Alright, so nominations are now closed. Before we open the voting, we first offer a period to play the levels again, to familiarize yourself with those you haven't yet played and review those you have.
The list of nominated levels can be found in the nominations topic (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=7357.0), I see no need to duplicate it here. It also contains information on where to find these levels outside of my compilation here.
Download links:
- NL Levelpack of all nominated levels. (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/5k306xjyimm7ybdq76bxv/LOTY2025_Levels.zip?rlkey=00iewagqmdqt7sp562dpj46w9&st=hxesw8z1&dl=1)
Every author with 3 or more levels in this category gets an own rank in the pack. At the end there is a mixed rank for the leftover levels. Extract the zip file inside the main NL folder.
- Music tracks (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/qyr8r0mxkjdqvl2slq7gk/LOTY2025_Music.zip?rlkey=fkdepmc2ssp00qdql8njv7z3j&st=w2l1l9hx&dl=1)
The custom music tacks of the nominated levels. Extract the zip file inside the main NL folder.
Note: The music packs for LOTY 2017 and 2018 are now removed due to space issues. You can still gather the music yourself or ask for it though.
- Replay collection (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/cj4p6w98fk3533zxqb30o/LOTY2025_Replays.zip?rlkey=o99q735wtncs4rahrlpzl5bwp&st=25wj0qc3&dl=1)
Some gathered replays from a few of the nominated levels. As this was optional, only a part of the pack is covered here.
- Styles not found in the standard library (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/7a2nf4u1uxc1cqys9vx24/LOTY2025_Styles.zip?rlkey=h3r9sotsznk4fw4ffkjv0j5he&st=i6hepn4p&dl=1)
All other styles should be accesible over the standard NL styles library!
Playing phase will end: June 26th 2026
General level feedback and solution replays can be posted here in the topic if you want! Have fun playing! :)
If there are any errors I've made in the collection, don't hesitate to inform me here! As a reminder: This pack is nothing more than an optional service I provide as an attempt to make all nominated levels more easily accessible.
Nice one, @Icho :thumbsup: I think the Music tracks link might be broken though ;)
Quote from: JawaJuice on May 24, 2026, 04:55:30 PMNice one, @Icho :thumbsup: I think the Music tracks link might be broken though ;)
Thanks for the hint. The link should be fixed now. :)
Also, to be sure, you currently have the playing phase open for 2 months (closing on July 23). This conflicts a bit with what you posted in the LOTY2025 topic:
Quote... keep the playing phase up for around a month.
I want to make sure there's no mistake here and whether the July 23 deadline is what you intended. Sorry, I'm being pedantic!
Also, also... I don't think you've included the right version of the Save One level, 'Blues Walk With Me' :) 'Blues' was what the level was called originally, in the first release of Save One. IIRC the final version featured a button. @Guigui can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is the final version of the level (attached).
mod edit: Removed level attachment, per Icho's reply below. For LOTY in general, level updates should be left to the responsibility of the nominated authors themselves to post for Icho to include in the LOTY pack.
@kaywhyn Yeah, I was looking at the wrong month in my kalendar. I changed the deadline to June 26th. Thanks for the notice!
@JawaJuice I just noticed today that Guigui's pm only sent me a part of the levels that were nominated, so I took the rest out of my download of "Save One" where I was told that there were no more backroutes in my solutions.
I was not aware of another update. If Guigui insits, i can update the pack with another version.
@Guigui If you wish to update, please just pm or post your update here!
In general: This pack is nothing more than an optional service I provide as an attempt to make all nominated levels more easily accessible. I do not guarantee 100% correctness with the level versions!
@IchoTolot I think what happened there is that you never backrouted that level in the first place - so saying there were no more backroutes in your solutions was technically true. Having watched your LP after I finished play-testing that pack, I noticed you hit on the intended solution first time more often than not. The many iterations of levels, and that level in particular, were down to the fact that some players (myself included) were persistently backrouting it!
Appreciate what you're saying about only curating this pack for peoples' convenience, I just thought I'd point it out. :)
:forehead: Oh god, I did not even see that 3 levels from my pack got nominated ; I only sent one to IchoTolot :forehead:
I just sent the 2 missing ones, sorry for having everyone waiting and Icho doing the same thing over and over.
Also thanks to the anyone who nominated my levels, it came as a nice surprise to me.
There are a lot of really nice nominations in the LOTY 2025 pack! I'll be trying to solve them all over the next week or two. Excellent job, all of you in the contest! :thumbsup:
Updated the pack with the new versions of Guigui's levels. :)
I've played a lot of these levels before but it was fun to play through them again and refresh my memory. The main stuff I hadn't played was the majority of 92Dexter11's Lock & Key levels and a few from LDC 32. Overall, lots of ingenious design and you can definitely see why everything has been nominated for LOTY 2025 - worthy contenders all! :thumbsup: Good luck to everyone!
