Quote from: WillLem on April 17, 2026, 01:03:36 AMOK, so Proxima mentioned on Discord that we can start suggesting levels for Pack 1 Rank 1, particurly those that might make good X-of-each repeats.

Thank you -- although I was more looking to see if you had any suggestions for later levels that could have an interesting 10-of-each repeat, before we move past that stage of pack development and the opportunity is lost.

I want to clarify one thing. The vote (which ends tomorrow!) is currently strongly in favour of allowing both N-of-each repeats and "ghost repeats" (N-of-each versions of levels, without using the original level). That, of course, means that some of the existing ghost repeats can stay -- and this includes some on WillLem's keep list above, such as "Snowy Caves", "Pipe Dream" and "Lemmington Spa". Even so, for these levels, before making a decision, I intend to look at the original levels to see whether including the original level instead of the N-of-each version seems worthwhile, and I'll make a separate decision for each level on that level's own merits.

After all, even if we decide to start the pack with some N-of-each repeats, I don't think we want a first rank consisting entirely of these, so it would be good to trim the number down a little, and some of the original versions may be interesting in their own right.

This week, WillLem and I have played through the first rank of version 4 as a "Skills you can't live without" challenge, which is always interesting for N-of-each levels, and I am mindful that some of the challenge solutions we discovered may be lost if we replace these levels with their harder originals. Even so, most players will just be trying to solve the level with any solution rather than approaching them as SYCLW challenges, so how interesting the level is for a normal solution has to be the main consideration.

Quote from: WillLem on April 17, 2026, 03:09:13 AM@kaywhyn Would you be happy to replace these levels in the OP attachment? Thanks.

Done, thanks! It would had helped if I indeed had checked that I had the issue with the levels of the pack that use the nin10_ta_lava style not loading as well (and I did). Turns out I had an older version of the pack which doesn't have the issue of them not loading and that I simply hadn't downloaded the latest pack version, as I tend to move on from a level pack once I'm done playing through all of it. So, my bad @Pierdo!

Quote from: WillLem on April 16, 2026, 11:58:22 PM

Suggested approach, and discussion thereof

(1) Make a list of 30 x 4 levels which will form the "working playlist" (Draft 1) - they can be any levels at this point, and have no priority over anything not on the list. We do NOT decide at this point which levels should and shouldn't make the cut.

(2) Play through every level in the total pool (i.e. all levels on the list, and all levels off the list). During this step, we make notes, update any levels that need updating, and identify which levels should and shouldn't make the cut.

(3) Having completed step 2, we should now have a more firm idea of which levels will actually make it into the pack. We go through the process of swapping, moving, and replacing all levels in Draft 1 until we have Draft 2, which will be much closer to what the pack will actually end up looking like.

(4) Play through Draft 2 as if it's the completed pack, making note of how well the levels flow from one to another, etc. to get Draft 3, which would likely be a release candidate by that point.

All that's happened is, Proxima doesn't think step (1) is necessary and so we're starting from step (2). And that's fine, level selection was delegated to him for a reason and I'm happy to support the approach he wants to take - he has my full confidence.

The only difference it will actually make is to step (3). I imagine that it might it take a bit longer or be slightly more difficult if we don't already have a working list at that point. Then again, it might not. I could be wrong. It's natural for me to want to refer to a method has repeatedly worked for my own projects when suggesting how to go about this particular project - but, of course, I'm always happy to try new ways of doing things!

Anyway - by now, I'm explaining this only because I dislike misunderstandings. I haven't suggested rushing anything; on the contrary, my suggestion was that we add an extra step, which would actually slow the process down initially, but (maybe) make a later part of the process quicker and easier.

Think of it like this: when you take your washing out of the dryer, do you first sort everything into piles by clothing type (shirts, t-shirts, pants, socks, etc) or do you sort through the whole pile one item at a time? Is that first step necessary? I'd argue it is. It makes it much easier to see what you're dealing with, makes the total task feel less daunting, and increases the chances that the task will get completed by > 0%

AH, thanks for the clarification! It makes more sense to me now where you're coming from with this explanation. A couple of remarks to some things of your reply:

Quote(1) Make a list of 30 x 4 levels which will form the "working playlist" (Draft 1) - they can be any levels at this point, and have no priority over anything not on the list. We do NOT decide at this point which levels should and shouldn't make the cut.

