- Keep support for disarmers and radiation objects in the NeoLemmix player, but mark them as deprecated. In other words no new level should use them and you couldn't add them in the editor.
Another disarmer advantage over the replacement with other skills:
The disarmer skill can travel on a specific lemming over the map. Another skill like a builder can be used by every lem who encounters the trap, not the disarmer!
If you have 1 disarmer and need to overcome 2 traps, the disarmer lemming needs to get to both traps and remove the obstacle. Not just every lemming, the disarmer lemming. Here the skill gets much more interesting. Also with pre-assigned skills and basic level design you can precisely define the traveling disarmer lem.
Also it replaces a bunch of other skills if multiple traps need to be disarmed.
That usage might be a bit rarer, but I still think most people don't use the skill to it's full potential yet as they only see the simple disarming function ;)
In comparison to other skills it's also extremely fast and doesn't introduces new backroutes easily. It also can be a good delaying skill.
I agree with this. I feel like the skill has potential even though it is underused atm.
In comparison to other skills it's also extremely fast and doesn't introduces new backroutes easily. It also can be a good delaying skill.Well, if it has potential, then I haven't really seen it yet. It's also true, that it has some nice features, but again they doesn't really seem to be useful regarding creating new puzzles.
-if a zombie were a disarmer, It'll fix a dead trapZombie-disarmers already disarm traps (as far as I know), but this, too, turned out to be barely useful. All other ideas add new types of objects with new complexity. These new types all feel of questionable usefulness to me, so I would rather spend some time implementing other more wanted new features.
-have a locked/Dead option for traps and exits
-locked exits without switch(es) would need a disarmer to open them
-and dead traps would be auto-disarmed upon starting the level (Redundacy I know but hear me out) you can set it up in such a way that Zombie puzzles may be wider in their horizon
Anti-splat pads: a) gives excellent backwards-compat, even if not 100 %. With b), I'd be afraid of differently-sized updrafts replacing the smaller pad. Or do you already support resizable updrafts?The new-format supports resizing of updrafts, so that's not an issue, though the height of the trigger area will probably not be exactly the same, but slightly bigger. But that should have only very little impact as long as we preserve the top border.
I don't mind if radiation is removed. However, is it possible if we can have all the radiation and slowfreeze objects converted into fire objects?I will certainly not automate this process, i.e. automatically let the NeoLemmix player (or some converter tool) keep the object and just change what it does, without telling the user about it.
Another suggestion that should be removed if you haven't done so yet: Manual Steel Areas. I really don't see the need for them anymore especially since we have Autosteel. I think you may have already done that though, not sure.Very good question. The new-formats editor certainly doesn't support any manual steel areas any more and if you try to load a level having them, they are automatically deleted during the loading process. Whether the new-formats NeoLemmix player does, I don't know at the moment. But if it still does support them, then this is something else that definitely should be removed.
Very good question. The new-formats editor certainly doesn't support any manual steel areas any more and if you try to load a level having them, they are automatically deleted during the loading process. Whether the new-formats NeoLemmix player does, I don't know at the moment. But if it still does support them, then this is something else that definitely should be removed.
In general, I don't get this constant search for things to remove from NeoLemmix.That's kinda what I was thinking when I asked why can't a rarely used gimmick stay in the game.
QuoteVery good question. The new-formats editor certainly doesn't support any manual steel areas any more and if you try to load a level having them, they are automatically deleted during the loading process. Whether the new-formats NeoLemmix player does, I don't know at the moment. But if it still does support them, then this is something else that definitely should be removed.
Such measures flat-out destroy some existing levels, not only in my pack, but also e.g. the Sonic the Hedgehog levels in one of the packs IchoTolot featured on his channel where normal terrain was made steel.
