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Topics - Clam

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1
Lemmings Main / The Making of Lemmings (article)
« on: February 08, 2016, 01:19:55 AM »
Just found this neat article on the history of the Lemmings games. It's a timely nostalgia kick, given the upcoming anniversary (which of course you all know about, right? ???)

http://readonlymemory.vg/the-making-of-lemmings/

Largely covers the same ground as The Lemmings Story, but with a more recent, outside-looking-in perspective (it's not datestamped but the text suggests it was written in 2014). I found it well worth the read, even though there's not much new content-wise – it complements TLS nicely. And the artwork is amazing :thumbsup:

2
NeoLemmix Main / Required-saved, out+hatch: display during game
« on: December 12, 2015, 06:11:34 AM »
Edit Simon: This topic belongs to a series of related ones:


I know this has been brought up before, but I've recently started playing a NL pack (Lemmings Reunion :)) and this is bothering me. It's also rather important.

Show the save requirement during play. (Not just in the preview.)

I'm constantly having to exit the level to check the requirement, or retry the level because it's not what I thought. Hiding mission objectives creates fake difficulty :sick:

This has been reported multiple times over the course of several months. Has there been any progress towards fixing it?

3
A little curiosity that (AFAIK) hasn't turned up on the forums before: the manual for Holiday Lemmings 1993/94!

http://macintoshgarden.org/sites/macintoshgarden.org/files/manuals/XmasLemmingsManual.pdf


For those who aren't familiar with Holiday Lemmings, there's this level that consists of a row of exits – of which all but one are fake :evil:. It's called "Check Your Hints!".



Tedious trial and error, right? Not if you have the manual! True to the title, you can indeed "check your hints" and find this (page 6):
Quote
On Level 3 of Blitz, the 7th exit from the right is the REAL exit. Hee hee!

4
Lemmings Main / Fun with WAFD
« on: June 01, 2015, 07:16:18 AM »
This topic is all about the levels titled "We All Fall Down" (hereafter, WAFD) from the original games. These levels follow a simple formula and yet are highly sensitive to variations (just look at the versions where safe-fall distance is a little higher :P), so I thought it might be fun to tweak the level in various ways and see what you can do.

Predictably, this idea arose from a discussion on IRC :P

---

If there were unlimited lemmings, diggers, and time, how many lemmings could you save? (DOS physics)

The limiting factor here is the length of the platform. I propose the following setup to maximise the number of lemmings saved per column of platform removed:
  • Release 11 lemmings at RR99 (intervals of 4 frames)
  • First lemming digs at the second-to-last column. (If you dig at the last column, the next two lemmings have to dig here too and they go through the platform too quickly.)
  • Second and third lemmings dig at the last column, to save themselves. (The first lemming still has a pixel at the left to hang on to.)


Three diggers - the first in the second-from-right column, and the next two in the rightmost column.

This method saves 11 lemmings per 6 columns of platform, or 1.83 lemmings per column. If you start your digger at the extreme right, you only get 1.80 (9 per 5 columns). The overlap between the upper and lower platforms is 511 columns, so you can repeat this 85 times for 935 lemmings saved.

But we're not done yet. There's still one column left! You can dig on this and the digger will survive - but you can't do the second-last-column setup as before, and you lose a few frames at the end because the digger's range extends to the left of the lower platform. However, you can still save 9 lemmings with the above-mentioned method of digging right at the edge - the 9th lemming makes it just in time. (The 10th lemming in this setup gets there just too late to use the ledge - otherwise we'd use this setup all along and save 1030 lemmings!)

So in all we save 935 + 9 = 944 lemmings, using 258 diggers. The time taken is about 4 minutes 20 seconds.

5
Lemmings Main / Ideas for Skills
« on: January 25, 2015, 08:48:39 AM »
Post your ideas for Lemmings skills here! Skills can be as crazy, mundane, versatile or useless as you like.

DISCLAIMER: This is not a wishlist thread for Lix/Lemmix/whatever. Please don't pressure game designers to implement the ideas contained here!