(2) Play through every level in the total pool (i.e. all levels on the list, and all levels off the list). During this step, we make notes, update any levels that need updating, and identify which levels should and shouldn't make the cut.

Yea, it still sounds like it's arbitrary bias as to what would go on the list for the first step and it's some kind of subset of the v4 RotL pack except for where the levels that didn't make it in the pack are concerned. If anything, I probably would had just said the first 120 levels of v4 for the first pack and then the remaining 120 levels of the v4 for the second pack There, done.

Joking of course, since it's definitely more complicated than that. As mentioned previously, the Excel spreadsheet is a great one and sure, it might take longer and make some things a bit harder later on than if there was a "working playlist" as you call it, but I think for the most part I would had done it the way Proxima is currently doing it as well. I think it's working fine for the time being

QuoteAnyway - by now, I'm explaining this only because I dislike misunderstandings.

Right, understandable. I don't like being misunderstood either, and I'm sure there's plenty of others that don't as well, so we're far from being the only ones In fairness, I tend to be a slow learner and in understanding things in some areas, though definitely not as much of the former as when I was a youngster, but it's still there in me from time to time.

QuoteI haven't suggested rushing anything...

Well, you did suggest "a quick and dirty approach" for the first step on the list creation on Discord and that admittedly made me think you were suggesting rushing of some kind on the project, let alone possibly thrown in some confusion

In any case, at least we're in agreement with taking our time on all steps and processes of the community project.

QuoteAgain, bottom line: I'm no longer making the case for my suggested approach at this point. We've already decided to do it Proxima's way and that's absolutely fine by me. Happy to leave it there and move on

Agreed, it went on much longer than it should had due to my confusion and what was a misinterpretation on my part. I'm going to say no more of this and won't press for further clarification or anything on the matter. Let's shift the focus on doing what needs to be done and on our roles we been delegated to and helping each other out if needed.

Keep up the great work everyone  

Completed both the Easy and Medium ranks, so attaching my replays for them.

Also, link to my LP of your pack:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbp2m4KlFpJvLuYyA-gcPde2-ovtF0d3j

Enjoy!

General Feedback

NotaLems is a custom level pack by Nota_Steve, a user who hasn't been on for quite some time but made a reappearance recently, with their level pack in hand. They worked on it a long time ago but recently revisited the pack to finish it up to post and release to the Lemmings community to play.

The pack consists of 3 ranks of 30 levels each, similar to L1 but with one less rank. The three ranks, in order, are Easy, Medium, and Tough. In a way, the rank names remind me of Duuddu's packs, as the rank names there, in order, are Easy, Normal, and Hard, respectively. Hence, don't be fooled by even the first rank levels, as even some of those are more difficult than your usual affair.

Regarding the rank names, is it intentional that the sign rank graphics have a different name from the intended rank names? Currently, the Easy rank has a rank sign name of Fun, the Medium rank has a rank sign name of Tricky, and finally the Tough rank has a rank sign name of Mayhem, respectively. Level pack authors usually match the name of the graphic with their intended rank names by the way

As mentioned in a previous post of mine, some of the levels use Lemmings Reunion music tracks. However, upon closer inspection during my LP, I've noticed the only Reunion tracks that are used for the pack are the ones you hear from the official Lemmings games. In particular, I have forgotten some of them are L2 music tracks. It does make sense, considering that the pack also uses L1 and ONML music tracks in addition to Lemmings Reunion. If so, it might be possible to pack the music tracks with the pack download in one attachment. I'll have see about that

Easy Rank Feedback

Being the first rank, these are the easiest levels of the pack, with most of the levels being a tutorial of some kind in order to teach newcomers of the game what the skills do and also a few more advanced concepts, such as compression to minimize losses to traps. However, as some others have noted, including myself, some of the levels could be modified to better teach the concepts they're supposed to teach players, along with it being written out in the pre-text. In addition, some rearranging of level order of these so-called tutorials can do, as some of these can appear earlier rather than later. Other than that, these levels appear to be mostly open-ended ones to give players freedom to come up with their own solutions and hence don't have a single solution or intended way to do them.

My thoughts:

Easy 1 - Building Bridges Completely agree with Proxima that this is an unusual level to have as the first one, as the builder skill is a complicated skill relative to the other 7 classic ones. Also as was pointed out, the pre-text doesn't say or explain how to assign skills to the Lemmings. That can be added in for sure.

