I think though, a big reason SuperLemmini fell out of favor was due to the shift in perception in the community of how Lemmings clones should play. SuperLemmini's creator chose not to go along with the fine-control, "puzzle, not execution" approach that NeoLemmix (and before it, regular Lemmix) and Lix had been taking for some time - even untimed bombers was something the creator was very reluctant to add. The community on the other hand had developed a preference towards this style, and thus, an engine that didn't follow it didn't have much hope of overthrowing the two that do.

Maybe in the future, this preference will change again. After working on a custom Lemmings 3D pack a while ago, I've started to really see the advantage to tile-based rather than pixel-based mechanics. Depending how far the "avoid execution difficulty" mentality goes, maybe in the future a tile-based engine might overthrow both NeoLemmix and Lix. I do, however, suspect it's unlikely that we'd go backwards, towards higher execution difficulty.

I've had a play with NeoLemmix over the past few days whilst I've been active on here. I have to say, I'm loving the emphasis on puzzle-solving rather than execution. It's a welcome development that I've been missing out on whilst I've been mainly playing the Windows & Lemmini versions. Again, I prefer those purely because of the graphics and the pretty GUI (as mentioned above, I'm a visual kinda guy). However, the gameplay of NL is far better! I can see why people tend towards this version, and why SuperLemmini fell by the wayside.

Maybe we could have the best of both world by integrating 24-bit graphics as an additional option. That way, users who prefer the DOS graphics ("we fear change!") can stick with that, whilst those of us who appreciate the chunkier look of WinLemm/SL can choose to enjoy NeoLemmix HD!

(I say HD tongue-in-cheek, of course! )

Thoughts?

If you want an actively maintained engine that also has high res graphics, take a look at Lix.

As the only currently active developer of NeoLemmix, high res graphics are something I can agree would be neat, but extremely, extremely low priority. Of course, NeoLemmix is open source, so you're welcome to submit code for this yourself - I'll integrate it if it can be done as a purely visual change with no impact on physics, sure. (Anything that introduces two different sets of physics is a big "no" from me and will remain so as long as I'm in charge of NeoLemmix; while just having a single set of physics but changing it from the current set would need significant community agreement, but I am open to it - though I think it's very unlikely that the needed community support would be there.)

I'd also ask whether it's really worth just supporting the WinLemm resolution, which is only double that of DOS and still very low by modern standards. The only advantage over a higher one is that graphics already exist for the official styles - but not the 50+ custom ones.

Hi namida, thanks for your reply and for engaging with this topic, it's really great to be talking about this with the NL developer!

I have tried Lix but find that it just... isn't Lemmings! The gameplay is the same, more or less, but I'm a very visually-oriented person (hence the obsession with Hi-Res graphics!) and the look & feel of Lix is not my cup of tea. I also think that wayyy higher resolution, such as in the Sony versions, is going a bit far - WinLemm is a nice balance between slightly prettier graphics and old school look/feel.

Thanks for offering to let me have a go at coding. I have to say though, my coding skills are extremely limited (I don't have any!), but I am good enough with cartoon graphics to be able to help with getting a Hi-Res set together for NeoLemmix.

As a start, and to see if you're interested in this offer, I have attached red & green versions of the WinLemm animation sets for walker, faller, climber, floater, bomber and splatter. These would be for the 'highlighted' and 'skill assigned' Lemmings in NL (which is a super idea, btw - as are the forward & reverse step-frame buttons. Very nice!).

For some reason, I can't seem to find the animation sets for blocker, builder, basher, miner or digger anywhere in my WinLemm directory... if you can point me towards these, I'm happy to give these the same treatment.

Furthermore, if you like I am more than happy to create WinLemm-style graphics sets for all of the custom skills included in NeoLemmix. If you send me over the animation frames for each one, I'll scale them up to 24-bit and add the extra colours/pixels.

Of course, I'm assuming here that the WinLemm graphics follow the same physics as DOS/NL... if I'm wrong about this, please do let me know.

Best,

-WillLem

To echo what a few others have already said here and elsewhere:  doesn't Lix pretty much fit the bill completely?  You got the high resolution graphics and all the 8 classic skills are there.  Other than the change of timed bombers to instant bombers and the removal of release rate control, and the use of all new graphics, sound and music to avoid copyright issues, isn't Lix basically what SuperLemmini would be if it kept up with NeoLemmix?  What is missing there for you to still prefer SuperLemmini?

Can someone remind me whether SuperLemmini had its own level editor at any point?  Seems absurd to me that NeoLemmix was the only level editor for it.

Neither Lemmini nor SuperLemmini have ever had their own dedicated level editor. The old Lemmix editor, and early versions of the old NeoLemmix Editor (the one based on the Lemmix editor), were able to edit regular Lemmini levels. LJLPM's jLevelBuilder, which I believe is designed for his Android clone, also has support for Lemmini levels. The old NeoLemmix Editor specifically had support for most SuperLemmini features, including a couple that NeoLemmix didn't support, and it retained this SuperLemmini support for a while after dropping support for Lemmix and Lemmini levels - it still retained, right up to the last version released, support for loading SuperLemmini levels; and new-formats NeoLemmix itself is capable of loading SuperLemmini levels, assuming a suitable translation table for the style exists. (The new-formats level editor only supports new-formats NeoLemmix levels (NXLV), although it can ask NeoLemmix to convert any level it supports to NXLV.)

SuperLemmini is fairly (but not completely) backwards compatible with Lemmini, so creating levels with a Lemmini editor and porting them over is feasible, as long as you don't want to use things like vertical scrolling.

In the case of Lemmini itself, the lack of an editor was more justified: The author developed it primarily as a way to play the official game on non-Windows / newer Windows systems, not as an engine for custom content.

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I think though, a big reason SuperLemmini fell out of favor was due to the shift in perception in the community of how Lemmings clones should play. SuperLemmini's creator chose not to go along with the fine-control, "puzzle, not execution" approach that NeoLemmix (and before it, regular Lemmix) and Lix had been taking for some time - even untimed bombers was something the creator was very reluctant to add. The community on the other hand had developed a preference towards this style, and thus, an engine that didn't follow it didn't have much hope of overthrowing the two that do.

Maybe in the future, this preference will change again. After working on a custom Lemmings 3D pack a while ago, I've started to really see the advantage to tile-based rather than pixel-based mechanics. Depending how far the "avoid execution difficulty" mentality goes, maybe in the future a tile-based engine might overthrow both NeoLemmix and Lix. I do, however, suspect it's unlikely that we'd go backwards, towards higher execution difficulty.

Are most NeoLemmix levels still at minimum height then?

No, there are few if any NeoLemmix levels that are 1px tall. (Random trivia: The smallest level I'm aware of is The Longest Second, which exists more as a technical demonstration than a real-world level - it was created to prove that a non-trivial level with a 1 second time limit can be made. It's 52x27, although the physics side of things could work in as small an area as 7x9.)

On the other hand, I would say that the majority of levels definitely do still stick to the default height of 160px. I suspect this is due to it being the default, rather than due to any inherent preference or advantage, and that if I were to sneakily change the default, the new default would in time become the most common height.