Status: Fixed for next update.

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I've noticed this bug ages ago but always forget to fix it. If a replay is loaded while the game is paused, the game doesn't unpause to play it (must be unpaused manually).

Not sure if this is worldwide or only for PAL regions (Europe / Australia / NZ), but it's on the list.

If you have PS Plus membership, "buy" a copy even if you don't have a Vita, if you think there's any chance you might ever get one. You can save it and then download it later if/when you do get one.

So, as mentioned in this bug report, I've noticed in general a lot of inconsistencies in regards to how climbers behave.

Essentially, these all come from two simple facts:
1. The climber checks for the top during the first 4 frames of his animation, and moves upwards on the rest.
2. Both of these have a terrain check, but they get triggered at different times.

In general - what happens is that, when a climber meets an overhang at the same height, how many frames it takes before he falls depends on whether that overhang is at the top of the climb or not. I've attached a level to illustrate this. The level has climbs with overhangs - in both "overhang is at top" and "overhang is in middle" varieties - at various heights from 7 pixels to 22 pixels.

A summary of the current behaviour, in mostly-human-readable language, and with stuff relating to the implementation of gimmicks stripped out, is:

(Keep in mind - the climber's X position is one pixel inside the wall, similar to how when walking the lemming's Y position is one pixel inside the ground.)
If the Climber animation is on frame 0, 1, 2 or 3:
>> Check for no solid pixel at the climber's X position, and (7 pixels + current frame number) above the climber's Y position
>>>> If no solid pixel is found, check for solid pixels one pixel behind the climber, and (6 pixels + current frame number) above the climber's Y position; if this is not the first cycle through its animation, also check 5 pixels above*; just remember the result for now
>>>> Move the lemming to the top of the wall
>>>> If a solid pixel was found before, move the lemming down one pixel, turn around, change to a faller, and move forward one pixel (in new direction; ie: away from the wall)
>>>> Otherwise, change to a hoister
>> If there was a solid pixel there (remember - this is the wall itself, not an overhang), do nothing except continue the animation

* Skipping this check on the first cycle is to allow them to climb through an overhang at 6 pixels from the ground.

If the Climber animation is on frame 4, 5, 6, or 7:
>> Decrease the lemming's Y position by 1
>> Check for any of the following:
      - Solid pixel 1 pixel behind the lemming and 7 above it
      - Solid pixel 1 pixel behind the lemming and 6 above it, if this is frame 4 of the first cycle*
      - A blocker or one-way-field trigger area in the opposite of the lemming's current direction, at the exact X and Y coordinates of the lemming
>>>> If any of those were the case, move downwards 1 pixel, turn around, change to a faller, and move forward one pixel (in new direction; ie: away from the wall)

* Performing this check is to prevent climbing through an overhang at exactly 7 pixels when it isn't the top of the climb


Any change here has the potential to break a lot of replays; it isn't so likely to break too many levels (but we never know - those that rely on very accurate timing may be broken). But, unless we accept this inconsistency (which I am open to as an option, but feel it needs to be discussed), some change is needed - the question is what exactly that should be.

To those who want to look at the code itself - keep in mind it has some gimmick-related stuff in there too, as well as some dud stuff like conditionals that will always be false (which I've removed now in my copy), and does not yet have the fix for the 7-pixel-not-at-top overhang in the current latest code (V1.42n's) - look at the "TLemmingGame.HandleClimbing" function, beginning at (or near) line 7090 in LemGame.pas which I've copy-pasted an up-to-date version of in this post.


EDIT: I added a second test map, with the situations described in Nepster's post in this topic.
Both test maps require the respective VGASPEC (also attached), but this aside do not require any custom styles.

So yes - as you've probably gathered, I'm adding some minor online capabilities in the next update. No, no multiplayer - I have no plans for that - but rather, for content acquisition.

Eventually, I hope to have a proper NeoLemmix content database, which can be accessed directly through NeoLemmix itself rather than needing to be manually viewed via a web browser. However, the initial capabilities will simply be - 1) download missing graphic sets, and 2) check for (but not download) updates.

Currently, I have two configurable settings relating to online functionality - whether to enable online functionality at all, and whether to run the update check on startup (specifically, it runs the first time during each use that one views the menu screen - leaving the menu screen then returning will not trigger a second check; only exiting NeoLemmix completely will reset the "checked" status). This popup could get annoying, and it also causes a slight lag upon loading the menu screen - however long it takes your PC to download a ~300 byte text file from neolemmix.com (it's noticable, but not long enough to be annoying, on my machine; it could be quite problematic for those on slow connections). So - with this in mind - should the Check For Updates option be on or off by default? To be clear - the update check does not actually download updates, it simply checks if one is available, notifies the user if there is one, and asks if they'd like to go to the NeoLemmix website to download it.

