My thoughts:

The fewer colours, the better. In particular, it's nice for the default (most often seen) colour to be green across the board: lemmings in hatch, lemmings alive (when there are still enough to win), lemmings saved (before meeting the save requirement), timer (when there is no time limit).

Colour change on its own doesn't convey any information, unless it's easy to work out from context alone what it means. Number of lemmings going green -> red when there are no longer enough to win is fine (unless you are red-green colour-blind, but we can design the normal feature first and add optional tweaks for colour-blind players later).

For the save requirement, NL goes from negative to positive, so no colour change is needed. NLCE adds a tick to the flag, which is also good. (I would still prefer the negative numbers, as "-5" conveys "5 short of the requirement" a lot more easily than just "5" does, but maybe there's already an option for this?) Anyway, no colours needed here and that's great.

The timer needs to indicate (at least) three possible states: infinite; time limit counting down; overtime. There is already a different timer icon for the "infinite time" case, but I guess we are worried that with time limits being uncommon, a stronger reminder is needed. I am tentatively okay with using colours here, such as the suggested cyan for "there is a time limit" and blue or red for overtime. Of the two, red seems better as it's more consistent: the same colour for "not enough lemmings left" and "not enough time left". Both tell you that the level is failed and you need to rewind. Will argues that red shouldn't be used for overtime because red conveys urgency, while you can remain in overtime as long as you want; but the same is true for "not enough lemmings left" and we're fine using red for that. (Or should we change it to blue for both?)

Completely agree with Simon that there is no need for any "15 seconds left" indication. I grew up playing Repton 3 and I've had enough "15 seconds left" indications to last a lifetime    The player can tell time is close to running out because it says a number that is less than 15.

Quote from: Simon on August 10, 2026, 06:50:30 AMIt's normal to not have yet met the save requirement. Keep it green, it shouldn't stand out.

I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're absolutely right. In fact, making it green when the SR is met is a reversion to 'default green', which doesn't seem right. So - agreed, let's make it green for 'not met' and change it (and/or use icons) when it's 'met'.

Quote from: Simon on August 10, 2026, 06:50:30 AMI value non-screaming panel colors more than avoiding such a clash.

As well as improving the colour scheme, we could also add an option ('Use colour scheme for panel text' or something). Unchecking it keeps everything green. We make sure that symbols, icons, and the text itself conveys all the important stuff (which it mostly already does).

Do we think such an option is necessary? Or would improving the colour scheme to be 'quieter' be sufficient?

Quote from: Simon on August 13, 2026, 04:38:41 AMOvertime is one case of having insufficient time to win.

I disagree. Overtime is not so much 'you don't have enough time left to win' as it is 'the game is already over'. It's a subtle but important distinction that I don't think red text would convey as clearly as something a bit more neutral (like purple/blue).

Overtime in NL serves 2 primary purposes:

1) Allow the player to continue exploring the level

2) Allow the player to rewind into 'playable' time

In either case, we need to let the player know that they are in Overtime. Purple/blue does this without conveying urgency (which red arguably does more so) or normality (for which we are using green).

Quote from: Simon on August 10, 2026, 06:50:30 AMFix the design bug where the engine guesses that 15 seconds is somehow an important threshold. Ditch the entire threshold feature. Zero is the important threshold. Either you can win (depending on other things) or you can't win. When you can't win anymore based on the clock alone, you have a reason to recolor from yellow to red.

It's a fairly standard design practice for a descending timer to change to red, or orange, or some other 'urgent' colour, when time is close to running out, but not actually fully run out yet. Another design choice I've seen is to make the timer flash, but - let's not do that!

15 seconds is somewhat arbitrary, agreed, but we do need to provide the player with some visual feedback that the timer is close to running out, especially since time limits only tend to be used in custom levels when they're an actual feature of the level - most levels use infinite time. The player therefore needs to be reminded that the time limit (a) exists - the icons do this, and (b) is critical - if not with colour, and definitely not with flashing, then... what would you suggest?

