I assume you mean the solution in kaywhyn's video. It is a shame that that works, but it's also a really advanced trick that many players won't be able to pull off, so for most solvers, the puzzle is still intact. And the solution is really beautiful, and there is no way I would consider throwing out over this.

Things have been quiet for a while now, so I just want to post an update on current progress.

I've played up to 4-17 in version 4, and have been continuing to fill out the spreadsheet with colour coding showing how much I like each level. Will has given his own feedback on the grey and pink highlighted levels in ranks 1 to 3, in addition to mobius's feedback above, so some of those I was unsure about are definitely staying.

I noticed that starting at the start of rank 4, nearly every level is getting rated highly, and looking ahead, I expect this to continue for the rest of the pack. So I think that at this point it's pretty safe to work on the assumption we will keep over 200 levels total, which means it makes sense to go ahead with the split pack.

I don't want to reply to everything said above, as I'll save most of my thoughts on individual levels for the round-up posts where I propose a selection for each rank. One thing I'll say now: while in most cases we are compiling existing levels and not changing them (other than to fix backroutes), we certainly can make changes if there is a good reason for it, and this can sometimes make the difference as to whether a level is worth keeping or not. For example, in 3-23 "A Small Problem...", the reason I rated this level low at first is that there are four groups of lemmings, each of which gets dropped into a narrow honeypot and has to be built out by stacking eight bricks from separate builders. The rest of the level is fine and (as mobius points out) interesting enough to keep; so the obvious solution is to make the honeypots smaller so that each crowd can be released with a single builder.

"Let's Split" is just not fun. Fifty lemmings must be saved by assigning every single one a climber, floater or miner; the bridge up to the top exit must be completed exactly after all the floaters have gone past, and there is no interesting puzzle in getting the timing right; it's just trial and error, with all that repetitive skill-assignment to be done again with each trial. Will rated this "Worst level so far" 

Since there hasn't been any feedback specifically on my proposed selection and ordering for rank 1, the next task will be a similar draft for rank 1 of the second pack. This does not mean the first rank is set in stone; when we have more of an idea of the shape of the pack overall, then we might end up making different choices there.

Quote from: Proxima on April 27, 2026, 08:57:55 PMA reminder to anyone who wants to contribute: the most helpful format is a description (video link will do) of both the backroute and the intended solution -- not just a fix suggestion, because if we can all see the backroute, we can all put our heads together to come up with the best fix.

And indeed "Cry for me" is a perfect illustration of this, because mobius's suggestion doesn't fix the backroute at all.

Spoiler

Intended solution: First top lemming builds to the red terrain; bash and mine to the exit. Two will slip past; make them floaters. One climbs up, builds to the exit; link the bottom crowds with a basher, build over the bash tunnel, and make everyone climb.

Backroute: First top lemming builds to the middle pillar, then to the exit. Four will slip past; make them floaters. Do the rest as in the intended solution.

(I don't remember exactly how I know the above-described solution is intended, but I remember the level from the Cheapo days, and I distinctly remember that at some point this was confirmed.)

A better fix is to reduce the floaters to 2, or increase the RR so that more lemmings fall past if you attempt the backroute. In Lix, the spawn interval is 15, corresponding to RR 88; in RotL v4 the RR is 80.

Thank you for getting this started 

A reminder to anyone who wants to contribute: the most helpful format is a description (video link will do) of both the backroute and the intended solution -- not just a fix suggestion, because if we can all see the backroute, we can all put our heads together to come up with the best fix.

Link to kaywhyn's LP of version 4

Link to kaywhyn's LP of version 2

I have a couple of backroutes of my own to contribute:

1-39 Access Denied (Ben Bryant):

Spoiler

Intended solution: Bash right. Climb up, mine down the stack of three white blocks. Mine down the one-way wall. When the climber returns, mine to the enclosed exit; build over it. Bash left and mine to release the crowd.

Backroute 1: Bash right twice (under the enclosed exit) and interrupt the basher to get up.

