After over five years in the making, it is finally done:



Lemmings: Hall of Fame is a NeoLemmix take on Lemmings 2: The Tribes: There are 10 levels for each of the 12 Tribe tilesets. However, the Tribe styles don't remain the same back-to-back, as they do when playing through an entire tribe in Lemmings 2. Rather, just like in classical Lemmings, there are 30 levels for each of the 4 ranks, for a total of 120 levels - just like original Lemmings.

The focus is on those NeoLemmix skills that overlap with Lemmings 2: The Tribes (Jumper, Shimmier, Slider, Laserer, Swimmer, Fencer etc.). Had the Spearer and Grenader made it into NeoLemmix, they would feature on a few levels, too. (There are a couple levels in here which used to feature Spearers and/or Grenaders briefly, during the time in development when they were available.)

There is of course still the option to convert this pack to SuperLemmix, once there is a stable version - or create a second Hall-of-Fame-style pack for SuperLemmix. Some of the physics already differ quite a lot between NL and SLX (such as Shimmiers being able to turn upward corners and transition to Climbers, which is possible in original Lemmings 2: The Tribes). Thus, some of the Hall-of-Fame levels may end up with new backroutes, or become unsolvable, if they are simply converted to SuperLemmix as they are. One way or another, I definitely want to create Lemmings 2-style levels including the Spearer and Grenader eventually (I already have a few I prepared earlier). While Lemmings 2 didn't have the Grenader per se, the Bazooker or Mortar came somewhat close, and the Spearer of course does exist in Lemmings 2, albeit in a somewhat different fashion.

The music, much like on Lemmings World Tour and Lemmings Open Air, are my self-recorded versions of the Lemmings 2: The Tribes tracks. Most of these are rock versions again, though I did resort to MIDI files for the orchestra pieces (Space and Circus), to make sure the orchestra instruments played all the right notes (which were then once again fed into the Garritan Personal Orchestra 4 VST instruments). The Classic Tribe track is a combination of two of my Lemmings World Tour tracks - the same two that Lemmings 2: The Tribes combines for the Classic Tribe (tracks 02 and 04 from the original rotation). If I ever manage to complete a Lemmings 2-inspired pack for SuperLemmix, you can be sure I will re-use these tracks, the same way Lemmings Open Air re-used the tracks from Lemmings World Tour.

The link can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/774ehjwsqfaiud773oduq/Lemmings-Hall-of-Fame.zip?rlkey=v358v519pb94zeb69jepfn6xa&dl=1

A brief development history

Lemmings: Hall of Fame began development in June 2019; it was delayed multiple times, due to several skills being introduced during development - skills which I definitely wanted to feature in this pack (most notably, the Slider and the Laserer). I also took my time recording the music for it, though most of this was done last year in summer. kaywhyn's testing of the complete pack began in September 2023. Shortly afterwards, however, I moved house, so a bunch of other things had to be organised, only occasionally allowing me to look at tester replays, and fix the levels accordingly.

The final two delays were caused by a) Baldur's Gate III (that's on me  ) and b) the announcement of NeoLemmix 12.14; I was ready to release the pack for 12.13 when the 12.14 Release Candidate dropped. This brief delay however gave kaywhyn and me the opportunity to thoroughly patch up one particular level on the Gold rank, "Lemplars of steel" - and I think I can speak for both of us when I say the level is better for it now.

Finally, I just noticed while creating the level thumbnails that one of the Beach levels still had a black background - they're all supposed to have the blue background from L3 Egyptian, since the Beach levels in Lemmings 2 have a blue background, too. I hope I didn't forget changing the background on any of the Beach levels - if you still catch a black background on one, please report!

Once again, the level titles are all based on song titles, this time songs that somewhat match the mood or topic of the respective tileset.
There are four ranks, ordered by the kind of award your music might earn:
Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum

With all of this out of the way: On to the tribes!

Due to the size of the level images, I put them in a spoiler tag

BEACH

Sunshine Superlem


Lembada

OUTDOOR

Wild frontier


Welcome to the jungle

EGYPTIAN

Can you feel the Lems tonight?


Go down, Moses

CLASSIC

The Well-Lempered Clavier


Lemmings was my first love

CIRCUS

Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite


Blue Monday

MEDIEVAL

Avalon


Ai vis lo lop

HIGHLAND

Highland Lemmy


Bonny Portmore

POLAR

Trapped under ice


Black winter day

SPACE

Ziggy Stardust


Anywhere in the galaxy

SHADOW

Bad moon rising


In the air tonight

CAVELEM

Bright eyes


Back to the cave

SPORTS

Start me up


Another one bites the dust

The pack should be compatible with both NeoLemmix 12.13 (stable) and NeoLemmix 12.14 (Release Candidate).

Many thanks to kaywhyn for the extensive testing (as well as to ericderkovits for early testing).
With that, I can finally once again say: Let the show begin! 

Hi everyone,

So, I just did a mass replay check for Lemmings Hall of Fame with the new NeoLemmix 12.13. One that didn't pass was "Devil's dance floor".
The replay broke fairly early, I assume because of a change in the assignment timing of the Shimmier to a Slider?
If anything changed about the general physics for this, it's surprising it didn't lead to more replays braking.


Anyway, I've been struggling for 20 minutes to recreate the solution manually, even though I was doing everything exactly as in 12.12. Eventually, I realised I was assigning two athlete skills to the same lemming at one point (Slider and Swimmer). This was because I was relying on the usual "press left Ctrl" function to select a Walker, in order to prevent the game from assigning a Slider to a Swimmer. However, NeoLemmix still ended up giving one of the Sliders to a Swimmer.

In the hotkeys menu, left Ctrl reads as "Select Walking Lemming". The Swimmers at this point were walking (=on solid terrain), but they were not Walkers (=lemmings with no athlete skills).
The latter is what I wanted to select, and what I thought holding down Ctrl would give me.
Has the function to select a lemming that has no athlete skills been removed? Or do I need to remap the hotkeys to a different function now?

Or is this just a bug, where the Ctrl key no longer limits skill assignment to Walkers, but is still supposed to? In that case, this thread would have to be moved to the Bugs subforum.
But of course, my first step is to assume I might just be handling something the wrong way.


Steps to reproduce:
1) Just have a horde of lemmings come out at release 99, and then start assigning different athlete skills like Swimmer, Climber, Slider etc. with the left Ctrl key held down.
2) It's easiest to track if you have, say, 60 lemmings, and then 20 of each of three athletic skills.
3) If you end up with 20 Swimmers, 20 Climbers, 20 Sliders, for example, it should work properly. However, if any of them becomes an athlete, i.e. receives two different permanent skills, even though you're holding down left Ctrl, then something is off.


For the level in question, I could only complete it because I eventually started assigning the Sliders from the back of the crowd, where there were only Walkers, and the Swimmers were at the front. So I got closer and closer to the crowd of Swimmers, and by the time I reached it, I had run out of Sliders as intended, because they had all been given to the Walkers behind the Swimmers. Thus, no accidental assignment of a Slider to one of the Swimmers could occur.
But this is of course a manual workaround, and it may not work on other levels, where the lemmings are all packed together in one pit, and each lemming must still only be assigned a single athlete skill.

