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

[namida]

Alright, I think we're getting towards too much at once if I leave the update much longer...

NeoLemmix V1.22n
---------------------------
*  Three changes to the Stacker mechanics:
    - They no longer shrug before turning around if they've hit terrain
    - Stackers can now be assigned if there's no terrain one pixel to the
      right of the lemming; in this case the stack starts one pixel lower
    - Stackers won't turn around from hitting terrain on the first brick (but
      still will on any other brick)
*  Saving images is now possible on the preview screen. This is recommended
   over saving them from the editor, as certain object types are rendered more
   accurately as to how they are in-game (especially pre-placed lemmings).
*  Added a feature to dump all levels to LVL files. Note that this does not
   directly extract them as is, but tidies them up somewhat:
    - Always extracted to NeoLemmix Extended Format LVLs
    - Skill counts of any skills the level doesn't give are set to zero
    - Objects, steel and terrain are moved back so there are no gaps - all empty
      slots are at the end
    - Output LVLs will not use oddtabling; if a level is an oddtable level, the
      output level will combine the level with its target
   To dump the LVLs, press F4 on the main menu screen. Note that this feature
   is intentionally disabled in the Flexi player.
*  Object colors are no longer altered on VGASPEC levels that use a full-color
   VGASPEC (alterations still occur on palette-based VGASPECs).
*  Fixed a potential memory leak with saving gameplay images.
*  Fixed a bug where if you played a time-limited level after playing a level
   with infinite time, you would also get infinite time on the limited level.
*  Fixed a bug where stacker steps would appear mid-air if the Lazy Lemmings
   gimmick was in effect.
*  Fixed a bug where stackers under the Lazy Lemmings gimmick would only play
   the warning sound on their last two bricks instead of their last three.
*  Fixed the flicker in the center of the screen when leaving the preview screen.
*  Improved preview screen rendering of NeoLemmix object types.
*  Added the hidden Fun 31 and Fun 32, and the three unique two-player levels
   from the Genesis version, to the Extra player.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0283lialw2a6tp7/AADyhlQ6s7hE7VRnX02i2oOPa

There are no new features that require an editor update.

[Wafflem]

Thanks for adding the levels.

Since the L2 Classic levels are not part of Original Lemmings, should they be part of the Extra player or be in a player of their own?

Also, there is one more set of levels that need to be remade. However, this is low-priority. This set would be the NES levels, which are very difficult to do due to the obvious gameplay area size difference between that and the Lemmix games.

Here is the list of NES-unique levels (actually, all of these are Crystal):
Fun 25 - Lemming and Lime
Tricky 23 - Iced Lemming
Tricky 25 - Lemming Good fun
Taxing 6 - A Spot of Bother
Taxing 18 - Arctic Lemmings
Taxing 20 - Come to Lemmings County
Mayhem 16 - Hello John Got a New Lemming
Mayhem 22 - Is that Lemming Licensed

An interesting thing to note is that some of the original levels have been slightly modified. For example, the web in "Lemmings Lemmings Everywhere" is actually a spiral. I'm not sure if these types of levels should be remade.

It should also be noted that there are some repeats in there that don't appear in the DOS/Amiga games, like "Watch Out, There's Traps Everywhere". Those types of repeats can be remade the same way namida did for "Stepping Stones" in the SMS version.

As far as I know, minimac did remake one of the levels, though: Taxing 6, "A Spot of Bother," which is Level 9 in lm_set05.dat.

[namida]

Since the L2 Classic levels are not part of Original Lemmings, should they be part of the Extra player or be in a player of their own?

If the PSP levels qualify for inclusion, I don't see any reason why these wouldn't.

Also, there is one more set of levels that need to be remade. However, this is low-priority. This set would be the NES levels, which are very difficult to do due to the obvious gameplay area size difference between that and the Lemmix games.

That may make it hard to do a *perfect* remake, but if the overall feel and solution can be retained, that should be good enough. I had to improvise a tiny bit with the Master System levels, due to them being 8 pixels shorter and significantly less wide (it's especially noticable on Sega Five).

(links)

Videos aren't the easiest thing to use for remaking from. Do you know if there's images of the levels anywhere?

An interesting thing to note is that some of the original levels have been slightly modified. For example, the web in "Lemmings Lemmings Everywhere" is actually a spiral. I'm not sure if these types of levels should be remade.

I'm generally not bothering with stuff like this. For example, a lot of the Genesis 2P levels are very much squeezed into a smaller area compared to the Amiga versions, and I didn't include those.

It should also be noted that there are some repeats in there that don't appear in the DOS/Amiga games, like "Watch Out, There's Traps Everywhere". Those types of repeats can be remade the same way namida did for "Stepping Stones" in the SMS version.

Sounds like a plan.

[namida]

I've noticed that I didn't modify the gimmick selection checkboxes in the editor to include two of the new gimmicks.

Just for reference, they are still possible to assign - they're just not labelled.

(Gim20) sets the gimmick that makes other skills count down, and (Gim21) sets the gimmick that assigns skills to all lemmings.

[namida]

Known bug in NeoLemmix player: Stoners do not function symmetrically. (The easiest way to test this is to assign a stoner to fallers in both directions and see where the rest of the lemmings land) This will be fixed in the next update; it is the right-facing that's being adjusted (left-facing will remain as-is).

