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#11
NeoLemmix Levels / Re: New Level Pack - Lemmings ...
Last post by Armani - September 09, 2026, 09:55:04 AM
I played through the newly added Steady and Turbulent ranks! 8-)  It's pretty obvious to me now that your levels are right up my alley. I may come back to play the rest of the pack once I finish playing the level packs I'm currently working on. Here are some comments on the individual levels:

One thing I noticed though: the main puzzles of the levels are all hidden in the talismans. Without the talisman, the levels are either too simple or just plain build-and-bash-to-the-exit type levels. Especially a level like River Styx is a complete joke without the talisman and all the carefully fine-tuned object placements and neutral lemmings become a total waste. If anyone misses the brilliance of this level just because they don't care about the talismans, that would be a real shame. :-\


Spoiler
Steady

1. Penumbra: Relatively simple first level of the rank. Even with the talisman, this one is quite easy. The new tileset is gorgeous. I can see myself using this tileset often.

2. Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!: One of my favourite tilesets from this batch. I'll definitely use this tileset for my own levels. The various water-pipe terrain pieces and water objects allow level designers to make complicated, maze-like swimmer routes, which, in my opinion, no NeoLemmix style has allowed so far. The level itself was quite tricky. You have to release the blockers in the correct sequence otherwise the skills run out pretty fast.

3. Sweet Tooth: The solution came to me quite quickly. Turning the faller mid-air was the key, and the rest of the solution came naturally.

4. Serpent Shrine: Surprisingly tricky 2-of-everything, classic-skills-only level. The low save requirement was the hint that implied you don't have to waste skills on containing the crowd.

5. Dark Mire: Time cruncher, except that the time limit was much more generous than I initially thought.

6. Hey Presto: Beautiful level design. The solution was straightforward.

7. Lost in the Desert: That was some fun use of the shimmiers.

8. Lost in the Dessert: Wow, I love the design of the new limited exits! The talisman says not to use any shimmiers and I was wondering how a shimmier could be helpful in this level anyway.

9. Frozen Hearts: Nice touch with all those frozen blocker objects! It felt a little funny to me that removing the terrain beneath the blocker doesn't free it and it just stands there like nothing happened! :P

10. Chamber of Horrors: What the heck is that new trap animation?! :devil:  It's so gruesome and since this level requires the compression method to solve, you have to sacrifice at least one lemming to that trap! Genius level design to showcase the new trap... :devil:



Turbulent

1. Can I Have a Peppermint?: The Turbulent rank is a big step up in difficulty compared to the Steady rank and the first level is already a hard nut to crack! :thumbsup:

2. Lemmings of the Caribbean: That's a very nicely designed ship! Also, I love the Kraken-like creature near the exit!

3. The Belfry: Very repetitive overall. Pretty obvious what needs to be done. That spam of cloners on the glider to gain height was fun and something new, though. So, credit where credit is due! ;P

4. Sugar Rush: Very clever solution. Making the fall temporarily fatal, then making it safe again at just the right moment. I had a lot of fun figuring this level out.

5. Lem Academy of Science blah blah: Making a long shimmier path is one of the coolest things you can do in NeoLemmix of couse!

6. An Omen of Doom: Phew, that was close! I love how the zombies are catching up and you have just enough room to avoid them in extreme urgency!

7. Bumbly Breach Bazaar: The biggest and most complicated level in this pack so far. (I'll give the "most difficult level" crown to Turbulent 9, though.) I don't see how having the glider is helpful anywhere, so I wonder if the glider assigner is just there as a trap to avoid or if there's something I missed. Very chaotic and so many things happen at the same time, but if you carefully eliminate the possibilities, there's only one route the crowd can take.

8. Ice Nine: Relatively easy one regarding the positioning. The key was figuring out that you have to laser from both sides to release only one shimmier and nobody else.

9. River Styx: My favourite level from this pack, and probably the hardest level in the pack too. I rather quickly figured out that I couldn't let the neutral collect the button, but it was still tough to control the flow of a crowd consisting of both allies and enemies. Looking back at the replay, I wasted a lot of skills near the floater assigner at the end...

10. A Tale of Two Cities: A truly epic finale to the pack! 02:00 would have been possible had I optimized a little bit more. :thumbsup:
#12
Game Bugs & Suggestions / Re: [+][SUG][PL] Anchor camera...
Last post by Armani - September 09, 2026, 09:43:05 AM
Most of what I implemented was the result of me experimenting and having fun rather than focusing on practical usefulness. I didn't expect any of it to be implemented into the official build so I just added anything that sounded cool.

That being said, I can still share how I personally use this specific feature. There are mainly two cases where I use this camera lock-on:

1) When I'm playing a level while someone is watching
I sometimes share my screen to playtest level packs for the author. When playing alone, I only need to focus on the key Lemmings myself so the camera lock isn't as necessary. But when there's a specific Lemming the author needs to focus on, locking the camera ensures they won't miss it.

2) When playing a level with multiple pairs of teleporters (+ large levels with tons of Lemmings)
I think showing a video is easier: https://youtu.be/W-eBc27MtGY?si=b11L5Sb0EOXLFqbf&t=4685
(This video showcases how some of the features work in-game. For the camera lock specifically, check out 1:26:35 or 1:26:50)
#13
Contests / Re: Level Design Contest #34
Last post by Armani - September 09, 2026, 09:38:01 AM
@Flopsy

I think R3 for Contest #13 should be changed from "Official tilesets only" to "Without using any official tilesets."
I'll leave the link to the Contest #13 topic here: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=3359
#14
Game Bugs & Suggestions / Re: [+][SUG][PL] Anchor camera...
Last post by Simon - September 09, 2026, 06:40:18 AM
The main concern is that a moving focus stands to be irritating.

