Hi all, I'm new here. I've been building a Lemmings remake for iPad, with the DOS physics ported across and a level editor. I'm hoping someone here knows the answer to a steel question.

In DOS Lemmings, you can't assign a basher, miner or digger if the lemming is within about 8px of steel. The game checks for steel 8px ahead at chest height, and for digger and miner it also checks under the feet. The skill is refused outright, so there's no chink and no skill used up. The chink only plays once a lemming is already bashing or digging and hits steel.

It also means a lemming walking along a steel area can't start bashing until it's a few pixels clear of it.

Did the Amiga and Atari ST and PC versions behave the same way? Or could you assign the skill right up against steel and just get the chink? I'm trying to decide whether to keep the DOS behaviour or let the skill go on and chink.

Thanks, and thanks for all the brilliant work on Lemmix and NeoLemmix, which has been a big help.

Just a quick update on Neon Swarm, (my take on a lemmings clone), which I'm developing as a hobby project together with some other games as part of Lockstep Arcade.

The main improvements are setup for tutorial and single player 'campaigns', and I've also worked on improving the tutorial, and trying to make this generally more accessible.

Based on watching people play, and talking to players, Neon Swarm has actually felt like the hardest sell out of all the games in the arcade. People find this complicated and find it difficult to understand what is actually going on. Unlike some other games in the arcade, Neon Swarm is also not playable on a phone, which is then another thing that makes people less likely to play this.

I noticed that quite a few people, when starting the tutorial, just don't get the way the UI works, with clicking on a button to chose an order, and then clicking on a swarmer (lemming) to give them that order.

I made some mouse cursor changes, e.g. with a cross hair cursor after selecting the order, to indicate targeting something in the world, and tried to make the instructions clearer, but none of this seemed to help much.

I've now added a tutorial hints system, which highlights the specific UI action you need to do next, for the earlier tutorials (as shown in the following video), so let's see if this helps.


More generally, I personally *like* a kind of minimalist approach to Lemmings, and so Neon Swarm just shows small coloured rectangles for the swarmers, as opposed to proper animated characters, but I think, on reflection, that most other people probably don't share this preference, and the animations and character of the lemmings in the original are probably very important in making this interesting to a lot of people.

For Lockstep Arcade, in general, I've found that it's easier to get people to try the single player versions of games, and so there's been a lot of focus on single player tutorials and campaigns, but I don't think this is really the most promising or interesting part of Neon Swarm.

Here's a video of a single player game on the Cauldrons map:


The arcade is playable in a web browser, here:

https://locksteparcade.com/Client

I'm really interested in any thoughts/ideas/suggestions from people on here..

(this isn't a big issue/accident/case of lost media but still it is needed)

i need your help...

so im trying to find where to download the early prototype build song of the amiga version of lemmings beacuse i wanna use them for my pack named X-tralems (no promotion)

but there is a problem...

i can't access to the vengefulchip website...

AND THEY ARE NOT EVEN AVAILIBLE ON THE KHINSIDER WEBSITE     

so thats why i need your help, im trying to find the standalone, mod/it mp3/ogg or wav versions
of the early prototype demo version of lemmings...

and if you do... please share them in this topic so we can have the standalone mod/it/mp3/ogg/wav versions of this tracks forever

nevermind

unevermind, there are 6 song left

which are:

a shot in the dark theme

i tell the rest later beacuse i forgot the other ones + the one that i really wanted was the a shot in the dark theme

uneverunmind...

5 of them are left but i dunno... i already got the a shot in the dark theme atleast

Okay i got finnish all levels.    Here is full playlist Daft (Guess i´ll backrouted few levels quite brazenly)

Overall Daft was way easier than Blather & Vexing IMO.
Here is all Daft levels youtube version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb9LvoPrOF8&t=2s

All 50 Levels playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ1Zrk-tMcTM

Here will be single replays remained levels.

Daft 6 Knight of Ni

This is sure backroute and huge one

Daft 8 electic avenue

That was hardest level on Daft, guess is another quite big backroute

Daft 10 Final level

Pretty easy, because there is all climbers.

Here is rest my replays.

EDIT:
Little Bonus. Here is 100% saved Solution Vexing 1 Lemmingus Horribilis. I changed some things my older completion solution, make me save all. That was one greater level your pack IMO. Just pretty cunning and genius.

Hi Ichotolot and thank you for your solutions.
It's just now occurred to me that I didn't respond to your solutions for the previous ranks, my apologies for that!

Here are my responses to the new ranks and the two previous ones I missed that I have the most to say about:

SAFE

02 Some really fun timing used here with the bashers, very fun to watch.
03 More sensible than my official solution, using the last lemming to collect the cloners rather than letting the zombies interfere too early, well done!
05 Somewhat different than the official solution, but still valid, great job!
06 This one is always fun to watch, since every submitted solutions is radically different, yours is no exception!
08 Differs from intended solution, but still valid
09 Quite a unique solution here, well done.

TREACHEROUS

01 I'm pretty sure this is a major backroute, well done for finding it!
02 Intended solution
03 Another fun one to watch due to the sheer size of the level, great work!
04 Differs massively from intended solution, but I don't consider it a backroute.
06 Valid solution. It was extremely funny watching you delay the platformer lemming by jumping repeatedly with the shimmier
08 Intended solution
09 I think this solution is what my brother intended, well done!
10 Intended solution, well done!