MOD: Split from this topic.

---

While we're at it, can we get actual downward force fields as objects, if you've already gone through the effort of programming one for the top level border?

Downward force fields as objects might be a good way to stop Fencers, Ballooners, Gliders, Shimmiers... or to stop lemmings from traversing a Laserer tunnel (even if they shouldn't stop the laser itself). In short, they'd be a really useful tool for backroute fixing.

Considering how much use we've already gotten out of the Lemmings 2-Skills Thread, in this thread, I'm doing the same hypothetical consideration for the Worms games. Given that Lemmings and Worms belonged to the same company, Team 17 (perhaps, both still do?), the parallels seem obvious: Both games deal with small, easily expendable animal creatures.

I'm only referring to the 2D Worms games here (Worms Armageddon, Worms World Party etc. - the latter of which had a non-zero influence on inspiring both Lemmings World Tour, as the name shows, and a select few levels in my earlier packs).

The main limitation here is that, with these being weapons first and foremost, and skills second, a lot of these are basically only variations of the Bomber / Grenader: Their main purpose is to create craters and/or kill enemy Worms (in SuperLemmix, that would be Zombies). However, a few of these are also utility skills, and/or do indeed have the main function of being constructive of destructive skills.



Let's get going!



Bazooka - We've considered it for SuperLemmix already, as a ranged Batter. The discussion is still ongoing.

Mortar - It sucks in Lemmings 2, it also sucks in Worms! The main difference is that it breaks down into smaller projectiles on impact; I'll discuss the potential utility of that further down below.

Homing Missile / Homing Pigeon / Patsy's Magic Bullet - A homing weapon might be more powerful than the Grenader; in fact, also potentially overpowered. Most importantly, though, I don't see how to make this work without an extra click, like the Archer, Roper etc. require it in Lemmings 2: The Tribes.

Sheep / Sheep Launcher / Super Sheep / Aqua Sheep - Launches an explosive animal that either walks, or flies through the air, or can be steered with the arrow keys - much like the Super Lemming can be steered with the mouse. Where the Super Lemming only moves a lemming around, though, this would essentially be a grenade that can be moved around the same way as the Super Lemming (assuming we wouldn't want to bring the arrow keys into the game, since they are already occupied for the purpose of directional lemming selection). An Aqua Sheep is a Super Sheep that can also be steered through water. If applied to a Super Lemming, that would mean he could also fly through water if he happened to be a Swimmer, too.

Grenade - We already have this one in SuperLemmix! The only difference is that it has a fuse / countdown in Worms, rather than exploding immediately on impact.

Cluster Bomb / Banana Bomb / Super Banana Bomb / Salvation Army / Priceless Ming Vase - These are grenades that explode into further splinters, which then in turn do further damage / create further craters. While the Banana Bomb is pretty powerful in Worms, I don't see how this could be implemented in Lemmings - at least not without creating an overly complex skill shadow that also predicts where the shrapnel is going to land.



Battle Axe - Cuts a Worm's health points in half. Not useful in Lemmings, since Lemmings don't have HP.

Earthquake - Shakes the ground so that enemy lemmings (=Zombies) might fall off cliffs and splat, go into water etc. Would only work with tumbler physics, i.e., perhaps in Lix, but not in NeoLemmix / SuperLemmix.

Shotgun / Handgun / Uzi / Minigun - We've discussed this idea, but it would basically only serve the exclusive purpose of killing Zombies - which several other skills can do as a side-effect by now.

Longbow - Would be equivalent to the Archer from Lemmings 2; I think we've already ruled this out because of the double-click requirement.

Fire Punch / Dragon Ball - This is a skill I recall proposing in the "joke skill ideas" thread, where a lemming would jump upward, carve out a little path through a ceiling, but could also punch and kill a Zombie in the process. The Dragon Ball, meanwhile, is a projectile that flies in a perfectly horizontal manner. In contrast to the shotgun, this Dragon Ball is large enough that you could reasonably assume it would also damage terrain.

Kamikaze - Another skill I brought up in the "joke skills" thread: The Worm / Lemming goes in a straight line at a fast speed, even across gaps, creating a tunnel in the process, and exploding at the end. Basically a Runner-Basher that ends in a Bomber, but can't fall down along the way.

Suicide Bomber - Identical to the Lemmings Bomber, except it poisons the Worms around it, so that they slowly start losing health. "Poison" in SuperLemmix means "turn into Zombies", so that would be pretty useless.



Prod / Baseball Bat - Both are ways to shove Worms / Lemmings off a cliff, except the Baseball Bat of course has a much longer range. We're already discussing the Lix Batter for SuperLemmix, so this is basically the same thing.

Dynamite / Mine - You can set these somewhere and run away before they explode. Like the non-lethal Bomber in Lemmings 2. Since Lemmings aren't damaged by grenades, and you can drop grenades right in front of a wall, we basically already have this. Also, I think one graphic set literally uses the Worms Mine sprite as an exit button instead. I've turned that into a joke on my Paralems level "Funny little red buttons", where I placed such buttons and one-use traps side by side.

Mole Bomb / Mole Squadron - These are Bashers / Miners / Diggers turned into projectiles (and the Mole Strike features several of them): You can throw them, they start tunneling, and once they get out of the tunnel, the next time they hit terrain, they explode. That latter part would be optional for Lemmings purposes, I'd say.

Air Strike / Napalm Strike / Mail Strike / Mine Strike / Carpet Bomb / Sheep Strike: All of these are basically just salvos of various objects that drop from the sky at the point where the player clicks in the landscape, create craters of varying sizes, killing enemy Worms (=Zombies) in the process. Too unpredictable for Lemmings - and probably also too powerful for any "kill all Zombies" level. Again, since Lemmings don't have health points, a single "damage" would be enough to take a given Zombie out. Also, since the player has to click where the strike hits, this would fall into the same exclusion criteria as the Archer, Roper etc.

Blow Torch - Now this is where it gets interesting! I once proposed this in the joke-skills thread as a tool that could go through steel (and ONLY through steel). In Worms, it's Basher, Miner, and Fencer in one, because it carves tunnels while the player can steer the worm with the arrow keys. We wouldn't have any need for the latter (it would be too overpowered). But a skill that has the dedicated purpose of going through steel might at least be an idea worth entertaining.

Pneumatic Drill - Worms' version of the Digger, except it also does damage to enemies. I don't think we need a Digger that happens to also kill Zombies. We are still considering a drill as one potential tool an upward Digger could have, though the discussion currently seems to favour a propeller?

Girder / Girder Starter Pack - Worms' version of the Builder / Platformer, which can be rotated freely and placed anywhere in the level manually by the player. No need for this, we already have these functions in Lemmings, it just works slightly differently.



Ninja Rope - A very versatile tool a Worm can use to swing around the level. I once proposed a Rope Slinger as a joke skill, which would be essentially like an inverted Pole Vaulter from Lemmings 2: A lemming could attach a rope to a ceiling (e.g., one that's not Shimmier friendly), or even just a single point of terrain (Spider-Man style) to swing across a gap, or swing up a certain height, with the latter being more like the Pole Vaulter.

