Looks like we're getting hit by spam postings again.  They've even managed to look less "spammy" in form, which of course just makes it a bigger waste of time as it takes slightly longer for the reader to realize it's spam. " title="Angry" class="smiley" />

So much for the "what color is lemming's hair?" test.

...it isn't phishing email so don't worry, but it is something I accidentally did in Yahoo!.  Feel free to ignore the email; in fact I've been told that for at least one person, the email automatically landed in their spam folder anyway, which is really funny and not a good sign for whatever Yahoo's going for with this new feature of theirs I know nothing about.

Figure I might as well start a thread for this type of challenge also.

This is of course modeled after <a href="index66e2.html?topic=181.0" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">namida's "Fewest different skills levels can be beaten with" challenge</a> for Lemmings-1 based games.  The idea here is to minimize the different types of skills needed to gold a level, rather than the actual count of skills.  This means that a gold solution using 60 rock climbers and 60 swimmers is better for this challenge than a solution that uses 1 stomper, 1 platformer and 1 roper, because the former uses only 2 types of skills (rock climber+swimmer) while the latter uses 3 types, even though the total skills count is 120 vs 3.

The nice thing about this type of challenge over the "skills you can't live without" is that with "skills you can't live without", sometimes it ends up being an exercise in analysis rather than creative level solving.  When a level has such a good variety of skills that you can easily substitute one type of skill for another, you can easily end up with no skills being essential, and you end up with a result that's purely an analysis exercise rather than something interesting from a solution standpoint.  Whereas in this challenge, you at least have the additional challenge of restricting the variety of skills to use, and see how far you can push in that direction.

Again, no idea how successful this will be, but let's give it a try anyway.

Results will be reported in the form of combinations of skill types.  Combinations with same number of types of skills are equal for this challenge, so you may see a result listed as (say) "roper+stomper, roper+bomber, platformer+roper" since all three are 2-type combos.  Just because a combo isn't listed doesn't necessarily mean it's not possible. It could just mean no one has found or reported a gold solution using that combo.

Again, I'll start off with a few results. Again, unreported combos are simply that, unreported.  I'm fairly sure for example that Cavelem 1 probably has a builders-only gold solution and possibly a stompers-only gold solution, but haven't confirmed neither at the moment. [edit: confirmed both]

<span style="font-size: 0.7em;" class="bbc_size"><strong><span class="bbc_u">Classic</span></strong>
1: builders+bashers, builders+miners, builders+diggers
2: ?
3: ?
4: ?
5: ?
6: ?
7: ?
8: ?
9: ?
10: ?

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Beach</span></strong>
1: ?
2: ?
3: ?
4: ?
5: builders+glue pourers
6: ?
7: ?
8: ?
9: ?
10: scoopers+archers

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Cavelems</span></strong>
1: stompers, builders, club bashers
2: stompers+scoopers
3: platformers
4: scoopers, stompers
5: stompers
6: stompers+ropers
7: ropers+stackers, ropers+platformers
8: ?
9: ?
10: ?

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Circus</span></strong>
1: ?
2: ?
3: twisters+platformers
4: twisters
5: ?
6: ?
7: ?
8: ?
9: pole vaulters+laser blasters+platformers, laser blasters+magic carpeters+platformers
10: ?

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Egyptian</span></strong>
1: ?
2: ?
3: ?
4: twisters
5: ?
6: ropers+any 2nd skill except attractor (not fully confirmed)
7: ?
8: ?
9: ?
10: ?

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Highland</span></strong>
1: twisters
2: ?
3: ?
4: throwers+fillers (not confirmed but likely)
5: ?
6: ?
7: platformers, stackers
8: ?
9: flamethrowers+platformers+attractor+Icarus wings
10: ?

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Medieval</span></strong>
1: scoopers+any 2nd skill except parachuters
2: twisters+sand pourers
3: exploders+stompers+ropers, exploders+stompers+platformers
4: all except the surfer (club bashers+sand pourers+stackers+glue pourers)
5: club bashers+builders+bombers
6: twisters+platformers
7: platformers+fencers
8: platformers+stompers
9: ropers+archers, runners+archers, builders+archers, jumpers+archers
10: ?

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Outdoor</span></strong>
1: twisters, platformers, sand pourers, glue pourers, planters
2: laser blasters, stackers
3: flamerthrowers+platformers
4: archers+glue pourers, glue pourers+ropers
5: ropers
6: ropers
7: bombers
8: platformers
9: builders+archers
10: stompers+platformers+bombers, stompers+platformers+fencers

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Polar</span></strong>
1: ?
2: fencers+flamethrowers
3: ropers
4: ?
5: ?
6: ?
7: ?
8: ?
9: ?
10: ?

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Shadow</span></strong>
1: ?
2: twisters+fencers, twisters+bashers
3: ?
4: jetpackers+bashers+glue pourers
5: ?
6: ?
7: ?
8: ?
9: ?
10: ?

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Space</span></strong>
1: mortars, platformers
2: ?
3: fencers+stompers+platformers
4: ?
5: bombers+ropers+ballooners
6: climbers+shimmiers+hoppers+runners+fillers+spearers
7: ?
8: rock climbers+laser blasters+stompers
9: ?
10: ?

<strong><span class="bbc_u">Sports</span></strong>
1: flamethrowers+bombers
2: ?
3: platformers+attractors
4: jumpers+ropers*
5: stompers+jumpers
6: ropers+platformers
7: ?
8: ?
9: ropers
10: jumpers+archers+ropers

*Sports 4's jumpers+ropers solution requires you to start the level with 57 lemmings (or less than 60 in any event).  That's still possible for gold because you're allowed to lose 3 lemmings on Sports 1.</span>

It seems wasteful to create a new topic for each birthday, so here's the thread for all birthday greetings.

Today (December 9) is Proxima's birthday.  Happy birthday!

For fun, I tried to come up with a level using Proxima's name but just couldn't come up with anything interesting enough fast enough.   Then again, I didn't check the birthday calendar until like now.  Oh well, at least I have a week's head start for doing something similar with Insane Steve.

 
(Hope he still visits the board often enough to see this in time...)

Yahoo! Geocities is closing down by end of October this year, so I'll greatly appreciate it if you guys have any recommendations on what else I could use to host files like Lemmings levels, solutions, screenshots, etc., that sort of thing for free.  I suppose there's the Lemmings File Archive, but there may be cases where I would want an alternate location, particular for files meant to be shared to only a few people and are subjected to changes (eg. levels in development or something).

I know the free ones tend to have annoying popup ads, that's not too much of an issue as long as it's not ridiculous.

Thanks!

As some of you old-timers here know, the Lemmings forum had changed places several times, and sometimes existing posts are not carried over during a switch.  Once in a while, I might want to search for stuff in those old posts from the old forums.

So, I'd like someone to make this topic sticky, and then have someone here reply with the URLs to archives of the old forums.  Thanks!  (In particular, right now I'm looking for posts that were made by Mike, back when he's active in the forums.)

Now that Eric's Lemmix (alpha version 0.0.7.0 to be exact) has the ability to record and play back solutions, there's now a way to share solutions to DOS Lemmings levels without making huge movie captures with DOSBox!

I will start uploading some Lemmix-recorded solutions to the following location:

http://www.geocities.com/guestlevels/lemmings/challenges

To play them back you need to do the following:

1) download and unzip the solutions somewhere.̆ The files with the ".lrb" extension are the recorded solutions.̆ The .txt files are the recorded solutions in a more human-readable form, in case you're curious.

2) Open the corresponding level in Lemmix.̆ You'll find Tricky 23 in level000.dat of DOS original Lemmings, and Havoc 10 at dlvel000.dat of DOS ONML.̆ Once you open the DAT file, Lemmix will present a pop up window which lists by title all the levels in the levelpak, and you can select the one you want to load it.

3) Once the correct level is loaded, press F2 to go into playtest mode.

4) Press shift+R (ie. capital R).̆ Lemmix will ask you to open a replay file.̆ Select the .lrb file for the level you are on.

5) Now sit back and enjoy the show!̆ Lemmix will automatically restart the level with automatic replay when you opened the lrb file.̆ You can pause and unpause at any point in the replay, if you want to examine certain parts of it more carefully or slowly.

6) Press ESC at any time to quit and go back to editor mode.

--------------

I've uploaded the 79/80 Tricky 23 solution and the 17/21 Havoc 10 solution so far.

I'm planning to do the 100% Wicked 6 at some point, though since I can't find any notes I written down for that level, I might have to figure out the solution again from scratch, so that might take some time.

Feel free to drop requests here on which other solutions you'd like to see!̆ There will be a few solutions that I won't make available for now, mainly because I might want to use similar techniques in my own CustLemm levels, but it doesn't hurt to ask anyway.

If you have any trouble installing Lemmix I'll be glad to help, as is Eric.̆ I will also answer any questions you may have regarding the solutions posted.