Easy 4 - Egyptian Excavation Somewhat a huge step up in difficulty, though the quite lenient save requirement kind of reduces the difficulty. Also yea, the background can potentially be confused with terrain.

Easy 7 - For the Greater Good I would definitely have a pre-text that explains that unlike the original game, bombers are untimed in NL and hence makes levels that originally relied on timed bombers a lot easier since you don't need to time them to explode in the right spot after 5 seconds.

Easy 8 - Now combine skills..... Ok talisman tutorial which is quite easy to obtain it. Here, I would definitely have a pre-text that explains what that question mark is in the level preview, which is a talisman. It's essentially akin to Steam achievements and can be thought of as an optional challenge that players may go for if they wish. I myself personally don't really care for talismans in the game of NL and hence generally don't go for them, but for your pack I made an exception

Easy 9 - Tightrope Artist The Lemming that's already pre-placed in the level is a pre-placed Lemming. Tanking on steel to turn around is introduced here but there's no pre-text explaining that for beginners

Easy 10 - Noughts and Crosses Yea, there's no reason for the Lemming count to be so high on this level. Levels that employ such are quite rare, but generally the ones I have seen that do have a high count tend to use it well. As was explained by Proxima, the release rate hasn't been taught or explained in any pre-text yet up to this point, but it is in Easy 22 (see below for my comments on it).

Easy 11 - Unavoidable Way too many repeated skill assignments! I tend to not be a fan of such levels, especially ones where you need to spam the same skill quickly in a short amount of time. Also no reason for the Lemming count to be so high here. It can definitely be done with a small Lemming count. The level can also definitely be changed to teach the player compression better to minimize losses against traps. Currently the floaters are only used to survive the fall before the exit. Perhaps have the Lemmings drop into a pit or as JawaJuice suggested maybe have the fall from the entrance be splat height in order for the floaters to serve a purpose of having the players achieve better compression to be able to save as much as possible.

Easy 13 - Pipeline Pathway This seems to be a level where the player is supposed to use compression to go through the traps with minimal losses due to the unusually low save requirement, except that it's possible to completely bypass all the traps and hence avoid any losses whatsoever

Easy 15 - Balls Great talisman and maybe could do as the introduction level to talismans instead. Here we have a different kind, where instead of it being a save requirement one, this one is a total skill limit one. Hence, you could explain in the pre-text that there are different talisman types, as well as how there's 3 different colors for them: Bronze, silver, and gold, with generally the bronze ones being easiest out of either silver and gold, with the silver ones generally easier than gold.

Easy 21 - Lazy Lemmings Yea, "these" in the pre-text isn't very descriptive or helpful when trying to explain neutrals. The hatch that spawns neutrals is indicated by a diamond, and they're Lemmings that are gray in color that cannot be assigned skills but can still be rescued and are subject to the same object effects as regular Lemmings, such as they can die to traps.

Easy 22 - Quick Release Bridge Now this is a good RR introduction level and could appear earlier in the rank, perhaps around or even replacing Easy 10 itself. This is also the most common use of the RR, which is to max it out early so as to not run out of time on levels with a very strict time limit. There's definitely far better uses and puzzles that make good use of RR manipulation.

Easy 23 - Intemediate skill knowledge Completely agree with this level being quite hard for beginners and can potentially trip up even veterans. However, I didn't run into any problems with the timing being too tight with splat height or finishing the bridge to get across the gap on time I honestly think this is a great level!

Easy 25 - Pausing can help I didn't try it myself in the LP, but I take Proxima's word that this can still be easily done pause-free. Perhaps a better way to have players make use of pause is to increase the RR, like maybe to 95 or so, as well as possibly require the level to be a save all rather than you can lose up to 10 Also as was mentioned there's no explanation of the locked RR and what it means (the player cannot adjust the RR at any time during the level).

Easy 26 - Creating your own "steps" Another climber bombing level, though this seemed to have been taught first in Easy 20, with each one being a different application of it. In the latter, it's to prevent making a hole in the floor.

Easy 27 - No Building or Blocking allowed One of the best levels of the rank IMO! I love builderless levels in general. At the same time, I kind of agree with the difficulty being a bit high since you do need to spam bashers as the bomber is the only loss you can afford here. You can't afford to have anyone turn around at the start, and also you need to have them avoid walking up to fall into the water at the top.