Bungee - Another thing I once proposed as a one-time-use Floater, to get a lemming down safely, without turning this into a permanent skill that immediately solves all later splat falls, too. The lemming could also jump off the Bungee rope, and then hold on to walls or ceilings as a Climber / Slider / Shimmier etc.

Parachute - Works the same way in Worms as in Lemmings 2: The Tribes, except in Worms, there is wind, which can't be controlled by the player, in contrast to the fan in Lemmings 2. No need for this, we have the Floater, Glider, and Slider.

Teleport - We have teleporters in Lemmings; this would be the same thing as a skill. Again, it would require clicking twice. And in Lemmings, it seems pretty overpowered. In Worms, it's counterbalanced by the fact that the game is turn-based, and teleporting immediately ends your turn.

Scales of Justice - Evens the score of the total health points of both teams. Not applicable in Lemmings, as again, Lemmings don't have HP.



Flame Thrower - In Worms, the flames do damage to other Worms. The Flame Thrower in Lemmings 2 just creates one crater somewhat similar to the Grenader at a close distance. I think we've already concluded that this would be too narrow to add any incremental utility.

Holy Hand Grenade - Basically what happens when you combine the Grenader with the "Nuclear Bombers" gimmick from NeoLemmix 1.43: The crater gets much bigger. Hallelujah!

MB Bomb - Just a big a** bomb that slowly floats down from the sky and moves with the wind.

Petrol Bomb - Explodes and creates flames. I did once entertain the potential use of creating fire object trigger areas with a skill, in order to create an obstacle for Zombies to walk into (or for regular lemmings to walk into in those corner cases where these lemmings would mess up the puzzle solution otherwise). Still, almost certainly too fringe.

Skunk - Poisons enemies, then explodes. In Lemmings, poisoning enemies, i.e., Zombies, is pretty pointless, since poisoning is precisely what turns lemmings into Zombies in the first place.

Mad Cows / Old Woman - Pretty similar to the Sheep / Salvation Army weapons, no additional utility here.



Concrete Donkey - One of the most powerful weapons in Worms, this is a Digger that works at a distance: It falls from the sky and removes terrain in a vertically downward manner until it reaches the bottom of the level (where there is usually water in Worms levels). All enemies in that area take a bunch of damage, and unless they're thrown out of the area by the repeated impacts, they'll probably end up drowning / falling out of the level at the end.

Indian Nuclear Test - This is the "Rising Water" gimmick as a skill: It quickly raises the water level by 120 pixels within just one turn. Could be used to turn water areas into lifts for Swimmers, and/or to kill Zombies, and/or to free Blockers / Freezers that are also Swimmers (see my Lemmicks level "Here comes the flood"). It also poisons all Worms so that they start losing health points (not applicable).

Armageddon - No, this is not synonymous with the nuke: A bunch of meteors fall from the sky, creating a bunch of craters in the process and doing a whole lot of damage. Too erratic for Lemmings.



Surrender - THIS, in contrast, is indeed synonymous with the nuke. Worms actually do explode when they die, too. I'm just not sure if they also die when you surrender, or if they just wave the white flag. Technically, it's closer to just pressing Escape.

Skip Go - Skips your turn. Not applicable in Lemmings.

Select Worm - Allows you to select a different Worm on your team. Not necessary in Lemmings, since we can always freely select lemmings (except for Neutrals and Zombies, of course).

Freeze - Freezes Worms in ice cubes. Guess what, SuperLemmix already has this in the Freezer!




In short, I'd say it's mainly the tools that are interesting to Lemmings, more so than the weapons:

- Freezer (already exists)
- Grenader (already exists)
- Baseball Bat / Batter (being discussed)
- Rope Slinger? (swing across gaps / inverted Pole Vaulter)
- Bungee? (one-use floater)
- Blow Torch? (go through steel)
- Concrete Donkey? (Digger at a distance)
- Mole? (Basher / Miner as a projectile)
- Teleport as a skill? (probably too powerful)
- Kamikaze? (Runner-Basher that explodes at the end)

A few years ago, somebody here on the forums suggested that other packs could be made in a similar vein as Lemmings 2: The Tribes, with some of the most popular custom graphic sets serving as new tribes — rather than always sticking to the existing Lemmings 2 tilesets. While I am currently not planning to do such a thing, it's certainly a fun idea in general. Perhaps someone else might pick up on it, perhaps I'll attempt this myself in the far future. Currently, as some of you might know, I still have two other works in progress, one of which actually is a Lemmings 2: The Tribes-inspired pack (Lemmings: Hall of Fame), which will restrict itself to the original Lemmings 2 tilesets.

In Lemmings 2, in contrast to original Lemmings or ONML, the music is tied to the graphic sets.
In Lemmings 3D, meanwhile, there are two different tracks per graphic set / theme. (If I recall correctly, though, tileset mixing is possible in L3DEdit? Or there aren't even different tilesets to begin with, and the theme is only decided by the pre-level screen?)

So theoretically, if we wanted to create new tribes for our custom tilesets, they could have up to two tracks to go along with them.
If a pack always uses the same track for a given tileset, it would be a Tribes pack; if it alternates between two tracks per tileset, it would be a Lemmings 3D-inspired pack.

Of course, Lemmings could only use compositions that are in the public domain — and we on the forums are advised to do the same, if only in case somebody let's plays our pack, so that the videos don't get blocked by a content ID match. Therefore, most typical Lemmings music, apart from the custom-written tracks, would consist of classical music and/or traditionals.



With that in mind, here are some of my suggestions. This is not a definitive list — just some suggestions to get the idea started.

namida Lab: Symphony No. 5 (Ludwig van Beethoven)
namida Purple: Minuet in G major (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
namida Space: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star (Traditional)
namida Mineshaft: Hall of the Mountain King (Edvard Grieg)
namida Honeycomb: Flight of the Bumblebee (Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov)
namida / GigaLem Sky: Ride of the Valkyries (Richard Wagner)
namida / GigaLem Tree: The Four Seasons (Antonio Vivaldi)

Sonic Angelisland / Chaosangel (formerly "Ancient") by Gronkling: O Fortuna (Carl Orff)

Arty Underwater: What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor? (Traditional)

Raymanni Snow: Amazing Grace (Traditional)
Raymanni Toys: Ode to Joy (Ludwig van Beethoven)



For added Lemming-likeness, we'd have to look for 8-bit or MIDI versions of these tracks. Depending on whether we'd be trying to emulate playing on DOS vs. playing on Amiga / Mac.

Speaking of rewinding: I find it really odd (if not to say "annoying", "frustrating") that every replay automatically cancels when rewinding. In NeoLemmix, it only cancels when clicking. Also, there's the write replay feature (when the R icon turns blue) that allows to add skill assignments to a replay without cancelling the rest of it.

While I can understand that these features may go against the "more execution difficulty" philosophy of SuperLemmix from a player's perspective, these tools are also useful for a level designer.

