What is the minimum number of skills needed to beat each level?

[Clam]

Oh right, so there you go, a different method exists <slaps forehead >.

To start with, I placed the blocker as soon as it landed, which pushes lemmings into the wall (thus introducing a needless glitch). So there you go, I get to slap my forehead too

To maximise your chances of success, you should dig down as far as possible while still freeing the other groups (9 pixels), and also as far to the left as possible. This helps to keep the lemmings in tight groups.

[Clam]

Instead I improved Fun 27 to 4 for no-glitch, although I wouldn't be surprise if someone (Clam?) actually reported that result already on this thread, before it was superceded by the lame glitched solution of 2 pointed out by me.  Too lazy to check old posts; [edit: actually, since a 3-skill glitch solution also exists, it's more likely that is what Clam first reported for the original challenge thread]

If I recall, the original 3-skill solution involved digging down next to the steel, so that the digger holds onto the steel and nothing else (which I'm almost certain constitutes a glitch). I doubt you could improve that to 4 skills glitchless since you need that steel to get down low enough to avoid splatting.

EDIT: Just figured out your new method. Very nice

[Eric119]

How's the CC community?  Obviously I haven't done anything with the game for years, but I still have some fun memories of it.  I have to admit though, my brain seems to be less intuitive when it came to that type of puzzle compared with the Lemmings type.

The CC community is still active. After a few years of stagnation, work on CCLP3
has finally started up again. Voting ended last month.

So is that just a clever trick, or a glitch?  To add to the debate, if you observe the animation of the basher closely, there are in fact a few frames where the bashing hand is located behind his back (the screenshot captures at one such frame), so it would not be unreasonable to argue that it's logical for some pixels at the back be removed as well.  Indeed, the Amiga/SNES versions reflect that aspect much more closely than the PC version in terms of the exact pixels removed from the lemming's "backhand".  On the other hand, it's well-known that the game doesn't border checking for steel for the pixels removed at the basher's back, so does that mean it is not really intended?  Or, given that the game doesn't do a very good job in general of ensuring that steel pixels are indestructible, is that merely another example of just a steel destruction glitch, but that in general there's nothing wrong with the basher being able to remove some pixels at his back?  (Of course in this case, the steel argument doesn't apply, since the pixel being removed the "backhanded" way is a one-way-wall in the "correct" direction, so it's just purely a debate of whether backhanded pixel removal is intended or not.)

I'm having a hard time deciding whether this is a glitch myself. I think that the destruction of steel is not relevant, because, as you said, the game doesn't handle steel very accurately. One reason to think that, in general, it is not a glitch is that nothing is happening that violates the game physics. The game takes place in a world where lemmings can remove terrain. So a lemming should certainly be capable of removing terrain behind it. However, there may be a counterargument in the present situation, in which the terrain is one-way. It seems that whether terrain is removed should depend only on the direction which the force directed at the terrain comes from. Even though the lemming may be facing left, if it removes terrain to the right of it, that seems to contradict this. So I'm presently of the mind that backhanded terrain removal is not a glitch unless it removes steel or one-way the same direction the lemming is facing.

In any case, I think a good rule to adopt is that a glitch only counts against a run if it's actually taken advantage of. For instance, in Fun 30 backhanded terrain removal could easily occur, but even if this were considered a glitch, it wouldn't, by itself, disqualify a solution from a "glitchless" challenge. Similarly, it would be permitted to pause the game before the trapdoor opens as long as you don't use the extra time.

By the way, I've figured out your 4-skill solution for Fun 27. I remember, back when I was first working on this level, trying all sorts of things to see if I could improve on 5 skills, but that was one thing I hadn't tried.

[Eric119]

Oh right, so there you go, a different method exists <slaps forehead >.

To start with, I placed the blocker as soon as it landed, which pushes lemmings into the wall (thus introducing a needless glitch). So there you go, I get to slap my forehead too

To maximise your chances of success, you should dig down as far as possible while still freeing the other groups (9 pixels), and also as far to the left as possible. This helps to keep the lemmings in tight groups.

