Created the board CustLemm, Lemmix, Golems.

Added Mindless as moderator to that board, and also to boards that looked relevant to moving/splitting topics: Levels for Other Engines, and Levl Design. If you need more moderator access, tell me.

-- Simon

I think the lack of such a board is historical. Had the 2004 forum distinguished by format, CustLemm LVL/DAT would have been the prime candidate, even before the Cheapo and Lemmini formats.

To understand what exactly you propose:

Is CustLemm/Lemmix/Golems LVL/DAT equivalent to the Lemmings 1 format except for the graphics set numbering? In L1, set 0 is dirt and set 5 doesn't exist. In ONML, set 0 is brick and set 5 doesn't exist either. In CustLemm, set 0 is dirt and 5 is brick. Or are there more differences?

Assuming that there are no other differences: I expect that Golems can't distinguish an ONML level from a CustLemm level, and would load the ONML level using an unwanted L1 set. This will be an extra reason to create the CustLemm board: What gets posted there should adhere to the CustLemm set numbering.

---

I'll sleep over it. If nobody has counterarguments, then, in 1-2 days:

• I'll make the board.
  
• I'll make Mindless moderator for that new board.
  
• I'll make Mindless moderator for all the relevant existing level boards, so Mindless can move/split the existing topics.

I have no ultimate preference yet for how exactly namida wants to group. But the first hunch is against an entire Levels category. Instead, we should group by ecosystem first (Lix -> Lix Levels, Lemmini -> Lemmini Levels) instead of a top-level group for all levels (Levels -> Lix Levels, Levels -> Lemmini Levels). Reason: Lemmini levels have more to do with Lemmini than with Lix levels.

-- Simon

Yes, both are known bugs in Lemmings for Windows 95.

Its fast-forward relies on slow 90's machines. That fast-forward is unusuable on modern machines. And the its replay system has those desynching problems.

-- Simon

I'm happy with every suggestion, except with how you recommend to rename How to Play L1 to encompass other games. The wish to play L1 is so common, it's the hook to reel outsiders into the culture. It deserves to stay in its own narrowly focused thread.

You can still make a catch-all sticky topic, which then links to How to Play L1 (and to those other games).

You can still link from How to Play L1 to other topics.

One thread stickied for L2 is indeed enough, and it can then link to others. We can make a new L2 thread to bind it together, or repurpose one of the existing ones.

-- Simon

Quote from: WillLem on December 28, 2025, 10:09:45 AMThe levels in Lemmings Plus I that were broken by the styles updates didn't use the exit top (the animated part), which happened to represent the top-left part of the exit in the styles used by these levels. This is a very unusual design choice, and the reason for the reported issue.

Okay, that lifts all of my worries. All the L1 and ONML DOS levels use exit tops and exit bottoms together. And when you replace tops by full exits (a tile that combines the old top with the old bottom), you're fine.

AFAIK, only one DMA level, Division Bell in Holiday Lemmings, ever uses an exit bottom without its exit top. It's the left-hand exit. The right-hand exit is correctly put together with a top and bottom, and you can only ever win within the time limit by going to the right-hand exit anyway.

Since you comb through the affected levels by hand, with a team even, and fix what you find, it's fine. The alternative would have been to generate the full exit from the old exit bottom, not from the old exit top.

-- Simon

Quote from: WillLem on December 28, 2025, 01:34:11 AMThe following levels have been fixed for compatibility with RetroLemmini 2.4 (specifically, styles revision 2.2):

PLEASE NOTE: Following this update, this pack is no longer compatible with SuperLemmini or SuperLemminiToo. Please continue to use V1.2 for those engines.

You have a style incompatibility in both directions: Can't play old content in new RetroLemmini, can't play new content in earlier Lemmini.

Can you even recommend all those RetroLemmini, SuperlemminiToo, ..., to play Lemmings 1 and ONML anymore? You instruct to install the DMA L1/ONML pack and say nothing about the style incompatibility.

-- Simon

Done, thanks.

-- Simon

Quote from: WillLem on December 28, 2025, 04:13:27 AM"How to play L1" should also be simplified
get that information once they've clicked the relevant link

Hmm. It's possible to make extra topics: One for vanilla Lemmix (that tells you invisible hotkeys etc.), one for Amiga Emulation with the many choices, ..., then tie them together in How to Play L1. I'm sure you can condense it to half its size like that.

There is merit in seeing the full installation instructions at a glance, without indirection. Oh, that engine requires five steps to play. Oh, this runs in the browser and requires no installation.

The main worry is: Once you redirect to separate topics, those will be generally about the individual engine, not narrowly focused about getting L1 running in that engine. Maybe that's fine, at least you're now busy installing an engine that can later play L1.

You can try. We can always revert it if it sucks.

-- Simon

I recommend to preserve this (2013 list of game engines) as it is, as an historic artifact. It's not a websearch landing pad, unlike the maintained How to Play L1 on Modern Computers.

It would be better to rewrite my half-baked How to Play and Create Custom Levels, then point to that rewrite from the 2013 list. But that's also from 2017, and I think it's good to rewrite from scratch these things every 5-10 years.

Best: Duplicate How to play L1 and adapt it to the separate task of joining custom level culture, i.e., to both playing and editing. The format of the post can still be like How to play L1. It always starts with installing some custom engine. But the choice/order/instructions of the engines will be different. Presumably CE/NL -> Lix -> RetroLemmini -> SuperLemmix (assuming you maintain that still) -> Golems (if that has custom level upload), eyeballed by how much attention these draw? You don't have to cover it all, nobody knows all of them by heat.