In regards to enabling online functionality at all, the main concern here is that some users have expressed in the past that they're somewhat on the paranoid side, and I was thinking that they may not feel comfortable with any functionality that auto-downloads anything. Outside of this, there is no huge disadvantage to having it on - the style check is only triggered when a style is missing, and the situations where it would cause lag (while the file downloads) are ones that, in the absence of this functionality, would cause the game to crash altogether anyway.

What are your thoughts on this matter?

I'm making some changes to the internal code that handles music packs (and single music files, in the case of test mode / single levels), and I'm wondering something about prioritization.

Current priority order (from highest to lowest) is:
>> Individual file (if test mode / single level)
>> Pack's specific music pack
>> Global music packs
>> NXP's contents
>> Internal music files
>> Silence

I'm wondering - should this be swapped around, so that the global music packs are below the NXP? On one hand, this would mean that a filename collision between a track in a music pack, and a track in an NXP, where they're two different files (especially if generic names - possibly from older packs - like "track_01" are being used, although it'd be pretty bad practice to put anything like that in a global music pack). On the other hand, there may be users who re-use tracks in multiple packs, and want to release a single global music pack to cover all of them rather than releasing a music pack for each game with the same contents.

I'm somewhat leaning towards keeping it as it is, though - on the grounds that I think, ignoring generic "track_XX" names (which is, for obvious reasons, strongly discouraged for new packs), it's unlikely we'll run into two different tracks with the same name; and the use of the same tracks across various packs is much more likely. For example - Original Lemmings, Extra Levels and Doomsday Lemmings all share the non-default tracks used in L1's special graphics levels. Lemmings Reunion, Revenge of the Lemmings and MobiLems II also have a couple of tracks shared across them. Perhaps we do need to come up with some kind of naming convention for music tracks - especially those that we're likely to reuse - but I do think this leans a bit in favor of keeping the global music packs (or rather, global music files - I'm ditching the use of music pack format for global things in the next update) prioritized over the NXP's contents.


Also, current order of priority for formats (if multiple exist within a single layer - which should never happen anyway) - is OGG first, then IT. With these changes, I've finally made it so that it looks for other supported extensions, rather than requiring renaming them to one of those. The priority order for these is much less important - since as I said, conflicts shouldn't occur anyway - but if they do, does this priority order sound reasonable?
>> OGG
>> WAV
>> AIFF / AIF
>> MP3
>> MO3
>> IT
>> MOD
>> XM
>> S3M
>> MTM
>> UMX

(I believe those are all the BASS.DLL-supported formats.)

Alright. Here we are. Seven levels, from four different authors, remain. Which one will be crowned the best level of 2015?

The voting has been changed back to the normal system - so vote for the levels you want to keep.

The first two sets will eliminate two levels each, which will bring it down to three remaining levels. After this, the remaining levels will be eliminated one at a time until we have our winner! In each set, the number of votes will be such that you can vote for one level less than the number intended to survive (for example, if there are 5 levels, and 2 are being eliminated, you will be allowed 2 votes). <--- I will probably change this in the last few rounds, actually.

In the case of ties, the following rules will apply (and the structure of subsequent rounds may be adjusted as appropriate):
1. If exactly one more level than the target will be knocked out, then all tied levels get knocked out (unless this would knock out every remaining level, of course).
2. Otherwise, if it's a round where two would get knocked out, and only knocking out one is possible without any ties having to be accounted for, then only the one will get knocked out.
3. If all else fails, some kind of tiebreaker set will occur.

Lemmings Plus V

Lemmings Plus V has now been released; see the release topic.

Lemmings Plus V is an in-development continuation of the main-series Lemmings Plus games, developed (as usual) for NeoLemmix. It will consist of five ranks - Blissful, Touchy, Edgy, Unruly and Outrageous - consisting of 15 levels each. As usual for a main-series Lemmings Plus game, Lemmings Plus V is also bringing four new graphic sets.

Difficulty-wise, Lemmings Plus V is shaping up to be perhaps the hardest Lemmings Plus game yet. That's not to say it's on the same level as Lemmings Reunion or NepsterLems - I doubt I could ever achieve that - but it is saying that yes, it's going to be harder than Lemmings Plus III was.

As it is unclear when the new NeoLemmix version will be ready, Lemmings Plus V is being developed for the current stable version of NeoLemmix; however, changes being made for the experimental version are being taken into account, and it is very likely it will convert much more smoothly to the new version than the older Lemmings Plus packs will.

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Graphic Sets

Lemmings Plus V brings four all-new graphic sets to the table - and they're far from just palette swaps of one or two central ideas; each graphic set is unique in some way (at least in comparison to each other).

Abstract
The Abstract graphic set is reminiscient of Lemmings Plus II's Psychedelic set, though much easier on the eyes. The pieces don't represent any specific objects; they're simply shapes in various colors. In contrast to the colorful terrain, the objects are very dull-colored, which in their own way makes them stand out. The Abstract set is almost exclusively a straight-edged graphic set.

