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Messages - JawaJuice

#1
NeoLemmix Levels / Re: Heart66 easy pack
June 10, 2026, 05:39:14 PM
I did enjoy the pack, thanks! :) I'd agree with the designation of 'Easy' but there are still a few tricky levels in here (18, 50, 55, 62, 69, 83, 90 and 94 in particular, for me). I found the trickiness was usually down to the awkwardness of the terrain and needing to get to all different parts of the screen with the skills available.

I do like this kind of pack as well as hard ones because you can just solve a little puzzle or two, go away and do something else and come back to it. Bite size entertainment! With some packs, you can end up spending well over half an hour on a single level, which has its own draw, but sometimes this is the way to go! Also liked your use of varied tilesets throughout :thumbsup:

Replays attached. I dunno if you're someone who is keen to enforce intended solutions, but there're probably quite a few backroutes in here. ;)

#2
Re: the C# used in NLEditor for the Random ID generator

Quote from: WillLem on June 10, 2026, 03:31:10 PMThe bit you're interested in is this:

        private void btnRandomID_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            CurLevel.LevelID = (ulong)Utility.Random().Next() +
                              ((ulong)Utility.Random().Next() << 32);
            txtLevelID.Text = CurLevel.LevelID.ToString("X16");
        }

Yes, interesting! I'm not familiar with the Random() method in C# but I'm guessing it must do automatic seeding. In C++, if you use srand() from the standard library, you need to manually seed it with a parameter otherwise it would generate the same random number every time the program is run. I assume '<<' in this context is a left-hand bitwise shift in the same way as in C++.
#3
Ah, OK. The only time I ever used Delphi at work was back in the early Noughts, and that was for a black box wargame simulation rather than a GUI. I've sure the language has evolved out of sight since I last looked at it! In my general course of work now I don't actually do much GUI development, just the odd utility app in C#, I'm mostly on back-end development, which is all C++. Interesting to know what people are using though!
#4
NeoLemmix Levels / Re: Heart66 easy pack
June 10, 2026, 02:03:24 PM
Quote from: heart66 on June 09, 2026, 08:18:52 PMNew level 49

Firstly, welcome to the forum, heart66, and thank you for the new pack - much appreciated! :thumbsup:

I'm glad you posted this update to Level 49 because I have to say I suspected the previous version was impossible with the skills given (i.e. not enough constructive skills). This updated 49 is much more in keeping with the stated difficulty of the pack imo. As 92Dexter11 pointed out, the previous version of that level was way harder than anything else in the pack. Any chance of updating Level 68? I encountered the same issue as Dexter in that, as far as I can see, no exit_vortex object exists in the orig_crystal style. I fixed it locally by changing the style to psp_crystal, which does have exit_vortex, but using a standard exit from orig_crystal would work just as well. I'm up to level 87 currently (will post replays etc later) but I did not encounter any style issues with this level - maybe that's down to the recent Styles update, not sure. :shrug:

#5
Quote from: kaywhyn on June 10, 2026, 01:04:21 PMI personally only have experience with C++, but I haven't coded in that language in over 15 years now, as the last time I did so was back when I was in college/university. Hence, I'm not sure how much it has in common with C#, let alone C, in terms of syntax, though it wouldn't surprise me if there are some similarities, especially with C. I recently re-installed Visual Studios on my machine again and am pleased that most of my assignments from the computer programming course I took all those years ago still compile properly ;)

Not wanting to derail the thread, but this is an interesting chat to me, so hey! As a C++ coder, C# is fairly easy to pick up because both languages share a common root in C. C# actually has a fair bit in common with C++ in terms of its syntax, the main architectural difference is around memory management, so C# is more like Java in that it's a managed language where garbage collection is automated. In C, you don't have that luxury at all and are completely responsible for your program's memory allocation and management through pointers (which makes it easily the most dangerous of the three to use if you don't know what you're doing!). Modern standards of C++ have introduced smart pointers, which makes memory management significantly easier, though it's still not fully automated. The reason C# is more suitable for GUI development though, is that it's closely tied to the .NET framework so has GUI elements built in that are almost drag-and-drop through Visual Studio, compared to C++, where you'd have to plug in third party libraries like Qt. Back in the day, we used to use MFC to build GUI apps but no-one in their right mind would choose that over C# these days! Good to hear that your old projects still compile in VS - I think you mentioned that before :thumbsup:
#6
Quote from: kaywhyn on June 10, 2026, 12:43:49 PMC#