Easy 28 - Leaves Quite possibly the hardest level in the rank IMO, especially when trying to go for the save all. At least the hardest part for me was to figure out how to contain the crowd. Still, a decent and nice challenging level!

Easy 29 - Underground Tunnels of the Scarab King Wow, excellent level and talisman! It's obvious what needs to be done in the solution, but to solve the level along with getting the talisman isn't easy at all to achieve.

Easy 30 - Unselfishness Ok, I apparently missed the clue that the title possibly hints at interaction of the entrances, but as some others have pointed out that's not needed at all. Nice level to finish off the rank!

Medium Rank Feedback

Harder levels here, being the second rank, with plenty of these taking me quite a while before I was able to solve them. There's still some excellent gems in this rank!

Spoiler

Medium 1 - The Blocker Lives! New concept taught here that blockers can be freed by removing the ground underneath them, though this is a technique that wasn't officially taught in L1 until Mayhem 20. There was no prior introduction for this in the Easy rank. I think the same with falls of a certain distance being fatal wasn't taught in the previous rank either, other than that trap compression level with the fall before the exit being fatal.

Medium 2 - Ruins of Palmyra Now this does make use of floaters to survive the fall, though it's only necessary for the workers on both sides that turn around. The rest of the floaters aren't needed

Medium 3 - No Safety net One of the best levels of the rank along with an excellent talisman to boot! I think I later realized that I could had had all 12 bash at the same spot and hence I was a big dummy on getting the talisman!

Medium 4 - Elephants graveyard The area to the right of the exit is probably a little too small and tight to get up there comfortably, though I acknowledge that I might had simply built in a suboptimal spot for that Ok level otherwise.

Medium 5 - The Chain Great level and not too hard despite appearances and the strict time limit. I had some skills leftover and just let one splat, so I'm not sure if my solution is intended.

Medium 6 - Snake Pit Nice snake pit, though it's quite difficult to tell where the trap triggers are in it without turning on CPM to check. Other than that, great level! Nice challenge to figure out how to build from both sides of the gap at the top.

Medium 7 - Nightboat to Cairo Seems all 4 bombers are needed and hence on can't do any better than that

Medium 8 - Turn Around! (Endurance Test) Seems you got inspiration from "Everybody, turn left" from the Genesis/Mega Drive port of the game Yea, too excessive on the repeated miner assignments for my liking.

Medium 9 - The Pillars of Positivity and Negativity Introduction to up and down OWAs, though there was no proper introduction for this in the previous rank and hence can be a huge step up in difficulty for newcomers, especially as these arrows didn't exist in the original game. Nice challenge if going for the save all the intended way!

Medium 10 - They're everywhere! Ack, more excessive and repetitive skill assignments in a short amount of time Though this is only necessary if one wants to save everyone, which is still easy to do here.

Medium 11 - A series of fortunate events Another excellent level! Very nice solution and great use of climber bombing the thin pole at the start. I also love the gotcha of if you bash the barrel with the climber from the left side after mining then you don't have the level solved due to him climbing up, falling down and splatting on the far right later on

Medium 12 - Wee Nessy! Second excellent level in a row! I especially like the basher on the Nessy to delay the others in order to give the leader enough time to plug up the small gap on the far right. Another one where a splatform is required, which I don't think was taught in the previous rank.

Medium 13 - Nothings changed Talisman requires good timing to stop the miner going to the right, but it fortunately isn't super tight or very strict and hence is still easy to obtain despite the fiddliness of cancelling the miner with another one going in the opposite direction.

Medium 14 - Pendulum Ok, this one managed to stump me for a while, though I didn't need to resort to RR fiddling like JawaJuice did. Good to know I wasn't the only dummy on this level. Then again, I haven't checked their solution yet Great level here that manages to be tough!

Medium 15 - Hazardous Work Environment Once again, spamming the same skill repeatedly to keep everyone alive, though luckily this is alleviated by the very slow 1 RR. One can also make things easier by making a builder wall to stop anyone from getting into danger in case they turn back to the left.

Medium 16 - Million Dollar Lemming Another difficult one for me, though that's because I tried some wrong stuff for quite a while and didn't think to simply dig all of the OWW at the start away. Great level though!

