Lemmings Forums
Lemmings Boards => Lemmings Main => Topic started by: Strato Incendus on November 22, 2019, 11:17:50 AM
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In the interest of preventing too many suggestion threads for only semi-serious new skills to be introduced, I thought we could use a "deposit" for people to blow off creative steam. :D
This is not me saying that I find any of the currently-proposed skills in the actual suggestion forum joke-worthy, or that I don't take them seriously! ;)
It's just that I'm aware that there are people who are better at
- divergent thinking (also colloquially known as "brainstorming"), i.e. coming up with many different ideas initially,
and those who are better at
- convergent thinking, i.e. identifying the most useful approach and then disregarding everything else to get the optimal solution implemented.
My perception is (and I'm guilty of that myself, too! :evil: ) that a lot of skills get proposed in an initial burst of creativity, but when it comes to actually working on them, like designing sprites and discussing the corner cases of the behaviour how it would have to be implemented in the code, the idea gets dropped.
So if you just have some random idea for a skill or an object that you need to "store" somewhere or get rid off, feel free to "relieve yourself" here. Maybe sometime later, somebody willing to contribute, but devoid of own ideas, will skim through this thread, somebody who's better at convergent thinking, and will turn one of these random suggestions into something real. Or maybe not. ;) Anyways, you got it out of your system! :P
On a side note, this might also sensitize users and give them a general feeling for the degree of usefulness of any particular skill they might think they'd like to see. Try to come up with some deliberately very narrow skills, just out of curiosity - and you'll see how many criteria a genuine skill has to fulfil to be worthwhile on its own!
I think one of the reasons Lemmings 2: The Tribes ended up with so many, barely-different skills was because the developers did not have such a space to blow off their creative steam - the graphic designers probably just started creating 8-pixel-animations for the sake of it (after all, rumor has it that death animations of 8-pixel-characters was how original Lemmings got started in the first place... :D ). And then the level designers had a field day with finding some obscure application for all of them, rather than going through a thorough and honest selection process.
In contrast, after this "trauma", they never really experimented with new skills again, except for copying a couple of the L2 skills to Lemmings 3 / An All New World of Lemmings (like the Jumper or Shimmier). Lemmings 3D and Revolution however went straight back to the "safe ground" of the original 8 skills.
So, without further ado, let's get started:
You think the Disarmer has a narrow range of applicability? ;) Or that the L2 Roller, Diver, and Planter were borderline useless? Just you wait...
Here are my "joke ideas" for the time being:
The Sucker. This is a lemming that walks up to a water trigger area, gets out a straw or a hosepipe and removes the water area by pumping it empty. Like with the Disarmer, the trigger area is gone right away, even though the animation of the skill (and the water object) implies a slow, piece-by-piece extraction of the water. Since the straw or hosepipe is pointing slightly downwards, the lemming can stand at the edge of a water pont, and slightly above it, while performing the skill. Afterwards, lemmings can safely fall into the former, now empty water pit and walk through it.
The Firefighter. Gets out a hosepipe and removes fire trigger areas the same way. To make it even more narrow, you could enforce combination with the Sucker. Meaning, the Firefighter could only be used if that same lemming sucked away a water area elsewhere, so that he even has some "water supply" in the first place. :D The implications of this would be particularly stupid with the Fire tileset, where the lava actually acts like regular water, and could thus be used to put out the fire pits... or in the Marble tileset, where water could remove the "shredder" fire objects. Or in any of the custom tilesets using laser traps as fire objects, because water is soooo helpful against those...
The Gatekeeper. This lemming locks an exit so that lemmings can't enter if you don't want them to, because you still need them elsewhere. It is a permanent, on-again-off-again skill: The first time it walks past an open exit, it closes it; the next time it walks past the same exit, it re-opens it, and so on. It cannot unlock exits as long as there are any buttons in the level; the animation would be the lemming getting out a "key", i.e. this wouldn't work on exits that have an "electric lock", as represented by buttons. It can re-lock a button exit, though - in that case, all the buttons in the level would be reset to "switched off", and every single one would have to be pushed again. This would be the drawback of the skill. As such, it could also be pre-assigned to a lemming, neutral, or zombie, who walks in and can potentially ruin your day, after you have already pushed all the buttons... :evil:
The Trainer. This is a lemming that can only block athletes; all other lemmings walk straight through him. The athletes have to listen to him, after all :D - and he tells them they're not done with their routine yet, but need to get back to training some more...
The Lifter. This lemming can give another lemming standing right in front of him a leg-up to get over a wall, similarly to the Baseball Bat in Lix, but more easily controllable. One would have to agree on the maximum distance (expressed in "spawn rate") that could exist between two lemmings until the rear one would no longer be able to reach and lift the one on the front. The lift would also have to be slightly higher than the lemming itself, maybe even higher than a single Builder staircase, to even make it worthwhile compared to six-pixel-ascension, which lemmings can do by default.
The Moses. This skill can be assigned to a drowning lemming, like a Swimmer. However, it will result in the lemming digging down into the water area and removing an area equal to that of a Digger in the process, leaving behind a divided water trigger area to the left and right of the shaft.
The Arsonist. This is a lemming that creates a small fire area and then turns around so that he doesn't get killed himself. For what purpose? I don't know... maybe for killing zombies? :D
The Windmaker. This lemming creates an updraft trigger area of standard width in front of himself, with the bottom end of the trigger area being at the level of the lemming's feet.
The Melter. This is a Basher that can go through steel - and only through steel. The tool it uses looks like a blowtorch - in fact, there is such a skill in Worms World Party, however you can also direct it up and down diagonally.
The Gunman. Pulls out a rifle and fires off a horizontal projectile that can kill the first zombie it hits over a distance of up to 16 pixels (=the width of two standard steel blocks). The bullet hits the ground at the 16th pixel without making any indent into it, no matter whether the ground is steel or not.
The Electrocuter. This is another lemming that can kill zombies directly, but only when both itself and the target zombie are standing on a connected area of steel (it doesn't have to be the same piece of steel, but all the steel pieces that are supposed to serve as a conduct need to touch each other). It jumps up slightly while pointing a rod at the ground, so that itself doesn't get killed, but any zombie touching this same chunk of steel does. For added uselessness, it could also affect friendly lemmings (both regular ones and neutrals) that touch the same steel area - would only make sense, flavour-wise...
I don't currently have any ideas for borderline-useless objects, but feel free to contribute those as well... :P
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...and a couple more, in a separate post, in order not to lose the overview ;) .
The Vine Swinger. Attaches a vine to a ceiling and uses it to swing across a gap or up a small altitude (the trajectory of the lemming is a curve). Like the chain in Lemmings 2, but easier to control.
The Catcher. Waits at the position where the skill is assigned, arms stretched out, until another lemming touches him. If a lemming falls from the top and lands on top of the Catcher, the Catcher will prevent the Faller from splatting, acting as a one-time-use anti-splat pad. Since the Catcher waits for another lemming to arrive, it can also be used to have a lemming simply stand still somewhere (as Blockers are sometimes being used), without actually acting in any way similar to a Blocker. Consequently, this skill can also be used to compress two lemmings for compression-method solutions.
All in all, this one would actually be comparatively useful, it seems... :D
The Kamikaze. Inspired by Worms World Party, you would select an angle for this lemming, like with e.g. the Archer in Lemmings 2: Click once to pick the lemming, who will then stand still until the second click, which defines the angle. The maximum is 90 degrees (vertical and upwards), the minimum 0 degrees (=horizontal movement in the direction the lemming is facing). He then moves along a straight line into that direction quickly, ignoring any gaps, traps, or other objects or lemmings in his path, until he hits terrain (or a zombie), at which he explodes, leaving behind a crater like a regular Bomber, and killing any zombie in the area of effect.
In short: This one is a Bomber that works at distance, while still taking the lemming with it, in contrast to other distance-destruction skills, like the L2 Mortar or Bazooker. ;)
The Bungee-Jumper. This is another one inspired by Worms World Party. Similar to the Slider in Lemmings 2, this lemming can survive splat-height drops. However, he doesn't require a straight, Climber-friendly wall to slide down, and doesn't change the direction he's facing: He can also jump off cliffs, simply attaching a rope to the last pixel of terrain before falling head-first to the bottom. He should generally leave a couple of pixels between the edge of the cliff and himself, so that he can actually perform a "curved" jumping move while turning upside-down. This is also to prevent him from hitting terrain in case he jumps down a straight wall (reason see below).
Bungee-Jumpers can't be assigned any skills while jumping; instead, any type of click onto the bungee-jumping lemming will cause him to unattach the rope from his feet and transition back to being a regular Faller. As such, fall height is re-calculated from where the lemming gets off the rope, thus enabling him to survive splat-height drops as a one-time-only thing, rather than as a permanent skill like the Floater, Glider, or Slider.
In contrast, if the lemming hits terrain while being upside down, i.e. bumps his head on the ground during the bungee jump, he will just splat regularly, because he broke his neck. :evil:
There probably would have to be a minimum and a maximum height at which this skill works - minimum 64 pixels (=splat height, otherwise it would be useless), maximum maybe one standard level height (=160 pixels), so that lemmings can't just have an endless bungee rope across vertical levels.
Still, the main reason for this skill would be having a one-time-only Floater, much like the L2 Kayaker is a one-time-only Swimmer.
