IDE: Under Windows, I've used http://www.codeblocks.org/" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">Codeblocks, a free and cross-platform IDE for C++ and others. cc's proposal of Microsoft Visual Studio Express should also work nicely.

Some consider bloated what others consider essential, so you have to choose if/which IDE to use yourself in the end. Guyperfect will likely recommend not using an IDE at all, and just doing everything with the command line. (-: You might learn some fundamentals that way, and it is not hard either.

Without IDE: Use any text editor, write a hello world program, and save it somewhere with .cpp as the extension. Open a command line, switch to the file's directory and type g++ yourfile.cpp. If you get no console output, everything works, and there will be a generated executable in the same directory.

If you get compiler errors, fix the source. If you get "g++: command not found" or similar error, see whether there is an executable named g++ among the executables installed by MinGW. If there is none, but there is g++-win32 or similar, copy that and name it g++. If the command is still not found even though g++ exists, add the directory containing the MinGW executables to your PATH variable. Hunt around the web for how to do that on your Windows system.

I'm sitting in IRC, should you need quick help.

-- Simon

For C++ under Windows, I've used MinGW, it's free software. Hunt around the web for that, I recall that one needs to install several things from their site. An alternative is Cygwin, but I've never used that.

A text editor is not a compiler. You can write code in Notepad if you insist, but you will want a more powerful editor quickly.

Batch files are shell commands that get executed one after another. :-)

Useful links for later:
http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl/table_of_contents.html" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">sgi's STL reference for std::string, std::vector, ...,
http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq/" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">C++ FAQ lite for style/avoiding concocted use of language features,
and cplusplus.com, which you already know.

-- Simon

This is somewhat a hard concept for me to put into words...

For each level, find the smallest N such that a solution exists with the original skillset, with no skill used more than N times.

Rotating hamsters have to be added to this post to make it seem non-wisecracky.
http://asdfasdf.ethz.ch/~simon/etc/hamster-3.gif" alt="" class="bbc_img" />http://asdfasdf.ethz.ch/~simon/etc/hamster-3.gif" alt="" class="bbc_img" />http://asdfasdf.ethz.ch/~simon/etc/hamster-3.gif" alt="" class="bbc_img" />

Also, results:
Tricky 1: 1
Tricky 2: 5 (from the min-total-skill topic)
Tricky 3: 2

-- Simon

1) What is the expected/normal theme of the level instead of "special"? (dirt, fire, snow, ...)

Dirt.

All four vgaspec levels have the large single terrain piece, plus objects from the dirt set, recolored according to each vgaspec's palette. Any normal tileset should work with vgaspec.

-- Simon

The trigger area is managed by DOS L1 in squares of 4x4 pixels.

I'm not sure why there should be a more severe restriction for multiples of 8, or whether oddly placed (= not at multiple of 4) special objects work. I vaguely recall that such objects lose their physical effect and behave like decoration. Edit after ccexplore's next post: Behaving like decoration is what objects with too high a z-coordinate do, not what oddly placed objects do.

Others will know better though. :-)

-- Simon

The first floater glitch is probably unintended. Early L++ had it as well without intention.

I can't guess whether the second behavior is intended, but it is the user-friendly solution. It does not open backroutes, but prevents restarting and using up skills without any effect.

-- Simon

Hmm, drowners still explode in L1, but rarely have an effect on terrain.

Even the exploding splatter in Lemmini won't enable backroutes unless he splats exactly 5 seconds after spawning. :-) -- Edit: No, he might enable backroutes, if the explosion could not happen as low as that otherwise...

-- Simon

Thanks, I've removed the Reloaded set from the main release. Version number has stayed the same.

The multiplayer maps I'll update when I will have returned around end of September.

-- Simon

Version 2013-09-17 is up, it breaks hint lines automatically at the end of the screen. You can write long hints without manual insertions of <br>.