Medium 17 - What lurks beyond Ugh, this level is made all the more painful with the locked RR forcing you to just wait and hence it takes a while for everyone to drop out of the hatches. Seems the degree of fiddliness will vary, especially when you're trying to avoid anyone falling out to the left once through to the bottom. Again, I think I brought this on myself and hence made it harder than it needed to be. The Lemming count could certainly be much lower here.

Medium 18 - The Once-Mighty Oak Great level, though I find the penultimate builder a bit annoying to get right since he may not be able to build a full length bridge after mining through.

Medium 19 - Where there's a will... I was a bit of a dummy here and kept thinking of ways of getting the Lemmings through the wall before the exit, when in fact I simply overlooked the simple build to get over the wall I blame being sleepy and sleep-deprived during my LP!

Medium 20 - Bash at the Beach Great level and definitely reminds me of some Lemmings Reunion levels where the builder needs time to finish building to the exit before the others arrive. It most certainly reminds me of Crazy 4 from ONML as well!

Medium 21 - You were warned, blockers are a luxury The hardest part here is to prevent anyone from slipping out to the left in the upper part of the level, but once you achieve that then the level is simple afterwards. Nice level!

Medium 22 - The High Dive Quite easy for its position when most of the levels around it are much harder. With that being said, I probably backrouted it

Medium 23 - The Pool Hall Challenging level, especially with figuring out the best way to get the bottom entrances up to the exit. My solution at least seems to be quite tight in getting the miner in the right spot to get the bottom left entrance out since I would had ran out of builders otherwise if the miner didn't get low enough for them. Maybe this is a case of I made the solution harder than it needs to be though

Medium 24 -Our Little Brothers Keepers Can be challenging but this one wasn't as bad as I thought. I'm not sure if digging away the trap trigger is intended.

Medium 25 - The grass is greener Nice level, though the second blocker to turn the builder can be frustrating to get right since you need the right timing and spacing to do so as you can't afford to have anyone to get past it. At the same time, I spared the digger, so maybe that's to ease the solution execution a bit?

Medium 26 - Caustic Chasm Hard one for me, though mostly because I was confused as to how to do the building. Didn't think to build shortly after going down the triangle so that it's possible to build back up to the crowd and then to the exit and finally to bash the blocker free with the worker. Excellent level and solution!

Medium 27 - Inferno Room Ok, this one was a much quicker solve for me and IMO is quite easy for its position. Can easily be earlier in the rank.

Medium 28 - Potholing Quite possibly the hardest for me in the entire rank. I struggled to think about how to get everyone down to the exit for a long time, especially with wondering whether to go out the left or to the right. The solution I eventually found is likely far more complicated than it needs to be. Great level, but wow, really hard.

Medium 29 - Sandcastle Competition Much easier, though the final builder to reach the exit is a bit annoying and seems to require good precision.

Medium 30 - Under the Highlands Also an easy one just like the previous level. Pretty much a standard puzzle here.     

Other than the suggestions I gave for the Easy rank, I'm enjoying the pack a lot! Definitely far harder than ScottyLems. So far, I've solved the first 6 levels of the Tough rank and yup, it's aptly named! I don't expect to get through them very quickly, if the fact I struggled a lot with the Medium rank is any indication So far, Tough 4 is the hardest IMO, as that one took me a while. Seems like I'm in good company there. A few breathers here and there, but yea, I think it's going to take time to get through the rest of the pack.

Quote from: Nota_Steve on April 16, 2026, 12:51:29 PMI apologise for that Kaywhyn hahaha, I hope I didn't offend by calling you the wrong name.

Of course I was, given that I'm one of the staff of the site! Joking of course, though again you didn't know that about me. As it's your post, you can edit and correct my name. Or I can, though I generally give the user the opportunity to edit typos of my username rather than do it myself. Seems to have worked well so far

QuoteThank you for all your help, I'm somewhat new to uploading these things. 

You're welcome, always happy to help!

               

Quote from: Nota_Steve on April 16, 2026, 11:52:08 PMI really appreciate you playing through my level pack, and your feedback on both Easy and Medium is really appreciated.

My pleasure! I've really enjoyed the play through so far

QuoteI've watched through the replays, and many of the levels were designed in a way to have multiple solutions, however you appear to have found a couple more which I'm happy about, my concern with some of them is that they were slightly too difficult and you've alleviated that concern.

