NeoLemmix_11-14-19_1cf3523 extracted into fresh dir, run in Wine.

I get Msgboxes with "An error occurred while trying to save data." frequently during seemingly standard operation on this new NL set-up. Dismissing the msgboxes continues the expected program flow. No crashes. These msgboxes spawn e.g.:

• wine NeoLemmix.exe. Bass.dll not found, fine. You are running this in Wine, do you want windowed? Yes. An error occured while trying to save data.
  
• Welcome to NL, use which configuration? Select default with Lix, Next. We're in the main menu. Click, hoping that something meaningful happens. An error occurred trying to save data.
  
• Preview of Covox level 1 displays. Click, hoping that we can play the level. An error occurred trying to save data.
  

The second issue is that this error is not informative. What failed? Dir not exist? Maybe only hits on Linux? This uninformative error wording is the bigger issue -- with clear error, I might work around the original issue and continue testing. Now instead, I abort testing after 5 minutes because too painful. <_<

The log file has a datetime of the session, but no errors.

-- Simon

Hi,

Update 2017-08-22: Lix 0.7.x is obsolete -- instead, get the most recent Lix version.

---

Lix 0.7.x experimental build.

Download for Windows
Branch exp in lix-unstable

Keep separate from your stable Lix 0.6.x installation! Levels, tileses, physics all differ. Let's look for physics bugs in this experimental build, make levels solvable, and re-cover levels with solving replays.

Proxima, Nepster, Rubix: See my next post for level pack maintainers -- I'll list which levels were affected by tileset changes, which levels need new proofs due to subtle physics changes, ...

Physics

• Nepster's miner mask
  
• Fix #129: Floater doesn't land inside terrain and turns (Bug found by Ramond in summer 2016)
  
• Floater doesn't go flatter than tumbler. If you assign floater to a fast tumbler, after opening the umbrella, the lix can't gain horizontal flight over the tumbler anymore. Change suggested by Proxima in summer 2016, might affect solution to Steve's Endeavor.
  
• Fix #147: Digger checks inner 14 pixels for steel. Any steel there aborts. On either side of that checked area, there is one lo-res pixel where we ignore steel. (Before, the digger stopped when there was lots of steel on the left, or lots of steel on the right, or a tiny bit amount of steel on either side. That was too complicated.)
  
• Builder creates brick further ahead, like in NL. No builder backstep. Can't seal off climber ledges behind yourself anymore by building immediately after ascending.
  
• Builders and platformes double their most recent brick when they run into a blocker. Reason: This prevents holes in bridges and allows the crowd to follow.
  
• Blocker field narrower by 1 lo-res pixel on both the left and right. Blocker field is exact same as in 0.6, this is simplest. Even though it's possible to prevent crowd from following a builder, with most blocker placements, the crowd follows.
  
• Fix #199: Don't spawn lix outside of torus bounds. Immediately wrap coordinate before the first death check.
  

Tilesets

• Added Raymanni's 3 tilesets. Thanks, Raymanni, for these excellent tilesets, released in the public domain along with Lix. I should have included them in Lix over a year ago.
  
• Remade the oriental set entirely: Removed matt/oriental, remade every tile with new looks and possibly different physics, added some extra tiles. Thanks to geoo for submitting awesome bamboo poles and pebbles! This new set is simon/oriental. All included levels point to the correct new tiles, but, due to changed tile shapes, some levels aren't solvable.
  
• Removed simon/earth, simon/brick, simon/steel. Modified Hrududu slightly, the only level that used simon/steel.
  
• Removed geoo/construction/trampoline.T.
  
• Renamed amanda/occult/occult_* => amanda/occult/*. All levels point to the renamed tiles.
  
• The steam in geoo/construction has alpha channel to look good overlapping itself, and its grey is lighter.
  

-- Simon

Hi,

geoo is going to visit me next week. We'll play multiplayer Lix, come join everybody!

I'm proposing Saturday, April 29, at 18-20 UTC 16-18 UTC. Other times are fine, step forwards with your own suggestion.

IRC is quakenet.org #lix, preferrably Mumble for voicechat (get details in IRC), Discord for voicechat works too.

-- Simon

This topic deals with the ancient level format for DOS Lemmings. Level files in this format end with .lvl, 10-level-packs end with .dat.

