V1.4 has been approved on RHDN! https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/7748/

This version includes the classic "Let's go!" speech sample that we all know and love, without requiring any increase in the size of the ROM! I'm really proud of that, honestly; it took a clever trick to make work. There's some slight bug fixes and QoL improvements as well! The PAL-optimized patch has been updated appropriately as well and is still included in the .ZIP file.

Nice to see this game get brought up here. I have a LOT of things to say about it, a lot of mixed feelings, a lot of things to like, a lot of things to not like (in fact, I'm planning to make a video essay about it like the J2ME games now that it's available on the Microsoft Store... for some reason). I won't wear you all out with every thought I have, but I'm happy to share some of what keeps me playing (and my biggest specific gripes), as someone who's been playing it on-and-off for a couple years by now.

I don't mind the Energy system too much; it is an artificial limit to playtime, sure, but I like how it incentivizes solving levels efficiently even without fixed skill counts. It opens up more options for solving a given level, allowing the player to reason out which one(s) will minimize energy use or minimize the risk of lemming death. Also, the game introduces new skills (yes really!) the more you play. Sadly only 2 out of 5 of them are available without having to pay, but they are mostly interesting and have different energy costs to consider. The most surprising thing about them to me is that NONE of them originate from L1 or are boring variations of L1 skills! We have tile-based equivalents of L2 skills in a modern Lemmings game!

The "Challenge" levels introduced each season are a fun way to break up a monotonous world; the goal is not to solve them efficiently but simply to get all your Lemmings out alive, as using skills does not cost you energy in these levels. Sometimes you do get a pathetically easy one, but most of the time you have to really think through your route and/or be very careful when navigating. You only get a limited number of attempts at playing these levels--not in the sense that there is an absolute maximum number of chances throughout a season, just that chances are hard to come by--so the pressure is on. Even more fun than the Challenge levels though are the Mayhem levels, which are previous seasons' Challenge levels with different additional rules. Some rules are annoying (random portals, gross) but among these are a simple time limit and a STRICT energy cap (independent of your main-game energy) which feels VERY classic and I quite like it. The energy capped levels are some of the most fun times I have playing this game.

All ads are indeed optional now, which is super nice. Most of the prompts you see between are only asking you to watch an ad for extra Energy or Lemmings, which I'm fine with. Admittedly, I'm not above watching an extra ad here and there to extend my playtime or to get through an annoying world faster, especially considering most (but not all!) levels are procedurally generated...

Speaking of which, here's my biggest problem with the game as it is. It's not THAT most levels are procedurally generated that's the problem; it's a necessity to make a game structured in this way work. What bothers me is how the few hand-crafted levels are distributed across the game. Almost always, you KNOW when you get one, as they tend to have unique terrain layouts and are sometimes even genuinely really clever puzzles. These really serve to break up the monotony of some of the worlds; it's always a pleasant surprise to see one. The problem is that when you start the game, you barely get any of them for a long time. And I mean a LONG time.

The first 4 worlds of the game each have a fair amount of hand-crafted levels. They're pretty unremarkable, but they're designed to ease the player in, because that's just good game design. After that, there are a few tutorial levels to show off a couple new mechanics and a couple "hand-crafted" levels that only exist because the procedurally generated levels they replaced were accidentally impossible to complete; they're procedurally generated levels with, like, one or two troublesome blocks removed. Aside from those unremarkable exceptions, the player goes through. NINETY. FOUR. WORLDS. Before seeing a SINGLE hand-crafted level. That is several months of your life assuming you're playing pretty frequently. That is a LOT of time for people to decide that the game is boring and never touch it again. I've managed to make it out of that drought, and from what I've heard the newest worlds they've added have TONS of well-made handcrafted levels. That's good that they're focusing more on those now, but it will take me LITERAL YEARS to get there. For most people, that time investment just isn't worth it.

Regardless, I do have fun with the game and think there's a lot to like about it. It's definitely flawed in a lot of ways, but it's not soulless.

Quote from: GigaLem on October 12, 2023, 01:30:42 AM

Quote from: The Tomato Watcher on October 11, 2023, 12:19:59 AM

Quote from: GigaLem on October 10, 2023, 03:02:17 AM
I noticed Super Nintendo Lemmings isn't on the list

Yeah, I didn't feel like including soundpacks from versions that exclusively (or almost exclusively) just reuse the original samples at different pitches and audio fidelity. If there's interest in that, however, I'll go back and make those

Wouldn't hurt to have, even if you can't have the ascending task bar

There's also some sound differences of the PC Engine version

I never replied to this, but I did in fact take your suggestion into consideration! So... I now have sound effects from every official version of the game in this folder, with only a couple exceptions:

• Toshiba J-3100 - as of today, it only exists as a collector's item and is unplayable by the general public.
• Game Gear - it technically has different sounds than the Master System version, but they are just glitched versions of the same sounds, and recording the Master System sounds was annoying enough.
• Windows - it would be pointless
• Any version of the game whose sounds are literally exactly identical to another version's (e.g. Acorn Archimedes, PS2, etc.)

