Thanks Nessy! I enjoyed watching your solutions. :)
"Signs to Guide You" has also my favorite solution. When I was making another level I accidentally found out that a blocker can turn a shimmier and thought it would be fun to build a level around this.
Managed to solve 4/5 levels from Taxing :) The one that has me completely stumped is "Capture Me". I attached an attempt replay just to see if I am at least on the right track.
Well done! Most of them are just a little different from the intended solution. (See a few posts above.) Taxing 4 is a very creative backroute.
About "Capture Me": you're very close. Two hints:
It's enough to capture only one lemming.
Thanks WillLem! It was fun watching your solutions. They're a nice combination of intended solutions and inventive alternative ones.:thumbsup:
Haha, to be honest I needed a hint for almost every Taxing level - any intended solutions here are almost certainly down to a prompt from the replays:
In particular, Enjoy Yourself seems almost impossible without knowing that you have to send your hero to the left first, and your use of stackers to create climbable terrain is very much a new thing to an old-schooler like me!
Also, I almost got Bashing Through The Snow entirely on my own, but needed that hint as to what to do with the stacker - very clever indeed!
A lot of these levels require such specific use of skills and in a very particular order, almost none of the solutions are obvious. I guess you should take that as a compliment from a design/creativity point of view, for sure - but from a player's point of view it is nice to have the odd level where the solution is obvious and it's more about actually getting the execution just right (I know this isn't a very popular point of view on this forum, but I always get a kick out of getting something stategically easy but technically difficult just right.) To be fair, your levels are a pretty potent mix of both in many cases!
I'm determined to do all of the Mayhem levels without using hints; I'm still on Pythagolem's Theorem! ;P :laugh:
In particular, Enjoy Yourself seems almost impossible without knowing that you have to send your hero to the left first, and your use of stackers to create climbable terrain is very much a new thing to an old-schooler like me!
There are other options. And the stacker/climber thing is something I made sure had to be done/learned already in Fun 4. (I did this with other things too. Even in Fun 1 there's something that comes back later in one of the Mayhem levels.)
:)
Did somebody say "let's teach players skill tricks"? ;)
Playing this pack and Strato's Lemmicks have highlighted quite a few advanced moves that I would never have guessed at
I'm glad you could acquire some new knowledge from playing Lemmicks! ;) Strangely enough, though, that wasn't actually the prime objective of this pack. Any tricks Lemmicks teaches that I can remember off the top of my head are mostly related to outdated features, such as solid level sides and ghosts.
The Noisemaker and Amateur rank of my pack Lemmings World Tour are actually much more directed specifically at teaching various skill tricks to the player. I'll admit though that some of them might still be slightly too difficult for that - based on feedback by IchoTolot - despite me announcing almost every trick in advance via a pre-level screen.
However, there is no immediate "trick repetition" on these levels - one level, one trick to learn. Most of the tricks taught on these two ranks come up again later, but without prior announcement than, plus there's a bunch of levels in between, so the player could forget again.
If this concept was applied as "puzzle-memory", this is exactly what needs to happen with beginner levels - repetition of advanced puzzle moves in easier contexts which equip the player with the tools needed to solve more difficult puzzles.
I think the main reason this hasn't been done so far is that people don't want to overdo certain tricks. ;) For example, during the early phase of level creation for Lemmings Open Air, I created several levels in a row using the Miner-Miner-cancel trick, or several levels where Miners had to be forced to continue over Builder staircases. Now I feel I'm overusing the Shimmier. When eventually deciding upon the final level order, most content creators will probably not put levels requiring the same trick back-to-back.
The second thing which I noticed is that, even if you create a level specifically to teach a trick, many of these levels still can't enforce the use of said track with absolute certainty. And on the other hand, if you want to achieve this 100% certainty, the level must be simplified so far that it pretty much only consists of the trick and nothing else. This is great for teaching the trick for the first time - but if you repeat this concept e.g. five times in levels placed close to each other, the solution might get too easy to spot.
Then again, this automatisation of recognising potential for trick use is probably what you're going for? ;)
Stop and stair (Noisemaker 18): This level teaches the three-Builder wall as a trick. At the same time, it also requires closing a Basher shaft by building behind him. I could have provided enough Builders to create a three-Builder wall behind and in front of the crowd to repeat the trick. But I actually think that would have made the level more difficult, because the crowd would have to turn around first, build three staircases, and only then could the last lemming be used to bash.
Rock, Paper, Scissors (Noisemaker 38): This level is supposed to teach the Stacker-Stoner trick. However, Colorful Arty and Flopsy found different solutions, that were still quite complex, but any player who would have found the same solution would have missed the opportunity to learn this trick. Therefore, I needed to restrict the possible solutions on this level even further. Only now does the level actually enforce the use of said trick, at least based on the replay I got from IchoTolot.
