Playing packs on v1.43 continues for me so that I have my own set of replays. This time, I rounded off my collection by playing the last of your packs that I didn't have a set of replays for, your standard Gigalems pack. Just like your ghost and zombie packs, both of which I recently finished playing through a second time each, this is also my second playthrough of Gigalems. I first played through this pack several months ago earlier this year, but once again, I didn't have the setting to automatically save replays if successful, and thus it unfortunately meant no replays to post here. Therefore, I remedied that by playing through this pack again in order to have replays of my own. Here is my replay collection for Gigalems, for v1.43. Once again, the replays might not be of interest to anyone, but I'm simply doing this for historical and bookkeeping purposes. I'm posting my replays just so they are safe here and just following my own plan to eventually post replays for all packs I play here on the forums. I believe with this, I now have all my own replays for all v1.43 level packs. If that's the case, I'll be moving on and finishing up playing packs for Old Formats (v10.13.8).
Feedback on the PackJust like your ghost and zombie packs, both of which I thought are really good, this pack is also very well-done. I remember how really good this pack was the first time I played it several months ago. It was definitely a huge relief to have played a standard pack that uses only the 8 classic skills after all the annoyances that zombies and ghosts can add to levels. So, I guess I took care of the more difficult packs of yours first before coming back to Gigalems, the easiest of all your packs. From easiest to hardest, I would say Gigalems => Resident Gigalems (zombie pack) => Resident Gigalems 0 (ghost pack), although I started with the medium difficulty pack due to it being the larger of your two special gimmick packs.
I like how the rank names are in increasing order in terms of what we perceive with hotness. In order, the ranks are Warm, Hot, Boiling, Scalding, and Scorching. I'll start with the Warm rank. Very nice and super easy levels in Warm, the first rank. No real challenge here at all. The first 8 levels are all tutorial levels on each of the 8 classic skills. Unlike the original Lemmings, each of the 8 levels devotes to only 1 skill, whereas in the original game, there were two Fun levels that grouped two skills together, one level with climbers and miners, the other blockers and bombers. The order the skills are taught here is pretty interesting. In order: Bashers, floaters, builders, climbers, miners, diggers, blockers, and finally bombers. Due to how only 1 skill is taught at a time, there's no chance of being able to bomb a blocker, but I thought you did a great job of just teaching all about the blocker on its own dedicated tutorial level. Also, you kept the blocker and bomber tutorial levels next to each other, so I guess that's fine. Definitely nothing wrong with the order of the tutorial levels for the skills, although I'm wondering if it might had been better to simply do it in the order the skills are shown on the skill panel. In other words, level 1 should be the climber tutorial, 2 the floater tutorial, 3 the bomber tutorial, etc. It doesn't really matter though, this is just something that I thought about and is clearly an afterthought, as I didn't realize the order of the tutorial levels until I started writing this post.
After the first 8 levels, the next two are 10-of-everything levels. Then, Warm 11 -
Building to Salvation is a builders only level, followed by Warm 12 -
Bashing to safety, which gives 10 bombers, 10 blockers, and 10 bashers. Finally, Warm 13 -
Not Breaking but Entering is a climber/floater level, with a blocker also provided. Warm 15 -
Don't let them burn to a crisp is a level providing only bombers and blockers. Warm 14 -
Going round is an easy 20-of-everything level and is apparently dedicated to rtw (roundthewheel), who was the one I found out Lemmini about. Warm 18 -
Bashing without Bashing gives only climbers, floaters, and diggers. Warm 24 -
Going Under provides only bombers, blockers, and bashers. Finally, Warm 26 -
Easy Tree-zy is a blockers only level. The remainder of the levels in the rank are either X-of-everything or mostly X-of-everything. In the entire Warm rank, I would say that Warm 20 -
Scarif-Slice is difficult for its position, and is also the most notable one, being the first one of the pack with hidden traps. Before I started playing this pack, there had been a discussion about how this pack has a lot of hidden traps. I mentioned that I didn't recall many levels that had them, but now that I have played through the pack a second time, there's way more than I thought there was. Perhaps I thought that due to them being absent from both your ghost and zombie packs.
Also while playing the Warm rank, I noticed that there are a couple of levels with problems in regards to trap triggers. In Warm 7 -
Parental Blockers, the bottle cap masher traps don't trigger at all, probably due to the trigger areas being misplaced. Similarly, in Warm 9 -
Gotta take the high road, the grass vine traps don't work because they're placed in mid-air.