---

Enlarger and Shrinker

The Enlarger causes a lemming to instantly become twice as tall and twice as wide. Effectively it treats each 2x2 block of terrain pixels as a single pixel. Effects include:
  • Double movement speed
  • Can walk over taller obstacles
  • Double safe-fall distance
  • Can't fit through 1-pixel gaps (needs an empty 2x2 "pixel" space to fit through)
  • Unaffected by non-constant traps (too weak to fell a giant lemming). Constant traps still kill.
  • Can't fit in the exit
  • Bridges, tunnels, bomber holes etc. are scaled up accordingly
  • Skill assignments cost twice as many skill points. If you assigned a permanent skill before enlargement, it stays with the lemming but you need to assign again (using another point) for the lemming to regain the ability. Regular umbrellas don't cut it for a giant lemming! :P (Technically the lemming is 4x as big so skills should cost 4 points, but they wouldn't be much use at that cost.)
  • You can assign Enlarger again to the same lemming! Obviously there's a practical limit to how many times you can do this, as well as the escalating skill cost :P


The Shrinker causes a lemming to halve in size. Effects are basically the reverse of the above, except:
  • Size of bridges and tunnels will have to be approximated, unless the game resolution is increased (vector graphics anyone? :P)
  • A lower limit on size applies (see above :P)
  • Also unaffected by non-constant traps (sneaks past them)
  • Can exit but counts only half (more generally: (lemming scale)/(exit scale))
  • Skill assignments cost half as many points (fractional skills, wheee!)
  • If permanent skills assigned before shrinking, the excess is returned to your stockpile

Lemmings still respect blockers regardless of size!

Traps, goals, hatches can come in all sizes too of course. Everything is relative! :D



Upturner and Downturner

A different take on the gravity feature.

These are permanent skills. When the Upturner encounters a wall that it would normally turn around at (or would climb up if a Climber), it instead changes its gravity 90 degrees and walks up the wall. When the Downturner encounters a drop that it would normally fall at, it changes gravity and walks down the wall. Other skills can be assigned as normal in the lemming's new orientation.

Notes:
  • Upturner can still fall and, unless combined with Floater, splat.
  • Downturner still turns at walls, unless combined with Climber or Upturner.
  • Depending on the shape of the wall/cliff, the lemming may turn twice in quick succession. This works itself out when you apply the rules one frame at a time.
  • In some cases (eg. with short falls), lemmings with one of these skills may find themselves stuck while normal lemmings continue on :P
  • Upturning takes precedence over climbing. To make an Upturner climb, you need something like the sticky-jumper from Lix. If the game doesn't offer such a possibility, these two could be made mutually exclusive.
  • A Downturner can fall if the terrain is removed from underneath it. This means a Floater may still be needed!
  • Upturner + Downturner becomes like the Magno Booter from Lemmings 2, but not quite so useless :P

6
Other Projects / Everything by: Discussion topic
« on: December 31, 2014, 09:13:22 AM »
I had this idea when trying (yet again) to fix my signature to fit the character limit*. (Which, ironically, is now much larger thanks to the forum move.)

Idea: Create a topic with links to all your Lemmings-related creations, then put a link to that topic in your sig.

This is not intended as an avenue for narcissism or self-promotion (beyond what I was already doing with the sig ;)), just a way of keeping things organised and visible.

Here's mine. Feel free to create your own!

Guidelines (I won't label them "rules" without some discussion first):
- Only include your own work, not collaborative projects. (Perhaps these could get their own topic?)
- Non-lemmings projects can be included, as long as they are of interest to the Lemmings community (eg. puzzles).



* The forum would insist on adding "http:\\www." to the beginning of every link, even if you took it out. My sig fit the 300-character limit without these, but whenever I changed my profile it would put them back in and then truncate to 300 chars, thus breaking the sig. I had a document with the proper text, but neglected to copy it over when I changed PCs.
TL,DR: First-World problems :P

7
Other Projects / Everything by Clam
« on: December 31, 2014, 09:11:19 AM »
What's all this, then?

Lix
ClamLix: Stand-alone level pack for Lix. Currently 106 levels, but aiming (optimistically) for 150!
CSTame Reloaded: Tame rating from Oh No! More Lemmings rebuilt in Lix terrain, with reduced skills for higher difficulty.

