I was unsure whether a pack where not everything about the levels is set in stone should still be considered "in development". But as I've seen in a neighbouring thread, Nessy has also released a pack yesterday and might still do some changes to fix backroutes. Therefore, since all five ranks in my pack are completed, I consider it "finished" for a first version.
So let me hereby introduce you to
PARALEMS.
I decided to go with this name because the pack strays from the mainstream NeoLemmix philosophy of being a puzzle game. It should therefore be noted right from the start that
mechanically, this may be a NeoLemmix pack, featuring lots of the new objects, skills, and zombies;
philosophically however, it is more of a Lemmix pack. Don't expect puzzles only when you download this, because that is not what PARALEMS is going for!A quick overview of what you're getting yourself into here:
General- Paralems has
150 levels distributed equally among
five ranks: Harmless, Disturbing, Disgusting, Abhorrent, and Demented- some levels are
re-runs of original Lemmings levels, but this time they have to be solved with different (NeoLemmix-) skills
-
quite a few levels contain zombies, however they don't appear prior to the Abhorrent rank
- Paralems tries to go along with the original Lemmings philosophy of "different cognitive demands from different levels". While some levels may be "
puzzly", others will "measure" different cognitive skills, such as
multitasking, creative (ab-)use of gameplay mechanics, or just pure
reaction speed.
- There are
time limits on most of the levels, again going along with original Lemmings.
-
Occasionally, there will be hidden traps or exits, like in the original Lemmings. This is mostly done for aesthetic reasons, or to create the impression of the Lemmings actually entering into a building, a spaceship, or similar. Therefore, for exits it is usually fairly logical where they are going to be. As it is also said in the pack itself, looking behind doors, windows or inside buildings / vessels might be a good idea in general. You obviously can always use true physics mode, but I doubt it will even be necessary: On a macro scale, the position of the exit should be quite obvious, and on a micro scale, the skill blueprint of a digger or basher stopping at the trigger is a clear hint something is going to happen there
.
-
Beware of animals . Most of them are not friendly, even if they may be in other packs...
Friend or foe?
Does this look familiar?
A more puzzly one
For the
"reaction time" levels, you obviously could run them with the pause button switched on. I can't stop you from doing that, but you will probably notice pretty quickly that you're fooling yourself
, because these levels are
specifically designed to measure speed.
For the
multi-tasking levels, I recommend zooming out by using the scrolling button of your mouse. It's really helpful for keeping track of all that's going on simultaneously at opposite ends of the screen.
Multitasking!
The extremesWhile most of these levels are pretty "normal", I've also made some to deliberately take things to their extremes. There is:
- a level
without any terrain- a level
without any skills (that doesn't mean you can't do anything, though...
)
- a level situated
entirely under water- a level that will
fail before the "Let's Go!" sound if you aren't fast enough
- an
ultimate trolling level where all the normal rules of Lemmings are turned on their head...
I can however assure that all of these levels are solvable, and I will gladly upload replays of any particular level as a proof
.
Flavour and musicMany levels in this pack are definitely more driven by flavour than by mechanics. Their titles will refer to movies, books, music, politics... or just the current state of the world.
There might be some stuff in here that could theoretically "offend" some people; to me, no concept or idea is above scrutiny or mockery - like original Lemmings sparked some controversy with "All the 6's".
Mmh... where might the exit be in a pirate level?
The allusions to the mentioned topics are usually more than obvious, so especially for "movie levels", it would make sense to
run them with the original scores as soundtrack. Obviously, these are copyrighted, so I can't upload them.
But in case you own any of the tracks yourself, since they are quite popular, I encourage you to put them into your NeoLemmix music folder under the following names, so that the levels where they belong to automatically recognise them. As long as you only do this for private use, it will certainly improve the atmosphere of playing this pack
.
I obviously wouldn't suggest doing this though if you're a Let's Player, like Flopsy, namida, IchoTolot etc.
Movie scores:Apocalypse Now / Richard Wagner "Ride of the Valkyries" - RW_ride
Bionicle movie soundtrack - Bionicle_main
Game of Thrones main theme - GOT_main
Harry Potter main theme - HP_main
Pirates of the Carribean "The Black Pearl" - PC_blackpearl
Pirates of the Carribean "He's a Pirate" - PC_pirate
Pirates of the Carribean "What Shall We Die For?" - PC_wswdf
Orphan Black main theme - OB_main
Raumpatrouille Orion main theme - orion_main
Star Wars main theme - SW_main
Star Wars imperial march - SW_march
Star Trek main theme - Star_Trek_main
The Walking Dead main theme - WD_main
The X-Files main theme - X_files_main
Twilight / YIRUMA "River Flows in You" - YIRUMA_river
Lastly, there is a level called "Srpski level"
. If you get what that refers to, the soundtrack for that one should be named serbian_main.
National anthems (instrumental):American national anthem - US_anthem
French national anthem - France_anthem
"Kekistani" anthem "Shadilay" - KEK_anthem
Video game music:Lemmings 3D soundtrack (I name these according to the first level they appear in)
"Take a Dive" - 3D_turkarmy
"That's right" - 3D_piano
"A shortcut through the forest" - 3D_woodwaltz
(the other song from the forest levels) - 3D_forestparty
"Alpine Assault Course" - 3D_alp
"Alilems" - 3D_alien
"Hole in Ten" - 3D_golf
"Hole in One, Two, Three" - 3D_carribean
"Dot to Dot" / Haunted Moonbase - 3D_moonbase
"The prisoner" - 3D_egypt_prison
"King Coder's tomb" - 3D_egypt_king
Hype: The Time Quest soundtrack main theme - HYPE_main
Hype: The Time Quest soundtrack tower ascension - HYPE_ascend
Hype: The Time Quest soundtrack race - HYPE_race
Divinity 2: The Dragon Knight Saga soundtrack, Sentinel Island theme - DIV_sentinel
Worms World Party main theme - Worms_main
Songs by bands:Nightwish "Imaginaerum" - NW_imag
Nightwish "Last of the Wilds" - NW_lastwild
Nocturnal Rites "Fool's Parade" - NR_foolsp
Schandmaul "Sturmnacht" - SM_sturm
Schandmaul "Waldgeflüster" - SM_wald
TEN "March of the Argonauts" - TEN_argo
TEN "Remembrance for the Brave" - TEN_remem
Sugababes "Push the Button" (instrumental) - SUGA_push
Günther "Ding Dong Song" - dingdong
Blink182... well, they made a little song that has something to do with a dog
- Blink182_dog
Those last two are the only two pieces with sung vocals.
This is my first attempt at creating a level pack, so bear with me
. Thanks to the NeoLemmix engine, you can play these levels in whatever order you like, so I hope there's something in here for everyone.
Some levels may be too easy or have backroutes; some may be too mean; some just redundant or not in the right rank for their difficulty. Hopefully we will be able to identify those together.
If I've sparked your interest and you're ready to take a look, I always appreciate your feedback
.
Download link, Paralems Version 2, since this file seems to be too large to attach:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/r005kodylk2o33z/Paralems.nxp?dl=1