New versions of my levels...?

[weirdybeardy]

Hi everyone,

The levelpacks on the archive that were built by me are now over a year old, and I decided to play through them to see if they were any good - and found them lacking... Either too easy, or too hard, or not as well-designed as I thought they were. 

Anyway, I'm thinking about withdrawing them, tweaking them, re-packaging them and re-submitting them to the archive - but I just wanted to check if people thought it was worthwhile. Is it better to revise and edit and tweak levels to perfection, or just to move on and make some brand new levels...? What do most people around here do?

I don't think I'll have the time or energy to build new levels from scratch, but I'm willing to take time to improve the puzzles I already created. I miss Lemmings, and I guess it'll help me get back into the game, and back into the forum. Then maybe I can submit the new versions of levels and get them reviewed...?

Any input would be appreciated.  I'm not a total newbie, nor am I one of the higher-ups and Lemming "elite" (such as Lacktardo, pieuw, ClamSpammer, etc etc. whose challenging levels I really enjoy)... I'm kind of somewhere in between. 

[namida]

It depends how much work it'll take. For those where you can modify it slightly, still keeping the feel of the original level, and end with a hard result, go for it. Those that may take a lot of work, on the other hand, maybe are better off simply remaining easy-but-fun levels.

"Too hard"? This is Lemmings we're talking about here. =P

[weirdybeardy]

By "too hard" I generally mean levels where the solution isn't fun to attempt, where's there's too much fast-clicking and everything is too fiddly and haphazard... Does that make sense? 

Anyway, you've convinced me to give the re-makes a go. It won't be anything massive, and in some cases I won't want to change anything at all, but I want to re-submit my levels anyway, give them a breath of fresh air and see what happens. 

I'm hoping to eliminate backroutes, tighten up time-limits, remove unnecessary skills, and basically play-test my levels to destruction! 

[Joemon]

By "too hard" I generally mean levels where the solution isn't fun to attempt, where's there's too much fast-clicking and everything is too fiddly and haphazard... Does that make sense? 

Anyway, you've convinced me to give the re-makes a go. It won't be anything massive, and in some cases I won't want to change anything at all, but I want to re-submit my levels anyway, give them a breath of fresh air and see what happens. 

I'm hoping to eliminate backroutes, tighten up time-limits, remove unnecessary skills, and basically play-test my levels to destruction! 

Maybe add a few more levels to your levelpaks , I see a few with less than 10

[Minim]

Maybe add a few more levels to your levelpaks , I see a few with less than 10

He just said it before, he doesn't want to create new levels. Here' the proof with a quote.

I don't think I'll have the time or energy to build new levels from scratch, but I'm willing to take time to improve the puzzles I already created.

[Clam]

Hi everyone,

The levelpacks on the archive that were built by me are now over a year old, and I decided to play through them to see if they were any good - and found them lacking... Either too easy, or too hard, or not as well-designed as I thought they were. 

Anyway, I'm thinking about withdrawing them, tweaking them, re-packaging them and re-submitting them to the archive - but I just wanted to check if people thought it was worthwhile. Is it better to revise and edit and tweak levels to perfection, or just to move on and make some brand new levels...? What do most people around here do?

I went through the same thing a while ago. I even wrote up a "to do" list for every one of my old levels (some of which consisted solely of "throw it in the trash" ). But now with all the recent developments in Lemmings 2 and multiplayer Lemmings, I'm wondering whether it's worthwhile at this point to put time and effort into fixing my levels. I did make improvements to ClamSpam05, as well as a few levels from my other packs, but these didn't need much done to them aside from a few graphical changes. By the time I'd done these, though, the gears were in motion for a Lemmings 2 editor... and besides that, I was getting a little burnt out. (Which you're not, I presume, since you've just returned from a lengthy absence...)

However, despite the progress on other Lemmings projects that will take some attention away from the original Lemmings, I think the changes to my levels have made a real difference in terms of quality, and were very much worthwhile. I don't know if you have the old version of ClamSpam05, but when I look at the old and new packs side-by-side, the new ones just look bigger and better - even though the gameplay is really no different (aside from level 8, which I replaced altogether).

[weirdybeardy]

  Well, at the moment, although some of my original level packs have less than ten levels, the sum total is exactly 50 levels, so I've decided to re-jig the order and re-release the new versions as five packs of ten - which is nice and neat and makes me happy. 

I've already thrown out one level that was one of my lamest ones, and replaced it with a "sequel" to another of the existing levels. I've also been play-testing them all to death and making sure they're not too boring to play. At the same time I haven't been worrying TOO much about backroutes - they can be irritating if they completely defeat a puzzle, but I'm all for alternate routes with skills left over and all that jazz is the player wants to find them. 

The new packs, when I release them, will LOOK almost exactly the same as the old ones, but hopefully they'll play better, and that is the main difference I was wanting to make. I know I said I wouldn't be making any new levels from scratch, but if I decide that one of my levels is unforgiveably bad and can't be saved, I may just put in the effort.

I'm already more than half-way done, so I'm hoping to let my new babies out into the wild within the next week or so. 

I've known right from the start that my humble efforts won't be reaching the dizzy heights of some the great levels on the archive, but as long as I've created the best levels I can personally make, I can sit back and relax and not be too bothered by any of their shortcomings. After all, I never even designed a level before about eighteen months ago. 