• For example, I've just watched someone else's replay to one of my levels, and at one point I thought: "Wait, what did he just do there?" So I rewinded - and immediately cancelled the replay in the process. All I could do was reload the replay and watch the entire thing from the start again.
• Replay writing / editing is also useful while designing a level, to quickly test out different variations. Rather than having to go through the individual skill assignments countless times, just because you've changed one little thing. Luckily, it's still possible to save manual replays (by pressing "S" instead of "U", as it used to be the case in NeoLemmix). However, these manually saved replays of course also still get cancelled when rewinding. So you still have to redo a good portion of the solution a bunch of times, while all you're trying to assess is, e.g., the placement of a certain object.

Perhaps this is just something about my settings in the SuperLemmix player that I am yet unaware of? Or were some of these features actually removed, and deliberately so?

This is the type of thread that we'd no longer dare to open for NeoLemmix — but I must admit I also look forward to having stable and reliable physics in that engine, with the certainty that there won't be any further changes.

In SuperLemmix, meanwhile, not only are physics changes still pending (like the behaviour of the Shimmier), but new objects are still being introduced, too — or at least, their potential introduction is still being discussed.

While this makes me hesitate to create levels for SuperLemmix as long as future core physics changes to established skills / objects are likely (such as the Shimmier), it also looks like an opportunity to go back to the drawing board and wonder which of the skills we formerly considered for NeoLemmix might be suitable for SuperLemmix. Especially given the different philosophy SuperLemmix is moving towards.

And what better place to start out than with the Lemmings 2: The Tribes skills?
A game notorious for its execution difficulty might be a valuable source for an engine like SuperLemmix, that deliberately brings some execution difficulty back into the mix. The crucial point is of course not to overdo it.



For that reason, I would personally not advocate for any of the skills that rely on the fan in Lemmings 2: The Tribes.
Or instead, if they should be considered for NeoLemmix, then in some altered version that no longer requires the fan.

Wind Skills

Ballooner: This one might be interesting without the fan, since it can get up vertical obstacles that the Climber cannot pass. It would require an automatic move into the direction the lemming is currently walking, though, once it finishes. Alternatively, perhaps it could be implemented as an upward Glider, moving diagonally upwards as soon as it is assigned. This would also fit with the NeoLemmix / SuperLemmix version of the Laserer, which is diagonal, too — while L2s Laser Blaster is vertical.

Magic Carpet: This might qualify as an upward Glider, too. Or as a strictly horizontal "Flier" skill.

Jet Pack: Unless it's implemented like one of the two skills described above, I see no way of using this without the fan. Therefore, a big no from me.

Twister: In L2, this is the main skill for digging diagonally upwards. We already have two ways to do that in SuperLemmix: The Fencer and the Laserer. The only use I could therefore still see for the Twister is the previously discussed idea of an upward Digger. Again, this would require the lemming to move into the direction it is facing, once the skill has been completed. Otherwise, the lemming will fall down its own shaft, and most likely splat in the process.

Surfer: We have previously discussed the utility of "one-time use" skills, which can create an interesting restriction to design levels around. Much like the "non-permanent skills" gimmick used to do, in NeoLemmix 1.43, where Climbers / Floaters etc. would lose their skills after a single use. The Surfer would be a non-permanent Swimmer. Alternatively, the same role could be given to the Kayaker. Obviously, that makes the respective other skill redundant. So if we decide we might want this, there should only be either the Surfer OR the Kayaker.
Note that neither the Surfer nor the Kayaker would be able to dive, which is a mechanic that does come up with Swimmers every now and then.

Parachuter: A Floater that can be moved by the fan, with no added benefits. So no, I don't think we need this one.

Hang Glider: We have the Glider, so this one is superfluous, too.

Icarus Wings: Again, I can imagine this being a stand-in for some generic "flyer" skill — moving either upwards or horizontally. If considered, it should have a predictable trajectory. Even with that, it might be overpowered.



Honourable Mention: The Hoverboarder
This was a skill we briefly considered in NeoLemmix, as a similar thing to the Spearer: The lemming can fly through the air on his own hoverboard, but the hoverboard will stick in a wall like a Spearer's projectile. There is obviously some overlap with the Surfer, here, too.

With destructive skills, there are some redundant ones, too:

Destructive Skills

Scooper: A slightly steeper Miner, no need for that.
Club Basher: A Basher that creates a slightly higher tunnel, superfluous.
Stomper: I still haven't found the difference to the Digger to this day, so a big no.

Flame Thrower: This one is a little more interesting, in that it has a fixed area of destruction, much like the Bomber or Grenader. Plus, it's non-lethal. Without the Grenader, this might have been worth considering. But given that you can still use a Grenader when standing right in front of a wall, in order to create a fixed crater without losing a lemming, the Grenader can probably accomplish most things the Flame Thrower could do, and then some.

Laser Blaster: Referring to the "upward Digger" idea here again. If we decide we could use an upward Digger in SuperLemmix, it should probably be called something different, so that the Laserer remains the way it is. And then we might as well go with a vertical Twister, as described above.

Essentially, that would mean Laserer and Twister swap roles from L2 to SuperLemmix:
- The Laserer is vertical in L2, diagonal in SuperLemmix.
- The Twister often goes diagonally in L2, but might be useful as a vertical skill in SuperLemmix.

For the constructive skills, most of them have already found their way into NeoLemmix, with three notable exceptions:

The Pourer Skills

Sand Pourer, Glue Pourer, Filler: I've always found the Glue Pourer the most versatile of these three, since it can act as a Filler and a Platformer, depending on the terrain. If there's some predictable way in which the Glue could be made to "pile up", the Sand Pourer's uses could be implemented in the same skill.
In short: I think there should only be one of these three. But in order to be considered worthy of inclusion, it would probably have to be at least versatile enough to feature aspects of all three of these skills.

As for the L2 Stacker, I admit I always liked the idea of a lemming rising WITH the stack he builds. Especially now that we have Jumpers / Shimmiers / Walkers, to cancel such a Stacker anytime. Since the Stacker already exists in NeoLemmix / SuperLemmix, if a skill like the L2 Stacker should ever be considered, it would have to be named differently. "Tower Builder" or something.

Conversely, the L2 Planter essentially does what the NL / SL Stacker does. The problem with the Planter is that it works differently when facing to the left than when facing to the right, so the Planter gets a no from me.

With regards to the Shooting Skills, these are currently a unique feature of SuperLemmix over NeoLemmix:

Projectile Skills

The Spearer also covers the use of the Thrower, and some applications of the Archer.

The Grenader is basically SuperLemmix's version of the Bazooka (coincidentally, the two most frequently used weapons in the "Worms" games ^^, with both Worms and Lemmings belonging to Team 17 currently). The Mortar's use can also be covered by the Grenader.

That esentially only leaves the Roper worth considering. In the past, we contemplated the idea of the Roper being used as a downward Builder, specifically. Meaning, it should not be able to aim upwards, as it can in L2: The Tribes.

For the movement skills, some have been previously discussed for NeoLemmix already. The Jumper, Shimmier, and Slider were all taken directly from Lemmings 2, setting a good precedent here.

