I just saw a bit of Flopsy's LPs of Wafflem's "LemmingBytes" and "Wafflems". Are those packs still to be found anywhere? I can't see them, neither in the New Formats- nor the Old Formats subthread. That's a shame, they look like a lot of fun!

Playing through Nessy's Lemmings Migration, I found out that on a lot of levels I got stuck on, it was down to me not knowing of certain skill combination tricks which were required to be used in order to even have a chance of finding the solution to the puzzle.

Spoiler

For example, the blocker-basher turnaround trick where the blocker turns the basher around at the same time as being freed by it was required on two levels.

A level from Raymanni's Raylems taught me the practical application of a trick I had just previously read about here; but otherwise, not knowing that this trick was even possible would have caused me to get stuck there as well.

Spoiler

The stacker-stoner trick uses a stacker to close the gap at the feet of the stoner, while the stoner prevents the stack from reaching full height. Since the stacker doesn't go higher than to the stoner's shoulder height, which conveniently is six pixels, the lemmings can now suddenly walk over the stoner.

And don't even get me started on Arty's "make skills go through" tricks .

Spoiler

Bashers and diggers can pass through each other and both continue; in Lemmings 2, they can also cancel each other out perfeclty - I don't know whether the latter is possible in NeoLemmix.
Diggers and miners can also pass through each other and both continue; bashers and miners however can't.
Plus, bashers going down a slope can continue their work if their is enough terrain for them to bash through, effectively turning the basher into a miner.

Original Lemmings also did this by requiring things like the three-builder wall or digger pits to contain the crowd, and quite suddenly so, without prior explanation. This however also happens to be the major roadblock for first time Lemmings players, because while "skill teaching levels" are commonplace and easy to understand in both official and custom Lemmings packs, "trick teaching levels" are very unusual.

I did create a couple of these trick teaching levels in Pit Lems - namely "Ouch, my head!", "Stop right there", "Basic economics", "Doubling down", "Step up" etc. And I'm considering doing a similar thing for my upcoming pack, Lemmings World Tour.

The difference between a level teaching you a trick and one simply demanding it from you is obviously the prior announcement that the trick is possible via the pre-level text.

I'm uncertain now whether to include these with the levels in question - I have attached the most difficult four of them for the sake of illustration. These levels are designed to show off as many tricks as possible with one particular skill (miner, digger, builder, and blocker) in one level each.

The problem is of course: By using the pre-level texts, I give away a major part of the solution, thereby "degrading" possibly challenging levels and making them suitable for rank 2. Without the preview text however, some of these might be challenging enough for rank 4.

Unless, of course, we as a community decide to compile a separate "trick teaching pack" to point new players to. Then our custom packs can simply demand those tricks from the player without a bad conscience.

I want the player with the best problem solving skills to excell at my levels; I don't want anyone to fail just because they don't know a certain thing is possible in general (that's almost like not knowing of a given skill) and therefore don't even consider it as part of the solution. Because if that trick is all there is to a level, the solution is probably just one Google search away, even in case of a custom level .

The NeoLemmix introduction pack already introduces all the new skills, objects, and mechanics, but not the synergies and combinations which are possible with these.

I'd be happy to contribute some of my levels to this trick teaching pack, i.e. those levels which I think showcase the respective tricks pretty well. "Stop right there" or "Doubling down" being two prime examples.

The developers of the trading card game Magic: The Gathering use the term "design space", referring to "how much can you do with the different card types (without completely breaking the game)?" Perhaps this concept exists in game development on a general level already; anyways, I think it's also applicable to Lemmings.

In our case, it can be broken down into two sub-sectors:
1) How much can you do with this graphic set (=terrain and objects)?
2) How much can you do with this skill?

A) Graphic set design space
Have you ever consciously noticed how the first step of picking a graphic set already influences what the level will look like? And I do not mean the mere aesthetics (that's kind of a "well, duh" point ), but the physics that are actually game relevant from a mechanical standpoint:

Some graphic sets are very block-ish and regular, thereby lending themselves well to e.g. climber stuff - Marble, Crystal, Fire, and Pillar come to mind from original Lemmings, Brick from ONML, and pretty much all of the Lemmings 2 graphic sets.

In other tilesets, in contrast, it is hard to even find such a climber-friendly piece of terrain in the first place: Dirt from original Lemmings is one of the worst in this regard, Rock at least has the gems which are straight walls, and Bubble has a lot of walls that look like climbers could go up there, but they actually have tiny gaps in between that prevent this. More often than not, you'll have to insert a steel piece, pretty much giving away at this point that you're supposed to use a climber here.

Finally, there is the limitation of the Lemmings 2 graphic sets:
I've been thinking a lot about why I don't like Lemmings 2 as much as original Lemmings or ONML, and surprise - it's not actually the multitude of skills. In fact, considering how many different skills were added to NeoLemmix and Lix, few of which are actually overlapping, and people are still considering adding more, it almost seems like one can never have enough different skills available (no one is forced to use them all for level design, after all).

The main issue is the shape of the terrain:
1) The levels often consist of many thin platforms of squared or rectangular blocks.
2) Many feature vertical scrolling.
3) The combination of 1) and 2) leads to a look that is more reminiscent of jump and run games like Sonic or Speedy Eggbert (not so much Mario, btw!), i.e. such that include lots of up and down-movement, rather than a Lemmings game, since up to then, these only featured horizontal camera movement.
4) The execution difficulty in Lemmings 2 wouldn't be nearly as horrible if the terrain were shaped more like in traditional Lemmings levels; however, due to this jump-and-run game level design, oftentimes the execution-heavy skills are the only available option to even make it past all the obstacles in a level. (This is probably also a reason for the increased splat height in Lemmings 2.) Try solving pretty much any Lemmings 2 level with classic skills only and 90% of them would turn into builder fests.
5) The levels look pretty "ugly" and unmemorable as a result, compared to the more landscape-like levels from original Lemmings, ONML, or Lemmings 3D.

The latter point is also the main downfall of Lemmings Revolution to me, which theoretically should be perfect for lovers of original Lemmings, but the different tilesets just look way too similar - literally like they're all "carved from the same wood" . I'd rather play Team 17's remake of original Lemmings, for that matter.

Hence, when designing a new graphic set - or, even before that, considering whether a specific new graphic set is actually needed - it may be worth asking yourself:
1) How much does this graphic set contribute mechanically?
2) How much does this graphic set contribute from an aesthetic standpoint?

For example, we have several snow- or castle-themed graphic sets, but mechanic-wise, they're not actually that different. The food graphic set, in contrast, stands pretty much on its own, and is different enough from the candy set while at the same time providing some interesting synergies with it. Also, there are comparatively many graphic sets that feature water, fire, and triggered traps, but only few contain dedicated one-use traps, splitters, or teleporters.

The Lab graphic set is very block-ish, and therefore it's hard to create interesting looking level shapes with it - in contrast to graphic sets consisting of more distinct, irregular shapes, like Purple or Tree (considering both namida's originals as well as GigaLem's remakes here).





B) Skill design space
Kieran already did an overview of all the Lemmings 2 skills and ranked them all individually, according to usefulness and how much each of them can justify its existence.
I'm going to take a slightly different approach and sort them into categories or niches that they might actually fill, related to the currently existing NeoLemmix / Lix skills.


Redundant:
These skills do basically exactly the same thing as some other already existing skill - which is why I can usually just fill these existing skills in behind a = sign .

Attractor (=Blocker)
L2 Bomber (some uses with knockback behaviour and tumbler physics in Lix, but for NeoLemmix, it would just be non-lethal, and that's all the difference)
Club Basher (=Basher)
Diver (=Jumper)
L2 Fencer (=Basher with a slight angle)
Flame Thrower (=a non-lethal bomber, but the Lemming still has to be close to the terrain it wants to alter)
Hang Glider / Magic Carpet (=Glider)
Hopper (=Jumper)
Paraglider (=Floater or Glider, depending on context, but only either of the two without the fan)
Roller
Scooper (=Miner, given that it literally replaces the Miner in Lix; just a different angle, nothing else)
Skater (=ice objects do not exist yet)
Skier
Stomper (=Digger)



Corner-cases:
These skills are slight variations of what we already have - minor differences that can however become crucial in certain situations and thereby create interesting puzzles. Still, some of these can be grouped together - these are separated with a slash - and therefore, if any of them should be introduced in the future, it should only be one of each of these groups; for example, a temporary swimmer could either be called kayaker or surfer, but there certainly wouldn't be a need for both.

