The menu isn't a single graphic, but rather is made up of several graphics - some of which, individual packs have custom graphics for. It would be quite messy to replace it, so there would need to be a lot of support for this, not just "one person would like it changed". (By comparison, the in-game higher-resolution is likely to see wider support, and while it might be tricky code-wise, it shouldn't break any existing content.)
One thing we could consider for the "squished main menu graphics" issue is to actually modify the graphics parts to compress them in the horizontal direction, to get them back to the intended aspect ratio, at least for the default non-customized graphics. So we still leave all the parts at the exact same positions as before, but narrower (with the now-unoccupied areas of graphics be left transparent). Existing customizations would be left unaffected this way (and would look exactly the way it is today) although they'd probably look squished now by comparison to the defaults, but level authors could potentially update the graphics to account for this. Alternatively but still along same lines of thought, we could also experiment with automatically always applying the graphics transformations this way as a user option, it might work reasonably well even on customized graphics.
Every level in the game has a specified background, as every level has a main tileset theme that specifies it and this way it is ensured that the background color matches at least reasonably well with the terrain+objects so nothing becomes invisible.
It's worth pointing out that all of this is fully customisable on your own copy.
orig_crystal contains a text file called "theme" with exactly the following text:
LEMMINGS default
$COLORS
MASK xF0F0F0
MINIMAP xF0F0F0
BACKGROUND x080810
ONE_WAYS xF02020
PICKUP_BORDER x4040E0
PICKUP_INSIDE xF0F0F0
$END
To get that dark blue background on other styles, just copy the "background" line from this theme into another style's theme.
Thanks for this, guys. Your comments have helped me realised that, in fact, it's ridiculously easy to customise a lot of these things by playing around with the graphics and "theme" files in the styles folders.
By modifying the logo, background and menu items I was able to create the following (see attached "NLmenuWillLem). The
Lemmings logo is smaller horizontally but now in the correct aspect. The menu items now appear slightly further away from each other, but if the alloted "size" for each could be increased by a few pixels each way, this could be easily remedied. Also note how I got around the need to keep the rank graphic card the same size - there are 2 Lemmings sharing this duty! I also sorted out the scroller text Lemmings so they're less stretched and adapted some of the colours to suit my own preferences, but this is a minor point.
Further to this, by changing the background colour in all of the default themes to 000030, I was able to get the dark blue colour I generally prefer (thanks again Proxima - ridiculously easy! - see attached "NLfun24WillLem). Also note the customised skills panel - this is an indication of what I'll be aiming for in the hi-res version. If you like it, let me know and I'll carry on creating the 2x res versions of this.
To be fair, the more I learn about NeoLemmix the more I realise how capable an engine it is. Keep up the great work!Finally, I managed to get the menu_font to
look like the Amiga text simply by doubling the vertical size (see attached menu_font2). However, it then only displayed half of each letter (of course!)
I wonder whether the display aspect for font could be increased to 32 pixels height?
By the way, Namida - I'm playing through the Lemmings Plus packs at the mo - very nice work! I'll let you know how I get on
All best,
-WillLem
P.S.(Aside: Does anyone happen to have the code for SuperLemmini btw?)
There's a link to the source code right below the main download link, in the main SuperLemmini release topic: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=1793.0
Can't believe I missed this! Thanks!