STEADY

03 Intended solution, well done!
04 Backrouted. Nicely done!
07 Another backroute, similar to the one found by Plodderuk, nicely done!
09 Very similar to the official solution, good job!
10 Also very similar to the official solution!

TURBULENT

01 Differs slightly from intended solution, with some quite impressive timing, well done!
02 Very different from the official solution, but I'm not sure if my brother has an intended solution for this one.
04 This is intended, well done!
05 Very similar to intended solution, good job!
06 Intended solution
07 Another one which is always really fun to watch, mainly because it's difficult to keep track of what's happening! Your solution is quite similar to the intended one
08 Intended solution
09 Quite a unique solution with the zombies on the left, good job!
10 Yet another one which is always fun to watch, although you have to zoom out to see everything. As far as I know, this one has no set solution, so good work!

I did a topic in the past where I tried to outline what makes levels difficult.

Of course difficulty can also be highly subjective and a level that's a major roadblock for one can be quckly solved by another person.

But the main things I want to point out are the following (at least for puzzle-centric content):

A) The usage of unusual skill combinations - or rather tricks.
B) The amount of possible actions that you can make to progress inside the level in a meaingful way. Or as I called it back then: Entropy.

These are usually the things that make a puzzle centric level hard.
If you need to discover a new trick, or have so many possible ways to proceed then things get difficult.

You mentioned: "2: Sharp timings"

I would argue that this something you want to avoid as much as you can in puzzle-centric content. This contributes more to execution-centric content.
Of course you cannot always avoid it and having everything to fall into place at the perfect time can be very satisfying, but this is very difficult to achive without it just getting plain frustraiting to play.
Most likely you just end up with annoying stff like:

- The time limit is barely enough to complete the level (even when using the intended method!) and you need to readjust a few skills / turn up the RR earlier to get these exttra seconds, so you nearly need to make a TAS.
- Tight timings depending on multiple lemmings and you need a long time to get them right even though you clearly see what needs to be done here.

Just very rarely are these implemented in such a way that they feel good without testing patience.
They also get worse the longer the level goes!

The main goal is still to make even the hardest level somewhat fun!

Of course you cannot prevent these completely at some point.

I try to reduce these instances in my levels and when I need them I try to give the extra seconds that won't open backroutes, try to make timings forgiving or ensure things fall into place automatically when the correct way is found.
Still sometimes they cannot be completely avoided.

there is one issue with neolemmix... unafortunately

the game doesn't accepts midi/mid files, which sucks

i know i can convert a midi to a neolemmix compatible format but the problem is that the converted version sound really different...

so yeah what i mean is that i think midi/mid files should be accepted to be used for custom neolemmix levels

The misalignment I'm not sure about, the green is when you have Highlight Grouped Pieces checked, as Gui said.

Please can you send me a copy of the level and I'll see if I can figure out what's going wrong.

Lets continue that progress. Completed all Vexing levels. Here is all recorded in youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiqCtOeswxs

Here is two last replays.

Level 1 Lemminggus horribilis

I´ll liked this level a lot, but its take me time when i make attempt with this, because its quite hardwork and cunning level with moderate lenght, its take me to while to solved it and requires me some approach, i think i can save all lemmings making some little optimize my strategys here, but its not was needed here, so let this one lemming die

Level 7 Lemmington Spa

Little bit multitask level, not my personal favorite, how ever its still cunning level and also take some approach to solved

Personally liked Vexing difficult a lot. Its might best difficult your pack IMO. Okay Death Of Glory Part 2 was little bit too precise to executed, but its still really genius level. I´ll guess this level 9 Contigo Ergo Lem was some real backroutes. Let see did you patch it later updates.

Quote from: Simon on April 17, 2023, 11:58:34 PMMore feedback on the entire set to come, again with a deadline: Tuseday, April 25th

I'm over 3 years late, or really 6 years because Liebatron's first post is from November 2020.

I will not merge the Chicago tileset into the main Lix download in the upcoming years.

The Chicago set agrees with itself, and it has a lot of tiles/steel/idioms, but they don't mix well with the remainder of Lix. The lix get stuck in the fine details to the point where the tiles feel like they should be upscaled by 2x or 4x. But the set would lose a lot of character after the upscale. The ideas for traps, e.g., moving train is water, work in the Chicago set, but really need better support from the engine to shine. I'm not ready to implement that needed support. And the sheer number of steel tiles, terrain, ..., is required to make what you envision. but yet again, Lix's list-it-all steel browser is made for smaller amounts of steel. Levels want to be either all-Chicago, or no-Chicago. Mixing is hard. I believe that, for Lix as a project, it's more correct to reject the Chicago set than to merge it.

But because Chicago mixes well with only Chicago, it's still a lovely and consistent add-on. I don't want to erase it from anyone's memory. You have your fans in this thread, and the set is available for everyone here, and maybe we'll see more Chicago levels one day.

Liebatron, I must, in light of the decision not to merge Chicago into the main download, apologize for my early enthusiastic feedback. The early feedback came complete with easy-to-implement suggestions, and you followed through to improve it. This is the biggest sin that a maintainer can do to a contributor: Make you do extra work, and only then drop the news that the improved contribution won't be a good fit regardless. I didn't realize it in the first few months, and the set has found its fans here, that's what has made it so hard to say no outright for 6 years. The indecision has bugged me throughout this entire time.

Now there is closure.

It's a cute set and a labor of love. It's even, as you say, silly in a good way. Looking at the Chicago screenshots here still makes as happy as it has made me back in the day.

-- Simon