Archer / Spearer / Thrower
A non-lethal stoner with range, basically: It can stop Lemmings, break their falls, and build small bridges. There's even a nice trick with them, where you shoot up in the air and then have to keep the archer lemming busy to prevent him from slipping by his own dropping arrow - similarly to the stacker.

Ballooner
Here we have potential for a one-use climber (see below).

Bazooker / Mortar
And this is the non-lethal bomber with range. Even the holes it creates look similar to the bomber.

Filler / Glue-Pourer / Sand-Pourer
Only slightly different in nature: The shape the sand pourer creates remains constant, always resulting in a little ramp which can be used in a similar fashion as a builder. The filler is just a weaker version of the glue-pourer: Both will fill up small gaps, but the filler is completely useless on flat terrain, whereas flat terrain amplifies the glue-pourer by turning it into a platformer.
Of these three, the glue-pourer probably would have the most amount of remaining design space: The only currently available option to fill small gaps without resorting to standard builders is using a stoner / cuber, always resulting in the death of a lemming.
Most of the time however, the platformer as it currently exists in NeoLemmix and Lix (the latter one also being able to cover up trap triggers on flat ground, like in L2), gets the job of the glue-pourer done just fine.

Kayaker / Surfer
A temporary Swimmer, I emulated this one in my 1.43 pack "Lemmicks" using the "non-permanent skills" gimmick.
If one were to ever introduce a Kayaker into NeoLemmix or Lix, it would beg the question why one shouldn't also create such "temporary" equivalents of the other athletic skills - meaning: a climber that can only go over a single wall before becoming a walker again, floaters / gliders that are only save for one drop, a disarmer that can only disarm a single trap.
Especially the latter one might be worth considering, because the main reason the disarmer is getting little "stage time" at the moment is probably the fact that it is over-powered, at least if traps are supposed to be the main hinderance of a level.

Planter
Kieran's main criticism of this skill was its inconsistent behaviour: The plant animation always looks the same, and since its shape is irregular, it can be walked over from the right, but not from the left. If this behaviour were regular, i.e. going along with the direction the lemming is facing, this could be used to create one-way walls - a creative equivalent to the destructive fencer, which can create tunnels only passable in one direction. It would fill the niche between fencer and stacker, so to say - because fencing through a stacker doesn't actually result in the creation of such a one-way wall.

Pole Vaulter
There is one type of obstacle none of the current skills can overcome - and it actually relates back to graphic sets such as Dirt, which often have protruding pieces. Yet, this type of obstacle is very common in levels, and it should be - otherwise, most levels would look as block-ish and generic as those from Lemmings 2:
A high wall with a protuding piece at the top and/or an irregular shape.
Climbers can't go up, Builders need to take a huge detour around such walls, Gliders require updrafts, thereby clearly giving away "use a glider here". The only way to get around such an obstacle from the crowd's side is the fencer. But oftentimes, you want to send a pioneer lemming ahead who later on frees the crowd from the other side. The pole vaulter could do this, without having to shape the terrain in a straight form that immediately screams at you "use a climber here".

Runner
While I personally just consider this skill the epitome of an invitation to execution-based madness, I have come to accept that crowd control or the lack thereof, with one lemming having to get ahead of the crowd to do stuff in time, is actually considered part of the "puzzle" by a major part of the community. (Basically, if one has to fiddle around with pixel-precision for the lemming to finish its job before the arrival of the crowd, it may just be fiddle-y because it's a backroute .) The runner can get ahead, move faster, and also make greater jumps in combination with the jumper. Now, if it were also bashing / mining / digging / building / platforming / disarming faster, including faster movement while being a climber, floater, glider, or swimmer, there might be potential here.
As long as the only interesting interaction is with the jumper, though, I think a well-working jumper could fulfill the main use of the runner - getting a lemming ahead of the crowd - just fine by itself, as it already does frequently in Lemmings 2.

Slider
I've already spoken about how weaker versions of existing skills can be useful from a level designer's perspective before. The slider is a climber in reverse: A floater that only works on straight walls. Add in the fact that it always turns around when doing a slide, this one could provide a lot of interesting opportunities, considering that turning lemmings around just the right number of times is one of the main challenges of many advanced levels.

L2 Stacker
While this skill's behaviour can be somewhat emulated in NeoLemmix by making the stacker a climber simultaneously and putting several stacks on top of each other, the resulting big stack is more like a climber staircase - one which can only be used from one side. The L2 stacker creates perfectly straight walls while lifting itself up with it simultaneously - and without having the option of climbing any further walls it encounters after having completed the stack, in contrast to the NeoLemmix stacker which, if used this way, continues to remain a climber afterwards.


Unique:
These skills do something which is currently absolutely impossible, therefore level design should benefit greatly from having such options available.

Jumper
Get over a blocker, over a trap, over little gaps, even over fire... Lix levels can already exploit the hell out of this skill, and there's a reason the Linux clone of Lemmings, Pingus, featured specifically this skill as the only additional one on top of the classic eight. When NeoLemmix can finally have this skill as well, this is going to blow the doors to new design options wide open!

Laser Blaster
There simply is no skill that can dig from below. The Laser Blaster does so from a range; an adaptation of the Twister that just moves up straight vertically and then move a couple of pixels to the side it's facing to prevent it from falling down again, this one could fill a niche unoccupied by any other of the skills currently existing in NeoLemmix / Lix.

Magno Booter
Harking back to the graphic set design space of "what can I do with this type of terrain / object?", the main new thing Lemmings Revolution added to the game was the gravity reversal object. In NeoLemmix, this would turn Miners into Fencers, Fencers into Miners, Builders could suddenly build downwards (another currently impossible task)...
Just playing through Lemmings Revolution outlines the loads of potential this skill has - as long as it is possible to assign different skills to it while the Lemming is turned on its head.
In contrast, if the magno booter were to behave like in Lemmings 2, meaning it would be a skill like the climber or swimmer which can't do anything else in the meantime, the design space would be severely limited. In that case I'd rather advise for the introduction of the Lemmings Revolution gravity reversal object at some time in the remote future.

Rock Climber
This skill has two main uses:
1) The ability to climb diagonal walls.
2) The ability to switch to a shimmier while hanging from the ceiling.
This one could become the ideal brother for the climber, like the glider for the floater. If one had asked me before I knew NeoLemmix whether I'd consider a skill like the glider necessary, I probably would have said no. But now that I have seen how much difference there actually is between the two skills, I think the same is true for climber and rock climber.
I don't know how far the development of the shimmier currently is, and what the plans are regarding its interaction with climbers. But if the ultimate goal is to make a climber-shimmier transition possible, then the rock climber would be the way to go, while at the same time adding something new. It wouldn't be wise to change the behaviour of a standard skill like the climber, after all.

Shimmier
The ceiling is unexplored territory for Lemmings so far. Should a gravity reversal object be introduced, the dedicated design space for the shimmier would shrink, of course. But having such an ability as an assignable skill is always nice, too. In essence, the gravity reversal object would be to the shimmier what radiation and slowfreeze were to bombers and stoners - just without the messy execution and a lot more puzzle potential .

Roper
As said for the Laser Blaster, the only direction destructive skills can't go currently is straight upwards.
For creative skills, the only way they can't go is downwards (neither straight nor diagonally).
While the idea of a downward stacker creating a wall at the edge of a platform for another crowd at the bottom or a climber to go up certainly sounds interesting - I already see the Medieval "Rapunzel" levels coming - the main niche the Roper could fill is that of a downward builder / a creative version of the miner.
Sending a lemming ahead, turning it around and mining the way free for the crowd is a common feature of many levels; it would be nice to be able to do the equivalent with a creative skill across gaps.
Perhaps the behaviour should be adapted though, so that the Roper can't go higher than a straight horizontal line, or maybe not even that - reserving this use for the platformer. Because the Roper as it is featured in Lemmings 2 is pretty broken, serving as a builder, blocker, platformer, and downward builder all at once.

