Fixed Preview/Postview clicks cancelling the replay. If 'Auto-skip Preview/Postview' is active, the click is added to the message queue and gets processed when the game starts, cancelling the replay iff Replay Insert mode is not active.

So, we simply eat the click.

Fixed in NLCEPlayer commit 8dbba16.

We also now skip levels with missing pieces during playback:

Fixed in NLCEPlayer commit 4b205ff.

We still need better user feedback when Playback Mode is first initialized. Printing a message on the Window Caption is OK, but not if the user has NLCE in fullscreen. Working on it.

Quote from: darkshoxx on July 02, 2026, 08:06:08 AMjust to be clear, it's a submission so there's no guarantee it'll be accepted, so don't put additional effort into it for the sole purpose of the submission.

Rest assured, the effort is to get the best working version of this feature. The submission has simply brought attention to it and generated useful feedback, so thank you for that!

Quote from: darkshoxx on July 02, 2026, 08:06:08 AMOkay ignore the by-level vs. by-replay issue.
...
Tested it multiple times again just now, if I don't click, everything works just fine in both modes, and clicking stops them in both modes.

Confirmed!

Well that's a relief (in that the system itself isn't completely broken!), however it does highlight a considerable flaw with the UI: user input should not cancel the replay whilst Preview/Postview screen is displayed.

I've refactored the Playback Mode playlist building system anyway, because it previously relied on a bunch of mutable lists and, on looking again at the code, was way messier than it needs to be. The refactor makes every playlist item its own object, so the matchup and playlist-building process is much snappier and less prone to bugs; this is a win, even if it wasn't actually needed for this particular bug report!

Refactor in NLCEPlayer commit 1f50f71.

So, the third issue is actually:

User input during Preview/Postview screen cancels the replay!

This is unusual, because in normal circumstances clicking the screen would advance to game/next preview. We need to be extra careful if Playback Mode is active, then. Clicking should do absolutely nothing!

I'll fix this later tonight.

CE 1.1.2

Yes, the option is now worded positively. Yes, it works with non-animated backgrounds as before.

It doesn't work with animated background: I have "Show ..." disabled and nonetheless see the butterflies on Dexter's The Split. Expected instead: The butterflies have gone away.

The Split is contained in Icho's pack of all candidates of Level of the Year 2025.

The butterflies in The Split aren't the main concern; they're out of the way, you can't possibly reach there, and they're cute. Some other levels have more of these animated decorations. But I still test it with the butterflies because Flopsy enjoyed me saying "Butterflies don't go away" on stream.

-- Simon

All replays are totally fine! 

That you fell for the slight trap in "Becoming Indifferent" is indeed intentional. It shall be a moment for a slight hickup to look and see how to prepare the route and use the jumper. I had a basher instead of the jumper at first, but decided for this tweak.
The older level introducing neutrals before that also already had a slight puzzle, so I wanted to keep that level of difficulty.

Nothing major, just not completely trivial.

The jumpers in "Fluctuant Knowledge" are just for saving lemmings when building that last platform with no crowd containment. I used 2 for that and I just wanted to give an amount where platforming is necessary, but not punishing any solutions otherwise.

For the ordering I went with complexity ordering rather than with theme ordering and that's why I chose to stick them to the end:

- The teleporter is rather easy alone and introducing portals and showing the differences betweeen them is quite a bit more complex, so I decided to leave a gap there.
- The neutral level was already quite hard and I wouldn't want it to be earlier in the rank. That leaves only a little gap to the neutralizer/deneutralizer introduction which needs the neutrals as a basis.

My replays are attached for the three new levels that use the new 12.13 NL objects. Great levels, though "Becoming Indifferent" might be a little difficult considering that I fell for the trap of being a basher short. Also, only one jumper used for "Fluctuant Knowledge"

As mentioned from quite a while back, I think the portal introduction level can be a bit closer to the level that introduces teleporters, and similarly maybe the neutralizer/deneutralizer can come a bit after the neutral Lemmings introduction level. Finally, if there is a level that introduces preplaced Lemmings with preassigned permanent skills and/or a level with preassigned trapdoors, maybe the skill assigner/deassigner tutorial can come a bit after either one. 

