Welcome to the Level of the Year 2025 voteoff!

So, most of you will know how this works, but just in case - and so that specifics are covered - here's a quick rundown.

The 35 nominated levels have been divided into 5 groups of 7 levels, semi-randomly. To be specific, the division was done in such a way that a single author wouldn't have too many levels in a single group.

Each group will be voted on, with only 2 levels from each group advancing to Phase 2. We try to bring the number down to 2 in one single Round. I plan no tiebreakers for this and if we have a minor tie then all tied levels advance. In case of a lot of major ties (5or6+ levels), I might run a tiebreaker later.

If we then have a bit more than 10 levels in phase 2, these will be split up into new groups for phase 2. There, I also plan to just let 2-3 of each group survive with no tiebreakers if possible. Only in the final phase I plan to enforce the top 3 placements with tiebreakers.

If you want to see the full list of nominated levels in non-randomized order, check the nominations list topic.
If you want to play these levels without having to dig up all the various level packs, check the playing phase topic which has a pack available for download that contains all the nominated levels.

Please remember that discussing the nominated levels is not allowed in the LOTY2025 topics now that voting has begun. This does not apply to levels that have already been eliminated at the time. Discussing them elsewhere in the site is okay, as long as it's not in the context of LOTY2025.

The voting will be done in the 3 voting topics with results only being visible after the poll's time has run out:

Voting topic 1
Voting topic 2
Voting topic 3

Quote from: Guigui on June 28, 2026, 10:47:04 AMAs for destructive cancelling each others, we could also mention 2 facing bashers that will cancel each others !

Well, I'm sure you mean opposite facing bashers, but this one's obvious and not as interesting as both miners cancelling each other out, which is far less obvious In fact, I don't think the latter is even possible in Lemmix. At least last time I checked, no matter how much I tried I couldn't get both miners to stop. My guess here is that this is just due to how miners are able to cross a 1-pixel gap on Dos/Lemmix, which of course isn't possible in NL.

Oh great, thank you for clear answer kaywhyn. This will definitely spares me some headaches on the issue I'm currently facing !

If anyone has a little more indepth but not overcomplicated explanation about why this is impossible, I'd like to read it.

As for destructive cancelling each others, we could also mention 2 facing bashers that will cancel each others !

Excellent question. The answer to the 4th scenario of whether it's possible for the digger AND basher to both stop in NL is "no." So, don't waste your time trying to get it to happen, as you won't succeed in getting both to stop no matter what As a matter of fact, the only situation I know of where both skills can stop are two miners cancelling out each other. This is of course extremely fiddly and difficult to pull off, but it IS possible. In all other situations, such as basher and miner, miner and digger, etc., one of the 3 outcomes you already spelled out will happen, but never both will stop.

mod edit: Changed topic title to be a bit more descriptive and to reflect the question regarding the 4th scenario in Guigui's post

Consider the joined picture where the bottom lemming will bash through, and the upper lemming will dig down. There are different outcomes :

1) If you trigger the digger early, then the basher can stop in the digger pit and only the digger will continue.

2) If you trigger the digger later, then the digger can stop in the basher tunnel and only the basher will continue.

3) I know this is also possible to have the digger and the basher crossing each other's way without any of them to stop. I think there was a level devoted to this in the NL Introduction Pack by IchoTolot.


Now the question is, what about the 4th outcome where both the basher and the digger will stop when they meet each other ? Is that possible ?

I cannot achieve it yet, but I'm not sure because the basher animation is quite complicated and it may depend on which animation frame they cross each other...

This should also help:

https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=6138.0

Armani made a compilation pack for all the contests! 

QuoteAny levels you particularly liked that you've seen or made?

In terms of contests here are some of my favorites:

- Simon's "Rhizome" (Lix)
- Nessy's "A Rock And A Hard Place"
- 92Dexter11's "Lem Ninja
- Dodochacalo's "Honey, I Shrunk the Lems"
- Pieuw's "A tad mad, a tad rad!"
- Armani's "Insert Coin, Choose Lemming"
- IchoTolot's "Revenants"
- DireKrow's "Shoestring Operation"
- tan x dx's "Measure once, build twice"

These contest entries should also count towards the difficulty category:

- Armani's "The Good, The Bad and The Weird"
- IchoTolot's "Violent Changes"

In terms of difficulty these are some of my favorites:

- Lemmings Uncharted [Aquarius 06]: RefleXion  (This took me months!)
- Lemmings Uncharted [Aquarius 19]: Immoral Society
- Lemmings Uncharted [Aquarius 15]: Simulation: FARO

- NepsterLems [Black Hole 01]: Thin Layers
- NepsterLems [Black Hole 20]: The Deadly Rooms of Lem
- NepsterLems [Black Hole 21]: Final Frustration

- Deceit's Lemmings [Mayhem 21]: Enter at your own risk...

- Lemmings United [Genocide 28]: It's All About The Pentiums!
- Lemmings United [Genocide 35]: Kiwi Knight's Keep
- Lemmings United [Genocide 37]: Gate To The Inner Sanctum


Of course these are just some of my personal favorites or levels which I am quite proud of.

To gain access to the contest levels I would suggest checking the nomination list topic for the LOTY. There is usually an description from where the level originated.

I'm beginning to think that all replays loaded from disk should start without the text "Click to play from here." and should not show scissors either.

The first click should do nothing, not even cut. Until you click, we can transform the cursor itself into an R, or into a replaying forward arrow, or ..., to make it really obvious that we're in some sort of TV mode where we're not supposed to interrupt to play. You should still be able to interrupt by clicking, then clicking again, but that's not the UI concern here.

The UI concern is that a replay freshly loaded from disk is to be watched, not edited, and we shouldn't scream "Click now!" nor display scissors. Silken, thanks for pushing this. I'll find a solution.

-- Simon

@IchoTolot
The topic you linked only has a list of the names of those on 1st, 2nd and 3rd for all the contests. While that is interesting information it doesn't actually contain links to the levels, so therefore is information I'd get from manually searching through these constests.
So I tried doing that, and for 2015 for example all I got was dead dropbox links.
I then tried to continue searching and hit the sites max search spam protection limit.

So even if I wanted to go through the individual years, I couldn't
Quick note outside of the planned showcase, maybe these old ones should be uploaded somewhere for sake of preservation.

Just gave it a go and I'm really interested in the playback mode feature. I can't quite get it to work sadly. EDIT: Got it to work. Will be very helpful for a showcase.
@Simon @WillLem @IchoTolot
Any levels you particularly liked that you've seen or made?