Glitches in Lemmings

[Clam]

Here I will attempt to compile a list of all known glitches in Lemmings. This thread is for the first-generation Lemmings games: Lemmings, Oh No! More Lemmings, and Xmas/Holiday Lemmings. Lemmings 2 has its own thread, here. The primary focus is DOS Lemmings of course, but I will try to include ports of the original game as well. Do note, though, that I only have a few versions, and I don't intend to hunt them all down. If you have any of the more obscure ports, please feel free to contribute

I have attempted to categorise glitches, to keep the list organised. At some point, the more noteworthy glitches, as well as screenshots of glitches in action, could be put up on the Wiki.

I have closed the old glitch thread, and I will try to maintain this one. Frankly, the whole "spoiler warning" thing was just silly

For further useful (but less gamebreaking ) tricks, see the non-glitch tricks topic.


DOS

Climbers

• When a climber encounters a ceiling and falls down, it comes away from the wall by one pixel, instead of falling down right next to the wall.
• Because of the way climbers check for terrain above them, they can either climb through small overhangs at the top of a wall, or fall down when there is a tiny gap (which it should be able to get into) with terrain hanging above. The outcome depends on the height of the wall.
• (Original Lemmings only) Assigning the climber skill to a shrugger causes the lemming to start moving straight away, and remain in the shrugging position while it moves on.
• If the terrain that the climber is on is removed, it hoists immediately and converts to a walker in mid-air for one frame, during which it is possible to assign a skill.
• If a lemming trapped inside terrain is made a climber, or a climber becomes trapped in terrain, it repeatedly begins climbing, gets stuck, and falls slightly. It gains one pixel in height each time. Because climbers transitioning to fallers are shifted across slightly, the wall has to be at least 4 pixels wide for this to work.
• If a lemming climbing up a thin wall encounters a blocker on the other side of the wall, it will go through the wall.

Floaters

• Floating lemmings can enter exits, even if there is no terrain under the exit trigger. This only works from the moment they deploy the umbrella, not in the first few pixels of a fall.
• (Glitch arguable) Floaters always survive a fall, even if they are assigned the skill near the ground and there isn't time for the umbrella to open.

Bombers

• If a bomber is not placed on steel when it explodes, it removes all terrain in the explosion mask, including steel. If it is on steel, it removes no terrain at all.
• Falling ohnoers can enter exits, even if there is no terrain under the exit trigger.
• After exploding, the lemming's position is shifted upwards by a few pixels. (Not reproducible in the Lemmix editor, since this removes the lemming as soon as it explodes.)

Blockers

• The blocker's area of influence overwrites steel and trigger areas. This makes it possible to destroy steel by placing a blocker next to it, and disable the effects of traps, one-way walls and exits.
• If you assign a bomber skill to a blocker, and remove the terrain under it during the 'oh no' so that it falls before exploding, its blocking area remains in place. Any steel or trigger areas that were canceled by the blocker are put back where it explodes, instead of where it was placed.
• Blockers can push lemmings through walls. This happens because lemmings cannot move towards the center of the blocking area (which is how blockers work), so a lemming inside this area can't turn around until it leaves the area - even if there is terrain in the way. (Combined with climbing in walls, this is known as the "Tame 20" glitch, after the level where it was used to achieve a no-builder solution. Note that you have to remove the blocker for this to work.)

Builders

• The "Giant Leap" or "sliding" glitch: A lemming encountering a step of 3-6 pixels will "jump" up it. The game checks each frame to see whether the lemming has reached the top of the step, instead of stopping when it reaches the initial height of the step. Thus, if you can add terrain (using a builder) at the top of the step, the lemming will continue jumping.
• Builders only check for terrain at one pixel above them, but they move forward two pixels at a time. This means they can build through one-pixel-wide overhangs.
• Right-facing builders place bricks one pixel further in front of them than left-facing builders. This affects the potential length of a bridge that can be made by "stretching" bridges (delaying each builder assignment until the last possible frame). Additionally, this means right-facing builders can always bash when they reach a wall, whereas left-facing builders will turn around as soon as they hit the wall if they were only one pixel away after laying the previous brick.
• The builder skips a check for terrain on the last brick, so if you assign a builder an exact bridge length (or slightly less) from the wall, it can build further into the wall than normal, and shrug instead of turning around.
• While builders turn around when they encounter a ceiling, it is possible to assign more builders closer to the ceiling. This means lemmings can get stuck in ceilings, and build up through thin floors.
• Similar to the above, lemmings can get stuck at the top of the map. At this point, it is no longer possible to (normally) assign builders.
• It is possible to assign builders to lemmings stuck at the top of a map, by having a blocker under the cursor, so that the stuck lemming has second priority for selection.
• Turning a builder with a blocker between placing a brick and stepping onto it causes a fake brick to appear for a moment, and leaves a tiny hole in the bridge that lemmings cannot  get across.
• If you assign a builder to a lemming as it turns around at a one-pixel wide wall, and then turn the builder with a blocker before the first brick is placed, the builder will go through the wall and continue building.

Bashers

• Bashers check for terrain only every second stroke, starting with the first.
• Bashers remove all terrain within their destruction mask, including steel.
• The basher's terrain-destruction mask includes the column of pixels that the lemming is in. Since lemmings walk into the wall slightly when they turn around, it is possible to remove steel and one-way walls by assigning a basher to a lemming as it turns around.
• Bashers can be stopped mid-stroke to leave a small upward ramp.
• Bashers check for steel higher than they check for terrain, so they can bash through the top of steel.
• Bashers near the top of the level may stop randomly. If it checks for steel off the top of the screen, the game reads from a part of memory that isn't actually written to by the game. If the value happens to correspond to steel, or one-way walls facing the wrong way, the basher will stop. (In Lemmix, the basher will always go through).
• By assigning a basher where there is a wall behind it and enough terrain in front (so that it keeps going), you can place a blocker after the first stroke to make the basher flip through the wall without breaking it. Screenshot here.
  
• With a specific terrain formation, a basher can fall through terrain while leaving it intact. This is best observed on Tricky 5 / Taxing 8.

Miners

• Miners remove all terrain within their destruction mask, including steel.
• Miners can be stopped mid-stroke to leave a small upward ramp.
• Apart from the initial assignment, miners only check for steel directly beneath them. This means they can break steel in front of them, and above them.
• The miner's terrain-destruction mask extends one pixel behind it. As with bashers, it is possible to remove steel (though this is slightly more problematic, since there has to be no steel directly below the lemming) and one-way walls by assigning the skill to a lemming as it turns around.
• Miners are positioned one pixel too low during the first few frames of their animation. This makes it possible to have the miner fall through the floor while leaving it intact for other lemmings to walk on, by assigning a blocker or bomber at the right moment.
• When a miner breaks through a floor, it falls one pixel too far back, making it possible to separate the miner from other lemmings.
• Miners can break left one-way walls, but not right. A miner assigned in a right one-way wall area will take one stroke and turn back.
• Miners shift across by two pixels at a time, so they can cross one-pixel-wide gaps.

Diggers

• Diggers will remove all terrain within their destruction mask, including steel.
• Diggers check for terrain in a row of 9 pixels below them, but they only check for steel in one pixel. This means they can dig away the side of steel pieces, and even continue digging while holding on to nothing but steel.
• The digger's destruction mask includes three rows of pixels: one below the lemming, one alongside and one above the lemming.
  
• When there are two or more lemmings under the cursor when attempting to assign a digger, the game doesn't check for steel under the second-priority lemming. Thus if the first priority lemming isn't on steel, but can't dig (either because it is already a digger, or it is a blocker or 'oh-no'ing bomber) the second-priority lemming will start digging, even if it is on steel. (Note: Lemmix's replay function doesn't handle this correctly)
• Digging lemmings can enter exits, even if there is no terrain under the exit trigger.
• Pausing when assigning a digger skill sometimes causes a glitch sprite to appear. (Not reproducible in Lemmix)

Interactive Objects

• "Direct drop": Lemmings falling onto the exit's trigger area will exit if there is terrain under it, even if they would splat from the fall if the exit wasn't there.
• Lemmings falling into water may be swept across sometimes, depending on the location of terrain. With a specific setup, it is possible for a drowning lemming to be swept through terrain. (See ClamSpam02 level 5, "Get Out of the Pool!)
• Object trigger areas take precedence over steel areas. This can be exploited to dig through steel.
• Objects with no effect still have a trigger. In most cases, these are placed 4 pixels above top left corner, though Dirt and Crystal exit top pieces have wider triggers, placed lower down. These "triggers" have no special effect, but still cancel steel. (Note: these triggers are missing from entrance hatches in Lemmix.)

• Some object triggers are misplaced:
  - The water in marble tileset (green "acid") has its trigger area too high - lemmings appear to drown above the surface of the water.
  - One-way walls are 4 pixels too high; in some cases it is possible to bash underneath the wall because of this.
  - Brick tileset one-way walls are twice as wide as they should be.
  - (Glitch arguable) Some exits have to be placed lower in order to work. For example, the Bubble tileset exit can never work unless it is lowered slightly into the terrain.

Level Stats

• "Nuke glitch": When the nuke is activated, the game calculates the percentage saved based on how many lemmings have been released, not how many are available in the level.
• Pausing for time: The entrance hatch begins opening a specific length of time after the level starts, at the same time the sound effect plays. If you pause the game before the hatch begins to open, the timer stops counting down while the game is paused, but the hatch still opens at the same time (or immediately after you unpause, if you wait until after the sound plays). This gives you about two seconds extra to complete the level.
• (Glitch arguable) Release rate and skills cannot be selected with the mouse while the game is paused. They can still be accessed via hotkeys.
• In the level preview screen, terrain off the left of the level appears on the far right of the preview picture.
• Using a hex editor or Lemmix, you can set release rates above 99, up to 255, and also 0. The values simply wrap around into negatives: 255 is effectively -1, 100 is effectively -156 (one lemming per 131 frames). During play, you can change the rate to anything between this negative rate and 99 - never slower than the initial rate (Lemmix handles this incorrectly). 0 appears as a blank (the same as for zero skill counts), while values from 100 to 255 use junk characters for the tens digit. Additionally, values of 255 will blink until they are changed.

Other

• "Right-click bug": If you highlight a lemming inside the cursor, then mouse over a lemming that is performing a skill, and then left-click that lemming while holding the right mouse button, the previously highlighted lemming will perform whatever skill is currently selected, even if it is outside the cursor. If the blocker skill is selected, and highlighted lemming dies in a trap before the left-click, the blocker skill will still be used, and a blocker area will be placed over the trap. (Not reproducible in Lemmix.) See this topic for more info.
  
• Info on lemmings inside the cursor (eg. WALKER 1) remains when you quit and restart a level, until lemmings begin falling from the hatch. (Not reproducible in Lemmix)

• The left side of the map acts as a wall. As with any other wall, lemmings will walk into it slightly when they turn around. With the left edge of the map, this means they are at x = -1, which is off the edge of the map. They will turn around at this "wall", even if there is no terrain under them at the moment they turn around (note: Lemmix cuts off terrain off the edge of the map, but in DOS it can continue a bit further). Some skills have unique effects when used at this position:
  - A blocker assigned at the moment it turns around stops for one frame, during which it can turn other lemmings, then continues walking.
  - A blocker used near the edge of the map can push lemmings off the edge of the map. If you remove this blocker, you can place another one and push the lemmings even further off the edge. These lemmings are no longer selectable, but they still exist in the level.
  - If a bomber's countdown ends when it is off the edge of the level (see above), or turning around at the edge, it falls down before exploding.
  - A digger assigned past the left edge of the map will dig as long as it has some terrain to hold on to, and then fall down.

Amiga

Amiga Lemmings shares most of the same glitches as DOS. However, these glitches are not present in the Amiga version:

• Nuke glitch
• Pausing for time
• Direct drop
• Continuous shrugger (assigning climber skill to a shrugging builder)

Sega Master System

• Miners can cross one-pixel gaps.
• Climbers come out slightly from a wall when they hit a ceiling and fall.
• Diggers float in mid-air for a brief moment during their animation. If you assign a blocker at this moment, the lemming will fall and become a walker.
• The clock blinks when there are less than 30 seconds remaining. If you pause while the clock is visible, and unpause when it is invisible, the timer won't count down. Thus you effectively have unlimited time for every level.
• Pausing the game when a shrugging lemming reverts to a walker causes the lemming to glitch out and cycle through animations. The lemming doesn't move in this time, making this an effective method of slowing down a lemming.
• (UNCONFIRMED) Repeatedly pausing and unpausing can cause bashers to stop moving, while walkers continue on.
• Bashers can pass through blockers, if timed well.

(Thanks to Pooty for the above)

• When a digger finishes, it becomes a walker for a moment before falling. At this point, it can be assigned to bash or build in mid-air.
• Lemmings falling into water become walkers for a moment before drowning or dying to a trap (unless they have fallen too far, in which case they will splat). It is possible to assign a builder in this time, and build a bridge from the water trap. On fire objects, a second lemming is needed - the first burns after placing one brick.
• On levels with multiple entrances, when you build over one entrance, the bricks are copied onto other entrances. The same applies to exits, on levels with more than one of those. The copied bricks are solid terrain, not just graphics.

(Thanks to Adam for these)

• Falling lemmings appear to repeatedly change the direction they are facing.
• Building on continuous traps (see above) disables them. Their animation freezes, and they behave as solid terrain.
• Bridges overlapping entrances/exits (including copied ones, see above) are indestructible, like steel.
• When the nuke is active, lemmings sometimes drown (when they would otherwise splat - see above) when they fall into water from above the splat height.
• Using a miner on steel causes the lemming to move backwards a little (note: they do not turn around in this version). With enough miners, you can effectively walk backwards.
• If a bomber's timer runs out at the same time as the lemming would splat, it falls into the terrain slightly before exploding.
• Through repeated pausing and unpausing, it is possible to make a basher "slide" through a wall without destroying the terrain. This even woks with one-way walls with arrows pointing the wrong way.
• A digger starting on a peak in the terrain will just take out the top of the peak and then walk on.
• Walking lemmings appear to bob up and down at random when there are many lemmings on the screen.