Spoiler

The Runner: It already exists in Lix, and the only reason it doesn't in NeoLemmix is that it tends to add execution difficulty where the NeoLemmix player wants none. For SuperLemmix, though? It seems tailor-made!

Skier / Skater: This is a really fringe skill and borders on "joke" for me. However, now that WillLem has started creating alternative water objects, such as Poison, who says that "Ice" (as it exists in L2 or perhaps Lemmings 3D) is ruled out?

Pole Vaulter: Another interesting way of overcoming non-Climber-friendly obstacles, that are also too high for the Jumper. It would probably require a skill shadow to show the lemming's trajectory, like for the Jumper.

Rock Climber: Another fringe skill. With the Dangler state already implemented in SuperLemmix, plus the Shimmier being able to move up 45° slopes (which it can't in L2), there is little extra benefit for the Rock Climber. The Rock Climber would go up even steeper slopes than the Shimmier, of course — and it would be facing the other direction while doing so.
The only thing that both Climbers and Rock Climbers can do in L2, which they can't do in NeoLemmix, is to transition from a Shimmier back into a Climber, i.e. go around an upward corner.
The interesting challenge with this is that it tends to be much harder to contain a Rock Climber than a regular Climber. Especially interesting with pre-assigned hatches. Try containing an entire crowd of Rock Climbers, because they go over almost anything!
That's something that can't happen in L2, since there are no pre-assigned skills there.
So it would be an interesting interaction in a NeoLemmix-based engine, like SuperLemmix.

Diver: Basically just a fancy Jumper, if implemented as in L2. What would be a lot more interesting, though, is if it could be assigned to a Swimmer to make him go down in a water pond, without requiring a ceiling of terrain to do so.

Attractor: This is basically just L2's Blocker in all tribes except Classic. So I don't really see any extra benefit.

SuperLem: The only skill that directly follows your mouse. Yes, it does add execution difficulty without requiring the fan. But if a player is good at handling this, especially with pausing / framestepping etc., it can single-handedly break a lot of levels, I would assume. Probably too overpowered. Keep in mind it can also be used like a Walker / Jumper / Shimmier to cancel other skills. That alone is enough to make Walkers one of the most powerful skills.

Magno Booter: This is one we previously discussed for NeoLemmix. It would probably be hard to code, though. Especially if, for added utility, it would work like the gravity-reversal objects in Lemmings Revolutoin, where Magno Booters could build / platform / stack / mine / fence / dig / laser-blast upside down.

Kayaker: See what I said above about the Surfer.

Hopper / Roller: These are really odd, in that they permanently alter the way a lemming moves through the level. While the same is true for the Runner, the Runner is just faster and jumps a little wider, which is easy to predict. With the Hopper and Roller, you never know where they're gonna bump their heads, jump a little too wide and fall down a cliff, etc. So these two get a no from me.

Finally, the Wiki page from the Lemmings Fandom also lists three more skills I've never heard of:
- the "User" (what does this even do?), from the PC MS-DOS Demo
- Magic Bridge
- Pyramider (the latter two are from Sega Master System, Game Gear, and Game Boy)

I remember WillLem being one of the most active users on the "joke ideas for skills" threads I once created. So I hope he won't mind me at least bringing this up for consideration. While some L2 skills do look like jokes to me, the question of whether we might want to cherry-pick a few more from among them for SuperLemmix is indeed meant as a serious one.



To conclude, I'd pick a few of my favourites:

- the Runner: already present in Lix, and should be comparatively easy to implement
- the Roper and the Twister: downward Builder and upward Digger, respectively. These are the only directions of movements still missing for constructive and destructive skills, as far as I am aware.
- Ballooner or Pole Vaulter: something to overcome those pesky not-Climber friendly obstacles that are way too high for a Jumper or single Builder
- the Glue Pourer: the most versatile one of the Pourer skills
- the Magno Booter: probably the one with the most versatility, especially if it's a permanent skill that can start using other skills upside down (which it can't in L2: The Tribes). Probably the hardest to implement, though.



PS: L2: The Tribes also has trampolines. With the reintroduction of Radiation and Slowfreeze being discussed (=objects that assign Bombers and Freezers), I could see a trapoline acting as an object that turns a lemming into a Jumper, but only if he falls onto it from above. It would also prevent splatting, like an anti-splat pad or updraft. To simplify things, the Jumper width could be independent of fall height (in contrast to Lemmings 3D / L2: The Tribes).

Then again, if the Runner is considered, that would already be a skill that alters the Jumper's range. So perhaps, these two questions should be discussed in context.



What are your thoughts?

One of the "tricks" or uses that I keep overlooking consistently is whenever the Blocker is used to just "park" a lemming somewhere - rather than to actually hold back or turn around any other lemmings. Instead, it's supposed to only delay or detain this one particular lemming.

I only recall having used this once, on a level from Lemmicks, to facilitate timing by placing a worker lemming in one very specific spot, and locking him there until something else happens.

Much like the Builder has a separate state (Shrugger), I'd coin this application as "the Stander".

To me, this is a dedicated use, separate from more standard Blocker applications.
It seems even less intuitive to me than abusing a Shimmier as a Jumper (for height gain) or Walker (for skill cancellation).

Even when you do spot the potential for such an application, the challenge of freeing the Blocker again later still remains.
But I often don't even think of using the Blocker this way. If I remember correctly, at least original Lemmings never required this.
Perhaps it's a requirement on some ONML levels (I don't recall those nearly as well).



But it may be something that only became popular with the skill shadows, framestepping and rewinding features of NeoLemmix.
Nepster Lems requires this trick quite frequently, though, and that pack is available for SuperLemmini, too.

The point is that using a Blocker as a "Stander" is something you would only do if that lemming MUST be saved at a later point in time.
(Unless you're making him stand in order to run into a trap together with some other lemming later, in order to "overload" the trigger, but that's a corner case.)
In other words: Every "Stander" must be freed at some point.

And that can only be done reliably in engines with features like NeoLemmix / SuperLemmix etc.
In original Lemmings, even just timing and placing a single Miner correctly, such as on "Postcard from Lemmingland" or "No added colours or lemmings", can already be quite a challenge.
And aside from Walkers (which many custom levels don't provide), the most common way to free a Blocker probably involves a Miner.
Bashers and Diggers, meanwhile, require more setup to be used for freeing a Blocker.



It's quite surprising to me that I often overlook this , despite being aware of other, more obscure Blocker tricks (such as cancelling a Digger with a Blocker, or turning around a Basher by making one of the lemmings walking past a Blocker, without either of them remaining a Blocker for more than 1 frame).

