[Suggestion] Option for Mac-style music rotation

[Proxima]

It would be nice to have an option, when creating a pack, for the musics to rotate in the same way as in Mac Lemmings, i.e. if a rank ends on track 7, the first level of the next rank has track 8, instead of going back to track 1 with each rank as NL currently does. The disadvantage of NL's system is that some tracks end up playing half as often as others, and since everyone has their own favourites, it's no fun if your favourite is one of those.

We discussed this in chat just now and at least one other person would also like to have such an option

[IchoTolot]

As I said in chat: I can clearly see the advantage in track variety and say that it's worth an option.

If this would be too much clutter maybe even considering it beeing made the standard as it provides a better cycle through the later tracks of the cycle.

[ccexplore]

Wait, are we implying DOS Lemmings works differently?  I was under the impression that the so-called "Mac-style" rotation is standard across most ports of Lemmings 1.  I'm pretty sure you don't revert back to Track 1 in PC DOS Lemmings going from Fun 30 to Tricky 1.  It'd seem NL may be the lone oddball here.

[namida]

I was under the impression that all versions that had the music track tied to the level position in some way (and weren't just arbitrary like eg. Genesis; or "change each time the player beats a level, but don't pay attention to which level is being played" like eg. DOS, Win95) did this. Sega Master System, at least, certainly does.

I can definitely provide this as an option or just change it outright, should be simple enough to implement.

[ccexplore]

Hmm, clearly I need to go fire up some emulators and try it out. I don't remember Genesis as being "arbitrary" for example, though to be fair, most of the time I probably wasn't playing those levels sequentially and weren't paying huge attention to the music.

[namida]

It may have been a different version, but I do recall hearing of one version that seems to be random which track plays on which level, but each level is still always the same track.

[Proxima]

Yeah, that's Genesis. "Random" isn't quite the right word, but instead of a rotation or any other regular pattern, each level has a particular music but those choices are jumbled up. Some tracks occur much more often than others. However, there is some more pattern, such as repetition of subsequences, than you'd expect from a random selection.

[Dullstar]

I believe the DOS version works by having a certain ordering, but for some reason it resets to Lemming1 whenever you fail a level. I'm not sure if that's normal or if it's some really obscure emulation bug. I don't recall it resetting on the first level of a new rank, though. I also don't remember if special graphics levels cause the sequence to skip whatever would have been there, or if it just picks back up where it left off on the next level.

It is also one of the few ports I've played that doesn't play Can Can on Just Dig.

[namida]

The original legit DOS verison works that way; it's not an emulation issue. Some later versions don't have the reversion to Lemming1, but still work on "first level you play in a session has Lemming1, then it moves to the next track each time you complete a level". This happens whether it's the next level or not; ie: if you were to complete Fun 1, then exit to the main menu and enter the code for Mayhem 30, you'd get Lemming2.

Special graphics levels do not cause skipping a track, nor do they revert to Lemming1 on failure. They're essentially completely seperate.

[Dullstar]

If later versions fixed the reversion to Lemming1 upon failure, that might explain why I don't remember it being a thing and am so utterly baffled whenever I try to play it in DOSBox.

[namida]

Implemented this for next update. It's the default option for new packs, but will not be automatically applied to existing ones.