Superlem / Icarus Wings / Jet Pack
Well, this one is obvious, I guess? A freely moving single lemming that can fly around... no levels are more jump-and-run like, more in danger of backroutes, and less original Lemmings-like than levels featuring such a skill. But it still would be something completely new, of course - even though I wouldn't be a fan of it .


In general, the ability to affect terrain from a distance, as present in the Laser Blaster, Bazooker / Mortar, and Archer / Spearer / Thrower, is something entirely new as well. By extension, one could put the Roper into this category, too, but to me, the Roper still creates terrain from where he is currently standing, whereas the Archer / Spearer / Thrower can go across a gap, with the resulting terrain being separated from the lemming completely.


Anything I missed? Any slumbering potential you see in certain objects or skills that are not currently accessible to level designers in NeoLemmix or Lix?

Since Lemmings World Tour is probably going to be my last pack for the old formats version (hoping that at least either the jumper or the shimmier will be implemented in the meantime ), it's also going to be the last one containing what seems to have become a pet element of mine - mainly because everyone else has stopped using it.

You probably guessed it: I'm talking about radiation and slowfreeze .

So I thought, in order to commemorate the departure of these two infamous objects, why not do a compilation pack?

Do you have any old radiation- and/or slowfreeze-based levels lying around? Send them to me or upload them here, and I'll compile them into a pack of three ranks:

- one containing only radiation levels
- one containing only slowfreeze levels
- one containing levels that feature both radiation and slowfreeze

Just remember to write your name into the author line, of course!

I'm just curious to see how many actually good puzzles there might be in total which contain these objects! So if we gather all the radiation- and slowfreeze levels in one pack, we'll have the overview.

(Any levels from Lemmings World Tour with radiation or slowfreeze are still going to go into this pack, including those I might still come up with. So there won't be a release right away, but probably about the time Lemmings World Tour gets released ).

A lot of forum members seem to be fans of 1-of-everything levels. So am I! 3 of everything is also nice, 5 is still fine.

But above that, usually starting with the archetypical "10-of-every-classic-skill level", I just found levels become exponentially less interesting.

The main reason is one that has otherwise been mentioned frequently as a positive of the classic eight skills: The standad eight skills in combination are simply too powerful to work in tandem like that!

Keep in mind, they were designed to be everything you could choose from in original Lemmings - so the skill panel overall had to have this versatility - and then, a lot of levels were determined by which skills you didn't have, or weren't allowed to use. The most prominent case of this happening in original Lemmings is probably at the end of Tricky / early Taxing, where suddenly you can't really trap the crowd with blockers anymore and have to come up with more creative solutions.

Or sometimes, you have to go down without having any miners or diggers, or go up without having any builders. These are the kinds of restrictions that make levels interesting!

However, if you really have 10 of every classic skill, even if you have to save everyone and therefore cannot use bombers, it's still easy to trap the crowd with blockers and just free those with miners or bashers, sometimes diggers at the end. The classic skill panel is a Swiss army knife, and if it's packed with 10 of every skill, you pretty much have a solution for any obstacle you can encounter.

In contrast, a level featuring 10 of every NeoLemmix skill (you'd have to exclude one, since there are nine of them, obviously) is much more restrictive, mainly because the only destructive skill is the fencer, so going down is a problem - and the platformer doesn't gain height, so going up is a problem as well.

I do think though that there are a couple of steps you can take to make your "10-of-everything levels" more interesting; I believe part of the problem is how these levels are created:

Usually, they feature a wide landscape of terrain which is pretty time-consuming to create for a level designer. You end up with a level that looks very pretty, but after having put in all this work creating the terrain, you often do not have the energy anymore to come up with a specific solution. So you just provide 10 of everything and let the players figure it out for themselves.

Unfortunately, navigating through such huge levels is similarly time-consuming for the player, but also not very rewarding on top of that. Because in 90% of the cases, a bit of good judgement and resource preservation (like digging into the ground once and then getting rid of several obstacles with one basher rather than with several ones) are enough to solve those levels.

You don't get that "triumphant" feeling of having cracked a specific code to solve this level, because there's nothing specific to be done here.

Of course, there are exceptions, where a level seems like an X-of-everything level, but actually most of the skills are accounted for, like Nepster's "Final frustration". But the majority of these levels are obviously easier, and therefore their solutions are more generic .

So here are my suggestions on how to approach X-of-everything instead:

• Try a smaller X; 1-of-everything is very restrcitive and thereby most rewarding; 3 or 5-of-everything also still work if 1 is too tight for your level size
• Does your level have at least X gaps? This binds all the builders to certain spots where they have to be used, making it more of a challenge to overcome the remaining types of obstacles, like traps or walls.
• Does your level have at least X walls that go up all the way to the ceiling? This means they can't be built or climbed over and at least 1 destructive skill has to be used here (even if you end up building towards or climbing into that tunnel eventually).
• Is one specific skill provided in much lower quantities than the rest (for example, 10 of everything, but only 1 builder)? This is like the corner stone of a puzzle, the player has to start with thinking about where this one skill goes before worrying about the rest. The downside to this is that it puts all the attention on this one skill, so usually, the spot where it has to be placed can be identified pretty quickly, and then the rest of the level is just rather generic again.
• Is one specific skill missing from the panel entirely? For example, if the lemmings have to move horizontally a lot, cut the bashers; if they have to move upwards, remove the builders. If crowd control is too plain and simple, remove the blockers; and if you have to save everyone, consider throwing out the bombers for something else, because they don't really have much "red herring" potential in that case anyway.
• Speaking of something else: Swap out one or two of the classic eight skills for a NeoLemmix skill. It can make a huge difference if e.g. the platformer takes the slot of the builder in an otherwise classic "10-of-every-classic skill" level, because gaining height is much more difficult know. Same with swapping the fencer for miners and diggers, stackers for blockers, etc.

This goes back to the "bias for classic skills" issue, where the new skills receive less attention anyway because people are just more used to thinking and planning with the classic eight skills. While those classic skills have certainly earned their fame, their abundance in 10/15/20-of-everything levels can actually break a level easily. For that purpose, it's actually good to have skills which are objectively less versatile, and thereby less powerful.

For example, a swimmer can be seen as a floater that can only fall safely at very specific spots (=where there is water).

If nothing else works, try the following:

Provide yourself with 10/15/20 of every skill while testing, and freely explore the level as the player would otherwise have to. But rather than solving the level like someone playing on Fun difficulty...

• ...look for the fastest and most efficient solution, i.e. the one that requires the least number of skills possible.
• ...try to use skills evenly to get past obstacles, rather than simply using builders for everything just because you can !
• ...if you see an opportunity in the landscape that allows for controlling the crowd without using blockers, use it!
• ...write down or memorise which skills you used in which quantities.
• ...and then - guess what? - you remove all the remaining ones!

Now, what started as an open-ended, generic X-of-everything level does in fact have a very specific solution - the one that you found - and the player pretty much has to get into your mind to find it as well. Kind of like with every other, more restricted puzzle .

And that, in my view, is the main purpose of being a level designer:

Figuring out any solution that works is the player's job. (This includes backroutes, solved is solved, no matter how.)
But figuring out an intended solution is your job. Do not delegate this task to the player!

Occasionally, I see pack creators describing the difficulty of their ranks in comparison to the original ranks. For example, the first rank is "between Tame and Fun", the second may be "late Fun to early Tricky", and so on. Since a lot of packs have more than the original four ranks, but fewer levels per rank, for the last one you usually find a description like "Sunsoft" or "way beyond Sunsoft" in that case.

Having now played through almost the entire Sunsoft rank (which I probably should have done a lot earlier, I admit ^^), I'm a little bit confused by what that's supposed to mean . I used to think "well, duh, it just means 'as difficult as it possibly gets'", but many forum packs are already much more challenging on lower ranks than a lot of stuff I got to see in that rank.

Of course, when referring to the original Sunsoft rank, one has to factor in the execution difficulties that are rendered irrelevant in NeoLemmix. But I was still expecting more of the puzzly-type of levels that many forum members have come to appreciate - level creators must be getting their inspirations from somewhere, I guess, so I thought the "secret" Sunsoft levels were where everyone had learned their tricks from.