Consider NeoLemmix or Lix: DOS Lemmings's .lvl/.dat format was popular around 2000 to 2010 for custom levels. Since 2014, the most popular engines are NeoLemmix and Lix. We encourage you to create new levels for these games.

Play old Lemmings games: This topic is about custom levels. If you want to play DMA's old Lemmings, Oh no! More Lemmings, Holiday Lemmings, ..., get a Lemmix player, or run the old games in DOSBox. You don't have to set up Lemmix editor.

See also the 2013 list of game engines and editors.

Lemmix + Eric's Lemmix editor

Lemmix is a lemmings clone that comes with a level editor and is probably your best choice for playing custom levels in .lvl and .dat format, like most of those on the level database, as these levels were designed for Lemmix/CustLemm physics and might not work in other clones. Due to the physics it's also a good choice for the challenges from the Challenges Board. Lemmix features saving and loading replays, savestates and a few more convenient features. Setting it up is a bit complicated, and it has no music.

Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20180929192201/http://ericenzwaan.nl/eric/lemmings/lemmix.htm

Setup

Get CustLemm which essentially merges the graphics files from Lemmings and ONML. Extract Lemmix and open the file LemmixStyles.ini. Navigate to [style_9], and two lines below you should find "CommonPath=". Enter the path where CustLemm is located there. (Optional: If you have the original game and/or ONML, find [style_0] and [style_1] and put the paths to Lemmings and ONML there respectively. This will allow you to play the original and ONML levels.)

Now run Lemmix, and go to Tools -> Compiler. Select 'Custom Lemmings' and click 'compile all graphics sets for this style'. (Optional: you can do the same for Original Lemmings and ONML.)

Usage

When opening a .lvl file, you'll be prompted to select a viewer style. Select 'Custom Lemmings' there. When opening a .dat file, you'll be presented with a level list. Right-click on that dialog, select 'change viewer style' and select 'Custom Lemmings'.

To play a level, open it and press [F2]. Press [u] to save a replay of your solution. Press [Shift]+[R] to load a replay during play; make sure you are already playing the correct level.

CustLemmix

An alternative to Lemmix + Lemmix Editor (explained above) to play levels from the level database in a Lemmix player. Download CustLemmix, create a new empty folder, put that executable inside the folder. Rename your level pack to LEVELPAK.DAT and put the pack in the CustLemmix folder. Run CustLemmix to play.

More info about CustLemmix. Don't have CustLemmix in a folder with other Lemmings/Lemmix styles. CustLemmix has styles compiled into the executable and should use those styles. It would prefer other styles from its folder if it found any styles there, thus don't have any styles there.

CustLemm, LemEdit

Obsolete since 2007, but historically important. Both of these run in DosBox. CustLemm is a hack of ONML that loads any given LEVELPAK.DAT instead of the ONML-included levels. See the included readme for instructions.

Download CustLemm

You can select levels 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 from the 10-level pack with the arrow keys in the CustLemm main menu. To play even-numbered levels, you have two ways: Either press F2 in the main menu, enter SKIPLEVELS, then press [Numpad-5] during the preceding odd level to skip the odd level. Or press F2 in the main menu and enter one of these codes:

2: IRRTDTSICR
4: RTDTSIVKCX
6: DTSIRVTMCJ
8: SIVVTDTOCP
10: IRRUDTSQCK

Amiga

Creating and playing custom levels in Amiga Lemmings.

Link: http://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=1206.msg32683#msg32683

-- Simon

Play custom levels

Download a level pack, e.g.:

• The NeoLemmix Introduction Pack is part of the main NeoLemmix download, a custom Lemmings-like game. Try it!
  
• Lemmings Reunion by IchoTolot has the classic 8 skills, starts easy, then becomes challenging. Also runs in NeoLemmix.
  
• Lemmings Omega by namida has new tilesets, extra skills, teleporters, unlockable exits, zombies, ... Runs in NeoLemmix.
  
• The Lix community pack ("lemforum") is bundled with Lix, another custom Lemmings-like single- and multiplayer game.
  

Our level pack board offers even more.

NeoLemmix has the most packs. Lix is the second-most popular engine. SuperLemmini and Lemmini haven't seen many packs recently. Some old user levels in the .lvl/.dat format need vanilla Lemmix or CustLemm.

Create levels

For NeoLemmix:

• Download the NeoLemmix level editor.
  
