondering how people feel about the possibility for levels to have a maximum release rate?

I went to look for the auto-saved replays from the two contest Rule 1 levels, and the filenames were all in the form sXXX.txt, where XXX is just a number that increments with every replay saved. The files being text files does somewhat mitigate the problem, but still - why not use the level filename, possibly with a timestamp?

This topic is for discussion, posting replays, etc. If you're an entrant and you want to update any of your levels, please post in the updates topic. The ZIP and NXP attached to this post will be updated periodically, but until the update phase has closed, you should also keep an eye on that topic if you want to be sure you have the latest versions. Updates are now closed.

Rule 1 Levels (Create a level with no permanent skills)
BulletRide's "Precision" (NeoLemmix)
Colorful Arty's "It's A Bad Counting Day" (NeoLemmix)
Flopsy86's "Synchronised" (NeoLemmix)
Gronkling's "Lost Umbrellas" (NeoLemmix)
IchoTolot's "The Drunken Knights of Clausthal" (NeoLemmix)
mobius's "In the Pale Moonlight" (NeoLemmix)
Proxima's "Tailor-made for athletes" (Lix)
Simon's "Long Division v24" (Lix)

Rule 2 Levels (Create a Fun/Tame/Tricky-type level)
BulletRide's "Pyramids Again" (NeoLemmix)
Colorful Arty's "Capture the flag" (NeoLemmix)
Dullstar's "Across the Ball Pit" (NeoLemmix)
Flopsy86's "13 Little Skulls" (NeoLemmix)
geoo's "Marching Band" (Lix)
Gronkling's "Playing in the DIRT" (NeoLemmix)
Minim's "Temple of Versatility" (NeoLemmix)
Nepster's "Just the right skills..." (NeoLemmix)
Proxima's "A Necklace of Raindrops" (Lix)

Rule 3 Levels (Create a level using at least two NeoLemmix-exclusive object types)
Apjjm's "Live And Let Diode" (NeoLemmix)
Dullstar's "Lem-17 Bomber" (NeoLemmix)
IchoTolot's "Beware of the Overload!" (NeoLemmix)
Minim's "If you can't reach 'em..." (NeoLemmix)

---

Do note that many of the NeoLemmix levels use custom graphic sets. All used graphic sets are among the ones that can be auto-downloaded as needed, so the easiest way to get them is to simply turn "Enable Online Functionality" on in NeoLemmix. If you don't want to / can't use this functionality and need help finding the graphic sets, just ask.

The music files are too large to attach to the post, so you can download them via this Dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6iajvkzyopc8y9q/Contest10Music.zip?dl=0
To use them, place them in a "music" subfolder of your NeoLemmix folder.

For the NeoLemmix levels, an NXP of the entries is also available and attached to this post. Please be aware that there are some Lix entries too, and for obvious reasons these are not included in the NXP.

The update phase is now closed. Voting will open on June 27th.

ZIP / NXP last updated: 2016-06-13 02:43

Hi,

Just a heads up that I'll be taking the site offline for a short time later today, in order to move the database process over to a newer version of MariaDB; as the one currently in use is now considered obsolete by the host. It goes without saying that I'll get an up-to-date backup first, of course, in case anything goes wrong. (Note: If you haven't set a custom setting, by default the forum time in the top-right corner displays the GMT time.)

No need for any of the users to do anything; just be aware that the site will be down around this time.