<br> for manual linebreaks is still possible, it's recommended for poetry or other structured text.

$HINT_ENGLISH Tapestry, tapestry, on the wall,<br>who is your owner afterall?<br>I wish it were mine...

-- Simon

Hint system is complete and a new version has been released. Have fun. http://asdfasdf.ethz.ch/~simon/etc/smiley-lixnormal.png" alt="" class="bbc_img" />

I'll be away for 1.5 weeks from tomorrow. If you discover any fresh bugs, I'll cater afterwards.

One thing is already scheduled for in 2 weeks done: Automatic linebreaks for hints at the end of the screen, so you don't have to check back and forth manually where to insert <br>.

Rubix might check whether his singleplayer levels in the release are of the desired newest version.

-- Simon

Yeah, I don't have any new-school consoles. But the PSP version was already quite well-received, and with Luis we had a very active PSP user in the community.

I'm most interested in the controls. Mouse in one hand, with the other hand permanently hovering over skill hotkeys, is by far the quickest input method. The follow-up is probably a touchscreen replacing the mouse in that setup. Clones was the first game to have freely-mappable skill hotkeys, per default all on one hand's keyboard keys. I'm still envious that we didn't think of that before I saw it there. ;-)

The Vita obviously doesn't have a keyboard, so gestures might be the best for it, but I assume they're uncommon and hard to learn for casual players. Apparently, the Vita version has settled for always-highlight, i.e., selecting the lemming only highlights it, selecting a skill then immediately assigns it to the highlighted. This is doable as long as there is few multitasking, and if there are no time-critical assignments into a dense bunch.

-- Simon

Standard Lix disclaimer http://asdfasdf.ethz.ch/~simon/etc/smiley-lixnormal.png" alt="" class="bbc_img" /> -- It might not run as flawlessly on every operating system as it did on Win XP. It cannot export its levels in the L1 format readable by L1 and Lemmix.

Other than that, the program and the level format are as free as you can get, and besides its own format it understands L1 and Lemmini level files.

-- Simon

Hey,

1) Environnement
2) Legal
3) Behavior and game mechanics
4) Coding and game mechanics

1) Free and open source with release early, release often is much preferred here to anything else, yes. The exact choice of license is a lesser important detail. I'd just put everything in the public domain, so others wouldn't have any merging hassle and I dislike copyright anyway, but GPL is also very good. SDL sounds like a good choice.

2) Don't use the trademark Lemmings in the name, and don't recycle too many graphics right from the source game. Sony is the ickiest company of all. Github.com has a list of cancelled projects due to legal complaints, and nearly everything on the list was pulled because of Sony. Lemmini requires Lemmings for the graphics, but everything else is done in its very own way, including game mechanics.

Do not ask Sony for permission under any circumstances. You will get a takedown notice, they don't care at all about the details. (This again is company-specific advice.)

3) You could stay 100 % close to the DOS mechanics, but that has the legal issues as well as horrible things like the left-right assymmetry and all the behavorial bugs. It's probably best to roll your own here, or remain close to other free projects like Lemmini.

You can be as elaborate with fairness as you want. Lix updates all the workers in player order, then all non-workers in player order. This feels very fair already. Builders do not fall when they have no terrain underneath, and bashers have some leeway with missing terrain underneath, they can step downwards without getting cancelled. In addition, player order is randomized at the start of the game.
 
4) I've used effective coordinates and similar evident methods before knowing how L1 handles it and before reading ccexplore's descriptions. You won't get shafted by doing useful things in the code.

5) Additional info even though nobody has asked for it: Making a two-player game and making a multiplayer game is not that different. ;-) Two-player will still be the most-played mode.

Have fun!
Simon

Voted for mouse, but http://thesuicidalrodents.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=lieuchat&action=display&thread=49" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">here's the real deal. :]

-- Simon

Weather has been way too hot this week, this is no programmer's weather. No reasonable progress yet.

-- Simon