NeoLemmix (Player: V1.26n-C | Editor: V1.26n-B)

[namida]

Alright, release V1.14n-B. This update only exists for Flexi, as all changes are only relevant to it (not even Cust is affected).

Updated Flexi Player: http://www.mediafire.com/download/vavqsyckv9qyvag/LemmixPlayerFlexi.zip
Updated Flexi Tool: http://www.mediafire.com/download/swl20owtl8cc691/FlexiTool.zip


By the way, I have something very big planned for the V1.15n update, which will be made use of in Lemmings Plus III bonus pack - or given the variety of designs it gives rise to potential for, perhaps it'll even be "Lemmings Plus III, Part 2" (I wouldn't call it Lemmings Plus IV as I don't plan to make new styles for it; I might possibly use both the LPII and LPIII ones though for more variety if the pack looks like it'll be big enough to warrant it).

Please keep your MAIN.DAT files in loose format (as opposed to just keeping the RES file) if you want to upgrade any custom games to V1.15n, as they'll need to be recompiled for it for reasons which I shall reveal when it is released. You may also want to hold off on editing certain parts of the graphics for now... anything from the title / preview / postview screens should be fine, but in-level graphics you might want to wait...
(You don't have to actually keep the raw BMP images sitting around; just keep the compiled MAIN.DAT file and your SYSTEM.INI or SYSTEM.DAT file. You can always decompile the MAIN.DAT again when nessecary.)
EDIT: I should stress that this only applies to NeoLemmix; you don't need to worry about this if you're using traditional.

[namida]

Two glitches that were brought to my attention by DynaLem and will be fixed in the next update:
> SuperLemming and Karoshi get "stuck" after playing a level with them (whether on their own or combined with other gimmicks, and regardless of whether they're set by the old method or the new one), in that they'll be applied to all levels until you exit the player. The latter is only partially stuck, in that the preview/postview screens keep displaying the Karoshi texts, but the actual gameplay is unaffected. This doesn't affect any other gimmicks. (This glitch was newly introduced in V1.14n)
> In levels where the screen start position is further to the right than you should be able to scroll, a white block is displayed in the extra area until it's scrolled off-screen. One example would be level 2 of Xmas91. (This glitch affects all versions, including traditional Lemmix)

[namida]

As per a few people's suggestions, I've moved the downloads onto DropBox. I've updated the links in the first post; you can also get to them through the link in my sig (which is just the master folder under which all my Lemmings-related downloads are stored).


Note that I haven't removed the MediaFire downloads; so those links still work too. But I probably won't put future versions on MediaFire.

[namida]

So, look what I finally got around to fixing...

Just for the record, Player V1.15n, Editor V1.15n-A and LemMain V6 will all be released at the same time, as these are somewhat all interdependant on each other. At this point, the editor and LemMain are both ready for release, but there's still some work to be done on the player.

(If you're wondering about that new dropdown box, it's just a list of skills. Selecting one from it will instantly set the selected object's S value to the correct value for that skill; it's to make using pickup skills easier.)

[namida]

Not too long to go now. At this point, all that remains is to ugprade the MAIN.DATs from Xmas, H94 and LPIII, and also make a small levelpack (it won't be another new player; just a custom levelpack to use with NeoCustLemmix) with some levels to introduce the new feature. The levels won't be very complex, so it won't take long to make that.

The Xmas and H94 MAINs won't, at this stage, be made with proper graphics for the new features, as the levels actually in them don't use them obviously. I might consider doing them later though. The LPIII one will be, partly as futureproofing for LPIII-2 (although I'm also considering just giving it a new name, not "Lemmings Plus IV" but perhaps "Lemmings Plus" with a non-numerical subtitle).


EDIT: At this point, all that remains is the tutorial level pack, provided that testing doesn't uncover any nasty surprises (I've tested a few players at random, but given some of the changes of this update - even though it'll be almost entirely behind the scenes stuff except for in Cust and Flexi - I feel it's nessecary to test *all* of them). As the V1.15n update for Lemmings Plus III is still considered an official LPIII release rather than just part of the NeoLemmix update stream, and thus isn't nessecerially tied to the same release time, that one has already been released in the LPIII topic.

EDIT: Seems all good!