Backroute 2: Bash right. Climb up; mine down from the top-left corner of the one-way wall so the lemmings will checkerboard through to the exit. Mine and bash under the exit; build up to the first miner tunnel.

3-36 Pyramid Puzzle:

Spoiler

Haven't found the intended solution, but this is almost certainly a backroute. Hold the crowd between two blockers, both on 2-brick bridges, while one builds off to the left (4 builders) and becomes a blocker. Release the left blocker, then release the right one with the last lemming. The newly released blocker mines to turn around; the other lemming can build to the right wall to turn. Build to the exit.

NeoLemmix or one of the other engines?

Go into Settings (the icon with gears on the main menu), then the Interface tab, then make sure "Hide Skill Shadows" is turned OFF.

No danger of that. While most chatting takes place on discord, the forum is essential for long-term storage of levels, styles and so on, as well as more important conversations like decisions on the physics of various engines -- anything that needs to be kept easily accessible in the long term.

Okay, here's a first draft for the complete Picnic rank (30 levels). I've made the N-of-each levels continue up to Level 25, then switched to a few of the easier levels with specific skills. At this point, it's pretty arbitrary which levels go in late Picnic, which in early Hootenanny, and which in early pack 2, so any levels I missed can go in one of the others -- and it's easy to switch levels around later if we want.

I must note at this point, we've had more discussion about the issue of levels duplicated with other packs, because this does not have an easy answer, so the best we can do is to try to find a middle ground. In addition to the Mazu, Clam and Insane Steve packs that were explicitly mentioned in the poll, weirdybeardy and Crane have both made their own packs that have a lot of overlap with RotL v4, and a NL conversion for Ben Bryant's levels is in progress. If we were strict about having no duplicate levels, we'd be down to 200 before cutting on grounds of quality; and while it's certainly a possibility to cut the project down to a single smaller pack, I don't think it's what anyone wants. Besides, this strictness would be self-defeating: what if someone makes a conversion pack for Ellischant's levels, for example, in the future?

mobius made a point on discord that I very much agree with: "If a level is well known, then chances are people have already played it and it may feel out of place in the pack. [...] Dodo's small pack levels weren't included in this consideration, so they're allowed. Why? Idk, at some point we have to admit we're just making up arbitrary rules here and decide what's best."

So (after talking with the others), what we've decided to do is basically a two-step process: first populate each rank with non-duplicate levels, then if it feels like a good idea, duplicate levels may be used to fill up the rank. This has the advantage of treating all duplicate levels the same (the Mazu/Clam/IS ones as well as the weirdybeardy/Crane/Ben Bryant ones; so it is possible that some Mazu/Clam/IS levels will be reintroduced).

With that said, my notes on the level selection for this draft of Picnic:

1-1 to 1-8: As before. 1-2 renamed to "Demon's Gate" since it's no longer a blocker tutorial.
1-9: Replaced "Gotta Save 'Em All!" with "Pipe Dream" as discussed above.
1-10 to 1-15: As before.
1-16: Snowy Caves. WillLem liked this level, so I included it, but that meant I was a bit stricter on other builder-heavy levels since we don't want to have too many.
1-17 to 1-20: As before.

1-21 Nothing Gold Can Stay: Moved from 1-16 as it's quite tricky for a 5-of-each.
1-22 Vacuum: A quite interesting Brick 5-of-each; including this makes up for dropping Hedonist.
1-23 Canopy Lemmings: Definitely a more interesting Rock 10-of-all than Biosphere. As mentioned above, since geoo was against 10-of-all repeats I will remove this level if he wants, though I would really like to keep it.
1-24 LEMTRIS: Down to 4-of-each, so this is more of a puzzle and serves as a transition out of the any-way-you-want levels. (If people feel it's too tough for this placement, we could move it up.)
1-25 It's eight-hero time: Cute 1-of-each level.
1-26 A Cold Day in Heck: Pretty simple puzzle level, although I'm not sure this is okay as the first limited-skills level. (But I'm saving "First Things First" to be the pack 2 opener.)
1-27 Brick City: Well-liked level, so we're obviously keeping this.
1-28 Emergency: A bit complicated, but each part individually is simple, and one group rescuing the other has already shown up in Neighbors, so maybe this is okay here?
1-29 Patience, Young Grasshopper: While this is a 10-of-each repeat, it is definitely the hardest of them, so putting it here at the end.
1-30 The Final Countdown: Feels appropriate for a rank closer. This is a Crane level, but it's surely one we want to keep.