The Flooder. Similar to the Sucker, Firefighter, and Arsonist mentioned above, this one would get out a hosepipe and pour out water into a pit. This water would behave the same way that the terrain created by Fillers or Glue Pourers does in Lemmings 2: The Tribes, flowing as far as it can while covering every place where it is with a water trigger area. This can be used to allow Swimmers to safely drop somewhere where lemmings would otherwise splat, as well as in order to cover up trap triggers, because now the Swimmers can just swim over them. Of course, it could also be used to kill non-Swimmer zombies.
A very clever use would be to use water that is only in a given place temporarily: Assign a Flooder while standing on flat terrain, so that the water will pour onto said terrain and slide forwards, until it drops into a pit that can contain it, or simply down a cliff and off the screen. Just like the glue in Lemmings 2, the water trigger area will now move (1 pixel in height) across the terrain. Any Swimmer landing inside the area in the meantime could use it to prevent splatting; it could also cover up trap triggers that just stick out 1 pixel. Most viciously, this one-pixel-in-height water area could still be used to kill lemmings (such as zombies) who are standing on the terrain the water is flowing over - i.e. they'd simply be washed away by the tide.
All in all, this seems more useful than the Arsonist. ;)
Except that it would require quite an extension of how water areas work and behave in NeoLemmix. :P
The Tank. A permanent skill which makes a lemming invulnerable to fire objects and triggered traps. The animation would be a lemming covered in metal plating. As such, this lemming could still drown in water areas. It would be debatable whether he could still be turned into a Swimmer, as "drowning in water" is just a regular behaviour this lemming would keep, like any other lemming - or whether it should be made explicitly impossible by making Swimmer and Tank mutually exclusive, much like Floater and Glider. In contrast to the Disarmer, it's only this individual lemming that gets immune to traps, which seems to have more uses than disabling the trap for good once a single Disarmer touches it.
Also, the Tank could safely walk among Zombies without getting infected - but wouldn't actually end up killing them. He'd simply pass through them.
All in all, this is similar to what Ghosts used to be, except that Tanks can of course still interact with exits and other objects (pickup skills, buttons, splitters, teleporters etc.). Ghosts would also ignore water, which is still lethal and thus the Achilles's heel of the Tank. Finally, Ghosts encountering zombies would end up intimidating those just like regular lemmings, causing the zombies to turn around, whereas the Tank would just ignore them and walk right through them. He could be assigned a Blocker, though, to turn zombies around.
The Flic-Flac. This skill is semi-permanent, a combination of the pretty useless L2 skills that are the Runner and the Hopper: The lemming moves across any type of terrain a regular Walker can move across, but doing a constant flic-flac, i.e. successively being in a regular position, or upside down. The position marker of the lemming (regularly located at its feet) would thus constantly rotate. This would allow the lemming to hit buttons or pickup skills located in the air or under low-enough ceilings, and do the same on the ground (while a Shimmier could only trigger stuff under the ceiling, but usually not on the ground, unless inside something very narrow, like a Basher tunnel). The skill would be interrupted as soon as the lemming would turn into a Faller. Hitting a Blocker would simply result in the lemming continuing to flic-flac into the opposite direction.
The Cowboy. Gets out a lasso with which he can catch another lemming and pull that lemming towards himself. This would work on the same horizontal level, as well as at a slight angle (a lemming standing slightly higher or lower than the Cowboy). The Cowboy could thus pull another lemming across a gap. The "pulled" lemming can hit any triggers he passes through, whether those are pickup skills, buttons, teleporters, traps... consequently, this skill could also once again be used to kill zombies, by catching them with a lasso, which would result in them infecting the Cowboy if he actually completed the entire performance of the skill. However, if the trajectory leads through a trap, water, or fire, the zombie would obviously be killed by that.
The Intruder. This is a lemming that can't be turned around, except by Walkers, Blockers, or Steel. He will walk through any type of terrain he runs into, however never fall through terrain. This is similar to the "unalterable terrain" gimmick when using a Basher, but of course without skill assignment. As such, the Intruder will usually move through terrain horizontally only - however, he can be made to go upward by assigning a Builder to him while inside a section of terrain. Once you stop assigning new Builders, he will continue to walk through the terrain at whatever altitude he's currently at. Assigning destructive skills to Intruders will remove the terrain regularly. As such, you could send an Intruder through a one-way wall and have him bash it away from the other side - the challenge would be finding a way to turn him around on the other side, though.
The easiest introduction level I could imagine for this is giving the player two Intruders, sending both of them through a one-way wall. The first one then gets assigned a Blocker, which allows the second one to turn around and remove the one-way terrain. Unless there's steel or another Blocker at the other side of the level, the Intruder will then just walk off the screen and die, of course.
The Skateboarder. This one is inspired by Speedy Eggbert (the game which Jaimie's Techno and House tileset are taken from): The lemming gets on top of a skateboard, putting him at a slightly higher position than regular Walkers, as well as moving slightly faster. He can thus get over trigger areas of traps (or buttons you don't want to push yet, teleporters or splitters you want to avoid, etc.) that regular Walkers would walk into. In contrast to the Shimmier, he doesn't require a ceiling above his head to do this, plus he can be assigned more skills (Shimmiers can only be assigned the same skills as Fallers or Swimmers). For example, he could start bashing or fencing while still standing on his skateboard, creating a tunnel only he can reach (if the skateboard places him higher than 6 pixels above the ground; otherwise, he could get over traps and still create a tunnel accessible to regular Walkers). Admittedly, this might be difficult, because the assignment of the Basher or Fencer would stop him from being a Skateborder, therefore falling down.
What would definitely work though would be assigning a Builder or Platformer to a Skateborder, since those skills don't actually require terrain beneath the lemming's feet. He could thus start building or platforming in what would be mid-air for all the other lemmings, which can be a great way to isolate him from the crowd! :thumbsup:
Also, most prominently, you could assign a Jumper to a Skateboarder, who would consequently jump a little further than regular Jumpers.
In contrast to Speedy Eggbert, the Skateboarder would only bypass traps by not even hitting them in the first place; if Speedy Eggbert hits a (one-use) trap in his game, those get destroyed instead, while Eggbert remains on the skateboard and survives.
All in all, this skill would have all the properties of the Runner (increased moving speed + wider jumps), while still offering some additional applications.
So if anyone ever seriously contemplates adding the Runner to NeoLemmix, maybe consider the Skateboarder first... ;)
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I could see a few of these actually having potential, tbh (of course they'd need to go through the usual discussion and testing that any new skill does, and none of that* will be happening until the Jumper is out of the way). The Catcher in particular I see potential in, as you already noticed while writing it. The Tank, Gatekeeper and Skateboarder might be starting points for something useful too (although I don't think any of them are quite there as-is, either due to the skill itself or just "this would be too much hassle to implement").
While we're on the subject of joke skills, obligatory link to the April Fools announcement of a "Farter" skill (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=3227.0).
* by "none of that will be happening", I'm meaning as in actual test runs / etc, and likely input / thoughts from myself will be somewhat limited. I don't by any means mean "you're not allowed to discuss it" - feel free to do so at any time.
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Ah, I was already wondering how long this thread could continue before the joke ideas would start going "below the belt", likely to never come back. :D
Before anyone comes up with other skills referencing this area: Be reminded that we already have a skill that can "create" new lemmings, which is the Cloner :P .
Then again, since this thread is specifically about coming up with narrow and useless skills, that would be an even stronger case for such redundancy...
Getting back to the Farter, though: This actually once again reminds me of Worms World Party. Specifically of the weapon "The skunk (http://wormopedia.worms2d.info/Skunk)", or something even more closely related called "Suicide Bomber (http://wormopedia.worms2d.info/Suicide_Bomber)". IIRC, this skill made the worm explode, and the gases from his intestines then ended up making all the other worms in the area sick, causing them to keep losing life points.
One more:
The Trapper. Similar to the Disarmer, this lemming can pick up a triggered trap and then set it up elsewhere. For example, somewhere where the crowd is easier to compress than at the original position, or somewhere where no other lemming goes in the first place... or, of course, somewhere where a zombie needs to be killed.
Crucially, if the Trapper can't find any place to dispose of the trap before leaving the game, he will dispose of it at the last possible location, with the trigger area exactly where the lemming was last standing. Meaning, if he exits and still carries the trap, he will drop the trap with the trigger area covering the exit. This should take precedent over lemmings exiting, as I've tried in my Pit Lems level "Triple security", where both a trap and water cover a locked exit trigger.
This could lead to puzzles where the challenge is how to get rid of the trap; in other cases, there might be several exits, and the Trapper would consequently have to go into a different exit than everyone else (or at least certain crowds would have to exit before him, maybe not everyone). Because the exit where the Trapper drops his trap would become useless afterwards, except if one can pick up a genuine Disarmer to disable it again.
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The Cowboy. Gets out a lasso with which he can catch another lemming and pull that
The Catcher. Waits at the position where the skill is assigned, arms stretched out, until another lemming touches him
Yes, whatever involves other lemmings than the asignee is hot design stuff.
-- Simon
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In the interest of preventing too many suggestion threads for only semi-serious new skills to be introduced, I thought we could use a "deposit" for people to blow off creative steam. :D
Touché! ;P
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This isn't exactly a joke suggestion, but from the first post, it sounds like this was designed for brainstorming type suggestion, and I don't feel like writing this up as a proper suggestion, especially because I haven't done much thought on how useful this would be in practice.
What if there was an object that, when a lemming passes through its trigger area, removes all permanent skills from a lemming?
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What if there was an object that, when a lemming passes through its trigger area, removes all permanent skills from a lemming?
