Genesis styled levels, DOS?

[Dullstar]

Now that we have the Genesis groundx stuff, all we need now is a hacked lemmings, preferably LEMRMAKE (attached) and LemEdit to use the Genesis level size.  If we could do this, it would be...  AWESOME.

EDIT:  Forgot to attach it.  Never mind that, if anyone is willing to do this, but doesn't have LEMRMAKE, I shall attach it later.

[Joemon]

There are levelpaks on the File Archive that are all the genesis levels remade into DOS versions. People have even made these levels into their levelpaks.

[Dullstar]

   Should have clarified.  Making custom levels that would be 100% compatible with Genesis lemmings (except there's not a way to put them back into the game, but that's beside the point).

[ccexplore]

  Should have clarified.  Making custom levels that would be 100% compatible with Genesis lemmings (except there's not a way to put them back into the game, but that's beside the point).

Actually, putting them back into the game is not completely out of question, since after all I extracted them from the game in the first place.  I'll have to review my notes (if any) to see how they were stored and how I managed to extract them, to determine how feasible it is to put modified levels back into the game.  Again, this does not mean I have any particular strong interest in this at the moment.

Keep in mind that if you're talking about real 100% compatability, DOS Lemming's game mechanics doesn't meet the goal any more than Amiga Lemmings does, even ignoring the size difference.  You really need to play the levels on Genesis Lemmings, or someone has to figure out how to modify and re-compile Lemmix to support Genesis game mechanics (as well as identifying all the differences with absolute precision to start with).

[Dullstar]

I must ask, though...
Are there any levels that are different enough that would work in one but not the other (don't forget the modded triggers in GenesisGroundX) as long as they were small enough?

[ccexplore]

I must ask, though...
Are there any levels that are different enough that would work in one but not the other (don't forget the modded triggers in GenesisGroundX) as long as they were small enough?

The obvious Genesis solution for Tricky 30 ("Don't Follow Me") doesn't exactly work in DOS Lemmings as-is, I think because of subtle differences in fall distance calculations for miners.  In DOS Lemmings the level is still solvable but requires some RR manipulation, which in turn (if I recall correctly, it's been a while) is too big an RR change to do in the actual Genesis game (remember that you can't change RR while paused in Genesis).





It's also well known that some challenge solutions only works in one version and not the other.  For example, the best solution for Tricky 23 loses 2 lemmings on the Genesis, rather than 1 as in DOS, and the 2- or 3-digger solution for all the "We All Fall Down" levels doesn't work in DOS.

I forgot whether the one-way miner bug (you can't mine one-way-walls in one of the directions, forgot which) in DOS Lemmings is present in Genesis or not.  If it's absent in Genesis, then playing it on Genesis would allow more levels to work.

Like Amiga lemmings, the clock on Genesis lemmings runs out a bit faster than it does in DOS, which would affect the difficulty of levels like "Just a Minute (Part 2)" for example.

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But yes, for most levels it probably won't matter, especially if you just care merely about solvability.  But that's the difference between 90% (random number) compatability as opposed to 100%.

[ccexplore]

Ok, I actually went back to my extraction program last night to take a look.  My conclusion is that while it's theoretically feasible to replace existing levels in the Genesis ROM with new ones, it's a little more hassle than I'd like.

So if I ever get sufficiently motiviated to deal with this, I think I might go back to the route of hacking DOS Lemmings.  It too has its own share of hassle though, but maybe not as much work.  Basically my plan is to change the scrolling limits of the game (which I've already had limited experience doing, in order to work out the game's handling of clipping per some glitches ClamSpammer found related to level boundaries in L1), and then also to change the value of the left/right limits used in the game mechanics accordingly.  I'll also need to disassemble more of the game's code to find out where it handles the clicking of the minimap, in order to prevent the user from violating the new level boundaries that way.

I have to admit though that I really doubt I'll ever feel interested enough to do any of that.  From both a gameplay and a visual point of view, I see only very limited advantages to either the player or the level designer, in limiting the level size purely to make it more Genesis-like.  (Are there even any Genesis levels that can actually be backrouted if the extra width on the left and right is available for, say, building and blocking?)  It's not as if there's some magical level-design decision behind the limits in Genesis anyway, it's just a practical matter of less memory available on the Genesis that's all.  If they could afford to use the full 1584/1600 width I'm sure they would've.