Honeycomb
The Honeycomb graphic set is best described as a graphic set half way between straight edged and rough edged. The primary terrain is hexagonal honeycombs, with some less-common pieces of both the straight and rough-edged variety. Despite the simplicity of the graphic set, some very interesting level concepts have come out of it. Oh, and who doesn't love bees harmlessly flying around in the background... or in some cases, trying to sting you?

Mineshaft
The Mineshaft graphic set is basically the "generic, classic style" graphic set of Lemmings Plus V. Featuring primarily rough-edged terrain, but with plenty of straight-edge to go around too, the Mineshaft set's strength is in terrain versatility; objects tend to be few and far between.

Machine
The Machine set is unique not just among Lemmings Plus V's graphic sets, but perhaps among all graphic sets, in that it is primarily steel. Aside from the occasional bit of rusty machinery, Machine levels tend to be entirely steel - a concept that has seen use before on the scale of individual levels, but not on the scale of an entire graphic set. Expect a high focus on constructive and permanent skills here, and beware of preassigned permanents.

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Ranks

Blissful
As expected, things start off easy-ish. There's levels to introduce the graphic sets, a few levels to refresh the player on some key concepts, and some fairly simple puzzles. However, don't expect much of the old X-of-everything kind of level - there's a few, but they're the minority here, in favor of simple puzzles.

Touchy
The difficulty starts to ramp up quite quickly here. Still, the levels should be well within most players' ability to solve, given some effort.

Edgy
This is where it gets really serious. The puzzles tend to get quite hard around here, though for the most part remain fairly short.

Unruly
The puzzles here not only keep getting harder, but in some cases start getting longer as well. And a couple of new tricks show up...

Outrageous
At this point, we're talking "harder than Fierce". These levels will be, for the most part, brutal. I'm nice enough to give you a couple of breathers, though. Sort of.

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Demo Downloads

All demos are designed to be played on the stable version of NeoLemmix; ie: V1.43n-F should be used. However, they should work on the V1.47n experimental as well.

Demo 1 Download: http://www.neolemmix.com/old/mypacks/LemmingsPlusVDemo1.nxp
Contains 9 levels.

Demo 2 Download: http://www.neolemmix.com/old/mypacks/LemmingsPlusVDemo2.nxp
Contains 5 levels.

I've put this topic up as a place to find links to - and current versions of - the NeoLemmix conversions of the offiical Lemmings games, as well as Copycat Lemmings and the NeoLemmix Introduction Pack.

As many of you would already know, the NeoLemmix conversions aren't simply just "take existing level, put into NeoLemmix format" in most cases (Copycat Lemmings is an exception, because that literally is how it was done). Often they're tweaked to feel more "NeoLemmix-y" - removing unused / purely-decorative area at the sides, often if a level has blockers solely to position bombers they'll be removed, etc. Some may also have other minor changes to ensure they remain possible to complete under NeoLemmix. Additionally, where there's a difference (and where possible to do so), the NeoLemmix conversions of the games tend to be based off the Amiga versions rather than the DOS versions.

With all new updates (from the time I made this topic onwards) to these packs - no matter what the reason; whether it's fixing some levels, or just updating the file formats in the NXP file - I'm adding a version number, and increasing it with each new release. Those that have not been updated since making this topic will not have a version number; for those that do, it should appear within the first few messages on the scroller (if you get to the "Thanks to..." part, you've either missed it, or have an NXP that doesn't contain the version number text). This only applies to the official games' conversions; I make no guarantee that the version number will be there (or present at all) on any fan-made content, including my own.

The versions that existed at the time this topic was made will be considered "V1.00", and updates will increase the version from there.

(V1.06) NeoLemmix Introduction Pack  http://www.neolemmix.com/old/neolemmix/NeoLemmixIntroduction.nxp
(V1.07) Lemmings                     http://www.neolemmix.com/download.php?program=33
(V1.05) Oh No! More Lemmings         http://www.neolemmix.com/download.php?program=34
(V1.06) Xmas Lemmings 91 + 92        http://www.neolemmix.com/download.php?program=35
(V1.07) Holiday Lemmings 93 + 94     http://www.neolemmix.com/download.php?program=36
(V1.06) Covox Lemmings               http://www.neolemmix.com/download.php?program=37
(V1.05) Prima Lemmings               http://www.neolemmix.com/download.php?program=38
(V1.11) Extra Official Levels        http://www.neolemmix.com/download.php?program=39
(V1.05) MazuLems                     http://www.neolemmix.com/download.php?program=40

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(V1.01) Copycat Lemmings             http://www.neolemmix.com/download.php?program=41




Due to a heavy reliance on features that are removed in newer versions, Copycat Lemmings is not going to be updated to work with newer versions of NeoLemmix. You will need V1.43n-F to play it, permanently.