I like this concept.
It would most likely not be a high usage object, but currently there is no mechanic to remove permanent skills from lemmings.
Yes, the term permanent would loose it's meaning a bit, but this idea accomplished something new.
It could also be implemented as a skill instead of an object. :)
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Previous discussion of the "thief" object (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=2945.0)
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What a coincidence - just last night, I also came up with a skill I wanted to call "The Thief"! :thumbsup: However, I envisioned it as a permanent skill in and of it self, i.e. assigned to a lemming, and whenever that lemming touches other lemmings, those would lose all their permanent skills, with the thief taking them over instead.
I had already thought about the special case "What if the Thief is e.g. already a Glider and walks into a Floater (or vice versa)?" In that case, the "Thief" skill would take precedent over the Glider-Floater exclusivity: The regular Floater would still lose his Floater skill, and the Thief would stop being a Thief-Glider and now be a Thief-Floater instead.
Another question this would bring up is whether the Blocker would count as a "permanent" skill in this regard - if we consider all skills that can be pre-assigned to pre-placed lemmings, then yes. Having a Thief steal a Blocker skill wouldn't be that useful, though, because then he'd free the original Blocker, but would simply become a Blocker himself, just standing slightly more to the left or the right, depending on which of the Blocker's hands he touched.
Sometimes, you want to release a specific lemming from being a Blocker, though, even if you lose a different lemming in the process. (Nod to Armani for his recent solution to one of my levels from Lemmings Open Air ;) ). Freeing a Blocker by bombing a different lemming to remove the terrain under the Blocker is actually not that uncommon in custom NeoLemmix packs - and yet oftentimes one of the hardest things to spot when planning your solution.
If there's genuine interest in reviving this discussion - or creating a serious discussion for any particular skill from this long list - I think we shouldn't hesitate to (re-)open a separate suggestion topic just for that individual skill.
That way, this thread can remain a broad overview of all rough sketches of brainstormed skill ideas, without the best suggestions getting lost in the bunch.
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Therefore, here are two more:
The Scuba Diver. Currently, there is no way to affect terrain anywhere within a water trigger area - Swimmers can survive them, but they always float to the top, and do so much more quickly than Gliders to in their pendant, the updraft. Scuba Divers, in contrast, could be assigned to Drowners (as well as just regular lemmings), i.e. just like Swimmers, but they'd continue to sink down to the bottom of the trigger area until they hit terrain. They'd have a bottle on their back (in the position where constructive skills have their bag of bricks) and a mouthpiece in front of their head (probably just 1 pixel large :D ). Once they hit terrain, they continue walking like regular Walkers. They can thus also perform skills here, for example building staircases in the middle of a water pond, or mining at the bottom of the pond to allow lemmings from below to access that water pond (Swimmers, for example - or, once again, if you want to drown zombies).
Being able to mine or dig at the bottom of a water pond has been a fetish of mine ever since I had Ghosts do it in "Lemmicks" (example levels are "Baptised by the Holy Ghost" and "Bathroom leak" on the Moist rank). It would be nice to have this as a skill, without all the other byproducts that came along with Ghosts (like also ignoring all other objects, plus the oftentimes irritating "intimidation" part).
And another, less serious one, staying true to the spirit of Lemmings 2: Showing Lemmings doing all kinds of mundane everyday-life tasks (like the Planter etc.) that don't really have anything more but fringe ingame use. :D
The Fisherman. Waits at the edge of a cliff (stationary skill like the Blocker) and holds down his fishing hook. Like the Catcher, he waits until he comes into contact with any other lemming. Usually, this will be a lemming from below, because his trigger area is quite a bit lower than himself. He can then pull that lemming up to himself. The intended application (which is very narrow) would obviously be to have the Fisherman pull Swimmers out of water pits that have walls too high for the Swimmers to get out by themselves. Even if those Swimmers are Climbers, water pits can definitely have non-straight walls that Climbers couldn't handle either - but a fishing hook in the water, serving as a rope, could.
Essentially, it's the missing piece to the Catcher (for lemmings from above) and the Cowboy (pulling lemmings to himself on a more or less horizontal level) - this one is the "puller" skill for lemmings from below. ;)
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Another question this would bring up is whether the Blocker would count as a "permanent" skill in this regard - if we consider all skills that can be pre-assigned to pre-placed lemmings, then yes. Having a Thief steal a Blocker skill wouldn't be that useful, though, because then he'd free the original Blocker, but would simply become a Blocker himself, just standing slightly more to the left or the right, depending on which of the Blocker's hands he touched.
If we're using the "can be assigned to preplaced lemmings" criteria, he'd need to be able to steal Shimmiers too (and, technically, ascenders as well). ;)
However, one could make an argument based on NL's internal workings that includes the Blocker but excludes the Shimmier; but I won't bore you with the technical details that lead to this.
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This isn't exactly a joke suggestion, but from the first post, it sounds like this was designed for brainstorming type suggestion, and I don't feel like writing this up as a proper suggestion, especially because I haven't done much thought on how useful this would be in practice.
What if there was an object that, when a lemming passes through its trigger area, removes all permanent skills from a lemming?
I've had this thought as well - especially with gliders, which often glide over an exit upon completion of a level and then need to be turned into a walker (I encountered this multiple times when playing through the all-new-skills challenge (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4516.0)).
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Another question this would bring up is whether the Blocker would count as a "permanent" skill in this regard - if we consider all skills that can be pre-assigned to pre-placed lemmings, then yes. Having a Thief steal a Blocker skill wouldn't be that useful, though, because then he'd free the original Blocker, but would simply become a Blocker himself, just standing slightly more to the left or the right, depending on which of the Blocker's hands he touched.
Unless Blockers affect Thieves as well, and just turn them around. There would have to be a clear skill hierarchy.
The Scuba Diver. ... Once they hit terrain, they continue walking like regular Walkers. They can thus also perform skills here ... Being able to mine or dig at the bottom of a water pond has been a fetish of mine ever since I had Ghosts do it in "Lemmicks".
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The Fisherman. ... The intended application ... would obviously be to have the Fisherman pull Swimmers out of water pits that have walls too high for the Swimmers to get out by themselves.
Both of these are great ideas! I wouldn't view these as joke ideas at all - swimmers are mostly useless unless the terrain either side of the water pit is low enough for them to walk out again.
Having played through both the entire Original and Oh No! levels with only new skills, I'd say the Swimmer was probably the least-used (I never used stoners coz I was going for all-saves, but would have used them far more otherwise). There are levels where Swimmers would have been useful if there was a way to use them underwater, have them perform skills when they hit the side or bottom of a water pit no matter how steep, or be able to be rescued from the water by another Lemming.
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...swimmers are mostly useless unless the terrain either side of the water pit is low enough for them to walk out again.
Having played through both the entire Original and Oh No! levels with only new skills, I'd say the Swimmer was probably the least-used...
While Swimmers are one of the less-useful new skills; that challenge is a very poor testing ground for them. First, of course, any level that uses them will be designed for them anyway. But that aside, there are a few ways they're more useful when used in combination with skills you don't have in that challenge - for starters, you could make the edge one where they can walk out (Fencer could do this, but it's far from ideal for it). Or, if they're a climber, they can climb up the edge.
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So many ideas!!! :o Most of them are lovely too, thanks for sharing!! :thumbsup:
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...swimmers are mostly useless unless the terrain either side of the water pit is low enough for them to walk out again.
Having played through both the entire Original and Oh No! levels with only new skills, I'd say the Swimmer was probably the least-used...
While Swimmers are one of the less-useful new skills; that challenge is a very poor testing ground for them. First, of course, any level that uses them will be designed for them anyway. But that aside, there are a few ways they're more useful when used in combination with skills you don't have in that challenge - for starters, you could make the edge one where they can walk out (Fencer could do this, but it's far from ideal for it). Or, if they're a climber, they can climb up the edge.
Don't get me wrong - I think the Swimmer skill is ace (and I had great fun creating a hi-res graphic for it)! ;P
I'm just pointing out that it's the least-used skill in the original levels (which, of course, were never designed to have Lemmings swimming in). There are times when it would have been extremely useful (I'm thinking of Wild 13 ONWARD AND UPWARD, but there are other examples) if it were possible to have the swimmer interact with the sides of the terrain no matter how steep (for example, Fence into the terrain from the water).
I think my comment was more about the potential usefulness of Strato's proposed skills (Scuba Diver and Fisherman) in their interaction with the Swimmer skill, increasing its capabilities; thus, I wouldn't regard them as joke skills.
Incidentally, how can you use a Fencer to make the terrain climb-outable? Surely the Fencer would have to start from the side where the water is...? ???
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Incidentally, how can you use a Fencer to make the terrain climb-outable? Surely the Fencer would have to start from the side where the water is...?
Not necessarily - you could also have another lemming fence away the edge of the water pit from the other side (if it's too high for the Swimmer to get out by himself). There is a level in Lemmings World Tour that requires this, actually (I think it can be done with either a Fencer or a Miner in that case, though). The reason namida mentioned the Fencer in particular here is because it's the only destructive skill among the new skills, at least for now. In order to have a Swimmer perform any type of skill, you have to get them back on terrain again, which, if needed while they're still inside water, usually requires Stoners. Then again, the Swimmer's natural tendency when encountering a Stoner that was created by another Swimmer is to simply dive under it. So you either need to put several Stoners back-to-back, or find some other way to get the Stoner to touch the bottom of the water pit (e.g. have him enter the pit from the side and stone him before he can float all the way up).