Quote from: GigaLem on October 10, 2023, 03:02:17 AM
I noticed Super Nintendo Lemmings isn't on the list

Yeah, I didn't feel like including soundpacks from versions that exclusively (or almost exclusively) just reuse the original samples at different pitches and audio fidelity. If there's interest in that, however, I'll go back and make those

I went and recorded all the sound effects from (almost) every version of Lemmings that does NOT just reuse the original samples (plus a couple extra games). I've given them all NL-compatible filenames and put them in a big collection to download. This collection includes sounds from:

• Atari ST Lemmings
• Atari ST ONML
• MS-DOS Lemmings (PC Speaker, Tandy 3-Voice, and AdLib)
• ZX Spectrum Lemmings
• PC-98 Lemmings (PC Speaker and PC-9801-26K)
• Amstrad CPC Lemmings
• NES Lemmings
• NES Lemmings Improvement
• SMS Lemmings
• Genesis Lemmings
• Game Boy Lemmings
• SAM Coupé Lemmings
• Commodore 64 Lemmings
• GBC Lemmings (the sound effects in the sound test are copied almost verbatim from the Windows version, but they are used very differently in game; as such, there are two different packs for this version, one matching the sounds to their Windows counterparts, and the other reflecting how they are used in game)
• PSP Lemmings

You'll also notice a folder named "_dummy" which just exists to more-or-less "turn off" some sound effects. For example, if you wanted to play with Atari ST L1 sounds (which don't include ANY equivalent of the "Let's go!" sound and the like) and don't wish to hear the Amiga Lemmings voice samples mixed together with them, you could copy the dummy folder first to silence all sound effects, then copy the ST L1 folder. The dummy folder also contains the default "success" and "failure" jingles, since a couple soundpacks include them and you can simply turn them off in the audio settings in-game.

I can almost guarantee there's several sounds in here you'll have never heard before, so play around with them to see if you like any. Even try mixing and matching them if you want, though there are NO guarantees that the volume mixing between different soundpacks is any good at all. Enjoy!

EDIT 1/19/2024: I have updated the folder to include the sample-based versions as well!

Even though the emulator download link is dead (and I'm genuinely not sure where I found it recently, sorry about that), I would like to add a few things on top of this based on my own experimentation:

The PC-98 version actually has its own fast-forward feature, so if you find the vanilla version of the emulator, you aren't at a disadvantage The reason this fast forward feature is so obscure (aside from the manual being both Japanese and unscanned) is probably that the fast forward key (that WOULD be one key to the right of P - the pause key - on an actual PC-98 keyboard) gets mapped to END in Neko Project II (which, depending on your keyboard, you may have to hold down Fn to even use!), and there is unfortunately no way to change that without using other software.

If you wish to use the in-game fast forward feature, x32 for the CPU multiplier isn't the best choice. Much like the Windows version, fast forward speed is, to an extent anyway, dependent on CPU speed; somewhere near x8 seems to be the sweet spot for me--even setting the multiplier as low as x4 has only a small impact on non-fast-forward performance--but you may crank it a little higher for a faster fast forward if you wish. Do NOT set the multiplier any lower than x4 unless you want guaranteed slowdown and possible crashes.

As for the colors, there is a setting called "Real palettes adjust"--frustratingly buried in a dialog box--that can fix the colors. Go to Screen -> Screen option... and the dialog box will appear. Select the Timing tab and slide "Real palettes adjust" to its minimum value of -32, and the colors will be completely correct.

One last thing: by default, the few voice samples in the game are downright ear-piercing and extremely unpleasant to hear. This is only because the emulator is not set up for accurate playback of samples through the PC Speaker or the PSG by default. This time, the setting is buried in the .INI file... which, by the way, only exists after opening the executable at least once. Search for the setting BEEP_PCM, which is set to 0 by default. Set it to 3, and the emulator will now use a different strategy for playing samples through the beeper and PSG, and the samples sound MUCH less bad as a result.

V1.3 has been approved on RHDN! https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/7748/

Included in the .ZIP file is a PAL-targeted patch for those who wish to play at the slower physics rate (probably most of you) without the music being significantly affected!

