Oh man, I wish I'd realized that I'm not the best at getting clues from titles, as @Guigui would attest (thinking of his Save One pack where I missed all the hints and insisted on doing things the hard way ). With Stroke at Retirement Age, I just brute forced the correct miner placement with a ton of trial and error lol - way more than 5 minutes, just on that bit! IIRC though, I found the hardest part was probably timing the basher correctly towards the end. I've played through all of the Early Contest levels now and for me, that was the hardest in that particular contest, although there were some other strong contenders: Pooty's A Sea of Purest Green, Proxima's Brute Fours and Insane Steve's Hole in the Head Gang spring to mind. That said, they were all toughies; I don't think I realized that making them hard was the aim of the game but it makes sense now! Perhaps by modern standards they're not so bad, although older packs can still pose a real test: I still haven't gotten beyond half way through the Sun rank of NepsterLems, for instance, despite several cracks at it! Nepster's levels are some of the hardest I've ever played - he's the author I struggle most with in all of the early contests.

Are you purely focused on Lix now, @geeo? I haven't seen your levels crop up for a while in NL LDCs (although to be fair, aside from #33, I've only played up to about 15 - got side-tracked playtesting various packs).

While technically it is possible to play (older) custom levels in WinLemm, I'd recommend installing NeoLemmix and/or Lix. More details in this post: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=1618.0

Most modern content is designed for NeoLemmix and Lix. WinLemm uses the .lvl format from the original game, which limits it to the feature set from the original game. You can find a lot of level packs compatible with the original game in the Lemmings level database: https://lldb.camanis.net/ But if you want to play those, you might as well just play them directly in the player that's part of the level database Otherwise, you have to download the packs, and either play them in Lemmix, or unpack the .dat files into .lvl and overwrite some original levels in WinLemm (which then has different physics so some level may not be solvable).

Quote from: WillLem on November 03, 2021, 12:57:08 AM

Ever had the feeling you've been somewhere before...?

[glow=green,2,300]Download DéjàLems[/glow]

DéjàLems features 32 levels that have already been solved! The goal here is for the lemmings to... solve them again!

Fun 1 - Just... Erm, Never Mind!

Fun 6 - Smile If You Love Deja Vu

Fun 8 - We All Fall Down

Featuring a modded style which allows Digger/Basher/Miner paths, Bomber craters and Builder bridges (not to mention pre-placed forgotten Blockers!) to be inserted into the levels, this pack asks the question: what if more lemmings came through the trap door after the level had already been completed, but with a different set of skills and level stats? Hopefully, you can find the answer!

As with most of my remix packs, the focus here is on exploring the concept, so these levels shouldn't be too difficult for most players. However, there are of course some challenges in here to keep the puzzle-fiends entertained

So go ahead and enjoy playing through the levels that have already been played through the levels that have already been played through the levels that have already been played through the levels that have already been played through the levels that have already been played through... (vous avez eu l'idée!)

What's in the attachment:

Level pack
Full set of solution replays
willlem_special style with custom tiles required for all of the levels
Custom menu graphics
Custom skill panel graphics
Amiga Lemmings music

To install, simply unzip the folder directly to your NeoLemmix directory.

that looks so cool. I had no idea you could do that. As soon as I've done the Oh No levels I'm going to download it.

To give a bit of a backstory, in the early level design contents the goal was to make hard levels (rather than popular levels). The main aim was to solve as many levels as possible, so getting a hard level in gives you the edge over other players. I designed Stroke at Retirement Age with the aim that nobody could solve it, and while execution difficulty wasn't the goal it was a necessary evil I was willing to accept (especially after a few backroutes forced me to make the timing tighter). I didn't fully succeed as ccexplore managed to solve the level, but if I remember correctly it was still the level with the fewest solves in the content. Here's the old contest thread (as you can see it scored pretty low on the fun scale).

So congrats to you two for solving this one! I've always wondered how hard to figure out the level really is if you take away the execution difficulty. I feel like a lot of placements are forced, and the key novelty is the flow control which is complex but falls into place once you know when to place the key skill. Would be curious to hear your opinion.