As the stoner code is an almost-exact copy of the bomber code, I tested bombers too to see if there's any symmetry issues there, but it appears they're fine. (I did previously make a fix, but that was only to the bomber mask; this issue is relating to the placement.)

[Minim]

Just a small problem I found, if there is time before the the next update. I noticed some weird behaviour with the blink feature. The timing of each blink is one second. (so that if the TimeBlink option was turned on, the timer would read something like 30, 29, blank, 28, 27, blank, etc. rather than 30, blank, 29, blank... you see what I mean). Can this be changed to half (or even a quarter of) a second?

I like the new inverted steel gimmick BTW, despite several levels being impossible. Good job on that.

[namida]

Made that adjustment. It's done on half-seconds, as quarter-seconds would get a bit annoying as that's quite fast (especially in Superlemming levels).

The wrap-around gimmick has also been implemented.

[Tsyu]

I have two suggestions for LemMain:

• Xmas and Holiday Lemmings use four-rating main.dat files, which isn't obvious with most of those games; this should be noted in the program.
• LemMain does not rip the graphics that are used in the "High Performance PCs" mode. The palettes to use for these graphics are below:
  
  • Standard:
    
    • 0-7: Same as normal level palette
    • 8: 00A800
    • 9: 54FC54
    • 10: 545454
    • 11: A80000
    • 12: A85400
    • 13: 00A8A8
    • 14: FC54FC
    • 15: A800A8
  • Xmas:
    
    • 0-7: Same as normal level palette
    • 8: 00A000
    • 9: 50F050
    • 10: 505050
    • 11: A00000
    • 12: 603030
    • 13: A05000
    • 14: F050F0
    • 15: 904040

[ccexplore]

Regarding the NES levels, it may be a good idea to watch the video solutions at some point anyway, since there is a big difference in game mechanics, namely the 45-degree diagonal movements of the builders and miners in NES.  Properly remaking some of the levels may require either implementing that behavioral change, or adapting the level for normal building/mining angles.

[namida]

I have two suggestions for LemMain:

• Xmas and Holiday Lemmings use four-rating main.dat files, which isn't obvious with most of those games; this should be noted in the program.

I believe this is noted in the Readme file, unless I removed it at some point. However, I can re-add that to the program itself.

• LemMain does not rip the graphics that are used in the "High Performance PCs" mode. The palettes to use for these graphics are below:
  
  • Standard:
    
    • 0-7: Same as normal level palette
    • 8: 00A800
    • 9: 54FC54
    • 10: 545454
    • 11: A80000
    • 12: A85400
    • 13: 00A8A8
    • 14: FC54FC
    • 15: A800A8
  • Xmas:
    
    • 0-7: Same as normal level palette
    • 8: 00A000
    • 9: 50F050
    • 10: 505050
    • 11: A00000
    • 12: 603030
    • 13: A05000
    • 14: F050F0
    • 15: 904040

The main reason I didn't include these is that Lemmix doesn't make use of them, but I can probably add support for it fairly easily.

[namida]

LemMain update.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e4o475p8xy32htg/LemMain_V6.5.zip

As per Tsyu's request, support for the High Performance PC graphics has been added.


Regarding the NES levels, I would find modifying the levels favorable over modifying the mechanics for specific levels. Pretty much the only thing that I've allowed mechanics variation on within NeoLemmix (gimmicks aside) is whether bombers are timed or not, and even that can only be applied to whole players, not on a per-level basis.

[Tsyu]

LemMain is not ripping the HPPC font correctly. My guess, based on examining the graphics, is that the plane that it's interpreting as being +4 is really +8 (I hope you know what I mean). An image of what it should look like is attached. (The main panel, on the other hand, looks OK.)

Oh, and one more request: Can the ripped graphics go into a subfolder instead of the same folder where LemMain is located? That would help reduce clutter. Perhaps do a similar thing when importing graphics.

[namida]

ccexplore noted in his MAIN.DAT documentation that there seems to be some oddity with the font. Currently it's just using the same algorithm that's used for all the graphics (the active palette in memory is swapped between images if nessecary; the actual extraction code is the same), so unless it is just an oddity with those specific images, any issue like that would show up for *all* graphics, not just a small subset of them.

[Tsyu]

The problem that I reported affects only the HPPC font, not the panel. With that font, the color that LemMain is interpreting as being index 5 should really be index 9. That's why I was saying that I think the plane being interpreted as +4 should be +8 when reading the font (which would leave you with +1, +2, and +8 planes, but no +4).

Another bug: After I extract the palettes, I can't open the menu palette. It seems like the whole thing isn't being saved; the menu palette is only 50 bytes, whereas the level and HPPC palettes are 102 bytes each.

[namida]

Fixed both. Seems you're right about it skipping the +4 plane - the easiest way for me to fix this was to simply add yet another palette option, which uses the HPPC palette but copies entries 8 to 11 into slots 4 to 7, then load it as a 3bpp image.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r565py1zd7cmakv/LemMain_V7.1.zip?dl=0

EDIT: Forgot to also include that workaround in the rebuilding MAIN.DAT code (so it would extract fine, but not recompile correctly). Fixed that, same link.