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Messages - WillLem

#1
NeoLemmix Levels / Re: [NFNL] Insane Steve's World
April 17, 2026, 03:09:13 AM
Quote from: Piedro0 on April 16, 2026, 10:24:44 PMNope, still not loading. Maybe it's because i'm using CE?

It's not a CE issue. ericderkovits has tracked down the cause of the error you're seeing: it has to do with the piece names in the style itself. In the actual style, the piece names don't have underscores, but in the levels that use this style, for some reason underscores snuck in.

Eric's now fixed this and sent the levels to me via Discord (which you're welcome to join). Download the attached levels and replace them in your copy of the pack.

@kaywhyn Would you be happy to replace these levels in the OP attachment? Thanks.

#2
OK, 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.

These would be my top picks:

9 Ways To Live - perfect start to the pack, an excellent take on tutorial levels in general
Over or Under - provides an interesting challenge, and multiple possible ways to solve it
Snowy Caves - snow levels usually aren't my favourite, but this one is very well put together. 20 of each is excessive though, 10-15 would probably be fine
Pipe Dream - this gets more interesting the more you look at it. I'd probably suggest reducing it to 3 or 4 of each
Lemmington Spa - presents multiple 'get down from there' challenges in a single level, but isn't too difficult for the first rank by any means
Surrealism - probably my favourite level visually, could be good as a 2 of each
Neighbours - rock levels usually put me off, but this one is very well done as a 'use this crowd to save that crowd' challenge
Let's Play Lemmings! - very good pillar level, well put-together and requires use of several different skills to get a basic solution. Shame it doesn't make use of the OWW, but other than that it's a decent candidate for inclusion
Crystal Caves - this one's a classic custom level, and makes for an interesting challenge given only 1 Basher
Lem Dunk - a favourite of mine, just a shame it isn't possible to save 100%! :(
Minesweeper Lemmings - include it for sure, maybe reduce the X to some amount that makes the level require floaters?
THE FEARSOME FOURSOME - excellent level, a great multi-tasker with many possible solutions, perfect for X of each

In general, my criteria for X-of-all repeats would be: how many different skills are needed to create a basic solution? If the level can be done with just one or two skills, it's perhaps either not worth including, or the X amount should be reduced so that other skills need to be used.

That's it for now, I'll report back more when I've worked through more of the pack.
#3
Site Discussion / Re: Lemojis!
April 17, 2026, 12:30:09 AM
I agree with Simon, these are all excellent. Nice work, Lana! :thumbsup:

It looks like Simon will already be adding them, but just to document some comments anyway:

Quote from: Lana T. on April 15, 2026, 04:25:25 PMI wasn't sure how to update the "surprised" one. Each time I retouched the pupils, it looked weird and bad, so I added an exclamation mark instead:

Good call.

Quote from: Lana T. on April 15, 2026, 04:25:25 PM"Lemcat" has his little nose:

Much better, thanks! :lemcat: This one is probably my favourite.

Quote from: Lana T. on April 15, 2026, 04:25:25 PMHere are the two new versions of "sleep":


The one on the right (with the Zs) is the best IMO.

Quote from: Lana T. on April 15, 2026, 04:25:25 PMNerd:


Perfect! The raised finger is a nice touch, and definitely makes it clearer. I'll use this one when I'm nerdsplaining, for sure!

Quote from: Lana T. on April 15, 2026, 04:25:25 PMAngel:


Lip Sealed:


We must have these. Simon, please add them.

Quote from: Lana T. on April 15, 2026, 04:25:25 PMTo be honest, the hands in some of the lemoticons are still bugging me, but I can't spend more time on them when I still have other ones to finish.

Take your time and make whatever changes you need to. If Simon uploads what you have for now, I imagine it will be easy enough to replace them later if you've made revisions.
#4
Quote from: kaywhyn on April 16, 2026, 01:05:21 PMI'll see if I can interpret what you mean correctly. If you mean what I think you mean, essentially your approach goes like, "I choose this level, that level, etc." without needing to necessarily play the levels beforehand as your list we can analyze as a group to see what we can further cut down. Yea, this way of doing so would likely introduce arbitrary bias as Proxima mentioned. I'm definitely not in favor of randomly picking levels that should and shouldn't make the cut without properly analyzing the levels first

I've highlighted in yellow bold the parts that are being misunderstood.

The following is the approach I suggested, as clearly as I can make it. I've spoiler tagged it to make this post smaller as this part of the conversation has taken up enough of this topic already!

