The general opinion here seems to be, that the main difficulty in a lemmings level should come from finding a working solution, not from its execution. So

Quote from: 607 on April 19, 2015, 10:49:14 AM
I mean, making a mistake is never a problem anymore... as if you will ever make a mistake, with the one frame at a time method.

is precisely the point why this feature was added.
As for the second half of the quoted sentence: I wish it were so . If you work with a few lemmings simultanously on different parts of a level, it is still quite easy to miss giving one of the lemmings a certain skill at a certain time. Apart from that I usually run NeoLemmix at normal speed and use the "one frame advance"-method only in special cases. Then naturally mistakes happen and going backwards in time comes in handy.

Ultimately this is a case of personal preferences though. If you think this is cheating, then just don't use this feature - noone forces you to do so.

Don't worry about already existing levels! It is rather rare that one discovers a completely new trick (if you use only the standard features of the original Lemmings).
If you look at the big custom level packs, you will find many levels using similar tricks. And they are still worth playing! Each person has a different style in creating levels and therefore the levels will still differ quite a bit in how the trick is incorporated into the level. My own reaction when seeing one trick another time: "OK, we have this trick again. But this was a very neat way to force the player to use the trick!"
In one point I have to contradict namida: Although hidden traps and invisible exist only annoy the player, do not worry about making another level with the "I am A.T."-trick. There certainly exist many levels featuring a wide variety of variations of this trick. But being rather new to the world of custom levels, you might not know all of them. So it is way better to create such a level and be told that it resembles level abc of xyz, than to keep your idea for you and realize much later (or never at all) that it actually contained something new.

On your original question: I create my levels essentially in the same way as geoo.
If you try out namida's process B), then it is very easy (at least for me) to create levels that rely very much on builders (which can become rather boring soon). So it is probably not a good idea to use complete randomness to put terrain pieces in the level, but to constantly think of ways to overcome the obstacles with only few builders.

And two final pieces of advice:
- Take your time when creating levels! I am probably one of the slowest level creators here, but for a one-screen level, I need about 4-6 hours until the first playable version appears on my screen and about the same amount of time modifying it (to remove non-intended solutions and to ease the execution of the intended ones).
- Do not worry if your first levels are not as good as others in the database. Out of the first 20 levels I created, I considered only two good enough to make them available to others.

Quote from: IchoTolot on April 19, 2015, 12:14:06 AM
I am currently waiting for Nepsters last replays of rank 4...

Then please be aware that you might have to wait for another week, because I decided first to work on my level for the ongoing contest and then to update my NepsterLems levels, before playing the rest of Lemmings Reunion.

Quote from: Akseli on April 18, 2015, 10:24:19 PM
In my opinion the difficulty is really high already, and if you compared in your starter post those difficulties to the original Lemmings, then I'd disagree. I think the game goes Mayhem already in the first rating, 4 last levels were pretty tough. All the levels (except for maybe level 2) have been also Mayhem or higher tier in my opinion in the second rating. So, I don't know how hard this is exactly going to get, or if the rest of the ratings are going to be close to each other in terms of difficulty.

The biggest change in difficulty occurs between rank 1 and 2 (at least for the ranks I have already covered). Afterwards there is only a slight increase in difficulty. And actually I found the second half of rank 2 somewhat easier than the first. So while I agree that the levels are not Tricky, your current opinion of rank 2 may be slightly off when considering the whole rank.

One comment on the layout of the first post of a newly started Lemmings contest:
The general rules (which are in general not terribly interesting) are extremely prominent at the moment, especially as they take up the first half of such a post. However the most important part of the post is the theme/design goal. So I would like to suggest to swap the general rules with the contest-specific information in the future. Perhaps one could even hide the general rules inside a spoiler-tag?

Everything works fine now (at least for me). I finished the first rating and the levels were much fun.
Starting with the second rating, the difficulty takes a HUGE step up to something more like late Taxing (and sometimes even late Mayhem like Knights of Honor) instead of the Tricky-Taxing you promised us . The level ideas are excellent, but I have some complaints about the time limits: Is it really necessary that they are soooo tight? Usually I have less than 30 seconds on the clock and sometimes I needed to play much of a level again to save a few more seconds...
It was particularly bad in Trick and Trap Time: Out of 7 minutes I had at the end 5 seconds (with the optimum being about 13 seconds)!!! Moreover this is paired with...