Yeah, the difficulty curve is generally quite smooth, so nicely judged on your part! Don't worry though, Tough rank is plenty hard

QuoteI've also noticed a few back routes other than Medium 9 which I will address when I have the time to, but for the most part it looks like the pack is as I intended.

Good stuff! Always happy to play any updates you have when you get around to it.  

QuoteVery well played and I look forward to hearing further feedback! 

Cheers! My solve time has already gone up considerably just a couple of levels into Tough. I think it's going to be quite a while until I crack this rank, if at all! Interestingly, level 4, which is another repeat (several in this pack, but that's standard), does actually introduce that element of necessary co-operation that was missing in its earlier incarnation. Tough level - I might have been being dumb (entirely possible! XD), but it took me about half an hour to finally find a solution there. If that's indicative of how this rank's gonna go, I'm in for a long ride! Nothing rage-inducing so far though, it's all just difficult puzzle-solving rather than horrifically precise execution and timing - definitely a good thing in my book.

Quote from: Piedro0 on April 16, 2026, 10:24:44 PMNope, still not loading. Maybe it's because i'm using CE?

It's not a CE issue. ericderkovits has tracked down the cause of the error you're seeing: it has to do with the piece names in the style itself. In the actual style, the piece names don't have underscores, but in the levels that use this style, for some reason underscores snuck in.

Eric's now fixed this and sent the levels to me via Discord (which you're welcome to join). Download the attached levels and replace them in your copy of the pack.

@kaywhyn Would you be happy to replace these levels in the OP attachment? Thanks.

OK, so Proxima mentioned on Discord that we can start suggesting levels for Pack 1 Rank 1, particurly those that might make good X-of-each repeats.

These would be my top picks:

9 Ways To Live - perfect start to the pack, an excellent take on tutorial levels in general
Over or Under - provides an interesting challenge, and multiple possible ways to solve it
Snowy Caves - snow levels usually aren't my favourite, but this one is very well put together. 20 of each is excessive though, 10-15 would probably be fine
Pipe Dream - this gets more interesting the more you look at it. I'd probably suggest reducing it to 3 or 4 of each
Lemmington Spa - presents multiple 'get down from there' challenges in a single level, but isn't too difficult for the first rank by any means
Surrealism - probably my favourite level visually, could be good as a 2 of each
Neighbours - rock levels usually put me off, but this one is very well done as a 'use this crowd to save that crowd' challenge
Let's Play Lemmings! - very good pillar level, well put-together and requires use of several different skills to get a basic solution. Shame it doesn't make use of the OWW, but other than that it's a decent candidate for inclusion
Crystal Caves - this one's a classic custom level, and makes for an interesting challenge given only 1 Basher
Lem Dunk - a favourite of mine, just a shame it isn't possible to save 100%!
Minesweeper Lemmings - include it for sure, maybe reduce the X to some amount that makes the level require floaters?
THE FEARSOME FOURSOME - excellent level, a great multi-tasker with many possible solutions, perfect for X of each

In general, my criteria for X-of-all repeats would be: how many different skills are needed to create a basic solution? If the level can be done with just one or two skills, it's perhaps either not worth including, or the X amount should be reduced so that other skills need to be used.

That's it for now, I'll report back more when I've worked through more of the pack.

I agree with Simon, these are all excellent. Nice work, Lana!

It looks like Simon will already be adding them, but just to document some comments anyway:

Quote from: Lana T. on April 15, 2026, 04:25:25 PMI wasn't sure how to update the "surprised" one. Each time I retouched the pupils, it looked weird and bad, so I added an exclamation mark instead:

Good call.

Quote from: Lana T. on April 15, 2026, 04:25:25 PM"Lemcat" has his little nose:

Much better, thanks! This one is probably my favourite.

Quote from: Lana T. on April 15, 2026, 04:25:25 PMHere are the two new versions of "sleep":

The one on the right (with the Zs) is the best IMO.

Quote from: Lana T. on April 15, 2026, 04:25:25 PMNerd:

Perfect! The raised finger is a nice touch, and definitely makes it clearer. I'll use this one when I'm nerdsplaining, for sure!

Quote from: Lana T. on April 15, 2026, 04:25:25 PMAngel:


Lip Sealed:

We must have these. Simon, please add them.