Suggested approach, and discussion thereof
(1) Make a list of 30 x 4 levels which will form the "working playlist" (Draft 1) - they can be any levels at this point, and have no priority over anything not on the list. We do NOT decide at this point which levels should and shouldn't make the cut.

(2) Play through every level in the total pool (i.e. all levels on the list, and all levels off the list). During this step, we make notes, update any levels that need updating, and identify which levels should and shouldn't make the cut.

(3) Having completed step 2, we should now have a more firm idea of which levels will actually make it into the pack. We go through the process of swapping, moving, and replacing all levels in Draft 1 until we have Draft 2, which will be much closer to what the pack will actually end up looking like.

(4) Play through Draft 2 as if it's the completed pack, making note of how well the levels flow from one to another, etc. to get Draft 3, which would likely be a release candidate by that point.

All that's happened is, Proxima doesn't think step (1) is necessary and so we're starting from step (2). And that's fine, level selection was delegated to him for a reason and I'm happy to support the approach he wants to take - he has my full confidence.

The only difference it will actually make is to step (3). I imagine that it might it take a bit longer or be slightly more difficult if we don't already have a working list at that point. Then again, it might not. I could be wrong. It's natural for me to want to refer to a method has repeatedly worked for my own projects when suggesting how to go about this particular project - but, of course, I'm always happy to try new ways of doing things! :)

Anyway - by now, I'm explaining this only because I dislike misunderstandings. I haven't suggested rushing anything; on the contrary, my suggestion was that we add an extra step, which would actually slow the process down initially, but (maybe) make a later part of the process quicker and easier.

Think of it like this: when you take your washing out of the dryer, do you first sort everything into piles by clothing type (shirts, t-shirts, pants, socks, etc) or do you sort through the whole pile one item at a time? Is that first step necessary? I'd argue it is. It makes it much easier to see what you're dealing with, makes the total task feel less daunting, and increases the chances that the task will get completed by > 0% ;)



Again, bottom line: I'm no longer making the case for my suggested approach at this point. We've already decided to do it Proxima's way and that's absolutely fine by me. Happy to leave it there and move on :)

#5
Quote from: roltemurto on April 14, 2026, 09:44:07 AMCongratulations on the 3.1 Update!!!
Personally I think it's a work of art!
...
May life put a smile on your face. Have a wonderful day!

Thank you for you kind words of appreciation. They are a rare currency in this day and age, I shall treasure them :lemcat:
#6
Quote from: kaywhyn on April 15, 2026, 12:34:53 AMthe problem was with you suggesting it be done quickly, which Proxima and I think isn't the approach to take with this. There's a lot of levels to scrutinize here, and that will take a lot of time in general.

There has definitely been a misunderstanding about what I mean by 'first draft'. Essentially, what yourself and Proxima want to do is skip what I'm calling the 'first draft' and go straight to sorting through the levels.

And that's totally fine, as I said previously I support whatever approach Proxima wants to take. If it doesn't help you guys to have a 'working playlist' (which is probably a better descriptor for what I'm referring to than 'first draft'), that's not a problem. Do what works best for you.

Anyways, take all the time you need with sorting through the levels. You're right, it's important not to rush that particular part of the project.
#7
And, this should now be fully fixed. We can now prioritise objects by type rather than individually.

So, all OWWs have equal priority, and lower priority than all traps, which have lower priority than all force fields/blockers, which have lower priority than exits. This is the list in full:

    static final int PRIORITY_GADGET_MASK =
        Stencil.MSK_EXIT
          | Stencil.MSK_BLOCKER
          | Stencil.MSK_TURN
          | Stencil.MSK_TRAP_FIRE
          | Stencil.MSK_TRAP_REMOVE
          | Stencil.MSK_TRAP_LIQUID
          | Stencil.MSK_ONE_WAY;

This additional layer of abstraction is the key; we now have fully working object prioritisation in RetroLemmini.

And, OWWs can be overlapped exactly as before (i.e. in previous versions of Lemmini)!

Fixed in RLPlayer commit 1285213.
#8
OK, I'm a step closer to having this fixed.

It turns out that OWWs (and indeed any objects) were never truly 'overlapping', at least not in the sense that their triggers were all effective at the same time. Lemmini has always had index-based prioritisation for objects. So, whichever object was drawn last occupies any given trigger pixel.

For instance, in previous versions of Lemmini, laying a OWW over a fire object will override the fire object.

