Should RetroLemmini have a Rewind button? I'm currently about 50:50 on this.

On the one hand, RetroLemmini has a replay system which can be used to backtrack when the player makes a mistake anyway; from one point of view, it seems unnecessary for the player to have to wait for the replay to fast-forward to the part of the level they're trying to get to.

On the other hand, RetroLemmini currently represents the best way to experience the original games on a modern PC (in my opinion), and the replay feature is there as a pleasant bonus rather than an integral part of the way the game is played, like it is in NeoLemmix. I'd be wary of beginning to introduce the ability to fine-tweak replays, and essentially ending up with yet another 'Lemmings replay editor'.

If we do include any sort of 'Rewind' feature, it certainly shouldn't be a frame-by-frame backstepping sort of feature. The possibilities I imagine are these:

1) 'Fast-rewind' (similar to the current fast-forward but moving in reverse)

2) A checkpoint system, which allows the player to jump back to the most recent checkpoint

3) Jump back to the last skill assignment

All of the above provide a way to quickly undo mistakes without introducing the kind of granular replay editing that NeoLemmix and Lix offer (which, again, I'd much rather avoid).

I'm very hesistant to do even this to be honest, because I like the fact that RetroLemmini has higher gameplay stakes. However, it's difficult to ignore the fact that the replay system already exists and already means that players can just fast-forward to the part of the level that they need to redo. Why not, then, allow them to get there a bit more quickly.

One other possibility here is to implement a super-fast-forward, which allows the player to advance very quickly through the replay; as fast as the rendering will allow, I imagine.

Please share your thoughts.

I need feedback on this. If I don't hear back from anybody, I'll assume that people are happy with RetroLemmini as it is and I won't take any action.

Hi,

we have a few German members. Who's up to meet for a few days?

I live in Kassel, Germany and am considering hosting the meetup at my place. Reasonable dates will be around February 2027 or March 2027. I have a weak preference for early March, but really anything in February/March would fit. I'll make up my mind and will let you know within the next few months.

Flopsy considers flying here from the UK for a week. To book a flight reasonably cheap, Flopsy needs concrete dates in 2027 by October/November 2026 at latest. I'd like to pin it down by November.

IchoTolot lives nearby and will be happy to come over.

Ideas for what we can do:

• Play board games.
  
• Share Lemmings levels and solve each other's levels.
  
• Work next to each other our computers, on Lemmings projects or other projects.
  
• Take a small hike.
  

Are you up to join? Let me know what dates suit you best.

-- Simon

After a longer conversation with CLAUDE I received this!

ooh some fun stuff to search for when I'm bored. There's a bunch of those I don't know about. 

I still think about those 500 lost levels every now and then. Why must Gary never let them see the light of day!? [yes I am obsessive and cry about things like this, even though it's probably pointless]

Quote from: Proxima on August 14, 2026, 07:00:05 PMFor the save requirement ... 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.

There is an option to count up from 0 then display '+n' once the save requirement is met. Some users (myself included) prefer this to the negative save count.

Yes, no colours are needed here, but I like the idea of using teal to bring attention to this part of the display once the save requirement is met - let's give this a try and see if it's OK. Certainly, the save count should be green whilst the SR is unmet. We all agree here.

Quote from: Proxima on August 14, 2026, 07:00:05 PMThe timer needs to indicate (at least) three possible states: infinite; time limit counting down; overtime
...
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.

Red for both is fine, let's give that a try. And OK, we'll do away with the 15 seconds 'warning'. Nobody has piped up in support of that, so... let's get rid of it and see if anyone complains later.

Quote from: Simon on August 15, 2026, 12:49:23 AMAlternative to minus sign: The yellow hourglass (that has sand in both halves) turns red (together with its number) and has all the red sand in the bottom half.

This is a great idea!

Quote from: Simon on August 15, 2026, 12:49:23 AMThe satisfied save requirement is a flag with a checkmark. Consider removing the flag and have only a checkmark in this icon. Makes it easier to see the checkmark, and the switch into the winning state will pop a little better.

Let's see if using teal to make this pop is good enough. Flag-with-checkmark works nicely, I'd personally prefer to keep this as it is.

---

Current proposal, then:

Use GREEN for everthing except the following:

TEAL/CYAN = save requirement is met | level has a time limit

RED = not enough lemmings remain | time has run out (alongside Simon's red sand timer)

BLUE = panel button hints

I think this could work nicely. Let's give it a try in the next update.