The first Lemmings games had a clear goal: They unambiguously made the players believe they were doing something good. Doing those helpless, "stupid" little Lemmings a favour by guiding them all through the dangerous level landscapes full of traps, water, and lethal drops to the exit. This holds true for Lemmings, Oh No! More Lemmings, all the Holiday Lemmings expansions, Lemmings 2: The Tribes, An All New World of Lemmings, and Lemmings 3D. I guess it also applies to the later addition that is Lemmings Paintball. But then there is still one "oddball":

Thinking about how many recent reboots of popular movie franchises have shown a trend of being less of a homage to the original work, and more of a critical deconstruction of the original (to put it politely - some of it can be more appropriately described as a nihilistic dismissal of the original, or straight-up cultural vandalism), I've been wondering whether Lemmings had such a thing, too - and, given the year of its release, if the example I'm thinking of is an accurate one, then Lemmings already did the "deconstruction of its own mythos" thing before it was "cool" and "edgy":

Lemmings Revolution starts with the premise given in the intro clip that the Weasels watched the preceding Lemmings games play out "for their own entertainment" - and hence have now captured the Lemmings to keep engaging in that form of entertainment. Which, given that we would have to assume Lemmings are sentient individuals within their universe, would be one of the most barbaric forms of entertainment imaginable.

In the context of the game Lemmings Revolution itself, while playing the levels, there still doesn't seem to be any deviation from the general premise: The Weasels are the ones who built the levels, and you, the player, are as always the person coming to the rescue to help the Lemmings escape.

But there has been an alternative interpretation going around: That the Weasels mentioned in the intro - you know, the ones who enjoyed all the previous Lemmings games "for their own entertainment" - are actually a stand-in for the players themselves. After all, the players' entertainment is contingent on the Lemmings' ordeals, including splatting, drowning, burning alive, being squashed or shred into pieces by various kinds of traps, or blowing themselves up for the supposed "greater good".

And even if, with the original Lemmings games, you could argue that DMA were actually the Weasels that built all the levels, and the players were indeed just there to "help" those "Poor Wee Creatures": By now, a lot of us have become level designers ourselves. And between the NeoLemmix community members alone, we've already created more Lemmings levels than DMA have ever made. In short, at latest by now, we are all Weasels, too.

This becomes even more cynical together with the realisation that there is no ultimate end point to level design: With Lemmings Revolution, the players could at least tell themselves that, once they had beaten all the levels and had helped all the Lemmings escape from the clutches of the Weasels, they would go back to resuming their lives outside the context of levels - as it is implied at the end of Lemmings 2 and 3. But now, with level design being open to anyone, any supposed "Happily Ever After" for those fictional beings can only ever last as long until the next Weasel maniac of a level designer comes up with a new pack, to put them all through the wringer once more.

Finally, due to the level-by-level nature of all Lemmings games (including Lemmings Paintball), Lemmings effectively only exist within the confines of a level. Thus, the only form of existence Lemmings could even "know" is indeed that of passing through a level: As soon as they've reached the exit, they cease to exist - there is no difference for a Lemming between "exit" and "exitus", since the game doesn't give him any chance at "life beyond the Thunderdome" of a level. And as soon as they're pulled back into existence, it is done for the purpose of passing through another level. Then the process repeats, potentially indefinitely.

Lemmings is a really dark game if you think about it for long enough.

The teleporter sound for the L2 Space teleporter suddenly seems to have gone missing as of the latest RC version (RC3).

Other teleporters (such as the one from orig_marble) continue to play their sounds as expected.

Having seen several possible combinations of overlapping trigger areas now that can cause confusion - updraft and trap, water and trap, water and exit, updraft and exit etc. - I was wondering once again whether it would be possible to have the same type of "shading" to the pink of overlapping trigger areas in the player that we already have in the editor.

Meaning: In the NeoLemmix editor, the more trigger areas overlap in one spot, the darker the shade of pink gets. In CPM in the player, however, it's always just the same shade of pink, no matter how many trigger areas are stacked on top of each other.

This can prevent CPM from doing what its supposed to do: Clearly showing the location of all objects and preventing anything from being (intentionally or accidentally) hidden.

Sometimes, puzzles require such overlap of trigger areas, like updrafts in front of exits, or traps inside water areas or updrafts etc.
I don't think these are unfair things to do in general.
More importantly, though, even if such trigger combinations were unfair, or are unfair in your opinion, then that's even more of a reason why CPM, as our standard "trolling-prevention tool", should be able to reveal such setups in a level and clearly make the objects overlapping in one spot easily distinguishable from one another.


Since this is not a physics change, but just one referring to the user interface, I think now is still the right time to bring this up.

This is an issue that I think was dealt with a while ago, but now it looks like it's popped up again (current stable editor version 1.35):

When you open a level containing pickup skills that have their skill count set to more than 1, while those are displayed correctly in the player, the editor resets those to 1 per pickup-skill object.

Something that's easy to overlook until you notice your replay has broken for seemingly no apparent reason.

(Edit by namida: Topic split from [BUG][PLAYER] Using shimmier/jumper to let a normal lemming enter a midair exit.)

Shimmying into the exit should definitely be allowed, though, just like swimming into the exit .

So the prevention of exiting needs to be specific to the Reacher state.

Hi everyone,

I'm getting the attached error message when I try to open my level "Holy Mountains" from Lemmings World Tour in the editor. No idea what it means.

I've updated the editor again to make sure I have the latest version, yet the error still occurs. The player meanwhile (latest stable version, not the Release Candidate yet) can run the level without any problems.

The level mainly uses one of GigaLem's Freedom Planet tilesets as well as the Sonic Angelisland tileset. The level itself is also attached.

Any ideas what might be causing this? I've edited the New-Formats version of this level before, so it definitely shouldn't have anything to do with missing or mis-named tilesets anymore. The conversion of Lemmings World Tour for New Formats has been out for a while now, after all, and it functioned perfectly fine, IchoTolot completed it long ago.

(Translation of the German parts: "Assertion error: Cancel = Quit, Repeat = Debug, Ignore = Continue --> referring to the buttons available at the bottom)

Yes, the Grenader seems much better now! I think it should be perfectly fine to accept it the way it is now into the final version!



However, I noticed a weird thing about the Slider:
It seems like it's no longer possible to slide down at the end of a Builder staircase and then transition into a Shimmier. Is this intended?

Since a Builder's staircase only consists of 1-pixel increases, its underside can be used by regular Shimmiers. Sliders can transition into Shimmiers at corners / edges.
So I don't see why it shouldn't be possible here? As a player, I would expect this transition to be possible, just like is has been so far. And we would lose a great interaction with Builders if it isn't!

For transparency, on one of my levels, it's a special case, because a Slider has to transition into a Shimmier on the underside of a staircase as it is being built. But I don't see why this should make a difference.

EDIT: Seems like it isn't possible on angled slopes of regular terrain either, if the transition is directly to an angular slope. It only works if there are at least a couple of pixels of a vertical wall before that. I've attached a test level where you can try this out.

I think this is weird. It should be perfectly possible for the Slider to turn around and transition into a Shimmier even if the terrain stripe is just 1 pixel thick. Which doesn't work either (see the second attached level).

To start off, let me wax poetic about Lemmings Migration again, which is still one of my favourite packs to this date (yes, despite it only featuring classic skills, and that's saying something, coming from me! ). And for a while, I couldn't quite figure out why. Sure, it had great puzzles, but a lot of other packs do as well. Yes, the levels where smaller, which is not as annoying as having to navigate huge landscapes on the majority of levels of a given pack. And yes, the levels looked pretty colour-wise, without depicting anything specific (as in Arty's SubLems or Gronkling's new "Rodents", for comparison). So what was it that made this pack feel so cohesive to me?