I wanted to fix this in RetroLemmini by hard-coding the object prioritisation, with Exits being at the highest priority. This was all well and good apart from the fact that each individual OWW object had to be prioritised separately, which is why any levels using overlapping OWWs were suddenly broken: RetroLemmini was pre-selecting which OWW object should be at the highest priorty, regardless of draw order (which is what the levels relied upon previously).

I've implemented a fix in which Exits are now the only object which is prioritised over all others (RLPlayer commit d8ae78d). All other objects are once again prioritised by draw order. However, I'd like to see if I can refine this further. It seems silly that a OWW overlapping a fire or water object should effectively nullify the fire or water.

Further work is needed.
#9
OK... frustratingly, the revert didn't actually fix the issue. I've now reverted the revert!

So, we can overlap OWWs again, but there is some wierd stuff happening when they overlap. I'll come back to this later.
#10
OK, I've had to revert allowing overlapping OWWs, at least for now.

The new bit handling system requires certain mask types to bypass prioritisation, and in order to preserve OWW overlapping behaviour from previous versions of Lemmini, I added OWW objects to the bypass list.

Doing so unfortunately created a side effect where terrain with overlapping OWWs would sometimes not be erased (correct), but the lem could still move through it (obviously not correct). I'm not sure exactly why this was happening, but removing OWW objects from the bypass list instantly restores good behaviour.

The revert does mean that it's once again not possible to overlap OWWs in RetroLemmini and have them all be effective. Instead, a OWW can only be guaranteed effective wherever it doesn't overlap with another. In fact, the built-in priority is (highest to lowest): Up > Down > Left > Right.

Any existing Lemmini levels which use overlapping OWWs to create Bash/Mine-proof terrain will therefore need to use individual Upwards-facing OWWs, rather than overlapping Left and Right OWWs, to get essentially the same effect (that is, if they're ported to RetroLemmini).

So, I'll supplement this with the addition of Upwards & Downwards-facing OWWs to all of the OG styles in due course. Any levels which require this effect will therefore have a purpose-specific object at the ready.

EDIT: Commit dropped.
#11
In addition to the above, another similar bug has had to be addressed. I've posted  here regarding that one.
#12
Fixed in RLPlayer commit 5a26622.

This is a physics update and could break existing replays, but only if they specifically involve turning a Miner on a OWW.
#13
Thanks to hrb264 for reporting this one on Discord.

The replay is for the DoveLems level Maze in a Clepsydra, but the glitch will happen wherever this precise setup occurs:

A lemming is walking across a platform <=2px in height.
The platform has a OWW facing the opposite direction of the walking lemming.
The walking lemming is assigned a Miner.

Expected outcome:

No terrain is destroyed. The lemming stops mining and turns to walk back the way they came (i.e. facing in the same direction as the OWW)

Actual outcome:

No terrain is destroyed, but the lemming completes a full miner swing and steps through the <=2px platform, falling through the other side. They remain facing in the same direction (i.e. the opposite direction to the OWW).



Possible cause:

Best guess is that the miner detects the OWW too late, and has completed a swing (during which their Y position is increased) before they react to it. We need to detect the OWW earlier and adjust the miner's journey appropriately.

#14
Quote from: Proxima on April 12, 2026, 03:54:02 PMI think we should add some new ones to help out the very beginning of the pack, while dropping some of the less interesting existing ones.

You're definitely thinking along the right lines as far as pack approachability is concerned; your post above has my full support.

Two additional suggestions that might be worth considering:

1) When deciding which levels to feature as "X-of-each", look to the general layout of the level. The more detailed and featured it is, the more likely an X-of-everything version will work well in its own right. I'm sure you're already aware of this, but just thought it was worth mentioning in-topic. Also, I'm happy to post a list of possible candidates when the time comes (i.e. if you're taking suggestions on specific levels).

2) Consider that not all X-of-everything needs to be 10. For instance, 5, 3 and even 1 of everything can make for great quality accessible levels. I'd suggest adjusting X to suit the level layout being used. Again, I'm sure you're already aware of this anyways :)
#15
We need a volunteer (or several volunteers) to give the 2 attached style sets a hi-res retrofit.

The images have already been scaled up to 200% using nearest neighbour, so are currently identical to their low-res counterparts. The idea will be to add pixels around the edges, perhaps make the shading pop a bit more, and just generally upgrade the pieces to befit a hi-res platform such as RetroLemmini or Lix.

If nobody wishes to take this on, we can use the pieces as they are of course, but a hi-res upgrade by one of the community's artists would be a particularly nice bonus.

There's no rush on this, it will likely be several months before they're actually needed. If you want to get involved, feel free to grab the styles and have at them!