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Messages - IchoTolot

#1
NeoLemmix Levels / Re: Fiat Lem! (Let there be Lemmings!)
February 04, 2025, 05:12:12 PM
I have updated my replays after the latest patch also patched some of my backroutes.  ;P

@Pieuw  Better to process those new ones as the older partly do not work anymore.
#2
Community Edition / Re: Roadmap for CE 1.0
February 02, 2025, 07:32:55 PM
I know it's not that slow, but I just saw the bar and thought "hmm can I cancel this?" and then fell right into the problem.  ;)

I replicated the unresponsiveness again:

I searched for a phrase (in my case "epitome" for the last United level) - search begins and then I clicked a couple of times on "close" in the bottom right corner -> NL does not respond anymore.

I can close during searches and I do have the cursor - I also want to keep it.  ;) 

I do think the ability to interrupt is a good thing.
#3
Community Edition / Re: Roadmap for CE 1.0
February 02, 2025, 12:26:45 PM
A first test run of the player.  :)

Critical things:

- I managed to make the program not respond anymore and even after waiting for a few mins it did not solve the issue: I searched for a level - this took long and I wanted to cancel the search - So i simply pressed close on the level select menu. That did not go well!
Expected: Search gets interrupted and the window closes.

- The menu transtions are now really slow. It's like 100% more time for switching screens. Is it because of the  smoother transitions?

QuoteFade In Menu screens (in addition to Fade Out) to make between-screen transitions smoother

Yeah, either make them optional and off by default or throw them out. This really steals your time!

I liked:

- Sleeper lemming state

- The assignment failed sound is chosen quite good. I would not mind it, but miners and diggers on steel should make this exact sound as well and not the "hit steel" one. There the assignment fails as well, they do not hit steel! If so they would turn on top of that.

- The new level select screen.


I most kept to things that could bug me for the first test run. I did not test the editor or the new replay editor things so far.
#4
A little reminder that the playing phase will end in roughly a week.  :)

I am also excited to see the how new voting system will turn out in practice!
#5
After some time, I slowly started to create some levels again.  :)

Not just in a way of creating levels for contests, but specifically for the main ranks of this pack.

I was quite burned out after the main parts of the NL Introduction Pack and the afterward maintenance of it and for a while the mood just wasn't there for creating stuff after work or at the weekends.

Maybe it fits the pack's name that a bit of "Isolation" and clearing of the mind was necessary.

I am catching myself often having just a very rough core idea of a terrain layout or mechanic I want to use and then create it on the fly, but so far I feel very good about the quality of the output.

It also somewhat feels good to look back at previous packs/levels and thinking to myself "Why did I create it in such a way? This could've been so much better!".

I think 2 of the themed ranks will probably be "classic-type" and "timecrunch" levels, although I might sill adjust the specifics.

I also do not want to create any more pure tutorial levels, the first rank just should go straight up to easy puzzles - I have the intro Pack for that!

Anyway, slowly but surely I hope to get going again. :)
#6
Community Edition / Re: Roadmap for CE 1.0
January 27, 2025, 03:59:16 PM
I will probably test out the first RC version this weekend.
#7
Community Edition / Re: Roadmap for CE 1.0
January 26, 2025, 01:36:04 PM
I have one more suggestion, but not regarding the overall feature list. It's more about speed and overview.

As more and more topics begin to seperate from this one, I slowly loose the overview about what the cureent state is.
Yes, implementation wise everything is listed in the first post, but that is not the point.
Also there can be a difference between the first post list and the actual implementation, but I want to get to the point.

The list is just very large! Also you need to keep track on more and more discussion topics to stay on top and I slowly start to notice fatique crawling up inside of me (we even just now had a new major update).
My time is limited and I want to do more than just keep track on the CE.

Maybe to descibe me viewpoint a bit more:
I am mostly about playing levels and level creation and not discussions about the engine (Simon would be way more into that  ;) ) - here I am mostly concerned that it functions as intended, properly and that new additions do not do more harm than good (here I count in the extra sounds for example).
I do not like posting in a lot of engine discussion topics, I rather play levels and create my own stuff. It is just that for that I have to rely on a stable engine that does not constantly grind my gears!

That is also something I noticed about the SLX dev cycle, but as I am not a SLX user I did not care there: Topics on topics and new developments to keep track on. While slowly feedback starts to dwindle - I noticed that at some point you asked about more feedback there, but to me it seemed like the sheer amount was too overwhelming.
At some point in the "Recent posts" section it was nearly just new SLX dev topics!