In general, I don't get this constant search for things to remove from NeoLemmix. The same concern that has been uttered here for disarmers I have voiced in an earlier discussion: There are existant packs featuring these objects, gimmicks, and skills. New players will come to the game and get to know these older, oftentimes quite famous packs, e.g. by playing the NeoLemmix introductory pack, and they will want to use them, too. One of my levels for example could have made excellent use of the Frenzy gimmick. It's quite unfair to new creators in my view to treat them like "we were able to toy with this, but you don't get to, just because you happened to find our community too late". :D
"The opportune moment" would work with an updraft instead of an anti-splat pad, however "Break my fall" wouldn't, and other levels featuring splat pads, like "Who put that thing there?" or "It's not always what it seems" wouldn't either. So splat pads should definitely stay, and if there are splat pads, I don't see why there shouldn't be an anti-splat pad as a logical counterpart.Splat pads will certainly stay. That was never a question. And sorry, but I don't see at all, why "Break my fall" wouldn't work with an updraft instead of the anti-splat pad?
Such measures flat-out destroy some existing levels, not only in my pack,...Every change in the game physics does that. I know it hurts if some of one's levels no longer work. I have some levels that only work in Lemmix and some physics change regarding the digger made them trivial in NeoLemmix. I had some Lix levels that had to go, because Simon removed time limits.
One of my levels for example could have made excellent use of the Frenzy gimmick. It's quite unfair to new creators in my view to treat them like "we were able to toy with this, but you don't get to, just because you happened to find our community too late".I don't see this is as "we don't let you toy with it", but as: "We already tested these features, found no good use of them, so you don't have to do the same mistake trying to use them". Your Frenzy gimmick is actually a very good example: It annoyed people so much, that a glitch was found to slow down the game despite the gimmick, and other people repeatedly assigned one skill and then restarted the replay before assigning the next skill. So culling the Frenzy gimmick avoided some rants about your levels. ;)
Adding stuff first and then throwing it out again light-handedly actively discourages new creators from trying new ideas, because they never know whether a feature their current levels rely on will still be present in the next version of the game.That is why we are now much more restrictive with adding new features, so that we don't have to throw them out again. Yes, we made mistakes in the past, but that doesn't mean that we have to keep all the bad stuff we did years ago. And yes, it was also a mistake not to throw out steel areas long ago.
Also, there's the level "Danger of breakthrough" where you have to navigate a lemming with walkers until it gets stoned by the slowfreeze, to both create a blocker at the right spot and to bridge across a pont of water.Good example of a level which needs frame-precise positioning of timed stoners, which we would like to discourage. ;)
These are only two very simple examples, I do believe there's still a lot of unexplored potential for both of these "skills". So why throw them out before they have been fully explored?What do you define as "fully explored"? Aren't over two years enough? Should we throw them out after they have been fully explored? ;P
I actually believe one thing that might bar us from exploring these features creatively is getting stuck in one specific level building philosophy.Ok, here is a sad truth: NeoLemmix doesn't try to please everyone and be able to create every level with every imaginable type of challenge. It simply cannot do that. Instead it focuses on the puzzling aspect with the deliberate choice to get stuck in one specific philosophy.
PS: Regarding 1.43: I tried to use an older version recently, and for some reason it didn't open properly. Are there any additional files I need to make the 1.43 editor / player work?It should work without any additional files. But it won't be able to open any of the levels or packs created with newer NeoLemmix versions. Having said that, I will have to check whether the current style files can be loaded with V1.43.
All of the four features add to the complexity of the game
- Using timed bombers, they clash with the NeoLemmix philosophy to use instant bombers. Actually the timed bombers are pretty hard to place precisely, which adds executional difficulties which we want to avoid.
They have an extremely diverse appearance, so players may not readily recognize them as radiation objects. Or they might confuse them with slowfreeze objects...
I can understand the desire to simplify, but we don't generally get a lot of feedback on what parts of the game new players especially find most confusing, so it's really tough to say how much of a difference removing one or two little features (often the ones that had been least used as there's less controversy) really makes in the overall scheme of things, since you're still left with a lot more features than Lemmings or even Lix.I totally agree, and basically rely on a test-set of size one: myself. Which is admittedly pretty bad, as I learned about many of the features before we got all the help that is currently present in NeoLemmix. And of course my opinions don't need to be the average ones.
Yes, but spriting is a lot harder for me than removing code. :PThey have an extremely diverse appearance, so players may not readily recognize them as radiation objects. Or they might confuse them with slowfreeze objects...Reasonable concerns, although there are other solutions to this specific problem that does not involve removing the features altogether.
