glitches in other Lemmings games

[mobius]

I’ve pretty much worked out what’s going on with the glitch in “Feeling Gravity’s Pull” (see http://www.lemmingsforums.com/index.php?topic=654.30 )

This would go under ‘diggers’.
If a lemming digs when he is partly on steel (even if he is mostly on terrain but a little bit of steel) he will swing once and stop. No terrain will appear to be removed; however lemmings will react as if the appropriate portion of terrain was actually removed. While the steel remains intact (normal). This also works if the lemming is standing nearby a steel wall even if there is no steel underneath him.

Something more usual happens when over directional walls. I have to check it out.
I couldn't replicate it yet so either I was mistaken or I just didn't figure it out yet.

[ccexplore]

Interesting.  I wonder if there are any other levels where you can make use of this.

[edit: what do you know, you can use this glitch on 8-8 "Take Her to Warp Speed, Captain" too.  I wouldn't be surprised if there are more such levels]

I updated the footnote on the challenge thread to reference this post on the glitch.  Personally it doesn't really feel like it's in the spirit of not damaging the level, but heck, it's too interesting a result to not at least mention there.

[mobius]

Lemmings shifting?

I honestly don’t know what to call this one. (I would’ve called it ‘sliding’ but I didn’t want to get it confused with the real sliding glitch as it’s nothing like that)* And it’s very difficult to describe and test out because it doesn’t seem to happen in any specific pattern. Except that it often happens when any lemmings nearby are performing any skill. I believe ccexplore actually mentioned this glitch;

“Sometimes when you scroll around the level, you may cause a lemming to somehow pass through a blocker.  Exact circumstances still unclear (only happened twice to me so far). I think for this to happen, the level can't be paused when you are scrolling, but I'm not sure.  I've also encountered one time where this happens merely when I fast-forwarded the game for a bit, without any scrolling.”

I also believe this glitch only happens on Windows 7, but I have no way of testing this at the moment.
If a group of lemmings are milling about in a restricted area (that is: inside blockers, or enclosed space with terrain) and a lemming is building, digging, bashing or mining nearby and you scroll; some lemmings will begin walking right through the terrain or blocker and they will also completely disregard whatever is really there and can even walk on the air. This happens for a short distance (for how long seems to vary every time) then they will resume acting normally. If they are inside terrain they will then be stuck. If they are in mid-air they will fall.

This happened to me on a few levels I don’t have screenshots for:
7-8 Build em Up then Bring em down.
When doing the no-damage challenge, I was building up toward the left near the balloon and when he hit the wall he turned around and started walking on air.

9-7 Battle of Lemmuckburn. I had the same situation ccexplore detailed. With blockers on the lower area near the entrance. Except it wasn’t just one or two; quite a bunch of lemmings escaped the blocker and fell to their death.
edit: when this happened, I wasn't doing anything nearby, so what I said above about lemmings using a skill nearby probably is meaningless. In fact, it happened twice; first time I was on the other side of the level and suddenly heard lemmings splatting and I only realized what happened a second  time when it happened almost exactly the same.

I can also confirm that it never happens when the game is paused. I know for a fact this glitch never happened to me on older computers however, I have been playing the game a lot more often and doing more advanced things lately. In any case, I'm not saying I have figured out all the details yet. I really have no idea what's going on. 

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*Has the sliding glitch been tested to work in Revolution? It’s much more difficult to test plus, I’m not sure lemmings even “jump” in this game at all. Considering they can’t get up steps as high as the first generation.

[ccexplore]

It was on XP when I encountered shifting lemmings back in December, since GP's patch isn't even in existence yet making Win7 not a usable option for me.  In the cases I ran into at th time, it was with lemmings getting past a blocker, and since I usually scrolled to some other part of the level before scrolling back and finding out it already happened, I never quite caught it in the middle of the act and never saw exactly what it looks like when it started happening.  I didn't see the case of lemmings ending up walking in mid-air or inside walls, but what you described makes sense.

And AFAIK lemmings don't "jump" on Revolution, so I don't expect the sliding glitch to work on that game.  Indeed, even in games like Lemmings 2 and Lemmings 3 there is already no "jump" when walking up taller steps.

[mobius]

I discovered a few new interesting things in Revolution today.

dig down a bridge glitch. I think somebody mentioned this before but I'm not sure (and I don't have time to look through the entire thread right now)

When a lemming digs on a stair, facing left and going the direction downward; he’ll dig a hole but he won’t fall through the stair, he’ll continue walking down. I still need to do more testing, but I think this only happens facing left (and going down).