• Run the editor, select "File" -> "New level".
  
• Right-click into the empty space, select "Insert Terrain" or "Insert Object".
  
• Choose skills and other settings in the dialogs under "View".
  
• Select "Tools" -> "Play this level".
  

For Lix:

• Download Lix, it contains a level editor.
  
• Run Lix, go to Single Player, and select "New Level" near the bottom right.
  
• Click the tree button to insert terrain in the empty level.
  
• Add hatches and exits, and visit the "Skills" and "Constants" dialogs.
  
• Save, exit the editor, then play the level from the singleplayer browser.
  

Share your cool levels on the forum!

-- Simon

Hi,

Lix 0.6.30 has per-level variable for number of players. This doesn't do anything at all. geoo wanted it. Let's revise what that should do. Only display markings in the editor? Prevent level start with wrong number of players? Distribute hatches to teams before examining how many teams play, then remove hatches for nonexistant teams?

Re level format: Mark hatches in the level text file as belonging to a player, or keep round-robin hatch distribution to teams? How to do neutral hatches? Neutral hatches shouldn't be distributed round-robin in the first place.

-- Simon

-- Simon

Hi,

Edit 2017-08: Lix 0.6 has been obsoleted by Lix 0.8.

---

First time here? See Lix homepage: Basic info and screenshot

Download for Windows
Download for Linux (built on Arch 64-bit)
Source code
Changelog
Issue tracker

Post bugs and ideas in a separate topic, or file issues on github.

-- Simon

Hi,

prompted by Kieran's hello topic, we need a prominent topic for lurkers: How to get into Lemmings culture?

There is "For new users: How to play Lemmings on a modern PC, but it is too long, and doesn't list important engines first. Glance at its first section on Lemmix: This would be a good length for the entire topic. If stuff gets too detailed, link instead to a more detailed page.

We care about levels more than engines. Explain as short as possible how to get a pack running. What packs should we suggest? Let's keep this narrow, but cover both NL and Lix.

I'll put forward as #1 suggestion Icho's Lemmings Reunion. Reason: It's very high quality, and starts easy enough. Its release post explains how to download and install NL. It concentrates on the DOS L1 mechanics. Agree? It's unfair to single out one pack for "try this to get into custom levels", but listing all packs merely provokes the question what to play first.

#2/#3 suggestion should probably be the NL introduction pack, because that finally covers all the new features of NL that Icho's pack doesn't yet use. #3/#2 suggestion should be the Lix community pack, because I already push that as the flagship Lix pack.

Describe how to get L1 running in DOSBox? Or is that not as important as NL/Lix? Maybe only link to another topic that explains it in detail.

Level editing is central to the culture, almost everybody will want to dive in quickly. I want quick-and-dirty step-by-step instructions to create and play a trivial level. Everything else should be discoverable from within the editors.

I'll draft something in the next post. Please destroy with criticism.

-- Simon

2017 -- 2018 -- 2020 -- 2022 -- 2023 -- 2025

---

Hi,

D Lix has usable singleplayer and editor. You can play the community pack and Rubix's levels. I have begun on the networking last year already, but you can't play yet. The ship can sail in a lot of different directions from here.

Networked mode: Push this towards minimum playability. Coordinate some test games on IRC (quakenet #lix).

NepsterLix: High-quality pack, I want to ship NepsterLix with the game, but I've never prompted Nepster directly about it. I'd host the proofs (= replays that guarantee solvability) on my proof collection on github.

ClamLix: Clam hasn't been active for over a year. ClamLix (level pack) is still awesome. Some levels rely on C++ Lix features (time limit, trampolines, physics details). Should we ship this with the game? We can alter levels slightly, then go for 100 % replay coverage as a community project, like we did last year with the lemforum community pack.

Tilesets: Improve the paper-cut-out look on some Matt tilesets, replace my 10-year-old programmer MS-Paint art with nicely textured and shaded graphics, etc. Lots of little things. Draw idling animations on traps. Jamie does idling animations by overlapping a no-effect gadget with a trap, idling animations are super important.

Music: Icho frequently pushes for this, so worry about this more. Ship a ton of oggs with the game? Ship tracked music, but Ramond and Rubix don't use trackers?

What are the most interesting middle-term goals? What can wait? What other high-level goals are there? Report bugs on github.