If you want to discuss the topic of "packs that teach advanced skill tricks to the player", we should probably split this off into a separate topic in the level-design subforum. ;)
Regarding this pack, I still have some replays (created with NeoLemmix 12.6.5), but I also remember getting stuck somewhere. I actually went back to focus on Lemmings Reunion and NepsterLems first, because I had the feeling I needed to brush up on some more of my trick knowledge, as well.
That goes to show how difficult your pack is - when people go back to NepsterLems to adequately prepare for it. :P :thumbsup:
Then again, this might simply be more of a self-confidence thing: I still remember NepsterLems as the most difficult pack out there, even though some claim that spot has now been taken by Lemmings United. Anyways, completing NepsterLems would probably give me the confidence - or hubris - to believe "if I can solve this, I can solve anything!" :D I think once you've beaten a difficult larger pack, you approach these smaller, but no less difficult packs (Integral Lemmings is another one that comes to mind) in a much more relaxed way.
Funnily enough, my intention was to make a pack that wasn't too hard. Challenging sure, but you don't need to use a lot of advanced tricks to complete the levels. I think the most advanced it gets is:capturing a lemming by platforming, using a stacker to fill up terrain to spare a basher, release a blocker by bashing or mining and turning around lemmings performing different skills with a blocker.
To my knowledge, it hasn't been updated for NeoLemmix 12.7 yet, has it? ;) I'm keeping 12.6.5 around to play any non-updated packs, yours being one of them.
I can confirm this pack works fine in 12.7.1, as do the replays. :thumbsup:
Funnily enough, my intention was to make a pack that wasn't too hard. Challenging sure, but you don't need to use a lot of advanced tricks to complete the levels.
To be fair, these levels aren't too difficult to play through once you know the solution, but getting the solutions in the first place is very difficult. The levels are so intricate and a lot of them rely on a specific trick to unlock the secret. Examples would be:
Tricky 1 Marching in the Moonlight - knowing how to use the blockers is the secret to this one; Tricky 2 Signs to Guide You - this is a trick you yourself discovered by chance, and it's not something you'd think of straightaway by any means; Taxing 1 Cliff Diving - I had to watch your replay to know that fallers can drop into water and survive as long as they are made into swimmers on the way down!; Tarzan & Jane - knowing to make the lower-route Lemming shimmy along the bottom of the builder's steps whilst they're being built - genius!
A lot of these things may not be considered "advanced" perhaps, but they are all things that are difficult to spot even when you spend a good amount of time working your way around the level.
This isn't a complaint at all btw, and you should take all of the above as a compliment on your puzzle-making skills! I thoroughly enjoyed your pack, and I'm looking forward to your next one. Just know that you can make extremely difficult levels if you want to. ;P
I have finished the pack. Here is my entire replay collection for the pack. I also did an LP of the pack. Link is here: Kaywhyn's LP of Niesch's Yippee! More Lemmings (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TY5Ix5B9XY&list=PLbp2m4KlFpJvZ7E-wPgS8J1DJpBWlkfxf). Enjoy! :P
Feedback on the Pack
Even for a 20 level pack, this pack is not a quick solve at all. Total time to solve the pack was about 6 hours. Pretty much all levels after the Fun rank gave me a challenge in some ways, although there were still some easy levels in the Tricky, Taxing, and Mayhem ranks. In the Fun rank, I say the hardest was Fun 2. This level is the first real puzzle after the very easy Fun 1 which is a 5-of-everything level. Since it is a really small level pack, it makes sense that the first puzzle level would be this early. I still really like the level a lot, though! :thumbsup: Fun 5 definitely reminded me of Painless 1 from Lemmings Migration in that I still ended up struggling for about the same amount of time on each level. Honestly, I think it's a psychological thing when solving levels via LP. I likely wouldn't fumble my solutions as much if I had solved on my own off-camera. Then again, I don't mind the occasional silliness in my LPs, as I'm trying to also be entertaining while solving the levels. After all, I think LPs should be like that, since viewers are watching how someone else is solving their levels and hearing their thoughts on the solving process, and being entertaining from time to time in an LP is always a plus.
Once you get into the Tricky rank, I say there is somewhat of a jump in difficulty. This is evidenced by how I still ended up struggling with Tricky 1. I definitely had the solution, just couldn't quite get the beginning to work out the way I wanted it to when holding the crowd back. My favorite level of the rank was Tricky 2. I absolutely loved the
blocker turning a shimmier around trick. I honestly have never seen this shimmier interaction before, even though I have played so many shimmier levels before I played your pack. Nevertheless, I was able to figure out the trick on my own. I think it came to me while contemplating, "I need a way to turn the shimmier around." I think that's where I had the idea that the blocker had to be the answer.
I also really liked Tricky 3 a lot. Really nice 1-of-everything level that took me a while to figure out but in actuality isn't too hard. I like the solution a lot. Tricky 4 I wasn't too much of a fan due to all the fiddliness in the execution. Finally, even though Tricky 5 needed multiple videos, I still somewhat liked it. It looks quite intimidating from the very tall size of the level, but is not that hard either. The really small skillset means there aren't that many options available to try in the level, and so it doesn't take too long to stumble upon the solution.