EDIT: 6 levels for the pack completed so far. One more tutorial type level to do, then I'm going to make 3 proper levels to fill out the spaces - of course, these levels will use the new feature. One might also be a gimmick level. And in case anyone's wondering; these levels are just using the official styles, I'm not using the Lemmings Plus ones for this. It's actually kind of interesting using the official ones for a change. I'm probably going to go for a one level in each style setup, although I don't plan to use the Xmas style (it's basically just a clone of the Snow style but with less objects anyway) so one might have to be duplicated... or I could use the Sega style for one...
If I do go with such a setup, the styles I have left to make levels in are Fire, Snow, Bubble, and Sega. I have a specific level design in mind I want to use the Fire style for, so that leaves the other three for the last tutorial and two standard levels.

[namida]

Alright, it's finally here. I didn't come up with the full 10 levels, but the included LEVELPAK.DAT (with NeoCustLemmix) contains one tutorial level for each new skill as well as a normal level that uses most of the new skills (as well as a couple of the old ones).

So yeah, that's what it is. I added some new skills. Not hundreds like L2 has, that's overkill; there's 7 new ones, and the way I've implemented them only leaves room to add one more at a future point. I probably won't even do one though, although if any really really good ideas come up I might consider it. Oh and indeed, all style files (official, LPII, LPIII and Sega) have been updated to include pickup skill graphics for the new skills. I won't describe them here; play the LEVELPAK.DAT included with the new version of NeoCustLemmix if you want some training levels for them.

Note that said LEVELPAK.DAT has a somewhat strange structure (this is intentional). Specifically, it has 8 levels total, and rather than fill both Step5 levels with a filler level, the second level each in Step4 and Step5 are fillers while both first levels are proper levels. So remember - Step4 Level 2 is a filler, but Step5 Level 1 is an actual level.

Hope you enjoy these levels! Apart from being (I hope) good introductions to the new skills; they're also the first levels in over 4 years I've made using the official styles rather than my own custom ones, and also my first levels made in the Lemmix editor (LPIII was done about 10% in LemEdit and 90% in NeoLemEdit).

NeoLemmix V1.15n Update
--------------------------------------
*  Seven new skills have been added. The NeoLemmix Editor makes it easy to
   handle using these; the one thing to be aware of is when creating styles,
   specifically for pickup skills, the order is *not* the new skill order,
   but rather, it is first the old skills in order, then the new skills in
   order. A LEVELPAK.DAT is included with CustLemmix which contains a tutorial
   level for each skill, plus three relatively easy levels using a combination
   of new and old skills.
*  Two changes have been made to the scoring system. Firstly, the maximum
   is now 50,000 (so just add 30,000 to existing scores), secondly the
   penalty for not acheiving 100% has been reduced to 1,500 (so add 500 to
   any scores obtained on a non-100% result).
*  Secret level triggers can now go up to Level 255 instead of only 99.
*  Secret level triggers can now go up to Rank 15 instead of only 7.
*  Which level a secret level redirects to can now be set in the level
   file itself.
*  Fixed the glitch where the congrats message would show after completing
   a secret level that redirects to Level 1 of the first rank.
*  Fixed a glitch where SuperLemming would become stuck after playing one
   SuperLemming level. The same thing also happened to the preview/postview
   screen texts (but not actual gameplay) for Karoshi, this is also fixed.
*  The player will detect and correct screen start positions that are set
   further right than should be possible (for example, level 2 of Xmas91).
*  Lemmings Plus III is now finalized, and as such, LookForLVLFiles, secret
   levels via cheats, and extra modes (Challenge Mode, etc) have been enabled.


NeoLemmix Editor V1.15n-A
----------------------------
> Can now edit the skillset (new feature in V1.15n)
> Adds a quick-select box for pickup skills
> When creating a new level, the AutoSteel, Custom Gimmick
  and Custom Skillset options are enabled by default.
> Fixed the bug where black parts of objects/terrains are
  rendered as transparent even when they shouldn't be.
> No longer crashes if a left-facing pre-placed lemming
  exists in the level but the graphic set in use doesn't
  have a left-facing image for it.
> Now loads negative object Y coordinates correctly.

Links:
NeoLemmix V1.15n Players
NeoLemmix Editor V1.15n-A
LemMain V6 - This new version is needed to make MAIN.DATs for NeoLemmix V1.15n


I'd be interested to hear feedback on the actual proper level (well all the levels, really). It's not meant to be overly hard - to give an estimate, if it was an LPIII level, it'd probably be mid-Dodgy, late-Dodgy at the most.

