Hi folks,

the NL bug thread has grown a very exciting discussion about counting lemmings, cloners, zombies, ..., at the preview screen, and during the game. The sparking issue was the information shown in the ingame panel.

I value this discussion really much, and feel that it will be important in the upcoming months to refer to it. Especially (what to show during the game panel) can be directly useful for designing Lix. These discussions deserve their own thread, or maybe two, since it's two closely related issues.

Unfortunately, by nature of the dump-all-bugs-here thread, it both buries other bug reports, and will be buried itself by new reports. The discussion has interruptions, is hard to link, and to get it all, you have to sift through off-discussion-topic posts in the same thread.

I conceive three possible solutions here:

• namida says that putting all bugs in one topic, burying each other, is a good idea.
• Some moderator refactors the thread, picking exactly what is relevant to the ingame panel info,  and cloner/lemming/zombie counting, moving them to 1 or 2 new threads.
• I become mod and will then do it myself.

-- Simon

FIGHTPPKKMMNFFGHT
FIGHTPPKKMMN
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current system can be improved, but isn't terrible.

No, it is terrible. I have compared it to making all exits invisible during play, showing them only during preview.

Agree with most other things.

Quote from: Simon on December 16, 2015, 02:06:03 AM

The player should always be able to easily score Cloners near the exit, even if the game has ended.

Yes, forcing level creators to allow saving cloned lemmings near the exit would be a solution, but I hesitate to put such a restriction on all level designers.

Hmm, I haven't been clear. What I meant: If possible at all by the level design, the game should allow going back from results screen to play, and applying the missing cloners. No burden put on level designers.

Quote from: Simon on December 16, 2015, 02:06:03 AM

Maybe the level must not terminate until all cloner skills have been applied, or the level has already been won without them. Then the time limit shouldn't terminate the level either,

Sorry, but this doesn't make sense. What should the last lemming do when arriving at the exit? Walking by, standing around, or...? If you ignore time limits until all cloners are used, then players may cheat the time limit by deliberately not assigning cloners and it doesn't help to save the last cloned lemming anyway.

The last lemming should exit normally. The idea here is that LemGame doesn't terminate. In other words, the results screen isn't yet shown. Reason: There is still something to be done, revert and assign cloners, if that is enough to win.

Likewise, in the above setting, when time runs out, LemGame shouldn't terminate, to allow reversion.

The idea hinges on the current problem that (leaving results screen by any means kills your replay). Fixing that is more important than special-casing the termination of LemGame.

I want to meet Nepster in real life someday. :-]

Quote

Yes, we should organize a meeting someday, probably in Göttingen to include IchoTolot. So let me first check a few things tomorrow. I'll write a PM.

Sure, sure. Icho wants to get a laptop some time in the new year, that will make for good meetings. I can host one person in my little apartment;

-- Simon

1) If we display "required - saved / out + hatch" how do we count cloner skills? My intuition says: "required - saved / out + hatch + cloners".

1) Same gut reaction, add cloners. But I haven't thought deeply about it. The main idea is to count how many you may still lose, so adding cloners seems correct. I believe they should also be counted with the "number of lemmings:" on the preview.

Downside: If it shows 3 lems out, and you find only 2 on the map, how fast do you realize that he missing lem out comes from the skill? Is this situation likely to run into, after saving most of the horde?

2) [...] cloner skills left. Should these be automatically added to the saved count?

2) Gut reaction: No, don't add, but fix the underlying UI problem that makes 2) a problem in the first place.

The UI problem is that you cannot edit the current solution after the level has ended automatically. If you start the level afresh, all your replay data is gone. The only workaround is to save it to a file immediately before clicking anything out of habit, restart level, reload replay from file. Since the issue 2) seems to come up every once in a while, this workaround is impractical.

Depending on what happens with this UI problem, I'd suggest different solutions for 2). The player should always be able to easily score Cloners near the exit, even if the game has ended.

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After thinking some more: My combined idea of 1) add cloners, 2) don't score cloners, is idiotic. We'd end up with a level void of lemmings, but displaying lems left equal to cloner skill count left. This idea implies they should be scored automatically. Or not be counted with the out count. Whargh.

Maybe the level must not terminate until all cloner skills have been applied, or the level has already been won without them. Then the time limit shouldn't terminate the level either, for there exist people like me who mash the time-skipping key until the level terminates after the crowd has arrived.

Hnn yeah, why is this all in one thread, instead of one for the panel issue? I lack mod rights to separate the posts appropriately...

I want to meet Nepster in real life someday. :-]

One thing I dislike about Lixes interface is that the lettering is smaller and there is more of it; means more difficult to read; particularly in tense situations, not often a case in single play, but sometimes.

Print is too small: This is an interplay of small print and low-contrast choice of colors. I'm hesitant to use full white to not distract from the skill counts. On the other hand, I hate low contrast print. It's concerning.

I'd suggest you wait for the D port in a few months, once that has reasonably testable singleplayer. That will support arbitrary windowed resolutions without looking uglily scaled. Let's see whether the text will be still hard to read there.

-- Simon

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-- Simon

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-- Simon

White koans:
A    CDEFG          EGG           ESTUFF   FNOUGH  JJ
AN   CEFG           EN            ETHINGS  FSTUFF  O
ANA  CEGG           ENEUGH        EX       G       OX
ANE  COUNTER        ENO           EXE      GG      OXO
AX   COUNTERENOUGH  ENOU          EXO      GGG     S
AXA  D              ENOUG         EXOM     H       ST
AXE  DD             ENOUGH        EXOUGH   HH      STU
C    E              ENOUGHSTUFF   F        HI      STUV
CC   EE             ENOUGHTHINGS  FF       HIJ     T
CCC  EEE            EO            FFF      HIJK

Black koans:
COUNTERA        EXAMPLE         HNOUGH       OXE
COUNTEREXAMPLE  EXAMPLECOUNTER  ON           OXOM
DA              EXAMPLEEXAMPLE  ONE          OXOUGH
DAT             FE              ONEUGH       STUF
DATA            FNOUGHEXAMPLE   ONOUGH       STUFF
EA              HA              OTHER        STUFFEXAMPLE
ENA             HE              OTHERSTUFF   TH
ENOUGHA         HEN             OTHERTHINGS  THINGS
EXA             HENOUGH         OXA          TS
EXAM            HGUONE          OXE