The difficult puzzles continue with the Taxing rank. I say the hardest level in the rank is Taxing 2, with Taxing 1 probably a close second due to the puzzle and to an extent the time limit. Taxing 2 is the only other level in the pack that needed multiple videos, but luckily I was able to figure it out. It's really all about finding the most efficient route while conserving your skills as much as possible to ensure you have enough to get to the exit in the end. I say the most difficult button to get to is the one at the very top. Taxing 3 wasn't too bad, although I initially thought it was a bit unfair due to how the timing of catching the bottom lemmings is too tight. Turns out it wasn't as tight as I thought it was, perhaps due to my builder/platformer placements. Other than that part, it wasn't too hard of a level. For sure my favorite level of the rank is Taxing 5. Very nice solution, and you can even tell I was having fun with putting the lemmings in the form of characters from the movie/novel Tarzan. I called the bottom lemming Jane because of how much immediate danger that lemming is in, while the top lemming is of course Tarzan. It was initially a hard level, but once I figured out the first shimmier usage the rest was easy.
Finally, for Mayhem I must say that the levels in the rank were easier than some of the levels in earlier ranks. There wasn't really any level that stood out to me as very hard, but I would say the hardest in the rank was Mayhem 4, with Mayhem 2 probably a close second for hardest. I might had ended up backrouting Mayhem 4, though. The only hard part is the start, but after you figure out how to stop them from being in any danger, the rest of the level is somewhat easy. I do have a stacker leftover, though. I absolutely loved Mayhem 1 due to how the level title makes a reference to the mathematical theorem. I'm a math person, and I happen to be a math teacher, so I very well know it refers to the Pythagorean Theorem. The level itself is very similar to the Just a Minute levels from the original Lemmings. I also really liked Mayhem 3. Probably the easiest level in the entire rank. The solution doesn't take too much thought at all. Finally, Mayhem 5 is far from being the hardest level of the entire pack. It is difficult, but I think the hardest part is figuring out how to use the builders and avoiding the fire traps. Builders may be plentiful, but they surprisingly run out fast, and I ended up using all of them.
Even the two Bonus levels weren't that hard. I absolutely loved the design of the levels, though, especially Bonus 1. I love the lemming sprites in it. The only one I'm not sure about is the far left one. Is that supposed to be a bomber in the ohno animation? Bonus 1 still ends up being somewhat difficult, but is still easier than Bonus 2. Bonus 2 is hard only because it can get very overwhelming with the huge flood of lemmings everywhere and the several splitters that send lemmings in different directions and places. Nevertheless, there's not that many skills at all, and so it doesn't take too long to figure out where the skills go. It's still not easy to figure out where they should go, though. Before I made serious attempts at solving, you can see that I first decided to let the level play itself out without doing anything to see how many actually make it home before time runs out. Close to 200. Then I slowly used the skills 1 by 1 to see how much of an improvement or non-improvement it makes. When I just used the stacker where it was placed in the level, it made it worse. It's really just a matter of determining which splitters to avoid and keeping the specialists with their own group, i.e, floaters with floaters and gliders with gliders.
Overall, this is an excellent and very well-done pack. I absolutely enjoyed playing this pack a lot and especially the challenges that await within. When I had Tricky 5 as the first level in the pack where I needed multiple videos, I started to worry that said level and later ones would get too hard for me to figure out and solve in a reasonable amount of time on-camera. Luckily, I was able to figure them all out on my own, albeit with a lot of struggling on certain levels. The video lengths still ended up being an improvement over the ones in my 2 other LPs. Still, I can work on cutting down the lengths drastically.
With all this being said, I absolutely agree with your assessment that you were trying to make not a very hard pack but a challenging one. I believe you have succeeded in this regard. There were still some tough nuts, but none were over the top hard. I also thought the pack challenged me appropriately enough that I was still able to enjoy playing it. The pack sometimes did get overwhelming, but it wasn't bad enough to make me think about what I had gotten myself into. I guess beating your pack is redemption that I wasn't able to figure out your R1 contest level. I was able to figure out the rest. I'll get your R1 level one of these days, though. I'm sure it's a level where you at first need to keep the crowd going before containing them.
Again, nice job with this pack, and I can certainly highly recommend it! :thumbsup: If you're feeling up for it and think you can handle this, go for it. You will love the challenges within ;)
Update 8-)
After watching kaywhyn's LP (thanks again!) I changed four levels:
tricky 1: placed a bit of landscape higher so that the solution is not as pixel perfect as it was
tricky 5: added a piece of steel to prevent kaywhyn's "digging all the way down" part (so that you must use the teleporter)
taxing 1: changed the cliff at the left to prevent digging down, placed steel at the bottom left and right to the large one-way-arrow mountain, locked the release rate
taxing 3: added a piece of steel to prevent bashing in a certain place (so that you must use a digger to free half of the crowd)
The updated version of the pack can be found in the first post of this thread.