And then, while watching kaywhyn's recent LP of it, I realised: I only uses a few different tilesets!
However, at the same time, it doesn't just take the easy route and stick to the original ones either. Instead, it uses a clever mix of original, ONML, and custom tilesets that all form a nice sequence of levels.

These tilesets are all that appear in Lemmings Migration

- orig Pillar
- orig Fire
- orig Dirt
- orig Crystal
- orig Marble
- ONML Brick
- ONML Snow
- namida Mineshaft
- namida Machine

No tileset mixing, except for the very last level.

First of all, in my view, this gives the two tilesets by namida used so frequently throughout the pack loads of "street credibility", because they are just thrown into this mix of original DMA tilesets, and yet they feel like they've always been part of that group. This is different from the Lemmings Plus Series, for which they were originally created, because in that context, namida always made a couple of tilesets for one given pack and then only used those tilesets throughout. But of course, especially the earlier ones looked a lot more "rough" than original DMA tilesets, and therefore probably wouldn't have blended with them nicely if a DMA and an early namida tileset had followed each other back-to-back in two consecutive levels.

But the much more important discovery for me is here that giving your pack this a-priori limitation of "I'm only going to use these tilesets" can establish the structure and visual identity of your pack much more strongly than using a bunch of different tilesets in a seemingly random mix, as many of the larger packs do (Lemmings United, SEB Lems, my own Lemmings World Tour etc.). Those huge beasts can be pretty overwhelming, and it's easy to perceive them as chaotic if you as the player don't happen to get certain references that make the logic of why those packs are structured the way they are more apparent to you.

There are a few packs for which I've noticed this tileset-restricted design strategy - Lemmings Migration is just the best example for me. But I also remember e.g. SQRon's Snack Pack mainly sticking to ONML tilesets. Of course, as said earlier, there are the Lemmings Plus packs, each of which has a unique visual identity because each of them has its own group of tilesets. That strategy is just a little "all or nothing", because the styles were new every time, and since they're all that appear in a given Lemmings Plus pack, either the player likes them, or he/she does not.

I wouldn't really consider packs that only use original DMA tilesets (i.e. from classic Lemmings and ONML) part of this group, since a lot of them were created when no other tilesets were available yet. Meaning, the selection of tilesets to be used for the pack as a whole wasn't necessarily chosen by the pack author. By the same token, I wouldn't count Lemmings 2: The Tribes inspired packs either, like Nepster's "Return of the Tribes" or my upcoming "Lemmings: Hall of Fame", since the L2-inspiration pre-dictates what tilesets you can use (unless you want to create all new tribes of your own).

That said, there don't seem to be that many L2-inspired packs yet, and only using those tilesets exclusively will therefore still give your pack a strong and easily recognisable visual identity. Which is kind of the point of using this strategy.

Since LOA only uses classic and ONML tilesets (plus two of my own, not custom tilesets by others that I deliberately selected as my "chosen few"), and Lemmings: Hall of Fame "made that choice for me", I would argue that I personally have never actually used this strategy consciously yet. But now that I've become aware of it, I'm all the more eager to try it out myself!


I don't think Lemmings Universe, which is my idea of an astronomy-themed pack that got an overwhelming amount of support when I recently put my various ideas up for a poll, will be the right place to try this approach, though. Instead, that pack might become somewhat of a "Lemmings Space Tour", with levels trying to emulate the geology of other planets as much as possible in a visually convincing way. Meaning: Most likely by employing tileset mixing.

In contrast, I think it's safe to say that tileset mixing should be used very sparingly with the approach presented here! Why? Because it blurrs the pack's visual identity - and also that of the individual tilesets - blending them into one. Any piece can now appear on any given level, irrespective of what style it is officially part of.

Naturally, when you're aware of that, you can use this to your advantage, too: For instance, namida has already pointed out that Lemmings 3D doesn't really "think" in graphic sets; you have the different menu screens to establish the "styles" (and the two types of music for each style), but the pieces themselves can be shared between styles much more liberally. (Especially with the Army and the Golf tileset, I often have difficulties which piece is part of what.)


Finally, note that a top-down restriction, given our vast pool of different tilesets, will always feel somewhat artifical at this point.
The original DMA designers didn't have this problem; they were probably in a situation much more akin to namida when making Lemmings Plus: Design a couple new graphic sets, then make a new pack using those exclusively: None of the orig tilesets re-appeared in ONML, for example.

Now however, if we artificially limit ourselves to a specific selection of our favourite tilesets for a given pack, it would make sense to "justify" this in-game with a theme that has these restrictions as well.

Think back to the Lemmings 2: The Tribes example: Anything that involves established factions, tribes, people groups etc., anything that is split up into a few, vastly different looking regions - such themes will probably benefit from an a-priori tileset selection.



The first example that popped up in my mind was indeed to make a pack based upon the Lego Bionicle franchise, settled on an island with six different climate zones linked to the elements (which are the "standard" elements Fire, Water, Earth, and Air, but Stone and Ice are added to that and treated as if they had always been part of that group - everything in the Bionicle Universe comes in sixes, basically). Then you would have "Light" and "Shadow" as less common elements on top of that. And just like that, one could easily create a "Lemmings of Mata Nui" pack following the philosophy presented here with a consistent visual identity.

Alternatively, the "Lemmings: The Gathering" approach (which was one of the candidates in the poll that was won by Lemmings Universe) would also work, with Magic: The Gathering's five colours of mana, and/or with certain colour combinations (either the 10 two-coloured ones or the 10 three-coloured ones) being represented by different tilesets.

For Lemmings Universe, it would only work e.g. within the confines of our own solar system (as I briefly outlined in the poll thread already): One tileset per planet, and then, anytime that tileset re-appears, you know where you are again. But while we do have a Martian tileset, a Tree tileset for Earth, and a Rock tileset for e.g. the Moon or the Asteroid Belt, it's hard to make four visually distinct graphic sets that are all supposed to represent gas giants.

Don't worry, I still want to and I'm still going to do Lemmings Universe - I'm just genuinely intrigued by this approach now and feel like I want to try it.

I just noticed for the first time that, in contrast to fire, traps, buttons etc., trigger areas of updrafts don't actually display any label in clear-physics mode when hovering the mouse over them. This is especially confusing if that trigger area happens to overlap with other trigger areas, e.g. those of traps or exits.

The only other unlabelled objects, as far as I can tell, are hatches. Not sure whether those need a label in CPM. But any other type of object that currently still doesn't have a label in CPM should probably receive one.

While trying to make my levels for my next pack, Lemmings: Hall of Fame, as true to Lemmings 2: The Tribes as possible, I sometimes start out by re-building an actual Lemmings 2: The Tribes level in NeoLemmix as closely as possible, and then modifying it from there.

However, just like WillLem has recently made an attempt to recreate original Amiga Lemmings in NeoLemmix, I thought: Why not make this another community challenge?

Which levels from Lemmings 2: The Tribes can be re-created in (and thus "ported to") NeoLemmix?