Lemmix
ClamSpam: Lemmix level packs. ClamSpam01-05 are 10 levels each; others are 4-5 levels each. Also includes CSTame (aka. the Tame Challenges), harder versions of the Tame levels, some requiring glitches to pass.

Lemmings 2
Custom levels: Wall Crawler; What a Twist!; Throw the Switch

Lemmings 3 (aka. Lemmings Chronicles / All New World of Lemmings)
CSEL3: Custom level pack comprising one whole tribe (30 levels).

Non-Lemmings
Puzzles (Puzzle Hunt style): Mus; Stop Working, Start Puzzling; Roll Call

8
Tech & Research / Post-level messages, awards and game completion
« on: September 27, 2014, 06:27:08 AM »
A reference guide to the messages you get after completing a level based on how many lemmings you saved, and other awards / game-completion status that are based on the number of lemmings saved.

This is a work-in-progress. Contributions from any of the Lemmings games and ports are most welcome! :thumbsup:



Lemmings (DOS)

This covers the first-generation games up to Holiday Lemmings 1994.

Game Completion
Each level has a specified number of lemmings and number (expressed as a percentage) to be saved before you can progress to the next level.
The game is considered "complete" (you get a special end-game message) after you solve the final level in the highest rating.

Post-level messages
In the table below, R is the required percentage saved to complete the level, rounded down to a whole number (eg. 40/60 = 66%).
Messages are quoted verbatim, including double-spaces, ellipses of varying lengths, and one case where the fullstop appears after the space that should follow it :P
If more than one case applies, the lowest is taken, unless R=100 in which case you get the 100% message on solving the level.

% SavedLemmingsOh No! More Lemmings / Xmas Lemmings 1991 / Xmas Lemmings 1992Holiday Lemmings 1993Holiday Lemmings 1994
= 100Superb! You rescued every lemming on that level. Can you do it again....?WOW! You saved every Lemming. TOTALLY EXCELLENT!Excellent!  You've managed to save all of the little rodents!  Now do it again!Excellent!  You've managed to save them all!  Can you do as well next time?
< 100You totally stormed that level! Let's see if you can storm the next...What a fine display of Lemming control. Take a bow then carry on with the game.An exemplary instance of rodent control. Now, onto the next challenge.Very impressive.  You're well on your way to becoming a Lemmings Master!
< R+20That level seemed no problem to you on that attempt. Onto the next....More than enough .You have the makings of a master Lemmings player.Well done.  You've made it with plenty to spare.  Now onto the next...Well done.  You've made it with plenty to spare.  Now onto the next...
= RRIGHT ON. You can't get much closer than that. Let's try the next....Just made it by the skin of your teeth. Time to progress..That was close, but you made it! Onwards and upwards...Whew!  That was close, but you made it! On to the next challenge!
= R-1OH NO, So near and yet so far (teehee) Maybe this time.....Shame, You were short by a tiny amount. Go for it this time.Just a tiny bit more effort on your part will get the lemmings home!Just a tiny bit more effort will get the lemmings home for the holidays!
< R-1You got pretty close that time. Now try again for that few % extra.Getting close. You are either pretty good, or simply lucky.Not bad, but you can certainly do a bit better!Not bad, but you can certainly do a bit better!
< R-5A little more practice on this level is definitely recommended.We are not too impressed with your attempt at that level!Try a bit harder...the lemmings are depending on you!Try a bit harder...the lemmings are depending on you!
< R/2 (rounded down)Better rethink your strategy before you try this level again!Yes, well, err, erm, maybe that is NOT the way to do this level.Umm, maybe you'd better rethink your strategy a bit!Umm, maybe you'd better rethink your strategy a bit!
= 0ROCK BOTTOM! I hope for your sake that you nuked that level.Oh dear, not even one poor Lemming saved. Try a little harder next time.At this rate, the lemmings are not going to have a very happy holiday!Uh-oh!  Not a single lemming saved! Try harder, the lemmings need you!



