Skills: 3 Climbers, 3 Bombers, 3 Blockers, 5 Builders, 2 Bashers
Save Requirement: 48/50
Time Limit: None
Release Rate: 50

Playthrough

Just looking at the layout, this level seems quite straightforward. There's a single gap to cross and an OWB to break, two obstacles that are very familiar to anyone who played through the original game. Since this is the first level in the pack, I'm not expecting the available skills to make things too difficult.



I do notice a couple of wrinkles. First, I need a way to turn a lemming around in front of the exit, so they can bash through the OWB. Second, I notice I can only lose two lemmings, despite having three blockers. That means if I use all three, I'll have to save one of them somehow. The gap in the middle of the level looks to require 3 builders to cross, which means I have 2 spare for other things. The OWB requires a basher, which leaves me with one of those spare. That's perfect, since I can use the extra basher and one of the extra builders to save the 3rd blocker.

Ideally, I'd prepare the entire path before letting the crowd go. However, that's not possible in this case, because I need two workers with one of them on a delay and I see no easy way to arrange that. So instead, I'll have to let the crowd go once the bridge is built and stop them from falling in the lava using a blocker. The plan is to do something like this:



A put my plan into action. I let one lemming slip past, who builds over the lava, then contain the crowd with a blocker on a small builder bridge...



I release the crowd by bashing through the bridge the blocker was standing on. Meanwhile, the first worker climbs over the OWB and becomes a blocker near the exit, in preparation for the second worker.



A final blocker stops the crowd from falling into the lava, the second worker bashes through the OWB and the way to the exit is cleared by bombing the blocker.



Solved! The first of many. It's rare that my initial solution ends up working out like this.

Review

Pros: Perfect as an introduction level. Simple, easy to understand, but not completely trivial. Feels fairly tightly designed. Good refresher puzzle.
Cons: Useless third bomber. Nothing sticks out as novel or memorable.
Look: Aesthetically, the addition of the blue bricks provides some visual interest without making it look too busy. It's nothing amazing, but it shows effort has been put into making sure the levels aren't boring to look at.
Score: 6/10

Solution Replay

Skills: 10 Climbers, 10 Floaters, 10 Bombers, 10 Blockers, 1 Builder, 10 Bashers, 10 Diggers
Save Requirement: 60/60
Time Limit: None
Release Rate: 70

Playthrough

As with the last level, the layout seems simple. There's a pit to build over and a ledge to climb up. What's the catch? Well, when I glance down at my skill pane, it becomes clear:



...There's only one builder. I actually love this setup, it's one of my favourites. Present a puzzle which looks easy and would be easy using certain skills, but then deny the player that obvious solution and force them to think up another way. As a note, I think this is one of the strengths of revisit levels in the original and packs inspired by the original. Okay, so that means I'm going to have to dig my way up in one of these spots:



A miner seems like it'd work perfectly in the right-hand spot. But... I just noticed I also have no miners! Well, not to worry, we have plenty of diggers and bashers for making a staircase. It IS in the level name, after all. I'm going to attempt to make the staircase through the pyramid, rather than near the exit. Firstly, this saves me having to find a way to stop any of the crowd from falling into the hole. Secondly, it looks like a single builder might have trouble making it up the first ledge anyway. And thirdly, it's easier to turn around the worker lemming on the terrain below the exit, than it is to turn them around AT the exit. So, that results in this plan:



I start by assigning a climber and allowing the rest of the crowd to fall into the pit.



Luckily, there's a convenient overhang on the bubbles here and back near the entry hatch, so I don't have to worry about my climber falling off the world. When they turn, I build a staircase by alternating bashers and diggers.



Will it work?



Yes, it did! Building to the exit completed the solution.

Review

Pros: Conceptually good, featuring an atypical approach to a typical obstacle. Efficient it terms of being a satisfying puzzle from a simple structure.
Cons: Useless bombers and no practical use for the floaters. Very easy if you already know the trick.
Look: Level looks good. It's not my favorite tileset, but they did well to make everything 'look right'. I like that you can see part of the central pyramid all the way down to the bottom of the screen.
Score: 6/10

Solution Replay

Skills: 1 Climber, 2 Blockers, 5 Builders, 4 Bashers, 1 Digger
Save Requirement: 49/50
Time Limit: None
Release Rate: 75

Playthrough

Looking at the layout, the complexity has ramped up considerably compared to the previous two levels. There is 5 obstacles to overcome, rather than 2, and each have multiple potential ways to get past them.



