Attached the latest version of that level!  P.S. It is actually the final level of Lemmings Cranium (Chaos 30) as a kind of grand finale.

I also attached a couple of very old levels of mine.  "Sharing a Climber?" is the first level I ever made back in the early 2000s, while "Deep Freeze" has been surprisingly inspirational despite how bare-bones it is.

That's fine, but you've got an old version of Blockout there - this is the most recent version (it's Cunning 29 in Lemmings Cranium), which does patch that backroute by making the drop higher.

I don't know whether I should be honoured or to apologise!  Don't feel too frustrated though - you've helped to make our levels better, and there are a lot of levels that I've struggled to complete, and sometimes failed to complete due to not seeing an obscure trick (I never sold Diamond Mine from the previous contest in the intended way).

When the playing phase is over, I'll post replays of all the intended solutions.

Your solution to Lemming Ledger is still a backroute unfortunately, and the intended solution is a bit more involved, so unfortunately can't be an alternative.  Got to think how to patch it without making things look too ugly!

I've made the most frustrating fix for you!  V4 coming up.

I've tried to balance the arts and science too, although I have always been very focused on mathematics, physics and computing.  It hasn't stopped me from doing some art and writing though.

Quote from: JawaJuice on November 27, 2025, 08:51:59 AM...

I'll take another look It'll probably get to the point soon where I can no longer backroute it if I can't find the correct solution Thanks for the insight into the creation process! I'm no closer to solving Ice Cream Cake Part 2 btw, or Outside the Box 2. I think our brains work in quite different ways, you and I Not a bad thing at all, it just happens sometimes. I feel like your solutions sometimes require a degree of lateral thinking, which is not something I excel at - I'm a very logical person, being a computer programmer by trade! I can't even begin to do cryptic crosswords haha

Well. this is an interesting one, because I too am a computer programmer and my claim to fame is that I'm a core member and contributor of source code to the Free Pascal Compiler, specialising in optimisation and assembly language, so you can't get any more logical than that!  And yeah, I'm not too good at cryptic crosswords either, although I've managed to solve a few random clues, like "Bent coach stole confectionaries" (10 letters).

Quote from: JawaJuice on November 26, 2025, 11:36:02 PMAs a level designer, do you have any view on alternative solutions you hadn't considered? Or is everything that isn't very close to the intended solution a backroute?

I had another crack at R1, probably another backroute since I didn't use the basher. Gotta say, Crane, yours and Icho's levels are devilishly hard! XD

Backrouted again.  V3 is out.

If a solution is unique, beautiful or more difficult than what's intended, then it might be kept as a viable alternative.  It's very subjective though.

One recent example with my own levels... the original "Ice Cream Cake" was just one level with the "part two" solution as the intended one, but it had 2 bombers that were meant to be a red herring, but Armani playtested it for me and found a solution that was just too beautiful to pass up.  Coincidentally, this was at the same time that the previous contest was being run where you had to make a pair of levels with different skillsets, where one wasn't a subset of the other (so they had completely different solutions and one couldn't be performed in the other), so I withdrew my submission (which was the "Outside the box" levels) and submitted two versions of Ice Cream Cake... one with a bomber removed (to stop Armani's solution) and one with a climber removed (which wasn't required for Armani's solution)!

Sometimes you do get happy accidents.

As a level designer, backroutes are to be expected.  Obviously we hope we patched them properly, but backroutes happen, and we don't hold it against anyone if they find them.

Quote from: JawaJuice on November 26, 2025, 07:53:07 PM

Quote from: Crane on November 26, 2025, 07:45:34 PM...
Got a solution for your R3 level, which again, is almost certainly a backroute, but again, I can't see another way to do it!

Indeed it is a backroute!  V3 released.

Quote from: JawaJuice on November 26, 2025, 08:01:15 AMAnd here's your talisman A different (better!) solution.

Spoiler

Tricky to pull that off, that, having to start digging at the right spot so that the blocker falls through the 1-pixel gap to the right rather than left after the digger releases him.

EDIT: Also got a solution for your R1 level. I always dread you telling me it's another backroute - I seem better at finding backroutes for your levels than intended solutions lol

Spoiler

For the longest time, I was trying to mine down to the crowd with a climber/miner, but having used a builder to turn him around at the top, then bomb at the end of the miner tunnel but it was always one pixel too high - I'm sure you're aware of this! So I tried to find a different approach.

The talisman solution is intended, but your previous solution was a backroute, but easily fixed by lowering the height of the terrain slightly.  Obviously the regular intended solution doesn't require anywhere near as much precision, hence why the talisman is called "Now that's cheating!"

And to justify your fear, your solution to Lemming Ledger is a backroute and V2 has been released!

I'm glad they're those two things... visually enticing and deceptively difficult are good things!  Good luck, have fun!

Ah, damn, I posted the wrong version!  This was a fix I rejected because, yeah, that!  V3 incoming.

Think outside the box... *grins*

Your solution to "Redneck Redemption" is a backroute - nice find @JawaJuice.  Released V2 in the Update thread.

Indeed that is a backroute, but I think in this case it's patchable.  Updated the "Outside the box" pair.  Hmmm, I'm starting to wonder if I should rename one version to "Inside the box" just for a change!