--------------
another odd thing I noticed, which I don’t know if it’s a glitch or not:

I previously thought and observed that time doors work either direction. That is; when a lemming passes through from either direction, the counter always goes down. Until I recently played 10-2 Legend of Smelly Belly.
The time door in this level works completely differently; lemmings going to the right make it count down. But when a lemming passes going left, it goes back up!
This is also one of the few levels in which this time door can be opened up again (and get its timer reset via the laser gates).

First of all; when the door is reset its timer doesn’t right away go back to 5, it remains zero, until a lemming passes by.

As you can see from figure 2, you can actually get the timer to go up past its initial setting by having a lemming go in the wrong direction first, after being reset. (this door’s counter is original at 5). I'll have to tinker around some more tomorrow/later.

[ccexplore]

I previously thought and observed that time doors work either direction. That is; when a lemming passes through from either direction, the counter always goes down. Until I recently played 10-2 Legend of Smelly Belly.
The time door in this level works completely differently; lemmings going to the right make it count down. But when a lemming passes going left, it goes back up!

I could swear that I've seen it work like that (ie. can go back up walking left) in earlier levels as well.  If I get a chance I'll check.  Nevertheless, definitely some interesting and unexpected behavior you mentioned below.

[mobius]

I found a new glitch in Revolution I'm pretty sure hasn't been mentioned yet (at least its not in the list) (thought I'm kind of surprised this one hasn't been found yet  )

if you make a lemming a builder as soon as it leaves a teleport it will immediately re-teleport. It does not change direction however; it will come out of the exit T facing the same direction it was.
I'm guessing this has something to do with builders. They must shift slightly backward when starting (actually I suspected they did this before) Thus they re enter the teleport.
This works in both directions.

[mobius]

(from original post)
A timed door normally only allows a predetermined number of lemmings to pass, but you can sneak more through if you've got them bunched up tightly enough.  (reported by LemSteven)

I've finally confidently discovered this definitely does NOT work for me. For whatever reason in my game; the exact opposite happens; if lemmings are squeezed together and more than the time door allows pass into it, it closes and kills MORE than it should.
[I discovered this on "Where is Carol Vorderlem?"]

As to why this is i have no idea; maybe my game is newer and this was yet another patch they made to fix the game or maybe my game is more glitchier.
-note- I'm not refuting that it works differently in other people's games, I've seen it work as such, so i really don't understand it.

----
another note about time doors:

I previously thought and observed that time doors work either direction. That is; when a lemming passes through from either direction, the counter always goes down. Until I recently played 10-2 Legend of Smelly Belly.
The time door in this level works completely differently; lemmings going to the right make it count down. But when a lemming passes going left, it goes back up!

I could swear that I've seen it work like that (ie. can go back up walking left) in earlier levels as well.  If I get a chance I'll check.  Nevertheless, definitely some interesting and unexpected behavior you mentioned below.

I also confirmed by belief the level "Where is Carol Vorderlem?" UNLIKE "the legend of smelly belly" the time doors in this level never count back up, they always count down no matter which direction the lemming walks. This is the usual behavior, but you could be right in that other levels have the "smelly belly" behavior but I have yet to see it.
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I wanted to start a counter with the glitches in revolution but it might be too late... I did however discover a new one recently, but I didn't write it down and forget it now. I'll try to remember it; it was very bizzare
Not sure if this was it but [and this might've been mentioned already] sometimes lemmings can simply disappear [and die] under a variety of circumstances. A new one I found was; reset a blocker by bombing, bashing, for some reason he fell into the terrain then was gone forever. Can't remember what level this was but there was nothing else odd in the area

[ccexplore]

(from original post)
A timed door normally only allows a predetermined number of lemmings to pass, but you can sneak more through if you've got them bunched up tightly enough.  (reported by LemSteven)

I've finally confidently discovered this definitely does NOT work for me. For whatever reason in my game; the exact opposite happens; if lemmings are squeezed together and more than the time door allows pass into it, it closes and kills MORE than it should.

It's possible you might just be misunderstanding LemSteven's description?  It has been a while since I last touched the game (more on that below), but if I recall correctly, the door does still close, just that because it's not totally instantaneous, it may be possible for the lemmings to all get past before the closure actually kills anyone.

I also confirmed by belief the level "Where is Carol Vorderlem?" UNLIKE "the legend of smelly belly" the time doors in this level never count back up, they always count down no matter which direction the lemming walks. This is the usual behavior, but you could be right in that other levels have the "smelly belly" behavior but I have yet to see it.