Windows

• The maximum safe-fall distance is incorrectly set to 66 instead of 63. This makes some levels much easier (eg. 'We all fall down').
• Lemmings can walk over the top of the level.

PSP

• Lemmings can walk over the top of the level.
• Climber falls the wrong way after mining through the floor. He seems to skip over the hole when he finishes mining. See video linked here (thanks Luis).
  
  
  Mac
  
• Some terrain objects are slightly taller due to the high-resolution graphics. This can cause lemmings to turn around in places where they wouldn't in other versions. Mayhem 26 is a famous example.
• Digging skills and bombers remove all terrain within their destruction mask, including steel.
• Climbers climbing up to the top of the level can become trapped in the terrain, instead of falling back down.
• In some cases it is possible to bash through one-way walls in the wrong direction. This is likely due to misplaced trigger areas, as in DOS.

(Thanks to finlay for these)

[finlay]

On the PS1 version, which I think is the same as the Windows one programming-wise, you can also walk off the top of the screen. I believe you can also walk off the edge of the map, although I think the only level where it becomes an issue is Crazy 18.

There are a couple of places where builders don't work as expected: in particular, they will always turn around at a wall before you get the chance to bash through that wall, unless they also happen to be on their last step – ie when they transition to shrugger. So you have to be careful to place it at exactly the right distance. They also start removing steps if you get too close to the ceiling; I think on other versions the lemming just stops building. There are a couple of vids on youtube showing these.

As for the Mac version, I'm sure you'll all be familiar with everyone's ranting and raving about the Mayhem 26 graphical bugs. But there are a few glitches that I know it doesn't have:
• builders act exactly the same going left and right; you always get the chance to bash through a wall
• Nuke glitch doesn't exist; percentage is always calculated from the total number of lemmings. It surprised me that the DOS version has such a bug, since the goal is stored as a number rather than a percentage in the LVL format.
• I don't think pausing for time exists; on the DOS version, there are a pair of sounds that are always played, which are little beepy sounds corresponding to "Let's go!" and the hatch opening on other versions – and they're always played when the level starts even if you pause. On the Mac version, if you pause before the sounds are played, they won't play until you unpause. However, the Mac timer is incredibly lenient compared to other versions' timers.
• I don't think direct drop exists but I don't know what level to test it on.
• A lot of the steel glitches seem to exist, particularly the ones that stipulate that steel is destroyed by a skill such as a bomber if the lemming is not standing on steel. I don't know about the trigger-based ones, or the ones that rely on a blocker cancelling the steel area. However, my instinct seems to suggest to me that the Mac's steel detection algorithm is different from the DOS one, and I'm fairly sure it will detect steel earlier than the DOS version would.
• Diggers on the DOS version will carry on digging even if the digger itself seems to be floating over air, as the game checks all the pixels beneath the digger's tunnel. On the Mac version, there are either one or two pixels (ie DOS-sized pixels) which it doesn't check. This can be used for a quick glitch solution to We All Fall Down that uses 2 diggers (one releases the other, which leaves a tiny ledge), and can be replicated on the SNES and Genesis versions too, as far as I know.
• Bashers on the DOS version will always take an odd number of strokes, a caveat that isn't present on the Mac.
• Miners can mine through any one-way-wall (cf Taxing 13). I'm not sure about the other ones, but they definitely can break through floors and leave a one-pixel floor for other lemmings.
• Climbers climbing up to the top of the level can become trapped in the terrain – I can't think of an effective example at the moment, however. But I'm thinking about levels such as "Lemmings' Ark", which obviously you don't get on the Mac, but is an effective example of a level in which a climber must climb up to the ceiling in order to fall back. I don't think this would happen on the Mac; I think the lemming would become trapped. I'd have to confirm it, though.
• I think Miners and Bashers are much more likely to turn around at a Blocker than on other versions; on the DOS version, you can assign a miner right next to the blocker to release him, but I think on the Mac version the miner will invariably turn around before releasing the blocker. Therefore one has to be more careful when releasing blockers that the lemming doesn't turn around. For example, you might have to assign the miner quite far back, so that it is the top of his stroke that releases the blocker.

[ccexplore]

• Miners can mine through any one-way-wall (cf Taxing 13).

Presumably you mean they can mine through any one-way-wall in the allowed direction?

• Climbers climbing up to the top of the level can become trapped in the terrain – I can't think of an effective example at the moment, however.

Well, looks like Fun 17 is the earliest level you can test this out on.  How about builders, do they react differently to the level top boundary too?

[ccexplore]

Turning a builder with a blocker between placing a brick and stepping onto it causes a fake brick to appear for a moment, and leaves a tiny hole in the bridge that lemmings cannot  get across.

This one is better described with a picture:

xxxxxx
      xxxxxx
    xxxxxx

As you can see, what happens is that the blocker (who's at the right edge of the 2nd build brick) makes the builder steps up in the wrong direction, causing the 3rd brick being laid to be not quite touching the 2nd brick laid.  Walking lemmings thus won't get up the remainder of the bridge after turning around from the blocker.

Using a hex editor or Lemmix, you can set release rates above 99, up to 250.

I'm pretty sure it's actually 255 not 250.  Also it's possible to make RR 0 (displayed in the game as blank I think, rather than 0), although that's equivalent to RR 1 and therefore not that interesting.

[finlay]

• Miners can mine through any one-way-wall (cf Taxing 13).

Presumably you mean they can mine through any one-way-wall in the allowed direction?

• Climbers climbing up to the top of the level can become trapped in the terrain – I can't think of an effective example at the moment, however.

Well, looks like Fun 17 is the earliest level you can test this out on.  How about builders, do they react differently to the level top boundary too?

I think builders are the same as on the DOS version, based on how they acted in my Mountain level.

Here's a screenshot of the climber problem:

You should be able to see him at the top. It's difficult to describe what actually happens to get him to the top, he kinda does the transition to walker animation twice and gets trapped a couple of pixels inside the pillar. I should maybe find a way of recording it, except that a) Sheepshaver is quite jerky (at some point I might try downloading OS 7 instead of OS 9 to see if that helps) and skips frames and b) I don't know what program to use. I could potentially boot up my other machine that can run OS 9 natively, but I'd be even more at a loss for what program to use with that. One other big problem with the emulator is that the mouse cursor is black (a bug that showed up on the native OS 9 a couple of times, to be fair. i'm not sure what causes it.), which makes the game nigh-on-impossible to play, because you can only see the cursor when it's over terrain – naturally, this is when it's least useful.

Here's a builder going slightly off the top:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15543016/Buildtothetop1.png
and here's how close to the top the builder can get before falling off his bridge. He doesn't turn back, which I believe is the same behaviour in DOS:

[finlay]

For comparison, here's DOS. You should know all this already :

Climber's just transitioned to a faller.


The builder can go significantly closer to the ceiling on the Mac version; as you can see, I couldn't even reach the left wall of the chamber on the DOS version here.

Also, in a close comparison of the two screenshots, it looks like the Mac's bomber reaches about a pixel further into the pillar...

[finlay]

Following up on that bomber observation a bit, here's how the two versions compare when making climbers into bombers:





As you can see, on the Mac version, the craters barely touch each other in the centre of the pillar. On the DOS version, there's an overlap of a whole pixel. And on both versions, the craters are asymmetrical – but on the Mac, it's the crater from the left that is "larger", the opposite to the DOS version.

----

Also, before I forget, you're right about the miners: any one-way-wall in the allowed direction.

Also, one can bash the wrong way through the one-way-wall in SNOW JOKE, which I believe is the same on the DOS version. I don't know why this is, however.

----

Also also also, it's probably worth noting that I'm now testing what happens at the top of the playfield a bit more and it seems you can only take one basher stroke at a time. Getting a trapped climber to bash will always break through the wall that he just climbed up, so he will fall back down. You can't assign the builder skill at all, and other skills seem to work as normal.

----

Ooooh, here's something quite interesting: the climber is turned by the blocker before he actually reaches the end of his climb – in fact, midway through the transition to walker. I don't know if these screenshots are very clear but here:

It seems to happen right before the frame of the second screeny. Does this happen on DOS?

[DragonsLover]

Yes, I think I once experienced the Climber being turned by a Blocker. I even wonder if it's actually possible to make it flip from a wall to another while climbing.

EDIT: Yup, the Climber get flipped. Proof below. The Climber was climbing from the right side of the deeper tunnel (facing right) and once he reached the Blocker's effect area (near his arm), he flipped on the other side of the tunnel like as below.

So, yes, if there's a one pixel wall, you can make the Climber flip from one side to another of it using Blockers.

[ccexplore]

Ha, looks like DragonsLover beat me to it.  Although I haven't explicit test it out, I expect you'll see the same behaviors DragonsLover illustrated on the Mac version also.  Note that it only works well if the wall the flip occurs is 1-pixel wide.  Any wider and the climber hits his head right after the flip and stops climbing.

Also also also, it's probably worth noting that I'm now testing what happens at the top of the playfield a bit more and it seems you can only take one basher stroke at a time.

Note that when Clam talks about basher behavior near top of level, he doesn't literally mean at the highest point the lemming can walk to without turning around.  Even in DOS, I believe you can get high enough that the pixels normally checked by the basher are off the level boundary, and IIRC it works out such that the game will never detect terrain pixels in that case, and so you get one bash stroke and stop, but not because of the boundary per se, just that the game doesn't detect any terrain pixels (presumably due to clipping of the graphics) at the positions beyond the top boundary.

The case of interest Clam is talking about is when the lemming is at an elevation very near the top, such that the wall in front of him is 7 or 6 (low-res) pixels tall.  That's tall enough to support continual bashing in DOS, and then because of the way the steel checking works, the calculation causes the game to look for steel areas off the normal level boundaries, which runs into the "reading garbage from memory" issue that can "randomly" stop the bashing.  On the Mac, if I recall correctly a 5-pixel (low-res) tall wall is actual enough to support continous bashing, but on the other hand as you noted, the steel detection is also slightly different, so I have no idea how together all that plays out.

[Clam]

Good points all

There are a couple of places where builders don't work as expected: in particular, they will always turn around at a wall before you get the chance to bash through that wall, unless they also happen to be on their last step – ie when they transition to shrugger.

IIRC, that's the same in DOS. The game seems to be more lenient on the last brick when it comes to building into walls, and ceilings as well I think. I'll have to check this.

• I don't think direct drop exists but I don't know what level to test it on.

Tricky 12 is a good one for testing direct drop.

I'm pretty sure it's actually 255 not 250.

The Lemmix editor only lets you go up to 250. It would make sense for it to go up to 255 though. I should actually try it with a hex editor at some point

Also, one can bash the wrong way through the one-way-wall in SNOW JOKE, which I believe is the same on the DOS version. I don't know why this is, however.

I'd guess this is due to the one-way triggers being too high, which I mentioned already.

So, yes, if there's a one pixel wall, you can make the Climber flip from one side to another of it using Blockers.

Ah yes, that one features in a certain custom level. I'd say the behaviour finlay mentioned (climbers turning around at blockers) is intended behaviour, or at least semi-intended, in the same vein as turning builders or miners. Flipping through a wall is definitely a glitch though

Now you mention that, I vaguely recall being able to flip a basher through a wall without breaking it.

[Adam]

Pretty hard to explain, but as I see it, the Master System version's mechanics are interesting. Essentially, every lemming becomes a walker in between changing states. So for example, when you finish digging and remove ALL terrain, you can build in mid-air. You can also bash for a very short period without anything to stand on. I'm not sure how many ways there are to exploit this, but there must be a fair few!

[finlay]

Good points all

There are a couple of places where builders don't work as expected: in particular, they will always turn around at a wall before you get the chance to bash through that wall, unless they also happen to be on their last step – ie when they transition to shrugger.

IIRC, that's the same in DOS. The game seems to be more lenient on the last brick when it comes to building into walls, and ceilings as well I think. I'll have to check this.

DOS is strange, though; when facing right it allows you to hit the wall with the builder and then bash, but when facing left it will turn back straight away before you get the chance to bash. Essentially, the PS1 version uses the left-facing mechanic of the DOS version for both directions and the Mac version uses the right-facing mechanic. But there are very few situations that I can think of where your lemmings are travelling left in a level, so usually you might as well conclude that the DOS is the same as the Mac version... or something.

Also, I don't think you can execute the Mayhem 29 backroute on the Mac due to a similar reason; the Mac builders are more symmetrical.

• I don't think direct drop exists but I don't know what level to test it on.

Tricky 12 is a good one for testing direct drop.

OK. Maybe another day; I'm going away for a few days and I kinda need to get my stuff sorted out at the moment (also my friend's just flaked out on me at midnight and now I have to find somewhere else to stay.  " title="Angry" class="smiley" /> " title="Angry" class="smiley" /> )

[ccexplore]

IIRC, that's the same in DOS. The game seems to be more lenient on the last brick when it comes to building into walls, and ceilings as well I think. I'll have to check this.

It skips the ceiling check on the last brick.  And it may not occur to most people that way, but most of the time it's actually also the ceiling check that stops the builder building into walls (if you think about it, the ceiling indeed exists at the place where the build brick is inside the wall, just that you have more terrain right underneath that "ceiling" is all ).