I'll do that in 2026 when I'm back at my main computer. Or you can spearhead it and I'll join the effort.

Either way, I'll link to the result from here.

Quote from: WillLem on December 28, 2025, 02:29:59 AMI'd also suggest that we point to this post from here as well.

"This post" is "How to play Lemmings (1991) on a modern PC" and the 2013 list already links there. It's only that the link has the older caption "How to play old Lemmings on a modern PC". Will update the link caption.

Quotemerge the two topics

I prefer to keep the duplication. Both posts are for newbies. The most common question is how to play L1, and the instructions for playing L1 should have have no clutter. Level editing is clutter. Lix is clutter.

-- Simon

Here's the full reply that I've promised.

Don't add such blinking with a 500-ms off-phase, and don't add an option for this either.

Reasoning against the option: Seven stars must align for the option to be helpful:

• The user is still ignorant of how you cancel replays. (If we know how to cancel, we need no animation nor blink.)
  
• The user must already use namida's NL.
  
• Then, he must actively choose CE over namida's NL.
  
• Then, he must decide to re-use the existing NL directory. (= He must choose not to extract CE to a new directory.)
  
• And he must make the mistake of extracting only the executable, not the images, even though you ship images in the same archive.
  
• Then, he must be annoyed by the blink enough to remember the annoyance. Being slightly annoyed isn't enough.
  
• Then, he must stumble upon the option, and associate it actively with his annoyance. Merely being annoyed doesn't help. Users suffer from bad UI enough to accept annoyance.
  

It's possible that zero users will benefit.

But meanwhile, the option will clutter the menu for every single CE user.

#2, #3, #4, #5 happen occasionally but rarely (we have one confirmed case, Guigui) and #1 must happen to even have a problem in the first place. Then #6, #7 must come on top of all that so that the option helps with the problem.

For #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 in the future, to meet the concern of #6, there are better ways to design the annoyance out of existence. E.g., minimal fast blink whenever an assignment replays, rather than continuous blinking with 50 % off.

My advice is:

• Make the R clickable, as you have. This is already an improvement by itself! Nice!
  
• Don't add any blinking when the CE executable runs in an NL tree.
  
• Maybe revisit much later for non-optional subtle {blink once, quickly, on replayed assignment} when run in an NL tree. But probably don't worry.
  

-- Simon

Added shrug.

... and I would prefer the number of smileys cut in half, and both of you should instead discuss what to cut. With every new smiley, two old smileys should be moved away, until the number in the main post form is under 30-40. Who needs 30 even.

Why do I bring this up? I'm reminded of the last such political stuckage. I was annoyed that was too hard to see, and offered as a replacement. Proxima didn't like the and as a result we kept the and added both -- the worst possible outcome. Proxima is forced to see other people post the and I am forced to load all three on the post form. What bloat. To this day, I'm still considering to just cut two of them from the post page, and put them in "more" or hide them altogether. But which to cut ...

See the issue? Either I or Silken or WillLem will not get what he wants.

Silken has reasoned what he wants and compared it with the yellow Twemojis. And he has offered his own interpretation with the orange glasses (that I rejected because the glasses were too small/would blend in). This is considerable preceding work and it's impossible to ignore, and gives substance to his own rejection (that the geek4/5 will not fit in).

I have the power to add/remove smileys, and that makes me biased. But nobody else will word the issuse similar to how I want to word it. Therefore I will argue:

Are the glasses too big? You must exaggerate in cartoons. Don't like how the glasses now line up with the face outline? Make the glasses even bigger. Or thicken the frame. With 3 pixels of frame thickness, you can even color the inside and keep the black outline.

Or are the old smileys too similar to each other? To make geek fit in, mix/exaggerate the haircuts/mouths/... of the existing smileys? That would be my preferred solution even.

It's hard. See attached geek6, a mishap with even bigger glasses, with a haircut that looks like a sitting rabbit, and with the buckteeth. I don't expect either feature to be better than 2/3/4/5, and I'd choose geek4 over geek6. But I hope it nudges somebody to say something useful.

-- Simon

The santa hat is already pulling its weight several times over.

The geek will go in as soon as I have time within the holidays. Presumably geek4 will go in, as :geek:. It looks pretty clear to me now, thanks. And the shrugging will also go in, probably as it is, as :shrug:.

-- Simon

geek2 and geek3: I see no difference without squinting. If one has more blue than the other, I'll pick the one with more blue. I think the glasses should be even bigger (fill 30 % of the space) and the lemming should get a good-boy haircut, to distinguish it. Maybe I'll upload it as-is and improve it later.

I think the shrugging is good. It's near the maximum of animation that you can have without making it annoying.

-- Simon

Right, NL doesn't have the image, therefore CE will fall back to the NL image when it can't find the second animated image. CE should work with either, and prefer the animated.

Edit: Okay, I believe I see what your worry is. Right, it's nontrivial. I'll reply within 0-2 days. Gut feeling is to postpone releasing the blink and ship CE 1.1 without.

-- Simon

Quote from: WillLem on December 19, 2025, 10:42:56 PMthe "R" icon
animated (blinks on and off every 500ms).
Question: should we make this animation optional?

You've already realized that you've implemented something annoying. Don't push the fixing work to the user; design it bearable in the first place.

Create a second image file (that NL doesn't have) that supports proper animation.

I will design a subtle animation for you as soon as you've allowed the second file. Let me know what format you need.

-- Simon