Source code for NL editor:

https://bitbucket.org/namida42/neolemmixeditor/src/master/

Ah OK, makes sense. I would choose C# as well for that kind of desktop GUI app.
#7
Quote from: Guigui on June 10, 2026, 08:33:31 AMAhah I was just making this computation too, proving that the Lemmings forum is indeed populated with many maths people (but we welcome you too JawaJuice ;)).
So yes, clicking the random ID button and getting the same ID as an already existing levelis about as likely to happen as picking Donald Trump at random among the whole USA population ... which, when you come to think of it, means it can happen !

Ha, you do need some maths for computer programming ;) Interesting reading on the probabilities there though, guys! What language is NLEditor written in out of curiosity? I'd be interested how the Random ID button is implemented, presumably some kind of seeded rand function.
#8
Thanks for the explanation, kaywhyn :thumbsup: That probably explains why it didn't seem like such an issue to me, because I've never felt the need to use the MRC. If (when?) I get to creating levels, I guess I will do. Maybe players as well as creators use it to check replay folders, but I never have, so far.
#9
Split off Heart66 easy pack

Genuine question, as it's something I've never been sure about, but why is several levels sharing the same ID such a problem? If level 5 and level 11 share the same ID, the auto-generated NXRP files are differentiated by name and each will still play when selected for their corresponding levels, no? If it is such a problem, is there any easier way of fixing it than by manually checking for dupes and opening the problematic NXLV files in NLEditor to re-generate the ID with the Random ID button?
#10
In Development / Re: Random level sharing topic!
June 02, 2026, 02:41:15 PM
And here's my solution! Like @Swerdis, I haven't checked the intended solution but I also don't think it will be much different. Nice design! :thumbsup:

#11
NeoLemmix Levels / Re: Doomsday Lemmings
June 01, 2026, 12:40:31 PM
First attempted this pack many moons ago and gave up on it, but coming back to it now, it's definitely not as hard as a good portion of the Lemmings Plus series. Some tricky levels in Apocalypse rank for sure, but only Apocalypse 7 is truly hard I would say. I'm almost certain my solution is a backroute, but the same is probably true for quite a few solutions here. Replays attached.

Fun pack overall though; zombies do make for a different kind of challenge generally, working out how to either contain them, evade them or kill them!

#12
Hi Nessy! Great to see you back, and nice to meet to meet you! :) Gotta say, I really enjoyed playing through Destination, and Migration, both excellent packs! :thumbsup:

#13
I've played a lot of these levels before but it was fun to play through them again and refresh my memory. The main stuff I hadn't played was the majority of 92Dexter11's Lock & Key levels and a few from LDC 32. Overall, lots of ingenious design and you can definitely see why everything has been nominated for LOTY 2025 - worthy contenders all! :thumbsup: Good luck to everyone!

By and large, there's nothing particularly easy here! On the contrary, it makes for a challenging pack! I will say that aside from Armani's and Guigui's input, which I already knew, the levels from Lock & Key are comfortably the hardest ('No Looking Back' especially), occasionally utilizing quite obscure tricks but more often than not, just non-obvious solutions that take a very long time and lots of trial and error to figure out! 'kaywhyn's Organic National Park' gave them a good run for their money though; had me stumped for ages, that one!

I'll attach all of my replays and maybe the respective authors can let me know if I've discovered any unacceptable backroutes!

#14
@IchoTolot I think what happened there is that you never backrouted that level in the first place - so saying there were no more backroutes in your solutions was technically true. Having watched your LP after I finished play-testing that pack, I noticed you hit on the intended solution first time more often than not. The many iterations of levels, and that level in particular, were down to the fact that some players (myself included) were persistently backrouting it!

Appreciate what you're saying about only curating this pack for peoples' convenience, I just thought I'd point it out. :)

#15
Also, also... I don't think you've included the right version of the Save One level, 'Blues Walk With Me' :) 'Blues' was what the level was called originally, in the first release of Save One. IIRC the final version featured a button. @Guigui can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is the final version of the level (attached).

mod edit: Removed level attachment, per Icho's reply below. For LOTY in general, level updates should be left to the responsibility of the nominated authors themselves to post for Icho to include in the LOTY pack.