There is a separate check that's better called "floor check", which isn't skipped on the last brick.  You can see the difference between the ceiling-check wall behavior vs. the floor check wall behavior as follows:  try building after digging down say 7 pixels, vs after digging down say 12 pixels.  Notice the difference in how many steps the game lets you build in the two cases.  In the former, you are not low enough to trigger a ceiling check, so only with the floor check is your building stopped.  In the latter you are more than low enough to trigger the ceiling check.

• I don't think direct drop exists but I don't know what level to test it on.

I'm 99% sure I have tested the Mac before for this and found that direct-drop doesn't work.  However, as I've messed around with too many versions I could easily have mixed things up, so please feel free to re-test.

DOS is strange, though; when facing right it allows you to hit the wall with the builder and then bash, but when facing left it will turn back straight away before you get the chance to bash.

It's more understandable when you note the other asymmetry with DOS builders:  when building to the left, the build brick is actually placed such that the rightmost pixel of the brick is one pixel right of where you are standing (ie. not graphically per se, but the exact pixel the lemming is at), unlike building to the right, where the leftmost pixel of the brick lines up perfectly with where the lemming is standing.  In other words, the build bricks are effectively shifted one pixel to the right when building left, instead of perfect symmetrical with how they are laid out when building right.

This asymmetry pretty much explains the build-wall-and-bash behavior asymmetry:  it's not so much that the lemming detects the wall differently, as that the build bricks themselves basically don't quite reach as far when building left than building right.  So the case where the build brick is one pixel into the wall when building right, the mirror case building left has the build brick only just touching the wall.

Another well known effect of this asymmetry is that you can't stretch builders as far going left vs going right.

Also, I don't think you can execute the Mayhem 29 backroute on the Mac due to a similar reason; the Mac builders are more symmetrical.

I'm pretty sure I've tested it before on the Mac and it works fine, if you're talking about the "build left from start" backroute.  Because of the water, the Mac version doesn't let you dig down the steel as far as you can in DOS.  However the more symmetrical builders in Mac allows you to stretch your builders farther than the DOS version, and the two pretty much cancel out each other, allowing the left route to be viable in each version.

[Clam]

I just picked up SMS Lemmings along with an emulator, and me and Adam went and found a whole bunch of glitches

- As well as water, lemmings can build on top of other things like fire and flamethrowers, however it takes two lemmings to build on fire - the first places one brick and then burns.
- Continuous traps (like fires and the spinning trap) can be disabled by building into them. Their animation freezes, and they act as solid terrain.
- Mining on steel makes the lemming move backward slightly. With enough miners, you can effectively walk backwards!
- Building over exits copies the bricks to other exits, just as building over entrances copies bricks to other entrances. Not only do these act as solid terrain on all entrances/exits, they are also indestructible like steel.
- Lemmings falling from a height onto water usually splat, but when the nuke is active they sometimes drown instead. I can't yet figure why some splat and some drown, so this needs further testing.
- One of the glitches Pooty mentioned on the old thread (freezing bashers by pausing) doesn't seem to work for me. No matter how often you pause, all lemmings, bashers or otherwise, seem to keep moving, albeit slowly. Again, needs more testing.

[finlay]

Another well known effect of this asymmetry is that you can't stretch builders as far going left vs going right.

Also, I don't think you can execute the Mayhem 29 backroute on the Mac due to a similar reason; the Mac builders are more symmetrical.

I'm pretty sure I've tested it before on the Mac and it works fine, if you're talking about the "build left from start" backroute.  Because of the water, the Mac version doesn't let you dig down the steel as far as you can in DOS.  However the more symmetrical builders in Mac allows you to stretch your builders farther than the DOS version, and the two pretty much cancel out each other, allowing the left route to be viable in each version.

Ohhh, I misunderstood – I thought that you could stretch builders further going left. To be fair, I've never actually seen the backroute done, so I wasn't quite aware that you had to dig down first (it wouldn't have occurred to me).

As for the reason why the asymmetry – the exact pixel that the lemming is standing on – I realised this when playing DOS Lemmings a month or two ago, because I was trying to be pixel perfect with something or other.

[LemSteven]

I'm not sure if this should be classified as a glitch, but the ceiling detection for builders only occurs at every other pixel.  The most obvious example of a level that this applies to that I can think of is Wild 12.  Once past the ice shooter, it only requires two builders and a basher to reach the exit, even though it looks like one of the builders will hit his head on an icicle.  Since the icicle is only one pixel wide, a properly-placed builder can keep going right past it.

[Clam]

It's certainly not what you'd expect to happen, given that the lemming will stop and turn back if you assign the builder one frame earlier or later. I think we can file that in the same category as miners crossing one-pixel gaps, i.e. a glitch.

On a related note, does anyone have pictures of the animation frames for skills, with the terrain/steel detection pixels highlighted? (i.e. in which frames of the animation do they check for terrain/steel, and in what locations relative to the lemming?) I'm sure it would be most enlightening.

[Clam]

This made me LOL. I just dug out my Windows Lemmings CD, and I had a look at the back cover:


(Mine actually has a different back cover, but the screenshots are the same.)

Check out the screenshot of Mayhem 1. That lemming is splatting after falling from the entrance - exactly what they don't do in this version because the splat distance is wrong!

But, this brings up a serious point: surely they must have had the splat distance right at some point during development. Otherwise, how did they get that screenshot?

[bombsite]

But, this brings up a serious point: surely they must have had the splat distance right at some point during development. Otherwise, how did they get that screenshot?

Maybe they took the screenshots from a different version?  Or maybe they thought instant death on a level must be a bug and 'fixed' it?!  From looking at those screenshots I've just realised you can move the icons around on this version - I've had this game for ages and never realised!

[Clam]

I just thought of a couple of things (in DOS Lemmings) that could be considered "glitches", even though we're fairly well used to them:

- inability to select skills or change release rate with the mouse when paused
- lemmings can survive a fall if they are assigned floaters just before they hit the ground

Bugs, or features?

[ccexplore]

I just thought of a couple of things (in DOS Lemmings) that could be considered "glitches", even though we're fairly well used to them:

- inability to select skills or change release rate with the mouse when paused
- lemmings can survive a fall if they are assigned floaters just before they hit the ground

Bugs, or features?

There is really a difference between something being a "glitch" in the sense that it is logically inconsistent or is unintuitive, versus being a "bug" in the sense of simply not intended by the original game designers.  (There are even cases of glitches being unintended abuse of intended features, such as the "crawling glitch/trick" in Lemmings 2.)

I think we can all agree that it is logically inconsistent to be unable to select skills or change release rates with mouse, but yet able to do so with keyboard, when game is paused.  So in that sense it's a glitch.  But the larger question of whether skill selection (and separately, release rate changes) are intended to be allowed during pause is much more debatable.

As for the floater, it would arguably make more sense that the floater "shouldn't count" until the umbrella has full opened and the lemming's speed actually reduced.  However, the fact is, the falling and splatting of lemmings would violate real-life physics in the first place:  since they fall at a strictly constant speed, by real-life physics the impact force at landing would've been the same no matter what the distance of falling is.  So it's reasonable in this case to ignore real-life considerations and accept the floater behavior as just another one of many ways lemmings physics are different from real-life physics (amongst other obvious examples like the ability to walk through 1-pixel tall openings or fall through the thinnest gap of 1-pixel width).  Also in practice, it would not have make too much of a difference either way, and so it could well be that in addition to slightly simpler logic and implementation, the game designers like the forgiveness that come with the current behavior.

[EricLang]

However, the fact is, the falling and splatting of lemmings would violate real-life physics in the first place:  since they fall at a strictly constant speed, by real-life physics the impact force at landing would've been the same no matter what the distance of falling is.  So it's reasonable in this case to ignore real-life considerations and accept the floater behavior as just another one of many ways lemmings physics are different from real-life physics

Do you have a master degree in physics? 
When the new lemmix engine is there you can make lemmings fall with the falling formula (I forgot it something like a = mv2).
It would be a nice idea to still let the lemming splat when his parachute did not yet fully open and his distance from the ground is to small.

[ccexplore]

When the new lemmix engine is there you can make lemmings fall with the falling formula (I forgot it something like a = mv2).

Of course, keep in mind that in real life, you also need a significant lead distance for effective parachute deployment, since earth's gravity typically imparts quite a bit of acceleration (unless it's an object like a feather that has significant air resistance and buoyancy to help counter the gravity, in which case you won't need a parachute in the first place).  In real life you can probably seriously hurt yourself jumping out of the 5th floor, and yet the fall happens so fast that a parachute probably won't help much unless you deploy it before you actually started falling.  That kind of behavior will probably make things unplayable in the game.

I think the simpler idea of splatting until parachute fully opens best captures the salient expected behaviors from real-life physics, without being too realistic that the game becomes unplayable. 

[finlay]

Interesting factoid: cats who fall out of high windows are most likely to die or be injured at around the 5th or 6th floor – high enough to hurt them on the fall and not high enough for them to spread their body area and deploy a sort of natural parachute. By around the 7th or 8th they don't get injured as much. I don't know if this generalises to extremely high floors, though. Also, I got it from QI, so it might be worth some more research.

[Clam]

Hey, lemmings jumping off cliffs didn't need any research, so why should cats?

There is really a difference between something being a "glitch" in the sense that it is logically inconsistent or is unintuitive, versus being a "bug" in the sense of simply not intended by the original game designers.

I'll admit that I don't know how you define a "glitch" versus a "bug". I guess part of the problem here is that the developers only show up once in a blue moon, so we don't get to know what was intended and what wasn't.

I think what we could do here is just include anything that might seem glitchy in the list, and let the readers decide for themselves whether something counts as a glitch or not (possibly with a tag like "YMMV" on the more debatable ones).

Also, I'd agree that letting lemmings survive even if their parachute doesn't open is the better way to go. It's a case of "Gameplay > Realism", which is true enough even for games based on real events (like Civilization), let alone games based on a completely bogus premise (refer to the top of this post) . The alternative can only cause more frustration and more restarts.

[ccexplore]

I think what we could do here is just include anything that might seem glitchy in the list, and let the readers decide for themselves whether something counts as a glitch or not (possibly with a tag like "YMMV" on the more debatable ones).

Seems fair.  It's clear that there are different degrees of glitchiness.  I think the biggest utility of this thread is simply to describe some of the most bizarre, unexpected behaviors, for fun and profit ("profit" being an increase understanding of how some of the challenge solutions are possible, for example).

As for what are intended allowed actions during pause, my limited experience with a few different ports (and possibly bad memory) suggest that most support some way to select a different skill while paused (but not actually assigning them to support a lemming), whereas far fewer ports support changing the release rate while paused.  That doesn't necessarily reflect the original intentions of the game designers but it's somewhat suggestive I guess.

I do definitely feel confident to say that the game designers probably don't envision fancy manipulation of release rates as a major game element.  While a very few number of levels do involve controlling the release rate as a major component of the solution, in most cases the RR was more a poor-man's fast forward.  And even the few exceptions are easily handled without the need to change RR while paused.  Lemmings 2 further reflect this by getting rid of the ability to change RR altogether.

[Adam]

Another Sega Master System glitch to add to the list - changing the release rate can sometimes do absolutely nothing at all - like in this video.

[Clam]

Watching Lemmings videos on Youtube reminds me that there are some little graphical glitches in the DOS version that don't carry over to Lemmix. The one I saw just now is that, sometimes after a bomber explosion, the bottom row of removed pixels flickers for a moment before going away completely. The flashing pixels don't act as terrain, it's purely a graphical glitch.

I've seen this plenty of times before, but using Lemmix instead of DOS for so long made me forget all about it. I've caught some other such glitches already (eg. the glitched digger sprite), but it's very possible that there are more.

[ccexplore]

Finally downloaded and started playing SMS lemmings.  Here's a glitch (attached as zipped AVI file) I found that may be related to other glitches people know about, although I can't quite tell whether it's purely graphical or not (ie. is the lemming actually exploding at a location below ground level, or merely that it's rendered like so?).  I think I've also seen a case where I briefly see it started to splat but then transitioned to oh-no.

Also, not a glitch per se, but it seems to me like the max safe-fall distance can change from level to level? Maybe my eyes are fooling me, but comparing Fun 1 after you dig through and the remaining lemmings fall from upper land to lower land directly without any intervening pit bottom, that perfectly safe fall seems longer than the fatal one in Fun 2?

[Pooty]

The lemming is definitely exploding at a lower place than normal, triggered by letting a lemming fall a distance that would cause it to splat. The act of an exploding lemming overwrites a lot of actions. If a lemming begins to enter the home and during the animation the fuse time expires, the animation will reset because the exploding animation will kick in, then the game will detect that the lemming has reached the exit, so plays the animation again.

The variable lemming fall distance is a feature. On each map, you can set this maximum fall distance. The default value is 56 pixels. The sturdiest lemmings are the ones in "Just Dig", who can fall a distance of 72 pixels before splatting (in fact, this is the only level where the fall distance is above the default value). The most fragile lemmings, on the other hand, are in the following level "Only Floaters Can Survive This", where a fall of just 32 pixels will kill them.

[ccexplore]

here's another SMS weirdness I encountered.

The attached screenshot doesn't show it well, but basically, despite the fact that the starting build brick of the bridge in the dig pit isn't actually touching the pit bottom (at least visually anyway), the lemmings will nevertheless be able to walk up onto it.

And as for how I managed to get the digger to start building apparently above ground level, (and also why the pit bottom isn't perfectly flat), I think it has something to do with my use of pausing.

[Pooty]

Whoa! Here's one that startled me. In my everlong quest to get 100% in Fun 11, something odd happened when I used Dega's auto-fire pause button feature. The basher began to bash through the one way wall from the right-hand side, then all of a sudden, he slid right through it! I imagine it involves rapid pausing and unpausing during the frames that shift the lemming forward, but other than that, I have no idea what's going on here.

[Edit] But whatever's going on... I like it! It's enough to rescue 100% on this level!

