Welcome to Proxima's Reviews!

So, this is an idea I've had for a while; it wasn't inspired by DireKrow's thread, although we have been talking about our threads in discord and mutually encouraging each other.

I've been around the custom Lemmings scene for a long time now, but I haven't actually finished very many packs. So I decided, as a way to motivate myself, that every time I finish a pack, I will post a review -- not level by level as with DireKrow's thread, but of the pack as a whole. I will concentrate on the following aspects:

Identity -- Pack name and date, name of original author and current maintainer (if any)
Statistics -- Number of levels and ranks, talismans
Features -- Does the pack use NeoLemmix's new skills and objects? Does it have any special gimmicks? (I am not trying to make a point about the new skills/objects being good or bad. It's just that because of the way NeoLemmix has developed and many level packs from older engines have been ported to NL, there is a fairly sharp divide between packs that use the new features and ones that don't; so this is a point of interest for anyone reading about the pack.)
Historical context -- What engine the pack was originally made for; features of interest about the process of converting it for NL (such as added or removed levels); the impact the pack has had on the development of the community. Here in particular, I'll try to do my research, but there will often be a lot I don't know and I'm open to adding information if anyone has anything to contribute.
Thoughts on the pack -- The meat of the review Here I will talk about how much I enjoyed the pack as a whole; any particular favourite levels; I'll try to concentrate on the positives, but if there are any un-favourite levels I might mention that too
Difficulty -- What level of player would I recommend it for? Is the difficulty fairly steady throughout the pack or is there a wide range?
Overall impression -- A summary to finish with.

I was hoping to start with either Lemmings Plus I or GeoffLems, but I haven't been able to finish either of those yet, and since DireKrow is reviewing MazuLems, and I've played that pack before in Lix but some of the Lix mechanics are not exactly true to the original game, I decided to quickly play through MazuLems so I could read DireKrow's reviews without spoilers. So, MazuLems ended up being the first pack (other than Lemmings Redux) I've truly finished in NeoLemmix, and will be my first review.

Requesting a review

If you would like me to review your pack, or have a suggestion for a pack I should play, that's great, but please be patient. My #1 rule is that before reviewing a pack, I have to solve every level without help. I also don't want to have too many packs I'm in the middle of playing at any one time. Also, I will only review packs playable on NL 12.7 or later, so no old-formats or gimmicks packs, or packs for other engines.

Packs I am currently playing

GeoffLems
PimoLems
Lemmings Migration
Lemmings Plus II

Review index

#1 MazuLems
#2 MiniLems
#3 Sammings
#4 Tame Gone Wild
#5 Lemminas
#6 Lemmings Plus I
#7 DoveLems
#8 Lemmings DD

*

"Fewest different skill types" was an interesting challenge, and while the talisman system partially supports this challenge (in that we can have "use only skill X" talismans), it would be good to expand this to support levels that require more than one skill type.

At the moment, there are a few issues with the user interface for informing players about talismans:

Multiple talismans on one level are not easily discoverable.
The game doesn't display the requirements of a talisman you've previously beaten. (You may want to check these when writing a review of the level, or posting a challenge for the level.) It's true that you can check via the F4 list of all talismans for the pack, but this is a little awkward, and a quick way of checking while in the level itself would be welcome.
The preview screen layout leaves space for a talisman, whether or not there is one. (I don't have an issue with this, but Strato found it ugly.) However, the preview screen can only show one talisman, and it doesn't cope well with talismans with complex requirements. (Link to previous discussion of the last point.)

Some ideas for improving this:

* Have a hotkey that brings up a window displaying all talismans for the current level. This could be a pop-up that pauses the game until dismissed. It should be available both during play and on the preview screen. (ccexplore suggested something along these lines, in the topic linked above.)
* Replace the preview screen's talisman display with "X of Y talismans unlocked" and a reminder of what the talisman-display hotkey is.
* On the postview screen, if multiple talismans exist, replace "You unlocked a talisman!" with "X of Y talismans unlocked!". (Consideration: in this case should X be the number the player has just unlocked with their level completion, or the total number unlocked on the level? I think the latter would be more helpful.)

1. When the game is paused and I restart, I prefer it to stay paused -- firstly because I often want to wipe the slate and start thinking about the level afresh; also because it gives me a way to adjust actions very early in a replay, which is awkward to do at the moment. (Admittedly, if there's a strong objection to this change, I could still tweak NL to get my desired behaviour, by not having a restart hotkey and making R a -10,000 frameskip.)

2. Always exit replay-insert mode when starting a new level or restarting the current level.

3. Fast forward should unpause automatically.

In clear physics mode, one-way walls have arrows to show their existence, but it would be better still if their terrain pixels were also recoloured to show their precise boundaries. That would, for example, allow the player to know whether it's possible to bash in between a OWW and a deadly object without having to experiement.

In Lemmings Plus I, the Medi 1 talisman doesn't display correctly in-game because it has too many requirements (it has a maximum allowed number for every skill). It does display correctly in the talisman list, but it's not ideal to have to exit play to go and look at that.

Another concern is that the more requirements a talisman has, the harder it is to remember exactly what the requirements are; and it's not much fun if you have to keep exiting play to check them. Maybe there should just be a limit on how many requirements a talisman is allowed to have?

To reproduce: Play a level with 10 lemmings, 10 required (e.g. Fun 4).

The lemming count turns red as soon as one lemming is saved.

My understanding is that the lemming count should only turn red when there are not enough lemmings remaining to solve the level. I assume the engine is testing whether the remaining lemmings are less than the original save requirement, not taking into account that some lemmings have already been saved.

To reproduce: Play the level "Private room available" (Present 29, in Extra Levels). Select digger, and hover over a lemming as he walks along the top platform.

Expected: The skill shadow will vary in height, indicating how far the digger will go before he stops.

Observed: The skill shadow is always the same height.