Here the topic has just really started now in January and it's already slowly moving to that direction.

Therefore my suggestion (with maybe an extention to SLX even  ;) ): Slowdown and for the first RC focus on 1 or 2 of the aspects, test those, wait for feedback, finalize them and then move to the next area. We are not in a rush!
Maybe just start with the "Options Menu" and "Level Select Menu" and after we are done with those move on to the "Replay Features".


This way people do not get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of features and we can properly implement and test them in a controled manner.
Otherwise they may just move to "why even bother?" and just stay with standard NL.
#8
NeoLemmix Levels / Re: Lemmings New Worlds
January 25, 2025, 08:21:53 PM
I have completed the pack and attached my solutions.  :)

This is one of the rare excellent beginner packs I must say that can be recommended to new players without big second thoughts!  :thumbsup:   

(Although I would still remove most if not all of the timers here ;) )


One thing though: I noticed the download really only needs to contain the levels themselves as I do not see custom sounds, sprites or music. So you could comprimize it to only contain the levels folder.
#9
Community Edition / [SUG] Welcome Screen enhancements
January 22, 2025, 09:34:44 PM
QuoteIt's more of a newbie-onboarding feature that anything else

Suggestion:

For a new NL Profile ask the user about their desired behaviors in the options.
Give them a quick tour of the most important options and we could avoid many pitfalls.
#10
Community Edition / [DISC] Replay options
January 22, 2025, 08:22:45 PM
Fun story - just now because of the "Replay after Restart" option I just found out that we have a Restart button even though I use it all the time (for me it's R)!  :lem-mindblown:

For me it always was "Replay" as in "please reset the level and run the replay".

So yeah I won't need the option as I want to always keep my replay, but if some people have interest in it the option is now there.

Even though I think it's more of a accidental replay loss source.

#11
Community Edition / Re: [DISC][NL-CE] Sound Schemes
January 21, 2025, 09:28:54 PM
I agree that the RC version can be used with additional sounds for testing purposes so that we can at least try them out.

I exaggerated yes, but I can easily see that we can get into the "too many sounds" area not only through many new sounds but through the right/wrong ones and I can already see the potential here.

The "Sound Schemes" idea sounds like a very good suggestion. We should use the RC to test it out. Maybe even ask a new playerprofile what they prefer at the first start?

Adding the swimmer to Complete is something we could test. I agree that the sound not being optimal and is my least favorite sound out of the current. Maybe we even find/create a better one that is easier on the ears!
#12
Community Edition / Re: Roadmap for CE 1.0
January 21, 2025, 05:04:19 PM
Comments:

QuoteRe-word 'Don't Replay After Backwards Frameskips' as 'Replay After Backwards Frameskips' and uncheck it by default (every effort will be made to preserve current user option, but it may need to be re-set following this change)

The current standard should be 'Don't Replay After Backwards Frameskips' turned off as I recall. So this should be a change of standard as I understand it.

The standard option then should always be 'Replay After Backwards Frameskips'. If the player skips backwards, it is really bad that the standard is then to not save their inputs in a replay. Player input should not be deleted by accident!
Imaginge you discover Backwards Frameskip by accident and then all your progress is lost. That would be a great source of rage.

QuoteAdd "Reset Talismans" button, so players can reset their talisman progress on a per-level basis. Very handy for level testing, and when replaying an already-completed pack!

This should come with an "Are you sure?" promt.


QuoteAdd an "Assign Fail" sound; this plays whenever a skill assignment is attempted, and fails

1st: I think this should also be able to be turned off. Especially in levels where I might needs to spam the skills a bit it could get on someones nerves. Also when you want to precisely place blockers as close together as possible you might run into a ton of extra sounds here as well.

2nd: When skill queuing is on and I assign a skill that can be queued and excuted in a few frames - does it count as failed in that moment? As then it should not count as failed.

QuoteAdd sounds for Jumpers and Laserers - Jumper sound is the one from L2, see SLX for Laserer sound

Could you mabe directly attach the soundfiles?

Also I don't think those should have extra sounds. If you need to spam these in a level it can really get on your nerves!
Currently skill sounds are very limited (bombers,stoners and the disarmer) and I think that is a good thing.

The most controversial thing I see here: Don't overload the player with 1000 sounds! Be it the skill panel or the skills themselves!