By the way, I've also added a "Misc Documents" subfolder under the NeoLemmix folder. I eventually plan to properly document the NeoLemmix file formats and put them in here, but at the moment this just contains one document - the details of the scoring system mechanics. I did post them somewhere in this topic, but firstly that'd be a pain to dig up now, and secondly that would have the old maximum score and 100% penalty (only those two things have changed since the system was implemented) and also wouldn't have the score values for the new skills; the document in that folder *does* have them. If you're one of those people who like to have a general idea of things but don't want the full details:
> the Walker has a smaller penalty than any other skill, but it does still have one
> in general, the impact of the new skills is fairly similar to the skills that they're similar to (eg: Platformer's is similar to Builder's)
>> the one exception to the above is the Stacker, which has an impact only about half that of the Builder

EDIT: NeoLemmix level format documentation has now been added. I'll add documentation for MAIN.DAT and graphic sets... hm, I have not-Lemmings-related stuff I need to do over the next couple of days, then girlfriend visiting this weekend... so it might be a while, but I'll get them up eventually! (Although MAIN.DAT still uses the same format as always, it's just where exactly certain images are that's changed.)

[namida]

Known glitch: If you assign a Stoner close enough to the edges that part of the graphic will be outside the level, the game crashes. This could interfere with some possible level designs (and can even be triggered in the tutorial level, though it doesn't prevent completing it as you don't have to assign the stoner that close to the edge), so I'll probably put out a V1.15n-B fix for Cust and Flexi today to take care of it. Thanks to DynaLem for letting me know.

If anyone's encountered any other issues with the new skills that probably should be fixed for this update, let me know ASAP. Most important are any that cause crashes (though I doubt there'll be any more; I know exactly why this one happens now and shouldn't be possible with any other skill but the Stoner), though all problems should be mentioned - even if they're not urgent enough to fix for that update, I'll of course want to fix them for V1.16n.


One other issue I noticed, though this is very minor, is that the players report themself as "V1.14n-B", not "V1.15n". Still, for this reason, I'll release updates for all players, and also drop the "-B" from the number since that's not really nessecary to distinguish the players.

[Minim]

Alright, it's finally here. I didn't come up with the full 10 levels, but the included LEVELPAK.DAT (with NeoCustLemmix) contains one tutorial level for each new skill as well as a normal level that uses most of the new skills (as well as a couple of the old ones).

So yeah, that's what it is. I added some new skills.

Well, you have surprised me with the new skills update. I logically thought that it was combining two different graphic sets, via a post that you mentioned on LPIII, which was about adding more colors to the palette on the circuit set (or something based around that).

Anyway, I downloaded your level pack for CustLemmix, and it's very good indeed (apart from the filler levels, well they're not bad testing levels, but the 0% requirement means you only get to play them only once. ) I solved all the levels. I was almost unable to solve the stacker level, but I realised that this particular stacker sets up the bricks in the same place, rather than standing on top of each brick like in Lemmings 2. The proper level was great fun too, and it wasn't too hard (I managed to save a walker too). This definitely will remind everyone of Lemmings 2 and Lix; and if we can create levels (or modify existing ones) around these new skills, this game will be very hard to put down.

[namida]

If you're interested, here are the actual two levels I used for testing. Well, two of them - the third was just a modified version of Fierce 15, since I happened to already have a copy of that level in my development folder.

0101 uses the Sky set, 0102 uses the Pillar set.

The modified Fierce 15 was mostly used for testing the Walker, Platformer, Stacker and Stoner skills.
0102 was mostly used for testing the Swimmer, Glider and Mechanic skills.
0101 was used specifically for testing the interaction between Gliders and updraft objects - this might be interesting to play with a bit, as none of the tutorial levels actually contain that interaction.



As for having one walker left on the proper level - it depends which way around you use the Builder and Platformer (as they're interchangable). If you use the builder for the fatal fall, you might need the walker to stop the platformer depending on where exactly you place him. But I am indeed well aware that it can be completed with a walker left over; my solution also had it left.

The new version of the editor makes it pretty simple to use the new skills. I moved the skillset to a different place in the level properties panel, and each skill now has a checkbox next to it to enable or disable that skill. Of course, if you set more than 8 skills, only the first 8 will be usable (it won't even save the quantities for the remaining ones). But you can definitely open an existing level in it, then modify it with the new features - if doing so, be sure to enable the "Custom Skillset" option in the level properties; it's enabled by default when creating a new level, but obviously would be disabled if you open an existing level that doesn't already use it. (You'd also probably in most cases want to enable the Autosteel option too, and maybe the Ignore Level Steel).

[namida]

Alright, new versions are up that fix the Stoner crash, and display the correct version number (V1.15n). There's one other change, a fix to a glitch with the teleporter mechanics (you may recall that in one of the challenge solutions to LPIII, I mentioned it - specifically, even if the lemming should instantly become a faller after coming out of the receiver, it becomes a walker on air for one frame, similar to the case with Blockers in traditional mechanics).

