My offer stands, Strato - if you fancy getting on Lemmicks 2 with me, let's do it!

What? I hadn't even heard of that offer! Sure, let's do this! There are still a lot of unexplored Gimmicks left (and some less-popular ones that we could drop this time, like Frenzy / SuperLemming / No Gravity... ).

Haha, to be fair I do like a bit of pixel-precision, but not to the extent of making something that's impossible. Besides - if an impossible element is included in a level, it renders it unsolvable. I'm definitely not into making unsolvable levels, just want to clear that up right now!

Oh, don't worry, I never claimed any of your levels were unsolvable, nor did I experience any of them as such. Just some very pixel-precise ones (I think the epitome of that was your modification of Mayhem 01, "Steel works", with the countless number of hatches).

But as I said in my previous post, I realised that there might indeed be some puzzle applications for Hoist-Jumping, and that it isn't going to be as pixel-precise as I initially feared, because it's not something that just works on a single frame, but the Hoister still takes a couple of frames.

So just to be clear, I don't object to Hoist-Jumping being possible. I just wanted to pose the question whether it would lead to more of a gain for puzzle design, or whether it would rather cause confusion.

Thanks for the overview! In other words: You can't assign a Shimmier to a Hoister.

Based on that, would it be reasonable for the player to assume that they can assign a Jumper to a Hoister?

Puzzle-wise, I think the most important gain of this mechanic would be allowing the Climber to turn around before looking forward again as a Walker.

Additionally, and easy to overlook, is the fact that Shimmiers and Jumpers can also become Hoisters now; iit would thus allow a Shimmier arriving on a platform slightly higher than his feet (causing him to hoist) to immediately jump into the other direction (same for a Jumper).

It would probably not be possible for a Shimmier traveling along a thin platform to immediately turn around through Hoist-Jumping after his arrival and jump on top of the platform he shimmied along before. He would most likely just bump his head on the ceiling he shimmied along and fall down looking in the opposite direction.

Unless you clone the Shimmier shortly before the original arrives, then bomb the clone to make space, so that the original can arrive, hoist-jump to turn around and jump over the Bomber gap created by the Shimmier clone, to then land on top of the platform he shimmied along before.

Do you understand what I mean? It's probably hard to explain without a RC build allowing hoist-jumping to demonstrate.

Thanks a lot for converting these, Arty! I've been looking for an excuse to replay all the original Lemmings levels with my custom recordings of the original Lemmings tracks... without boring myself to death due to already knowing all of the solutions.

Now I have something that will look, sound, and feel like original Lemmings, but still give me some new nuts to crack!

Ascender - Jumper and Ascender never directly transition to each other.

Haha, the "old" Jumper to the "new" one! So I guess this means it's not possible to assign a Jumper to an Ascender (just like it's not possible to assign most other skills to Ascenders).

But couldn't a Jumper theoretically land on such a spot of terrain that he would have to ascend right away after landing (without ever being a regular Walker in between)? Or would he just "bump" against a "6-pixel wall" and turn around instead? What about altitudes lower than 6 pixels but higher than 1?

Hoister - A jumper hitting a wall very slightly further than the distance he can just step on to it, will become a Hoister. Jumper cannot be assigned to a Hoister (maybe it should be possible, as a "last-second wall jump"?).

Thanks, the first part answers what I was asking! So it will act just like the Shimmier in that case.

Regarding Hoister-to-Jumper transitions: If those are possible, I can already see WillLem create a pixel-precise level with a trap right at the top of a Climber's path, and a platform behind the Climber that you have to jump to, but the platform is placed at such a height that you can only reach it from the top of the wall (=where the trap is). In that case, you couldn't assign the Jumper while the lemming is still climbing (because he'd jump too low and miss the platform behind him), but you couldn't wait until he had finished climbing either, because then he'd go into the trap.

Or, alternatively, there wouldn't be a trap, but since the lemming would jump forward again once he is a Walker again, the Hoister state would be the last chance for him to turn around as part of the jump.