I thought actions might speak louder than words. Attached are two levels in defense of slowfreeze
Still, I think the decision to remove slowfreeze might still go through.Sorry, but three good levels in over two years are still not nearly enough, even ignoring the fact that your "A level of Ice and Fire" allows for a backroute that ignores the slowfreeze object completely.
You could also potentially do a "soft" removal where you start with removing the ability to use it in the level editor and block loading of levels that try to use it, but still keep the code for the game mechanics around for one more stable release or so, and see if people have indeed moved on since then, and then later either actually remove the dead code for good when clearly no one still care anymore, or potentially restore it if surprisingly people have turned around in their thinking.This is viable option for some lesser used settings that have far smaller impact on the existing levels. And I already do exactly that already in my new-formats editor, which omits supporting several settings that the NeoLemmix player or even the old editor has.
You will also never be able to try the combination of timed bombers and shimmiers. Or the Frenzy gimmick and jumpers. Sometimes we have to live with such things...
Sadly, I don't think the odds are much in your favor when it sounds like it's mostly down to just you being the advocate. Maybe you can do a pack of slowfreeze levels now to commemorate the feature's passing, when the current version of game is still in active use and not yet superceded widely by the new version.
This is what I mean by "you're discouraging new level creators". In order for anyone to play such a pack at all, I'd have to rush the creation of it, from which the quality of the levels would obviously suffer, just to have everyone move on a couple of weeks later, rendering the pack completely worthless only shortly after its conception.
What if one day, the majority of the forum decides to cut zombies again? That will destroy PARALEMS entirely. Are level packs really viewed as such throwaway stuff, considering all the time and effort that goes into coming up with them, testing them, refining and reordering them?
The original Lemmings and Oh No! More Lemmings obviously will always be playable on all engines, because those are classics.
With regard to custom made packs however, there are already several that are either completely incompatible with new versions (like Copycat Lems)
or have been severely trimmed down, like the NeoLemmix introduction pack that now completely misses the Gimmick rank. Even though I've downloaded the old version (1.43) where it should still be playable, the pack itself has been edited so I can't even take a look at those levels any more aside from watching Flopsy play them on YouTube
The thing I don't get is: The more features we remove from NeoLemmix, the closer it becomes to good old Lemmix again. [...] So I sometimes ask myself why the philosophies aren't "swapped": NeoLemmix has all the whacky features, so why isn't that engine the "playground" for whacky level ideas in the first place, and Lemmix the more restricted, conservative, strictly puzzly one? ;)
9) One-way areas: Removed from the new-formats version, because they have been outdated for a long time already. They are automatically replaced by the usual one-way objects.Um, what's the difference between an "One-way area" and an "One-way object"? Do you mean that the blocker-like one way fields are removed and are replaced with one way arrows? ???
The pack I'm currently working on, "Pit Lems", does in fact have a lot more radiation and slowfreeze use, but certainly not just to give them some "quota screen time". This is what I mean by "you're discouraging new level creators".Sorry, but if we wait until noone is creating a pack using some feature, before we remove it, no removal will happen at all. Especially as a lot of packs take more than two years.
What if one day, the majority of the forum decides to cut zombies again?You are comparing apples with eggs here:
The thing I don't get is: The more features we remove from NeoLemmix, the closer it becomes to good old Lemmix again.Up to now, we almost only added features and almost never removed any. And I guess, it will stay like this, if I look at the long list of proposed new features. So even if we remove a few features now, we will never come close to Lemmix again.
Nepster's pack featuring only the classic 8 skills could be played on Lemmix perfectly, minus the instant bombers and the skill blueprints.My pack was made deliberately with these restrictions in mind, mainly as a challenge for myself to see whether I could come up with new level ideas within these restrictions. I am currently working on another pack "Return of the Tribes", where I will use a lot more of the new skills and objects. So it simply isn't fair to use NepsterLems as the standard pack that everything should be compared to, especially with regards to usage of new skills and objects.
