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?

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!

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.

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.

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 .

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?

As you might have noticed, I'm working on a throwback pack for NeoLemmix 1.43 featuring gimmicks, so I'd like to take a look at some of the old packs which contained levels with gimmicks, just for the sake of inspiration.

That said, if you created such levels back in the day and want them to get some more time in the limelight, you could of course also send these individual levels to me and I'd try to integrate them into the pack - that's what the "author" line in the level editor is for, after all! This could easily transform into a community effort this way.

I have already found GigaLem's collection of ghost levels, and they certainly helped me to get a feel for how these function mechanically. Though I was surprised to see e.g. the Biolab tileset from Lemmings 3 featured, which I can't choose in the 1.43 editor. I guess ghosts were kept until NeoLemmix 1.47, i.e. they were removed slightly after all the (other) gimmicks?

So, if there are any other gimmicks packs still out there which you know of, that would be quite helpful indeed!