Thanks for the replays, Icho.
The only severe backroute as far as I have seen is to "Past the Xmas Tree".
To some other replays:
"Trapped in Present Valley" is a substantial variant in one point but still acceptable.
"Three Wise Visitors" is as well a substantial variant in one point, but very well acceptable, too. That solution has more style than the intended one.
"Escaping the Present" is an interesting solution; it's about having different solutions.
"Riding the Snowcat" is a neglible variant, generally the intended solution.
Thanks for all the nice feedback! :lix-grin:
I'm happy about the looks, too. Raymanni designed the Holiday set in 2017 and I've always wanted to show its quality. It mixes well even with the other drawing styles. Indeed, painting in Lix's finer physics resolution seems harder than in NeoLemmix, but I'm glad it's still possible.
Right, the 1993/1994 Holiday Lemmings levels didn't allow hazards by tileset design. Those levels had a feeling of homeliness, we've tried to recapture that.
When Forestidia showed me Advent Calendar, I immediately knew that this had to be among the preview images. :lix-grin: But for long, it was sorted second among the 24 levels. Only very late in development, we sorted it first, where it really belongs -- the entire pack is an advent calendar after all.
I've spent far more time than expected on xmas2018 and realized how much care is behind the maintenance of packs with ≥ 100 levels.
Past the Xmas Tree: Icho's backroute will be fixed as follows: The diagonal wood to the right of the wreath will become thinner.
Snow Cat Love: geoo found a backroute. We will remove the walkers from the intended route and change the level slightly to accomodate for no walkers.
Decorate the Tree: geoo found a backroute. I'll have to design around this. Until then, you can play with an extra rule: You may not build at the porcupine. Precisely, you may not assign the builder in such a way that its bricks overlap any nontransparent pixels of the porcupine.
Home Time for Santa: geoo found a backroute. We'll add steel below the monkey.
Ride the Snow Cat should be ranked harder.
geoo and Icho each solved the pack in ~3 hours, spending at most ~25 minutes per level. This is in line with our planning: We wanted no hard levels, many medium-difficulty levels, and some easy levels. This allows players to attempt one map per day and still have a fair chance to solve everything within schedule.
-- Simon
I've now completed all of the levels. They were like delicious nuts: sometimes hard to crack but the good insides always paid off. I solved them all fairly easily, except 'Look Who Is Waiting up There'. I was stuck on that one for a good while but I did get it in the end.
Every time I tried something I was always one skill short somewhere else. The skill distribution is great. :thumbsup: I don't have a lot of experience with jumper puzzles, so that's why this gave me so much trouble.
I really liked every level in this pack but some "honorable mentions" should be: 'Climb to Christmas', 'Docked at the North Pole', 'Stockpile of Presents' and of course 'Look Who Is Waiting up There'.