I actually love the variety of skills available in Lemmings 2, and the tilesets and music tracks as well. The main thing that really bothers me about it is the horrendous execution difficulty, be it with regards to the fan, the switching between "pause selected / fast-forward selected / fan selected / skill selected", the knockback effects of certain explosive skills, or even just the hassle of restarting the level (the Amiga version doesn't contain the option to simply press ESC, you have to nuke every time you want to restart - and I'm using the Amiga version as a .bat file for the original levels, so that I can simultaneously keep kieranmillar's levels in the folder of my DOS version of Lemmings 2).

But if there's one thing that NeoLemmix can abolish easily, it's precisely this execution difficulty!

So maybe we can increase the fun of playing L2 a little by making levels from it available for NeoLemmix. My first example is a manually recreated version of Beach level 07, "SAND IN YER SARNIES". I could easily replace the Stomper with a Digger. The Runner isn't available in NeoLemmix, but it doesn't add anything apart from increasing execution speed (we have the space bar for that ). Also, I didn't add a timelimit, because most of them don't seem to serve a purpose in L2. Everything else is as in L2.



I'm sure the options for "porting levels from L2 over to NeoLemmix" will increase drastically if we do indeed end up getting all new four skills (Laserer, Slider, Spearer, and Grenader) introduced!

Steps to reproduce:
1) Assign a Stacker.
2) Make a lemming a Climber so that he can climb the stack.
3) Assign a Shimmier to the lemming while climbing the stack. At one point, he can transition into a Shimmier (i.e. turn around and shimmy into the opposite direction) as if there were a ceiling, even though there is none. It will only be for a very short time, but it can be used to turn a Climber around who would otherwise just climb straight over the stack.

I discovered this behaviour because some people kept using it to backroute some of my Lemmings Open Air levels.

I'm not calling for it to be abolished simply because I want those backroutes broken. In fact, I'm not sure whether I'd personally want to see it abolished at all, because it's a pretty cool trick once you know about it.

The question is just: Is it intentional? And more importantly, would this be in line with what you'd expect? Because it definitely wasn't expected for me at all.
Wouldn't this then also mean that there's a certain point when climbing regular walls where the lemming can transition into a Shimmier, even without a ceiling being there?

You may not be able to go to any real open-air festivals right now. And you're definitely not able to go to indoors concerts. But there is an alternative world where all human beings are 8 pixels large, and neither have to worry about infections... nor about how many of them die for other reasons. And in that world, open-air concerts are as possible as ever.

After two years in the making, the follow-up to Lemmings World Tour is finally here!



You can download both the pack itself as well as the required add-on tileset in the attachments.
Please make sure to download this tileset, strato_generalmd, as well, because it adds some miscellaneous pieces that are required to make a couple of levels work.

The music pack is the same as for Lemmings World Tour. If you don't have it yet, you can get it here!
It features my self-recorded rock / metal versions of the original Lemmings and Oh No! More Lemmings music.
(This does not include ONML track 04, because I hate it , nor the "cross-promotion" tracks of Beast, Menace, and Awesome).



Lemmings Open Air aims to recreate the feeling of playing original Lemmings while at the same time using NeoLemmix skills and features, and sticking to NeoLemmix puzzle philosophy:

- The new skills Shimmier and Jumper are front and centre in this pack.
On the first two ranks, you will only have to deal with the Shimmier. And you might be glad about that, because these levels run the Shimmier through all its gears, and might possibly demand from you every last trick you can pull off with it.
After that, the Jumper gets introduced on rank 3.

- A lot of levels make use of the expanded 10-slots skill panel.

- The tilesets are mainly the ones from original Lemmings and Oh No! More Lemmings, with a few levels in my two new custom tilesets of mine added. These should however blend nicely with the classic ones:

Autumn tileset:

Fallen leaves

Money tileset:

I need a dollar

Normally, there should be no need to re-download these two styles, since they have been part of the official styles download for a while now.


Lemmings Open Air has 120 levels, 30 for each of four ranks:
Soft, Loud, Heavy, and Hardcore

Just like in Lemmings World Tour, all the levels are named after songs.
However, in reference to the famous metal festival that is Wacken Open Air, the tracks are not ordered by how famous the songs are (as it was the case in Lemmings World Tour).
Instead, they increase in order of "heaviness", starting with largely soft pop songs and ballads and ending with the most brutal death metal ever known to Lemkind.

The title "Open Air" was also chosen because, after Lemmings World Tour, this was the first pack I started developing for New Formats - where the ceiling is no longer solid, but "open" and thus deadly. This is also referenced by one of the later levels in the pack, which was however one of the first levels I made for it, called "Forlorn skies".

Because this is a follow-up to Lemmings World Tour, even though stylistically very different, the pack expects you to know all of the tricks that especially the first two ranks of Lemmings World Tour taught you.

Of course, if you already know a lot of tricks and consider yourself an experienced player, feel free to try this even if you haven't played Lemmings World Tour yet - it's quite a huge bite to swallow, after all.
But don't be surprised if this pack hits you out of nowhere with something you might not know yet... ;-)


SOFT
Just the first two levels have all 18 skills that were available at that time (i.e. minus the Jumper) crammed into them. It's the fastest crash-course possible in NeoLemmix. And immediately after that, you're shoved out on stage and have to deliver! The songs on this rank may be fairly easy-going, but that doesn't necessarily mean the levels will be, as well...

Don't worry, be happy

Always look on the bright side of life

LOUD
Going into slightly harder territory now. Here you will find the occasional punk / rock band, and for the ballads on this rank, they're usually already power ballads, with a little more "oomph" to them. Be prepared to use the Shimmier in all kinds of non-obvious ways!

Born to be wild

November rain

HEAVY
The Jumper gets introduced on level 2. Be prepared to have it interact with the Shimmier right from the start! After all, whether the songs are glam rock or classic old-school heavy metal, we want to see all those lemming hands up in the air!

I believe in a thing called Lems

Poison

HARDCORE
These puzzles will wrench your mind as much as their titles will wrench your guts . The song titles will become less and less known as I've dredged them from the darkest depths of the Hell dimension. It's pretty much all Death- or Black Metal at this point. The final level is named after an absolute classic of the genre.

Chopped in half

Symphony of destruction


In stark contrast to Lemmings World Tour, the levels in this pack are largely abstract shapes, not specific locations or "realistic-looking" objects. The focus is on the mechanical challenge first, aesthetics come second. If the levels are pretty, that will usually just mean a nice mix of colours.

However, I've put my two very artistic Christmas levels in here (that don't actually make a lot of use of the Christmas tileset). So it feels just fitting to release this pack at the end of November.

Also, there are a few levels which were hard to completely backroute-fix despite extensive testing.
Interestingly enough, though, one level that is known to have backroutes available still managed to stump one of my testers.
Thus, when even the "unfixable" backroutes are hard to find, you know you've got a difficult pack on your hands!

Many thanks to Armani, kaywhyn, and Flopsy for pre-release testing, as well as nin10doadict (and again Armani) for early testing!
Also thanks to Nepster for introducing the Shimmier, to namida for introducing the Jumper, and obviously to both of them for creating and maintaining New-Formats NeoLemmix.


And with that, I declare this festival open!