Spoiler

- necessity to free the bulk of lemmings at the correct time (about 3:20), which takes quite a few tries to get it right.
- many traps, some trigger - and some do not! In particular the trap at the incline at the right does not trigger, despite appearance.
- 26 builders - all of them needed.
- a huge terrain layout, which just prolongs the level. I doubt it will be missed if you remove the "let the lemmings go for a walk"-part at the left or about 6 of the traps on the right.

Please take this as a criticism of the current layout, not the level idea itself. I think it would give a great level, if you relax the time limit and shorten the level.

PS @IchoTolot: I send you my replays by PM. And perhaps you could try out setting more objects (in particular hatches and exits) to "No Overwrite". In my opinion it is more convenient to see the stairs that one has build in front of them instead of keeping the objects visible.

Sorry for not answering earlier, but I was away over easter with little internet.

Quote from: Akseli on April 05, 2015, 11:46:17 PM
Also, my levelpack file has only 9 levels, not 10, is this intentional?

No it is not - just my mistake in not including one level. As already noticed by namida, almost no level in NepsterLems will use the ONML-styles and there will be only very few with time limits. And apart from (missing) time limits, there are actually quite a few changed details between the two versions.

I will PM namida and Akseli with detailed comments on their solutions, but as of now only the first four levels have not been backrouted . However I might end up changing Crystal Math only slightly and making it into an open-ended level. Upload of an improved version of the Demo is coming soon...

THIS LEVEL PACK HAS BEEN RELEASED. THE RELEASE THREAD IS HERE!


Welcome to NepsterLems - A big level pack with 111 challenges! 

All levels have been created and playtesting will start soon. However for the first public release you will likely have to wait until NeoLemmix V2 is finished.

A few words on the structure of this level pack:
There will be no introductory levels - you can find excellent ones in DoveLems, but as well in most of the recent level packs. Instead NepsterLems starts with two ranks of 15 levels each, all sharing two basic concepts:
- Each level has 5 respectively 10 of each skill.
- Each level puts several obstacles in your path, but they can be overcome in many many ways.
After that you will find 4 ranks of 20 levels each and a final "boss" level. Throughout these ranks your skill sets are quite limited and so is the number of (intended) solutions. Mostly the levels are quite small and designed to display a specific theme, quite often specific skill interactions or lemming movement.

Rank 1: (Screenshots will follow at some point)
You always have 5 of each skill. The terrain usually gives you many options - and be sure to use them. Despite being the first rank, you will find only very few any-way-you-want levels.

Rank 2:
Now it is up to 10 of each skill - and much more complex obstacles. Even more so than in the first rank, planning a general route at the beginning is advisable.
Warning: The last two level of this rank are MUCH harder than many of the levels in the following ranks. So do not let them discourage you!

Rank 3:
Ok, let's start with giving you less and less freedom to solve the levels. The first levels start around Tricky/Taxing difficulty, but soon progress to Mayhem.

Rank 4:
Now you need more and more tricks, unusual combinations of skills, etc. However the solutions are not yet overly convoluted (main word being "overly").

Rank 5:
By now all the levels can easily compete in difficulty with late Mayhem or late Havoc. Be prepared to use non-linear approaches or (and?) heavy multitasking.

Rank 6:
These levels should give headaches even to the greatest experts. Go and let the lemmings perform a complex dance on your screen!


Technical stuff:
I will use NeoLemmix V2, so no special modifications are needed any more.
The final version will (hopefully) run on a slightly modified NeoLemmix engine. The most prominent changes to usual NeoLemmix will be:
- Less strict terrain checks for builders. They will behave more like in original Lemmings.
- Slightly relaxed terrain checks for climbers, e.g. climbers may "climb" through the stairs in the Pillar tileset.
- Direct drops to the exit are removed: You lemmings will splat instead.
The levels in the teaser promo will likely differ slightly from the final versions.