Aside from different versions and patches, I suppose it's quite possible that maybe a timed door can be set up in a level either way, to respond either the same or differently based on direction.  We just don't know anything about how things are represented and stored in the game's level files to know one way or another.  I seem to recall for example that I've observed and reported here some behaviorial differences (though nothing as fundamental as timed door directionality) with teleporters.  Also I believe some glitches here have been reported to only work on specific levels?

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I've been in an unfortunate position with this game for a while, with one of my two game CDs damaged, and the other one not yet found (I think it's still in the house?  although frankly it may also have been damaged some time ago and thrown away and I completely forgot about it ).  There is probably some way to coax the game to be played without the actual CD, but I haven't bothered yet to figure out how.

[Prob Lem]

There is probably some way to coax the game to be played without the actual CD, but I haven't bothered yet to figure out how.

There is. I know this because it's necessary to use a no-CD crack to get it running under WINE after you've gotten it installed from the CD.

The problem is, for some reason, this causes the loss of the level names, so you get something like "Undefined String" written where the level titles should be...

[mobius]

(from original post)
A timed door normally only allows a predetermined number of lemmings to pass, but you can sneak more through if you've got them bunched up tightly enough.  (reported by LemSteven)

I've finally confidently discovered this definitely does NOT work for me. For whatever reason in my game; the exact opposite happens; if lemmings are squeezed together and more than the time door allows pass into it, it closes and kills MORE than it should.

It's possible you might just be misunderstanding LemSteven's description?  It has been a while since I last touched the game (more on that below), but if I recall correctly, the door does still close, just that because it's not totally instantaneous, it may be possible for the lemmings to all get past before the closure actually kills anyone.

I understand the description. You compress x lemmings together. They try to pass through a time door which is set to >x, they all walk through safely and the door closes. correct? I've seen it proven in a picture by you or somebody [I actually think Pirohiko does it but I need to look for it]
For whatever reason in my game; instead; if you compress x lemmings together, they try to pass through a time door set to >x, they ALL die! So I'm actually losing more lemmings than I should be.
I'll look into it some more but this happened enough times to me that it wasn't a fluke (not just on 1 level) I haven't yet been able to get the "cheat" to work.------------
It can't be me just doing it wrong either right? because; if they are compressed either they are all going to get through or they are all are not. So far nobody's posted evidence of the third and final option; the game somehow magically separating compressed lemmings and only killing the ones over the limit. I will continue to try and investigate anyway. Maybe this could be the patch and/or windows 7?

I finally did it! I was able to get 6 lemmings through a 5 door on Green with Envy. Maybe I wasn't trying hard enough or they weren't compressed enough but I know for a fact that on certain occasions MORE lemmings died than were supposed to. I'll have to keep researching [I really should be doing something more valuable with my time I guess  ]

I also confirmed by belief the level "Where is Carol Vorderlem?" UNLIKE "the legend of smelly belly" the time doors in this level never count back up, they always count down no matter which direction the lemming walks. This is the usual behavior, but you could be right in that other levels have the "smelly belly" behavior but I have yet to see it.

Aside from different versions and patches, I suppose it's quite possible that maybe a timed door can be set up in a level either way, to respond either the same or differently based on direction.  We just don't know anything about how things are represented and stored in the game's level files to know one way or another.  I seem to recall for example that I've observed and reported here some behaviorial differences (though nothing as fundamental as timed door directionality) with teleporters.  Also I believe some glitches here have been reported to only work on specific levels?

I'd say it's a pretty good chance your right. And you're right about other things like the teleporters too. A lot of things like this are level -specific actually.
I suppose on Smelly Belly, it's sort of a fail safe. The layout of that level it makes it easier for it work this way? That is; if it worked the "usual" way; you could permanently trap lemmings in the entrance area by simply ignoring the beginning area. (you open up the door again in the level twice, but if you have more than 5 the last time, those extra will be trapped forever then)

Sorry to hear about CD troubles I know Prob Lem is right; little is 'on' the CD; the annoying "Level completed" or "Level failed" videos are one of those things.
However; I also encountered Prob Lem's untitled strong glitch-- it happened in an early incarnation of Guy's Patch, he managed to fix it. If he's around you can ask him how he fixed it. I seem to recall him saying he wasn't able to get the patch/game to run without the CD but I'm not sure about that. I know the CD only spins up for me when the "level completed" videos play. EDIT: I think it also spins up for the loading screens. [difficult to tell sometimes nowadays when computers/CD roms drives are so quiet  ]