The title was meant to be a clue to help with execution:

Spoiler

You assign the miner when there are 66 lemmings out of the hatch -- this is one of the statistics displayed in the original game and early Lemmix, I'm not sure if NeoLemmix still displays it.

In the Lix version, I could ease things up a bit by setting a fixed spawn interval to make the chain of lemmings longer, which should disadvantage the backroutes and thus allow me to give more wiggle room to the intended solution. Knowing the timing hint from the title I managed to execute the solution within 5 minutes, but I wonder how bad it is if you don't realize what it means.

The level design culture (and also my philosophy) certainly has evolved since then...

Quote from: WillLem on December 22, 2025, 10:50:10 PM

Quote from: hrb264 on December 22, 2025, 04:22:44 PMHow do you use the arrow keys? ... I never knew you could choose the exact lemming

When you hover over a group of lemmings with the cursor, you can use the left and right arrow keys to select a lemming facing in that direction. Great for isolating a left/right-facing lemming from within a crowd, but also useful for any situation when you need to make sure that the lemming you assign a skill to is facing a certain way.

Quote from: hrb264 on December 22, 2025, 10:04:48 PMI've just done it with 100%! Finally

Well done! Keep going

I've just seen that you all create custom levels? Can I run these on Windows Lemmings or do I have to install another programme for it?

Stroke at Retirement Age is geeo's levels are never a cakewalk, but that was one of the hardest I've come across so far in my ongoing playthrough of the LDC pack! Certainly the hardest of the Early Contests; I've rarely come across such a precision/timing-heavy level. Wasn't a fan, if I'm honest!

If we're talking immediate turn-offs, I'm not keen on 99 RR and levels where your immediate task is making sure too many lemmings don't die before you can even think about the big picture. Frenetic, fiddly, execution-heavy levels where the difficulty stems from the precision required rather than raw problem-solving are a turn-off for me. For my money, with the best designed levels, you're not under any particular pressure and yet it's still very hard to see a path to safety. Another thing I don't particularly like is when a level relies on one or more really obscure tricks to be able to finish them - I feel this becomes more like 'do you know this trick?', rather than a test of one's problem-solving ability and logical reasoning. This is even more true when said trick could almost be described as a bug or glitch. Also: very tight time limits (time limits in general tbh), completely unintuitive/borderline illogical solutions, anything involving sliders and/or masses of teleporters Not massively keen on levels with neutrals or zombies either, but that's probably just me!

Though not a turn off in themselves, I would say that levels where you're allowed or at least expected to lose a number of lemmings I find the hardest since you're not sure where you have to sacrifice them.  One example that springs to mind is "Stroke at Retirement Age" by geoo, where you are allowed to lose 4 lemmings but only have one Bomber and Blocker (and it's very obvious where you have to use the Blocker).  On top of being very precise it's very hard to know where you can and should make sacrifice.

Sometimes though, sacrifices are the name of the game, like with the aforementioned Cascade (I'm pretty sure the developers were aware of being able to save 100% or at least more than 10 because of being able to dig through the steps to make a wall, even if a few slip through into the abyss.  I myself have taken advantage of mass death in some of my own levels, my most famous probably being "Mincemeat" (go to 1:59):

I really don't like geek4 nor geek5, I don't think they fit in with all of the other Lemojis, I'd really rather you added geek2/3, FWIW

Here are my replays for the updated levels only in V6. Good job The Tomato Watcher 

Spoiler

Now I got Sour 5 more easily with the blocker turning a miner part, just needed to set the miner upper thatn what I did before. Also nice job on the new way the stairs are set near the exit, it enforced me to espace another lemmings from the crowd with 2 jumpers to finish making the path for the crowd. It is sweet to see 2 workers making the path one after the other.

Sour 2 with a single place to compress has a more obvious solution for sure. It remains a very good level to crack with the exact count of Lemmings, and the part where you have to bash in a very specific place to escape another worker from the crowd.

EDIT : now joining actual replays.

The santa hat is already pulling its weight several times over.

The geek will go in as soon as I have time within the holidays. Presumably geek4 will go in, as :geek:. It looks pretty clear to me now, thanks. And the shrugging will also go in, probably as it is, as :shrug:.

-- Simon