Compromise, after overthinking this less:

Bake the physics masks into the .exe, but also provide them in the usual folder for visibility's sake. They just simply won't be used from there.

Just wanted to say hi to all you great people!   I never forget about Lix    nice to see you still work on it Simon!   

Thanks, everybody!  I very much appreciate the input!  None of my questions were important; just newbie questions.  I'll keep enjoying my little Lix friends as they march around my desktop.  :-)  Thanks!  --ken

Thanks Guigui - I'll definitely give yours a try! I'd like to create some more levels of my own at some point, but in the mean time I have pro creators like yourself and Tomato to inspire me. 

QuoteIf the intention is to allow users access to the physics for modding, where do we stop? If we'd rather not allow access for the sake of simplicity, then the gfx/mask files shouldn't exist in the directory.

I agree there. Having fully customisable physics would result in confusion.

So, gfx/mask files shouldn't exist in the directory and should go in the exe.

Golems v2.0-preview7

There are now keys for leftward/rightward selection (A and F by default) and a key for abandoning the level (Delete by default; basically the same as pressing Escape in DOS).  There are also some minor bug fixes and performance improvements.

Quote from: IchoTolot on January 27, 2026, 05:55:43 PMLooked inside the folder and I can maybe see somebody wanting to swap the highliter or countdown.

Yes, this stuff should remain visible and editable. We'd only bake in the physics masks.

Quote from: Simon on January 27, 2026, 07:38:46 PMAllow editing the file, but checksum on load and warn nonintrusively on mismatch.

Good suggestion, but hard pass. For this, I'd rather just commit one way or the other.

Quote from: IchoTolot on January 27, 2026, 09:01:34 PMI do not have a strong opinion about it, when you wanna hide them for CE, do it. I just remembered why we actually went away from the big exe blob and I feel like that could be a frist step back to it.

I doubt we'd ever go back to a fully-loaded .exe. Certainly not whilst I've got anything to do with it. It's clear that users want to be able to mod their copies, and we should continue to support that.

Quote from: Simon on January 27, 2026, 07:38:46 PMIcho's position is interesting. What do you think about externalizing even more physics?

Important question. If we want to allow users to potentially play with the physics, why not splat height? Builder/Stacker/Platformer brick width? Lem walking speed? etc... If the intention is to allow users access to the physics for modding, where do we stop? If we'd rather not allow access for the sake of simplicity, then the gfx/mask files shouldn't exist in the directory.

Quote from: weirdybeardy on January 27, 2026, 02:25:36 PMThese look brilliant. I'm really looking forward to playing them.

I can feel another Lemmings binge coming on... I feel it in me waters...

I'm also looking forward to playing the new Tomato Watcher levels, and playtest them if he still needs some testers.
Moderate difficulty is definitely my cup of tea from time to time, especially considering I'm stuck on Fiat Lems! and Quest From Kieran at the moment.

btw weirdybeardy I had a lot of fun playing your pack recently. I made a 16 levels pack myself with the twist mechanic of "you can only save one lemming", see my sig. Feel free to try it for a short binge to get back to Lemmings !

Quote from: Guigui on January 27, 2026, 10:42:10 PMIt looks like I launched this whole idea of booting CE from the same directory as NL, so I'm giving my vague 2 cents here : either solution 2) or 4) sound fine to me.

Agreed. I'll probably go with 4. It's a bit more work for a lot more benefit.

Quote from: Guigui on January 27, 2026, 10:42:10 PMI'm just an end user who likes to keep things kind of tidy on my machine.

This actually makes you the perfect person to provide feedback, and I'm very grateful for it!

It looks like I launched this whole idea of booting CE from the same directory as NL, so I'm giving my vague 2 cents here : either solution 2) or 4) sound fine to me.

1) could indeed turn CE things hard to locate, and 3) does not allow modifications (which I already did for some tiny things in the CE).

Please note that I am not a programmer at all so I may not understand all arguments when they become complicated like here, I'm just an end user who likes to keep things kind of tidy on my machine.