I'm just pointing out that it's the least-used skill in the original levels (which, of course, were never designed to have Lemmings swimming in).
This is circular logic: The Swimmer isn't useful on the original levels, which weren't designed to have the Swimmer in the first place, so look how useless that makes the Swimmer! :P
The Fencer and Platformer are also somewhat useless on the original levels. Try to solve e.g. "Lemming sanctuary in sight / King of the castle" with new skills, you won't get very far.
When sticking to new skills, with destructive ones you can only go upwards; and with creative ones, you can only stay at the same altitude with the Platformer, or go lower with the Stoner. Towers of regular Stackers are useless, because you don't have Climbers that could climb them; and if you want to somehow replace the Builder, you have to get into the really annoying habit of Stacker staircases (cancelled with Walkers or Shimmiers), or Stoner staircases (which are not much higher and wider and require a bunch of lemmings to die).
Knowledge of the existence of a skill needs to be there in the first place before any level designer can come up with good ideas for that skill. This is probably the most challenging with the Disarmer, because any interesting solution involving it and exploiting the "permanent skill" nature of the Disarmer is likely going to rely on flow control - which is one of the most demanding concepts to master in Lemmings in general.
I think my comment was more about the potential usefulness of Strato's proposed skills (Scuba Diver and Fisherman) in their interaction with the Swimmer skill, increasing its capabilities; thus, I wouldn't regard them as joke skills.
I think that's precisely the part of the joke that you don't understand yet: :P
A skill that's only worthwhile in combination with at least one other skill is NOT worth implementing. That's precisely why initial plans to add the Runner to NeoLemmix were dropped, because it would pretty much only be somewhat useful as soon as we have the Jumper, and even then only in combination with it.
I do agree that Swimmers could have a wider range of application, and the ability to dive is one of the main things about it. This above-mentioned tactic of using Stoners to press them down gets really annoying quickly, as I'm sure many will agree (especially since I've enforced it on several of my levels :P !).
For example, if a player could assign a Digger or Miner to a Swimmer and that would make him dive to the bottom of a water pit, this would widen the range of possible applications. Of course, once the Swimmer stops digging or mining, he should immediately float up again, as the standard behaviour would predict. If a Swimmer would be required to dive along the bottom of a water pit, one would have to make him a Basher or Platformer then, and so on.
However, adding such an option now, after all the levels that have been created involving Swimmers, might also introduce a bunch of new possible backroutes that the level creators didn't have to think about originally. So it would be kind of unfair.
As such, I'd rather have the Swimmer with its somewhat limited use than a bunch of different skills that are really just designed for specific corner cases. As outlined in the opening post, that is precisely how you end up with an overload of skills, such as in Lemmings 2: The Tribes. ;) You'd solve one problem by creating another: Now you have a slightly wider application for the Swimmer, but another new skill with very limited use - you just shifted that burden of limited usage to a different skill, but it's still there.
The Scuba Diver could therefore only justify its existence if there are enough applications for it that explicitly do not also require the lemming to be a Swimmer at the same time. They might even be mutually exclusive, like Floater and Glider. ;) That would make sense, because Swimmers always float to the top (else they'd be "diving"), whereas sinking to the bottom of a water pit would be the explicit purpose of the Scuba Diver. Both would protect the lemming from drowning anyway, so there would really be no use for a lemming to be both a Swimmer and a Scuba Diver at the same time.
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I remember that an older thread (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=2012.0) had a similar concept. Even I contributed back then. I hope the ones listed over there are still worthy enough to be discussed about!
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A skill that's only worthwhile in combination with at least one other skill is NOT worth implementing.
A thought that came to mind just now: I feel this only holds true when it's a case of "in combination with one or two specific skills". A skill that requires interaction with other skills, but can interact with a large number of them in various ways, could be worthwhile. As an example, imagine a variation on the Walker that's identical except you can't assign it to a lemming that's currently walking (thus, you must assign a skill first, except in the rare case of assigning it to a preplaced Shimmier / Blocker) - this would still be justifiable (if it weren't for the similarity to an existing skill, of course).
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Objects as Skills
This is extremely radical and has almost no chance of ever being adopted, but it felt like a fun idea to share :P
Any object type can be given a slot in the skill panel, and the level might start with a certain number available, or they might be gained via pick-up skills. When the object type is assigned to a lemming, it builds that object at its current location. You could have puzzles where you have to choose where to build the exit, or you could build traps to ward off zombies, or even build a new hatch to change how the lemmings flow through the level. Endless possibilities 8-)
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That actually sounds kind of cool and might not even be too hard to implement physics-wise. Most likely the biggest challenge is how to generate skills toolbar icons for arbitrary objects, given that objects usually have much larger sizes than a lemming sprite. I have to say, with NeoLemmix already having so many new behaviors and elements compared to vanilla Lemmings 1, it's good to consider ideas like "objects as skills" or "gravity changes" etc., for which the player doesn't really have to learn brand new set of behaviors, like they would with actual new skills.
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A skill that's only worthwhile in combination with at least one other skill is NOT worth implementing.
A thought that came to mind just now: I feel this only holds true when it's a case of "in combination with one or two specific skills". A skill that requires interaction with other skills, but can interact with a large number of them in various ways, could be worthwhile. As an example, imagine a variation on the Walker that's identical except you can't assign it to a lemming that's currently walking (thus, you must assign a skill first, except in the rare case of assigning it to a preplaced Shimmier / Blocker) - this would still be justifiable (if it weren't for the similarity to an existing skill, of course).
doesn't this happen in L2?
The only example I can think of off hand is the rock climber shimming and then turning into a climber//although I think this may be a glitch (I saw it in a level by Kieran and he was not familiar with the behavoir at the time)... but I'm certain there are better examples...?
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The Rock Climber can also, in contrast to the regular Climber, climb up slopes up to 45 degrees in angle. In NeoLemmix, you need to turn a Climber into a Shimmier for that transition; the Rock Climber can actually do it on his own, without having to become a Shimmier - he will simply look into the other direction.
Of course, when there's a ceiling at the top of the slope, that's when you'd have to turn the Rock Climber into a Shimmier as well. However, what you often encounter in Lemmings 2 is straight wall -> diagonal slope "backwards" -> another straight wall. Those are obstacles a Rock Climber can handle on his own, a regular Climber cannot. More importantly, even when you turn a regular Climber into a Shimmier at the slope, the Shimmier can't then turn around and transition back into the Climber at the convergence of the slope and the next straight wall.
Objects as skills sound great to me, as well! :thumbsup: I understood it a little differently at first, though: The object is on your skill panel, and you can place it anywhere you want with your mouse (=i.e. don't need a lemming to do it). However, once you've placed it, it remains there for the rest of the level (of course you can rewind and framestep as usual).
But I guess that would be too powerful, at least if it were also possible to just place exits this way. What could be fun though is having several crowds and just one instance of "place exit". Then, if you place the exit right under the hatch of one crowd, that exit might be unreachable for the other crowds, forcing you to be a little more savvy about it... :thumbsup:
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Here's a wacky object idea from the game "Clones" that was based on Lemmings. The quantum entanglement chamber.
Imagine a left-right symmetrical object with two halves, one on left and one on right, with a separate trigger area for each half. When one lemming hits one of the trigger area, the lemming is simply held in place, immobilize by the object. Then when a second lemming hits the other trigger area, the magic happens:
1) The other lemming is also held in place for a few seconds.
2) After some animation, the object has "entangled" the two lemmings and they are released. The one on the left will face and go left upon release regardless of which direction it was facing before entanglement. The one on the right will similarly face and go right upon release.
3) The most important aspect though is the following: whenever you assign a skill to one of the two lemmings in the entangled pair, the other lemming will also act as if the same skill was being assigned to it, but you don't consume an extra skill count for that. So for the price of one skill you get it assigned to two lemmings. Because it is a skill assignment, it is possible the other lemming is in a state where the skill assignment is not allowed. In that case the lemming behaves as normal and won't be performing the skill in a circumstance not normally allowed (you might also consider queueing the skill in some cases). The entangled lemmings are otherwise independent in their states and movements (though again, you can consider different choices for the physics here).
4) The entanglement condition is permanent, though I think (but never tested in that game) if an already entangled lemming got into an entanglement chamber again, it would de-entangle from the previous lemming and get entangled with whatever new second lemming got into the entanglement chamber. Though I suppose you can consider a physics where you can actually entangle multiple lemmings through multiple uses of the chamber. You could also consider a physics where maybe the entanglement effect only lasts for one or a few skill assignments, lest it be too powerful for the condition to be permanent.
In a way this has some flavor of the cloner, in that you can effectively get the use of 2 skills for the price of 1, but you don't produce any new lemmings out of this. This is actually much more effective on the "2 skills for the price of 1" compared to cloner, since with the cloner, the two lemmings will be literally at the same position when they perform the skill, whereas with entanglement, you can actually arrange for them to end up in separate locations before performing the assigned skill. On the flipside, because it is permanent, it can also be a curse in that maybe you don't want the skill to go to both lemmings in some cases, but you have no choice and have to deal with the consequences of that, as part of the puzzle.
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But I guess that would be too powerful, at least if it were also possible to just place exits this way.
That thought occurred to me as well. Certainly if you're not careful about it, having the exit be assignable will totally backroute the level. Your idea of multiple entrances is one way where you'd need more care in where to place the exit. Another way is, with Proxima's version, since you still need a lemming to actually place the exit, if the entrance is in a splat fall or similar situation where the landing is not generally safe, placing the exit may still require you to do other things to create a safe path for the rest of lemmings to actually reach and use the exit.