[weirdybeardy]

I wanted to add that I'm aware of the common problems and complaints that come up in custom levels - from the reviews I've read and from the reactions to my original levels back in 2008:

I know that building-intensive or "hero lemming" levels are generally frowned-upon around here, so I've half-heartedly tried to avoid creating them, but at the same time I haven't agonised about it. The fast-forward feature common to Lemmix and Lemmini has kinda eradicated the waiting-around aspect of building anyway. And also, for better or worse, I refer back to the original Lemmings and Oh No! More Lemmings for inspiration and ideas. If a style of play was good enough for those games, then it should be good enough for my levels (not to say that the originals couldn't be improved upon, but there's nothing wrong with using them as a sort of "minimum standard", if that makes sense).  After all, I played them, completed them and loved them and that's why I'm here today! 

None of my levels require exploitation of glitches for their intended solutions - except one. 

One of my levels is beatable only in Lemmix or CustLemm, due to trigger-area weirdness in Lemmini. 

Another of my levels is beatable only in Lemmix or Lemmini, because of CustLemm's lack of replay features. 

Erm, I think that's about it. Disclaimer over, hehe! Time for me to shut up and go away for a little while. 

[Clam]

And also, for better or worse, I refer back to the original Lemmings and Oh No! More Lemmings for inspiration and ideas. If a style of play was good enough for those games, then it should be good enough for my levels (not to say that the originals couldn't be improved upon, but there's nothing wrong with using them as a sort of "minimum standard", if that makes sense).  After all, I played them, completed them and loved them and that's why I'm here today! 

Nothing wrong with that. I did the same for my 05 pack, with the intention of creating levels with multiple solutions.

One of my levels is beatable only in Lemmix or CustLemm, due to trigger-area weirdness in Lemmini. 

I know how that feels. A lot of my levels are impossible in Lemmini for various reasons.

Another of my levels is beatable only in Lemmix or Lemmini, because of CustLemm's lack of replay features. 

How can you have a level that can't be solved without replays? This seems like the sort of "impossible" challenge that would go well in the level design game.

[Yawg]

While it woudln't be too hard to make a level that can't be solved with replays, its probably impossible to do the opposite. Assuming there isn't some glitch we've yet to discover that only works when you replay a solution...

Interesting thought though...hmmm.

[geoo]

Well, there are some assignment shenanigans that only work when using replays.
For one you can actually assign multiple skills within one frame, which you merely need the replay feature for.
If you edit the replay files manually, you can also assign skills to lemmings which would be unselectable otherwise due to selection priority (in the design challenge topic ccexplore's level to ClamSpammer's challenge with the blockers is an example for that, requiring to use a third blocker if you don't manually edit the replay file).

[ccexplore]

Well, there are some assignment shenanigans that only work when using replays.  For one you can actually assign multiple skills within one frame, which you merely need the replay feature for.

To be fair, I haven't disassembled enough of DOS Lemmings to either confirm or rule out the possibility of multiple assignments within one frame with extremely well-timed pausing, but practically speaking, yes, it would be close to impossible in DOS Lemmings to do so, if not actually impossible due to the game's programming.  Even assigning skills on consecutive frames is pretty tough to do in DOS Lemmings (but at least confirmed possible).

[namida]

I know that building-intensive or "hero lemming" levels are generally frowned-upon around here

It all depends on how they're pulled off. "To The End" (from Lemmings Plus 3 or L+ DOS) is very much a hero level, but at the same  time,  it's also extremely challenging and  I think most would find it to be a good level. Builder-intensive isn't inherently bad either, but it requires  some clever twists to make it interesting. Again from L+ DOS: "Not Gonna Work" gives you 20 climbers, 20 floaters and 20 builders, and you need all skills except for 19 of the climbers (ie: you need 20 builders). "The Buildo Station" gives you nothing but 25 builders (although it's possible to solve with 24), but also puts a very interesting twist on how they're used, making it also a good level IMO. Being builder-intensive or hero is only bad if the level itself becomes boring as a result of this.

[weirdybeardy]

Okay, I'm done.  A few things before I upload the new versions:

I hope my hero-lemming and builder-intensive levels are interesting enough to be worth playing. I tried to make it so that some thought and a sense of timing is required rather than just build, build, build.

Just to reiterate... Some of my levels are beatable in certain versions of Lemmings and not others, due to slight differences in game mechanics. I won't go through them all here. You'll just have to give them a try! 

All my levels are proven possible, by me. If you find backroutes, all the better. If you find backroutes that make the levels ridiculously easy, then well done, you're smarter than me. 

I'm still not 100% happy with some of my levels, and I probably never will be, but I've invested enough effort in them for now and I probably won't be building anything new for a while. I'm very interested in editor developments for Lemmings 2: The Tribes, so my next pet project will probably be some customised L2 levels... eventually.

Thanks so much for everyone's interest and input on this thread. I really really appreciate it. 

I hope you think my levels are okay.

Lurking,
weirdybeardy 

[Minim]

I hope you think my levels are okay.

I spotted a mistake. There are two levels named "Death or Glory Part 1"! One is it set 3 and the other in set 4.

[weirdybeardy]

Oops.  Well, that's easily fixed. Thanks for pointing it out.