Gauging interest in Lemmings Revolution

[ccexplore]

Trying to get a sense of whether I should consider taking the plunge at disassembling the game to learn more.  I make no promises as to any actual level editors so early at this point, but at least I hope to figure out and document the .box file format and be able to get at the data inside, in particular the level data.  I realize that being on a CD, many people might not even have a convenient way of obtaining the game to begin with.   (The files total to ~330 MB, and because they are basically packed into one big file whose format is yet unknown, even uploading it is tricky.)  Hence would like to know if I should even really bother.

[Ramon]

It sounds promising. Lemmings Revolution is the only Lemmings game besides the original Lemmings that I've ever played, and as such I'd be delighted to see a working level editor for it.

In some ways I really liked Lemmings Revolution, though I never completed that game yet.

And I still have it installed on my PC I have the CD as well, so if some people are really desperate, I could upload it somewhere. (At least for a limited amount of time.)

[finlay]

Trying to get a sense of whether I should consider taking the plunge at disassembling the game to learn more.  I make no promises as to any actual level editors so early at this point, but at least I hope to figure out and document the .box file format and be able to get at the data inside, in particular the level data.  I realize that being on a CD, many people might not even have a convenient way of obtaining the game to begin with.   (The files total to ~330 MB, and because they are basically packed into one big file whose format is yet unknown, even uploading it is tricky.)  Hence would like to know if I should even really bother.

I found a RAR of the files and have them on my computer; however, I haven't been able to get them to work. I'm not sure it's worth having a level editor from my perspective. I'd love to try the game eventually, though.

[Simon]

I voted no for the editor, deeming other Lemmings games a bit more important than this. However, if you like hacking the game, go for the Revolution data format nonetheless.

The glitch thread is a great read. I finished the game myself, so I remember quite some of these bugs. Keep up the great work!

-- Simon

[Minim]

I like this idea of a Revolution level editor. It is just a little bit different from the Clones Editor although there are a couple of things that might need to be mentioned:

* Every level is a vertical cylinder-shaped level that in other words wraps itself round horizontally and not vertically. There is a fixed amount of time where the lemmings can go round in a full circle as it cannot be any shorter or longer.
* All the switches, doors, obstacles, etc. How are we as editors going to work out which switch controls which door, and what switch drains or adds water?
* We would all have to find a place to save the level (Which unfortunately might involve replacing an existing level instead of adding one to the pack. )

Still, it would be great if the whole idea works, if you can outweigh the concerns I mentioned and make the editor easy to use. I'd like to test myself further on my creativity skills!

[Clam]

I can't see myself using it in preference to, say, Lix. I've never even played Lemmings Revolution, which says something about my interest in that game I guess

[ccexplore]

I can't see myself using it in preference to, say, Lix. I've never even played Lemmings Revolution

That actually brings up a good point.  Instead of making Revolution customizable, maybe a better way to go is to enhance Lix to support the objects in Revolution, and then the levels can be remade in Lix, and additional custom levels can also be designed to make use of both the Revolution objects as well as things unique to Lix like new skills.  Frankly I'd prefer a 2D wraparound version over the 3D rendering approach in Revolution myself (I found the 3D view makes it rather harder to gauge distances, like where to start building to reach somewhere).  This would also take care of the problem of how many people have trouble even obtaining the game or getting it to run.  Who knows, maybe you will find a Lix version of the levels quite enjoyable.  It's certainly a lot closer to original Lemmings compare to the directions taken by other games in the series, and the levels tend to be harder and less straightforward even in earlier parts of the game.

Shame that you have no interest, I'd love to get challenge threads (eg. min-skills, common skillsets, etc.) going for the Revolution levels.  Oh well.

I voted no for the editor, deeming other Lemmings games a bit more important than this.

That seems to beg the question of what you would like me to work on in place of Revolution?  As far as level editors go, I think at this point only 3D Lemmings and Revolution are missing any.  (I'm not counting Paintball and Lomax as they aren't really IRS-style games.)

[Simon]

If I could really choose a medium/long-time project for you , then it would be a full-blown L2 editor, with support for the various objects and good playtesting (fast startup of the game).

lgl2 isn't free nor open-source, it's Windows-only, and has usability issues (hotkeys). PCL2ed is rather hard to use, according to geoo at least -- I haven't tried it much, and I don't know what it can or cannot do. I think neither of them supports all the objects. geoo's L2 suite ties all of this together in a loose, but usable manner.