Obstacle 2 (the pipes that look like a roman numeral 5) is the most gnarly looking, as it involves building and destructive skills. Obstacle 3 could also pose a problem if building off the top results in a fatal fall on the other side. I note that I can skip Obstacles 2 and 3 by digging underneath, however the steel wall at 4 makes it hard to recover the crowd from that position, especially without a miner. A couple of builders could also resolve Obstacle 4 and 5 at the same time.

At this stage I don't know if I'm going to be tight on skills. Maybe I have plenty, but maybe I have to be very strategic with where I use them. First though, I want to try an experiment. I want to see if the lemmings can walk through the pipes at Obstacle 2, and if they end up on top when they do.



They do not walk through the pipe. Alright, do they climb up to the top if I destroy the first pipe?



They do! However, it turns out that my fears were realized:



Building from the top results in a fatal fall. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work even if I stretched the bridge and interrupted the builder with a basher. Okay, so what about from the bottom ledge?



It turns out this bridge works, but there's still a problem:



I only have 5 builders, and it takes all 5 to set this up. That leaves me with nothing to use to cross the next pit. As far as I can tell, I need to get the crowd over to the right-hand side of the acid using no more than 4 builders.

Since it's not an option to use 3 builders over the acid, can I make it so the 2 builder approach doesn't result in a fatal fall? I try digging at the end of the pipe and stretching the bridge...



...Still no dice. Alright, I'm going to consider the other option instead: going underneath. Going under requires no builders at all, however the gap on the other side is so thin that I'd definitely need to use more than 5 builders to boost the crowd up and out of it. I could improve my chances by widening the pit, however the only good way to widen the pit would be using a digger. I have to use the digger to actually get the crowd over there in the first place, so that doesn't work.

What I just noticed is that I have a climber. Could I send one lemming underneath, have them climb out of the pit, then prepare the path over the top for the rest of the lemmings? That would almost certainly result in that lemming being unable to reach the exit, but I am allowed one death in the save requirement. I'm thinking something like this:



Upon attempting this solution, I discovered it was a little harder than it sounds. For one, there's a very brief moment where the first builder hovers over a fatal fall. Often, a lemming slips through and dies:



This was honestly a pretty annoying discovery, because I'm confident that this is a working solution, but I had to alter the timing of the builder and adjust the RR slightly to time it so that no lemming would fall through the gap. That doesn't "feel" intended to me, but I don't know. Was I supposed to do that? Was it some kind of oversight in the conversion? Is my solution wrong? Currently, I have no idea.

Another detail I discovered was that the digger that goes under the acid was going to have to be the last lemming remaining beneath the bridge, otherwise other lemmings would fall into the pit too and get stuck.

Finally, finding a good spot for the blocker was difficult, somewhere I could bash through without ruining the path for the crowd. I eventually settled on putting them right on the edge of the pipe, where it meets the build bridge.

Once I avoided the splat and only one lemming remained in the pit, I had them dig+bash under the acid, climb up and prepare the path for the other lemmings:



Perfect. Now all I have to do is bash the blocker free and...



...Oops. Yeah, the blocker was in the wrong spot and prevented the basher from stepping up onto the top step of the bridge. Fortunately, after redoing the solution and moving the blocker a couple of pixels further back, I was able to free the blocker as intended, and...



...finally solve the level! It used every skill, which makes me think I did the right thing, but that weirdness with the splatting lemming makes me think otherwise. If you have a solution which avoids flirting with death like that, do let me know! I am open to providing new feedback or changing scores if I found out I did something in a bad way.

Addendum

Thanks to Proxima for pointing out that the troubles with my solution could have been avoided with a couple of small tweaks.

Rather than putting a blocker on the pipes and bashing them free, the crowd can be contained by simply not choosing to build the second half of that first bridge until the path has been prepared by the climber. Consequently, the digger needs to be moved to inside the first pyramid, so that you're not making an exposed pit that the crowd will run into.

Second, the luck can be taken out of timing the second half of the bridge by turning the release rate up to 99 and using the last lemming in the train as the builder. Very clever. That's much more elegant than the way I was doing it. Here's what it looks like in action:



The other great thing about this solution is that it lets you save 1 basher and 2 blockers:



Job well done.

Review

Pros: Challenging, but not overwhelming. Makes good use of the level's overall structure, including multiple routes. Satisfying solution.
Cons: Design does not make it obvious enough when certain approaches are incorrect. Left side would be improved without the fatal fall. Weirdly difficult compared to the levels before and after.
Look: The level looks pretty good overall. I like how features to aid in the solution and prevent backroutes, such as the steel and the holes in the lower part of the terrain, blend seamlessly with the environment. The large, unused space to the left of the level is weird. The pipe formation on the left of the acid pit sticks out awkwardly.
Score: 6/10

Solution Replay