So I sometimes ask myself why the philosophies aren't "swapped": NeoLemmix has all the whacky features, so why isn't that engine the "playground" for whacky level ideas in the first place, and Lemmix the more restricted, conservative, strictly puzzly one?If you have a closer look at some of the recent levels, then you will notice that there are a lot of them really whacky ones, that would be horrible to play on Lemmix. All the framestepping and blueprint additions make them suddenly playable! So I would say: NeoLemmix is indeed the playground for all the whacky level ideas.
In the old Lemmix editor, one-way-walls had to be added by placing one-way areas on top of the terrain, very similar to what we now do with the one-way arrow objects. However the internal handling is somewhat different, because the current one-way objects act more like windows and hatches, while the one-way areas act more like old steel areas.9) One-way areas: Removed from the new-formats version, because they have been outdated for a long time already. They are automatically replaced by the usual one-way objects.Um, what's the difference between an "One-way area" and an "One-way object"? Do you mean that the blocker-like one way fields are removed and are replaced with one way arrows? ???
Excuse me, how can you remove objects that are used in several levels like that? In my mind, culling something because "very few people use it"
As far as designing new levels goes, Lemmix is dead.
Excuse me, how can you remove objects that are used in several levels like that? In my mind, culling something because "very few people use it" is a terrible reason to cull it, because it will break several levels while giving literally no benefit to anyone else. If few people use it, then why remove it any destroy the levels that do use the feature just because not enough use it? I do not see the rationale for that decision I must say.
You are comparing apples with eggs here:
- Zombies are far more often used, so the hurdle to remove them is far higher.
- They are considered useful (and are used) by far more people.
- They add something far more unique to NeoLemmix than Slowfreeze or Radiation objects do.
- They don't cause any confusion.
Up to now, we almost only added features and almost never removed any.
Sorry, but if we wait until noone is creating a pack using some feature, before we remove it, no removal will happen at all.
Excuse me, how can you remove objects that are used in several levels like that? In my mind, culling something because "very few people use it" is a terrible reason to cull it, because it will break several levels while giving literally no benefit to anyone else. If few people use it, then why remove it any destroy the levels that do use the feature just because not enough use it? I do not see the rationale for that decision I must say.As ccexplore already mentioned, I gave reasons besides low usage to cull these objects. However I always stressed the low usage, because I wanted to preserve as many levels as possible. Actually there are quite a few features that I would love to remove as well, but due to their high usage, I refrain from even suggesting it. In other words:
Thanks to everyone for their replies and opinions. Here are my final decisions. I am aware that whatever I decide, there will be someone unhappy about it, and most likely noone will agree with all of my decisions (and this includes myself).Dear Strato, have you read this? I know that you are unhappy if we don't keep everything, in the same way that I know Proxima and others (including myself) would have liked to cull more. The point here is: You are totally entitled to your own opinion and can ignore the given arguments for removal as irrelevant. But everyone else is entitled to their opinion, too! And this holds even true, if you cannot understand how they arrived at their opinion.
If you like timed bombers so much, then revive Lemmix or build levels in Lemmini! If others agree with you and like timed bombers, then they will play your levels in Lemmix.QuoteAs far as designing new levels goes, Lemmix is dead.That's what I thought. So it's quite funny then that I was pointed towards Lemmix for all my timed bomber needs :D .
Even troll levels, as much as they can be hated, can just be skipped - I know a lot of people did that with the trolling level from PARALEMS, and I'm fine with that.For this they have to know first, that the level is actually a trolling level. The hatred for such levels comes exactly from the fact, that people who would love to skip such levels, don't realize they play a troll level and try to solve it for a long time until the realization hits them.
And who says level creators only build for the Lemmings forum? I've given my pack to my brother and a friend of his, who is a lot more casual in his playing of Lemmings, it mainly has nostalgic purposes for him. If I just serve him puzzles all day he will get a knot in his head after a couple of them and quit before finishing the first rank.Noone is saying that people just build for the Lemmings forums. But unsatisfactory as it is, we can only hope to please the lemmings forums crowd, because we have no way to know what everyone else thinks.