Don't forget to vote! 

V 2.0 is out!

The update introduces three new levels to the "Objects & Functions" rank for the new objects:

- "Thinking With Portals" (Portals)
- "Becoming Indifferent" (Neutralizers / Deneutralizers)
- "Fluctuant Knowledge" (Assigners / Deassigners)

LMAO

Okay ignore the by-level vs. by-replay issue.

I clicked when the first level came up, so when you see the thumbnail and the details. That stops all playbacks.
Tested it multiple times again just now, if I don't click, everything works just fine in both modes, and clicking stops them in both modes.

Hi WillLem, thanks for looking into those.

I think it's replaying the replays in alphabetical order of the filenames. If I rename the files to start with numbers of the order I want them to played in, it works
(e.g. 01_Steel_works 02_The_Boiler_Room,...)

The deadlines are as follows:

Submissions: 5.8.26
Event: 3.10.26

So no rush.
And again, just to be clear, it's a submission so there's no guarantee it'll be accepted, so don't put additional effort into it for the sole purpose of the submission.

Quote from: Guigui on July 01, 2026, 11:48:49 PMI think it'd be better to continue the discussion on the 5 levels demo in the correct thread.

Quote from: HPWsoft on July 01, 2026, 04:56:37 AMFor Fizzles, I still want to keep the core direction mobile-first and more real-time than NeoLemmix. I do not currently plan to make paused skill assignment part of the main gameplay, because that would change the feel of the levels quite a lot.

But your concern about the moving skill popup is very valid. If later levels offer four or five possible skills at once, clicking the correct icon above a moving Fizzle could become too fiddly, especially on touch devices. That is something I need to handle carefully.

Possible solutions could be larger skill buttons, a more stable popup position, better spacing, limiting the number of visible choices depending on context, or another mobile-friendly selection layout. The goal should not be to make players fight the interface. If a level is difficult, it should be difficult because of the puzzle decision, not because the correct icon is hard to tap.

So I will keep the pause design as a separate question, but I fully agree that the skill selection UI must stay readable and reliable once more abilities are available.

Another solution to make assigning skills easier may be to allow to assign skills from the non-moving bottom skill bar in addition to the popup above fizzle ?
Select a (moving) fizzle, have the (non moving) bottom bar highlight which skills are currently available to that fizzle, click on the bottom bar to assign skill to the selected lemmings.
This could be a flow different from Lemmings and not too prone to wrong assignements.

That is a good suggestion, and I can see why it might help in some situations.

However, I also see a possible downside with a fixed skill bar. The player would select a Fizzle in the play area, but then the actual ability menu would appear somewhere else on the screen. That could become confusing, especially on mobile: the player has to keep watching the selected Fizzle, find the correct UI area, move the finger or mouse there, choose the correct ability, and then return attention to the moving level.

In faster levels, that could create its own coordination problem. The player would have to track the Fizzle and interact with a separate UI area at the same time.

The current popup has a reason: it keeps the available actions visually connected to the selected Fizzle. You select a Fizzle, and the possible actions appear directly at that Fizzle. Hitting the correct ability button is part of the gameplay, as long as the buttons remain large enough, readable enough, and fair to use.

I also test every newly designed level myself. If I cannot solve it reliably, or if it feels more like fighting the interface than solving the level, then I adjust the balancing, speed, ability counts, layout, or UI until it works.

So I see the fixed skill bar idea as one possible option among several. I will think about whether it makes sense, maybe as an alternative input method or for specific situations, but at the moment I still think the current popup approach fits the intended Fizzles gameplay better.

The important goal for me is: the controls must stay fair and readable, but Fizzles should still keep its own creature-first, mobile-first interaction style.