As said earlier, if you'd like to hack Revolution, go for it! It's just that I won't use a Revolution editor much -- I didn't check whether the game runs in Wine at all, and never built many levels in the existing editors for other games either, despite highly valuing their availability. (The Lix editor is the only one I know how to use properly, but the vast majority of Lix levels is done by Rubix, Clam, and geoo!)

maybe a better way to go is to enhance Lix to support the objects in Revolution

Hmm, this is sounds daunting >_> For multiplayer at least, different gravities do not enhance the game at all, this is my experience with Clones 1v1. Switches, retractable walls, and all this good stuff require a much more elaborate format for interactive objects than I have right now. There is actually a small demand for a better format even now, but it's not a short-term goal...

-- Simon

[mobius]

Revolution is my favorite Lemmings game. I like the wrap around style as well as all the new things like switches and etc. I've actually been looking for a way to edit levels in that game for a long time but there's never been anyway. I haven't been able to play the game for a long time & I need a virtual box because it doesn't work on Windows 7.

I should probably acquaint myself with this site a little more first because I don't know what "Lix" is that your talking about.

but i for one would be really interested in anything that is able to edit the game itself or a game like it in some way

[finlay]

Lix is Simon's Lemmings clone, in development at the moment... its purpose is mainly for 2-player matches, but he's put in quite a few features that aren't in original Lemmings such as a few extra skills (some taken from Lemmings 2), and levels that wrap-around, similarly to Revolution but without the 3D effects. So essentially the Revolution levels could be remade, but they have interactive objects (gravity pads, water and acid lemmings, switches) that aren't in Lix, mainly because they aren't in Original Lemmings.

[ccexplore]

lgl2 isn't free nor open-source, it's Windows-only, and has usability issues (hotkeys).

Hmm, I may not be the best person for writing portable programs.  At the very least it will be a learning curve for me.  I'll take note of your suggestion although with two editors out there already (however incomplete they may be), seems like we can make do with the current state of affairs for now.

maybe a better way to go is to enhance Lix to support the objects in Revolution

Hmm, this is sounds daunting >_> <snip>

If I were to pursue this I would be doing at least some of the programming, but yes, I will need to coordinate with you on things like file formats and stuff.  Probably not in the near future, but when/if I do get serious about this I'll chat with you and see.

[ccexplore]

It looks like "no" has edged out "yes" so far in the polls. [edit: apparently now tied]  That doesn't mean it's never going to happen, but certainly it gives a handy excuse to not look into this for now.

As for recreating Revolution objects in Lix, wow, the current Lix file format is primitive indeed, I think at the very least I'll wait until Simon has come up with an improved format first.

[finlay]

You can use them to get ideas, though, still. I have a custom level that came out of an attempt to recreate the gist of 3D Lemmings' Mayhem 19 in Lemedit, although I don't think the end product is really recognisable as such.

[ccexplore]

Maybe, although the new objects in Revolution come into play pretty early on.  I think past the training levels pretty much all [edit: okay, "most", still a whole lot] levels have objects new to Revolution as some core part of the puzzle, so I don't think I'll find many levels that can be satisfactorily remade.

Incidentally, did I read correctly in IRC that Lix doesn't even have one-way walls?!?!?

[ccexplore]

I realize that being on a CD, many people might not even have a convenient way of obtaining the game to begin with.   (The files total to ~330 MB, and because they are basically packed into one big file whose format is yet unknown, even uploading it is tricky.)

I found a RAR of the files and have them on my computer; however, I haven't been able to get them to work.

Recent development shows that the BOX file format is pretty simple, and more importantly, it is uncompressed so even though it is 330 MB, it likely compresses to something more manageable (though I haven't tried yet).  So distribution might not be that big a problem as I thought.

I'll have to dig a little more to see if I can help Finlay with getting the game to work with just the raw set of files, but I suspect it's probably not too bad of a problem.  Probably just need some entries in the registry.  Also, even when you choose to install as many of the files on your hard disk as the installer lets you, the game still bizarrely requires the CD because the cutscene movies never get installed on your hard disk (extremely annoying as it means a ridiciulous delay to spin up the CD every time it plays a cutscene movie, like whenever you win or lose a level " title="Angry" class="smiley" />).  I'm not sure if this can be avoided, but shouldn't be that bad to burn the cutscene movie files into a CD.