Normally, if a climbing Lemming is about to hit their head on the ceiling, they have a few grace frames where they can be assigned the Shimmier tool so they traverse along the roof instead of falling back down.  However, the Shimmier cannot be assigned via right-click on a highlighted Lemming who is in that situation.

This has given me some grief lately because this is a trick that's apparently known within the community for 15 years, but which I only discovered recently after being shown it as a backroute to my level.  And that is a Digger-Blocker trick, also known as the Wild 15 Glitch.

I'll do my best to explain it in words... you start with a digger facing right... at some point another lemming enters the tunnel and is turned into a blocker on the right side of the digger... the blocker is released a split second later due to the ground from under his feet being removed, but the digger, having been inside the blocker's field of effect, is now facing left.

This trick, while its internal logic is sound, I feel is very counter-intuitive and is very unlikely going to be discovered by a player independently except maybe by complete accident.  My reasoning is as follows:

• The Blocker is immediately released with no other apparent effect, so it initially looks like a waste of a skill
• Unlike the interaction of Builders and Miners with Blockers, there is no visual indication that anything has changed with the Digger
• Builder/Blocker and Miner/Blocker interactions are something you might discover by accident during the playing of the original games (e.g. Tricky 24), and you can immediately see their effects, and then you're properly introduced to the trick of "reflecting" Builders in Mayhem 5
• The Digger-Blocker trick is very hard to pull off in the original games because of the timing and the fact you're much more likely to select the Digger instead
• Using Blockers in such close proximity to other Lemmings in the original games tends to be unreliable because of the coarseness of trigger areas (technical limitation), so the trick may not always work

The big thing that gets me is the lack of immediate visual feedback and it being hidden by another event (the Blocker being released), which to me feels very unfriendly from a UI perspective.  I personally really don't like the way that the digger is turned around by a blocker like that because the lack of visual feedback, as well as the large leap in logic required to try such a trick, is very counter-intuitive in my opinion.  And maybe this is selfish of me, but the revelation of the trick has broken a number of my levels that use the traditional eight skills, and to be told to use Stoners instead or not use Blockers because they're rare in Mayhem (wrong... 19 of the Mayhem levels have Blockers, and in levels like 5, 20 and 29, their use is fundamental to the solution) just feels like it's avoiding the issue and eschewing a traditional skill for a new creation.

I feel like that if a level is broken by this trick and it's shown in walkthrough videos by experts if a novice gets stumped on a level, they will feel somewhat irritated because there's likely no way they would have thought to try that even after 10 years of thought.  I would much rather the Digger is unaffected and be an exception to the rule for the sake of user-friendliness, especially as the Digger is going straight down and shouldn't be affected by direction in the interim, except for when they finish (or given another skill).

Now I know that there are levels out there that require the trick to solve it, and the internal logic behind the trick is perfectly within the physics rules of NeoLemmix, so there are arguments for keeping the behaviour.  I will, however, offer a compromise, and this goes for all advanced tricks:

• If you can introduce the trick within the confines and mechanics of a single level, with no text hints, and have a relative novice (who doesn't know the trick) be able to solve it, then I will accept the trick as acceptable.

I suppose I should define "a relative novice" as someone who can get through Mayhem, or at least most of the original game, so they're introduced to levels like "Compression Method 1" that introduces the quirk of traps only killing a single lemming, and "No added colours or Lemmings" that properly introduce Blocker undermining.

Welcome to the 4th instalment of this contest.  This is the first contest that I've hosted, so go easy on me.

This one is unfortunately NeoLemmix only, and uses an existing level.  I just had to wait until the end of the Level of the Year contest or at least until the level was eliminated, so as to not influence the vote.  The level in question is "It's Lemmings, Doofus!", and the challenge, should you choose to accept, is to solve it using as few different types of skill as possible - e.g. solving it with 5 Bashers counts as 1 type, but solving it with 2 Bashers and 1 Miner counts as 2 types, so scores lower.  If there's a tie, the secondary category is highest number of Lemmings saved, and if that is also tied, then the tertiary category is the lowest number of skills used overall.  Winner gets to host the next contest, or nominate another to run it.

Submit replays via PM.  Deadline for solutions is 8th June 2019, 11:59pm.  In case Colorful Arty releases a new version of the level, find attached the version that will be used for this contest.

So to reiterate, judgment is based on categories in the following order:

• Primary: Fewest types of skill used
• Secondary: Most Lemmings saved
• Tertiary: Fewest skills used overall

Good luck, have fun!

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Submissions so far:

• Forestidia / Simon (joint effort)
• Minim

Find attached a replay for "Turn around, young lemmings!"... Gentle 30 in Lemmings Redux.

In this replay (I'm attempting to save 100% using only Builders), the last lemming exits the level at about 1:41, but the time taken is reported as 0:29.18 seconds.

As an educated guess, it might be because the last lemming out of the trapdoor exits relatively quickly (albeit at ~0:36) while some stragglers spend another minute on the level and also performing tasks.

This has been observed in V12.00.01 and V12.04.00:E940A2F of NeoLemmix.

Unless I'm missing something painfully obvious, I sort of miss the ability to specify areas of terrain that are to be treated as steel.  While it should be contained over steel blocks, there are times where non-steel terrain needs to be treated as such, namely extra decoration such as moss or ice coating the steel plates so it can't be blown away and potentially make unintended pits.  Would it be possible to return this feature?

So as some of you know, I don't just make custom levels for Lemmings! Here's me talking about a level I made for Doom II.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D48lB7xivXM (I tend to go by the name "Curious Kit" these days)

I'm curious to know, does anyone here design for games outside of Lemmings, or maybe go a step further and make their own games?

So I confess this is partially based off the old "Cheapo Copycat" mechanics, but I would like to propose a new tool that, if used on a lemming, causes him to flip upside-down and be pulled towards the ceiling (or the right way up again if the lemming was already upside-down).

When upside-down, all subsequent tools perform as expected, but with the up and down directions flipped, so using a Miner will cause the lemming to move towards the top of the level, for example.

When used, the lemming will likely fall in his new direction, and might splat if not careful.

Nuances:

• The lemming inverts about his feet. This ensures the lemming doesn't become stuck in the terrain upon inversion
• A lemming walking on the ceiling can have all skills assigned to it as normal - this includes the Cloner, which will create another lemming walking upside-down, and the Inverter itself which will switch the lemming back to the floor
• Can be used on a lemming currently performing a task, which may cause their vertical direction to change in the case of Builders, for example, but will likely cause them to stop if their feet are in open air after inversion
• If used on a Swimmer, the lemming will (normally) fall out of the water
• Can be used on a Blocker, but will remain a Blocker if his feet is on terrain after inversion (which will happen if the Blocker is inside a tunnel that's only a pixel tall)
• If used on a Climber, the lemming will invert but continue to climb the wall he's climbing (albeit in the other direction)
• Splat distance is NOT reset if used on a Faller
• An inverted lemming interacts with obstructions and objects as normal
• Cannot be used on an Ohnoer (Bomber), Exiter, Flipper, Splatter, Frier/Vaporizer, Drowner or Stoner, or a lemming dying to a custom trap (because the lemming object no longer exists).
• The Inverter is not a permanent ability - if used on a Walker, the lemming afterwards will remain a Walker, just with gravity switched

The icon, I suggest, should be of a Lemming that is facing right but falling forwards, with an up arrow to his upper left, and a down arrow to his lower right.

How's it sound?