I also think level packs providing a greater variety of challenges could also help the YouTubers here on the forum in growing their channels. Watching someone think about a puzzle for half an hour isn't really that much fun, is it? You could just play the pack and think about it yourself, then. Watching someone trying to execute an idea that has a little more action to it would make for a much more entertaining Let's Play experience, I think! :DAnd you seem to confuse "puzzle levels" with "hard levels". Almost all of the original lemmings levels are still perfectly fine levels and even here you'll find several packs with relatively easy levels that have received a warm welcome. So while we certainly have packs, where one has to think for half an hour before getting some idea, not every pack is like this.
Zombies don't cause confusion, really? Pre-skilled lemmings caused a lot of confusion on my pack, so just imagine how much confusion skilled zombies can cause, because their labels can't even be read properly, aside from the initial letter ;) .That's actually a very good point. It needs to be easier to find out permanent skills that zombies have, or we will have to remove skilled zombies from the game, too. ;P
I have outlined to you how losing slowfreeze would be a loss, so can you tell me now how not removing something is a loss for anyone? ;)I have to repeat myself here:
That's what I thought. So it's quite funny then that I was pointed towards Lemmix for all my timed bomber needs.
Creating levels with timed bombers thereby wouldn't be possible, not to speak of combinations of timed bombers with the new skills.
Radiation is the only thing that kinda emulates this in NeoLemmix, and that might go on the chopping block sometime in the future, too. Even though it seems like it survives this round and people promise "what stays now will stay for a long time", what does "long" really mean in this context? The older versions that feature a lot of the stuff I've grown to like are from when, 2016? ;)
Indeed, the only reason I see to remove something that barely gets used anyway is being afraid of what people might come up with. If it's just something less favoured by the community, so what? No one forces any member of the community to play the pack. Even troll levels, as much as they can be hated, can just be skipped - I know a lot of people did that with the trolling level from PARALEMS, and I'm fine with that. That doesn't necessitate nor justify taking the option of trolling away completely ;) .
And who says level creators only build for the Lemmings forum?
I've given my pack to my brother and a friend of his, who is a lot more casual in his playing of Lemmings, it mainly has nostalgic purposes for him. If I just serve him puzzles all day he will get a knot in his head after a couple of them and quit before finishing the first rank.
I also think level packs providing a greater variety of challenges could also help the YouTubers here on the forum in growing their channels. Watching someone think about a puzzle for half an hour isn't really that much fun, is it?
Timed bombers, rising water, wraparound, anti-gravity, the "kill your lems rather than saving them" idea... if you consider all the gimmicks individually, quite a lot of features were removed in one big chunk, and now a second one follows. If you had never added them in the first place, this would be a totally different thing. But as we all know, "you can't contain ideas". All these objects existing inspired level ideas, perhaps for some more than for others, and perhaps more than could be put into practice until now. You're trying to put the genie back into the bottle here.
If you have any suggestion how to make everyone happy, please tell me! But simply keeping slowfreeze objects doesn't do this!
That's actually a very good point. It needs to be easier to find out permanent skills that zombies have, or we will have to remove skilled zombies from the game, too. ;P
Fun fact: When I played Paralems, I knew that there would come a trolling level somewhere, but while playing through the pack, I didn't find it. Only afterwards I actively looked for the trolling level using the clear physics more and then found it.
Gimmicks were removed a long time ago. Anyone who wants to design new levels with the old gimmicks has to dig up 1.43, and the maintainers of large packs had to remove or rework gimmick levels.
I agree that radiation and slowfreeze look similar as objects. So why not simply make the colours of the graphics more distinguishable?This was discussed already a long time ago. Upshot is, that for all other objects, their color is completely irrelevant and they can be recognized by their form.
Also, the countdown numbers above the lemming's head could be adapted: A yellow / orange countdown for radiation, a blue one for slowfreeze.And what tells players that these colors signify anything? I wasn't aware of the already existing color-coding I mentioned above until namida told me explicitely about it.
3) If you're worried about new players, you could place pickup skills over the object, like you do with hatches, to tell them on the introductory levels what this object does.All of this solves symptoms of the issue "No immediate feedback", but not the cause!