Instead, a lot of what I got to see were either X of everything levels, providing the player with way too many skills to make the level challenging - or levels that were more akin to what I knew from the "Troll" rank in nin10adict's CasuaLemmings.

"Everybody turn left", "Private room available", "I am A.T."... seriously? It's obvious right from the getgo what the player has to do, and it's not only a difficult execution, but also extremely repetitive.

(No offense to nin10adict here, I know that for the Troll rank, this was done on purpose ! )

There were a couple of exceptions, like "Anxiety", which I haven't managed to solve yet, or the 28th level, right before "I am A.T.", this gate-trap thing (forgot the exact name).

But overall, I don't really consider the Sunsoft rank something to aspire to anymore when trying to create difficult levels of my own.

Perhaps it's just because I don't like 10-of-everything levels, but I'll explore that in a separate thread...

While most tricks you can do with the classic eight skills are fairly well-known among the veterans here in the forum, I believe one reason why the new NeoLemmix skills are getting used less frequently is the fact that people simply have fewer interesting ideas of what to do with them.

So I thought, if the old skills have their own thread for discussing all the tricks you can do with them, there should also be one for the new skills, right?

Disclaimer: I'm using example pictures from my packs "Pit Lems", "Lemmicks", and also the upcoming "Lemmings World Tour" here while explaining part of the solution, so... spoiler warning!


GLIDERS
In my opinion, gliders are the skill with the most design potential by far among the new skills. Their ability to move diagonally downwards or upwards (with updrafts) in any direction opens up to directions of movement lemmings never had access to before.
- The diagonal movement can be used to get a glider ahead of the crowd if there's no way to hold the crowd back.
- Gliders can be used to recruit a second pioneer lemming (see below).
- Just like floaters, gliders can fall into exits without terrain underneath.
- The fact that they open up their parachute just after a while of falling, like floaters do, can be exploited to create one-way updrafts.
- Similarly to a climber going over a wall, turning around and mining down to allow the crowd to follow, gliders can do the opposite: Go across a gap, turn around and build in the direction they were coming from. Floaters can only do this if they land on solid ground, and then turn around to build a splatform.


A one-way updraft. A glider coming from the left will be able to cross over to the right side, but not the other way round, because the parachute won't open up in time before the lemming is out of the trigger area.

A builder from the left can't cross this gap. A glider needs to hover over, turn around, and then build from the right.

STONERS
Perhaps the most powerful skill among the new ones, probably due to its similarity to the builder. Even though it kills a lemming, the fact that it creates terrain out of thin air and a single use can break falls of almost the entire height of a normal level easily makes up for the loss. Like the builder, its potential for multi-purpose use is what makes the stoner so powerful - and therefore also in need of rigorous backroute checking whenever it's introduced into a level.
- Stoners can hold back climbers, like regular blockers - but contrary to stackers.
- They can however also do this on walls a climber would otherwise climb up, like bombers!
- Stoners can bridge gaps like builders, although they're obviously not very effective for that purpose.
- Stoners interact with builders very well, though, compensating for the builder's height gain whenever it is unwanted by creating "stepping stones".

Lemorials (Pit Lems, LOL 08). The entire level can be solved using only stoners.

A single builder cannot cross this gap; a "stepping stoner", akin to the Mayhem level "Stepping stones", is required as a stop in the middle. Sometimes it may even be necessary to dig into the stoner, in order to get low enough in order to make enough space for the second builder to finish its work.

STACKERS
Even at release rate 1, as long as there's only a single hatch (which is still the most common scenario), at least one lemming will always slip past the stacker. As a player, you will often hate this - as a level designer, you should absolutely love it!
- In pioneer-style levels, this isn't a problem at all: The lemming slipping past simply becomes the pioneer you needed anyway.
- When using a stacker to block of a path where no lemming at all is supposed to - e.g. on the side behind the hatch, facing away from the exit - you usually do not want a lemming slipping by. Again, it pays to make the second lemming the pioneer, so that there is more space between the first lemming (the stacker) and the third one, who should have a mucher harder time now getting past the stack before it's completed.
- Stackers are blockers that do not hold back climbers. You can create nasty surprises this way where climbers end up killing themselves while everyone else is safe!
- At the same time, stackers allow to easily recruit a second pioneer lemming by using a climber (see below). This is a huge advantage compared to blockers or stoners, which usually have to be removed or built over, both of which contain the danger of further lemmings slipping by.
- Stackers can make climber-unfriendly walls climber-friendly by just stacking a bunch of stacks on top of each other to create an almost straight wall.
- In combination with walkers, stackers can be used for the infamous stacker staircase, which gains height more quickly than regular builder staircases, but does not extend very much in the horizontal dimension. This is the vertical equivalent to platformers.
- A slight variation of the stacker staircase is the stacker ramp, created by using stackers and fencers.
- The question of how to get rid of the stack to free the crowd is also a challenge in and of itself. Bash or fence through? Build or platform over it? Have a climber climb on top and bomb or dig down? It's not always that obvious which skill has to be saved for last here, contrary to blockers which are usually either blown up, turned into walkers, or freed with a basher or miner (rarely a digger).

SWIMMERS
Swimmers actually have quite a lot in common with gliders - it's just that water is their equivalent to updrafts :
- Water breaks a swimmer's fall, like updrafts do for regular lemmings (and always so, if they land inside the updraft). Contrary to updrafts however, water is deadly to all non-swimmers, so usually building across it is required - which takes away the beneficial effect of breaking falls. You can force the player to think about how to properly sequence this!
- Both swimmers and gliders will always move to the top of the trigger area of the respective water or updraft eventually. This can be used to gain height.
- Like gliders, they can travel across gaps that can't be accessed from one side to close these gaps from the other side.

Use a swimmer to break the fall.

A platformer from the left can't bridge across the water. A swimmer needs to cross it, turn around, and then platform from the right.

PLATFORMERS
- When provided instead of builders, the fact that platformers in NeoLemmix do not gain height can be used as a real drawback for players. Not only is it much harder to create splatforms this way - how do you even get out of a pit if just a single lemming happens to fall into one?
- On a related note, platformers can't be assigned on even ground. This is especially relevant when working with the backwards walkers or turn around on assign gimmicks in NeoLemmix 1.43, as can be seen in my pack "Lemmicks"; but also when you want to assign cloners to a platformer, or just use it to turn the lemming around in general.
- As a level designer, plan the width of your gaps precisely, depending on whether you want the platformer to turn around at the end or not. Also keep in mind a player always has the option of having the lemming walk up to the final pixel of terrain before assigning the skill, so that you don't experience any surprises that change the behaviour of this skill completely!

FENCERS
Fencers are not only miners in reverse; they are also an excellent way to create self-made one-way fields.
- The "miner in reverse" allows for a new twist on the classic "send a climber up and have him mine down to get the crowd up, too" paradigm: Send a floater / glider / digger down, and use the fencer to create a safe passage for the others from below.
- Making two fencers go through each other's paths is a lot harder than with builders or miners, but it can be done. The shaft behind one fencer needs to be resealed with terrain, though, in order for the other one to pass and continue his task.
- Ever freed a blocker from below? Fencers can do this just like miners can!
- The option of inverting one-way down arrows to create one-way up arrows which only fencers can pass through gives this skill an actual monopoly.
- If a fencer's tunnel ends high enough, it may not be possible to return into the tunnel from the other side. This gives the fencer potential to be used as a blocker, since blockers act like one-way fields attached to lemmings.
- Like with the stacker though, these "one-way fields" usually still can be overcome by climbers, who will be able to climb into the tunnel - which is obviously not possible with actual one-way fields .

A single fencer from the left can allow lemmings to pass to the right without any lemmings from the right passing through to the left. This is not possible with a single basher.