[Edit 2] And now I have a video of the glitch.

Fun 11 - 100% Solution (SMS Lemmings)

[ccexplore]

Wow, kinda like a horizontal version of the sliding glitch.  Awesome!

Unfortunately I'm not using Dega at the moment for emulator, will need to either replace my emulator or find the equivalent feature there.

It would be great to find out how powerful this glitch could be, for example, I wonder if it's possible to get the lemming to continue sliding even while there's no ground for him to stand on?

[Pooty]

It's quite hard to test this glitch out because it's difficult to pull off and maintain. From what I can tell, he'll stop sliding if he's no longer on ground. He might also stop sliding if he runs out of bashable wall, but again, that might be me running out of luck.

Oh yeah, and the pause-unpause rate has to be greater than once per frame.

[Edit] If the game is paused as the game reads the address $36F9, you'll stall the basher. If the basher's frame count && $07 is equal to 5, the basher will slide, provided that the game is unpaused by the time it gets to $3F3B (I think). The pause variable is stored at $DACF.

[Pooty]

Okay, I've set up a hack that allows you to perform this glitch by simply holding the 1 button down while a lemming is bashing. Using a hex editor, go to $3700 and replace the bytes (which should currently read DD 7E 07) with:

Code: [Select]

C3 1C 77
Now go to $771C, and paste the following bytes there:

Code: [Select]

3A D0 DB A7 CA 2D 77 DD 7E 07 E6 07 FE 05 CA C1 37 DD 7E 07 C3 03 37
Now that it's a lot easier to perform this glitch, I've found that you can't do this if you're too close to metal blocks or one-way walls (if you're facing the wrong way), and the slide will continue until the lemming runs out of terrain. In fact, the lemming quite frequently gets stuck at the end of it.

[ccexplore]

Now that it's a lot easier to perform this glitch, I've found that you can't do this if you're too close to metal blocks or one-way walls (if you're facing the wrong way), and the slide will continue until the lemming runs out of terrain. In fact, the lemming quite frequently gets stuck at the end of it.

That makes some sense, even from the video, it clearly looks like the lemming is stuck in that phase of basher that moves him forward, while skipping over other phases that does the actual bashing, collision checks, etc.  The only thing slightly confusing to me is that you said it doesn't work if you are too close to unbashable obstacles, yet in your video, it looks rather like you start off right next to the OWW facing the wrong way?  I guess the obstacle checking works a little differently on the SMS version.

Any chance you can find out if similar feat can be performed with the other skills (eg. mining, digging, building)?

[Clam]

Wow, Pooty, nothing stops you from getting 100% - not even undiscovered glitches! Now that's what I call determination

[Clam]

I finally got around to testing something that was brought up a while ago:

Using a hex editor or Lemmix, you can set release rates above 99, up to 250. RR100 releases one lemming per 131 frames (effectively RR-156), and 250 releases one every 56 frames (effectively RR-6). When starting with a 100+ rate, you can turn the release rate DOWN towards 99. The rate displays as 99, so it is difficult to tell exactly what the current rate is. RR99 behaves as normal. A release rate of 0 is also possible - this acts the same as RR1, and displays as blank.

I'm pretty sure it's actually 255 not 250.  Also it's possible to make RR 0 (displayed in the game as blank I think, rather than 0), although that's equivalent to RR 1 and therefore not that interesting.

What I've found through testing in DOS (using nocdlem):

- The maximum release rate is indeed 255, and not 250. Lemmix won't open or save a level with RR over 250, but you can bypass this by inserting a hex-edited level file into a levelpack.
- RR255 is equivalent to -1, as expected (the values just "wrap around" into negatives)
- For rates over 100, it displays junk characters (in some cases blank) in place of the first two digits.
- The release rate can never be decreased from the initial value, despite what Lemmix suggests. (There goes that level idea ) It can be increased through the remaining "junk" values, then through 0 and into "normal" RRs, up to 99.
- RR0 displays as blank, as in Lemmix.
- If the initial RR is 255, the two RR values (initial RR and current RR) blink. Increasing the RR will stop the current value from blinking, but not the initial value.

[Pooty]

That makes some sense, even from the video, it clearly looks like the lemming is stuck in that phase of basher that moves him forward, while skipping over other phases that does the actual bashing, collision checks, etc.  The only thing slightly confusing to me is that you said it doesn't work if you are too close to unbashable obstacles, yet in your video, it looks rather like you start off right next to the OWW facing the wrong way?  I guess the obstacle checking works a little differently on the SMS version.

Any chance you can find out if similar feat can be performed with the other skills (eg. mining, digging, building)?

If you're too close to the metal block or one-way wall, it won't work. The lemming needs to stand at least half the crosshair's width away in order to be able to slide through it. Too far away, and there will be no wall for the glitch to kick in with.

As far as I can tell, pausing stalls the builder, while miners and diggers leave behind terrain.

[Clam]

I'm finally having a proper read-through of the thread, and gradually updating the OP.

I'd say the behaviour finlay mentioned (climbers turning around at blockers) is intended behaviour, or at least semi-intended, in the same vein as turning builders or miners. Flipping through a wall is definitely a glitch though

Now you mention that, I vaguely recall being able to flip a basher through a wall without breaking it.

Sure enough, it works. The attached screenshot shows a basher flipping through a wall without breaking it.

[Clam]

Finally downloaded and started playing SMS lemmings.  Here's a glitch (attached as zipped AVI file) I found [...]

I downloaded the video, but it won't play because it needs a codec. Where does one get this codec from?

[Pooty]

There's a video codec that you can install when you download Kega Fusion. That's the one you need.

[ccexplore]

Whoops, sorry, didn't realize the AVI require the codec.  I'll remember to do a conversion next time.

To be fair, the video is not really that impressive, but I've attached the codec if you want to see it.  Unzip, right click on the file named "KegaGameVideo", and select "install".  (OK the "unknown publisher" security warning popup.)

[Clam]

Oh, it's the one that comes with Kega Fusion. I tried to install that and I got a pretty nasty-looking warning about "Windows Logo testing" . Do I need to worry about that, or is it just Windows being paranoid?

[ccexplore]

You can ignore that as well, it's safe.  If you feel paranoid just put it through a virus scanner (mine certainly didn't find anything).

[Clam]

OK, got it working now, thanks. Like you say, it's not overly impressive. But, it's a definite glitch, which is what matters.

Now to continue catching up...

Another Sega Master System glitch to add to the list - changing the release rate can sometimes do absolutely nothing at all - like in this video.

I can't reproduce this. Can you please provide more details?

despite the fact that the starting build brick of the bridge in the dig pit isn't actually touching the pit bottom (at least visually anyway), the lemmings will nevertheless be able to walk up onto it.

While testing this, I noticed something else (which I'd guess experienced SMS players know about already): when you dig at a peak in the terrain, the lemming may take out a tiny bit of ground and then stop. Attached is a screenshot of Tricky 1 - compare that to the level screenshot here.

edit: And another thing: sometimes the lemmings appear to bob up and down at random. This seems to happen more often when there are many lemmings on the screen at once.

[Pooty]

The lemming seems to only detect the far left pixel that he's digging through. This is most easily noticeable when you're playing on SEGA Four (Taxing 21 or Mayhem 18) at the beginning.

The lemmings bobbing up and down is an artefact of the game copying the lemming sprites into the background. It normally uses sprites to draw lemmings, but the Master System can only draw eight sprites per scanline (including the cursor). Eash surplus lemming then gets drawn into the background, and for some reason, one pixel lower.

That method differs from the NES version, which performs a sprite rotation so that different lemmings get drawn per frame (this produces a flickering effect). This also differs from the Mega Drive / Genesis version, which doesn't use sprites at all. That game draws its lemmings into a different background layer.

[Clam]

Thanks Pooty, it's always good to know why glitch behaviour happens. Also interesting to see how things are handled differently on different systems, with their technical limitations. It just goes to show how much work the developers did in creating so many ports of the game

[Clam]

Here's another one I thought of while making the tricks thread: Climbers ignore overhangs in the first few pixels of a climb, so in some cases they can pass through solid platforms. For example, on Havoc 18, you can climb the first thin wall with the platform extending out of it, by placing a build brick at its base first.

[DoubleU]

I disagree with some of these glitches, the only one I can think of right now being the interrupted basher making an upward ramp - after all, if it was a glitch, how did it get there?  Did the programmers make a mistake?  It can be useful, if only very rarely.

Oh, and Clam, may I make a friendly suggestion and not double-post?  (And anyone else for that matter; Clam's just the only one I saw do it.)  Not that it matters, but it, uh, takes up more pages and thus more room when you do?  At least I think so.  I've been wrong before, I'll admit.

[finlay]

I disagree with some of these glitches, the only one I can think of right now being the interrupted basher making an upward ramp - after all, if it was a glitch, how did it get there?  Did the programmers make a mistake?  It can be useful, if only very rarely.

Oh, and Clam, may I make a friendly suggestion and not double-post?  (And anyone else for that matter; Clam's just the only one I saw do it.)  Not that it matters, but it, uh, takes up more pages and thus more room when you do?  At least I think so.  I've been wrong before, I'll admit.

This forum gets so little traffic that it really doesn't matter. And it tends to only be a problem if it's excessive – bumping a post after two months of inactivity isn't really excessive. Also, tends to be the oldbies that tell the newbies off for it if there is actually a rule against it. Just sayin'.

[ccexplore]

I disagree with some of these glitches, the only one I can think of right now being the interrupted basher making an upward ramp - after all, if it was a glitch, how did it get there?  Did the programmers make a mistake?  It can be useful, if only very rarely.

It looks like the list on the OP includes both glitches as well as what we tend to now consider "non-glitch tricks".  Interrupted basher I definitely do not consider a glitch, as it is clearly the result of the bashing taking multiple frames of animation to complete.  The only alternative is for the bash stroke to take out terrain in a single go like a bomber.  There are also no precedent in the game for not allowing you to assign skills while it is in the middle of doing something; it may bar you from assigning skills when the lemming is doing some particular action, period, but not specifically around the particular timings of the action in progress.

Oh, and Clam, may I make a friendly suggestion and not double-post?

I don't really consider it a double-post when it's almost 2 months apart.  The forum system doesn't show edits under list of recent posts, so without posting no one would know that salient new information has been added to a thread that hasn't been last posted on months ago.

[Clam]

I disagree with some of these glitches, the only one I can think of right now being the interrupted basher making an upward ramp - after all, if it was a glitch, how did it get there?  Did the programmers make a mistake?  It can be useful, if only very rarely.

As ccx mentioned, this list was made before I had the idea for the non-glitch tricks topic. I haven't yet reviewed the list to see which ones would be better left to the other topic (and I kinda made a lazy cop-out by saying 'there may be some overlap' between the two ). I'll get around to fixing this at some point.

Oh, and Clam, may I make a friendly suggestion and not double-post?  (And anyone else for that matter; Clam's just the only one I saw do it.)

And in this very topic, somebody else tripleposted... The fact is, it doesn't matter, as long as the posts contain useful content and aren't spammy.

[namida]

Not every forum has a rule against double-posting, you know...

[DoubleU]

Oh.  Well, thanks for your help, everyone.

[mobius]

idk if this could be considered a glitch but in the windows version of original Lemmings, the speed up button is WAY too fast. In other words it speeds up the level to a point where its impractical  to use.

[Clam]

I'd say that's more of a usability fail than a glitch per se. But that reminds me, I wanted to do some glitch-hunting on the Windows version, but I'm not in the mood to play through all the levels again to unlock them. How does that version track your progress? Is there a cheat code or savefile I could use to unlock the levels?

[mobius]

actually you can "cheat" any level by going to File (or some menu option) and select "chest this levle" and u can skip to then next. Also it can display all of the levels in a tree folder system making it very easy to look at any level u want. But you have to beat or cheat all the levels to see them.

[Clam]

Yes, that works, thanks very much.

[finlay]

idk if this could be considered a glitch but in the windows version of original Lemmings, the speed up button is WAY too fast. In other words it speeds up the level to a point where its impractical  to use.

Fast forward isn't intended to be useable, though – it's just supposed to mitigate waiting time after you've cleared a path to the exit but your lemmings still have to walk there. And I haven't seen a decent ff function since the Mac version, where you activate it by holding down shift (and caps lock too in ONML, although then you have to remember to turn it off before starting the next level) – having it as a function that toggles when you hold down something is better IMO than having it as a function that goes on when you press a button, and comes off when you press the button again. (the Mac's ff function also had fun bits because it worked by skipping i think 3 of every 4 frames, and at certain release rates including 88, on Fun 8 for example, you can make the lemmings walk "backwards" by holding shift)

[ccexplore]

That's neat, I didn't even realize fast forward exists on the Mac version.

[finlay]

I can't remember how I learnt it although it must have been early on. I saw an addendum note along with the version of Holiday Lemmings that I downloaded noting its late addition to the game – hence it may not have been in the manual. There was a lot of trial and error involved, I think, because there are quite a few hidden hotkeys: ` and P both pause, Z/X and the left/right keys select the next skill in line, and the up/down arrows control the release rate. Handily, on British Mac keyboards the shift, `, Z and X keys are all in a line. It definitely took me a while to find out about P, because I remember my dad hacking the application to create a menu shortcut command+P (disclaimer: this used to be piss-easy on OS <9, and on OS X it's actually even easier because you don't have to do any hacking), because we hadn't had the forethought to try just pressing P. We actually only found out later when we realised it was sometimes pausing when we hadn't pressed the command key anyway.

