Author Topic: Two-player Lemmings  (Read 4611 times)

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Offline geoo

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Two-player Lemmings
« on: October 14, 2009, 01:48:17 AM »
The two player version of Lemmings has quite a different type of gameplay, nevertheless the few times I played it with a friend ages ago it was pretty fun. (For the record, it was the SNES version back the, i.e. no mice.)

I was wondering, with some emulators having netplay support, would anyone be up for a game of two player lemmings?
Specifically, I found that Kega Fusion (Genesis) has netplay support which I already got to work once, also ZSNES is said to have it as well as some version of WinUAE (which might possibly mean having mice available).

I'll be traveling back to uni on Saturday evening, where I haven't managed to get netplay working in Kega Fusion, likely due to the uni proxy. So I'd only be available until that date, unless there's another solution with a different emulator which works for me.
Would anyone want to give it a try? We can resolve specifics, date and time via PM then.

Offline chaos_defrost

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Re: Two-player Lemmings
« Reply #1 on: October 14, 2009, 01:53:40 AM »
I've always wanted to play 2 player Lemmings, especially against someone who knows a substantial amount about the game.

I'd definitely be up for this if I can get an emulator up and running for netplay.
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Online Simon

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Re: Two-player Lemmings
« Reply #2 on: October 14, 2009, 02:20:15 AM »
I have done this with Lemmings 1 in the past using a networking version of ZSNES. It works nice until you miss mouse control, yep. :-)

I used ZSNES mainly to play Tetris Attack over the net. It had a habit of desynchronizing sometimes in that game, though.

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Offline Fernito

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Re: Two-player Lemmings
« Reply #3 on: October 14, 2009, 03:32:36 AM »
Wow, this is a very good idea, I can't believe that I never thought of it before!

Versions 1.36 and 1.42 of the ZSNES emulator support online playing. I also recommend the Zbattle.net client, which makes the process a lot easier:

http://www.zbattle.net/?page=download

In case you don't know how to use it, just tell me. Oh, and if you can't find either version 1.36 or 1.42 of ZSNES over the net, just tell me and I'll upload it for ya.
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Offline Dullstar

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Re: Two-player Lemmings
« Reply #4 on: October 14, 2009, 09:57:46 PM »
That would be awesome if I could play two player lemmings!

Offline Fernito

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Re: Two-player Lemmings
« Reply #5 on: October 16, 2009, 09:22:41 PM »
The other day we tried it to death with geoo and Insane Steve, but we kept failing at every attempt. I wonder why it didn't work, it never happened to me before (I used to play on ZSNES online a lot in the past, and neved had this kind of problem).
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Offline GuyPerfect

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Re: Two-player Lemmings
« Reply #6 on: October 16, 2009, 09:31:09 PM »
Depending on the connection speed between players, an alternative you might want to consider is VNC. You'll basically be able to have two users on the internet provide input for one computer, assuming the transfer rate for the remote user is high enough to see what he's doing. For Lemmings, ultra-high clarity or quick reflexes generally aren't issues, so this seems to be a very reasonable way to go about it.

Thinking on it, I don't figure that it'd be particularly difficult to even use the Amiga version and have both users provide input with their respective mouse devices. I'll make a note to look into it.

Offline geoo

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Re: Two-player Lemmings
« Reply #7 on: October 17, 2009, 04:57:54 PM »
After futile attempts with Kega Fusion and ZSNES despite Fernito's help (thanks again!), Insane Steve and I finally got it working through WinUAE+Kaillera, not perfectly, but to a well playable extend (and the advantage is having mice). The main issue was the lag, which peaked in a lost connection a few times. But after tweaking the settings a few times, and getting used to clicking slightly in advance of the assignment, these issues were barely noticable anymore as the game was just too exciting. :D Very good games (I avidly remember level 19, trying to achieve maximal damage with only two lemmings left :P, amongst others), and very balanced results. Still got 5 ONML levels left, and it seems we also missed level 14.

Sorry, no video, I just took two screenshots (not very exciting ones at that), when we're still messing with the settings. One of them is attached, but vertically distorted due to that.

For reference, I attached the levels ordered in levelpacks, credits for ripping them go to Mindless. Also, the access codes are at end of this post.


I sincerely hope that this will also work with my uni connection, as I already long for more. Below I'll describe how to set everything up to work:
It's mostly just information taken from this site, but it's only described in German there.

First, get WinUAE: http://www.winuae.net/
Then download the three archives from here: http://www.amigaclassics.de/kaillera/ger_beginning.htm and unpack them into the WinUAE directory.
The second one is 57MB and contains a whole bunch of games. I suspect it's likely possible to adapt the configuration to simply take an image of Lemmings/ONML instead of this, but I don't really know how to do that (there's the parameter in the config listing the games package as file, but there are also some other values that seem to correspond to that).

After you have everything setup like this, there's only one file missing: Kickstart 3.1 (40.069) (A1200) (Commodore) (1993).rom
Searching for the filename should bring it up somewhere on the internet, alternatively you can also as me to send it to you.
Once you got this file, put it into the 'Roms' folder.