Quote from: Lana T. on April 15, 2026, 04:25:25 PMTo be honest, the hands in some of the lemoticons are still bugging me, but I can't spend more time on them when I still have other ones to finish.

Take your time and make whatever changes you need to. If Simon uploads what you have for now, I imagine it will be easy enough to replace them later if you've made revisions.

Quote from: kaywhyn on April 16, 2026, 01:05:21 PMI'll see if I can interpret what you mean correctly. If you mean what I think you mean, essentially your approach goes like, "I choose this level, that level, etc." without needing to necessarily play the levels beforehand as your list we can analyze as a group to see what we can further cut down. Yea, this way of doing so would likely introduce arbitrary bias as Proxima mentioned. I'm definitely not in favor of randomly picking levels that should and shouldn't make the cut without properly analyzing the levels first

I've highlighted in yellow bold the parts that are being misunderstood.

The following is the approach I suggested, as clearly as I can make it. I've spoiler tagged it to make this post smaller as this part of the conversation has taken up enough of this topic already!

Suggested approach, and discussion thereof

(1) Make a list of 30 x 4 levels which will form the "working playlist" (Draft 1) - they can be any levels at this point, and have no priority over anything not on the list. We do NOT decide at this point which levels should and shouldn't make the cut.

(2) Play through every level in the total pool (i.e. all levels on the list, and all levels off the list). During this step, we make notes, update any levels that need updating, and identify which levels should and shouldn't make the cut.

(3) Having completed step 2, we should now have a more firm idea of which levels will actually make it into the pack. We go through the process of swapping, moving, and replacing all levels in Draft 1 until we have Draft 2, which will be much closer to what the pack will actually end up looking like.

(4) Play through Draft 2 as if it's the completed pack, making note of how well the levels flow from one to another, etc. to get Draft 3, which would likely be a release candidate by that point.

All that's happened is, Proxima doesn't think step (1) is necessary and so we're starting from step (2). And that's fine, level selection was delegated to him for a reason and I'm happy to support the approach he wants to take - he has my full confidence.

The only difference it will actually make is to step (3). I imagine that it might it take a bit longer or be slightly more difficult if we don't already have a working list at that point. Then again, it might not. I could be wrong. It's natural for me to want to refer to a method has repeatedly worked for my own projects when suggesting how to go about this particular project - but, of course, I'm always happy to try new ways of doing things!

Anyway - by now, I'm explaining this only because I dislike misunderstandings. I haven't suggested rushing anything; on the contrary, my suggestion was that we add an extra step, which would actually slow the process down initially, but (maybe) make a later part of the process quicker and easier.

Think of it like this: when you take your washing out of the dryer, do you first sort everything into piles by clothing type (shirts, t-shirts, pants, socks, etc) or do you sort through the whole pile one item at a time? Is that first step necessary? I'd argue it is. It makes it much easier to see what you're dealing with, makes the total task feel less daunting, and increases the chances that the task will get completed by > 0%

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Again, bottom line: I'm no longer making the case for my suggested approach at this point. We've already decided to do it Proxima's way and that's absolutely fine by me. Happy to leave it there and move on

Quote from: kaywhyn on April 16, 2026, 07:04:53 PMReattached your level pack with the new Tough 20. Keep in mind that you can simply edit your own post and reattach the zip file by including the new level(s) that have changed. In addition, it's perfectly fine to simply attach the level itself rather than put it in a zip file first, though if you've included the level(s) that have changed in the pack download then it's not necessary to attach the level files themselves I've put that in the OP and you can choose whether or not to remove the second zip file

Quote from: Nota_Steve on April 16, 2026, 12:51:29 PMHi Kay,

You are an icon, thank you very much!

I completely missed this, as I thought you simply only replied to Proxima. It's a problem where when navigating to a topic it shows the most recent post and hence I didn't think that there might had been further replies because I didn't bother to scroll up!

Anyway, you didn't yet know this about me, but the correct way to refer to me online is by the full username that you see displayed for me, which is kaywhyn. I have a girl cousin with the shortened name you used to reply to me, while for myself my actual name is really close to it but not quite Hence I tell people to refer to me as kaywhyn online  

I apologise for that Kaywhyn hahaha, I hope I didn't offend by calling you the wrong name.

Thank you for all your help, I'm somewhat new to uploading these things.