For the second rank, Hot, no real challenge here either. I definitely say Hot 29 -
A Vietnamese Crystal is definitely the hardest of the rank due to all the obstacles the blood letters create. Not an easy level to navigate through at all, especially given the extremely restrictive skillset. It's also difficult to spot and find the most efficient route. I thought Hot 11 -
Poketto Monstura lemming san was pretty cool. I don't know Japanese, but I know the title refers to the anime Pokemon. Obviously you must be a fan of the show. I guess this level is like the counterpart to the Tricky level that is only present in certain ports. Hot 13 -
It feels like I forgot something (title gets cut off, with the "g" missing from the last word) is pretty much like Tricky 28 -
Lost Something? in that it's a search for the hidden exit, although there's no indication of it anywhere, so it can be tricky. However, it's a 10-of-everything level and a small one, so it definitely won't take long before one finds the exit. The most annoying level to execute IMO is Hot 19 -
Blast Right In, where one needs to bomb several climbers to get to the hidden exit. It is a repeat of Warm 18. Hot 22 -
Those BLASTED Lemmings require the same bombing technique, but is far less annoying and much easier to execute. Hot 20 - Feeling of distrust: Alpha is notable in that it is the first of several levels in the same series that repeats in later ranks. Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and despite how it denotes a high ranking title, the fact that this is the first such level in the series should indicate that it's the easiest. Quite the contrary. It is somewhat difficult due to the restrictive skillset. There is also a nuance around the exit in that some parts of it has fake terrain, so that can catch a player completely off-guard.
The levels finally start getting difficult in Boiling, the third rank. Even then, I didn't find any of them too hard. There are two hidden exit levels in the rank, one extremely early in the rank, one near the very end of the rank. The most difficult levels of the rank IMO for less experienced players would probably be Boiling 10 -
Down rooted, Boiling 12 -
Other Options, Boiling 13 -
Chamber of the L.E.M, Boiling 14 -
A bunch of blockers, Boiling 21 -
Neopolitan Lemmings, Boiling 24 -
Make a wall or two, Boiling 26 -
Z, and Boiling 29 -
Dawn of Sega. Boiling 20 -
Feeling of Distrust: Omega is the next level in the Feeling of Distrust series, with of course Delta being a letter in the Greek alphabet that is a few places after Alpha. It is a harder repeat version of Hot 20, the Alpha version, although this version has more builders in an otherwise identical level layout, and so is in some ways easier. It's harder due to the tighter save requirement. I really like Boiling 24. I think this can be a major roadblock for less experienced players, although it's easy for me since I know the trick required which you have to do twice in the level. Boiling 26 is probably the tightest on time in the rank, along with being not an easy level in any way.
More great levels in the fourth rank, Scalding. Not as many difficult levels here as the previous rank, although there's plenty of levels tight on time in this rank, most notably the many 2 minute levels in the rank. Scalding 8 -
Iron Clad is a 5 minute level, but is surprisingly tight on time. For sure I say that Scalding 23 -
Bye Bye Baby Balloon is the hardest of the rank. Other levels that can be hard IMO are Scalding 5 -
How to stop a dangerous jump and Scalding 10 -
Recreational Lemmings. I really like the former, and from the title this level seems to have been inspired from Hurricane 10 -
How to Stop a Mass Suicide from Pimolems, while the latter is difficult due to the solution can be difficult to find, especially with only 2 builders in the level. I also like Scalding 12
Havoc and Anarchy and Scalding 19 -
Victory is Mine. The former is a really nice no builders level, while the latter also only has two builders but it's quite a nice puzzle and not as difficult. Finally, Scalding 27 -
Feeling of distrust: Sigma is the third level in the series, but has even more builders than the previous two versions, along with a slightly different level layout but is mostly identical. So, the levels in the series appears to get easier each time due to how the number of builders increases every time. The solutions are also mostly identical each time.
