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Lemmings Main / Why The 'Tame' Levels Failed To Be 'Fun', or - The Importance of Maps
« on: December 26, 2020, 10:36:20 AM »
I've been spending a lot of time recently playing through first ranks of packs, in order to research what makes a "good easy level".
As a designer, I often find it more of a challenge to create accessible, playable and interesting easy levels than difficult, well-backroute-proofed puzzles. The latter is a case of making sure that the solution to a particular map is the only one possible, which can be tricky, but the former requires arguably a similar level of care towards making sure that the level is light enough on the difficulty without being too trivial.
As the first ranks of the official games, 'Fun' and 'Tame' (from Lemmings and Oh No! More Lemmings respectively) are often compared to one another. The former is lauded for its straightforward presentation of the 8 skills, followed by several challenging maps which encourage the player to think carefully about how to solve the level whilst also providing them with more than enough skills to explore the different possibilities; however, the latter is universally slated as being largely a pointless set of poorly conceived filler levels.
Some may point to the laziness of every level having 20 of every skill, 50 lemmings with only 25 to be saved, release rate always set to 50, and always a 4-minute time limit, which is far more than the level requires. None of these things ever provide the player with a stimulating challenge in any of the 20 levels. Contrast this with the varied time limits, save requirements and release rates of the 'Fun' levels, and you do indeed have a recipe for boredom.
However, I would point to the maps themselves. 20-of-everything levels are not a bad thing, provided the map provides opportunity for exploration, plenty of hazards to overcome, and the necessity to work your way around it carefully. 'Fun' provides many of these, showcasing the ingenuity of the level designers whilst keeping the game interesting and accessible to beginners. Even as a seasoned lemmings player, I still enjoy playing through the 'Fun' levels from time to time, looking for alternative routes and different methods of navigating the map.
Unfortunately, a lot of the 'Tame' maps simply don't provide the same stimulation. Many of them can be solved with no more than 2 or 3 very obvious skill assignments, and I wonder whether they were just hastily thrown together to provide an "easy" rank for a pack which otherwise presents challenges way beyond that of original Lemmings, or whether the intention was to provide the player with an opportunity to just play around with the skills and see what they do.
If the former, then that would of course account for the generally low quality of the levels, but - if the latter, then there are definitely ways these levels could have fulfilled that intention, if the maps themselves had presented the player with a significant enough challenge.
As a designer, I often find it more of a challenge to create accessible, playable and interesting easy levels than difficult, well-backroute-proofed puzzles. The latter is a case of making sure that the solution to a particular map is the only one possible, which can be tricky, but the former requires arguably a similar level of care towards making sure that the level is light enough on the difficulty without being too trivial.
As the first ranks of the official games, 'Fun' and 'Tame' (from Lemmings and Oh No! More Lemmings respectively) are often compared to one another. The former is lauded for its straightforward presentation of the 8 skills, followed by several challenging maps which encourage the player to think carefully about how to solve the level whilst also providing them with more than enough skills to explore the different possibilities; however, the latter is universally slated as being largely a pointless set of poorly conceived filler levels.
Some may point to the laziness of every level having 20 of every skill, 50 lemmings with only 25 to be saved, release rate always set to 50, and always a 4-minute time limit, which is far more than the level requires. None of these things ever provide the player with a stimulating challenge in any of the 20 levels. Contrast this with the varied time limits, save requirements and release rates of the 'Fun' levels, and you do indeed have a recipe for boredom.
However, I would point to the maps themselves. 20-of-everything levels are not a bad thing, provided the map provides opportunity for exploration, plenty of hazards to overcome, and the necessity to work your way around it carefully. 'Fun' provides many of these, showcasing the ingenuity of the level designers whilst keeping the game interesting and accessible to beginners. Even as a seasoned lemmings player, I still enjoy playing through the 'Fun' levels from time to time, looking for alternative routes and different methods of navigating the map.
Unfortunately, a lot of the 'Tame' maps simply don't provide the same stimulation. Many of them can be solved with no more than 2 or 3 very obvious skill assignments, and I wonder whether they were just hastily thrown together to provide an "easy" rank for a pack which otherwise presents challenges way beyond that of original Lemmings, or whether the intention was to provide the player with an opportunity to just play around with the skills and see what they do.
If the former, then that would of course account for the generally low quality of the levels, but - if the latter, then there are definitely ways these levels could have fulfilled that intention, if the maps themselves had presented the player with a significant enough challenge.