Quote from: crispweed on July 14, 2026, 05:45:03 AMThe exit for Astral Steps is inside the glowy diggable area up above where you start.

Aha!

I looked at your game recording, and see that you chose the purple/pink slot for this map, and then there *is* no exit for this slot.

So this is a bug. (Thanks for testing and finding this.)

In the meantime, if you choose with the green slot, you *do* get an exit. (Just tried and confirmed this.)

Quote from: Proxima on July 13, 2026, 08:37:53 PMI played through the tutorial levels. Then I tried connecting as guest to see if I could get on a leaderboard for the tutorials, but doing this put me into a multiplayer lobby where I could, as far as I could see, only select from multiplayer levels. I tried one, Astral Steps, to see if I could play it as a single player anyway, and the level doesn't seem to have an exit.

So yeah, you *can* play the various multiplayer and coop levels as single player, first of all (and then you compete with other players for spots on a high-score table).

The exit for Astral Steps is inside the glowy diggable area up above where you start.

Regarding the idea of a leaderboard (high-scores) for the tutorial levels, I could add the tutorial levels to the list of levels playable online, pretty easily, but, without more involved changes, you would need to play them again (online) in order to get on those leaderboards, and most of the tutorial levels are pretty straightforward, and have an optimum solution in terms of time to exit, that I think people would converge on pretty quickly, so I'm not sure if this makes sense.

I think maybe a better way to move in this direction might be to have a bunch of 'campaign' levels, with a bit more complexity than the current tutorial levels, and playable when connected to the server so you get leaderboards.

Was there a tutorial level in particular that you were looking to play online, though?

Hi, I just put out a new version of Lockstep Arcade, playable here: https://locksteparcade.com/Client

There are a bunch of tutorial levels, playable offline (click on the "Neon Swarm" button on the line with "Tutorials", on the offline menu for these).

And then there's also support for online multiplayer versus games, and online coop play.
(For this, you will need to connect to the server, using "Connect as guest", and create a room for the Neon Swarm game.)

You can also start single player games, when connected to the server. (Create a room for Neon Swarm as for multiplayer or coop play, and then start the game without any other players.)

There are high-score tables for single player and coop games, where you get scored first by number of swarmers exited and then by the average time to exit. (Solving the levels is pretty easy, but then there's plenty of scope for optimising time to exit.)

You can also look at replays for any high scoring games, to see how the high score was achieved.

I'd be very interested to see what scores people here can get, and I'm also very interested in any feedback or thoughts, generally.
(High-scores just got cleared for the release, but, if you put up a high score I will try to beat you!)

Another update just went out for this, with a build of the client now running as a web client (so no download or installation required, just run it directly in the browser). You can run this at: https://locksteparcade.com/Client

Quote from: Simon on January 18, 2026, 01:29:28 AMInteresting idea to reuse the networking engine for multiplayer clone of Gravity Force or of Asteroids. It needs both the precise local steering and the eventual synching of attacks. I guess that missiles become deadly only ~1 second after firing, similar to how builder staircases become solid for opponents only after ~1 second.

So yeah, a similar 'delay frames' thing is going on with those missiles, as you guessed.

The standard delay frames setting of 15 seems to work quite well, generally (maybe just needing to be bumped a bit when playing with a friend who lives in China). And then, at 60fps this works out as a quarter of a second delay between local inputs and visibility of the effects of network inputs.

But those ships can move quite far in a quarter of a second!

So the missiles do a kind of transition between different synch time 'frames of reference', over a short period after firing, when, as you say, they are not deadly (do not yet have collision enabled).

They actually perform exactly the same set of updates, on both sides of the network, so as to guarantee determinism, but these updates are either accelerated or slowed down over the transition period to achieve the synchronisation..

So I posted about this previously, but I now have a game title, website, and so on. I'm actually working on a collection of (lockstep multiplayer) games, but the first game in the collection is a remake of Lemmings.

Website: locksteparcade.com

Anyone who is interested in testing this, please give me a shout!

Lots of great feedback there, thank you! (and plenty for me to get on with)

The releases *are* posted in a (theoretically) public place, since the discord channel I post these on is set to be publicly accessible, but I will consider moving these to a web page, instead.