Maybe it's more effective puzzle-wise if it's the kind of exit that only accepts a few lemmings before disabling itself?
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The entangled lemmings are otherwise independent in their states and movements (though again, you can consider different choices for the physics here).
One potentially interesting physics choice to explore is for entanglement to also affect the facing direction state of the two lemmings, such that if one lemming changes their facing direction as a result of processing their movement for the frame, the other lemming's facing direction is immediately reversed, regardless of what that lemming is doing. This would allow you to use entanglement to execute some moves not otherwise possible, such as zigzagging build staircases or mining tunnels done only with one builder/miner, using entanglement to change the lemming's direction as it builds/mines. Of course, on the flip side, this deeper level of entanglement could make it quite awkward to walk the entangled lemmings to where you want them to go, since one lemming turning would cause the other to also turn even when you don't want it to. In some cases you might even need to de-entangle to avoid this problem, by either re-entangling the partner with some other lemming, or just outright kill the partner.
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Maybe it's more effective puzzle-wise if it's the kind of exit that only accepts a few lemmings before disabling itself?
Good point; I hadn't thought of that! ;)
The quantum entanglement chamber.
This sounds like a more contained version of the former gimmick "assign to all". I actually made two levels featuring this gimmick for my pack "Lemmicks"; they're both on the Bedlam rank. ;)
There was also "Clone on assign", which comes to mind given the fact that you mentioned this object is from a game called "Clones".
The Cloner would also be the prime example of this:
A skill that requires interaction with other skills, but can interact with a large number of them in various ways, could be worthwhile.
The Cloner interacts with almost all all other skills, except lemming types that can't be cloned for various reasons (Blockers, Bombers, and Stoners, for example - I'm not sure about Diggers? Either they can't be cloned at all, or they get cloned, but one of the two Diggers gets released by the other right away, and therefore stops digging).
Few of the "joke" skills proposed here so far would have that universal applicability for interactions, though. ;)
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I was going to start a new thread regarding a curious possible skill, but then I saw this one and well, this is my comment:
Did you notice the Caber Tosser lemming on the Highland Tribe drawing, on the screen that introduces levels in Lemmings 2? It would have been funny if the original programmers had released such a skill, in order to build bridges quickly :thumbsup:
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Well, I guess the spear thrower skill would basically be a non-Highland-specific caber tosser. Most skills in Lemmings 2 are not strongly associated to any tribe, which makes sense as it allows the skill to be potentially used in any levels of any tribes. Skater and skier are the only two I can think of that, while technically usable in any tribe, makes the most sense for Polar tribe only. The blocker is also only usable in Classic tribe (it doesn't work at all if you try to use it in other tribes via level editing).
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Here's some ideas which may or may not be silly (they probably are):
The Exorcist! - This Lemming dons a priest's robe and "exorcises" the zombie Lemmings so that they become either neutral or normal!
The Sleeper - This Lemming curls up and goes to sleep in the spot where they are until a skill is assigned to them.
The Librarian - This Lemming puts on a pair of glasses and begins sorting books according to the Dewey Decimal System.
The Guitarist - This Lemming remains in the spot where they are, shredding some solos, until a skill is assigned to them. They then sleep with another Lemming's girlfriend.
The Freezer - This Lemming freezes all Lemmings it touches, leaving them standing exactly where they are until a skill is assigned to them, or until they "thaw".
The Rebel Without A Cause - This Lemming walks away in the opposite direction from any other Lemming it touches, for seemingly no reason.
The Banana - This Lemming turns into a banana until another skill is assigned to them.
The Daft Cat - This Lemming becomes distracted by shiny objects and its own tail for the remainder of the level. They also intermittently fall asleep.
The Mario - This Lemming turns into Mario, gaining the ability to jump to a specified location (within a certain radius) when clicked.
The Invisible Lemming - This Lemming becomes invisible for the remainder of the level, and is unaffected by any trigger other than the exit.
The SuperHero - This Lemming automatically saves all of the other Lemmings, either by magically transporting the exit to wherever they are, or by flying across the terrain distributing whatever is needed for the rest to walk safely across it.
The Reverse Nuke - This spontaneously creates twice the amount of Lemmings as are currently on the screen.
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The Exorcist is perfectly within the margins that define the joke skills in this topic, due to its deliberately narrow range of application! :thumbsup:
The Sleeper would basically serve the same purpose as my Catcher, or as the Blocker is already being used right now in advanced levels - you abuse another skill simply to make a lemming wait in one specific place. Thus, your Guitarist and Banana skills would be redundant, because they serve that same purpose (I guess the Librarian would be as well). The Guitarist especially reminds me of the Attractor, at least in some of the L2 tilesets (because the animations differ vastly depending on in which tribe you use the Attractor - several of them play instruments, though).
The Freezer might actually be somewhat interesting - however, a time-based "thawing" process would add similar execution difficulty as timed Bombers, radiation, or slowfreeze. In this case, it would just be "slow-unfreeze" :D , or timed Blockers (=that stop being Blockers after a while, essentially, much like with the "Exhaustion" gimmick back in the day). If the Freezer permanently freezes lemmings until they are freed again "manually" through some other skill assignment, I think this would be much more puzzle-friendly! :thumbsup:
The Rebel Without A Cause would essentially just be a Ghost lemming in reverse - rather than driving other lemmings away through intimidation, this lemming itself would always turn away.
The Invisible Lemming would almost definitely only serve trolling purposes.
The SuperHero would be broken, especially since there already is such a thing as the Superlem in Lemmings 2: The Tribes, and basically, all it can do is fly. Your skill is more accurately named as "The Mary Sue". :P
The Reverse Nuke sounds funny - but also like a constant backroute on the skill panel. And then again, basically you can achieve exactly that same effect by simply providing an infinite number of Cloners. Have fun clicking... :D
They then sleep with another Lemming's girlfriend.
You'd need to ask Simon whether he'd be fine with Lix sprites being implemented into NeoLemmix in general. :D I think they're under creative-commons license, anyway.
Apart from that, this is precisely what I meant when I reminded everyone in the opening post that we already have the Cloner for Lemming Reproduction... :P
I do expect more references to the game "Sven" from now on, though... :D
Another skill suggestion by me, which is based on a type of terrain present in various jump-and-run games, such as Super Mario / Super Tux, Speedy Eggbert etc.:
The Mobiliser. This lemming removes an 8-x-8-pixels chunk of terrain from underneath him and then makes that piece of terrain move, either along a vertical or along a horizontal trajectory. This basically creates a "lift", or a platform that can carry lemmings across a gap. The Mobiliser cannot affect steel, because that would require to "break" the steel apart.
The skill would thereby place a trigger area on top of this piece of terrain. While any lemming is inside this trigger area, he stands still, waiting for the mobilised piece of terrain to arrive at its destination. Whenever the mobilised piece of terrain hits other terrain, it stops its movement and waits until there are no further lemmings within its trigger area. Consequently, whenever the mobilised terrain bumps into other terrain without any lemmings being inside the trigger area at that moment, it will immediately turn around and move into the other direction.
As such, the mobilised terrain will keep moving once the lemming who originally mobilised it has stepped off.
The direction of movement would be assigned during skill assignment, i.e. this skill would require a double-assignment, much like Roper / Archer in Lemmings 2: The Tribes, or the Turner in Lemmings 3D: One click to pick the lemming, who immediately stands still waiting for further commands; then a click to define the direction of movement for the mobilised terrain.
Probably, having two fields pop up above the lemmings head - one with an up-down arrow for vertical movement, one with a left-right arrow for horizontal movement - would be more reliable than going with "above / below the lemming = vertical; left / right of the lemming = horizontal": The latter would be difficult to hit exactly, because most points clicked by the player would probably be in some type of diagonal position to the lemming. That would make it difficult to determine which direction of movement - vertical or horizontal - should take precedent.
And some more:
The Blacksmith. This lemming creates a piece of steel, 8 pixels in height. As such, he can be used like a Stacker, but just like with the Stacker-Stoner distinction, there are some subtle differences. For example, the Blacksmith can be used to stop destructive skills from continuing, turning the lemming performing the destructive skill around in the process ("tanking on steel", as it's often done with Miners). The steel piece he creates could also be shaped in an irregular way, much like the Stoner, to prevent Climbers from going over it, thereby increasing the differences to the Stacker.
The Poisoner. This is an upgraded version of the Disarmer that probably looks most convincing with any type of animal trap (but it would work on any triggered trap, of course). Think of the Frog from outdoor, or the Chameleon from Rock, or the Snake from Menace: The lemming poisons the animal so that it pukes out all the lemmings it has devoured. It now acts like a limited-number hatch, meaning the interval between the lemmings matches with the currently-set spawn rate, and the number of lemmings it will release is equal to the number of lemmings that previously walked into this particular trap. Just like with limited-number hatches, the number of remaining lemmings would appear above the trap once the Poisoner has done his work.
The trap trigger is disabled by the Poisoner, of course, because otherwise, every lemming would be killed again immediately. Don't worry, this would not require distinctive "puking" animations for every trap - the standard trap animation would simply be played in reverse, with the lemming coming from the animal's jaw and being placed at the spot of the original trigger area.
The Poisoner does not work on one-use traps, because their trigger areas have already been removed after the first lemming walked into them.