There are 2 possible fixes here:

1) After being turned by a Blocker, suppress the next 4px horizontal movement.

2) After being turned by a Blocker, reset the action/animation to frame 0.

Both of these fixes guarantee that the Miner will either not clip through terrain, or will destroy the terrain directly in front of them (after turning). However, neither looks quite right (the 2nd is definitely the better of the two in this regard), and both will likely break replays involving turning a Miner with a Blocker.

All other fixes (checking ahead for terrain, checking for during-movement terrain) interact poorly with existing physics, which often has the Miner stepping through existing terrain anyway.

NOTE: It seems worth mentioning that this bug is also present in SuperLemmini. So, it's not being caused by any changes to Miner physics made in RetroLemmini.

The only other option I can think of is to completely refactor the Miner's movement cycle so that it moves across-then-down rather than down-then-across. This could interact poorly with the sprite, though, and still wouldn't guarantee no clipping.

I'm still von my quest of finding a lemming plush toy. Something seemingly too impossible that I now try to make on myself. Did anybody try that? So far I got a small button recorder and now I try to find some hints or instructions of how to start. Some kind of map for plan how to cut various velour pieces to assemble and stitch together. Anybody ...? /Users/home/Desktop/Screen Shot 2026-08-17 at 9.40.42 AM.jpg

OK... so, the bug reported by Flopsy is actually not related to the 2px vertical movement, it's related to the 4px horizontal movement that the Miner takes at physics frames 6 and 30. This is responsible for clipping a Miner through terrain in the very specific case that:

(a) There is no more than 4px horizontal terrain in front of the Miner (in this instance, a Builder brick)

and

(b) The Miner has been turned by a Blocker at some point prior to (or at) frame 6 or 30, but not on a destruction frame (which would destroy the terrain anyway)

So, a particularly nasty bug with no immediately obvious fix.

@Guigui

Congrats on clearing the Mutilation rank of Lemmings Plus Alpha! This is a huge achievement, considering the very high difficulty of the pack. In general, each subsequent pack in the series is harder than the previous one, though this isn't always the case. In particular, the hardest packs are Lemmings Plus III, V, Lemmings Plus Omega II, and Lemmings Plus Alpha, with the last one arguably the hardest out of all the Lemmings Plus packs. While it is agreed by those who have played and finished LPO2 and LPA that they're no doubt very hard, depending on who you ask, it is debatable which of the two is harder. IMHO, I found LPO2 much harder than LPA, though in fairness I did backroute plenty of LPA levels

Mutilation 2 was the level that caused me to quit LPA for a few months back in the days. Yes, believe it or not, only two levels in and I gave up on the pack. Turns out that me not paying attention to the save requirement was what got me into so much trouble! I'm one of those Lemmings players who generally goes for save all's or saving as much as possible if 100% isn't possible. Because for some reason I thought you need to save everyone on Mutilation 2 (including cloners), you can imagine how well that went for me!

Lemmings Plus Alpha was also one of the very first custom NL level packs I played, along with Lemmings United. As a result, roadblocks came up very often for me due to how I wasn't as experienced back then! This is all in spite of how I played so many custom Dos packs back in the days, as well as how I managed to beat some of the toughest packs on Lemmini, including PimoLems and Lemmings Reunion. Thus, I thought I be fully prepared to take on the hardest NL level packs once I finally did make the dip into NL content! Nope, I was very wrong!

Anyway, if you ever feel like getting some help, I have a full playlist of LPA video solutions:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbp2m4KlFpJuV5DRnoM8Z7dWrfKsLnS7q 

In regards to intended solutions, if you're curious as to what they are, namida included replays along with the pack downloads in the OP

I think this might be a symptom of a bugfix (NLCEPlayer commit 8dbba16) intended to prevent Preview/Postview Screen key presses and mouse clicks from making their way into the game when auto-skip is active. You'll probably find that if you start up Playback Mode and un-check 'Auto-skip Preview & Postview Screens', this bug will disappear. Or, press F1 to restart, skip forward 1 frame, then you'll be able to unpause using the [Space] bar (or whatever key Pause is linked to).

This is clearly not ideal. I'll try out a different fix for the 'delayed input' bug, ensuring that frame 0 will allow key and mouse presses again (when in Playback Mode + Auto-skip).