I see the level edges as a "solid steel boundary" and not as a deadly "electric fence".
I don't see the edges as an electric fence either. Lemmings die when outside of player's range, not because they're grilled by the edge. The current NL burner edge doesn't feel right.
The egde should do as little as possible.My Feeling: open edges > steel > electric fence.
It is still weird as hell in general seeing Lemmings get burned when they got near the edge.
100 % agree!
One word: gravity.
other games "I" played the level edges are not deadly so encountering deadly edges is unnatural. The bottom is a logical exeption, because of the gravity point (----> "Mario"
In Jump'n'runs, gravity pulls you towards the bottom, where you're killed. To go towards the edge, you must want to go there, by steering towards the side. At the edge, the character ignores input towards that side.
Gravity in Lemmings, too, pulls you towards the bottom. But lemmings
walk uncontrollably towards sides. You have to be active to
prevent them from walking somewhere! The sides attract lemmings like the bottom does.
In Lemmings, it is natural to walk outside of the level. There is
no magical barrier that prevents what lemmigns would do on their own. And while we might return in the real world upon hitting an obstacle, the lemmings get stuck.
But I would make it an option in the Flexi Toolkit allowing to fix one behavior for a whole level pack
Pack-dependent options open a new can of worms. What is with playtest? What is with standalone levels? Is the complexity warranted, even though authors have been consistent within a pack?
The per-level option is not as bad as it is now, should the boundaries get visual hints.
Always the same > option per-level > option per-pack.
Edges are weird, no matter what they do. I care about consistency. Let's not be coy. If we evade a decision, the players will suffer.
We're not in a hurry to decide, and can sleep over this for a week.
Likewise, even if we have deadly edges, instead of relying on them, we should enlarge the level or put a trap.
If you really thinks so, quite a few levels in the Lix lemforum level pack need to be modified. Quickly skimming through Hopeless I see like 6-7 levels where solid edges can be used to backroute levels or at least simplify the solution.
I'm okay with a few explicit hazards. I was speculating that edge reliance is bad design, but I'm not sure.
I agree that explicit hazards can be ugly. Like ccx, I don't want to
require traps. When you have levels with large open areas, I agree that the void looks nicer than a load of traps.
Regarding your second point: Steel borders need not look bad (depending on the level), usual terrain suffices most of the time and quite often you don't need to cover the whole border with terrain (just the relevant parts).
Yes! Normal terrain suffices often and looks good.
Then level designers who want deadly sides may frame their levels with this trap
EDIT: Maybe the deadly edges option adds 8 pixels of map to each side and puts a laser beam in there automatically -----> lesser hassel for designers
I like this push for explicit edge behavior. I don't like mass traps.
When you want a void, the traps look horrible, and don't produce the right feeling either.
When you want steel, terrain or steel looks okay, and match what you perceive.
Once again. The edges aren't an electric fence. When edges are deadly, the lemmings get lost in the void outside of the level. The edges do as little as possible!
-- Simon