The Ballet Dancer. This lemming moves like a regular Walker, but is constantly doing a pirouette. As such, any other lemming who walks into the Ballet Dancer touches his hands, therefore turning around, as if he had just met a Blocker. Whenever the Ballet Dancer reaches the edge of a piece of terrain, i.e. would transition into a Faller, he transitions into a Jumper instead. If the end of the Jumper trajectory leads him back to regular terrain, he continues being a Ballet Dancer. If however he turns into a regular Faller after the end of the Jumper animation, he will not be a Ballet Dancer anymore once he hits terrain again, and instead regularly transitions from being a Faller back to being a Walker.
This skill would somewhat combine the intimidating behaviour of Ghosts (=turning lemmings around) with the idea of having a sort-of permanent-skill Jumper - because he could jump repeatedly, all by himself, without requiring additional skill assignment, if he ballet-dances along a series of suitable gaps. At the same time, he would not be as limited as the Hopper in Lemmings 2: The Hopper usually fails quickly, due to his intense vertical movement that often causes him to quit after bumping his head on a ceiling. The Ballet Dancer, in contrast, would never jump higher than a regular Jumper.
The Sniper. Similar to the Gunman, however, this one would be a permanent skill: The lemming lies down with a rifle pointed into the direction he's facing. Now, at 16 pixels distance, a trigger area is placed at the same height as the lemming. The lemming now acts like a triggered trap, killing any lemming, neutral, or zombie that walks into the trigger area.
He can be released just like a Blocker, i.e. by removing the terrain under his feet, or by assigning a Walker to him.
Just like triggered traps, the Sniper is release-rate sensitive: From an army of zombies walking towards him, he could still only kill a few, before the first zombie reaches him and infects him. However, just the fact that he's a zombie doesn't stop the Sniper from shooting: Since a regular Sniper lemming would also be deadly to other lemmings, a zombie Sniper lemming would also be deadly to other zombies. A zombie Sniper simply couldn't be saved anymore, like any other zombie - whereas a regular Sniper can be freed like a Blocker, as said above, and then go to the exit.
While you would usually use the Sniper against zombies, there may also be cases where you want him for "friendly fire" and kill other regular lemmings. One such example is my level "A level of ice and fire" from Pit Lems, where you have to bomb a lemming to prevent him from slowfreezing / stoning in the wrong position.
To avoid skill redundancy, maybe this specific application could also be achieved through an interaction of Blocker and the aforementioned Gunman?
In that case, the Gunman would be a permanent skill, as well, constantly carrying a deadly trigger area around 16 pixels in front of him, like a moving trap. If you now assign a Blocker to the Gunman (or any other skill that makes him stop, like the previous introduced Catcher), the trigger area would still be there, but he would stand still, i.e. become a trap fixed in position.
The Catcher-Gunman combination seems particularly interesting in this regard:
It would be pretty pointless to have the Catcher-Gunman catch a Faller from above first, preventing him from splatting, only to then shoot that same lemming because he walks into his trigger area. But logically, this wouldn't happen: The Catcher, as previously suggested, stops standing still once any other lemming touches him. As such, the former Catcher and the "caught" lemming end up compressed. As long as the trigger area of the Gunman remains in front of the former Catcher, it also protects the lemming he caught.
As such, the Catcher-Gunman combination might actually be a rather "romantic" one, where the Gunman did not only catch a Faller in his arms, but also protects the other lemming from any zombies they encounter. :thumbsup:
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Thus, your Guitarist and Banana skills would be redundant, because they serve that same purpose (I guess the Librarian would be as well).
I don't see anything suggesting the Banana would stay stationary. :P
You'd need to ask Simon whether he'd be fine with Lix sprites being implemented into NeoLemmix in general. :D I think they're under creative-commons license, anyway.
Apart from that, this is precisely what I meant when I reminded everyone in the opening post that we already have the Cloner for Lemming Reproduction...
NeoLemmix is CC-BY-NC, Lix is public domain. This essentially means that anyone can use Lix sprites for anything they want, including commercial usage, no credit given (at least legally speaking; obviously this would be quite morally questionable). NeoLemmix on the other hand, CC-BY-NC requires that credit be given and forbids commercial usage, but beyond that the code can still be used freely. (Some graphical resources obviously belong to whoever owns the right to Lemmings. Those that don't, but are part of NL itself (rather than a user-made style), would be covered by CC-BY-NC.)
In terms of the actual suggestion; I'd think that the lemming using this skill would hope that reproduction does not occur. :P Even if it would, a genetic mix of two parents is a bit different from a straight-up clone of one. :P Which raises the question - would a Lix-Lemming hybrid be biologically possible? If so, would the offspring be sterile, like most (but not all) cross-species animals are in the real world? What would it look like?
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In that case, I'd welcome Lix sprites in NeoLemmix, given that many tilesets from Lix have already been copied to NeoLemmix anyway! :thumbsup: So they could be the sprites that go along with the themes of the Lix tilesets. Obviously, this would require Lix sprites for NeoLemmix-exclusive skills, such as the Shimmier.
And, for a level "When a Lem loves a woman" (just one example off the top of my head, given that I usually go with song titles as level titles :D ), it would be necessary to combine two different types of sprites - like regular default Lemmings and Lix - in one and the same level...
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The Rock Climber can also, in contrast to the regular Climber, climb up slopes up to 45 degrees in angle.
I guess you mean 135, as walkers can 'climb' up slopes of 45 degrees in angle. :P
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The Mobiliser. This lemming removes an 8-x-8-pixels chunk of terrain from underneath him and then makes that piece of terrain move, either along a vertical or along a horizontal trajectory. This basically creates a "lift", or a platform that can carry lemmings across a gap.
This is a great idea, and could even be implemented as an object rather than a skill - upwards or sidewards-moving lifts, for example. It could be so that lifts are inactive until activated by pressing a button, if you wanted to take it a step further into puzzle territory rather than simply a method of transport.
The Blacksmith. This lemming creates a piece of steel, 8 pixels in height.
Another good idea; as well as the features you mentioned, it's also creating an indestructible stacker. Would the Blacksmith be able to be stopped part-way through the creation of the steel block, to make it a smaller piece of steel...or would it always be 8 pixels high?
The Poisoner is an excellently complex piece of thinking - you'd essentially be able to use Lemming-swallowing traps as temporary storage for a certain number of Lemmings! This gave me an idea - what if there were an object similar to a teleporter which "stored" Lemmings until released...? It would remove the need for creative crowd control, though, which would almost certainly divide opinion as to its relevance in a game of Lemmings. I for one love solving/creating puzzles that require some thinking when it comes to holding Lemmings and releasing a worker.
The Ballet Dancer.[/b] This lemming moves like a regular Walker, but is constantly doing a pirouette. As such, any other lemming who walks into the Ballet Dancer touches his hands, therefore turning around, as if he had just met a Blocker. Whenever the Ballet Dancer reaches the edge of a piece of terrain, i.e. would transition into a Faller, he transitions into a Jumper instead. If the end of the Jumper trajectory leads him back to regular terrain, he continues being a Ballet Dancer. If however he turns into a regular Faller after the end of the Jumper animation, he will not be a Ballet Dancer anymore once he hits terrain again, and instead regularly transitions from being a Faller back to being a Walker.
This is by far my favourite of your ideas from this post! It's beautifully haphazard whilst also being extremely useful - however, the level would have to be very carefully designed to implement its use. I'm all for this, at least in the world of joke skills! :thumbsup:
As such, the Catcher-Gunman combination might actually be a rather "romantic" one, where the Gunman did not only catch a Faller in his arms, but also protects the other lemming from any zombies they encounter. :thumbsup:
Haha! A romantic idea indeed! I like this idea, but the Sniper/Gunman would have to be "trained" to only kill zombies rather than the aforementioned idea of killing anything in its path. Also, does it act like a blocker and stop Lemmings from passing from behind, or would a blocker also be needed for this? And if it's release-rate sensitive, several of these may need to be assigned to hold back a horde of zombies. This is where The Exorcist might come in handy! ;)
Some great ideas!
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This is a great idea, and could even be implemented as an object rather than a skill - upwards or sidewards-moving lifts, for example. It could be so that lifts are inactive until activated by pressing a button, if you wanted to take it a step further into puzzle territory rather than simply a method of transport.
I have considered the idea of lifts many times, up to and including having ideas of how to implement them in a way that won't make them too execution-focused. The problem: They'd be a HUGE mess to code (especially if we want any logical interaction with constructive skills being assigned on top of them), and there are edge cases that don't have an obvious logical answer. (eg: A flat-topped lift moves upwards and hits a flat-bottomed ceiling, while a lemming is standing on them. Real-life logic, and typical video game logic, suggests the lemming dies. Lemmings logic, suggests the lemming just gets stuck in the ceiling until the lift moves away. The former would be unexpected in Lemmings, the latter feels borderline glitchy.)
So while I wouldn't consider it a joke idea by any means (well, not the general idea of lifts, at least - this specific means of creating one is a bit joke-y), it's also firmly in the "not going to happen" territory for other reasons, sadly.
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The Comforter - This Lemming gives all of the other Lemmings a biscuit and a cup of tea, which they partake of gratefully.
The Existential Philosopher - This Lemming begins to study the history of existentialism, concluding that the best course of action is to split the level down the middle so that it opens up, revealing an infinite void into which the Lemmings fearlessly leap. They then reappear on the other side of the known universe, proving that it is in fact an infinite loop. This causes Michael J Fox to appear, who gently ushers the Lemmings into the exit before going back to the future.