Hi, I'm working on a v1.3 for this hack as of now. The biggest addition is improved cursor movement.

The original NES version would stiffly move the cursor at a constant 2px/frame, which would feel twitchy in some situations and really slow in others. In contrast, almost every other version of the game that lacks mouse control has the cursor accelerate the longer the player holds a direction until reaching a top speed. I managed to find some more free space in the ROM and was able to implement a close approximation of the SNES version's d-pad control (the gold standard IMO), just very slightly jerkier and lacking the "run" button, so to speak. The game feels so much better to play now.

Aside from that, I'm just adding some polish. I've edited the cursor graphics so that they can't blend into the terrain or other lemmings. Do let me know what you think of these new sprites.


The game also now initializes all of system RAM at power-on. Yes, the original NES version didn't do that. More or less, things just happen to work out perfectly in the code that this doesn't matter, but it's still bad practice and has already caused me several problems!

Finally, I plan on adjusting the audio mixing and fixing a very slight bug in the sound driver.

V1.2 is out now! In addition to the changes mentioned above, I managed to implement a way to skip the intro cutscene without having to wait for the screen to stop scrolling to the right.

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/7748/

Found another glitch. Classic left-right jank involving Miners and Bashers...


I've managed to fix it, though, and V1.2 is releasing very soon. I've also swapped the level layout of Fun 18 from being an "easier" version of Tricky 1, primarily because the two level's solutions are exactly the same, even with the different skillset. It's now an easier version of Mayhem 14, which is based on Mayhem 26 of Amiga Lemmings.

Before I actually release V1.2, I'd like everyone's opinion on a potential Faller animation change. Currently, they flip back and forth as they fall, much like the Master System version. This isn't a bug or anything of the sort; it's baked into the animation cycle, which means it can also be removed easily. I'm thinking about having the animation stay facing the same direction, and I've put a poll on this topic about this.

Oh yeah here's the soundtrack if any of you all are interested in that: https://youtu.be/rRW8WNkuvao

Quote from: The Tomato Watcher on May 10, 2023, 03:38:38 AM
There's gonna be a v1.1 update here in a bit, fixing the Tricky 8 bug and addressing some feedback I've gotten since release.

Beyond the bug fix, I'll be tweaking the final level--and likely some of the adjacent levels--after some feedback from roundthewheel.

Additionally, I will look into enabling assigning skills to lemmings while the game is paused--a feature available in a couple of official versions--since the game runs kinda fast at NTSC speed and the levels are more cramped. The constant pause-resume cycle can get old kinda fast, so I'm gonna look into mitigating that. Hopefully it's as simple as changing one line of code like enabling switching skills while paused was, but if it causes other issues I'm likely not gonna bother.

The update is out now! I took care of all three of those issues mentioned above and cleaned a couple things up. https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/7748/

There's gonna be a v1.1 update here in a bit, fixing the Tricky 8 bug and addressing some feedback I've gotten since release.

Beyond the bug fix, I'll be tweaking the final level--and likely some of the adjacent levels--after some feedback from roundthewheel.

Additionally, I will look into enabling assigning skills to lemmings while the game is paused--a feature available in a couple of official versions--since the game runs kinda fast at NTSC speed and the levels are more cramped. The constant pause-resume cycle can get old kinda fast, so I'm gonna look into mitigating that. Hopefully it's as simple as changing one line of code like enabling switching skills while paused was, but if it causes other issues I'm likely not gonna bother.

Talk about timing!!! The hack just got approved! Here's the romhacking.net page! https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/7748/

Quote from: The Tomato Watcher on April 15, 2023, 12:52:58 AM
On Tricky 8, something may go wrong with OAM RAM when the hatches open that causes the status bar to have incorrect graphics and the music to slow down for one frame. I have no idea why this happens, it may even depend on emulator or something, and it looks like there is absolutely zero rhyme or reason to it and there's likely nothing I can do, but since it's for one frame on one level only (so far...) I'll just have to live with it.

I solved the Tricky 8 mystery. In short, the NES PPU is jank, and through bad luck there's a lot of tiles to animate on one frame for that level, and when the hatches open, it takes juuust long enough to update those extra tiles that sprite data (written after everything else) is still being written by the time the screen is starting to be drawn, which triggers a hardware bug that corrupts the sprite data. Yay. I have an idea to mitigate this in the code, and if that fails, I can also just remove the lava from that level. If the DOS version can do stuff like that, then so can I Gonna wait till the romhacking.net submission is approved or denied though; if it does get denied for whatever reason, might as well make this one last change before officially releasing v1.0.