Of the dropped levels, Hedonist and Biosphere won't appear at all, since we have enough N-of-each levels at this point. Same goes for the easy version of Crystal Caves, but we may use the original level.

For now, I have removed all talismans; we will decide on these later once the level selection is final.

Quote from: mobius on April 19, 2026, 06:39:50 PMWhile I agree it's nice to have a selection of various styles all around, I would caution against making this a major concern. I did for a while and I think the pack overall suffered because I kept this in mind.

Don't worry, it's only something I thought of doing for the first 10 levels, and after that I won't think much about style balance (e.g. in the draft ordering, Levels 16, 17 and 19 are all Pillar). It might be something I consider as a deciding factor if I'm torn between two levels that could go either way, but that's all.

QuoteI'd agree Pipe Dream is a better level than the "gotta save em all". This is a good level for very early on and very a pack that's intended to be *very* beginner friendly, which I'm not sure is the best fit for this pack? But if so, then it fits.

It's meant to start easy and build up difficulty gradually. Yes, I'll probably put Pipe Dream back in in the next draft.

QuoteOh BTW; did you guys already figure out which levels are going into which pack; is it based on age?

No, that was just an idea Will had, but I think it's a non-starter; I have enough on my plate without having to sleuth out level release dates, and it's a really arbitrary way to split the pack anyway. Instead, I think that in terms of difficulty, if the levels we are using were rated from 1 to 10, pack 1 would include levels from 1 to 8, pack 2 would be 3 to 10. So there's a lot of overlap, but all the easiest levels should go in pack 1 and all the hardest ones in pack 2. When it comes to sorting out the middle ranks, I'll just go by feeling, although there will be some rules, such as: repeat pairs should stay in the same pack; levels with similar solutions should be split up.

Here's a first draft for what the first 20 levels of Picnic might look like. This is very rough, and I welcome all feedback for changes to the selection and ordering. Notes on my reasons for selecting each level, and any changes I've made:

1-1 9 ways to live: We agreed this was perfect as a first level.
1-2 Roadblock: From v2. Originally the blocker tutorial, repurposed as a 10-of-each.
1-3 It's a long, long way to fall: From v2.
1-4 Rise through the ranks: From v2, where it is the climber tutorial. Repeat of "A step too far" from Clammings (which I think is okay because I suggested a maximum of 5 levels from each of Mazu, Clam and I.S. could stay, and that was more because I wanted to keep those levels available for filling gaps like this, not because I want to keep the best five of each).
1-5 Lemmings on the Run: From Ben Bryant's pack, skillset changed to 10 of each. I shrunk the level to 160 pixels tall, which has meant that if the player lets the lemmings walk straight forward, they land on the rock instead of splatting; I think this is okay for such an early level.
1-6 Seeing red: From mobius's Outtakes collection.
1-7 The Small Jail: From v4. Should we cut out one group of lemmings?
1-8 Dig for Victory!: From v2, originally the digger tutorial. Placing it here makes it the trap introduction level (there is one in 1-5 but it's out of the way), and also means the first 10 levels include each tileset once.
1-9 Gotta Save 'em All!: From v2 and another Clam level. See above regarding tilesets.
1-10 Over or Under: From v4. Save requirement reduced to 15/20 (from 20/20) to make it more suitable for early placement; we could add a talisman for saving 20.
1-11 Through Fire and Flames: From v4. See above discussion for moving this later than its previous placement at 1-2.
1-12 In the cavern...: From v4.
1-13 Magnetic Area: From v4. Mobius didn't like this one much but I think it's an interesting way to get used to the mesh terrain and dealing with traps at RR 99.
1-14 Neighbors: From v4.
1-15 Somewhere Under the Rainbow: From v2. Easy repeat of Changing of the Guards. Since I haven't included Lemmington Spa (see below for why), I thought this could be a good replacement, as it has a similar "float down and build up" theme.
1-16 Nothing Gold Can Stay: From v4.
1-17 Let's Play Lemmings!: From v4.
1-18 The Fearsome Foursome: From v4.
1-19 Lem Dunk: From v4. Increased RR and lowered save requirement, since we can't use (NeoLemmix) RR below 50.
1-20 Minesweeper Lemmings: From v4.