I also finally finished off the Purple set for the remastered LPII graphic sets. Only Tree and Desert left to go now.
EDIT: Only Desert left now. And it should actually be a rather quick job, due to the fact that Desert only really uses a single color (and therefore already has heaps of shades of it), and therefore is already up to a similar standard to LPIII graphic sets - mostly Sky, as that's the one it's the most similar to graphically. (By comparison, the Tree style uses two, and while the Purple style only uses one, some of the shades are *so* different that they can pretty much be counted as seperate colors.) Well, there are the cactuses, I guess...

[namida]

Alright, they're done!

I reuploaded all the players that contain the LPII styles with the new versions, as well as the editor. So, that's LPII, LPII Bonus, Cust and Flexi (including the Flexi toolkit); and the editor. Apart from including the new versions of the LPII styles, there's no changes to any of these players, so if graphics don't really bother you, there's no need to worry about redownloading them.

If you just want to download the styles themself, then you can get them here:
Remastered LPII Styles Download (in the LPII folder)

The non-remastered styles are still available. These are kept available in case anyone feels they prefer them. These are the versions initially included with V1.15n; so in all non-graphical ways (including which pixels are and aren't solid in terrain pieces) they are identical; they're just using the non-remastered graphics.
Non-Remastered NeoLemmix-ised LPII Styles Download (in the base NeoLemmix folder)

Even outside of terrain pieces, there's only two objects where the graphics don't cover exactly the same pixels - the two traps in the desert style. They've been modified slightly to make them stand out more; of course they can still be hidden (by using No Overwrite) but generally they'll now be visible unless the level designer tries to make them not so. In the standard LPII levels, every case of the sinkhole trap is now pretty visible, though the one case where the falling sand trap is used (Cunning 17) it's still impossible to spot until it catches you - but the intended solution wouldn't encounter it anyway, I don't even know of any otherwise-possible unintended solutions that it prevents from working.


Next task, I guess, would be to create Xmas style graphics for the new skills. At the moment, all graphics that correspond to skill icons or actual graphics of new skills just have the non-Xmas ones as placeholders. It shouldn't be *too* hard to create the extra ones, as all but one of them (the Swimmer) are just modified versions of existing ones.

[namida]

An interesting thing I just noticed - while both are FAR from obvious, the tutorial levels for Walkers and Platformers can both be beaten without actually using the new skill.

[namida]

Got something long overdue for the next version... you can now specifically mark a style as using the Xmas palette, and therefore have it display in the correct colors even when other styles in the same game are non-Xmas.

I'll also integrate this feature into CustLemmix, too (edit: done, and released, see the CustLemmix topic - and of course by extension, this is applied to traditional Flexi as well). And, of course, the editor. I guess I'll need to make a LemSet update to support it too, just in case anyone wants to use it in custom styles (not that there's been any other than my ones, yet). Although there isnt' much point to doing so, unless you're making them for non-customizable games; graphic set palettes feature the same colors either way, it's only the order of them that's different.

[namida]

New versions are up for LemSet (V7), LemMain(V6.1) and NeoLemmix Editor (V1.15n-B).

NeoLemmix Editor V1.15n-B
---------------------------------
> Index numbers of pieces no longer need to be all
  consecutive, they can now have gaps. (This can matter
  for objects in Traditional, and steel in NeoLemmix.)
> Can correctly display graphic sets that use the Xmas
  palette, as long as they are marked as such (same
  marking scheme as used in CustLemmix V14+ / NeoLemmix
  V1.16n+).
> Negative steel areas are now displayed in a different
  color from regular steel.
> Terrain pieces with No Overwrite enabled no longer have
  reduced priority when selecting.

Note: It's very possible this update may have caused issues with saving/loading Lemmini levels. If it has, let me know and I'll see what I can do about it. I don't have Lemmini set up, so I haven't tested this.



The update to LemSet is a very minor one, it just supports putting the Xmas Palette mark in styles. The update to LemMain is also related to the Xmas Palette; it adds an option of which palette to use, instead of only supporting the standard one.

Should also mention - the included copy of the Xmas style with the NeoLemmix editor (in both NeoCustLemmix and CustLemm styles) has been modified to mark it for the Xmas palette.


Also, to confirm what you're probably suspecting - yes, from V1.16n, the Flexi player option to use the Xmas palette will be working.

[Minim]

Also, if your planning to update the editor, could you change the order of the skills on the level properties window so that the new skills are on the right column and the old skills on the left? (I see that you organised them in two columns which is good, but jumbling them up might confuse some people, well, it does confuse me a little bit)