By and large, there's nothing particularly easy here! On the contrary, it makes for a challenging pack! I will say that aside from Armani's and Guigui's input, which I already knew, the levels from Lock & Key are comfortably the hardest ('No Looking Back' especially), occasionally utilizing quite obscure tricks but more often than not, just non-obvious solutions that take a very long time and lots of trial and error to figure out! 'kaywhyn's Organic National Park' gave them a good run for their money though; had me stumped for ages, that one!
I'll attach all of my replays and maybe the respective authors can let me know if I've discovered any unacceptable backroutes!
The solutions for my levels are intended! Great job! :thumbsup:
QuoteI've played a lot of these levels before but it was fun to play through them again and refresh my memory. The main stuff I hadn't played was the majority of 92Dexter11's Lock & Key levels and a few from LDC 32. Overall, lots of ingenious design and you can definitely see why everything has been nominated for LOTY 2025 - worthy contenders all! :thumbsup: Good luck to everyone!
By and large, there's nothing particularly easy here! On the contrary, it makes for a challenging pack! I will say that aside from Armani's and Guigui's input, which I already knew, the levels from Lock & Key are comfortably the hardest ('No Looking Back' especially), occasionally utilizing quite obscure tricks but more often than not, just non-obvious solutions that take a very long time and lots of trial and error to figure out! 'kaywhyn's Organic National Park' gave them a good run for their money though; had me stumped for ages, that one!
Thank you for your kind words. I would also like to echo your statement about the lots of ingenious designs for all of the other contest finalists - there are some really amazing levels here, good luck everyone! :thumbsup:
QuoteI'll attach all of my replays and maybe the respective authors can let me know if I've discovered any unacceptable backroutes!
For my levels, the 'Lemmings Faithful' have no intended solution, although I would have to commend you for saving all the neutrals in 'Diamond in the Rough' - that replay blew me away when I saw it!
As for the 'Lock and Key' levels, all the solutions are intended, except for 'The Split' and 'Epilogue'.
The Split
For 'The Split', the backroute is pretty major in context, although for the purposes of the contest, I suppose it's fine. (The gimmick behind 'Lock and Key' is that it's intended to be a narrative with continuity, e.g., if the lemming is assigned a glider in one level, he'll start as a glider in the next level, but this context isn't relevant for the contest so it's fine here.) I'll have to release an update for it at some point later.
Epilogue
For Epilogue, the solution is very impressive and uses all available skills. Backroutes aren't really as relevant for this one, since in context it's the final level of the pack. Either way, it's fine for the purposes of the LOTY contest too!
Find attached the replays from the June 5/7 livestreams (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?msg=108859) with help from the LF community in the chat. We have solved the following levels:
List of solved levels
A Puzzle Adventure
A Step Down With Difficulty (1 by me, 1 by Flopsy)
Be Attitude For Save One
Building, Fencing
Coyote Time
Daybreak
Diamond in the Rough
Help Me, Help Dune
Industrial Incident
Not To Scale
Re-Enlistment
So Many Spikes
Speedlunky
Square One
The Split
Tower Of Sacrifice
Underroot
We Got Mad Lemmings 3 Lab Skills
It's a quality batch of levels! Congratulations to all nominees. We've spent 8 hours on these levels, and I could easily spend another 8 hours on the unplayed half of these levels.
-- Simon
Replays from the June 10 and June 21 livestreams.
Solved Levels
Blues Walk With Me
Cursed Treasure
Down The Upside
Epilogue
It's Crazy Sports Day
kaywhyn's Organic National Park
Lawful Neutral
No Looking Back
Oh Yes! A Hardcore Molten Problem
Palace of Ice
Quick Lab Rush
Rusty Ruin Zone
So Many Spikes
kaywhyn's Oh Yes! A Hardcore Molten Problem: We conjecture that our solution is a backroute.
-- Simon
JawaJuice and Simon got intended/acceptable solutions to all my levels except for Oh Yes! A Hardcore Molten Problem. Both solved it with different backroutes. Thanks for catching and showing me them! I've attached an updated version of the level which hopefully fixes the backroutes. Simon's backroute was easy to fix with a flamethrower, while JawaJuice's was what I thought was impossible to fix without hackish changes needed around in the starting area. That is, until I looked in an entirely different area and spot to modify which should now hopefully force the intended solution. How it boggles the mind! :laugh:
I'm also attaching Oh No! Another Hardcore Molten Problem as well since the rule here is that we make two levels which have the exact same layout and objects and hence one is a repeat of the other but with differing skillsets and, entirely up to the author, can also differ in number of Lemmings, RR, etc. JawaJuice got the intended/acceptable solution for Oh No!, so no resolving of that level needed. Just Oh Yes! needs resolving! ;)
For Simon, yes, Oh Yes! is intended to be played first while Oh No! is the repeat version. Hence b_jonas was right!