Finally, the 5th and final rank, Scorching. To start, I don't get the point of Scorching 4 -
Absolute Zero, the repeat of Scalding 6 -
Stay Frosty, since I used the exact same solution in both versions. There's nothing to differentiate between the two at all other than how the latter has a higher save requirement than the former, so it seems that this was a mistake in that the latter should had been in the Scorching rank while the former should had been in Scalding. Almost every level in the rank is extremely tight on time. Doesn't matter to me, since I'm one of the few people who doesn't mind time limits. The tightest on time would have to be Scalding 5 -
A bad trip. Still, I really like the level, and it has a good solution. Scorching 7 -
Relinquish would be a close second in being very tight on time. Scorching 10 -
Skeptical Method is yet another very tight on time level, although I'm not sure if it's possible to save everyone here. I think I might had done it before, but I believe the very strict time limit prevents one from doing so. Scorching 11 -
Lemmings on a feather... can be annoying to pull off, although it's extremely easy if one pauses to assign the floaters. It's simply made difficult due to the nearly stacked hatches. Both Scorching 12 -
Symphony of Fire and Scorching 13 -
Its not time for flying toast! can be difficult. The former is difficult to navigate due to the terrain as well as being very restricted on the destructive skills. I'm quite surprised that the latter gave namida a lot of problems. I had a much easier time with the latter this time around despite how it's been a while since I last played and solved the level. I kind of vaguely remembered the solution. The latter is also very tight on time. Scorching 14 -
A 3 story drop is also very tight on time due to the 1 minute time limit, but it's not hard. Scorching 15 -
Downward Panic is definitely a harder version of the original in addition to being tight on time. Scorching 17 -
Feeling of Distrust: Omega is the 4th and final level in the series and has a lot of terrain changes that clearly differentiates it from the previous versions in each of the previous 3 ranks. For the last level in the series, definitely not the hardest by a longshot, and it has the same number of builders as its third incarnation. Probably the only thing that makes the level hard is the save requirement, where everyone needs to be saved, but even then the level's not hard at all.
Scorching 18 -
Master Fortress is notable in being the only level in the Purple (I think the tileset is called Purple) tileset. My biggest gripe with the tileset is how it's extremely difficult to tell if one of the hanging people strips is a trap or not. In this level though, it's annoying in that the traps are hidden, with absolutely no indication that they're there. Unfortunately, one must go through them, although it's fortunate that one can rewind when one gets snatched by the trap(s). I can definitely see that this would be an extremely annoying level to do if one has to restart like in Lemmini/Superlemmini. I really like the rectangular prism design in Scorching 21 -
The Cubic Lemmings. It's almost a straight path to the exit, made harder due to the 1 minute time limit, but even then it's still an easy level. The next two levels, Scorching 22 -
Cold Storage and Scorching 23 -
Into the furnac can both be annoying to execute, although they're not very difficult levels.
To close off the feedback, this paragraph will be dedicated to the final 6 levels of the pack, which are the dreadnaught levels. Scorching 25 -
Pathway to the Dreadnaught is the first level in the series, although this can be considered the prequel since the title suggests that the lemmings are making their way to the titular Dreadnaught. Easy level to start off, and this level is notable in being the only one in the pack with an invisible exit, but there are hints to indicate where it is, so it's not a completely blind finding it type of level. The remaining 5 levels are the Dreadnaught levels and, with the exception of Scorching 27 -
Final Dreadnaught 2 and the final level Scorching 30 -
Final Dreadnaught 5 - The Core, are all very tight on time. To start off the actual series, Scorching 26 -
Final Dreadnaught 1 is a difficult puzzle along with a really tight time limit. The solution isn't obvious at all. Scorching 27 -
Final Dreadnaught 2 is much easier than the previous one. Scorching 28 -
Final Dreadnaught 3 is a difficult level just like Scorching 26, although it's probably only a little bit easier. The main challenge is finding your way through the OWWs. Scorching 29 -
Final Dreadnaught 4 is clearly the hardest of the Dreadnaught levels due to the extremely tight time limit. The solution is not difficult, but the time limit really adds to the challenge and is the main obstacle to an otherwise easy level. This is similar in that the penultimate level of the original Lemmings was also the more difficult than the actual final level of the game, although they are difficult for different reasons. Save Me was difficult because the solution isn't obvious, while for Scorching 29 it's hard level due to the time limit. Finally, Scorching 30 is too easy for the final level of the pack, but due to finally reaching the actual Dreadnaught itself it has to be the final level and so it can't switch with the much harder Scorching 29.
I've said it before with both your ghost and zombie packs, and I can say the same thing here: This is a really good pack!
Very similar in difficulty to Geofflems, and they're both really easy packs for the most part. Other than a few levels which I think are a bit difficult for their position, nothing too overwhelmingly hard in Gigalems. Much easier than both the ghost and zombie packs of yours, so this was a pleasant surprise in playing really easy levels again and just breezing through the pack very quickly.
Ok, that's all 3 packs of yours on very Old Formats done, Gigalem
Enjoy the replays if you ever get around to watching them.