The Romantic Fool - This Lemming falls hopelessly in love with the Lemming immediately to their left, and chases them around the level until they either die or reach the exit.
The Nobody Would Ever Use This-er - Upon assigning this skill, the Lemming instantly vanishes. This causes the player's version of NeoLemmix to then only be able to run on Windows XP machines that aren't connected to the internet and which have a 512MB hard drive that only works at night-time under a green light bulb. The only way to reverse the process is to complete Just Dig! from a different room using a wireless mouse.
The Chocolatier - This Lemming turns into chocolate, and then begins to turn the other Lemmings, terrain and objects into chocolate. Soon, the player's desktop and computer start to turn into chocolate, until the player is left with a chocolate computer which they then must either eat or sell to buy a new computer.
The Cuddler - This Lemming roams around cuddling all of the other Lemmings. Whilst cuddling, the two Lemmings remain in place for about 10 seconds, after which the Cuddler moves on to a different Lemming, at random. Once all the Lemmings have been cuddled, the Cuddler goes to sleep until assigned a different skill, or until the level is solved, at which point they wake up and walk towards the exit. When they reach the exit, they wait there until the player has cuddled someone. Then they go through the exit, completing the level.
The Sensible Princess - When assigned, this Lemming spends the remainder of the level encouraging the player to think of themselves as a magical princess. They are then able to complete the level by using Special Powers such as CrystalVision, which allows the player's eyes to send small shimmering sparks of light into their computer which reveal the level's solution. Upon successful completion of the level in a near-euphoric state of abject excitement, the player then calms down and goes for a walk to clear their mind. Upon their return, they reflect on their experience over a cup of tea and a sugar-free biscuit and then continue playing as normal.
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Mother"fudge"r - The lemming turns into Samuel L Jackson and removes all snakes (only works on plane-themed levels).
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The Sensible Princess - When assigned, this Lemming spends the remainder of the level encouraging the player to think of themselves as a magical princess. They are then able to complete the level by using Special Powers such as CrystalVision, which allows the player's eyes to send small shimmering sparks of light into their computer which reveal the level's solution.
Shouldn't that skill be called "The Mary Sue"? :P Or, in more current terms, Rey Skywalker?
Not to be confused with your Lightsaberer skill... :D
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Mother"fudge"r - The lemming turns into Samuel L Jackson and removes all snakes (only works on plane-themed levels).
:crylaugh: :crylaugh: :crylaugh:
Shouldn't that skill be called "The Mary Sue"? :P Or, in more current terms, Rey Skywalker?
Haha I guess so! ;)
I've always liked the idea of some sort of reverse nuke skill that just solves the level for you or creates a ton of extra Lemmings. I guess solution replays and cloners do the job between them! (Just ask Flopsy - cloners are probably my favourite of the new skills. ;P)
What do you think the ultimate Mary Sue skill would be?
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Well, among the old gimmicks, there was one called "invincibility", that gets pretty close, I think. ;) It appears somewhere on the Bedlam rank of my pack "Lemmicks", on a medieval level. Even those lemmings can die, though; they can't drown in water, but that means they simply fall through it, like Ghosts. And if there's no terrain under the water, they fall out of the screen and are still gone this way. :P
Although there's another one which is also quite powerful - and, in contrast to all the others, there should already be sprites for this! :evil:
The Crawler. Can be assigned to a lemming stuck inside terrain (including steel). He then crawls up that terrain vertically, on the outside (turning his back towards the player), until he reaches a walkable surface again, at which point he continues walking into the direction he was facing when he was assigned the skill. This will greatly profit from NeoLemmix's framestepping features, because lemmings stuck in terrain usually flip back and forth between looking left and right on every single frame.
Basically, this would turn what is a glitch / borderline cheat in Lemmings 2: The Tribes (but apparently also intended behaviour, otherwise there wouldn't be a dedicated animation for it?) into a deliberately assignable skill.
And, something else that just came to my mind:
The Blower. A stationary skill that makes the lemming pull out a hairdryer, or set up a ventilator, that points upwards. Alternatively, it could also be a water hose, but that might be confusable with the Sucker / Flooder / Firefighter. Every lemming walking past the Blower is carried vertically upwards by the stream. Like Gliders, the lemmings inside the trigger area would always move slowly to the edge of it, but not to the bottom edge of the area (like Swimmers do in water, as well), but to the left or right edge, respectively, depending on which direction they're facing. This allows them to land on terrain again once they've been lifted up sufficiently. This happens when they bump their head at a ceiling; they simply transition to regular Fallers then. That's why lemmings inside the Blower's stream need to move slightly sidewards; otherwise, they would simply hit their head on whatever piece of terrain they're supposed to land on.
Fallers can't be blown upward by the Blower again, only Walkers can; but Fallers inside the Blowers trigger area can't splat, like with updrafts. And once a Faller transitions back into a Walker at the ground, if he's still inside the Blower's trigger area, he will obviously be lifted up again.
The connection between Blowers and Walkers would be visible by the Walkers moving their feet inside the stream while being lifted up, as if they were walking on air and somewhat "supporting" their upward movement.
Blowers themselves can be freed, like Blockers, by assigning a Walker to them or removing the terrain under their feet (or bombing / stoning them, of course). When freed, a Blower will not be able to use his own stream anymore to carry himself upward. As such, he will have to find a different way to follow the crowd. A nice way to isolate a lemming, though! :thumbsup:
The Blaster. Every lemming that gets touched by the Blaster becomes a Bomber on the spot.
The Gorgon. Every lemming that gets touched by the Gorgon becomes a Stoner on the spot.
The Priest. Every lemming that gets touched by the Priest "goes forth and multiplies", i.e. becomes a Cloner on the spot. :D
These last three skills could be particularly interesting when you don't provide the player with regular Bombers / Stoners / Cloners, but only with these "second-hand" skills: Try to free a crowd by bombing the Blocker holding them back, but you only have a Blaster. Now you need to find a way to have a Blaster walk up to the Blocker to make him explode, without that Blaster killing your entire crowd immediately afterwards! :evil:
On the other hand, of course, Blaster and Gorgon would be extremely useful to kill zombies. And since the zombie would stone behind the Gorgon, none of the zombies the Gorgon kills would be able to stop that lemming with the piece of terrain the zombie becomes. The same is true for the pit created by an exploding zombie: It would lie behind the Blaster, who has already walked past at the point of explosion. The Blaster/Gorgon himself of course would also turn into a zombie once he touches the first one, but as we know, becoming a zombie doesn't deprive a lemming of any of his abilities. :D As such, the remaining zombies would be killed by one of their own kind...
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Just whilst we're thinking of that 20th skill...
The Unusual Lemming - a Lemming that isn't usual.
The Cuppa Maker - makes all of the other Lemmings a nice cup of tea.
The Rabbit - transitions from a Glider into a Rabbit, and then hops about chewing things.
The Existentialist II - a sequel skill to the Existentialist. This one spends the entire level contemplating the meaning of existence, but when other lemmings approach to make conversation, the Existentialist II pretends to be thinking about honey and biscuits.
The Fast Blaster - this one starts running at twice the speed of a SuperLemming and obliterates anything in their path, including steel, other lemmings, and even the exit. Can only be cancelled by making the lemming a Platformer whilst unpaused.
The Backwards Physics Enthusiast - a lemming that refuses to partake in the level unless all clocks are destroyed.
The Genius Craftsman With Massive Hands - a lemming that cries whenever anybody sings Moon River.
The Lush Parallelogram - a lemming who uses magic to create dazzling universes of infinite bliss. Only by entering these is it possible to finally find The Other Dimension, From Which Everything Is Rendered As It Ought To Have Been In The Vast Oceans Of Venus.
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The Kanye-er - The lemming pulls out a plate of fishsticks and puts them in his mouth.
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The Quarantiner. A counterpart to the Attractor, this skill pushes every lemming behind himself back, creating the same distance between himself and the next lemming as between that next lemming and the lemming after that, and so on. That distance is equivalent to the maximum spawn interval a level with a single hatch can have. :P
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With all the recent buzz and discussion about new skills and objects, I just have to get a few more of these out of my system (man, I love this topic ;P):
The Smoosher - the lemming suddenly finds all lemmings in the immediate vicinity very cute, and gives them all a cuddle and a smoosh! :lemcat:
The Questioner - asks questions of the player, such as what they had for breakfast, why the sky is blue, whether or not they like bananas with honey, and whether or not they can solve the Monty Hall problem. The player then responds poached egg and avocado on toast, because white sunlight is scattered in airborne water droplets, yes indeed they do, and you should always switch doors.
The Fantastic Lemon - the lemming turns into a lemon, which is fantastic.
The Stargazer - the lemming stops whatever they're doing and admires the stars in the scenery. If there are no stars in the scenery or the background, the level is opened in the editor and stars are added. This also reveals the level's solution to the player, who then must decide whether or not to continue playing. If they decide to continue, they are rewarded with love from the Stargazer. If they do not continue, then the Stargazer simply weeps until their tears form a small pool, in which the entire concept of Lemmings as a game is reflected. Noticing this, the Stargazer swims into the pool and searches for The Lost City, which can only be seen once a day for four seconds.
The Delayed Teleporter - a teleporter which teleports the lemmings at some undetermined point after they have walked through its trigger area. Since the receiver can only be placed directly above the level's exit, the entire level becomes based on delay tactics until all lemmings have been teleported home.
The Statue of Liberty - a large replica of the famed statue that leads the lemmings to the exit very slowly, like at the end of Ghostbusters II.
