Now that I've finished translating the 2P level discussion from idlingspace
http://geoo.digibase.ca/lemmings/IS_2P.html, it's about time to start our own multiplayer discussion topic. I'll start off with a lengthy essay or rabble about what kind of gameplay I like and what I don't, to share some experiences and impressions. I'm not trying to prove a particular point or anything, just discussing a bit, so you're invited to join the rabbling! So, long rabble ahead! Rabble rabble rabble. At least the forum isn't overly truncate-happy.
Note: For simplicity, I'll henceforth use the generic lemmininum instead of a species-neutral language, so whenever I write 'lemming', this can refer to lemmings, lix, clones, etc.
The original 2P levels have many flaws. We noticed that blockers and diggers are very powerful. So in many levels, if the players can send over saboteurs easily, they can block horizonal progress with blockers, and kill off the route or group of lemmings if they're held somewhere with diggers. As the original levels had the tendency to give the same amount of every terrain removing skills as builders, this usually meant that once a saboteur was in your holding pit, your lemmings there are done (this also applies to clones, perhaps even more there, see far below). If you didn't need a holding pit but have a constant stream of lemmings along your path, you're not gonna lose a whole bunch at once, but if you're under constant attack, the game turned into a builder conservation challenge, where you sooner or later ran out of builders, and were glad if you could at least get these builders into your exit. Either way, all you could do was saving individual lemmings rather than your whole group in that case.
Probably because constantly seeing the majority of your lemmings die in digger pits gets tiring after a while, hima from idlingspace tried to counter these level design flaws with additional rules, like "don't dig there". (One the Genesis the game seems to quit once no player has saved anything, so that might be another motivation for that.) Sometimes, they made sense (e.g. no digging at the bottom of level 7, at least if you care about the lemmings at the bottom), sometimes not so much (e.g. not digging the trunks in level 1, with only 5 diggers it's not that much of an issue, and digging in the thick terrain has just as much effect. Prohibiting blockers would probably have been more effective, as it's pretty much anywhere).
With L++/Lix/Clones, rules like this got redundant, as you can fix flaws in the levels yourself now. In the designing and testing process, a lot of guidelines have come up to avoid the above mentioned issues as a lot of experience has piled up, like highest route wins if the level doesn't prevent it, blockers are evil (though not as evil anymore with the incoming of batters), or to put steel under the exits and hatches. At least for classic style levels, these guidelines should usually be followed. There are more advanced levels that solely focus around hatch digging and defending against it (Simon's "Raise the Bar", my level "Jenga"), so the steel under hatches rule has been broken there deliberately.
I mentioned 'classic style levels', so it sounds like there's some categorisation of levels. Well...I think clearly dividing the levels into meaningful categories might be impossible, but there's two styles that stand out a bit and that are pretty frequent. Apart from these two styles, there's also non classic stuff, which I put into the other two categories:
1) The type of level where you constantly sabotage routes and have to fix your own routes, they're the easiest to build. You throw a bunch of random, connected terrain into the levels, copy it a couple of times so each player gets the same, and you're done. But also many more sophisicated maps play like this. Usually there's not too much to be done in regards to route building, apart from a few gaps or walls the route is already laid out for you. So you got a constant stream of lemmings along that route, and other players easily have access to your route to sabotage. So the gameplay here is a constant sequence of breaking and fixing spots in your route, which I've grown a bit tired of, as in most levels I find it pretty monotonous and tedious and they just drag along until there's no more lemmings coming out of the hatches. It's especially bad if you got a huge level that wraps around in both directions, where it's easy to lose track. Then it's only a game about looking all over the place to find broken parts in your route to fix. I'm not too fond of, and also pretty bad at this usually. In 2P, if you got a level with the player's hatches somewhere at the top, the exits somewhere diagonally below, a chunk of terrain in the middle and crossing paths, then this is a pretty good indicator that you got a level of type 1. In >2P, this kind of gameplay is even more frequent, because if you don't mix too well, a player will be primarily be exposed to a certain other player, and that can throw off balancing.