The feedback I've received on this pair of levels is that Oh Yes! is the harder of the two despite the Oh No! level kind of referencing ONML in the title and its much higher difficulty compared to L1 :P Needless to say, I've subverted it here! :laugh:
Shame you didn't have the music I intended playing on them. They're both remixes of an official Lemmings track! :P In particular, Oh Yes! has a Rainbow Island remix, while Oh No! has an ohno_5 remix ;)
Quote from: Simon on June 21, 2026, 10:44:28 PMkaywhy's Oh Yes! A Hardcore Molten Problem: We conjecture that our solution is a backroute.
Seems you were in a hurry that you didn't even notice that you made a typo with my username. I expected better from you, considering you're one of the admins of the Forums! :P Would love it if you can fix it though. I tend to get very worked up when people make a typo of it despite it being a nickname I'm using for my online accounts :P
I also don't know if it's a bad thing that I made you groan in anger while you were trying to solve Oh Yes! Then again, I know it's a tendency for German people to do that but that it doesn't necessarily mean they're mad out of frustration. You did after all compliment me in the end that I managed to make a hard level with it even though you solved it with a backroute by joining heads with some people who were in the chat during the stream. Thanks, I appreciate it! :thumbsup:
Quote from: JawaJuice on May 27, 2026, 11:13:56 AM'kaywhyn's Organic National Park' gave them a good run for their money though; had me stumped for ages, that one!
Wow, thanks for the compliment! :thumbsup: I know you mentioned it to me in a PM, but honestly it really surprises me that that particular level of mine managed to stump you for a while :P The intended solution requires way more precision than ever, but here you can thank Crane for that! :laugh: He kept backrouting the level so much and hence why it looks and feels pretty hackish with all the changes I made! :P
All rightie, I have now played and solved all of the LOTY2025 nominated levels. My entire replay collection is attached :)
Here, I needed to resolve Dexter's The Split and Epilogue levels, as my solutions were determined to be backroutes when I solved them in his Lock & Key level pack. My new solutions to these levels are in the zip. The former still seems to be a backroute, while the latter seems to be good now! ;)
The rest of these levels I have previously played, except for Gigalem's levels and Crane's in the Mixed rank. In addition, I had previously solved GigaLem's Lawful Neutral and Re-Enlistment from when he posted them while the new 12.13 objects were still in experimental NL, but here I needed to solve them again due to them being remade in a different graphic set. As usual, Gigalem's levels are visually quite impressive, but my biggest gripe with them that I've been saying for practically all of his Festival Millas packs is it's extremely difficult to tell what's solid vs what's background in them. At least without using CPM. Also, I'm not going to lie, but Lawful Neutral and Palace of Ice really stand out and glare out way too much and were way too distracting for me that they hurt my old eyes too much to be able to focus on playing them properly while trying to solve them. Please consider toning down and making the visuals clearer so that it's easier to distinguish between solid terrain vs background, and especially so that it doesn't hurt and strain one's eyes too much! Then again, I've been wearing glasses for almost 30 years now, so I've been blind for a really long time!
As for Crane's level, I was able to solve it and obtain the talisman to boot all without having first opened it up before playing! :laugh: Nice one and certainly one of the easier levels than the usual affair by Crane.
Nicely done to all the nominated authors and best of luck to everyone! :thumbsup: Will try and record and post videos showing off the levels and my solutions in the coming days! ;)
Quote from: kaywhyn on June 25, 2026, 01:45:16 AMyou made a typo with my username.
Would love it if you can fix it
Fixed! Sorry.
Quote from: kaywhyn on June 25, 2026, 01:45:16 AMgroan in anger while you were trying to solve Oh Yes!
I don't remember a particular annoyance on Oh Yes Molten Problem. Can you point to a timestamp in the June 21 stream?
I'll wager that it was general exhaustion. It was a hot day, the stream had been going for 3 hours, the level (Oh Yes Hardcore Molten) had no obvious method of attack (zero climbers when it looks like you want to start with climbing), and I had spent energy on Dexter's No Looking Back.
It's also possible that I was grunting about something in the NL user interface. Again, I don't know any particular UI shortcoming that hit during Oh Yes Molten Problem.