If you place the blocker just to the left of the trapdoor, the lemmings will coincide with perfect synchronity. So far the best I've been able to achieve is 36%. Another strategy is, instead of using a blocker, to build over one of the traps. This requires sacrificing (most of) the lemmings from the leftmost entrance, but I have gotten 34% with this method.

[ccexplore]

However, there may be a counterargument in the present situation, in which the terrain is one-way. It seems that whether terrain is removed should depend only on the direction which the force directed at the terrain comes from. Even though the lemming may be facing left, if it removes terrain to the right of it, that seems to contradict this.

Hmm, that's an interesting and fair point.  Of course, the force concept would also throw into question regarding how miners and bombers should interact with one-way-walls.  For example, if a bomber explodes standing on top of a OWW, the force argument would point to an expectation that you only get the left or right half of the usual "U" shaped pit from the bombing.  You may argue that there are vertical forces involved in that case, but then with the miner, I would expect that the forces of mining are not purely horizontal either, so it should be possible to do at least a little bit of mining "the wrong way" especially starting from the top of the surface.

It's kinda funny talking about what intuitively should work for a one-way-wall anyway, since I'm hard pressed to come up with a real-life example of such material, even counting exotic stuff from a science laboratory.

If you place the blocker just to the left of the trapdoor, the lemmings will coincide with perfect synchronity. So far the best I've been able to achieve is 36%.

I've attached 2 screenshots (zipped) of Clam's exact attempt that yields 44%.  One screenshot is around the time when the digger was assigned, and the other one is around the time when the blocker had just been freed.  The closer your attempt matches the screenshots around the indicated times, I'm hoping the more likely the attempt will be successful at 40+%.

[Clam]

I was looking back through some of my replays, and realised I overlooked a possible route on Crazy 9. Using this, I managed to complete the level with just 5 skills - 2 fewer than before. The difference, in a nutshell:

Dig before the first obstacle, rather than bashing through it, and then bash through the floor.

The replay is attached to this post. As with the above solution to Fun 17, I had to fudge this a little to make the timing work out. Also the last lemming doesn't actually exit in time, despite my best efforts (the time limit is probably why I disregarded this method before), however pausing for time in DOS covers this.


EDIT: Improved another one. Crazy 19 to 5 skills (previously 6), thanks to some extremely precise skill placement. Earlier attempts at this type of solution came up one lemming short, but by making use of the last "doomed" lemming, I avoid bombing one that could be rescued, and make the required 90%.

[Eric119]

Well, I haven't been making much progress lately, but hopefully I'll be able to pick up the pace a bit. Been working on the Tricky levels, and it seems that in some levels, particularly Tricky 9 and Tricky 13, glitching right through steel is required. Can anyone give me an idea of how you would do this, in, say Tricky 9?

[ccexplore]

In general there are 2 main forms of steel glitches in PC Lemmings:

1) lazy steel checking:  the expected way things should work is that a pixel of terrain inside a steel area should be unaffected by a terrain removal operation, while other pixels lying outside it should be affected.  Instead, the game takes a shortcut and basically does something akin to checking whether the lemming (which is essentially treated as a single pixel) is standing on a steel area (for diggers, exploders, and I think miners too actually), or has steel area coming ahead (for bashers).  If the lemming isn't, the entire terrain removal operation will go through even if some of the pixels removed are covered by the steel area.  Otherwise, the removal operation is either aborted, or will not take out any pixels, even ones that are outside the steel area.

Examples of how this translates:

- a falling lemming explodes just a little above a steel floor.  Because he is above the steel floor rather than standing on it, the explosion will take out the entire usual area of explosion, including parts of the steel floor that overlaps with the explosion area.  In contrast, if the lemming was walking on the steel floor when he explodes, the explosion will take out nothing, even if the lemming was standing next to a wall that's not covered by steel area (so one would expect those pixels of terrain be taken out, but no).

- a lemming just steps off the edge of a steel block and falls.  This puts him just outside the horizontal range of the steel area, so if he explodes now, the full explosion area will be taken out, including those pixels of the steel block near the edge where the lemming is falling from.  In practice, steel areas in the game are not often set up to exactly align visually with the steel terrain you see [more on that later], so you might need to starting falling a little further away from the edge for this to work .