Anyway, downshot of the whole thing is that I am very impatient with versions of Lemmings where you can't fast forward at all and can't quite understand how you can possibly actually wait for the lemmings to walk across at their slow speed on levels like Crazy 4 or Taxing 14. I get trigger-happy with Lemmix's 10 second jump, for instance, because the FF function doesn't work very well for me on Wine (it works by literally speeding up the processes to the maximum rather than frame-skipping like the Mac version, but doesn't work at all if the game is lagging, which it does when there's 80 lemmings out).

[ccexplore]

idk if this could be considered a glitch but in the windows version of original Lemmings, the speed up button is WAY too fast. In other words it speeds up the level to a point where its impractical  to use.

Fast forward isn't intended to be useable, though – it's just supposed to mitigate waiting time after you've cleared a path to the exit but your lemmings still have to walk there.

I'll have to see if I can dig up Windows Lemmings on my machine again, but I do distinctly remember (way back when I played around with it briefly) the WinLemm FF being quite freakish.  I think specifically for WinLemm, it may be a case where back when the game was released, machines were slow enough that the FF wasn't quite as exaggerated.

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

because the FF function doesn't work very well for me on Wine (it works by literally speeding up the processes to the maximum rather than frame-skipping like the Mac version, but doesn't work at all if the game is lagging, which it does when there's 80 lemmings out).

I have an opposite problem with Lemmix's FF, it goes too fast for me sometimes on my Win7 machine to be useful, inevitably going past where I need.  Lemmix should've implemented it as frame-skipping with some constant factor instead, to minimize both lag issues as well as the speed being too variable on different machines.  Oh well, good thing there are things like the 10-second skip.

[mobius]

idk if this could be considered a glitch but in the windows version of original Lemmings, the speed up button is WAY too fast. In other words it speeds up the level to a point where its impractical  to use.

Fast forward isn't intended to be useable, though – it's just supposed to mitigate waiting time after you've cleared a path to the exit but your lemmings still have to walk there.

I'll have to see if I can dig up Windows Lemmings on my machine again, but I do distinctly remember (way back when I played around with it briefly) the WinLemm FF being quite freakish.  I think specifically for WinLemm, it may be a case where back when the game was released, machines were slow enough that the FF wasn't quite as exaggerated.

that makes sense! newer computers are working faster so it makes ff faster. (well makes sense in computer logic).
Seriously, if u press the fast forward button on WinLemmings there's a flash and the levels over. The screen that says you saved no lemmings comes up because the time ran out. First time I tried to use it I was like... I had 10 minutes left!
I use fast-foward on Lemmix often to speed up a long digging operation or something like that, works fine

[finlay]

Oh, right, I get what you mean now. I thought you meant that you couldn't click on a lemming while it was speeding along, which you're not really meant to be able to, not that they went so fast that you can't even see them...

[Clam]

I'll have to see if I can dig up Windows Lemmings on my machine again, but I do distinctly remember (way back when I played around with it briefly) the WinLemm FF being quite freakish.  I think specifically for WinLemm, it may be a case where back when the game was released, machines were slow enough that the FF wasn't quite as exaggerated.

that makes sense! newer computers are working faster so it makes ff faster. (well makes sense in computer logic).

As further evidence to this theory, I tried this on two different machines and found a considerable difference in the time taken to fast-forward through a level. On a 5-minute stage, it took 5 seconds on the slower machine, and just 1 second on the faster machine . Maybe for optimal play it's a good idea to have some bulky programs running in the background

---

Now back to glitches . I've found a few in WinLemm that aren't present in the DOS version:

• Bombers during ohno act as blockers, regardless of whether they were blockers beforehand. This potentially means you can save blockers by using bombers instead (though I haven't checked to see if any of the official levels let you take advantage of this). It also means they behave in the same way as blockers for the purpose of other glitches (see below).
• The walker and faller graphics appear one pixel further to the left than in DOS, while most (all?) other sprites appear in the correct places. This looks quite strange at times, for example when lemmings turn at walls.
• Lemmings can sometimes pass through multiple blockers placed close together. This game seems to let you place blockers closer together than in DOS (for example you can sometimes assign a blocker in a crowd stuck between two blockers), so blocker triggers can overlap, and this behaviour may be a direct result of that.
• When digging through terrain and into steel, the digger goes one pixel too far and takes out a row of steel. Curiously, mining into steel doesn't destroy it, even when it would in DOS (eg. when building one step and mining to turn around). (edit: this last part turns out to be false)
  
  
  Testing so far on whether DOS glitches work in WinLemm (I plan to go through the whole list eventually):
  
• Climber comes away from the wall when falling - works (1 pixel either way, as in DOS)
  
• Climber ignores overhang at the top of wall - works, and as with DOS it's sensitive to the exact height of the wall. For example, on the first brick obstacle on Tame 1, a climber will ignore a build brick placed on the edge, but if you dig down one pixel and then build the climber will fall down instead. The opposite glitch (falling down when climbing into a 1-pixel hole) doesn't seem to work, though I'm not sure if I tested it right.
  
• Blocker steel-cancelling looks as though it works just as in DOS (not all cases tested yet) - and here it works with bombers too, resulting in very destructive nukes
  
• Bashing through top of steel works
  
• Direct drop works
  
• Cursor-digging doesn't work
  
• Inert trigger area cancelling steel (Mayhem 12) works (but no direct route since cursor-digging fails). I tested this by going the normal route, and then building over the exit and bashing into the wall.

[Clam]

I've had a productive day's glitch-hunting in WinLemm . Here are a couple more that aren't in DOS:

• You can assign the bomber skill to an ohnoer (labeled in-game as a 'flapper' ), thus wasting the skill.
• Bomber particles change colour randomly when you pause and scroll across.

I've also investigated the level boundaries. These behave quite differently to the DOS version:

• The map extends further to the left and right than in DOS - this is noticeable on levels like 'Rendezvous at the mountain' and 'NO PROBLEM'.
• As mentioned already in this topic, lemmings can walk over terrain at the top of the map, which opens up some nasty backroutes
• If you assign a builder within 11 pixels of the top of the visible area, it builds up to a height of one pixel above the top of the level, and then dies (spooky! D:). Other lemmings can still walk up this bridge and off the end.
• The left edge doesn't turn back lemmings like in DOS, instead they just fall off.
• Lemmings positioned beyond the right edge of the map turn around on every frame. The terrain gets cut off there, so to see this in action with anything besides fallers, you have to build across the boundary. Once the builder enters the glitched turning-around state, you can assign another skill and see what happens
• Attempting to place a build brick completely off the left or right map boundaries causes the game to crash.

And finally for now, continuing with the DOS glitches list to see which ones work in WinLemm:

• Climber-shrugger glitch doesn't work, unsurprisingly since it was fixed in DOS ONML already.
  
• Climber transitions to hoister then walker when terrain removed - doesn't work, the climber transitions straight to faller instead.
  
• Climber stuck in terrain ascends slowly - doesn't work, the lemming climbs and falls repeatedly but stays at the same height.
  
• Blocker flips climber to other side of a 1-pixel-wide wall - works!
  
  
• Floaters and ohnoers enter exit without terrain under trigger - works, and even better, direct-drop sans terrain works for regular fallers too!
  
  
• Bomber destroys steel if not positioned on steel - works, as well as the opposite (removes no terrain if positioned on steel)
  
• Bomber shifts upwards on explosion - doesn't work, not totally conclusive since you can't highlight the exploded lemming with the cursor, but its position on the minimap doesn't change.
  
  
• Blockers push lemmings into walls - works (also works with bombers' blocking areas)
  
  
• Builders are asymmetric, but the extent is completely different. The positioning of the build brick relative to the lemming's position is 2 pixels to the left of what it is in DOS. This means that left-facing bridges can be stretched by 4 pixels (leaving a diagonal-pixel gap between bridges - note that lemmings can cross these in this version!), and right-facing bridges by only 1 pixel. This difference would make the Holiday level 'The Search for Lem' unsolvable if these levels were included! Another consequence is that lemmings can build considerably further into walls when facing left.
• Giant leap - doesn't work . As with Lemmings 2, there is no jumper/ascender, lemmings take just one frame of time to go up a step.
  
• Building through one-pixel-wide overhangs - works.
  
• Builder skips ceiling-check on last pixel - works. As with DOS, the floor check still triggers on the last step.
  
• Forcing builders into ceilings - works. Building when stuck in terrain raises the lemming by one pixel as in DOS.
  
• Builders get stuck at top of map - doesn't work, see 'level boundaries' above.
  
• Blockers force builders through one-pixel-wide wall - works!

[finlay]

I think the PS1 version was sort of based on the Windows version, although I'd have to check that. It shares the high-res graphics and level list (for the most part – it doesn't contain the special levels, one iteration of We all fall down, Tricky 21, Tame 17-20, and Wicked 2). Anyway, you can certainly have lemmings walk over the top of a level, which I find very annoying (Mayhem 23 is suddenly a lot harder!). They also disappear and reappear when their feet are within a few pixels of the top, and there's a glitch in the builder skill when you reach a few pixels from the top – any step placed will just disappear and the lemming will immediately become a walker. This is noticeable in Taxing 5, and someone made a video on youtube complaining about it. You essentially have to stretch the bridge in order to cross from the top of the metal to the bars at the top, although this is actually slightly more difficult than it is on any PC version.

Another glitch is that a builder will always turn around at a wall before you have the chance to bash through it, and you have to time your bridges so that he places the last step to connect with the wall and transitions to a shrugger, which stops him from turning round straight away.

What levels would I go to to test these glitches, by the way? Particularly the sliding glitch and direct drop. I would also quite like to confirm whether they work on the Mac.

[Clam]

I think the PS1 version was sort of based on the Windows version, although I'd have to check that. It shares the high-res graphics and level list (for the most part – it doesn't contain the special levels, one iteration of We all fall down, Tricky 21, Tame 17-20, and Wicked 2).

I just checked through the level list in WinLemm, and it matches this exactly (specifically, the Fun version of WAFD is missing).

What levels would I go to to test these glitches, by the way? Particularly the sliding glitch and direct drop. I would also quite like to confirm whether they work on the Mac.

For the sliding glitch I used Tricky 28 ('Lost something?'), which has a root directly below the exit that's perfectly shaped for the sliding setup. Direct Drop I tested on Fun 10 ('Smile if you love lemmings'). For most other glitches you can take a Fun/Tame level and use the abundant skills to create the required setup.

[ccexplore]

What levels would I go to to test these glitches, by the way? Particularly the sliding glitch and direct drop. I would also quite like to confirm whether they work on the Mac.

I tested both already a while ago, sliding glitch works, direct drop doesn't.  For sliding glitch I just picked some Fun/Tame level with straight vertical wall, used an interrupted basher to create a dent only 1 pixel thick height-wise, RR 89, and have a lemming build after jumping up to the dent, causing the following lemming to slide.  Clam's Tricky 28 suggestion is probably good too, assuming it's not affected by the hi-res graphics.

[Clam]

• When digging through terrain and into steel, the digger goes one pixel too far and takes out a row of steel. Curiously, mining into steel doesn't destroy it, even when it would in DOS (eg. when building one step and mining to turn around).

Correction: the miner does take out a pixel of terrain, but it has to start an even pixel height above the steel (rather than odd, as in DOS). This is because, strangely, the miner only goes down by one pixel on the first swing.



More DOS-glitch testing in WinLemm:

• Bashers/miners/diggers take out incidental steel along with terrain - works.
  
• Bashers check for terrain only on odd strokes - works.
  
• Bashing along top of level to bypass steel - works, and without the random stopping issues experienced in DOS. The downside, of course, is that you don't need it in most cases since lemmings can just walk over the level - but, you do still need this on Mayhem 28 because the lemming is unselectable while it is off the screen.
  
• Blocker flips basher through wall without breaking it - works.
  
• Basher falls through terrain without breaking it (Tricky 5/Taxing 8) - doesn't work. Unlike in DOS, the basher doesn't 'slide' downwards if it is standing on downward-sloping terrain, which is essential to making this glitch work. Instead the basher moves straight across until there is too much empty space below it, and then falls. On the plus side, you can use this difference in mechanics to make a basher continue bashing as it floats a couple of pixels off the ground .
  
  
• Miners don't check for steel above them after first assignment - even better, they don't even check for steel above or in front of them on the first assignment, so you can take a big chunk out of it from below.
  
• Miner positioning glitch - works, but because the miner positions itself one pixel too high after the first stroke, you can't activate this glitch immediately on assigning the miner skill.
  
• Miner quits at right one-way wall - doesn't work, or rather, works as it should
  
• Miner crosses one-pixel gap - works.
  
  
• Diggers can enter exit without terrain under trigger - not applicable. The digger doesn't 'cling' to terrain beside it like it does in DOS, so you can't dig to where the trigger is unless there is terrain over the trigger to begin with. Given that direct drop works without terrain in this version, this isn't so important anyway
  
• Glitch-sprite when pausing at digger assignment - pretty sure it doesn't work, hard to be certain though since it is a random occurrence in DOS.
  
  
• Triggers cancel steel areas - works, for instance I'm able to bash through the steel on Crazy 10 where the water/vine stuff goes through it.

[Clam]

I just found out it's possible to assign skills during pause in Lemmings for Windows. It only allows one skill assignment per pause, but that's still much better than nothing .

On with the list:

• Basher/miner backstrokes remove steel - yes (sort of) and no, respectively. Bashers can only remove one column of steel, and subsequent bashers can't remove any more. For reference, the largest possible backstrokes in regular terrain are 2 columns for bashers, 1 column for miners at a left wall, and nothing for miners at a right wall.
  
  
• Object with no effect still have trigger areas, which cancel steel - yes, as seen already on Mayhem 12, but I also confirmed it with the left entrance on Taxing 4. You can dig when above the upper-left corner of the entrance, where the trigger is, but you can't dig from a position further to the left.
  
• Marble tileset water/acid trigger is too high, lemmings appear to drown above it - yes, no change there.
  