The levels in v4's first 20 that are not included are:

Snowy Caves: Long and has more hazards, so it could come later in the rank.
Pipe Dream: Not sure about including this, but if we drop "Gotta Save 'em All!" this could replace it so we still have a bubble level in the first 10.
Lemmington Spa: Especially since we can only include five weirdybeardy levels, I favour keeping the original version of this rather than the 10-of-each version.
Surrealism: 10-of-each version is trivial. WillLem suggested making it 2-of-each, which is possible, but then it would come later.
Hedonist: Not sure about this one, still might include it.
Biosphere: Builder-heavy. Could still include it in the last 10.
Patience, Young Grasshopper: I need to solve the harder version before making a decision, and the 10-of-each version is not easy and would come later.
Himalayan Lemmings: Large and not very interesting.
Crystal Caves: I'm considering using the original (harder) version instead, in which case it would come later.

The poll has now closed. Results:

Should the pack contain any 10-of-each-skill repeat levels?

Yes, even if the harder version isn't used - 5
Yes but only if the harder version is also used - 1
Not at all - 3

Accordingly, we will keep 10 (or N)-of-each repeats in the pack. This doesn't mean we have to keep exactly the set of repeat levels we currently have; I plan to add some new ones and remove some existing ones, and I'll post a concrete proposal for the first rank as soon as I can.

Quote from: mobius on April 17, 2026, 04:23:26 PMProxima and I talked about one of Ellischant's levels in discord; the miner/hell level (Harder, Better, Miner, Stronger) and Aperture science; but this kind of went for all of his levels; In testing I found multiple solutions for many of them but still felt them fun and worth including.

Yes, I agree; backroutes / unintended solutions don't necessarily completely ruin a level, and it may still be interesting enough to include. "Harder, Better, Miner, Stronger" and "The Aperture Science" are good examples of this, and we'll almost certainly keep both.

QuoteMost of Dragon's Lover's levels in this rank (they all have a good early first rank placement I felt, except maybe a few like Through Fire and Flames, which some said isn't that easy.

Just to be completely clear, when I highlighted the difficulty jump between "9 ways to live" (level 1-1 in v4) and "Through Fire and Flames" (1-2), it isn't that TFAF is out-of-place hard, it's that 9WTL is a really easy level, similar to the skill tutorials from the original game, and then there's a jump and every level in the rest of v4 Picnic is more like late Fun to early Tricky. So for version 5, I'll be looking for new N-of-each levels to fill that gap a little (and I already have some in mind; I'm just waiting for the poll to close).

QuoteI also think (if Proxima is okay with it) we should keep levels like Minesweeper Lemmings (or the more difficult repeat if not both) if possible. This genuinely was always one of my favorites and the difficult version took me a long time to solve.

We are certainly keeping Minesweeper Lemmings and its hard version, Waltz in C Sharp Miner. The only reason I had doubts about this was that we need to be able to convert the levels to RetroLemmini, but I've conferred with WillLem and he's agreed to do the work to make this possible.

Quote from: WillLem on April 17, 2026, 01:03:36 AMOK, so Proxima mentioned on Discord that we can start suggesting levels for Pack 1 Rank 1, particurly those that might make good X-of-each repeats.

Thank you -- although I was more looking to see if you had any suggestions for later levels that could have an interesting 10-of-each repeat, before we move past that stage of pack development and the opportunity is lost.

