I've looked everywhere but can't find the original suggestion. I'm pretty sure it was from Lana.
She suggested that Lemmini could have 'Parental' settings which display a 'take a break' message at certain intervals, and remove the blood from trap animations.
I've all but implemented the second of these suggestions. Style authors can provide '_pg' suffixed versions of any sprite in the style. If RetroLemmini finds the PG version, and the user has chosen to use these sprites, it loads these instead.
Initial implementation in RLPlayer commit 08d1c67.
I do need a bit of help with this though.
Firstly, it's difficult to decide which of the trap animations should be given PG variants. The ones that feature blood can be edited to be less gory, but what about the others?
Secondly, the editing work will require an artist's hand. If anyone wants to volunteer to do this, I'd be very grateful for the help. It will basically entail editing the OG (orig/ohno) styles' trap animations to be as un-gory as possible.
Also, how should the feature be worded in the Options menu? I've currently gone with 'Use family-friendly sprites if available', indicating the main aspects of the feature:
1) It's the animations themselves that have been edited
2) The intention is to make them less graphic
3) Some styles may not provide such alternatives (the original styles will all have PG variants included, but custom styles made by Forum users may not)
Any other thoughts/suggestions regarding this?
That's a good idea. I was playing the OG lemmings from like 6 and some of the traps were a bit traumatic! No idea how you could make them less so though. That rope trap doesnt have any blood but the graphic is a bit disturbing. Perhaps a kiddies version where its not obviously killing the lemming?