Lemmings 2 (DOS)

Game completion
Level 1 of each Tribe starts with 60 lemmings, and lemmings saved carry over to the next level.
After each level (if you saved any lemmings), you are awarded a medal based on the number saved. This may be Gold, Silver or Bronze.
After level 10, you receive a piece of the Talisman. The colour is the same as the lowest medal you've achieved across the ten levels.
To complete the game, you must obtain a Gold piece of the Talisman in each of the 12 Tribes.

Awards
The medal given is determined as follows:
T = the number of lemmings you start the level with.
L = the number of lemmings you can lose and still get Gold. This is specified in the level file, but hidden from the player.
G = T - L is the minimum number of lemmings you need to save for Gold.
S = G - T/2 (round up the result) is the minimum number of lemmings you need to save for Silver.

Post-level messages
Where more than one of the cases below applies, the order of precedence is: 0 > Bronze > Silver > 1.
Saved (minimum)MedalMessage
GGoldExcellent! A gold standard successful rescue attempt.
G-1SilverThat was a sparkling performance.
G-2SilverNice one! But can you give that extra bit of effort?
G-3SilverYou got a grade "A" for merit.
G-4SilverYou obviously had few problems there.
G-5SilverThat was a reasonably good go.
G-6SilverDo you think those were acceptable losses?
SSilverThat was a passable effort. Must try harder.
S-1BronzeA little practice might be what you need.
S-2BronzeNot bad, but not good either.
S-3BronzeThat just wasn't good enough. They're relying on you.
S-4BronzeThat wasn't very impressive was it?
S-5BronzeYou saved so few that they are going to be very lonely.
1BronzeUh oh. That was a feeble effort.
0NoneOh Dear. You seem to have made this tribe extinct!



Lemmings Chronicles / All New World of Lemmings

Game completion
Level 1 of each tribe starts with 20 lemmings, and lemmings saved carry over to the next level. Some levels contain pre-placed lemmings that can be saved in addition to the ones you start with. To complete the game, you must save 50 lemmings in each tribe.

Post-level messages
In the table below, T is the number of lemmings you start the level with, and E is the number of extra lemmings on the level.
Messages are written in the game's font which has no distinction between upper and lower case, and thus appears as all upper case.
SavedMessage
>T if E>0, =T if E=0WELL DONE
=T if E>0GOOD WORK
>1YOU CAN DO BETTER !
=1*THATS A BIT FEEBLE !
=0HARD LUCK
* Takes precedence over other messages.

End-of-tribe messages
If you saved less than 50:
CONGRATULATIONS !
YOU HAVE REACHED THE END OF THE (TRIBE) ISLAND WITH (N) LEMMING(S)
HOWEVER YOU MUST SAVE 50 LEMMINGS TO COMPLETE THE TRIBE
PLEASE GO BACK AND SAVE SOME MORE !

If you saved 50 or more:
EXCELLENT !
YOU HAVE COMPLETED THE (TRIBE) TRIBE WITH (N) LEMMINGS

9
Forum Games / Mafia: Lemmings 2 Edition
« on: April 20, 2014, 08:28:18 AM »
Welcome all to Mafia: Lemmings Edition 2 Lemmings 2 Edition!

Links to scenes:
Night 0
Day 1
Night 1
Day 2
Night 2
Day 3
End

Sign-up is closed. Signed up players:
Simon
RubiX
NaOH
Giga
geoo
möbius
Ramon
ccexplore


The setting is Clamifornia Beach, and the beach bum lemmings have just rolled in for the beginning of summer. They go surfing swimming in the daytime, gather round the clampfire in the evening, and retreat to their sandcastles at night.

(Scroll right or zoom out to see the full picture)

Side note: As unlikely as it may seem, beach bum lemmings are actually incapable of surfing. The original Beach Tribe were provided with no Surfer skills whatsoever! But Clamifornia Beach is more of a swimming beach anyway; the waves are pathetic!