• One-way wall triggers are too high - yes, you can still bomb and bash under the wall on Fun 11 / Taxing 18 for example.
  
• One-way wall on Wild 12 does nothing - nope, it works in this version!
  
• Brick one-way wall trigger is twice as wide as the object itself - yes, eg. on Wicked 1 you can't bash to the right after the one-way wall.
  
  
• Nuke glitch - doesn't work. Oh well.
  
• Pausing for time - doesn't work. I did notice though that pausing immediately on starting a level prevents the "Let's Go!" sound effect.
  
• Can't click skills/RR during pause - nope, this version lets you select these items during pause .
  
• Terrain off the left of the level appears on the far right in the level preview screen - nope, the preview screens are different in this version and don't seem to have this issue. Example level: Taxing 24.
  
  
• Right-click bug - not applicable, this version lacks the ability to right-click to select a non-worker, as far as I can tell.
  
• Lemming mouseover info remains on level restart - nope. However, if you pause immediately on restarting, the timer doesn't reset until you unpause.
  
  ---
  While testing basher backstrokes, I stumbled across another steel glitch:
  
• If you bash towards steel from the right distance, the lemming digs away an interrupted-basher ramp in the steel.

---

That leaves a couple of glitches that I don't know how to go about testing:
- Release rates outside the 1-99 range - I don't know where to go to edit the level stats, or even if it's possible to do so.
- Drowners being swept through terrain, which I never understood, despite building a custom level around it . Drowning does appear to work in much the same way as in DOS though (the lemming floats across unless it is next to a wall), so it's plausible that it could still work.

[finlay]

I can't remember how I learnt it although it must have been early on. I saw an addendum note along with the version of Holiday Lemmings that I downloaded noting its late addition to the game – hence it may not have been in the manual. There was a lot of trial and error involved, I think, because there are quite a few hidden hotkeys: ` and P both pause, Z/X and the left/right keys select the next skill in line, and the up/down arrows control the release rate. Handily, on British Mac keyboards the shift, `, Z and X keys are all in a line.

Just remembered the other one: the Mac version uses option (alt) instead of right-click to select a non-worker, mainly because Apple was and is still too stubborn to produce two-buttoned mice and trackpads. (I use a logitech mouse...)

It's just, if Simon is reading this, I'd like to suggest using a hotkey for non-worker selection in Lix rather than the right mouse button, or have a choice. It's just I occasionally have problems with it... not least that I literally cannot press both without my external mouse, because my trackpad has only one bloody button. (you have to place two fingers on the trackpad and then press the button in order to get a right-click)

[Clam]

Thanks to a tip from geoo that WinLemm uses the same file format (.LVL) as Lemmix, I'm able to test 'out-of-bounds' release rates and find out the following:

RR100 = 1 spawn per 4 frames (same as RR98-99)
RR101-102 = 1 spawn per 3 frames
RR103-104 = 1 spawn per 2 frames
RR105 or higher (anything up to 65535 = 2¹⁶ - 1, the highest the file format will allow) = 1 spawn per frame

For rates over 99, only the first two digits show, eg. RR105 displays as '10'.


Now to test the boundaries of the other level stats :

• Winlemm can handle up to 116 lemmings, the game crashes when attempting to spawn the 117th lemming.
• The game can handle any time limit you can input, up to 65535 minutes (that equates to a month and a half!)
• The game can handle any input for number and percentage to be saved. If you set more than 100% required, and save 100%, the game gives you the congratulatory message for saving every lemming, but doesn't let you advance to the next level.
• Skill counts can be set up to 65535, again the first 2 digits show.

---

Also, I found the following completely unrelated glitch:

• You can use terrain-destruction abilities to remove parts of the entrance graphic.

[Simon]

It's just, if Simon is reading this, I'd like to suggest using a hotkey for non-worker selection in Lix rather than the right mouse button, or have a choice.

Yep, took note of it. You want a mappable key that must be held during the assignment, and which does nothing when pressed on its own, i.e. without a simultaneous left click? I might actually make such a key do whatever the right mouse button does, such as scrolling if the user has enabled that.

The game can handle any time limit you can input, up to 65535 minutes (that equates to a month and a half!)

Edit:

<Clam_Spammer> SimonN: what's with the spinning guinea pigs?
<SimonN> absolute joy about the long long time limit

-- Simon

[ccexplore]

the spinning guinea pigs are too entertaining, I made it my avatar now.   at least until it becomes annoying.

[finlay]

Now to test the boundaries of the other level stats :

• Winlemm can handle up to 116 lemmings, the game crashes when attempting to spawn the 117th lemming.
• The game can handle any time limit you can input, up to 65535 minutes (that equates to a month and a half!)
• The game can handle any input for number and percentage to be saved. If you set more than 100% required, and save 100%, the game gives you the congratulatory message for saving every lemming, but doesn't let you advance to the next level.
• Skill counts can be set up to 65535, again the first 2 digits show.

Hmm. On the Mac (years ago when I was messing around with it), I never tested out-of-bounds release rates, but I'm fairly sure it couldn't handle double-digit time-limits. I mean I'm sure I must have tried that. I'm fairly sure I never tried setting skills above 99, though. It allows a save percentage of 200% (I have a screenshot somewhere that I made for my amusement). It doesn't crash immediately if you make a level with >80 lemmings, but will start to glitch out in weird ways upon showing the splash screen for the next level.

[mobius]

(on Winlem) sometimes when I click on a lemming to assign it a skill nothing happens. It's not often but (Murphy's law) it's usually at a crucial moment. anyone else experienced this?

also this may be cause I'm using Windows 7 but the game crashes for me sometimes for no reason at all. But usually the longer I have the game running the more likely it crashes. Also I think opening and closing levels quickly can make it crash.

I play the version of Winlem that comes with Paintball, are there other versions? are there any differences?

• One-way wall triggers are too high - yes, you can still bomb and bash under the wall on Fun 11 / Taxing 18 for example.
  

how do you bash under the wall in Fun 11? (considering there's steel underneath)
EDIT- nevermind just figured it out! using a builder and bomber. wow, never thought of that.

[Proxima]

Hmm. On the Mac (years ago when I was messing around with it), I never tested out-of-bounds release rates, but I'm fairly sure it couldn't handle double-digit time-limits. I mean I'm sure I must have tried that. I'm fairly sure I never tried setting skills above 99, though. It allows a save percentage of 200% (I have a screenshot somewhere that I made for my amusement). It doesn't crash immediately if you make a level with >80 lemmings, but will start to glitch out in weird ways upon showing the splash screen for the next level.

The Mac will crash when the 121st lemming enters a level. (If you have over 100 lemmings and require only 1 to be saved, this displays as 0% required, but you still don't pass the level if you save 0 lemmings!) The splash screen glitch isn't to do with the number of lemmings; on my edited levels, if you play around 20 levels in one go it starts glitching. (First the congratulations messages disappear, though you still move on to the next level as normal; then the data in the splash screen gets replaced by odd symbols.) I think this glitching happens more rapidly if you've made more drastic changes, something like that. I have no idea what causes it.

[mobius]

[This is all Windows Lemmings]
- whenever you assign any skill of blocker through digger, the lemming shifts to the right. (no matter which direction it's going). [even more so than the shift in revolution]
This causes you to be unable to assign skills very close to the right edge of a platform. As if it's treating it as if the lemming is actually closer to the right than it looks.
this also makes it annoying to make a climber bash into a wall from the right.

-if you have the zoom higher (so the screen is larger) when you scroll it sometimes causes black lines in the graphics.

-sometimes, I haven't figured out how yet, you can get the skill buttons stuck, most notably the release rate button so that you let go but it keep go up or down.

-I think they're may be other precision/pixel glitches, as the oh no level; The End is Near is just about impossible for me. If I'm a pixel too high the lemming stops bashing, pixel too low it doesn't break through the ceiling and I can't seem to get in between.

-also just a random note; to go along with the 'way too fast on new computers' if you look at the title screen on a fast computer, the animations are going so fast they're not readable.
though at the same time I noticed when playing a level the game slows down very easily. 

and, this isn't a glitch but you can't right click to select a non-worker lemming in this game at all because right clicking scrolls the screen (in a very not-useful and stupid way I might add)

[namida]

Floaters

• Floating lemmings can enter exits, even if there is no terrain under the exit trigger. This only works from the moment they deploy the umbrella, not in the first few pixels of a fall.
• (Glitch arguable) Floaters always survive a fall, even if they are assigned the skill near the ground and there isn't time for the umbrella to open.

For floaters, I would argue whether the first one is actually a glitch or not. Perhaps they can do it because they have control over their fall.

[Simon]

The first floater glitch is probably unintended. Early L++ had it as well without intention.

I can't guess whether the second behavior is intended, but it is the user-friendly solution. It does not open backroutes, but prevents restarting and using up skills without any effect.

-- Simon

[Luis]

I think don't the second one is a glitch at all. It just makes it so that you won't have to worry about not turning a Lemming into a floater too late, before it splats. PSP Lemmings does the same thing. They will survive a big fall, when you give them the floater at the last second, which saves time.

[ccexplore]

For floaters, I would argue whether the first one is actually a glitch or not. Perhaps they can do it because they have control over their fall.

I guess that's a plausible interpretation.  As I recall the game specifically looks for certain states to bar exiting from happening, and they check falling but not floating, which is also why it matters whether the umbrella has started deploying yet or not.  (Off top of my head I think drowning may be one of the other states they check but don't quote me on it.)  That still leaves room for other inconsistencies though, for example I'm pretty sure a falling "oh-no" lemming can actually exit, as to the game it's an "oh-noer" and basically just not a faller--the falling is just handled as part of "oh-no" state and indeed has differences like never transitioning to floater and such.

From an animations point of view though, we can at least say that exiting was depicted to be happening on ground level, given that the lemming is depicted as jumping into the exit.

==========

As for the other floater behavior, I think the main point is that the umbrella doesn't even have to begin deploying at all for survival to happen.  It would've still save the user some time but be more realistic, if splatting is tied to whether the umbrella is deployed rather than whether the lemming just merely possesses (ie. given at very last second) the floater skill.  Still, it is indeed possible that like Simon and Luis said, through playtesting they decided it's better to be more "user-friendly" and explicitly programmed the game to allow survival of last-second floaters.

[Luis]

I think it's odd, that the Lemmings can't enter the exit, without a terrain under it. Shouldn't the trigger area save them? The PSP Lemmings are able to enter the exit without floater and terrains, though. Well it's not like there's any official levels that has an exit, that is floating in the air.

[namida]

It would've still save the user some time but be more realistic, if splatting is tied to whether the umbrella is deployed rather than whether the lemming just merely possesses (ie. given at very last second) the floater skill.

I'm almost certian I recall a version of the game that worked this way (they had to fully deploy it to survive). Might've been SMS or Cheapo?

I think it's odd, that the Lemmings can't enter the exit, without a terrain under it. Shouldn't the trigger area save them? The PSP Lemmings are able to enter the exit without floater and terrains, though. Well it's not like there's any official levels that has an exit, that is floating in the air.

This one, I can say for sure Cheapo definitely works that way.

[namida]

This one is the result of a combination of a glitch AND abusing intended mechanics in unintended ways. Basically, you can create a small vertical tunnel by repeatedly alternating a miner with builders or bashers (you can also use a blocker for the last part). I wonder if this has any use in challenges?

I've attached replays demonstrating it in Orig, OhNo and LPII.
The LPII replay pretty much just shows off the trick as is with bashers, while the OhNo one does the same but with builders. The Orig replay also shows another potentially interesting use for the trick...

(Sorry if this trick's old; though I don't think I've heard it mentioned before.)

[ccexplore]

I don't remember seeing this trick used anywhere (at least on levels from the official games) , so I guess we'd have to go through the levels to figure out if this trick can be applied usefully anywhere.  Here are some general observations:

- It is likely more useful when you have a lot of miners but far fewer diggers, as otherwise you could likely just alternate dig-bash/dig-mine/dig-build instead.
- The very narrow bottom part of the pit is more interesting, but unfortunately it creates a 5-pixel-tall step (and even shorter if you have to terminate using a builder instead of the fall-through miner glitch), and you need 7 to turn the step into a proper wall.  So I think it takes a few more skills (certainly more than 1 builder) if the intent is to create a very narrow pit to trap lemmings.  Still might be useful though.
- Ignoring the bottom part and just using the whole pit, one difference between this vs a regular simple digger pit is that this pit is only 8 pixels wide,vs the regular 9 pixels from a digger.  Potentially that small difference can be useful in some circumstances?

[namida]

I was thinking it could be useful for, say, getting lemmings to a lower area then dropping the miner through (or quickly sealing the gap with a builder, which can be done with a single step, especially if the platform is thin so the wider gap near the top isn't present).

[exit]

Here's a glitch I just noticed in Lemmix (level editor, not sure about player or DOS). When a digger was digging, the whole level was being nuked, and the digger stopped digging (because he ran out of terrain), fell for a bit, and then became an ohnoer because the countdown stopped, instead of instantly blowing up. I've tried to recreate it, but nuke timing is a bit hard.

[namida]

Here's a glitch I just noticed in Lemmix (level editor, not sure about player or DOS). When a digger was digging, the whole level was being nuked, and the digger stopped digging (because he ran out of terrain), fell for a bit, and then became an ohnoer because the countdown stopped, instead of instantly blowing up. I've tried to recreate it, but nuke timing is a bit hard.

