Hidden Levels In The SEGA Mega Drive Port Of Lemmings

[Adrian060756]

Has anyone else ever seen or come across these two levels before in the SEGA Mega Drive (Genesis) version of Lemmings

These two levels are NOT hacked levels from rom hackers or level editors that have been added in, these two very easy levels are actually hidden in the official finished game and were somehow left in there when it was finished. These levels are always there in the game and the only way to access them is to cause the cartridge to glitch or freeze, once the screen is frozen solid you then press the reset button on the Mega Drive console to access the title screen again, after that you go into the FUN mode and levels 31 & 32 are added onto the usual 30. Typing in the passwords for these two levels on the password screen will not work and the message ''WRONG CODE'' will show on the screen as these levels were not programmed into the game normally for play but left in the game as glitched levels or beta testing levels, so it makes sense why the passwords won't work. At the end of the second level when it says ''your password for level 33'' there is no level 33 as that is also a glitch. I have accessed these two levels many times and found them by accident one day when I was a kid accidently bumping the cartridge.

I'm exercising my knowledge away from the music of Lemmings this time. I thought this might interest some of you

This was played by me on an original PAL 50Hz SEGA Mega Drive model 1 console. Footage was not captured by any emulator.

Hidden Secret Levels In Lemmings SEGA Mega Drive (Genesis)

[finlay]

Haha, that's kinda funny. I like it when people find these things hidden on cartridges.

[ccexplore]

That's pretty neat.   Seems like there's a good possibility to make these levels available through GameShark or similar methods (which would then also allow access of the levels via emulator as well), will have to try and see one of these days.  Who knows, maybe with that method there are more levels past the nonworking Fun 33 that can be accessed?

It's hard to say whether the oddly-positioned flags in Fun 32 are glitch or not.  Since it's clearly a testing level, it could well be that they purposely placed the flags in mid-air so they can clearly see whether they are animating correctly or not, or something.  For background, the flag objects were originally from the Amiga version for the 2-player competition mode.  IIRC the flags were used in that version to mark which player's team an exit is for (or something like that), by placing a flag of the matching color at the top of each exit (ie. the flag pole stands on the exit's top side).

[finlay]

That's pretty neat.   Seems like there's a good possibility to make these levels available through GameShark or similar methods (which would then also allow access of the levels via emulator as well), will have to try and see one of these days.  Who knows, maybe with that method there are more levels past the nonworking Fun 33 that can be accessed?

It's hard to say whether the oddly-positioned flags in Fun 32 are glitch or not.  Since it's clearly a testing level, it could well be that they purposely placed the flags in mid-air so they can clearly see whether they are animating correctly or not, or something.  For background, the flag objects were originally from the Amiga version for the 2-player competition mode.  IIRC the flags were used in that version to mark which player's team an exit is for (or something like that), by placing a flag of the matching color at the top of each exit (ie. the flag pole stands on the exit's top side).

It's even called the Flag Testing Level or something, so that's clearly the purpose. Remember that the Genesis version has a 2-player mode too, so they were testing it for that, I presume.

Also, to OP (since you seem to love the megadrive version!), and to anyone else really, I actually coincidentally wrote a blog post about this port of lemmings the other day. My blog is like a review blog, which I started at the beginning of the year, and generally consists of me complaining about (and occasionally praising) things that I read/play/watch... but I'm about 3 months behind now, since I finished playing this particular one in May. I'm really lazy with updating... I'll get there eventually with any other stuff. There should be a review of L2 in the archives somewhere as well, if you're interested, and I think I knocked one out for Holiday Lemmings when I finished playing it as well.

Oh and there are some films and s*** in there too, if you're interested.

http://reuoq.wordpress.com/2011/08/14/game-lemmings-for-mega-drive/

[geoo]

That's pretty neat.   Seems like there's a good possibility to make these levels available through GameShark or similar methods (which would then also allow access of the levels via emulator as well), will have to try and see one of these days.  Who knows, maybe with that method there are more levels past the nonworking Fun 33 that can be accessed?

Wasn't it you who extracted the Genesis levels into .lvl format from the ROM? How comes you missed them?

Anyway, I had a short glance into the array where the level stats and name are stored, and there are 202 entries in total. Considering there's 180 regular levels and 20 Two-Player levels, I guess there's no space for more hidden levels at least in that index. Doesn't mean there couldn't some unused level layout lying around in the ROM though.

EDIT: btw @finlay: I think 'private room available' isn't that bad, you've got 5 possible pixels to dig at to get into a room, and 3 for getting out. So while it might take a few tries, it isn't all that hard to pull off. When I first saw the level, I didn't find the solution to it obvious either, took me a bit to find it.

[ccexplore]

Wasn't it you who extracted the Genesis levels into .lvl format from the ROM? How comes you missed them?

Yep, you're totally right, which is exactly why I wanted to take a look at where they are stored and how I missed it.  Though most likely I was just too focused on the 1-player levels at the time, and never bothered to see what the data looks like outside of the 180 that I was focused on.  Indeed I didn't even extract the 2-player levels, probably something I should remedy one of these days.

I guess if you found table and verified that it's 202 entries, then probably there aren't any more additional playable levels, at least not likely any that you can access with the "glitch the catridge" method.