CLONERS
The cloner has absolutely no design space on its own, apart from compensating for lost lemmings. But once you couple it with all the other skills, its potential grows exponentially!
- The potential for synergies with builders, miners, and bashers is almost infinite.
- But also stackers shouldn't be overlooked; a stoner and a stacker can create a nice pit to trap the crowd, if done correctly.
- Cloning platformers often only works in very specific places, usually on poles where there is no terrain to either side. But it can be very effective, because it allows you to provide the player with what seems to be a too low count of platformers, one which has to be compensated by using the cloners!
- Likewise, providing seemingly too few permanent (=athletic) skills requires the player to think through the steps in which these different permanent skills have to be assigned, so that each clone has the skills it should have, and equally importantly, doesn't have any skills it shouldn't have! Otherwise a cloner might climb over a wall it's not supposed to climb over, or glide into a trap where it normally wouldn't have landed.
- Sometimes, a high drop along a straight wall has to be broken by a faller bombing into the wall, and then a climber climbing into the bomber hole to build a splatform from there. Gliders can do this out of thin air; with cloners, this is possible even if the glider is facing in the same direction as the falling bomber before.
- Sometimes, two pioneer lemmings facing in the same direction are required, rather than two lemmings moving in opposite directions. For that purpose, it is crucial to find the right spot to clone so that either of the two lemmings hits a wall as quickly as possible, so that it turns around and follows the other one.

DISARMERS
While this skill may have the least design space of all, it actually lends itself very well to some of the hardest types of levels out there .
- Hard for Flopsy-levels where the crowd is difficult to control, and the disarmer has to get a bunch of work done before the crowd arrives and kills itself.
- Pre-placed lemmings or several hatches, where disarmers come out of one of them and need to clear the path for the lemmings from the other hatches.
- The disarmer is a pickup skill; getting to collect it is the main challenge of the level, not the actual use of the skill itself.

Athletic aesthetics (Pit Lems, LOL 04). A surprisingly hard level for its early position in the pack, this one is all about stalling while the disarmer is doing his job.

WALKERS
On the one hand, this is probably the second-most powerful skill from all the new ones - given that it combines specific powers of the builder and the miner to free blockers, interrupt skills and turn lemmings around. On the other hand, the possibilities for specific use of this skill are very limited. "Know your needs" applies to this one more than to all the others:
- If you need to turn a lemming around or interrupt a skill without providing aditional destructive (miner) or creative (builder) opportunities, provide walkers;
- However, if it's crucial that the lemming can only turn around in specific places (hitting his head / tanking on steel), or that the blocker isn't supposed to be freed just by assigning a skill, then you should rather provide another builder or miner than potentially breaking the level with a walker.




A final word on the "second pioneer lemming" issue:
The above shown example of the "stepping stoner" is a case where you are going to need a second pioneer lemming:
- The first lemming goes ahead and does its job; however, at some point you have to sacrifice it - in this case for creating a stoner.
- Now you need a second pioneer lemming to finish the job - but how do you draw one out of the crowd without releasing the entire bunch?

In classic lemmings, the most elegant way to do this is to trap the crowd in a digger pit and then pulling single climbers from that pit (fortunately you have the arrow keys in NeoLemmix, to make sure you only select a lemming facing in the intended direction).

Usually however, you have to do more impractical things:
- Blowing up the blocker and immediately assigning a new one, costing you an additional lemming and bomber.
- Temporarily freeing the blocker with a walker and then re-assigning it immediately. If several lemmings are clumped together though, they will still slip past when you assign the blocker.
- Building over the blocker and cutting of the staircase to prevent other lemmings from following - an effort which is going to cost you at least two different skills.

With NeoLemmix skills, in contrast...
- the stacker provides a welcoming 2-in-1 solution: The first pioneer slips past by itself; the second one can climb over the stack while the rest of the crowd is held back.
- When lemmings fall down a ledge, you can place a blocker / stacker / stoner on the bottom below, but still close to that ledge. As long as there are still lemmings spawning from the hatch, a glider falling from the ledge can get over the blocker / stacker / stoner, while all the other lemmings continue to get stuck behind it.



Since I like to enforce "stepping stoners" frequently, I also often run into the "second pioneer lemming" issue, so it's good to see how the other NeoLemmix skills compensate for this built-in drawback of the otherwise very powerful stoner .

Source topic: Merge namida/Giga's LP sets or have both?

Quote from: Simon

Quote from: StratoI mean, after all, we have multiple versions of the standard graphic sets, like dirt, fire etc., precisely for that reason!

Why do you want two sets that are nearly identical visually, and 100 % identically physically? If you prefer the other look, then copy the extra versions back. Keeping clutter would be a cost for everybody.

For the same reason that applies to all graphic sets: Different aesthetics.

Physically, most of the Lemmings 2 graphic sets are also very similar - most levels using them consist of slopes, squares, and rectangles. Yet people use all of them .

My general observation across most custom packs is that there seem to be more packs restraining themselves to the classic 8 skills than such which feature NeoLemmix skills. Also, the most acclaimed packs seem to be classic skills-only, as far as I can tell. Whether that's because they only include classic skills, or because some of them are so old that they were initially created before NeoLemmix skills even existed, or whether these acclaimed packs just happen to have classic skills, that's of course something which cannot be inferred from that observation . I see merely a correlation here, not a causal link.

But I wanted to ask in general, do you prefer to play packs with NeoLemmix skills, or such that voluntarily limit themselves to classic skills?

This is a thread for every "wizard to share some of their secret tricks" : Certain things you like to put in your levels / certain skill combinations you like to demand from the player on a regular basis.

Rather than spoiling solutions for individual levels, this may provide a general insight into the mind of each level creator, so that whenever you are playing a pack by a particular level designer, you can look here to find some hint about how the level designer thinks in general, to maybe get a different inspiration for what might be a possible solution.

I'll start, and then you're going to see what I mean .

I like to...

Spoiler

• make levels only requiring a particular supertype of skill (creative, destructive, lethal, upward-moving, downward-moving, etc.)
• make 1-of-everything levels (not necessarily restricted to classic skills)
• make save-everyone levels, so that freeing blockers and/or doing crowd control via "terrain pits" is required
• use radiation or slowfreeze in combination with blockers, so that the execution is less annoying, however the area in which the lemming can bomb / stone is restricted, compared to a pickup skill which can be assigned anywhere in the level once it has been collected
• enforce the miner-cancels-miner trick, which does not work if the miner doing the cancelling is a climber
• enforce interrupting staircases through a low ceiling, so that one has to drop a stoner in between and start another staircase from there
• enforce digging down into the stoner-terrain before building said staircase, also through a low ceiling
• enforce digging into terrain to get below a low ceiling, and simultaneously use that digger shaft to turn lemmings around
• enforce the use of a scout swimmer who then has to build or platform from the other side of a water pont to save the crowd - usually, this is done via a protruding ceiling, so that it is not possible to build from the side where the crowd is, because the staircase / platform would end in a wall above the water
• let the player build into updrafts / anti-splat pads so that they become useful for catching lemmings
• put stoners to their multi-purpose use in the same level (i.e. for breaking a fall, closing a gap, and for turning lemmings around)
• exploit the relative distance between lemmings when it comes to picking a scout lemming (i.e., the second lemming has to be the scout rather than the first one, because the first one has to do the crowd control, and therefore needs more space to prevent the next lemming from catching up to him too early)
• use shafts-in-creation to turn a second lemming around; once the basher-, fencer- or miner shaft is completed and there is no "wall" left, it's too late to turn the second lemming around
• exploit lemmings slipping by a stack-in-creation
• enforce the use of multiple stackers on top of each other to prevent any lemmings from slipping by
• use stackers and/or diggers to create vertical shafts climbers have to climb up
• use cloners in combination with creative or destructive skills
• enforce 6 pixel-jumps
• use stoners to turn gliders around (only works if you stone a descending glider, so that the next one can land on top of the newly created terrain)
• exploit miners tanking on steel to turn them around
• and perhaps, my most famous signature element: turning animal-terrain into traps

I have trouble with...