What are the use cases? Manually anchor camera in advance to the lemming that will receive the next 5 assignments? You need to know in advance what's going to happen. Yes, if you know that in advance, then you can use this to avoid manual scrolling and zooming. And zooming into the lemming (instead of into the cursor) is good then (it's the only way).

But why would such an interactive feature (manual anchoring to lemming) useful in televsion mode (that I never use)? It should be noninteractive, right? Or do you think darkshoxx would use it for the showcase? You may want a big fat arrow over the anchor, for the audience.

Ways to soothen the worry of the moving focus: Camera could jump according to some hysteresis, e.g., when anchor closer to camera's edge than 20 % of screen length, camera will jump into that direction by 50 % of screen length, putting the lemming back near the middle with view ahead. Unsure if the concentrated nastiness of huge jumps is any better than the smeared-out nastiness of a permanently moving screen. You can smoothen jumps by making the camera focus chase the anchor, not jump to the anchor, but still. And zooming into the lemming would be bad then, and we should continue to zoom into the cursor.

Ways to anticipate which lemming is important. Then you don't have to anchor manually. This ties into that other thread (I'll edit this) where I mull about painting markers over lemmings that are going to receive skills soon. Or anchor could switch to lemming that is going to receive the next skill half-time between any two assignments.

-- Simon
#15
Game Bugs & Suggestions / [+][SUG][PL] Show hatch fall d...
Last post by WillLem - September 09, 2026, 02:10:59 AM
This idea is courtesy of Armani, who has implemented it his custom NeoLemmix build.

In Clear Physics Mode, we should show a fall distance ruler beneath each entrance hatch. The ruler can always the exact fall distance (63px) just in case terrain needs to be removed from beneath the hatch when lemmings are still spawning.
#16
Game Bugs & Suggestions / [+][SUG][PL] Make Talisman req...
Last post by WillLem - September 09, 2026, 02:00:12 AM
This idea is courtesy of Armani, who has solved this issue in his custom NeoLemmix build.

We need some way of being able to view the talisman requirements during gameplay. If a talisman has many requirements, it can be difficult to remember them all and this can inhibit a player's attempt at the talisman, or worse - put them off attempting it altogether.

Armani solves this by displaying a clickable talisman button which opens a panel showing the requirments. The panel is updated live, so a player can also track their progress on the talisman in real-time.

This may be a good enough solution as it is, but I thought it best to open this up to discussion in case anyone has any other suggestions.

One possibility I can think of is that clicking the talisman button could adjust the skillset, save requirement and time limit shown in the panel itself. We can use different-colored digits (possibly) to show that it's a talisman requirement rather than the normal requirement, and the player can toggle between the normal/talisman values by clicking the button again. Progress feedback will be inherent; the display can revert to normal once any of the requirements have been failed.

The only downside to this idea is that a level can have multiple talismans, so we'd need multiple buttons.

Thoughts? Suggestions?
#17
Game Bugs & Suggestions / [+][SUG][PL] Hold-to-assign ho...
Last post by WillLem - September 09, 2026, 01:49:41 AM
The Hold-to-assign hotkey is something I've implemented in RetroLemmini which can be very useful for levels which require repeat assignments of the same skill.

Essentially, whilst the hotkey is held, any lemming under the cursor will be assigned the currently-selected skill (i.e. if they can be assigned to, and if the skill is available).

Armani has implemented something very similar in his custom NeoLemmix build, which has prompted me to post this topic. I'll look at adding the hotkey to CE soon.
#18
Game Bugs & Suggestions / [+][SUG][PL] Level Search shou...
Last post by WillLem - September 09, 2026, 01:36:56 AM
This idea is courtesy of Armani, who has implemented it his custom NeoLemmix build.

The Level Select menu currently has a search bar, which allows the user to search the levels by title. The results are displayed and can be clicked to load the relevant level.

Armani's version also allows searching by Title and Style. This could be expanded even further to allow searching by Skills, Talismans and other level properties.

Now that the Search feature is fast and stable, expanding it seems like the obvious next move.

Also, @Armani - I'd be very interested to see how your Search feature works, and if you may have been able to optimise it in a different or better way than I have.
#19
Game Bugs & Suggestions / [+][SUG][PL] Anchor camera to ...
Last post by WillLem - September 09, 2026, 01:28:26 AM
This idea is courtesy of Armani, who has implemented it his custom NeoLemmix build.

Basically, right-clicking a lemming twice locks the camera to that lemming. The view then follows them until another is highlighted, or empty space is clicked. This is potentially super useful for watching replays back in Playback Mode.

Armani takes this a step further by also anchoring the Zoom function to the same lemming.

I'd like to add this to CE, but make it a hotkey (similar to the existing 'Highlight Lemming' hotkey) which toggles the anchor on and off, rather than 2 right-clicks.

We can decide later if clicking air should cancel the anchor. Air-clicks also cancel the replay and perform forwards frame steps; we probably shouldn't make it also do this third thing.
#20
Editor Bugs & Suggestions / Re: [SUG][ED] Option to have A...
Last post by WillLem - September 09, 2026, 01:15:07 AM
Ah OK... so, the option is remembered between Editor sessions (and is set via the Auto Screen Start checkbox itself), but reverts to being unchecked if a new level is created in the same session, regardless of option.

The setting must necessarily be separate from the level property, then (which is initialized to false every time a new level is created). An oversight from my early days with the Editor before I knew better! It has at last been added to the Settings menu.

Fixed in NLEditor commit 8ecd3c6.