@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).

Quote from: IchoTolot on July 24, 2026, 02:19:04 PMI think having the 'Replay-single-mode' as an optional setting could be the best thing here

Agreed: new players and those not fully accustomed to the Replay features need to be able to tailor their experience. We should provide options.

However, adding a 'Single Mode' option would inadvertently create three replay modes: 'Red R', 'Blue R', and the proposed 'Single Mode', all of which must be maintained.

I'd suggest that a simpler solution here would be to abandon the proposed 'Single Mode' as its own thing and instead offer players the option to have 'Red R' or 'Blue R' as their default (they'd still be mutually togglable in-game).

Then, we'd fine-tune the 'Blue R' mode to be more like the proposed 'Single Mode'.

Quote from: Simon on August 16, 2026, 04:58:00 PMI'm beginning to feel that airclick-to-cut is a fundamental design dead-end

In what way? And, why?

Quote from: Simon on August 16, 2026, 04:58:00 PMAlong the bottom of the screen, always show the replay as a timeline, like what a video player displays.
...
Tweaker always open, which is practically the timeline, but bigger and with all the bells and whistles.

Initial reaction: Hm. This would push NeoLemmix even further into 'Replay Editor' territory (as opposed to 'Video Game' territory) than it already is.

On second thoughts, though, these are good ideas. Perhaps the Replay Editor (currently a list-based Windows dialog) could be ditched in favour of this sort of thing. It shouldn't be displayed by default though, even in Replay mode; let the user call it up via a hotkey/panel button. We need to keep the UI as clear and clutter-free as possible.

In any case, this needs its own topic.

Quote from: Simon on August 16, 2026, 04:58:00 PMOver each lemming who will receive a replay assignment in the next 5 seconds, we paint a large arrow with the skill on it and a countdown. You can click an [X] on that arrow to cut the lemming's future.

Another good idea, let's put this into its own topic as well though.

This topic is about whether or not we should merge/revise the existing replay modes. UI-related stuff is important, of course, and we can certainly keep small tweaks within the scope of this topic, but more extensive overhauls belong in their own individual topic(s).

Quote from: namida on August 16, 2026, 10:20:20 PMThis might feel "good enough" that the periodic demands for reintroducing timed bombers finally die out for once and for all.

How so?

And, I doubt that this particular aspect of the game will ever be resolved. As long as we have users who experienced any one of the original Lemmings ports, timed bombers will be a thing that people remember and possibly miss (if they're absent from a particular clone engine). And, the community will always be split between those who like them and those who don't.

SuperLemmix, IMHO, does it best: the engine includes both types of Bomber as separate skills. Level designers can choose which to put in their level, and can even use both side by side, so that the player can decide which ones to use where (and, this can of course be built into the fabric of the level's puzzle).

But, that's also another topic!

Wow, nice art, you draw pretty well, congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!     

Quote from: Simon on August 16, 2026, 04:58:00 PMIdea: Over each lemming who will receive a replay assignment in the next 5 seconds, we paint a large arrow with the skill on it and a countdown. You can click an

• on that arrow to cut the lemming's future.

Bonus: This might feel "good enough" that the periodic demands for reintroducing timed bombers finally die out for once and for all.

I'm quite a fan of it, but I can definitely admit it has some weaknesses.

The camera controls are the obvious one. They're not really much better on PC. The keyboard-based controls are an improvement over the mouse-based ones, but still not ideal. Lack of ability to tilt up/down is also frustrating.

The other one is that honestly, I don't feel the level design was the greatest, and especially, it rarely made full use of 3D. There are a few absolutely excellent levels in there that couldn't work in 2D (eg. Critical Path), but also so many that aren't all that interesting and/or the 3D aspect of them is limited to "assign a couple of turners" and/or "the path has turns in it, but there's no puzzle-related reason it couldn't be a straight 2D line". Think of levels like "This Is The Army" or "The Five Arches" here.

It was definitely very fun to make an original level pack for!

I always felt like 3D lemmings was a "mixed" game between the community for some reason. similar to lemmings puzzle adventure in a way. 

I'd say the game is decent, it does have some rough spots, like for example the controls, which can be a pain in the head, especially if your playing the PS1 version.   

Anc it does have some good in it, like for example the music, and some great levels that use the third dimension really well. 

So, whats your thoughts about it?

Update: Level 7 is now playable

Hi everyone,

I've released a new community test build of Fizzles.

The downloadable versions for Windows and Android now include Levels 1–7. The Web version will remain on the stable Levels 1–5 build for the time being.