Spoiler

• levels in which you don't have to save everyone and where it's not obvious which lemmings are allowed to die (i.e. a lemming slipping by and going into a trap rather than a lemming having to be bombed / stoned, which can be identified in advance by looking at the skill panel)
• levels where you have to compress lemmings to bypass traps, because it's not obvious how many will die in the process, see above
• time-limited levels where you have to use several lemmings in combination to either remove or create terrain quickly enough
• levels where you have to make two lemmings using creative or destructive skills go through each other, because I'm not always aware which skills can pass through each other without cancelling each other out, and which can't
• levels with red-herring skills that don't have to be used in the intended solution at all

A "Hard-for-Strato" level would therefore probably include:

Spoiler

• a time limit requiring several lemmings to work together at creating or removing terrain - possibly some of these lemmings going through each other
• probably without a lot of options of crowd control
• you don't have to save everyone
• with red-herring bombers and/or stoners which must not be used, because the lemmings who are allowed to die perish elsewhere
• at the end of the level you need to compress the crowd to get past a bunch of triggered traps

The day of the first release is finally here!



...is a pack for NeoLemmix 1.43 which features the gimmicks - which were culled from the current versions - in a systematic rank-by-rank approach.

You'll need NeoLemmix Player 1.43 to play this! Get it here.
This means:
- The level sides are solid, not deadly.
- Some levels feature ghost lemmings which are unaffected by any type of object, but can be assigned skills by the player.
- There is no fencer skill, no skill blueprints, and no clear physics mode.
Technical stuff:
- If you rewind or framestep, the NeoLemmix player will also switch the selected skill to what you had selected at that particular frame, rather than keeping your current one selected.
You can change this in the settings, however! I'd certainly advise for this because it's an unnecessary and easily avoidable source of confusion and annoyance .
- If you can't solve a level, you can press 1 on your keyboard to advance to the next one and try later - or jump between levels by using the arrow keys on the level preview screen.
You don't have to write down all the access codes! You simply cannot choose directly from a level list, but you can still play these levels in whichever order you choose.
- The music is slightly louder .

Lemmicks is my largest pack to date with 170 levels total.
Each rank is dedicated to a separate gimmick or combination of gimmicks which remains consistent across the entire rank.
There are no time limits on any of the levels. Some will still require you to be quick in one way or another.

Download:
Level pack
Styles folder (to make sure you have all the tilesets for 1.43, put this in the same folder as the 1.43 NeoLemmix Player)
Music pack
The music mainly consists of Lemmings 3D tracks, plus the regular Lemmings / ONML ones and an occasional throw in from Lemmings 2: The Tribes.
Some levels however feature sneak previews at the music for Lemmings World Tour, my next pack in line!
Everything is in MP3 format, because these files actually turned out smaller than if I tried to convert them to high quality .oggs.

Currently, my own music tracks don't loop as nicely in NeoLemmix yet as they did in the software I recorded them in. So I'm open to any suggestions on how to improve this!

And now, on to the ranks!

1. BASIC (20 levels)
Gimmicks: None (unless "Ghosts" and "Solid sides" count )
This rank is supposed to introduce you to the skills and objects of NeoLemmix (1.43) in the quickest way possible.
For seasoned NeoLemmix players, this means predominantly:
- Getting you used to solid level sides again.
- Familiarise you with Ghost lemmings.

The 8 commandments

2. MOIST (10 levels)
Gimmicks: Rising water
All permanent objects rise at the slowest possible rising speed of 255 frames per 1 pixel rise. This may cut off paths you want to take, buttons or pickup skills you want to hit, or endanger the crowd you leave behind - but it might also be helpful on other occasions!

Bathroom leak

3. CIRCULAR (10 levels)
Gimmicks: Vertical and horizontal wrap
Whenever a lemming leaves the screen at one end, it will reappear at the other.

Circular logic

4. CONSEQUENTIAL (10 levels)
Gimmicks: Countdown other skills
You don't lose 1 of the skill you use, but one of every other skill instead.

Limited resources

5. TWISTED (10 levels)
Gimmicks: Backwards walkers
Lemmings walk backwards, but still perform skills in the direction they are facing.

Face the danger

6. WHIMSICAL (10 levels)
Gimmicks: Turnaround on assign
Lemmings walk as normal, but turn around whenever you assign a skill to them.

All along the watchtower

7. ETERNAL (10 levels)
Gimmicks: Hardworkers, Non-fatal bombers, Permanent blockers
Bashers, platformers, and builders go on indefinitely; this extends to miners and diggers as long as they have terrain to stand on.
Bombers don't kill lemmings.
Freed blockers become blockers again as soon as they have solid ground under their feet. They can only be turned loose using walkers.
Stackers and stoners are unaffected, as well as all skills which are permanent skills already.

May the Force be with you

8. EPHEMERAL (2 x 5 levels)
The only rank with a split set of rules.
Gimmicks Levels 1-5: Non-permanent skills
Lemmings lose their athletic skills again after one successful use.

Ignorance is bliss
Gimmicks Levels 6-9: Exhaustion, Lazy Lemmings
Lemmings stop performing skills earlier than they would normally do; athletic skills still stick to the lemming, but only work for short heights.
Swimmers and disarmers are unaffected.

The average Joe
Gimmick Level 10: All three gimmicks combined!

9. HASTY (10 levels)
Gimmicks: Frenzy, Superlemming, Instant Pickup Skills
The pause button doesn't work, the game speed is increased, and Lemmings use pickup skills they walk through instantaneously, if possible.
You can however still rewind using the minus key - and you'll probably have to do this a lot!
Also, be sure to use the hotkeys (the F-keys at the top of your keyboard) to select skills! You won't always have enough time to do this with your mouse.

Frenz with benefits

10. COSMIC (10 levels)
Gimmicks: No gravity
Lemmings can't fall down, but walk in the air. You can still use diagonal slopes of terrain to get them down, though.

NASA training lab

11. SUICIDAL (10 levels)
Gimmicks: Karoshi
You have to kill the Lemmings rather than saving them - the way you accomplish this is up to you!
The nuke button is disabled here, and dropping the Lemmings into the abyss at the bottom of the screen doesn't count as "killing".

Kill Lem all

12. BEDLAM (40 levels)
Gimmicks:
All gimmicks introduced in the previous ranks can appear in any combination with each other, as well as with new gimmicks which weren't covered before. Most of the time, a pre-level text screen will inform you about the active gimmicks, but sometimes you'll just have to figure them out for yourself!

Eternal endless infinity

13. NOSTALGIC (10 levels)
Gimmicks:
A bonus rank dedicated to all the features removed from NeoLemmix in the meantime.

Give up the ghost

Feel free to send me your replays and/or information on any backroutes you find!
I didn't receive anything along these lines while the demo version was up during the development phase, so the testing only starts now with the official release.

Hope you enjoy this little trip back in time!

I've finished the majority of my tracks for Lemmings World Tour and set the end of the file deliberately in a way so that the song would loop in NeoLemmix indefinitely, like the original music. Yet, when I try this out in the Level Editor I still get an ever so tiny gap between the repeats (0.5 to 1 second, perhaps).

In Logic Pro (the recording software / DAW I use), the tracks cycle perfectly fine, and also when I listen to the exported MP3s, they end right after the last note.

Is this an issue with the MP3 format in NeoLemmix which may be solved when I convert the files to .ogg?

In designing my gimmicks-based pack "Lemmicks" for NeoLemmix 1.43, I've noticed a couple of irregularities or some unexpected behaviour regarding the gimmicks. I know there won't be any maintenance done on 1.43 anymore, I just wanted to provide a quick overview over what I've found - and perhaps some of you who were around back then can even explain some of these oddities .

Countdown other skills
The Walker responds differently to this gimmick than any other skill. Whenever another skill is used, while every other skill ticks down as intended, the Walker does not. In contrast, if the Walker itself is used, it actually ticks up while all the other skills go down.
I refrained from using the Walker in those of my levels which feature this gimmick, because this absolutely goes against the established rules of this specific gimmick. I can't really find a way to convey to the player why this skill is affected in a different way by this gimmick than all the others.

Exhaustion
The Swimmer is unaffected by this gimmick. Since Climbers stop and fall down after a while and Floaters and Gliders become regular Fallers again, I'd expect a Lemming swimming through a wider pont to stop halfway through it and drown. The fact that the Glider is affected by the gimmick shows this isn't an issue of classic vs. NeoLemmix skills. It also isn't a matter of the Lemming being still assigned the permanent skill "Swimmer", because when e.g. a Floater loses his parachute due to Exhaustion, when you hover your mouse over it, it's still considered a "Floater" (even in the moment of splatting).
The Disarmer, in contrast, can't be affected by this gimmick, which is logical, since a trap trigger can only either be existant or not - there is no middle ground where e.g. the Disarmer could start disarming and then still get killed (unless an Exhausted Disarmer would turn a trap into a one-use trap, but that would certainly require some modification of the mechanics).