(Thanks to Simon for the pic, +10 clampoints for you!)

But all is not well. The first night of summer has just passed, and Jimbo McLemming, cousin of Jimmy (of Storybook fame) and popular local surfer swimmer, has disappeared without a trace. Rumour has it that among the beach bum community is a group of rogues who seek to dispense with the innocent bums and make off with their clampoints. (Clampoints are the official currency of Clamifornia. The fact that they have any clampoints at all makes these particular beach bums wealthier than most!)

The perpetrators must be clamptured and brought to justice, before this clamitous series of events (and clampuns) clamtinues!

The residents of Clamifornia Beach are staunch believers in Clampital Punishment. What’s that, you ask?

That giant clam isn’t just for decoration, you know! When the bums find out (or think they’ve found out) who’s responsible, they won’t hesitate to feed the guilty party into the clam, who will gleefully munch them. 8()



How to Play:
Welcome, resident lemming (or possibly lix or clam)! Some of you -- you're not sure who -- are members of a mischievous gang of rogue lemmings who -- for ill-explained reasons -- are bent on ruining the lives of all the other inhabitants of Clamifornia Beach.

Each night, the rogue lemmings arrange for the unfortunate demise of one poor lemming. They do this by furtively discussing amongst each other (via PM) and then messaging me.

Then, In the morning, the residents awake to the tragic news and noisily argue (write posts) about who they think is responsible. Of course, the actual miscreants are in the crowd and surreptitiously voicing their opinions, too. Voting takes place to determine who (if anyone) shall be executed by clam, and then night falls.




Rules
Some of these are different to the first game so please read! For the most part I’ve opted for simplicity and reverted to standard rules.

Roles
Roles are as follows:
Innocent Resident: The majority of residents are innocent to some degree; you'll want to avoid losing your head.
Rogue Lemming: each night, you privately discuss amongst yourselves who's gonna get it, and PM me with your final decision.
Scooper: The Scooper always has the inside scoop on what goes on at Clamifornia Beach (yes, I renamed the role just to make this joke). At the start of the game, and each night thereafter, the Scooper chooses somebody to spy on (and PMs me with their choice), and finds out what their role is. The Scooper is also an innocent resident. There is only one Scooper, though I may reconsider if we get a lot of players.
No Blockers this time. They don’t work outside of the Classic tribe anyway :P

At the beginning of the game, each player will be assigned a role at random. The number per role will determined by the total number of players (for balance), and made public when the game starts. The identities will not be made public of course, but the rogues will know each other’s identities.

You are definitely allowed to lie about what role you have. In fact, it's encouraged. You just can't support your claim with evidence.

When somebody is voted off, I will reveal their role. When somebody is slain by the rogue lemmings, I will not reveal their role.

Discussion
All public discussion about the game in progress must be made in this topic and during the day. Keep it off the IRC channel. Only live players may discuss. The rogues may discuss in private at any time. Other private discussion can’t technically be prevented, but is discouraged (and shouldn’t be trusted ;)).

Voting
Each lemming, innocent or otherwise, can vote for the execution of up to one other resident. You may change or withdraw your vote at any time by making a new post to that effect. [edit] Please put the name of the player you are voting for in bold for the benefit of readers. Execution is by majority vote, i.e. over 50% of the population must vote for the same lemming before an execution occurs. When a majority vote is achieved, or daylight runs out (see below), the condemned lemming (if there is one) gets munched by the clam, and night falls again. Rinse and repeat until either all rogue lemmings are eliminated, or vice versa, or the result is inevitable.
Note: If a majority is reached at any time, I will consider that as final, even if votes change again before I check the thread. I will post voting summaries occasionally to help with counting. Please refrain from editing or deleting your voting posts!

Timing
The game begins in daytime, following the disappearance of Jimbo McLemming. This means the first vote takes place before the rogues kill an actual player.
Day lasts until there is a majority vote, with a limit of 72 hours to keep the game moving.
Night lasts until the rogues send me their decision as to who they will take out, but shouldn’t take more than 48 hours without good reason.
Actual timing may vary depending on my availability.