For managing lag, I use input delay, but with a tricksy setup where each player sees other player's lemmings in old positions. For this to work out, I then implemented a thing where there is also a delay (of the same number of frames) before each player's world changes affect the other players.

You can see this graphically, if you look carefully. As your lemmings build bridges, for example, the newest bridge bits are semitransparent to indicate they only affect you, and, as your lemmings dig, the bits they just dug out are semitransparent to indicate that other player lemmings won't fall through this yet.

Thomas

Quote from: Simon on October 09, 2025, 12:13:25 AMThe 0.0.2 from your PM fixes it, thanks! It connects, the lobby works, and the level plays and displays smoothly. Scrolling works both with the middle mouse button and with the keyboard keys. Looks like all SDL 3 features work in Wine.

More feedback on the weekend.

-- Simon

Nice one. Thanks!

Thomas

Thanks for the report. Great to hear that it runs in wine.

Quote from: Simon on October 08, 2025, 12:13:00 AMAfter 0.2 seconds, the same window tells me: "Fatal Error: Client version not accepted by Server, please update your client."

Sorry! I posted a new release on discord but forgot to send this to you, as well.
(Sent, again, by PM)

(I sent you some things by PM, also.)

Quote from: Simon on October 06, 2025, 09:35:09 PMYou haven't shared the background of your project yet, thus: What's your vision? Simply make this kind of game more convenient to play (rather than via networking emulator)? Or do you have new design goals for gameplay/physics/rules/...?

So I played the original lemmings in 2 player mode, way back in the day, and really loved this.
I remember loving the whole chaos of this, and the feeling of there being many possibilities in terms of actions and strategy where streams of lemmings meet, and the feeling that it should be possible to get very good at this.

I woke up in the night recently with the idea of making a 3 player version of this, not having played any of the lemmings clones I see here.

I am now really enjoying working on the project, and feeling really productive. Not sure about final goals, with various possibilities there, but for now I really want to get to the point where it is something that is enjoyable and people want to play.

Quote from: Simon on October 06, 2025, 09:35:09 PMI run Linux. I'm happy to build from source myself. Or I run your binaries (Linux binaries directly, or Windows binaries through Wine).

So I would say try running the Windows binaries through Wine, as it would be great to know if this works, and then I will also look into making a native Linux build. (For this, please let me know what distribution and distribution version you are using.)

Quote from: Simon on October 06, 2025, 09:35:09 PMgeoo and I are experienced Lix players. I'm the author of Lix, and both of us have given extensive feedback for the Clones developers. I'm happy to write some longer posts here for you about the design background of Lix and Clones. Let me know what interests you!

So yeah, there is lots of material I should look at here, but maybe it should be up to me to do my research a bit better, with regards to lessons learned by other lemmings clones. Don't hesitate to point me to stuff, for this!

Quote from: geoo on October 06, 2025, 04:55:30 PMI'm curious to see what you've developed. Back in 2008 we tried to play Amiga Lemmings over network through emulators (and it was laggy and the gameplay wasn't great either, still good fun for the first time trying). Since then I've played a lot of networked multiplayer through Lix (and in the early days also Clones), and I think both engine and level design has come a long way since then!

Simon, the dev of Lix, might also be interested.

I'll probably be free the next two weekends. Only got Linux.

Ok, great stuff!
I've sent you some things by PM.

I'll look into making a Linux build, hopefully before the weekend, but for this please just let me know what distribution (and release version of that distribution) you are using..

I've built a competitive multiplayer version of Lemmings (2-4 players, ~3 minute matches) and need playtesters.
What it is:

Real-time competitive Lemmings gameplay
2 or 4 players per match
Short sessions (3 min per game)
Dedicated server with shared lobby

What I need:

People willing to test over the next couple of weeks
Feedback on gameplay, balance, and bugs
Ideally bring a friend (easier to get matches going)

Time commitment:

~30-45 minutes total
Can be split across multiple sessions
I'll coordinate specific playtesting windows when I'm online

How it works:

I'll send you a credential file for lobby access
Limited to 4 simultaneous games, so starting with a small group
Simple feedback form to fill out afterward

Requirements:

Current release is for Windows, but the game builds on Linux also (so let me know if you are interested in testing there)
Stable internet connection
Discord for coordination