That's why I gave the level a pre-textRule 0 in programming: Users never read anything! They want to play levels, not read pre-view texts. I am guilty of doing so myself... So advising players of game mechanics or troll levels via preview texts is certainly advisable, but cannot be the only means.
I have downloaded the 1.43 editor, and there is a field called "gimmick" in the level preferences, however it is set to "0000" and can't be altered :( . Do I need an even older version of the editor to actually create levels with gimmicks myself?Gimmicks can be changed via "View -> Gimmicks Window". Then select the desired gimmick and click on "Activate this Gimmick".
Upshot is, that for all other objects, their color is completely irrelevant and they can be recognized by their form.
And I noticed, that you didn't respond at all to my point:
- Slowfreeze objects require very often frame-precise positioning, making solutions hard to execute.
Rule 0 in programming: Users never read anything!
"Action" just isn't something I'd associate with Lemmings, even the original game; it's too slow-paced for its action to be thrilling.
Gimmicks can be changed via "View -> Gimmicks Window". Then select the desired gimmick and click on "Activate this Gimmick".
I do believe though there should be some similarity between those two objects on purpose, because they have in common that they are deadly to the lemming passing through, more specifically "death by skill use", which sets them apart from regular traps.
However, the suggestion has been made to add skill blueprints to slowfreeze and radiation objects, like for the other skills. Meaning when you hover the mouse over a lemming that has a countdown, you'd see how far it is still going to walk / fall until it explodes / stones. Kinda as if skill blueprints had been introduced before timed bombers were abolished: Then bombers probably also would have gotten a skill blue print, wouldn't they?
So far, I don't see how slowfreeze positioning is more or less difficult than radiation positioning: Both give lethal skills to a walking lemming, that is the root of the execution issue.
If you want to cut down on execution problems, this would have to be done consequentially - which would mean throwing out radiation AND slowfreeze, but probably also teleporters, since they require a couple of seconds to execute their function and are sensitive to release rate and other timing factors, i.e. how close lemmings are to each other. Also cloners, especially when used to duplicate skills, can be very pixel-precision-y... and gliders also, despite their skill blueprint...
I agree that being surprised by a trolling level and wasting hours on a level with rigged rules is annoying. I'd simply introduce them the same level gimmick levels were introduced back then: With a pre-text that tells you what you're getting yourself into.
That's also the reason why I don't get "removing slowfreeze, but keeping radiation", just like I don't understand "removing anti-splat pads, but not splat pads". Both are logical counterparts of each other, like Yin and Yang. Why should a bomber be assignable by an object, but not a stoner, if these are the only two lethal skills?That's the one argument I never understood myself. Why is being a "logical counterpart" any argument for having a feature? Wouldn't photo editing tools require then a tool to add scratches, if they have a tool to remove them?
If you want to cut down on execution problems, this would have to be done consequentially - which would mean throwing out radiation AND slowfreeze, but probably also teleporters, since they require a couple of seconds to execute their function and are sensitive to release rate and other timing factors, i.e. how close lemmings are to each other. Also cloners, especially when used to duplicate skills, can be very pixel-precision-y... and gliders also, despite their skill blueprint...That's exactly what I would do, if my opinion would be the sole one that counts. That this does not happen is purely because I feel that you all should have a say in this matter. If you want me to rethink my decision to keep radiation objects and splat pads, then I will gladly do so.
However, if you are the user and cause damage for not reading the instructions, that's still the user's problemIn theory (and in legal questions) this is a perfectly fine position to take, but unfortunately in reality it creates tons of unhappy users.
I don't think it is our job as level creators to provide all-around comfort to players, especially not on higher difficulty ranks.Sorry, but I totally disagree here. Players are the gods and we have to do all we can to make their experience as pleasant as possible. This is my personal opinion, and it's fine if you disagree. But it hopefully helps you to understand my arguments and decisions.
Wouldn't photo editing tools require then a tool to add scratches, if they have a tool to remove them?
Sorry, but I totally disagree here. Players are the gods and we have to do all we can to make their experience as pleasant as possible.
Finally I have to confess: All these further discussions make me wonder whether it wouldn't have been better to cull radiation objects as well. They really are out of place in NeoLemmix.