Quote from: Simon on August 10, 2026, 06:50:30 AM#3 But what is confusing with this?
yellow > 0 seconds
red < 0 seconds

If I see a timer turn red, I'm more likely to think 'time is about to run out' rather than 'I'm out of time'. Indeed, most games just end when time is up (the only other video game (than NeoLemmix) that I can think of that uses Overtime is Tetris!).

Also, the use of red arguably conveys urgency, as previously mentioned. There is nothing necessarily urgent about the 'Overtime' state. Quite the contrary: the timer no longer matters once it's run out. This is why purple/blue is better.

Quote from: Simon on August 10, 2026, 06:50:30 AMPrint a minus sign!

IMHO, this is more visually noisy than colour. I'd honestly rather not do this if we don't absolutely need to.

We need others to chime in.

Thanks to those who attended the meetup. It was great to see everyone again, even if the group was a bit smaller than usual.

Perhaps we could arrange another one for the Autumn, somewhere further south (someone mentioned Bristol which I think would be a great place to meet) so that it's a bit more central for everyone to travel to.

I'll post a topic for it soon (or, anyone else is of course free to create one in the meantime).

This bug has arisen again. The newly-implemented check is in the correct place, but didn't account for 2px vertical movement at frame 0*. This has now been fixed.

Fixed in RLPlayer commit bd398f8.

*Note to self: Why is the Miner moved 2px downwards at frame 0?

Thanks to everyone for a great day and props to Flopsy for giving me a lift up to Leeds from Nottingham and back, plus loads of bottles of water! I'd love to come to another meetup especially if you all choose to organise one further south. It was great to put names to faces - great conversation and company

Great day today everyone, thanks for a wonderful day. Also very nice to meet hrb264 for the first time this meetup

Hi all, I'll probably be arriving at around 12:30. No need to wait at the station for me, I'll text Flopsy when I arrive and can go to wherever you are.

See you there!

Perhaps I should attend the next one

I really would like to be part of one of these meetups

I should perhaps go up to Leeds. I live in Cambridgeshire, and it would take about 2-3 hours by road to Leeds

On my way to get the train to Nottingham now - reckon if we're somewhere shaded it should be okay! See you all there!

Quote from: WillLem on August 08, 2026, 07:07:45 PMPurple is essentially 'overtime' as opposed to 'insufficient time to win'.

Overtime is one case of having insufficient time to win. It's even the only condition where you can tell for sure that it's insufficient.

Fix the design bug where the engine guesses that 15 seconds is somehow an important threshold. Ditch the entire threshold feature. Zero is the important threshold. Either you can win (depending on other things) or you can't win. When you can't win anymore based on the clock alone, you have a reason to recolor from yellow to red.

It will be consistent across all levels to never guess a threshold other than 0.

QuoteIt's only there because gameplay doesn't end when time is up, and it might be useful for the player to know by how much their attempted solution exceeds the time limit.

Right, for the same reason we don't stop after we've lost too many lemmings to win. Certainly we'll continue playing with red lemming count.

QuoteRed could be confusing here

I believe we're talking about different things.

#1 Existing:
yellow > 15 seconds
red > 0 seconds, < 15 seconds
purple < 0 seconds

#2 I agree that this is confusing:
yellow > 15 seconds
red > 0 seconds, < 15 seconds
red < 0 seconds

#3 But what is confusing with this?
yellow > 0 seconds
red < 0 seconds

I assume you're arguing that #2 is confusing. Certainly, #2 would be annoying with red for winnable and unwinnable, and the clock counts down during winnable, then back up during unwinnable. Instead, I meant #3 in both the OP and I mean it today.

It's hard to argue when the point is so vague. Instead, people should write down the supposedly-confusing situation in full, and an example of a second situation, and a reason for why a user will confuse the two. Sometimes even a reason for why the confusion is a problem. Prod me when I make this mistake and ask for examples.

Quoteespecially since the timer counts upwards at this point.

Print a minus sign!

This will be sensible regardless of anything else in this topic. The timer will count in the same direction, down. And you'll be independent from any coloring. Design without color, and then use color on top of the color-blind design.

Lemmings 1 separated minutes from seconds by a dash (1-30), replace that dash with a colon (1:30) and you won't have awkward clashes such as −1-30.

If space is a concern, stop printing the minus sign after −10 minutes.

-- Simon