Many thanks to...
- DMA design for inventing the game Lemmings,
- Eric Langedijk for creating Lemmix, which was used to create all my levels,
- namida for providing the NeoLemmix engine,
- all other level designers for all their level ideas, which inspired my levels
- and everyone on LemmingsForums in general, for keeping Lemmings alive. It was you, more than anything else, that spawned the idea of NepsterLems in my head.

I apologize...
- to all other level designers, because one should read the "ideas, which inspired" above as "ideas, that were blatantly copied".
- for always making so hard levels. If you fail to solve some level, you are totally correct in blaming me for this. But always keep in mind that I am not forcing you to deal with my levels - you are free to ignore them or damn to the Lemmings hell .
- for not being any faster in creating levels. NepsterLems is now almost one year in making and when I told möbius in January about releasing it in "about 2 or 3 months", it seems that "about 5 or 6 months" would have been a better guess. PS: Turns out, that even this guess was more than optimistic .

Here are replays for all of GigaLems. I am aware that some solutions are overly complicated, but I tried to save as many lemmings as possible.

I will gladly give more detailed feedback (though likely only after easter), but here are at least some comments right now:
- My favourites are Scalding 12 and Scorching 13. These were amazing levels .
- Perhaps you want to check the trigger areas for the traps in Warm 7?
- Hot 3:

Spoiler

You definitely got me with the save requirement .

- Scalding 30 seems missing.
- Some of the hidden traps are expected, but some are quite annoying, especially...

Spoiler

...the ones in the Purple style level in Scorching! One of them is bad enough, but having three(!!!) of them hidden was definitely not fun. In particular as they are in places, where one cannot easily modify one's solution to get past them.

And thanks for the hint for Boiling 3.

Here are two issues that came up while playing GigaLems:
1) I solved Hot 2 and then wanted to replay it again, because I realized that a simpler solution should work as well. But unfortunately I did not write down the password and each time when I restarted GigaLems and tried to play a Hot level, it jumped to Hot 3 (the first non-solved one). So apart from deleting the .sav-file, I could not see any way to play Hot 2 again?
2) I had Auto-Save replays on. But it seems to me, that Auto-Save saves a replay each time one quits a level. So now I have quite a bunch of useless replays doing nothing, because I quit the level right at the beginning to check save requirements/number of lemmings/... again! I think it would be much more convenient, if Auto-Save only saves a replay, if one has actually solved the level. In the rare cases where one actually wants a replay of a non-successful try, one can still save it by hand, no?

Quote from: もびうす on March 25, 2015, 09:59:05 PM
What exactly is the thing over the fire on the left side in Sweltering Warehouse? Is that an active object or just decoration?

It is an active object: It slows falling lemmings and allows gliders to move upwards.

T=OK
Neat design with a tricky solution. Saved 88%, but 90% should be possible with a little tweaking.

Deserted Cities of the Heart
Rather harsh time limit and one wonders why it is there? The solution is quite nice and it was much fun to plan my approach to this level. Saving 90% is possible.

The Sweltering Warehouse
Interesting design with the abundance of traps. The level is indeed not terribly hard for experienced players. One can actually solve it without using the builder!

Spoiler

It took me quite some time to learn about the necessary updraft mechnics.

    Huge Thanks!! 

I have no clue about the arguments made in IRC, but what about swapping the batter and the exploder?

Quote from: Simon on March 24, 2015, 02:34:07 PM
Even if what I'll be cooking up is justifiable by objective arguments, nobody will be used to it yet. ... And Neolemmix has other skills, with other skill usage statistics.

Apart from the missing jumper, the most common skills are more or less the same and once your key system is implemented as the default in Lix, people will hopefully start getting used to it.
As NeoLemmix does not feature multi-player, fast skill selection is not of overwhelming importance. Therefore other arguments may be taken into consideration as well, like making it easy for Lix players to adapt to NeoLemmix and vice versa.

I would use the option "key X = skill X" if available. But you don't have to include it just for me. At some point even I might learn to use the current system .

If you include it, I would suggest either:
- Copying the traditional Lemmix hotkeys (as in your post) or
- Waiting for Simon to come up with a final version for Lix and using the same for NeoLemmix.