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Messages - Simon

#4126
Tech & Research / Re: Glitches in Lemmini
November 11, 2012, 01:46:39 AM
Some of these aren't glitches, at least not in the sense of unwanted behavior. I don't know whether Lemmini physics are meant to stay as close to Lemmings as possible. They differ in several places. If metal-hitting miners do not turn around, you can estimate that 100 percent DOS mechanics weren't desired.

In this light, some of the mentioned odd behaviors may actually be intended: Increased trigger areas, (the Java crashes http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/tongue.gif" alt=":P" title="Tongue" class="smiley" />)

I had many of these odd-seeming behaviors in earlier versions of Lix: Building through slim walls, leaving a thin wall after bashing, etc. The obvious method to program a climber is to have the effective coordinate in the space directly outside of the vertical wall. If it turns into an oh-noer, it will naturally fall down. To remedy this, the easiest method is to have it instantly explode. Other methods are to move it into the wall at that time, or to shift the effective coordinate into the wall at all times during climbing. The latter solution is very intricate and touches code of other skills as well.

Lemmini also works with doubled resolution, and getting that to work seamlessly is a long and winding task. Floaters and miners skipping pixels are probable bugs in these physics, although even the L1 miner can skip over a one-pixel gap.

-- Simon
#4127
Lix Levels / Re: Reloaded
November 10, 2012, 06:06:27 PM
I'm quite impressed that this project is almost completed. Staying close to the given terrain seemed very restrictive at first, especially if you want to design two different puzzles on repeated maps. Nice work!

-- Simon
#4128
Forum Games / Re: Family Feud
November 08, 2012, 04:43:21 AM
I'm genuinely flattered to be considered most handsome. :-)

-- Simon
#4129
General Discussion / Re: Best quotes from IRC and Mumble
November 08, 2012, 01:24:43 AM
Here's a picture from Wikipedia:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cb/Octodon_degus_-Artis_Zoo%2C_Netherlands-8b.jpg/800px-Octodon_degus_-Artis_Zoo%2C_Netherlands-8b.jpg" alt="" class="bbc_img" />

Subtitle of this image: "Three degus keeping warm at Artis Zoo, Netherlands". Degus are highly social rodents.

R is a programming language which Steve hates. Also, Rrrrrrr is the sound generated by a buzz saw. Here's the appropriate adaption of the image. Two degus make sure that the first doesn't run away from programming in R:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/43603680/RRRRR.jpg" alt="" class="bbc_img" />

And this is the Flockdraw version:

http://asdfasdf.ethz.ch/~simon/etc/degus-flockdraw.png" alt="" class="bbc_img" />

-- Simon
#4130
Tech & Research / Re: Lemmix new database
November 07, 2012, 10:39:13 PM
I presume the database is a central one on the net? For users' level collections stored on their own machines, the filesystem should be the best level database.

If you would like to use the original level formats of L1 and L2, then an idea for the database is to just save the whole level as a binary string, and extract only some data from this string into dedicated rows (name, tileset, skillset, searchable things like these). You probably need to write a server program anyway that understands level files. You will then end up with something similar to Mindless's database.

I'd refrain from extracting all level data from the binary string and sort everything into tables. Or do you want to have additional tables with e.g. one row for each terrain object? This seems unwieldy.

Are you shooting for a player with exact L2 mechanics? Several skills have agonizing physics details -- weird ballistic arcs for thrown objects, explosion knockback, fan usage, collision detections, diver glitches, ... This seems like a mammoth project. AFAIK, nobody has disassembled the game yet to provide help.

However, a fully-fledged L2 editor is still not available these days, and would certainly revive level designing for that game. State of the art is to use the nonfree lgl2 with geoo's L2 suite.

-- Simon
#4131
Forum Games / Re: Family Feud
November 06, 2012, 05:08:29 PM
Quote from: geoo
I can be Quizmaster in Chrome and geoo in Firefox! Quiz is open. Wait, I have to submit answers first... Crap, now the quizmaster has sent his answers to geoo.

-- Simon
#4132
Levels for other engines / Re: Lemmix Level Pack Topic
November 03, 2012, 03:37:10 PM
The extensions of Lix over L1-like behavior were mostly to make its multiplayer a better game. The project doesn't strive to be a replacement of Lemmix, their physics differ in lots of places. If you prefer a well-known and never-changing set of rules for singleplayer puzzles, then I encourage you to play L1-style levels in Lemmix.

Exporting Lix levels to Lemmix is a little difficult. L1-style levels must meet lots of restrictive criteria and need steel areas to be defined separately from the steel terrain. Even if there were an exporter that performs all obvious steps, there would still be a lot of work necessary in an L1-style editor to finish the conversion. I probably won't make this in the near future, also the demand seems rather low. The best idea is to remake the levels from scratch in Lemmix.

-- Simon
#4133
Forum Games / Re: Family Feud
October 24, 2012, 01:48:54 PM
Bumping the topic over the counting one. This needs publicity! What fun! ccx, geoo, Akseli, Clam have already entered.

-- Simon
#4134
Tech & Research / Re: Lemmings Revolution on Windows 8
October 24, 2012, 07:19:57 AM
IIRC the game crashed upon exit on Win XP already 8 years ago. That crash shouldn't be a big worry.

-- Simon
#4135
General Discussion / Re: Logic Puzzles
October 23, 2012, 12:55:40 PM
Right!

-- Simon
#4136
General Discussion / Re: Logic Puzzles
October 22, 2012, 03:39:33 PM
Here's another cute logic puzzle. The site I got it from offers a solution, thus no link yet.

The task is to answer the following five questions correctly. Each comes with one correct and three false possible answers.

Q1. What is the lowest-numbered question with B as correct answer? A) Q1, B) Q4, C) Q3, or D) Q2.
Q2. What is the answer to question Q4? A) answer D, B) answer A, C) answer B, or D) answer C.
Q3. What is the answer to question Q1? A) answer D, B) answer C, C) answer B, or D) answer A.
Q4. How many questions have D as their correct answer? A) three, B) two, C) one, or D) none.
Q5. How many questions have B as their correct answer? A) none, B) two, C) three, or D) one.

The same site regularly runs quizzes with psychological contests, e.g. "From the numbers 1 through 100, choose a number. You win if you choose the lowest number which no other participant has chosen." Others call for most popular answers similar to Family Feud, e.g., name a dinosaur which as many other participants as possible will also name. I feel inclined to run a couple of such questions on the Lemmings Forums, getting answers via PM, and revealing the results after 3-6 days. Are people interested in such things? (Name a useless L2 skill other than Diver *grin*)

-- Simon
#4137
Lemmings Main / Re: guess the Lemmings level game
October 22, 2012, 02:27:00 PM
Poles apart http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/smiley.gif" alt=":)" title="Smiley" class="smiley" />

If correct, someone else may continue.

-- Simon
#4138
Lix Levels / Re: Reloaded
October 22, 2012, 02:32:15 AM
Select the level via the singleplayer browser, then hit Edit.

The current version is still from August 6th. Based on your post, people might expect something much more recently. ;-)

-- Simon
#4139
Lemmings Main / Re: guess the Lemmings level game
October 20, 2012, 07:36:45 PM
Would indeed work, clue was ambitious ambiguous.

-- Simon
#4140
Lemmings Main / Re: guess the Lemmings level game
October 20, 2012, 06:24:51 PM
Right!

-- Simon