Non-lethal Bombers
I find it really confusing that this doesn't apply to Stoners as well. Of course, now that I know this I made use of this loophole .
The only way to create both non-lethal Bombers and non-lethal Stoners is to use the Invincibility gimmick, but this has a whole lot of side effects if only applied for this purpose.
After all, one main purpose of using the Stoner is to break otherwise lethal falls, which becomes completely redundant when the Invincibility gimmick is switched on.

Instant Pickup Skills + Turnaround on assign
Apparently, automatically assigning a Pickup Skill by having a Lemming walk through it doesn't count as "assigning", so they keep walking into the same direction. Once again, I exploited this once I found out - it somewhat makes sense because you don't click on the Lemming, but for others it still might be counter-intuitive.

Assign to all + Clone on assign
Only the Lemming you click is cloned, not every Lemming in the level.
This is somewhat logically inconsistent. If "assigning" only means "clicking", as in the example mentioned before, then it makes sense that only the clicked Lemming is cloned. However, the other gimmick is called "assign to all", suggesting the Lemmings behave as if you clicked them all simultaneously.
I know this is nit-picking at the name of a gimmick, but if "assign" is a term with a specific meaning, you'd expect all Lemmings to be cloned whenever you click a single one with this specific combination of gimmicks activated.

Countdown other skills + Reverse skill count
With this combination "Countdown other skills" consequently becomes "Countup other skills".
Except for the aforementioned Walker, of course . Walkers will retain the same skill count if you use a different skill, and will go down as usually when you use them - while all other skills will tick up at the same time.

Hardworkers + Lazy Lemmings
This seemingly paradoxical combination actually leads to an interesting result:
Builders and Platformers become hardworkers (though with the Platformer, you notice the first brick has a lighter shade of its respective colour, because it takes this from the Lazy Lemmings gimmick where it would normally quit after four bricks only).
If the No gravity gimmick is switched on, Miners and Diggers become hardworkers, too.
Bashers, in contrast, become lazy .

One skill per Lemming + Disobedience
Makes your level insolvable unless it's entirely release rate- or nuke-based, because the Lemming just shrugs due to Disobedience and then can't be assigned any further skills due to One skill per Lemming.
This is strange because with the Disobedience gimmick, you don't actually lose a particular skill when you click a Lemming for the first time, making it shrug. Only with the second click on the shrugger, the skill is assigned to the Lemming and subtracted from your panel.
But if you don't actually used any skill, why is the Lemming treated as if it had already been assigned one?



Mutually exclusive gimmick combinations:
By this definition I mean cases where two gimmicks are in such direct opposition to each other that one overrides the other.
This is just for clarification, to point out which gimmicks are "higher order" or "lower order" gimmicks .

Zombie on death + Ghost on death
The Zombie on death gimmick overrides the Ghost on death gimmick, meaning if both are active and a Lemming dies, he will become a Zombie.

Invert fall fatality + No gravity
You could expect a Lemming to splat right out of the gate, after having moved only the first pixel out of the hatch. However, this doesn't happen, because the Lemming never enters the state of being a "Faller".
Yet, if you switch on "Lazy Lemmings" and have a Basher bash in midair, he will quit and become a Faller for a single frame - but still won't splat.
Therefore, No gravity seems to override Invert fall fatality.

Vertical / Horizontal wrap + Solid floor / Deadly sides
The Wrap gimmick overrides Solid floor and Deadly sides.

In order to compile my levels for my Lemmicks (gimmicks-based) pack to an nxp which the old player can read, apparently I also need the old Flexi Toolkit for NeoLemmix 1.43. If I try it with my current one, it tells me my pack file was not a valid one .

So, anyone here who still got it somewhere?

And if not, which of the old versions is the one which works with 1.43 (since there isn't a version explicitly for 1.43)?

I know - multitasking is bad . Humans aren't particularly good at it. But I keep getting ideas for both gimmick- and non-gimmick levels, for levels with and without fencers, for levels with and without graphic set-mixing. This tendency of mine to try out all possible combinations is probably one of the main reason why I'm usually against culling anything, because it will always lead to sub-optimal compromises in level design due to having to switch between several platforms. So I work with what I have.

For these "regular" levels, I wanted to do something with an overarching theme. The reason I felt Pit Lems was a little "soulless", despite being mechanically more challenging than my first offering, was that it lacked precisely that: A general topic connecting all the individual levels. So I want to keep the puzzliness of Pit Lems, combine it with the allusions and humour of Paralems, as well as with the scenery-type level building style which I tried to go for with "The Death Titan" or "Face the Hydra", and which Arty has taken to perfection .

While the idea for this pack actually came to me when the introduction of jumpers and shimmiers was announced, I know now that they will be introduced successively (first shimmier, then jumper, possibly with a couple months in between). So I thought of creating this pack for Lix, especially now that it has music, but too many of the levels I had already designed by then were relying on the fencer, which Lix doesn't have.

Depending on how quickly this thing develops, I may create just an additional rank for Lix, making this a (possibly first of its kind? ) cross-platform pack. However, since the development for this pack will probably take much longer than Paralems or Pit Lems - the reasons for which I'm going to get to in a minute - perhaps the shimmier and jumper will indeed be ready for use by then. In that case, I'll make a version for both NeoLemmix 10.13 and the new formats-version, which will be identical except for the unique mechanical features each of them has to offer:

The levels from the 10.13 featuring radiation, anti-splat pads or slowfreeze (because I keep getting ideas for these as well ) will be replaced specifically with levels which have to include either the shimmier or jumper (or limited-number exits, which are the third possible new feature). I don't want to provide any exclusive bonus stuff for either version except for levels which can only be created in that specific version. So ideally, it will be like playing original Lemmings on Mac vs. Windows, with either "Going their separate ways" or "All the 6s".



But what is this pack going to be about, you ask?


Rock you like a hurricane

Indeed: Where Colorful Arty's upcoming back will be based on different artistic eras, this one is going to be music-based. And also geography-based, I guess : The idea of a Lemmings musical ensemble touring around the world. If possible, every level should be named after a famous song, or at least clearly allude to one, and also as many famous locations as possible should be covered. Ideally, a level should do both in one . Which means there are at least two auto-includes from my preceding two packs:


Diggas in Paris


Walking in Lemphis

You see the idea isn't new: I have built song-based levels in the past. However, most of the remaining ones are not really based on such popular songs. So it's questionable whether I should include them just because they "are songs, too". If I were to include them all, I'd put them into a separate rank called "Evergreens", like Flopsy did with the MegSEBytes levels in SEB Lems. Then again, the two examples mentioned above are that famous - not as levels, but with regard to both the song and the place they refer to - that I think at least these should be part of the main pack.


But now, on to the new stuff:

Lemmings World Tour is supposed to return to the classic 30 levels per rank-structure, with five ranks, like in Paralems:
Amateur, Professional, Diva, Rockstar, and Legend.
These names aren't final, though. Other combinations I could think of are:
Overture, Aria, Symphony, Opera, and Finale
Warmup, Rehearsal, Gig, Concert, and World Tour

Additionally, there will be a bonus rank in which I try to imitate signature level building styles of other forum members . This rank will either be called "Encore", or, if we stick to the "Amateur-Rockstar-Legend" rank names, a more suitable name might be "Groupie" . So it's sort of like me trying to "cover your songs". The titles of these levels will probably stray from the "must be named after a song" format, though.


On to the ranks!

AMATEUR
You are just learning to play the instrument called "Lemmings". So take your time, practice slowly, and remember that

It's a long way to the top
...if you wanna rock 'n roll!

Timber (It's going down!)

As you can see, I'm looking for creative ways to do introductory levels again . For Pit Lems, it was "all destructive skills", "all creative skills", "all athletic skills" and so on. Now it's "all upwards-moving skills", "all downwards-moving skills", "all horizontally-moving skills", "all diagonally-moving skills" etc.