Death
If you are dead, you may not post in the topic again until the game has ended. (Nobody can hear you from inside the clam.) However, as compensation, I will tell you everyone’s role, so you get a Clam’s eye view of the game. If you prefer, you can opt not to receive this.

Victory
If all the rogues are eliminated, the innocent bums (including scooper) win.
If at any time the rogues reach 50% of the population, or will do so after their next kill, the rogues win – at this point they have enough votes to block any proposed munching.

Note that you don’t have to survive to win – if your team wins, you win! Only survivors get to share in the clampoints though 8()



That’s it for now. Rules aren’t set in stone until the game begins (or later if I’ve overlooked something, which is likely).

Roll on up to Clamifornia Beach for some fun in the sun! (Or in the dark, depending which team you’re on!)

10
Lix Levels / TameLix
« on: February 08, 2014, 03:00:18 AM »
    TameLix (formerly CSTame Reloaded) – Clam's Lix remake of the Tame rating From Oh No! More Lemmings!


    Hard 1: Oh No! What's This?


    Inspired by Lemmings Reloaded and the old Tame challenges, I've rebuilt all 20 Tame levels in the Lix terrain.

    Features:
    • Two versions of each level:
      • Easy: 10 of each skill (except imploder) and unlimited time.
      • Hard: Challenges that also work in the original ONML.
    • 14 different tilesets used.
    • Expanded to fit the larger screen height in Lix.
    • Reduced walking times on the longer levels :lix-smile:

    Feedback, records and backroutes welcome (the latter not so much! :lix-tongue:)[/list]

    11
    Forum Games / Lemmings vs Humans
    « on: January 14, 2014, 05:04:54 AM »
    A silly game I played on another forum.

    Give or take away points for any reason you like. Be creative!

    ---

    Lemmings get to dye their hair green! +1 Lemmings

    Lemmings: 1
    Humans: 0

    12
    Level Design / Lemmix, Lemmini or Lix?
    « on: November 27, 2013, 06:48:32 AM »
    Since most of the Lemmini designers from Lemmings Heaven seem to have made it here, and Lix has been around for a while, now seems a good opportunity to see how many of us use each version/game. Vote for the one that you use most for building levels. (I could just read through the posts on the Level Design board, but this way is more fun :))

    I've switched almost exclusively to Lix. I love the new skills and features, and the absence of steel glitches. Yet it's still true enough to the original game. It feels like Lemmings updated for modern times :)


    ("Other" includes L1 ports and later Lemmings games. I don't know of anyone actively making levels for these though.)

    13
    General Discussion / Project Euler
    « on: July 01, 2013, 08:27:41 AM »
    projecteuler.net

    Anyone here tried this? I've mentioned the site before (in the most obscure way imaginable), but out of curiosity I looked it up again and found it's still thriving. It's a series of maths/programming puzzles that ramp up in difficulty as you go along.

    I did it in Java back then, but now I'm starting again in R, which I'm learning for work. You can even see my progress!

    (I've overtaken the meagre 26 that I solved in Java :))

    14
    General Discussion / New Zealand Phishing Species
    « on: May 29, 2013, 08:42:12 AM »
    New Zealand Phishing Species

    This is part of a cybersecurity awareness campaign that's going on in New Zealand right now. Which would be extremely dull (albeit informative) except for one thing:

    One of the characters is a disturbing likeness of me! (He's in the top left corner.)

    This is based on the poster of commercial fish species which is a common sight in fish & chip shops.

    15
    Lix Main / Title screen
    « on: April 25, 2013, 02:14:10 AM »
    I've been talking to Rubix in IRC, and we've identified this as one of the major things that make Lix look "unpolished". So I'm putting this out here for anyone who isn't aware and/or has artistic talent :)

    Lix needs a title screen! The current screen is cute, but it's a placeholder (and even says as much). Rubix also has a design somewhere (hope you can find it!) which might or might not do. If anyone has ideas, verbal or graphical, please post them!

    Note: This isn't a contest. But there is glory to be had if you design a screen and we use it :)

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