I don't consider reaction time, multitasking or somewhat precise placement of skills unfair to the player. They are just different skills a player of the original Lemmings game needed to have, just as he needed to have problem solving / puzzling skills, and, coming from a psychologist background, I want to "measure" these skills with my levels as well, not just the competence of problem solving. Good estimation of the position where to assign a skill is a mark of visuo-spatial imagination that at least some levels in a pack should reward.
I don't believe the only challenge the introduction of these options leaves us with is creating huge levels that visually confuse the player on purpose and make them count the skills they use.
Trolling (i.e. making normal terrain steel or steel normal terrain, hiding exits / traps, invisible & fake objects etc.) I would consider unfair, but not to the point of banning them. I just think such levels should be clearly identifiable in advance so they adress only the target audience they are designed for an that will enjoy them. Once again, "with great power comes great responsibility": Just because you CAN create something trolly as a level maker, it doesn't mean you should. And if you decide you want to, you should carefully consider how to go about it. Outright "banning" stuff, in contrast, in my experience just makes people crave more for what has been formerly available and is now forbidden / impossible. :)
While the puzzly packs I have seen so far are by no means a cakewalk as far as figuring out the route is concerned, they certainly are with regards to the execution. Even "Save Me", the hardest level on original Lemmings, is a complete joke with NeoLemmix tools. And while I view framestepping and replay features as overall convenient, I don't believe the only challenge the introduction of these options leaves us with is creating huge levels that visually confuse the player on purpose and make them count the skills they use. I enjoy that from time to time, but I think there are more different types of challenges than that, many of them unexplored so far. After all, frame-stepping also allows us to do much more mean things with regard to pixel precision than the original Lemmings could have ever afforded, and your level "Ninjas in the attic" is a prime example of that ^^.
Trolling (i.e. making normal terrain steel or steel normal terrain, hiding exits / traps, invisible & fake objects etc.) I would consider unfair, but not to the point of banning them. I just think such levels should be clearly identifiable in advance so they adress only the target audience they are designed for an that will enjoy them. Once again, "with great power comes great responsibility": Just because you CAN create something trolly as a level maker, it doesn't mean you should. And if you decide you want to, you should carefully consider how to go about it. Outright "banning" stuff, in contrast, in my experience just makes people crave more for what has been formerly available and is now forbidden / impossible. :)
QuoteSorry, but I totally disagree here. Players are the gods and we have to do all we can to make their experience as pleasant as possible.
Okay, it's good to know this. In my view, the level creator is the god - but only in the sense of "with great power comes great responsibility". I see this a bit like being a game master in Dungeons & Dragons: The level creator's job is not to defeat the players (that could be easily done because you have the power to put them into impossible situations), but neither to make the experience a cakewalk. The game master should challenge the player in a fair and transparent way, I think that's something we can all agree on.
For manual steel and invisible and fake objects, it would require additional effort to include support for them in the new-formats editor,
That's a loss, but it's one we're prepared to accept because of the gain to puzzle possibilities. After all, there are lots of other games that reward execution skill, but not many playgrounds for the kind of puzzle design we enjoy.
Size also doesn't define difficulty - the tricks and entropy of the level does.
Unfair things have to go, I'll make no prisoners here and I just despise them.
I absolutely hate cheaters and abusers of unfair elements.
My point of view is: I want to treat the player good like a god. I want him to understand, learn and see everything, but my goal is still (at least for the last rank): Defeat (stomp) the player fair and square. No dirty tricks, no hidden stuff - just a 100% fair, logical and solvable puzzles that get the better of him. So yes, I still want to defeat him in the end.That was my view when I first started making Lemmings Squared. After posting it, I was harshly made to realize who I was dealing with. Casualemmings is my repentance for being foolish enough to believe I could defeat the veterans. :D Though I have been making a bit more progress on some of namida's levels... Just a bit.
Are the sparkling lights the ones that are in the L2 circus tileset? If so I say we can keep it the way it is for now unless someone comes up with a better purpose for it.No, the ones that were previously slowfreeze/radiation objects, too. Strato Incendus used them in the level "Only over my dead bodies".