PROFESSIONAL
Hold on, this term doesn't mean you're a master of your instrument yet - only that you have decided to do this for a living. You're ready to live on the road, going from place to place, being spat out onto foreign ground by a hatch again and again, level after level, rather than staying in your comfortable little home known as the exit.

Pompeii

DIVA
People who make it this far are probably more likely to think quite highly of their skills. Rightfully so, perhaps? You'll have to find out.

My Lems will go on

ROCKSTAR
When these Lemmings go out to perform, the crowd goes crazy. Which means that ocassionally, that crowd might be pretty hard to control .

Another brick in the wall

And this one is sadly quite fitting to be presented to you today . R.I.P., Angus!


Highway to Hell


LEGEND
Only the greatest of the greatest become truly immortal. And only the most iconic songs can be deserving of appearing in this rank.


Purple Rain


ENCORE
I've come to know that every good pack seems to have its brownnoser levels . These levels will be my tribute to you guys, the people who have been playing my packs, doing LPs of them, and finding loads and loads of backroutes ^^. So it's only fair that this rank will require lots of "research" on my part, because I'll have to identify signature level building styles for each of the active content creators.
While many of you might be known for certain tricks they keep demanding from the player, some of you are even more famous for the type of level they absolutely hate . So of course, I can't let that opportunity slip.


Icho chambers


That's a hard level that is!

Ah, yeah, just out of curiosity, for the Nepster-style level... what's the maximum width a level can have in NeoLemmix?



The Music
...will be hand-made! Now, of course it would be nice to have each original song playing in the background for each level, and you're free to do that (pretty easy when the title gives it away, after all ). I will also write the artist in the "author" line for each level - although these bands and singers won't be safe from stupid Lemming puns, just like their song titles.
However, since I can't use the original tracks, and don't want to bore you with the standard Amiga tracks either, I've decided to go for the middle path and record real-instrument versions of the existing lemmings music. Probably not all of them, some are pretty hard to transfer to actual instruments (like "How much is that Doggie?"), but I can replace these with some of the ONML songs.

Graphic sets
You already see the instruments tileset in one of the example levels shown above. The main issue with this one is the high resolution required to get accurate depictions. So these levels are usually either oversized, or you only see parts of the instruments. (The exit is the sound hole of the acoustic guitar, by the way. )
I'm also working on an Indian / Western graphic set; currently however, I've mainly just recoloured existing pieces in brown or orange ^^, added in a totem pole and a couple of bird silhouettes. We'll see how far this goes.



What's to do now?
- Collecting level titles!
With the tastes in music diversifying more and more on a daily basis nowadays, there are only few songs of which I can reliably guess that almost everyone will know them. The more famous, the higher up in the ranks a title should be. This is top-down level design: Take a title, and then come up with something depicting it in some way, while also having the right kind of difficulty.
And of course, any somewhat famous song referring to a somewhat famous place in the world should be in here. Aside from those shown above, I already have on my list:
- Hollywood Hills (Sunrise Avenue)
- If you're going to San Francisco (Scott McKenzie)
- Y. Lem C.A. (Village People)
- Barcelona (Freddie Mercury)
- Lemmingrad (Billy Joel)
- Samba de Janeiro (Bellini)
- The Irish Rover (traditional)
- London Bridge (hey, fitting Lemmings music for that one! )
- Sur le pont d'Avignon (traditional)
- Lempire State of Mind (Jay Z feat. Alicia Keys)
- Hiroshima (Wishful Thinking) - you see how I kinda do need radiation in this pack, don't you?

In case I do a cross-platform thing with additional levels for Lix, these might include:
- Taking orders from Van Halen (guess which skill you'll have to use here )
- The Time Warp (can you guess it here as well? )
- Beat it! (probably also obvious)

- Telling me which of my two simultaneous projects - "Lemmicks", i.e. the pack with gimmicks, or this one - I should focus on first.

The PJ_techno tileset is based on the jump and run game "Speedy Eggbert", and since Flopsy has just gone on a quest to do more Sonic tilesets, I thought it might be possible to do the same for the little jumping egg .

I do happen to own the game, I just wanted to ask the creator of the Techno tileset how he got those graphics. Because while Speedy Eggbert did come with a level editor, too, all these tiles seem to be saved as BLP files, which I can't open with Photoshop or its likes.

I noticed the L2 sports tileset was still missing one way-down arrows, so I decided to fix that . I'm using these arrows anyway in one of my tilesets, so I just threw them in the sports file as well. Of course, I added them at the very end of the object list, in order not to mess up existing levels.

Keep in mind these can also work as one way-up arrows if you invert them. This will only allow fencers to pass.

The only other graphic set I remember being in need of one way-down arrows is IchoTolot's City graphic set, but I don't want to fiddle around with that without his permission.

Also, I was surprised to find out that most graphic sets don't have a fencer pickup skill - yet somehow it's never a problem placing them in the editor, no matter which tileset is active. Is there some automatic replacement going on in the background?

Because if there are no official graphics for fencer pickup skills, I can't include them in my own graphic sets either .

Hi everyone,

so, I'm fiddling around (pun intended) with my music-based tileset. I could solve the issue of remaining pink edges which I discussed on YouTube with Flopsy - in the end, it's much easier to just use the background eraser in Photoshop and create a png-file without any background at all, rather than having to rely on the GS tool to properly remove all instances of this exact shade of pink.

While I have also been editing object animations already, I haven't decided on a particular kind of hatch or one way arrows for this specific tileset yet. That's why I'm creating levels for it test-wise, trying out hatches from other graphic sets, just to see which colour schemes look well, before I modify one of the original hatches / arrows etc. to include it in the graphic set.

I noticed Colorful Arty recently did an update of his underwater tileset, adding a lot of new pieces. So this would apply in my case as well.

If I understood Flopsy correctly, adding new stuff later on shouldn't cause a problem as long as they aren't inserted between the already existing objects, but only appended at the end? Because if every piece gets a number, higher numbers shouldn't confuse the editor, but only the event of a new object replacing or swapping positions with an old one.

Just want to be sure about this before I create a bunch of levels with a premature version of this graphic set that might get messed up by later development.

Every time I work on a pack, I try to get a little creative with the first couple of levels. It's somewhat of an unspoken rule that the first levels should have some kind of tutorial character, except for very short packs which are deliberately only made for people who have played a lot of other content already, so they don't need to be taught stuff and you don't want to waste their time.

For the average Joe however, especially old lemmings players who might come into contact with NeoLemmix skills for the first time, introductory levels make sense.

For Paralems, I did the "revive original levels with new skills" thing.
For Pit Lems, I combined several skills into few levels, like teaching the destructive skills, then the creative skills, lethal skills, permanent skills, etc. Quickly however, it turned into "teaching the player certain tricks you can do with these skills".

Lemmings 3D had an own Practice rank below Fun, which you could just skip if you wanted to to.

And finally, the NeoLemmix introduction pack shows that effectively, you could spend an entire pack just teaching things to people, from mechanics to skills to objects to tricks... But I still wouldn't feel comfortable just pointing everyone to the introduction pack and leaving my own packs without a "learning curve" .

I'm thinking of teaching the skills pairwise in the next regular (i.e. non-gimmick ) pack I make... because single skill levels tend to be either ridiculously easy or insanely hard. After all, most skills don't have the extreme versatility a builder or a stoner have. And things like the cloner to a lot in combination with other skills, but next to nothing on their own.

So how many intro levels do you aim for with your packs, and more importantly: What do you like to teach the player (and what not)? Skills, objects, tricks and skill combinations?

I'm curious whether the red-headed lemming sprites from GigaLem's Millas pack can be downloaded anywhere? Those would certainly look good on highland levels as well, given that the original L2 highland sprites also had red hair .

If not, I'd be happy to open the single images of the standard lemming sprites in my ancient version of Photoshop (7.0) and mess around with the hue and saturation a bit, just to create some alternatives. If I understood this correctly, a set of sprites is just a collection of a lot of single images of lemmings, performing the various tasks, which are put in sequence to each other frame by frame like in an animated movie? Meaning I'd just have to edit the single images, backup the old ones, and replace them with the new ones.

But I guess I'm missing something here, because otherwise other users probably would have done something similar already...