So I think, the main question should really be: If Jumpers can be assigned to Hoisters, do they jump forward (as soon-to-be-Walkers), or backwards (as still-Climbers)?

I think this is a subtle but completely valid change. An updraft in this specific position would thus still allow the Jumper to cover the same width as before (no longitudinal extension of the leap), but the point at which he lands on the other side could be slightly (=4 pixels) higher if he jumps through an updraft, compared to a regular jump, where, if the full length of the jump is required to cover the distance, he would have to land at the same height as he started (if the wall were any higher, he'd instead bump against it and fall down).

So I would be completely on board with this, if this ends up being the difference between regular and updraft jumping!

Question: If a Jumper hits the side of a platform that's just slightly higher than his starting position, will he engage in "hoisting" behaviour, just like the Shimmier does when encountering a platform that's slightly higher than the current position of his feet under the ceiling?

Thanks a lot, WillLem! I've noticed though that the Lara Croft style actually contains separate pngs of each sprite in its modified form (i.e. with teal shirts, like the Lara Croft lemmings are supposed to look anyway - not like purple-blue Lemminas that are merely being recoloured). Did you recolour these by hand? If so, what does the scheme.nxmi file actually do, aside from changing colours for athletes, zombies, and selected lemmings?

And isn't an overload of additional sprites (in terms of actual png images for each type of sprite) precisely what we wanted to avoid by having the recolouring feature?

Or can a scheme.nxmi file also apply to a set of sprites that is not contained within the style folder as "lemmings" and "lemmings_hr"? With theme.nxmi files, you can simply refer to the sprites at the top (LEMMINGS default, for example), without having to include the single png files again.

If not, I get how this method allows you to customise more about your sprites, i.e. two different shades for each part. But I think it might lead to a lot of redundancy in terms of pngs if we do this for every sprite we recolour, because then each of those sets would have to come with its own set of pngs again?

In the meantime, happy St. Patrick's Day! Here are the Irish lemming sprites!

I must say I'm growing more and more fond of the Slider idea...

The thing is, back in L2, I usually hated this skill, because more often than not, it ended up backfiring, by turning a lemming into a state where he couldn't be saved anymore, because he would always turn around at the wrong places and thereby lock himself out of a level. There is one Egyptian level in particular where IchoTolot explicitly mentioned this in his Let's Play (saying "so we just don't make him a Slider").

While drawbacks make a skill interesting, of course, this is also something that might make people hesitant to actually assign a Slider to a lemming - if it is a permanent skill like in L2, at least. In that case, people would probably go with a Floater or Glider first before trying a Slider, if either of the former are available in a given level.

However, thinking of the Slider more as a downward Climber than a surrogate Floater instead, this would open up many new interesting interactions, especially with the Jumper, now that jumping-off a wall seems to be just as agreed-upon as jumping towards a wall.

- You could have drops which are deadly, but because there are no Floaters, Gliders, or Stoners, and the wall on the side the lemming is coming from doesn't have a straight edge, you actually need to jump across a gap to the other side in order to give the lemming a wall to hold on to so that he can slide down safely.
- You could have straight walls where a lemming can slide down and then, before he actually reaches the ground, jumps off into some tunnel in a wall on the other side.

Both of these seem particularly fitting now that WillLem has created the Lara Croft sprites precisely according to my instructions!

The Slider being a permanent skill would still be an interesting option, of course, enforcing turning-around consistently. Just like being a Climber can be a drawback if it causes a lemming to go over a wall and die in a place where every other normal lemming would simply turn around on said wall, being a Slider and looking in the wrong direction compared to everybody can still result in interesting puzzles.

It just seems like L2 in particular had a hard time creating such good puzzles, so that the Slider often ended up in a state where it was so risky to use that the better advice was simply to not use it at all.

But as said before, the Slider would not be the only skill whose potential was extremely wasted by L2. Even the Laser Blaster, as limited as it might seem in its application, still has a wider range of use (like the aforementioned "dent the ceiling to cut off the Shimmier" example) than L2 manages to explore successfully.