- you have a builder lay down a single brick at the edge of the steel block, and once the builder steps up onto the brick, you make him dig down.  Because the game treats the lemming as a single pixel for collision and steel-checking purposes, the fact that stepping up onto the build brick puts the lemming just slightly outside of the horizontal range of the block of steel will allow his digging to continue down the edge of steel block, taking out some of the pixels of the steel block.  You can achieve something similar in the case where the level already has regular terrain next to the steel block.

- You can bash up to 7 rows of steel starting from the first row of pixels above floor level.  This is because the game really only checks for steel starting from the 8th row up from floor level, and seeing no steel, it will allow the bash stroke to fully take effect, even on pixels that are covered by steel.

One further wrinkle is that due to technical limitations, steel areas in the game are not necessarily aligned with the terrain you see, sometimes it extends one or two rows/columns above the visible terrain's edges, other times it falls short by a small amount.  You'll need to use a level editor (eg. LemEdit, Lemmix, etc.) to see the actual positioning and range of the steel areas.

2) blocker steel-canceling:  the game implements blockers by setting up a "field of blocking" around the blocker.  This field will temporarily cancel out any parts of steel areas (in fact, also things like trap triggers!) that overlap with the field.

A simple example to try out is Tricky 9.  Have the first lemming out block when he lands.  Then have the 2nd lemming out dig when he lands (to assign this lemming a skill, you'll need the technique of "walkers-only" selection, done by holding down the right mouse button while selecting and clicking on the lemming with the usual left button).  You will see him dig down the steel even though he shouldn't.  Of course, doing so also frees the blocker right away, thus ending the field of steel-canceling, so on the next dig-stroke he will fail.

3) there is also a very specialized form of steel digging using a very specialized glitch unrelated to the above two.  See this post for details.

==============

I don't remember Tricky 9's min solution, but most likely it uses #2 (blocker steel-canceling) together with exploders and #1 to blast apart the steel floor right below the entrance trapdoor.  This then allows lemmings to directly drop to the exit.  Due to a glitch in PC Lemmings, such "direct-drop" lemmings will exit instead of going splat.  For Tricky 13, you start with the "build and dig down edge of steel block" trick explained in #1; the rest is glitch-free (but far from trivial!).

[Eric119]

In general there are 2 main forms of steel glitches in PC Lemmings:

1) lazy steel checking:

Was already familiar with most of this, but it's good to everything all in one place.

2) blocker steel-canceling:  the game implements blockers by setting up a "field of blocking" around the blocker.  This field will temporarily cancel out any parts of steel areas (in fact, also things like trap triggers!) that overlap with the field.

A simple example to try out is Tricky 9.  Have the first lemming out block when he lands.  Then have the 2nd lemming out dig when he lands (to assign this lemming a skill, you'll need the technique of "walkers-only" selection, done by holding down the right mouse button while selecting and clicking on the lemming with the usual left button).  You will see him dig down the steel even though he shouldn't.  Of course, doing so also frees the blocker right away, thus ending the field of steel-canceling, so on the next dig-stroke he will fail.

Cool. I'd heard of this but didn't know how to make it work. That right clicking technique is definitely new to me.

3) there is also a very specialized form of steel digging using a very specialized glitch unrelated to the above two.  See this post for details.

Now that's peculiar.

I don't remember Tricky 9's min solution, but most likely it uses #2 (blocker steel-canceling) together with exploders and #1 to blast apart the steel floor right below the entrance trapdoor.  This then allows lemmings to directly drop to the exit.  Due to a glitch in PC Lemmings, such "direct-drop" lemmings will exit instead of going splat.  For Tricky 13, you start with the "build and dig down edge of steel block" trick explained in #1; the rest is glitch-free (but far from trivial!).

I've surprised about Tricky 13. I though you'd have to build up right and then go through the steel. My current best for this level starts with your suggestion, but uses 8 skill assignments, 1 more than the record.

I'll see if I can figure out these levels with the information and hints.

Thanks very much for all this.

