Lemmings 2 Level Editor for Amiga

[ccexplore]

I spent this whole day creating a nice stand-alone HDF harddisk image file that you can boot directly into a nice RTG workbench with WinUAE. It contains both the editor and the Lemmings 2 game. You only need a Kickstart 3.1 rom image (preferably A1200) to run it, but other than that no need to configure anything.

Thanks.  I think I still need the kickstart rom image, I had been using pretty old ones (v1.3 for playing the lemmings games, and the latest ROM version I have is I think v3.01 and I'm not even sure if it works for anything).  If you can email that to me that'd be awesome.

[ccexplore]

Ok, got it working now.  Looks like it's not so much the ROM version, as that I haven't edited the uae config file correctly to point to the correct paths for the ROM file and Hardfile.  Once I re-loaded the files through the WinUAE UI instead of trying to hand-edit the .uae file, it works.

For those who wants to get it working in WinUAE:

- make sure you use a pretty recent version of WinUAE (at least not some old version from like 7 years ago)
- after loading the .uae config file included in platon42's zip, go to the "ROM" and "Hard drive" sections of WinUAE properties and set the ROM and Hardfile to the corresponding files on your computer.  Whatever was set in the .uae config file probably won't work since the filepaths were based on platon42's computer and not yours.  The hardfile is the .hdf file in platon42's zip.
- I've attached KickStart ROM v3.1 here.  You probably can use any KS ROM of at least v3.0.
- (optional) also go to "CPU and FPU", and for CPU Emulation Speed, don't pick "fastest possible".  I found that fastest possible does not work well performance-wise when actually running Lemmings 2, at least on my computer.  The option to be closer to real speed works fine on my computer for both running the game as well as the editor.
- Save the configuration once you make the changes, of course.

[ccexplore]

Hmm... I can't really tell... Really never tried the PC converted levels myself. It could be that the conversion does not correctly cater for all bits and pieces.

I've compared the Amiga version of the levels, and have confirmed that indeed, the PC conversion fails to preserve solid vs transparent (aka background), so all the transparent tiles (aka blocks) become solid, extra terrain.  This completely changes many of the levels and basically make the PC conversion fairly worthless.

If I have time during Xmas break I'll see if I can redo the conversion properly, or at least edit the PC conversions to fix the tiles that should've been background.

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On another note, your editor supports importing custom graphics (IFF-ILBM) for a level.  I want to understand, does this mean the level file format actually has support to use custom graphics in place of the normal block-based map?  Is that support part of the original Lemmings 2 game code, or something new you patched into the game?

If the custom graphics support is built into the original game and file format, I'd love to know more about the technical details so we can try and see if PC DOS Lemmings 2 have similar support for it.

Anyway, thanks for the editor and new levels.

[platon42]

Sorry, I didn't check back a couple of days. Was sightly busy...

You did a good job figuring out how to run it. I agree I could have made it easier indeed. Actually, I just stripped down the HDF some more, included the ROM and a short readme file about fixing the paths. I also changed a few settings, such as the CPU idle one, creating a much lesser the CPU drain. For playing the game, a slow CPU setting is sufficient, for booting and using the editor, I guess I would prefer a faster CPU. I've attached the file once more

The fact that the background blocks haven't been converted correctly is quite disappointing. There are many levels that will no longer work the intended way. If you would find the time to fix it, it would be greatly appreciated. Maybe Herman Schinagl is still around somewhere and can hand over the source for the converter.

About the custom graphics: No, apparently that's not a built-in property of the level format. But as I already had an ILBM decoding routine in my patch (for the editor selection screen) and knew the address of the screen buffer for the level, it wasn't that hard to implement. Drawing a level in a paint program, however, is a much more painful job and I only ever created three levels based on one IFF picture for the outdoor world.

I tried a few levels again today and I found some them insanely hard to finish (Good Luck Jim, The Magic of Magno Boots, Spell Tarzan with an 'L'). Would love to see some reviews...

Cheers

Chris

[Leo]

As I said few days ago platon42, there is no need to create HDF file. And no need for the 'readme' file about how-to-fix-paths. All can be configured to work 'out of the box'. Emulation can be pretty hiden from the 'end user'. I have the game configured that way. I didn't try anything with the editor, but I doubt there will be many new levels created in the future (hope I am wrong). And, for the last time, do you want me to send you this game-emulator package so you can see how this can be done?