QuoteAdd pitch-shifted sound to Skill buttons (modelled on Amiga/Lemmini) - this could also be made optional if people dislike it

100% optional please and it being turned off as standard.


QuoteAdd pitch-shifted sound to RR/SI -/+ buttons (modelled on Amiga/Lemmini) - this can be toggled off in options if players prefer silent RR buttons - this will be "not silent" by default

I have no problem with SLX going the noisy route, but I think here the standard should again be silence.


QuoteChange cursor to Red when in normal Replay mode, and Blue when in Replay Insert mode - another visually very noticeable one, but necessary for adding clarity to these modes. Could be made optional if people dislike it, or the cursors themselves could be redesigned (e.g. with scissor icon, etc).

I am in favor here, but you might need to test this as the red and especially blue could be hard to see against some tilesets - so choose the colors with care. A total redisign would need to be tested first.
#13
NeoLemmix Main / Re: If there was a NeoLemmix Wiki...
January 14, 2025, 05:51:51 PM
@Silken, please be a bit more civil in your tone and not just jump at a person for having a different viewpoint. I get where your point comes from but maybe be a bit more careful in future posts.
Everything is still fine though!  :)

To quickly elaborate my stand on the topic of AI - even if it goes a bit further than the wiki.
If it sends the discussion too far off topic we could split it up.

Stance on generative AI:

My point on generative AI is to use it as an ally, but be very careful with it.
I haven't used it a lot, but as my job is in the field of computer science we are discovering its uses in our field and how we can improve our work with it.
We are also aware of instances where AI was used without regards for safety/correctness or its learing algorithm even cannibalizing itself. So I saw the dangers!

Like a research paper that was accepted by a reviewer which included AI generated pictures under those one of a mouse with giant genitals. - It went through a peer review!

Also, if AI was used to add a few lines of code to the engine you would not even have the chance to notice it. I can tell you: A ton of programmers use AI from time to time to assist them in formalizing code chunks. You can't blindly use it there either as you still need to test and complie the program anyway - it often mostly helps with syntax.

AI and the wiki:

For a wiki I wouldn't mind it helping us in providing some examples for paragraphs. Never just copy the text though! There lies disaster!
Forming sentences can be hard and having it spit out some ideas can help a lot in the writing process.
Again, we should still write the text ourselves and only use it for assistance - not just mindlessly copying text!

AI and art in general:

Example: If a user wants to make an AI generated tileset it is their decision to make it and ours to use it.
Point about taking Art from others here: It is not like we haven't taken sprites from other stuff ourselves as well: Sonic, Lemmings itself, .... you can extend the list yourself and I would say like 80% of tilesets fall into that category.
Should we remove all Sonic tilesets from NL because of this? I think not.

Especially for music I don't see the big difference here between taking remixes of old video game music and something like an AI altered song.
You don't simply throw somthing at an algorithm and it comes out perfectly. It can take a lot of work to tell an AI exactly what it needs to do.

If the AI thing to remove lyrics/change the voice is unethical so should be the remix in my opinion.
In both the AI variant and the remix work was indeed put in - in both cases human work included! In both cases a human makes art using programs and algorithms.
In most remix cases I highly doubt an official licence from the publisher was aquired before making it! So the playing field is even there.

So what's left is the intend.
Another example: A person wanting to make a lyric free version of a song as it has a nice melody I would not call malicious. An AI algorithm to filter out voices I would not call harmful. Even more when it is used on an old obscure song.
If the AI algorithm to change the voice is used to deceive people instead -like laying words in the artist mouth without highlighting the use of AI- then it turns bad.

I am even a fan of things like "what if band X sang song Y" with the help of AI - often even there you would need to help the AI with your own singing to make it work. The channel "ThereIRuinedIt" explained his working process quite well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vh4ErO-i5o
Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ThereIRuinedIt/videos

An algorithm to simply slobber up all art on the internet without permission to create blatant copies is a completely different case though and I would agree with GigaLem there! There the intent is malicious!

So I would say I stand in the middle position here by saying that using AI as a tool is OK as long as you are indeed careful with it, double check the outcome and not blindly copy it and your intend is not malicious.
As a result, I would not object its assistance in the creation of a wiki by principle.
#14
Here are my solutions to the pack! The new levels were worth revisiting Zemmings! :thumbsup:

I found a nasty backroute on Volume I level 4 though while solving for the talisman solution. I attached that one seperately.

I also will probably record up my solutions during the next days.  ;)