This is because the digger removes terrain from an area 9 pixels wide; if ANY of those pixels are solid, the digger will not fall as long as he remains a digger (in many other platforms, and NeoLemmix, not all of the 9 pixels will allow him to continue digging, but only the middle 7 (usually) will). However, if he transitions to another skill, he goes back to the normal behavior of only checking the exact pixel he's on. Because he isn't falling or floating at the time the countdown runs out, he becomes an ohnoer rather than instantly exploding - but unless the pixel directly below him is solid, he will then start to fall (as an ohnoer) because he has nothing to stand on. The critical thing is that he is not yet floating or falling at the time of *becoming* an ohnoer - it doesn't matter what happens *after* this. Indeed, this can also occur with the standard bomber, and is even possible (and without any timing required) with the LPDOS/LPII/NeoLemmix instant bombers.

I've heard of the odd custom level actually *relying* on this behavior, although it's rare.

[exit]

I don't think you read my post correctly, but let me clarify. The digger was digging while being bombed, then he ran out of terrain, and became an ohnoer. The "ran out of terrain part" means that he transitioned to a faller, which would make it strange that the lemming didn't instantly explode. It could be that the computer had a small lag spike or something that caused it to possibly skip an update/the lines of code that made that happen, making the faller to do this (I don't know how many graphical updates lemmings performs per second, but it's definitely under 24, which is the max your brain renders. So I definitely saw that digger transition to a faller, or possibly walker).

[ccexplore]

In case people don't know:  you can save and load replays in the Lemmix editor as well, even though the keys used are slightly different from LemmixPlayer:  while playing a level in the editor, type lowercase u and a replay will be saved in the "replay" subdirectory with filename based on level title, extension lrb (there is also a text version with extension txt but it's for informational purposes only).  Type uppercase r (eg. Shift+R) to load a replay--a window will pop up for you to browse and select the replay file to load.

Nuking just basically starts assigning bombers (without consuming the actual count of the skill of course) one by one to the lemmings still alive, so most likely you can achieve the same setup by simply assigning the lemming bomber at the right time (though nuking is probably easier as you can get a whole bunch of lemmings to try the same thing but get slightly different timing of bomber assignments for each).

The thing that's a little hard to know precisely from your description alone is the timing of the countdown reaching 0 vs the actual time of digger => faller transition.  It is worth noting that the digger does not immediately fall upon removing the last row of pixels, but instead actually transitions to faller at the next time it tries to dig down (this is well known and allows you to do things like assigning it builder on thin air after digger digs through but before it actually falls).  A replay would help determine whether the digger actually did transition to faller first, vs whether the countdown already reached 0 sometime in the 8 or so frames between removal of last row of terrain and the actual transition to faller.

[namida]

If I'm not mistaken, doesn't it transition to a walker for one frame before becoming a faller?

[ccexplore]

No, only the blocker does that.  IIRC the digger's transition in the analogous case is directly to faller, but unlike blocker it stays as digger on thin air for 8 or so frames before falling as explained in previous post.

[exit]

I know how lemmings works and how to save/load replays on lemmix, because I'm not that new to lemmings, I'm just new to the lemmings forums. I know that diggers do fall only when they try to dig a row of air, which is why I said that the computer had a (very small, and barely noticeable) lag spike. I was running a few programs in the background, including the internet . . ..

I guess in that case it isn't really a glitch by certain definitions, but the game probably just lagged a bit.

[namida]

I'm not 100% sure about DOS, but the way Lemmix works would not allow for that to happen (and since Lemmix's mechanics were built from reverse-engineered DOS mechanics, I would think they'd be the same). Whether the lemming becomes an ohnoer or immediately explodes is directly determined by what action the lemming is performing at the time. There is nothing in the code that allows a faller to become an ohnoer. However, as ccexplore has said, a digger does not immediately become a faller when he has nothing below him; he remains a digger (in midair) until the start of the next "stroke"; and if the bomber time runs out during this, he becomes an ohnoer. (if it runs out on the *exact* frame that he'd become a faller, I'm not sure offhand whether he becomes an ohnoer, or becomes a faller then immediately explodes)

[ccexplore]

Well, as long as you get a replay captured the next time it happens, we should be able to tell for sure what is happening, it's one of the nice things with replays.  As far as I'm aware the programming of Lemmix is quite simplistic and doesn't do anything at all to compensate for speed--if it takes longer than normal to process one frame then you'll simply see it slow down on that frame, but otherwise I believe all processing that would occur does.  [It also helps that the editor doesn't even do the confetti thing that the real game (and LemmixPlayer as well) does with explosions.]

[namida]

As far as I'm aware the programming of Lemmix is quite simplistic and doesn't do anything at all to compensate for speed--if it takes longer than normal to process one frame then you'll simply see it slow down on that frame, but otherwise I believe all processing that would occur does.

This is correct.

[exit]

There is a possibility that the digger ran out of time on the exact frame that he became a faller (as namida stated), and the game rendered him graphically as a faller, while still thinking of him as digger, when the next update came in, he became an ohnoer, because as namida said, the digger somewhat "stands" on any of the nine pixels in the destruction mask, but when he becomes an ohnoer he falls, because he can't stand on the pixel that the digger was standing on. This would result in the fake faller becoming an ohnoer, making it seem that the digger actually became a faller, but was actually a digger. That makes this a graphical glitch.

Speaking about graphical glitches, in lemmixplayer, the explosion confetti sometimes stays frozen in the air. But, if another explosion occurs, the confetti disappears.

[namida]

There is a possibility that the digger ran out of time on the exact frame that he became a faller (as namida stated), and the game rendered him graphically as a faller, while still thinking of him as digger, when the next update came in, he became an ohnoer, because as namida said, the digger somewhat "stands" on any of the nine pixels in the destruction mask, but when he becomes an ohnoer he falls, because he can't stand on the pixel that the digger was standing on. This would result in the fake faller becoming an ohnoer, making it seem that the digger actually became a faller, but was actually a digger. That makes this a graphical glitch.

If I remember correctly, this isn't possible either because it doesn't update the graphics until it's finished internally updating all the lemmings. However, it IS possible that Lemmix Editor (which runs on an older version of the engine than the players; and even those you don't seem to use the most recent version of) doesn't implement this properly - have you been able to reproduce it in the players, ideally the versions in this topic? (These are not NeoLemmix  versions; they're just the most up-to-date traditional Lemmix versions. The cLemmings EXE I made for you was made from exactly the same source code as these (specifically the Orig one here) were.)

Speaking about graphical glitches, in lemmixplayer, the explosion confetti sometimes stays frozen in the air. But, if another explosion occurs, the confetti disappears.

This one you are correct about. It's very well-known - actually, there's no "sometimes" to it (it always happens), but it also disappears if you scroll the screen. This affects all Lemmix players that support confetti (including LPDOS and LPII), though it was fixed in NeoLemmix as of v1.05n (the fix introduced a new graphical glitch of its own, which was then fixed in the following version v1.06n).

[exit]

I have not tried to reproduce it in those players (I don't even use those), but I won't, because there is no need to (you already confirmed that this is impossible in those versions). And I don't think  this will work in the lemmixplayers, because (as you said) the lemmixplayers update internally before they update graphically. But, you did say that this might be possible in the test editor, and, since the Main dat file is from custlemm, I think this is even more possible. I won't test it in the editor though, because that sort of timing is literally "pixel-perfect", and I do not want to try it.

[namida]

I have not tried to reproduce it in those players (I don't even use those), but I won't, because there is no need to (you already confirmed that this is impossible in those versions). And I don't think  this will work in the lemmixplayers, because (as you said) the lemmixplayers update internally before they update graphically. But, you did say that this might be possible in the test editor, and, since the Main dat file is from custlemm, I think this is even more possible. I won't test it in the editor though, because that sort of timing is literally "pixel-perfect", and I do not want to try it.

I doubt it's possible; all I was implying there is that I haven't seen the editor's source code and thus I can't say for sure. I'd be surprised if it worked differently to how the players do. And, the MAIN.DAT has no bearing on this whatsoever; it simply contains graphics, it does not contain any information on when to use which ones, and there is definitely nothing out of the ordinary in CustLemm's MAIN.DAT as far as lemming graphics go.

[exit]

I didn't tear apart the Main file like ccexplore, so I really don't know. Now that I know that, I'll go back to the conclusion that the game had a slight lag spike internally and skipped a function, then finally "remembering" (accessing that forgotten piece of memory) that that was a digger, making him into an ohnoer. So it was probably the computer that had a small lag spike and not the game (just so you know what I mean).

[exit]

Here's another glitch; while I was playing my levels in the LemmixPlayer (I'm not sure about the editor), I found out (I actually already knew this, it just occurred again) that you can raise the release rate with your mouse, pause using function11, and the release rate will continue being raised. This is more of a bug, though, because it's really easy to recreate it. Just thought I'd get this out here for people to see.

[namida]

Here's another glitch; while I was playing my levels in the LemmixPlayer (I'm not sure about the editor), I found out (I actually already knew this, it just occurred again) that you can raise the release rate with your mouse, pause using function11, and the release rate will continue being raised. This is more of a bug, though, because it's really easy to recreate it. Just thought I'd get this out here for people to see.

Hm, I wasn't aware of this - I did know this could happen if you interrupt a replay while the release rate is increasing. I'll have to look into whether this bug is still present in NeoLemmix.

[exit]

Here's something else (man, I'm on a glitch-finding spree!). . ..

So, I was playing the lemmixplayer, pressed the "flag" key, and clicked on the "show desktop" button (because I wanted to do something quickly). Now, I open up the lemmixplayer, and this is what I get: (the attachment has the picture)
The Lemmings taskbar is gone! It didn't fix itself.

[namida]

Interesting - I'll have to look into this at some point.

I am aware that if you switch to another window, then switch back, the mouse cursor is no longer confined to the game area, but can move to any point on the screen. This is relatively minor, however.

[exit]

Another glitch:
I was just messing around to see if this (the attachment)would work.
It's kind of funny how you can cut that deep into steel. That's almost a third!

This is sort of a "non-glitch trick", but I consider it a glitch if you can cut that deep into steel. No, that isn't a block that's only partially covered in steel.

[namida]

It's well known that such steel glitches exist. That's the reason why steel areas are set to cover some distance surrounding the block instead of just covering the block itself; but even then, there are ways to get around it (for example, placing a blocker temporarily cancels steel).

The major cause is that the engine doesn't check which pixels are or aren't steel when applying destructive masks; it just checks for steel at one or two (depending on the skill) specific positions and if none is found, it assumes the whole area isn't steel.

[exit]

I get how it works, so it's technically a trick. I consider it a glitch, though (and so do many other people). I just thought to get it out there.

[Clam]

In DOS Holiday Lemmings 1994, if you fail Flurry 1 (the first of the Holiday 1993 levels, which are included after the 1994 levels) you get the game-completion message that you should only get when you solve the last of the Holiday 1994 levels. The message tells you to try the 1993 levels, and in either case you end up on Flurry 1, so in a way it makes sense as a message for the start of the 1993 levels rather than the end of the 1994 set. But if you started on Flurry straight from the main menu then obviously it makes no sense to be congratulating you at this point

[Minim]

Wow. What an amazing find! Especially when you take into consideration that all players play the '94 levels when playing the '94 game, rather than the '93 levels. I honestly thought the same thing was going to happen to NeoLemmix, but fortunately (or unfortunately if you like being congratulated) namida has fixed this, so that's not an issue there.

[Clam]

More Holiday madness!

In Holiday Lemmings 1993, if you beat a level and return to the menu, the rating appears to go up (from Flurry to Blitz), but when you select Play Level again it goes to the next level as usual.

If you beat the next level and go back to the menu again, the rating goes up again. This game only has two ratings, so what could the next rating possibly be? Turns out it's "Wicked". From here there are two ways you can go:
1) Continue playing levels and returning to the menu to see your new rating.
2) Because you're "past" Blitz rating which is usually the limit, the game actually lets you explore further ratings by pressing the up key. If you try to start a level at a higher rating, you get the "Insert Disk" error.

The fourth "rating" is "Havoc", and all beyond that are glitched images. There are many ratings – I didn't bother to count, but I had to hold the up key for a while!

[ccexplore]

Most likely you'll end up with something like 256 or 128 "ratings", by virtue of what can fit in a byte (8-bit integer).  If it happens to use 16 bit instead than the limit would be something like 65536 or 32768.  Either way the value would eventually wrap around back to 0 which presumably would be Flurry (though I suppose it might also be that Flurry is 1).

If I recall correctly, there's a lookup table somewhere in the program that helps translate (rating, level number) to (level DAT file number, which level within the DAT file).  If your rating is too high then it likely causes the game to start reading outside that table, interpreting whatever happens to be stored next into (level DAT file number, which level within the DAT file).  Unless both numbers happen to be valid (the DAT file actually exists and the "level within DAT" number not too high), the game would try and fail to load the "level" and the result is the "insert disk" error you see.

It's a little surprising that Wicked comes after Blitz.  Logically one would've expected Wild, then Wicked and Havoc.  Kinda makes me wonder if you might see Tame if you up the rating past the wraparound to 0.

[namida]

It actually makes perfect sense, due to the way MAIN.DAT is structured. Specifically, the first rank sign stored in it is the highest rank, then the next is the second highest, and so on.

ONML's MAIN.DAT stores 5 ranks, so this order means Tame is the 5th image. However, while H93's MAIN.DAT would seem for that reason to have been based on ONML's, it only contains 4 ranks, which means Tame is dropped. Also, the highest rank is 2, so the slots that are actually used are the 3rd and 4th image (for the 2nd and 1st ranks respectively). When you get to a glitched 3rd rank therefore, it loads the 2nd image - and since there *is* no 3rd rank, they must've just left the previous one there, which is Wicked. Once you go past Havoc, I'd assume it attempts to load... well, whatever data comes *before* the rank signs in MAIN.DAT (I think it's part of the logo? but I don't remember off-hand). Hypothetically, by creating a customized MAIN.DAT, you could make actual coherent images show on the "glitched" ranks, although the side effect would be other graphics becoming glitched.