I think my main annoyance in the June 21 livestream was: The blue goo in the organic tileset is steel. Such a misleading tileset design. The player really needs to know this.
Thanks for watching the recordings!
Quote from: kaywhyn on June 25, 2026, 06:21:17 AMPalace of Ice
distinguish between solid terrain vs background
I would have liked to force a black background on Palace of Ice. The light grey background made it hard to see the platformer bridges.
Other issues are subtler and harder to explain. I should eventually write proper feedback for Giga. E.g., I had some issues with gadget recognition, many gadgets in Giga's tilesets had straight walls walls and were snugly fit into the landscape. To the unlearned eye, that makes them look like terrain. It was fine after learning it, even if I had to learn it for every level anew, and I liked the levels in the end.
-- Simon
Quote from: Simon on June 25, 2026, 08:36:02 PMI don't remember a particular annoyance on Oh Yes Molten Problem. Can you point to a timestamp in the June 21 stream?
Around the 2 hour 24 minute 25 second mark you made a really loud moan that almost sounded like you were frustrated because you couldn't figure out how to do a part of my "Oh Yes!" level. As mentioned, the feedback I've received is between the Oh Yes and Oh No pair the consensus is the former is the harder of the two. At least if the intended way is forced ;) This is intentional, as Oh Yes is intended to be played before the Oh No level, which is its repeat.
Again, I acknowledge that it's likely a German culture thing and the tendency for people from Germany to do such, as it can easily be mistaken for the German being mad when it actually isn't. Of course, this isn't exclusive to Germans, as some other cultures are like that too! There is truth when you said it might had been due to you being exhausted, as you had been streaming for nearly 2.5 hours while you were playing my Oh Yes! level, but yes, the loud moan gave me the impression my level was your reaction to being frustrated because you were stumped trying to figure it out ;)
QuoteI think my main annoyance in the June 21 livestream was: The blue goo in the organic tileset is steel. Such a misleading tileset design. The player really needs to know this.
Oh yes, thank you for reminding me of this, as I meant to comment about my level with this misleading design! The graphic set used for my kaywhyn's Organic National Park level is by namida called Organic. This is a graphic set that namida made while his Lemmings Plus VII level pack was in development which he ultimately ended up cancelling because of how he didn't work on it for so long. In the end, he only made 23 levels for it before he cancelled the level pack.
You're right that there's no way a player would be able to reasonably figure out the blue is steel without either activating CPM (Clear Physics Mode) beforehand or just trying stuff on the level for a while before picking up on what's steel and what isn't in the graphic set. That's reasonable, as normally steel has rivets/bolts that allow a player to easily identify that such a piece is steel. Not so with the Organic graphic set.
Now that you know what the name of the graphic set is and that it's by namida, any complaints should be reported to him regarding it! :P However, it's now been almost a year since namida released all the levels he made for the now cancelled LPVII and its graphic sets that it's unlikely he'll make any changes ;)
QuoteThanks for watching the recordings!
My pleasure, and thank you for playing my levels! :thumbsup:
Ah, yes, that particular grunt is a regular reaction to getting stumped. Nothing against the level.
About the blue goo: I haven't yet decided if/how I want to weigh that into the voting. Nothing is unambiguously correct here, and I'm not familiar with the tileset culture. You're aware of the visibility issues, that's what counts.
What is standard practice with tileset visiblity issues? Do we file bugs against the engine? Against the editor? Directly against the tiles in the Tileset board (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?board=25.0)? Do we make a fresh topic per bug, or do we pile everything into the set's existing topic?
-- Simon
Hmm, good question :thumbsup: Posting a new topic and rant of a specific NL graphic set in the NeoLemmix Styles board is probably fine and the best way to go about it. At the same time, that board is for any tilesets made, so perhaps not.
Then again, Nepster posted a rant about the City Tileset (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=2967.0) in the NeoLemmix Main board, so it might be more reasonable to file a report of namida's Organic set in his topic instead of creating a new one. It would mean hijacking a topic Nepster started, but as it's a rant about NL styles, it should be perfectly fine. There's plenty of posts in the topic, including some by you ;) The current discussion in the topic is primarily on the City tileset and no other, so it might be a great time to add a few NL graphic sets that might need ranting and a discussion :laugh: Also, keep in mind that when the topic was made that that is back in the days of Old Formats NL, i.e, v10 NL players instead of v12 NL (New Formats NL).