-- Simon

(The area of the Lix window that shows level during play) can be slightly smaller than default level size. View can appear like a view on the complete level, yet can obscure important ledges. Problem observed on Flopsy stream (topic with all Flopsy plays lemforum pack).

A good solution to this shouldn't assume any particular values. At best, have threshold ratios.

Designing smaller levels shouldn't be the answer. You'd merely move the problem to a different screen size.

First Idea: When screen size in one direction is between 70 % and 100 % of level size in that direction, scroll level based on mouse position? As if some really slow RMB-scrolling were always active. Can well become annoying.

Minimap? Weird application of a minimap, because the minimap's main use is to overview huge levels. Minimap feels safe to ignore when 80 % of the level is on the screen anyway, thus doesn't help much. Minimap solves a different problem.

Zoom to fit level? I assume that non-integral with nearest-neighbor looks dumb, any other filter obscures pixels. But haven't experimented.

Related issue: Zoom 1.5x, would it look good?

-- Simon

LastVersion=10012013000, run in wine.

NL saves config to NeoLemmix147Settings.ini, which I shall call "the file".

I set SoundVolume=24 in the file, play a level and exit the game, then the file says SoundVolume=52.

I set SoundVolume=100 in the file, played a level, sound was louder than last time, exited the game, and again SoundVolume=52 is written in the file.

-- Simon

We have 8 colors in multiplayer, plus a neutral color. I'd like the neutral color to be white.

Design goal: The 8 player colors should cover a good chunk of the spectrum that normal people can see, yet still be well-distinguishable by colorblinds.

geoo brought it up in chat
Image: What becomes equivalent

-- Simon

Hi,

Icho is going to visit me on Friday, 2016-11-11. We will have a surprise video stream for you, starting at 19:00 UTC (= 20:00 German time).

We don't know what we will do on stream. Ideas:

• Play Nepsterlix. I haven't solved the harder levels.
  
• General level critique, à la angry grandpas from the Muppet show.
  
• Icho plays Jazz Jackrabbit. ("never played it before + I am baaaad at jump and runs :P")
  
• Simon plays Command & Conquer, Icho's favorite game from childhood. ("I will rage because I will de-seslect units instead of moving them")

Link: Watch Simon's stream on twitch

Bonus: Right now (Thursday, 19:30 UTC = 20:30 German time), I will stream Jazz Jackrabbit speedruns. Maybe someone of you guys will pop into twitch chat or #lix.

-- Simon

Since at least 2015:
Discuss Lix here; a Lemmings-like game with support for custom levels and graphics and network or online multiplayer.

Please change into the following, or suggest even further improvements.
Lemmings-like game with custom graphics and levels, and networked multiplayer.
(Edited according to Proxima's repsonse.)

Reasoning:

• Discuss Lix here: -- entirely obvious, remove altogether. Discussion is the norm on boards; you'd forbid discussion, e.g. on boards purely for posting content, rather than allow it explicitly where we want it.
• with support for -- better say "with X" than "with support for X". To have something, you must support it anyway. But you can support something without having it. Thus, "with X" is both shorter and more informative.
• with custom levels and graphics and network or online multiplayer -- maybe this is subtle, but it's broken English. No matter how you bracket this, it's wrong. Possibility A is "with support for (custom levels, and graphics, and network) or online multiplayer", that says "Lix supports network", which is broken English, and rips apart "networking" and "online", which are close semantically. Possibility B is "with support for custom levels and graphics and (network or online multiplayer)", that's bad grammar and would have to be "networked or online multiplayer".
  

If you prefer full sentences, please consider Lix is a Lemmings-like game with custom graphics and levels, and networked multiplayer.

-- Simon

I caught interest in Jazz Jackrabbit 1 speedrunning.

This is lots of memorization and dexterity. The speed is so high, you must memorize enemy locations to react in time during jumps.



Damage boosting in JJ1 feels like flying. When you hit an enemy, it knocks you back into the direction you came from. If you have held the wrong direction long enough before the hit, you bounce off enemies into the direction you want to go, almost at full speed, invincible.

When I made this topic, my times were around 35 minutes, and the world record was 30:32.

Update 2016-11-17: World record get! And continuing to improve.
Update 2018-01-13: I broke the 28-minute barrier with 27:57. We believe 27:00 is humanly impossible.