You won't get to Tame even if you wrap around. After the Flurry image, the next stuff in MAIN.DAT is the purple font, not a 5th rank sign.

[Clam]

Most likely you'll end up with something like 256 or 128 "ratings", by virtue of what can fit in a byte (8-bit integer).

It's 256. And when you get to the last one you can't go back, nor wrap around to the beginning.

[mobius]

I don't know if this is widely known but here's a useless fact that I discovered by accident (playing ISteve's "Hammer Time") I found it really funny:

You can have a situation where a basher is in between two blockers with terrain around and the basher keeps turning back and forth and bashing forever. 

[ccexplore]

I don't know if this is widely known but here's a useless fact that I discovered by accident (playing ISteve's "Hammer Time") I found it really funny:

You can have a situation where a basher is in between two blockers with terrain around and the basher keeps turning back and forth and bashing forever. 

That was discovered mentioned in the "old" glitch thread here, back in 2009.  I can actually easily see making a level that requires making use of this trick--just think of it as a way to keep the basher from losing the skill while sending someone else over to prep ahead.

[DoubleU]

Can some of this stuff be stored elsewhere?

[petaQ]

A sort of new glitch for SMS: when mining, if you pause and unpause on the right animation frames (it can be done easily on manual without a turbo), a miner can be coaxed into leaving strips of land undug behind him. This can create a little camp for other lems, who on the short side will slide up and over, but once inside the ground is too low to let them escape.

EDIT: the trick also works with diggers - pausing and unpausing rhythmically on the right frame will leave the topsoil partially broken allowing the digger to pass through but the other lems to remain atop.

If done carefully it can also be used to slow a bridge builder down relative to the group by pausing in a way that prevents hi laying his current brick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuYprH5p87Q

[Turrican]

I would like to ask about a glitch that has been used in a recent challenge solution video. The video is for mayhem 10 , for the snes version of the game , by metroidmaster88 (MASTER-88 in the forum).

In 00:27 he assigns a lemming as a builder mid-air , and when the lemming completes the first step , he assigns it as a blocker and the lemming instantly turns around? How that works and how it can be activated? Is this reproducible in Dos/Lemmix? (I don't think so, but it would be a nice surprice if it was possible.)

link for the video : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jZvM97Z7G2g

[ccexplore]

@Turrican:

I've seen this glitch (self-turning blocker) work on Amiga also but have not tested it on SNES, makes sense though that it'd also work there since SNES is pretty faithful to the Amiga version.  I don't know exactly how it works though.  It does not work on DOS Lemmings.

As far as I know, it works as long as you assign the blocker while the lemming is standing in mid-air.  The lemming will revert back to walker right away, but also somehow will turn itself around as well.  It's possible this only works if the lemming was facing left before assigned blocker, I'll have to test more to see.  Either way, I don't really know why that would happen.  In DOS Lemmings, the center section is neutral and does not turn lemmings around unlike the left and right sections (ie. near where the blocker's arms are), so even if somehow the blocker's field of effect was not taken down right away, the lemming that reverts from blocker to walker should only collide with the center section of blocker field and not be turned around.  AFAIK in SNES/Amiga Lemmings it is still the case that there is a neutral center section in the blocker's field of effect, for example if you assign a blocker to a lemming that just landed from the fall from entrance, subsequent lemmings from the entrance should not be turned around when they land exactly at where the blocker is standing.  So it's still a mystery to me why exactly the glitch works on Amiga/SNES.

In the video, you'll note that the lemming was standing in mid-air when he starts building, and when blocker was assigned, the build brick has just gotten laid down but the lemming has not moved up to it yet, so the lemming is still in mid-air (ie. no ground underneath his feet) when the blocker was assigned, triggering the glitch.  AFAIK the builder wasn't actually needed at all to trigger the glitch, but maybe for the overall solution it is better to do that left-facing building earlier instead of later?

On DOS Lemmings you can save all but 2 lemmings on Mayhem 10, using the sliding glitch (aka "the wall zip trick").  The same glitch works on SNES/Amiga with a slightly modified setup to do so in that level (to account for inability to change RR while paused on those versions), I've tested it before.  So chances are good that you can save all but 2 on SNES version as well, 1 more than in the video.

[Turrican]

As far as I know, it works as long as you assign the blocker while the lemming is standing in mid-air.  The lemming will revert back to walker right away, but also somehow will turn itself around as well.  It's possible this only works if the lemming was facing left before assigned blocker, I'll have to test more to see.

Ok! That explains it! That's what I wanted to know, how to activate it.

Thank you for your reply!

[MASTER-88]

Here is one. Miner & blocker combination glitch. You can zip one lemming down without breaking floor/bridge. Its seems pretty pointless yet and this is used SNES version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrUYd3jSBuA

[ccexplore]

We knew about that one for ages, it also works on DOS Lemmings and was noted at the beginning post of this thread:

Miners

• Miners are positioned one pixel too low during the first few frames of their animation. This makes it possible to have the miner fall through the floor while leaving it intact for other lemmings to walk on, by assigning a blocker or bomber at the right moment.

Although to be fair, I couldn't be sure it would work on SNES since as you know, SNES miner behaves a little differently compared to other versions like DOS or Amiga.  And since very few people have played SNES version the glitch had not been tested/confirmed on it previously.

[MASTER-88]

Although to be fair, I couldn't be sure it would work on SNES since as you know, SNES miner behaves a little differently compared to other versions like DOS or Amiga.  And since very few people have played SNES version the glitch had not been tested/confirmed on it previously.

Okay i see. Now its also confirmed on SNES version too.

I pure accidentally make find this when i attempted differents blockers stuffs mayhem 3. Yeah i see its not new thing. But that was news to me. Never see it before, but yeah its look pretty useless and thats probably reason why im not are see it before.

[DoubleU]

Here I will attempt to compile a list of all known glitches in Lemmings. This thread is for the first-generation Lemmings games: Lemmings, Oh No! More Lemmings, and Xmas/Holiday Lemmings. Lemmings 2 has its own thread, <a href="indexdc94.html?topic=199.0" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">here</a>.

The link to L2 glitches doesn't work. Just so you know.

[Proxima]

Clam probably won't know since he doesn't frequent the forums these days. The link is here.

[Ste Woz Ere]

Blockers can push lemmings through walls. This happens because lemmings cannot move towards the center of the blocking area (which is how blockers work), so a lemming inside this area can't turn around until it leaves the area - even if there is terrain in the way. (Combined with climbing in walls, this is known as the "Tame 20" glitch, after the level where it was used to achieve a no-builder solution. Note that you have to remove the blocker for this to work.)

I used to use this trick on Mayhem 26 to bomb through the main wall, to the right of the trapdoor (each time using the trapped lemming which then released the blocker). And I strongly suspect that's why the DOS version was nerfed so it had 20 of each skill instead of 10 (because the main wall was extremely difficult to bomb through normally with only 10).  Alas, it doesn't work in SL so I had to find a different way round.

(assuming it's the right trick I'm thinking of, which is shown here)

[namida]

And I strongly suspect that's why the DOS version was nerfed so it had 20 of each skill instead of 10 (because the main wall was extremely difficult to bomb through normally with only 10).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You're not meant to go through the main wall.

[WillLem]

(assuming it's the right trick I'm thinking of, which is shown here)

Just taking the opportunity to share my PFP of Kessel, which uses this trick several times in a row (and in realtime) to get through the wall

[Gronkling]

In Genesis, a bomber will explode with no "oh-noer" animation if it's timer reaches 0 whilst it is in a trap animation.

Can be seen here
https://youtu.be/vl5KFDKZEYo?t=38

EDIT:
namida found it also works in Lemmix (and even NeoLemmix until it gets patched)

[Gronkling]

If a lemming going up through terrain in the standard climber glitch goes into a blocker field, it will move towards to blocker instead of away from it.
In genesis version, the sprite glitches slightly when this happens sometimes, making it offset from it's actual position for a few frames.

--- EDIT

Another one, if a climber hits the level ceiling, it'll become a walker for one frame where you can assign it a skill

[EricLang]

Working on the Lemmix 3.0.0, with some nice improvements.
Now some questions about pause-for-time. I looked at the neolemmix code which was inherited and enhanced from the old lemmixplayer.
But still cannot figure out what *exactly* should happen to emulate this bug. Maybe someone knows the answers.
At iteration 34 the "entrance cracking"sound is played
At iteration 35 the entrance starts animating at animationframe 1 to 10.

When we pause before iteration 34, let's say at iteration 10 the clock doe *not* start running from 34 - 10 = 24 iterations. And if at iteration 20 then 14. Is that correct?
Is this glitch triggered only once? Or can we pause at 10, unpause, pause at 20 and overwrite the previoius number of "glitch" iterations?
What should happen when replaying a replayfile? The pause key does not trigger the replay to stop normally. Should the user regain control when replaying and pressing pause at *another* iteration than the recorded one?

[namida]

Do not look at NeoLemmix code as a reference for L1 physics in any way. NeoLemmix is a completely seperate engine which is intended to remove glitches, and targets custom content. Very little of the original Lemmix code remains, at any rate.

Instead, look at my modified versions (so-called "V29") of Lemmix here: https://www.neolemmix.com/?page=download_list&program=42 (Last download is the source code)

I believe another user here has made a few further fixes, using said source code as a starting point, too. EDIT: Yep, this is the topic you want to look at for that: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4973.0

[EricLang]

Thanks! I was wondering about the correctness of using the global "Paused" state of the game. method IncrementIteration().

[Gronkling]

On megadrive\genesis, if more than one bomber explodes on the exact same frame, only one of them will cause any change to the terrain, the others will blow up as if they're in a steel area.
(currently untested on other platforms)

[Minim]

Nice find! Fortunately this doesn't happen in LemmixPlayer, as the replay shows that terrain is destroyed from the two bombers with both lems dying. We've yet to see if this happens on DOS though.

(To perform this trick correctly, assign the second bomber on the second frame the 4 is shown in the countdown to allow a falling bomber to detonate at the same time as the walking bomber.)

[namida]

Nice find! Fortunately this doesn't happen in LemmixPlayer, as the replay shows that terrain is destroyed from the two bombers with both lems dying. We've yet to see if this happens on DOS though.

(To perform this trick correctly, assign the second bomber on the second frame the 4 is shown in the countdown to allow a falling bomber to detonate at the same time as the walking bomber.)

I spent some time earlier trying to reproduce it on actual DOS, as my gut feeling was that if it did happen on DOS, this would be one of those rare cases where Lemmix did not reproduce it accurately.

But no - this glitch does not happen on DOS (Amiga is untested, I'll leave that to someone else).

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX7fs4ORvfg

In particular note the fairly easy setup for it here - RR 74, then assign two consecutive lemmings bombers on the frame they spawn, and make sure the second one is falling when he explodes (but the first is not). This setup should allow for testing it on various other platforms, too.

[Simon]

Attached is another repro of DOS L1 with two simultaneous exploders, they produce two craters. Tested with exploder assignment during nuke.

-- Simon

[Gronkling]

Whilst I was setting up a recording of this glitch, I accidently found a DIFFERENT MD/genesis bomber glitch!
If a lemming explodes as it is falling below the level, it will play an oh-no sprite rather exploding instantly like a normal faller. In the video I do this one the first frame it occurs as it looks most impressive, however it works at any point below that too, and from greater heights.

Here's a video demonstrating both
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT4P7Z9iDrA

[Zaphod77]

Pausing for time glitch as i understand it is that the timer that decides when the hatch opens still runs while the game is paused.

In Amiga, that timer doe stop when you pause.

But in DOS version, the "it's time to open the hatch" timer will still run when paused. so f you wait two seconds, the hatch will open immediately when you unpause.

the number of pauses doesn't matter. just whether any are before the hatch opens.

[Gronkling]

Builders are able to clip horizontally through walls when at the maximum height in the megadrive/genesis port

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5pH1VL81ic

[The Tomato Watcher]

Alright. Maybe this one doesn't fit with the rest, since it's not really a physics-related glitch, but it's too interesting for me not to share, and after all, it is a glitch in Lemmings.

This one is on the Amstrad CPC version, and I call it the Cursor Glitch. The setup is rather specific but the execution is simple. Find or make a spot where a lemming is almost at or is going to the top of the level. The terrain can't go to the very top of the level, as it will act as a ceiling when climbing or building; it has to stop just before the top, so the lemming has just enough room to hoist or ascend. If you use the locking feature on this lemming, it should force the cursor out of bounds, or, if you're a couple pixels short, a digger or miner will nudge the cursor upwards (for some reason). Be sure to move your cursor or make sure the lemming dies before coming back onscreen or the glitch will end. You'll notice that the cursor is leaving a trail of ghost images all over the level at this point, and that you can't move it down (or possibly other directions, depending on the circumstances). These ghost images actually act as terrain, by the way. If you move the cursor directly upwards, it will reappear normally at the bottom of the screen and the glitch will be over. If you keep moving your cursor around out of bounds, you may cause some weirdness to happen. Move it in just the right way, mainly at the very top of the screen, and you will utterly break the game. Possible effects include ridiculous lemming counts, teleporting hatches and exits, ridiculously high time limits, missing or incorrect animations, severe graphical glitches, huge surpluses of skills, an infinite loop of binding your keys, and of course, crashing the game.

The effects depend on how you move the cursor, which skill or skills, if any, you assigned to the out of bounds lemming, whether you're playing on disk or tape, what level you're playing, and more. Below is a collection of examples of just what can happen with this glitch. They are all in Mayhem 1, but it looks like there are a few other levels where you can pull this off, one of which being Fun 13, where I got somewhat different results. I would NOT recommend watching the tape version examples if you have photosensitive epilepsy! There are many flashing lights in the form of severe graphical glitches and loading raster bars.

https://youtu.be/l8W28Gq_4-8