Next thing is the configuration, this site shows a few screenshots again: http://www.amigaclassics.de/kaillera/ger_config_display.htm
For the display settings, it seems that you should set the line mode to 'Double', as otherwise the display is only half as high as it should be. I set the resolution to 800x600, however in windowed mode it caused the emulator to lag a bit for me (might be different for you). So I ended up setting fullscreen, which prevented me from taking screenshots. Ingame usually F11 is the screenshot key, however F11 is mounted to chat mode, so you can't take screenshots with it.

Next configuration setting is I/O. The first player should set the 'Mouse' to JOY Port 0, and 'Keyboard layout B' (Joystick might be possible as well if you have one connected) to JOY Port 1. The second player should do vice versa, i.e. Mouse to JOY 1 and Keyboard B ro JOY 0.

You can leave the next config tab (Input) as is, and go to the Kaillera tab and press 'Launch Kaillera'.
It will then proceed to ping and list a lot of servers. Both players should then choose one with a low ping time, and join it. EDIT: Forgot to say, both should choose the same connection type: For us 15 (Average) gave fluent gameplay, however with a massive delay in the cursor motion. 30 (Excellent) didn't have as much delay, ran very slow only though. In the end we chose 20 (Good), which worked best. Which one to choose depends on the quality of the connection in the end.
When both players are on the server, the first player (with Mouse at JOY 0) clicks 'Create New Game' (and select the Kailera games pack there). The second player can then select this newly created game and click 'Join'.
With both players on, the first player can then 'Start Game'.

After a few seconds, a game menu turns up in the newly opened WinUAE window, select Lemmings or ONML with the arrow keys and then confirm the choice pressing Right Ctrl. This will start the game.

Within the game (and actually already on the selection screen), you can press F11 to have a chat line appear so you can chat with the second player. Beware that F10 quits the game and brings you back to the game selection menu.


Access codes:

Lemmings 2 Player
Code: [Select]
01   JAJHLDIBMO
02   IJHLDKJCMJ
03   NHLDIJADMU
04   HLDIJINEMN
05   LDIJAJLFMW
06   DIJIJLLGMP
07   IJANLLDHMM
08   JINLLDIIMV
09   JAJHMDIJMX
10   IJHMDIJKMQ
11   NHMDIJALMN
12   HMDIJINMMW
13   MDIJAJLNMP
14   DIJIJLMOMY
15   IJANLMDPMV
16   JINLMDIQMO
17   JAJHLFIBNR
18   IJHLFIJCNK
19   NHLFIJADNX
20   HLFIJINENQ

ONML 2 PLAYER
Code: [Select]
01   JAHPTDIBKE
02   IHPTDKJCKP
03   LPTDKJADKM
04   PTDIJILEKD
05   TDIJAHTFKM
06   DIJIHTTGKF
07   IJALTTDHKS
08   JILTTDIIKL
09   JAHPUDIJKN
10   IHPUDIJKKG

Offline chaos_defrost

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Re: Two-player Lemmings
« Reply #8 on: October 17, 2009, 08:34:20 PM »
Yea, there were some incredibly good matches yesterday. The best ones were the aforementioned level 19, where geoo accidently lost most of his group, leaving something like 2 behind, and the whole thing became a cat and mouse game where I kept sending lemmings out to solidify my path and try to kill off his couple lemmings, all of which essentially didn't work, so I sent my crowd over, panicked, ran out of builders, and essentially got zero of the crowd in.

That, and level one of ONML which has a TON of spare terrain and the Lemmings coming out the same spot -- there were so many tunnels and traps used by both of us in this level I wish I'd gotten a screenshot. The level ended in a 6-6 draw, which is interesting as the level itself was nothing but three bashes and a wall to climb and saving 20 is simple as that with no second player to play against.

A few observations:

The earlier levels in each set tend to be better. Generally, the more terrain, the closer the exits are to the entrance, and the more area that is "shared" by both paths to the exits, the better the level.

Planning a strategy to a level is fairly important. In some levels it's best to save lemmings with the easiest route first before trying to ruin the opponent's route. In others it's important to ruin an opponent's route as quickly as possible.

Also pay attention to who won the last match, as they'll get more lemmings. I made this mistake in the ss geoo took -- I was player 2 and jumped out to an early 2-0 lead and decided to nuke the entire collection pit with diggers, forgetting he had more lemmings on the level than I did.

I highly recommend more of you on the forum get into two-player play; it's amazing what on-the-fly strategies (and on the fly mistakes  ><img src=" title="Angry" class="smiley" /> ) you make playing on a highly fluid battlefield.
"こんなげーむにまじになっちゃってどうするの"

~"Beat" Takeshi Kitano

Offline Fernito

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Re: Two-player Lemmings
« Reply #9 on: October 18, 2009, 02:30:02 AM »
I'm glad you guys finally got it working :thumbsup: The experiences you related sounds like it's a lot of fun. I hope I can have some spare time to play with you soon (working on my university thesis right now  :().
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