Twitch channel
speedrun.com leaderboard with best run

-- Simon

The Lix ingame UI looks too much like a Korean washing machine.

Idea: Remove boundaries between any two inactive buttons.



-- Simon

<namida42> this [= the assignment logic], and a fix to the weird window stuff, are the two biggest things needed. but both are intimidating tasks.
<SimonNa> hmm
<SimonNa> the windowing has more severe impact for me
<SimonNa> but the assignment is so lovely and exciting to find bugs in, I focus on that, it's like fishing in a lake

I reeled in this carp. This can desync replay and physics: You will see different actions on the screen than what actions will be replayed later.

1. Play a RR 1 level. Let a lem spawn and land.
2. Pause.
3. Set the RR to 99 by right-clicking on the + panel. This doesn't advance physics.
4. Advance exactly 1 frame with the hotkey that advances physics and doesn't cancel the replay. This seems to write the RR change into the replay.
5. Step back 1 frame. See how the RR in the panel shows 1 again.
6. Assign basher.
7. Unpause. Watch the lemming bash. The game will continue to spawn lems at RR 1.
8. Restart level. Watch the lemming bash. The game will continue to spawn lems at RR 99.

The physics lack an action that the replay has: The change of the RR to 99. Expected instead: Items 7 and 8 above continue with the same RR.

You can repro an equivalent bug by replacing RR-to-99 with nuking.

As for LMB advances before cancelling replay, namida and I agree on a more fundamental redesign of the assignment logic: All input goes into the replay first, then the game fetches data from the replay and invokes the data on the physics. The program should be designed such that this is the only way to affect physics.

-- Simon

<Nepster> Yes, more guidelines for objects would be nice. This needs a proper forum topic though and I am currently not in the mood to make one.

You play a level in a new tileset, and there is a little house. Is this an exit? Trap? Teleporter? Receiver? Who knows? It's whatever the set designer liked that day.

Whatever looks like a house or archway, I suppose it's an exit. Bonus points if the house has torches. This guideline was set in stone in L1. Very consistent, very good. L2 Sports had the dumb flag in the Sports tribe, but that doesn't violate the rule that every archway is an exit.



L2 began violating the guideline with the airlock. This doorway looks like an exit, because up to here, all the archways were exits. But it's not, it's a trap.



L3 Egyptian has this awful fake exit, and the rotatable wall with hands, of which I didn't find a picture. Both are traps.

Please don't make traps that look like archways. Avoid avoid avoid. If it looks like a building with an inviting door, it's good to enter.



Whatever the L2 devs were smoking, they made this, and it's the L2 Scottish set. This looks like terrain or decoration, but it's again a trap.



Compare with the coastal suction function! This is perfect trap design. The coastal suction function hovers above the path, with a dangeorus tube coming out that aims at the lemmings. It looks mechanical, and not at all like a house. Obviously a trap!

Teleporters must look reasonably different from receivers. Door open or door closed? I don't look at that, I look at the shape of the thing. And if it looks like a house, convince me first that it's not an exit. It's not enough if it doesn't animate. If it doesn't animate, convince me first that it's not terrain.

There's a teleporter in the marble set, it has striped pipes coming from it. Why shouldn't these be solid? They look exactly like the other pipes. Beware of levels that connect real pipes to the fake pipes.

Teleporters could get a consistent symbol throughout all tilesets. Real life has no teleporters, so we must invent something. A lightning bolt? A star? Something that doesn't yet have meaning in Lemmings!

-- Simon

We discussed this in #nl yesterday.

Chat summary: The game scrolls slower during pause. This is dubious: During play, we update physics and draw, but during pause, we only draw. Pause cannot possibly run slower than play, because it's strictly less work -- unless there is a bug.

namida has suspected that the game renders the level twice during pause.

Source code: In v1.47, GameWindow.pas:247, procedure TGameWindow.DoDraw; seems responsibe to render everything. This tells gadgets, lemmings, and the terrain to draw themselves.

When I grep the codebase for DoDraw, I find 7 calls to this method, spread across GameWindow. With so many calls all over the place, I didn't try to reason whether DoDraw gets called too often.

One solution is to make DoDraw do nothing but set a flag. When all input and physics are done, and the flag is set, draw. You already have fNeedRedraw, but aren't using it consistently for this.

-- Simon