2) The route building maps. Here, you got a bit of a problem to solve that could easily serve as a Tricky or Taxing SP level. At the start you're usually on your own for a while, and have to be creative...or, well, crafty. Usually multiple routes are possible. Especially then they are awesome maps for 2vs2. Getting saboteurs over isn't easy and takes a while, but sabotage tends to be more effective, by outright killing a large bunch, or getting a strategic advantage. So you try to build routes that are hard to reach by saboteurs so you can send your lems over safely once it's done. Frequently your lems are stalled somewhere for a while, and once you release them, it comes to an epic and exciting showdown with frantic attack attempts. Prime examples are Rubix' "Passing Predicament", my multiplayer adaptation "Stepping Stones (2P)", or the original map "May the craftiest player win". I initially thought the same about the latter as hima, despite the epic battle I had with Steve on it the first time I played it, but playing it 2vs2 with Steve against Rubix and Simon while on voice chat (I think with a slightly amended skillset though) made me really appreciate the level and its craftiness aspect. I really love this type of maps as well as they are very strategic, but they're also very demanding, so not so suitable for late-night phase.
3) Experimental design with a specific gameplay idea in mind. For instance, the above mentioned hatch digging levels fall into this category. Another one is "Tower Defense (Part 3)", where each player has a tower, and a trivial, long platforming route within that tower to complete. While that is being done, you try to get a saboteur over to the other tower through a maze of buzzsaws, but also have to defend against attacks of the same type. "Ghetto Wars" is another one of that type where each player has to defend balconies against the opponent's lemmings which can bat your lems out or bomb a hole in the balcony, until after a while you got a landing platform so you can release everyone from the balconies into the exit. I've made a lot of levels of that kind lately, and it's not only playing them which is fun, but also the design process. You got an idea, design a level around it, and then try to find the best strategy and amend the level if necessary. Finding the perfect opening for the initial version of "Ghetto wars" was one of those strategy finds that was pretty surprising.
It's notable that there's been no attempts at asymetric levels yet, save for the one level in Clones called "Unfair", which was pretty interesting. I think we have a high fear of making imbalanced levels, though in >2P it happens naturally to some extent. When I made a level with an explicit attacker and defender role, I mirrored the whole situation and had both players play both roles in parallel. I think here might still be some interesting experimentation to be done with asymetric levels, as then a player can focus more on the role he takes. Every now and then experimental levels suck, but these can just be scrapped.
4) Anything else. Like "Downward Reduction". I wouldn't know where to put it.
Obviously, many levels also are a mix of different types. I really like strategic levels, where each time you try out new things, or test whether your strategy holds against the other player trying out new things. All-or-nothing levels are also a lot of fun, I like short, intense battles like this, where you immediately start again after a round has finished, and rather than counting lemmings, you count the ratio of rounds you win, if anything.
Some might have noticed that I haven't played much Clones lately. That's simply because I simply enjoy playing Lix a lot more, and with a lot of progress with the game going on lately, there's also plenty of opportunity to play and experiment.
My gripe with clones is that most maps play like type 1, and even those that would be considered type 2 play a lot like type 1 as clones is so grinding-heavy, and levels take very long. Once you got a saboteur in, you'll be busy with the usually drill/bash routine for the next 20 minutes that it's pretty much impossible to get out of, because terrain removers stop builders, and these fat bums turn around at every tiny pixel they bump their head on, or any little step they encounter. RAGE!!! These lazy penners are just too inflexible and slow! With lix, you can jump and turn them around at wish, and get out of your opponent's digger hole with a couple of builders (or nowadays a cuber as well) instead of seeing them drop down repeatedly (though now there's at least an option to keep builders in the air in that case), or turn around at the ceiling if you used an atomizer. In that regard I feel it's a bit of a step backwards towards original 2P lemmings and its levels. Clones policy of all skills aplenty doesn't help either (limiting the types of skills is one of the aspects that adds a lot of diversity!), and make most levels feel the same to me.
There's only one single map I really enjoy, and that's "Cage"/"Rage", probably the only type 3 map. (The latter is my modification which eliminates tedious end-games, and resolves things with a tie instead. Gives a bit of a preference to rush strategies over solid defense building strategies though). I don't think I played all experimental custom maps, I played a couple of Haymanizer's, which were conceptually interesting, but still didn't really work better than the normal levels for most part, at least IMHO. So perhaps there's some good levels I missed, but I've tried my hand at level-making myself, and somehow it's a lot harder to make a fun levels than in lix. I stopped after a while, probably not having tried out everything, but the maps I made didn't play well. Like, I totally managed to ruin "Stepping Stones (2P)", that's quite a feat.
Perhaps I'm just too spoilt by the lix gameplay, where the skillset is nicely rounded out with the skills balancing each other, and providing a lot of control over the lix. And where I can just pick the maps I enjoy out of the very diverse set of maps, and I'm lucky enough that Simon seems to share my taste to a good extent.
tl;dr: Read this post in its entirety you lazy bum!