Anyway, the discussion of graphic set issues can probably be moved elsewhere now so as to not derail from LOTY here ;)
All rightie, I've started recording and posting some LOTY2025 videos showing off my solutions and most author intended solutions! :thumbsup:
Part 1: https://youtu.be/Vd_z3G-0-3M (92Dexter11's levels, sorry for the long video! :D)
Part 2: https://youtu.be/G7kXgTCJqYI (Armani's levels)
Part 3: https://youtu.be/6DRDXJRJR7U (GigaLem's levels)
Just the first three ranks for now. Will record the remaining 3 ranks after I get some rest first ;)
Now I have recorded and post the rest of the LOTY2025 videos! :thumbsup:
Part 4: https://youtu.be/iuvPgFK4y4c (Guigui's levels)
Part 5: https://youtu.be/sIih30r-gWw (my levels)
Part 6: https://youtu.be/taOhAUz6DXU (everyone else's levels, the final Mixed rank)
I've also reattached my entire replay collection, with a new replay added for GigaLem 2 so that the zip has two replays for it :laugh:
I'm also reattaching my updated Oh Yes! and Oh No! levels since I fixed JawaJuice's and Simon's backroutes for them in the last few days ;) They're also in reply #15 several posts above.
Thanks for the backroute fixes for Molten Problem, the timing is good. I'll play again on Wed Jul 1, 17:00 UTC (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?msg=109135). If we fail to solve it, I'll watch your full coverage.
I think this is the first year where I really play everything. Gone are the days where I play NL for 1 hour and then quit for months in frustration.
Levels are tough, but that's good. Games must be hard. It would be no fun playing only easy games.
I hope that Icho keeps the first poll open until at least Thursday, July 2nd.
-- Simon
All rightie, sounds good. I appreciate you wanting to give my fix and updated Oh Yes! another go to see if it really does hold up to be the hard level it's supposed to be now :thumbsup:
You'll also notice that all levels of mine you've played except one don't have time limits. I think you perfectly understand why "Quick Lab Rush" needs it after having solved it the intended way and trying what I thought people would try and falling for its trap :P
Spoiler
Otherwise, you would be able to take the long green walkway out to the left at the top with the sliders and hence you won't need to catch them with the platformer at the bottom
It's just like I promised you from a few years ago after you played my "Stop Blowing Up My Construction Work!" and complained of me possibly slapping one on just for the heck of it: I didn't arbitrarily do so, and it originally didn't have a time limit (and the first few updates didn't either), and after having considered all my other options (pickups, steel, etc), I decided the best way to fix the backroutes by you, geoo, and Armani was to put in a time limit while also making sure the solution doesn't become too obvious from using other fixes instead. Plus, I have plenty of levels that don't have a time limit anyway :P
Along with that, it is true that I could had used
Spoiler
OWAs for my kaywhyn's Organic National Park level instead of the visual clutter and not the so clear blue vein steel I resorted to, but again, IMO it would had made the solution too obvious.
It's also true that I'm not happy about how the intended solution has become way more precise than it needs to be, but well, sometimes that's the way it goes with level designing and with how the level kept getting backrouted :P
Alright, I will first create the topic and with all the level image links and dicide the groups as always.
It will be 5 groups with 7 levels each and 2 planned survivors per group.
QuoteI hope that Icho keeps the first poll open until at least Thursday, July 2nd.
I will run 3 polls at a time again with each round except the last running for 3 days.
I can start on monday or tuesday if you have trouble voting otherwise. I rather catch as many people as possible for the vote than starting 2 days early. ;)
Also then people can already view the groups.
Quote from: kaywhyn on June 25, 2026, 01:45:16 AMJawaJuice and Simon got intended/acceptable solutions to all my levels except for Oh Yes! A Hardcore Molten Problem. Both solved it with different backroutes. Thanks for catching and showing me them! I've attached an updated version of the level which hopefully fixes the backroutes. Simon's backroute was easy to fix with a flamethrower, while JawaJuice's was what I thought was impossible to fix without hackish changes needed around in the starting area. That is, until I looked in an entirely different area and spot to modify which should now hopefully force the intended solution. How it boggles the mind! :laugh:
Not wanting to give too much away, but I've had a bit of experience myself with backroute fixing lately ;) It certainly can be very tricky, especially if you set certain restrictions on yourself as to what you can change. I will give your updated
Oh Yes! a spin when I get chance! :thumbsup:
I think the thing with
Organic is that I didn't trust myself that the solution would be as fiddly as I seemed to need to make it, but after what you said about Crane backrouting it a bunch of times, it makes more sense now! I've also come to think that level creators aren't necessarily the best judge of the difficulty of their levels, although as we've said before, a level that's difficult for one solver can be relatively easy for another and vice versa! :shrug: :)