(By the way, Tricky 20 is another one I'm quite stuck on. The only thing I can think of is to go under the one-way wall, but the thin platforms on either side foil this.)

[ccexplore]

I've surprised about Tricky 13. I though you'd have to build up right and then go through the steel. My current best for this level starts with your suggestion, but uses 8 skill assignments, 1 more than the record.

Hmm, I don't think anyone considered going through the steel like that.  I just checked now and actually that most likely won't allow for a 7-skill solution because even with the blocker steel-canceling glitch, a single blocker isn't enough (field doesn't extend far enough) for you to go through the steel with just one basher, plus you have the problem of freeing/getting around the blocker afterwards.

Indeed if you check the postings on this thread, it took a second look at the level before I finally got it down from 8 skills to 7, so as I said, it's not obvious.  Good luck.

(By the way, Tricky 20 is another one I'm quite stuck on. The only thing I can think of is to go under the one-way wall, but the thin platforms on either side foil this.)

Don't remember the exact solution, but yes, I'm 99% sure it involves going under the one-way wall.  There is also one subtle fact that bears mentioning:

The left edge of the one way wall is actually one pixel to the right of the left edge of where the floor is no longer thin.  In other words, note the Ys and Zs below in my attempt to depict what I mean in ASCII art:

     YXXXX
     YXXXX
     YXXXX
XXXXZXXXXXX
XXXXZXXXXXX
    ZXXXXX
    ZXXXXX

(note: picture not to scale vertically)

This makes it possible to have a lemming explode at the moment he turned around at the one-way-wall (eg. the pixel column of Ys) at the same time another lemming has already turned around near same location.  Then that 2nd lemming can immediately start building left, from horizontally where the Z's are, to fix the floor breakage.  You might not be able to fully seal up the floor breakage, but I believe you should succeed in at least catching the lemmings arriving from the left, so as long as you pave the rest of the path fast enough you should still have enough lemmings left to pass the level.  Be sure to fiddle around with the release rate to achieve the correct timing for various lemmings to do their tasks.

Another useful trick to know in finishing the path to the exit via underneath the one-way wall:

If you stop a basher in mid-stroke by, say, assigning him builder, the interrupted partial bash stroke will act like a step for walking lemmings approach the end of bash tunnel.  If the tunnel is already very close to the surface of the floor, the created steps can allow lemmings to get all the way up to the surface.

Thus if you are very careful with where you start bashing, you can create a path to the exit without breaking through on the right the thick section of floor underneath the one-way wall.
 

[MASTER-88]

Tricky 26 could be done with two items. At least on SNES & genesis versions. Its just time used bashers right timings. Its quite precise but overall quite easy.

[ccexplore]

Tricky 26 could be done with two items. At least on SNES & genesis versions. Its just time used bashers right timings. Its quite precise but overall quite easy.

The PC version's bash stroke reaches one pixel horizontally less than other versions like Amiga, SNES, etc., so I don't think the 2-basher solution works on the PC version.  I'll check later tonight but I'm pretty sure we've tried already.

All our records here are for the PC version only, simply because it happens to be the version most people here played.  Unfortunately some solutions don't carry over from version to version, especially challenge solutions that tend to rely on exact timing and precision.  If I have time I'll take a look and see how many challenge solutions from the PC version may carry over to SNES version for your score-based challenge.

[ccexplore]

Testing shows that indeed the 2-basher solution for Fun 9/Tricky 26 doesn't work on the PC version.  On the PC version a single bash stroke only takes out 7 columns of pixels, while the SNES/Genesis/Amiga versions take out 8 columns.  The column you have to bash through happens to be 16 pixels wide, so 2 bashers is just barely enough on SNES/Genesis/Amiga, but not on the PC.

[Clam]

Taxing 1 improved to 9 skills. It's also a 100% solution, which means it's good for the max % version too

[Clam]

Take off one skill each for 9, 10 and 18.

*slaps forehead*

Take off another one from [Crazy] 18. That's 6 skills now.

All right, who's in charge of updating the results here? The table still reads 7 skills for this level.

Oh...

*slaps forehead*

Updated.