What's new in this version
Level 7: The Mushroom Forest
a stronger focus on the Digger mechanic
a large mushroom is part of the puzzle itself and can be dug through
digging permanently changes the terrain
new balancing for all four difficulty settings
various technical and visual improvements

The early levels introduced the basic abilities step by step. Level 6 was the first larger puzzle to combine several of them.

Level 7 takes this one step further: the terrain itself now becomes an important part of the solution.

There are many places where you can dig, but not every route will get the Fizzles safely to the exit. The challenge is to find a suitable path through the mushroom while rescuing enough Fizzles along the way.

That also makes Level 7 particularly useful for community testing and balancing at the moment.

I'm especially interested in feedback about
the difficulty of the four difficulty settings
whether the intended solution is understandable and discoverable
whether unsuccessful alternative solutions fail in a way that feels logical and fair
Digger and Blocker behaviour
mouse and touch controls
terrain and collision behaviour after digging
performance, especially on older Android devices
technical issues or unexpected situations
Available versions
Windows: Levels 1–7
Android: Levels 1–7
Web browser: Levels 1–5
Play and download

https://hpwsoft.itch.io/fizzles

More information and community links

https://hpwsoft.com/fizzles/community/

Fizzles is now being developed with Godot 4.7.1 and continues to follow its basic principles:

No ads, no tracking, and no account required.

Thanks again to everyone who has tested previous builds and provided feedback. Especially with the later levels, this feedback is becoming increasingly valuable for improving difficulty, clarity, balancing, and technical details.

Future levels will also be released gradually as community test builds.

Test keyboard shortcuts

The following shortcuts are available for testing:

1 – Load Level 1 directly
2 – Load Level 2 directly
3 – Load Level 3 directly
4 – Load Level 4 directly
5 – Load Level 5 directly
6 – Load Level 6 directly
7 – Load Level 7 directly
R – Restart the current level
Esc – Quit the game

On Android phones and tablets, these shortcuts can also be used with an external USB or Bluetooth keyboard.

If insert-by-default is confusing (because it keeps earlier and later assignments, both related and unrelated), the old non-inserting replay mode must be confusing at least half as often (because it keeps earlier assignments, and it ditches future unrelated assignments, which is surprising/annoying in a multithreading level).

I'm beginning to feel that airclick-to-cut is a fundamental design dead-end (= no problems as long as you don't design any further), and all the other design problems follow from having it. But airclick-to-cut is so ingrained that it should remain on by default ... at least until we have much clearer UI about what's going on and how to cut it.

Had I to design this from scratch today, here is what pops into mind:

• Idea: I'd put "Replaying. [Stop here and cut all future]" somewhere big, and something like "next assignment in 0:03" below. Such a glaringly obvious alternative to the airclick is also the fix for saxdude-like confusion (new user exits and restarts NL to stop the replay).
  
• Idea: Along the bottom of the screen, always show the replay as a timeline, like what a video player displays. Assignments are points along the line, and you have a playhead. You can click to navigate, similar to the minimap. (The minimap is becoming more and more obsolete after the zoom bugfix and after possible future RMB-scolling fixes).
  
• Idea: Tweaker always open, which is practically the timeline, but bigger and with all the bells and whistles. But it would take a lot of screen real estate. And it's an expert feature and it looks like one. Not what I'd want to show first-timers.
  
• Idea: Over each lemming who will receive a replay assignment in the next 5 seconds, we paint a large arrow with the skill on it and a countdown. You can click an [X] on that arrow to cut the lemming's future.
  

I'm also beginning to think that namida foresaw these airclick issues, forbade airclick in insert mode, and put the explicit future-cutting hotkey as a replacement.

-- Simon

Quote from: DragonsLover on August 16, 2026, 09:38:14 AM

Quotethere is a cheat/debug code nobody seems to have written/published anything about. In the main menu you can enter the level code + BOWIE and then OK and the level will automatically play through following a "solution tape" included in every level file. (there are, interestingly enough, a handful of tapes which don't resolve)

Ah, so that's finally how you can get to play the solution of a level. I was always wondering how the solution data in level files would be read. Nice find!
The reason why some of these solutions wouldn't resolve was probably because of file limitation in some sort.

There's also an unused music track in the game as heard here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Mn3xwZcKr0&t=2607s (Adlib)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekdaTpIHiTI&t=2644s (Roland)
This is the same track used for "Candy World" in the video game "Cool World" for SNES.

EDIT: The BOWIE cheat was documented actually, during the interview of Keith Watterson: https://codetapper.com/amiga/interviews/keith-watterson/

Ah. Thanks for the links. Somehow my searches didn't turn up those results.