I want to clarify one thing. The vote (which ends tomorrow!) is currently strongly in favour of allowing both N-of-each repeats and "ghost repeats" (N-of-each versions of levels, without using the original level). That, of course, means that some of the existing ghost repeats can stay -- and this includes some on WillLem's keep list above, such as "Snowy Caves", "Pipe Dream" and "Lemmington Spa". Even so, for these levels, before making a decision, I intend to look at the original levels to see whether including the original level instead of the N-of-each version seems worthwhile, and I'll make a separate decision for each level on that level's own merits.

After all, even if we decide to start the pack with some N-of-each repeats, I don't think we want a first rank consisting entirely of these, so it would be good to trim the number down a little, and some of the original versions may be interesting in their own right.

This week, WillLem and I have played through the first rank of version 4 as a "Skills you can't live without" challenge, which is always interesting for N-of-each levels, and I am mindful that some of the challenge solutions we discovered may be lost if we replace these levels with their harder originals. Even so, most players will just be trying to solve the level with any solution rather than approaching them as SYCLW challenges, so how interesting the level is for a normal solution has to be the main consideration.

Replays for the Easy rank attached.

For the most part, I enjoyed this and it seems suitable to newer players. A couple of points, though:

Some levels are slightly above 160 pixels tall, meaning they scroll vertically at default zoom. There's nothing wrong with tall levels when the concept needs the level to be tall, but if it's just above 160 then the level probably doesn't need the extra height, so it would be player-friendly to keep it to 160.

Starting with Builders is an unusual choice because it's the most complicated skill. The Level 1 introduction text suggests it's aimed at players completely new to Lemmings, but doesn't tell the player what the objective is or how to assign skills.

Level 4: The background could be confused with terrain. It would be helpful for the introduction text to mention skill shadows.

Level 9: One-way walls and mining into steel appear with no introduction.

Level 10: This is one of a few levels that have an unnecessary number of lemmings -- and you haven't introduced release rate yet, so a new player will be waiting a long time.

Level 11: Clicking on 99 lemmings is really tedious. "Traps only kill one lemming at a time" could be shown with a much smaller number. (Easily the worst level in the rank.)

Level 12: Since climb-bombing is explicitly taught later, I guess you wanted the player to figure out reverse mining here. In the original game, this is first seen in "Postcard from Lemmingland", the 49th level, and is usually considered a difficulty spike even that late in!

Level 21: "These are neutral lemmings" is not very helpful; how does the player know what "these" refers to? Better to say that grey lemmings are neutral, and the diamond shows a neutral trapdoor. The solution is not very interesting.

Level 23: Typo in level title. This is indeed tough, partly because of figuring out the use of a basher to break ceilings, but the placement of the bottom basher is unnecessarily tight (you have to avoid splatting and have a lemming far enough in front to build over the gap).

Level 25: Once the route is complete, the player has to mindlessly click floaters for a while longer. Locked release rate appears without being explained. Finally, this isn't even a good illustration of "pause can be helpful" because the level is quite easy to complete without pausing!

Level 27: This has a problem spot in that if you are not careful, lemmings will turn around during the climb-bomb. This feels a bit too tough for beginners, but then, so do the levels that come after it.

Level 30: Given the title, I was expecting the right side to have to help out the left and was a little disappointed when it didn't happen.

"Four Corners" from Insane Steve's World?

On another note, I've spoken with Will and he's agreed to add the L2 Circus style to RetroLemmini. (It's used by three levels in RotL that we are probably keeping: Cry for me, Another Day at the Office, Getting a Cat Down from a Tree.) There are also some levels using the L2 Egyptian and Sports styles, which are already supported by RL.

As well as those three, RL supports the L2 Shadow style, and Will is considering adding Beach, but at the moment there are no plans to add all twelve. So, for the third pack of the RotL v5 project (the pack with new levels), allowed styles will be all the original and ONML ones, and the five L2 styles just mentioned.