HyperLemming - like SuperLemming, but slightly faster, doesn't respond to the pause button, and performs whichever skills it chooses when the player assigns a skill to it.
The Nonexistent Lemming Maker - creates Lemmings that don't exist in any plane of reality. These are then added to the save requirement for the level.
The Lemming Grouper - a doorway which gathers the next ten lemmings to walk through it into a group, which then appear as if they are a single lemming.
The Fluffy Space Chipmunk - a chipmunk in space. That's fluffy.
The Nonexistent Lemming Maker Part II - creates entire levels that don't exist, which must be solved by placing the computer upon which the game is being played in an old time machine, at which point the lion reminds everyone that it's important to swim continuously until the time machine is activated. Lara Croft will be discharged from the time machine, and will play through the levels at 78 fps. Of course, this all happens in reverse.
And, some silly ideas for levels (EDIT: maybe "and levels" could be added to the topic's header?):
Lemming Century - a level that takes 100 years to complete, and must therefore be passed down several generations of players.
A Million Lemmings Part VIII - a level that spawns a million lemmings directly into an exit.
The Level With No Lemmings - a level where the lemming count is 0, but the save requirement is 517.
The... Level? - a level which doesn't exist, with a save requirement of -12.
Just Build. No, Really... - a level that's 88,000 x 88,000 pixels, with an invisible exit somewhere near the top, and the only available skill is infinite builders.
The Really Really Really Really Really Really Really Long Level - a level that's 8,029,897,312 pixels wide, and offers infinite skills, but the time limit is 4 minutes. This level can only be solved by performing a Time Tweak.
Time Tweak Tutorial - teaches the player how to perform a Time Tweak so that they can solve The Really Really Really Really Really Really Really Long Level
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The WillLem - Permanent skill. At random times, the WillLem will get an idea, stop what it's doing and wander off to post on an internet forum about joke ideas for skills, objects and levels. If two WillLems exist in a level, there is a small chance that one of them will read the other one's ideas and immediately implement them, changing the gameplay of the level you are currently playing.
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The WillLem - Permanent skill. At random times, the WillLem will get an idea, stop what it's doing and wander off to post on an internet forum about joke ideas for skills, objects and levels. If two WillLems exist in a level, there is a small chance that one of them will read the other one's ideas and immediately implement them, changing the gameplay of the level you are currently playing.
Now this is an idea I like! :thumbsup: :crylaugh:
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The Harpooner. This is a 3/4 joke, 1/4 serious suggestion ;) : A combination of several of the skills currently in the running for the 20th skill:
The lemming throws a modern-day whaling harpoon with a detonating end piece. This is a long, thin projectile that causes an explosion when it hits and has a rope attached to it.
- The shape of the harpoon would be identical to the spear of the Spear Thrower and could therefore be used as such.
- The detonation on impact creates a Bomber crater. This and the arc of motion would be that of a Mortar.
- Attached to the harpoon is a rope. This could serve as a surrogate Roper, but with a fixed arc - and thus potentially serve as a downward Builder.
- If you exceed the maximum length of the rope, the rope will tear, leaving behind just the harpoon with the detonating end piece. Now you have a genuine Mortar and Spear Thrower at once! ;) This projectile without the rope is going to continue on its parabolic trajectory until it hits terrain.
- If you shoot up into the ceiling, with thin-enough terrain, you can find Laser-Blaster-like applications.
- The Harpooner can kill Zombies.
I don't know, maybe this would be a valid compromise for a lot of people who are currently espousing either the Spear Thrower, the Mortar, the Laser Blaster, or a downward Builder? ???
It won't be a stand-in for the Slider, but it could fullfil a lot of these other purposes... while still being logically consistent (after all, these modern whaling harpoons with detonating end pieces do exist, unfortunately). :8():
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The Harpooner. This is a 3/4 joke, 1/4 serious suggestion ;) : A combination of several of the skills currently in the running for the 20th skill:
This is actually a good idea!
Just whilst we're riffing, though:
The Puddler - a lemming that becomes a puddle, and is then able to flow wherever they like (kind of like T-1000).
The Temperamental Teleporter - a teleporter that sometimes doesn't work, and requires a Disarmer to come and fix it (thus creating another use for the Disarmer!)
The High Maintenance Teleporter - a teleporter that only works if the lemmings assure it of their continuing love and affection.
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The Dairy Farmer - Interacts with new Cow objects to produce Milk, which can either be sold for tokens to buy more skills, or processed further at the Cheese Factory object for increased token yield.
Inspired by this video. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBIsZlV1jHk)
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The Dairy Farmer - Interacts with new Cow objects to produce Milk, which can either be sold for tokens to buy more skills, or processed further at the Cheese Factory object for increased token yield.
Inspired by this video. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBIsZlV1jHk)
:crylaugh: :thumbsup:
The video is hilarious.
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the Policer to arrest naughty lemmings no discernible skill just for my own amusement to be used in combination with the cannoner
the cannoner operates a vehicle mounted water cannon to blast away zombies
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I'm going to leave this topic open for a little bit longer in case some amazing new idea we haven't thought of yet pops up
MEGALEMMING!!! - grows the lemming to 4x the size of a regular lemming!
Not sure how this would be useful to be honest, but it would be cool 8-)
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I'm going to leave this topic open for a little bit longer in case some amazing new idea we haven't thought of yet pops up
MEGALEMMING!!! - grows the lemming to 4x the size of a regular lemming!
Not sure how this would be useful to be honest, but it would be cool 8-)
I believe that was shot down years ago because of the engine's limits
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I believe that was shot down years ago because of the engine's limits
Perhaps the engine's limits have changed in the meantime?
The best ideas always reappear! ;P
Whilst we're at it, what about minilemming! - shrinks the lemming to 0.25x the size of a regular lemming...
These might make good objects, actually...
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I moved some posts from the NL final skill suggestion topic, to this one. Please make sure all ideas better suited to this topic than that one, stay in this one, in the future.
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It's been a while since we had one of these, SO...
HYPERLEM!!! - a Superlemming who's had one too many sugar lemon brandies!!!
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Very big brain ideas! I would like to see these in game. :thumbsup:
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The Inverter. A slight twist on the previously-mentioned Intruder. This lemming moves through terrain in all directions, rather than just walking through walls. Meaning: He falls through it, climbs through it, walks through it etc. and starts walking again as soon as his foot trigger hits the first piece of thin air. In short: Empty space becomes terrain, terrain becomes empty space for this lemming.
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Just thought of one while looking up Beavers...
The Biter: It just bites a few pixels off the next wall it hits. It can be useful to stop climbers climbing up that wall.
It's much more flexible than that however. It can be used to bite the lemming in front (or behind) to stun him, long enough to open up a nice gap to make a builder bridge (You can also use it to free blockers this way). You can assign the biter while half-way into making a stair. He will eat the remaining steps from his bag. It can similarly be done with the miner pickaxe, the floater umbrella, etc. Biters can be assigned permanently on blockers so that it will bite anyone that touches him.
So yeah, give it a try! :8(): :8:()[:
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The "Stoner (Other Type)". The lemming pulls out and smokes a huge joint, then does a shoddy job of all further skills for the rest of the level.
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As a counterpart to a certain skill suggested as an April Fool's joke ages ago, may I propose:
The Pisser. Uses the parabolic arc of the Spearer/Grenader to create a water area for as long as the skill continues. Any lemming (regular/neutral/zombie) that passes through that arc or the Bomber-crater-shaped puddle at its end drowns unless he is a Swimmer. Can be used to kill Zombies or remove fire traps.
I'm pretty sure people would have lots of fun making the sprites for this skill... :D
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Not a joke idea as such, but I had a very vivid dream last night which involved a 3D lemmings level and I wanted to note the ideas here.
It was a fake disjoint union with 2 halves: both halves required the lems to find their way back up to the top of the level having walked down to the bottom. The half with the exit in it also had a swimming pool which needed to be crossed.
What made the level particularly unusual though was the fact that it had moving terrain, which activated when a certain number of lems had walked past it. So, the left side had a slope which rotated and became a series of 90 degree blocks after 10 lems had walked down it (thus preventing them getting back up easily) - such terrain could be used for easy transition back up to the top as long as no more than 10 lems walk down it.
Meanwhile, the right side featured a rope bridge which broke iff more than 10 lems were on it at once. Again - otherwise safe as long as only 10 lems are crossing it.
Finally, upon waking I thought of something which I'm sure has been discussed previously. Terrain which only Bombers can make it through, called Blasticine. Blasticine could also be terrain which only Bombers can't make it through. I imagine it would have an overlay which makes it look like melting wax; this could be simulated using downwards OWW, although this would obviously allow Miners and Diggers to also get through it, so those skills would have to be absent from the level.
If nothing else, "Blasticine" would make a cool level title anyway :)
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Has anyone mentioned yet the Invincible Lemming? A Lemming who is not affected by fire, water, traps, falls from high height nor screen borders (and of course, to whom the bombing does not affect at all).
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Time to back it!
Shrugger - Starts the ''Shrugger'' animation
New level!
Stop us! We don't know how make this! - Skills: 50 Shrugger and 1 Builder. Lemmings to save - All! Build over the gap and give Shrugger to delay the others!
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Shrugger - Starts the ''Shrugger'' animation
New level!
I misread this at first, but the misreading has given me an idea - when someone "cheats" a level in NL/SLX, it should trigger all active lemmings to perform the Shrugger animation :crylaugh: