EDIT 10/07/2024: The hack has been moved to RomHack Plaza following the closure of RHDN. This doesn't change anything about the hack itself at the moment, but the new link to download it is here: https://rhpz.org/18014
For anyone who isn't too familiar with IPS patches, you will need to obtain a copy of the US Lemmings ROM yourself, then download a program like LunarIPS which will let you select the ROM and the patch and apply it for you.

Yeah I should stop running my mouth nonstop in the Discord server and actually make a proper post about this, shouldn't I

Anyway, I'm working on an improvement romhack for this utterly terrible version of Lemmings. I originally just wanted to see if I could fix an issue with the sound driver, but then I experimented with fixing other issues, just on a whim at times, and eventually I found myself working on a full improvement hack. Here's the title screen


Plus a menu screen, with the background removed so this 3-color font, provided by CindySparks, can work with no issue.


Here's some palette changes along with a lovely skill bar graphic, also by CindySparks ^^


It's not just graphics, though. Here's the bulk of the changes made so far:

• Added code to music driver to handle the noise channel specially, so no more broken drums
• Tweaked instrument and music data to make the soundtrack sound significantly nicer overall
• Changed some sound effects
• The music rotation now includes all 8 tracks (including what used to be only the credits track) in every rank
• Added the ability to SWITCH SKILLS WHILE THE GAME IS PAUSED(!!!)
• Pausing the game no longer obscures the HUD
• Builders now turn around and keep building when hitting a wall (Game Boy behavior), which also means that assigning a Builder to a lemming whose back is against a wall when they start building is no longer stupidly precise (lookin' at you, Mayhem 1)
• In any situation where a Builder cannot build at all, either hitting a ceiling or being stuck between two ramps when they try to start building, the lemming will ALWAYS turn around
• Any levels either broken or trivial as a result of the previous two changes have had their skill sets/solutions altered
• Builders assigned to Bashers who are very near a ledge no longer get eaten
• Diggers assigned to Hoisters no longer get eaten

Those gameplay issues are certainly not the ONLY ones in the game but they are certainly the most annoying. There is one last oddity I intend to look into--Bashers sometimes pass through the first tile of terrain in their way without deleting it for reasons I don't yet understand. It doesn't happen often but it never feels good when it does.

Now, since I had to adjust the skill sets of some levels anyway, I have begun experimenting with tweaking the properties of other levels, particularly ones in Taxing which, in my opinion, is BY FAR the dullest rating in this version. For example, POOR WEE CREATURES was reduced to a pure Builderfest in this version, but with my edits to the skill set, save requirement, and release rate, it has at least a little more depth now.

I'll have to get into the specifics of these level changes later, as well as perhaps recruiting a couple playtesters... assuming anyone would actually be interested in that

Quote from: Adrian060756 on February 26, 2023, 04:36:31 AM
What I find annoying about the Playstation port in general is that the music isn't assigned to a certain level at a time. It instead skips to the next song like a cycling playlist once you make a mistake and have to repeat the same level again. Plus half the tunes are missing in this port which could be because of several issues.

1. The disc was full of data and didn't have enough room to hold the entire 22 something playlist in redbook audio.

2. The growing awareness of copyright music may have become more of a deterrent at that point that it was far easier to just ignore the tracks that might offend or cause copyright? Go figure?

It's the latter. Well, the special levels aren't in the game in the first place so it makes sense why those tracks aren't here, but aside from that, IIRC Tim10 caused some trouble (don't remember the details) and it turns out Doggie wasn't actually public domain either, hence why those two tracks are missing from the Windows version and all subsequent releases.

@Armani Both solutions are pretty much intended!

I did update my R2 just now, however, as you revealed some potential for other backroutes by finding a way to save a skill. I don't know if that extra skill would lead to anything disastrous, but better safe than sorry.

V4 of my R2 uploaded now

R1 Update History

V2 - Redesigned the dragon's tower, other terrain tweaked to incorporate a small part of a backroute (thanks Armani!), replaced all Builders with Platformers, and Stackers, Bombers, and total lemmings have all had their counts reduced. (V3 planned)

R2 Update History

V2 - Addressed several major issues that made the level entirely trivial to backroute.

V3 - Tweaked the skillset, moved some objects around, and added LOTS of terrain.

V4 - Adjusted some terrain to pre-emptively prevent future backroutes.

R3 Update History

V2 - Removed the Stacker and tweaked other skill counts, compacted the level, reduced the time limit, bumped up the save requirement (for both backroute and thematic reasons ), and once again incorporated a small part of Armani's solution.

@Armani, your solution to my R3 was actually surprisingly close to the one I had in mind for the level. Seems like you experienced the overall feeling of the level I intended.

Spoiler

There was some very trivial cheese that allowed you to save a Walker and consequently made the ending less intense. That's the least of my worries patching this thing.

Alright, first of all, thank you so much @IchoTolot and @kaywhyn for the encouragement. That, along with just taking a bit of time away from everything, really helped.

@Armani, your solution to my R1 was definitely a backroute, but I incorporated a small part of it into V2's intended solution. The tileset in question, by the way, is the tileset for the Medieval Tribe in Lemmings Tribes, which, to avoid any confusion, is a completely separate game from L2. Here's a wiki page about it that I put together a little while ago if you're interested: https://lemmings.fandom.com/wiki/Lemmings_Tribes. Anyway, I was the one responsible for porting the tilesets over to NeoLemmix, and since its tilesets would fall into roughly the same category as the L2 and L3 ones (and since it doesn't have trap sound effects anyway), I just stuck with the default sound effects for traps, which is why the dragon (since it is a Medieval tileset I believe it is indeed supposed to be a dragon, but its design is quite dinosaur-like so you're entirely justified calling it a dino) sounds the way it does. Since these tilesets are directly ripped from an officially licensed Lemmings game, they should probably be properly labeled and put below the L3 ones, but I didn't pay any attention to that or say anything on that matter when I uploaded them.

@Simon, your solution is, expectedly, another horrendous backroute. It's pretty likely I'll just throw out the Stacker entirely and adjust the level accordingly in V2. I had quite a clever use for the Stacker in mind when designing the level, but after some consideration I think it is literally impossible to enforce without completely changing the spirit of the level. There is indeed a reason the save requirement and exit cap are what they are.

ericderkovits and Simon, all of your replays are horrendous backroutes, and I don't know why I'm surprised by that considering I got no useful feedback from anyone I asked to be a tester. If one of you is reading this, please know that I understand you have a life too and that I have no hard feelings; the situation just sucks.

My intended solutions felt a lot more clever so I'm not sure I can bring myself to make these backroutes the normal solutions, yet I have no idea how I'm going to patch any of these, ESPECIALLY my R3 which is the one I was most proud of. I'm not sure I'll ever have the energy to deal with backroutes this bad. I truly have no idea why I even entered with no tester feedback; I guess I was just excited. If I even bother to update my entries it's gonna be a while from now. Should not have spent my time and energy on this when I was already hanging by a thread. Sorry everyone

To contribute something of value now, I'll go ahead and put the replays I have here. Garden of Love was quite nice, tan x dx, and I enjoyed the concept Splash or Splat, NieSch, though my solution seems like a mild backroute(?)

I notice some of the default sounds have noticeable clicks at the end of them that probably weren't supposed to be there but ended up there anyway. I've got edited versions of chain, electric, and thunk attached here that just have those last few bytes at the end removed. To be fair, the clicks at the ends of chain and electric aren't that bad, but the one at the end of thunk most definitely is.

Also, I'd like to add that I think fire is significantly too loud. I find it pretty loud on its own myself, but that might just be me, but the bigger problem is that a lot of instances of the sound can play right on top of each other, and the sound is not that short, so multiple lemmings getting burned within frames of each other can get overwhelmingly loud real fast. Maybe it is just me since I haven't seen anyone else mention it, but still.

Quote from: Armani on January 24, 2023, 05:35:54 AM
* There are some levels using tilesets that you can not download via NL style manager. You have to manually download them to play the following levels.

Spoiler

Contest#11 "Bird Knight"
Contest#12 "Fish"
Contest#12 "Technicolor Nightmare!"
Contest#12 "CAT ASTROPHE"
Contest#14 "Adios amiga!"
Contest#20 "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
Contest#25 "A Roundabout Trip"

Wait, isn't the style for A Roundabout Trip in Style Manager? I just checked and I was able to redownload lt_classic (and the other Lemmings Tribes styles) through the Style Manager, so did I screw up with that level somehow?

Well didn't think my silly little video would inspire a post!

This is exactly the kind of thing I like to do Nice list

Glad I'm not the only one who sees Level 3 as hard. I still haven't solved it, but I am having fun with these; Level 3 is definitely an interesting puzzle.

Added a poll because I want some input on the above question ^^

I feel that this is relevant to put here: just a little table of stats for all unique official versions of the game. Yes, there are other tables out there like it but all the ones I've seen are generally pretty inaccurate and/or are missing versions. This one should only be a little bit inaccurate.

I played through quite a lot of most of these versions (that aren't either almost lost to time like the J3100 version or extremely close to the Amiga/DOS/whatever versions, anyway) because I am at least a little bit insane. I checked every single non-trivial version for mouse support, I pressed every button on the keyboard for some of the computer versions (and found some surprising things), and more. So witness the result of a long-running hyperfixation and lots of unjustified motivation.

There are definitely more things I could have put on here that aren't as straightforward to check. Maybe I'll investigate that someday.

My sincerest apologies for being silent on this for months. I have made very little progress on this from March to now due to a lot of things going on in my life--not all of them bad, but still a lot to juggle. Even though I have gotten embarrassingly little work done for this, I have NOT abandoned this project, and I'm hoping to get some more progress made over my month-long winter break.

With all that said, you all at least deserve another level image.


Egypt 13 - Just Gotta Do It Yourself!

This level made significant use of the Mole in the original game. NeoLemmix obviously has no Mole, which is probably for the best, so my version features the Laserer, which felt like the closest available thing. Honestly the level feels a bit trivial now, but I'll worry about that once I start getting playtesters involved. I might reduce the levels per rank to 25 or something for the levels whose spirit simply cannot be captured even remotely in NeoLemmix, and this level would be one of the first on the chopping block, but we'll see what happens.

I've said this elsewhere, but those Sandbox levels are particularly intriguing to me. I also love the idea for the last Campaign level!

I've also said this elsewhere, but I am honored to have my SoundFont used in a pack, and the couple tracks you put in my server were awesome to listen to. Very excited for this!