Lemmings 2 demo

[Leo]

How many demo versions of 'Lemmings 2' exists? I was able to find 3; Amiga, PC and Archimedes. I thought there will be (at least) one more, for Atari ST, but I can't find any trace of that. There are 5 'new' levels (levels not included in the full version of the game) in that demo versions.

Amiga - 2 Circus, 1 Polar
PC - 2 Circus (same as on the Amiga), 2 Medieval
Archimedes - 5 Circus (levels 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 from the full version)
             practice levels: 1 medieval, 1 polar (both same as in the full version)

Only difference between Amiga and PC 'Circus' levels is 'User' skill, available only on the PC demo.

So, if anyone knows of any other demo version, let me know.

[Prob Lem]

I know of a demo of the Amiga version that was shown at the Future Entertainment Show in 1992. But knowing *of* it is all - I've not seen it myself. Is that one the same as the Amiga demo you've already mentioned?

[Mikex62]

Only difference between Amiga and PC 'Circus' levels is 'User' skill, available only on the PC demo.

I tend to see the User skill a really wierd skill, as it would do exactly what you think it would do. The Lemming would use something they came across.

[Leo]

I don't know is there just one Amiga demo. It can be more demo versions of some game for the same computer.
But, as I said, maybe I can expect Atari ST demo yet, I can't put much hope in something else.

'User' skill was pretty dumb, and it's abandoned (nobody cry for that). And it's not the only abandoned skill, at the end of demo is picture with 61 skill, only 51 are in the game.

[ccexplore]

If I recall, back at demo phase the design was that for cannons, you have to explicitly assign the "user" skill to a lemming to make it actually use the cannon.  Clearly the game designers agreed with you post-demo that it's weird and unnecessary (not to mention taking up one of the 8 skill slots whenever a level has a cannon), and so the full version has "user" skill eliminated and "using" being automatic behavior for all lemmings.  Some levels in the full version would probably need to be designed differently if cannons require skill to use (you wouldn't really want to force the player to assign same skill to all 60 lemmings!).

Although, given that lemmings are supposed to be dumb and mindless, I supposed logically it made some sense that you have to assign a skill to make them use the cannon.

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Interesting that there are other abandoned skills, I didn't know that.  Anyone has a screenshot of the 61-skills picture?

[Leo]

Here it is, 61 skills screenshot.

[Mikex62]

I see with my little eye, A Lemming throwing a ball, a Basher, A Bazooker, a Firer, a Kicker, a Horizontal Laser Blaster Lemming, and a Jetpacker! Does this mean they can be in Playstation All-Stars Royal now?

[geoo]

I never knew that there were demo versions that had new levels and pictures of scrapped skills!

I suppose the screenshot from two posts above is the list of skills that gets displayed at the end of the Amiga demo?
If the Archimedes version has two practice levels, which skills are available in the practice menu for this version then?
I just watched a video of the Amiga demo (which shows the screen with the skills at the end). It seems that the skier didn't suck as hard in the demo as in the other versions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnqbJj0Nv6U&feature=player_detailpage#t=205s

Anyway, I had a look at the DOS and Amiga version. Those skills don't have a name in either version (in DOS the preview displays 'runner' and ingame no name is displayed, in Amiga it displays some random strings from the file the names of the other skills are stored). They haven't been implemented either: On the Amiga you can assign them and nothing happens. In DOS, most of them can't be assigned except for two: one skill displays an explosion nearby (without terrain effect) together with a planter animation for the lemming, the other one crashes the game.

I wanted to have a glance at the VLEMMS file which contains all the lemmings animations, but it turns out the format is somewhat different from the final version, so my extractor doesn't work. On the Amiga, the files are RNC compressed (Rob Northen ProPack), but I've never extracted the Amiga graphics, so I don't know about the format.
The DOS version contains some music files (one for each sound format, but foobar plays all the tracks that are in one file at once :/), and some assembly code. There are also some files which just seems like bitmaps.

[Leo]

Picture of the skills is from Amiga demo. There are two Amiga demos, almost the same. One is with 'Future Entertainment Show' logo on the main menu screen, and other is without any logo. But, levels are the same in the both versions.

Archimedes demo version is made after the full game was released (Amiga, PC and Atari ST versions), so it's not a snapshot from the development process. It's just reduced version of the full game. In the practice levels, all skills from the full game are available.
One interesting thing is, there are only 50 skills available for the practice (in any version), but in the game 51 skills are used. Do you guys know which skill is absent from the practice levels?

When we speaking about 'new' levels, there are some 'new' levels in the SNES and Megadrive/Grenesis versions. For example, the first 'Sports' level is completely different. Some levels are really new, and some are changed a little. Many SNES levels are different because there are no catapults and chains in the SNES version (some obstacles also missing, e.g. Walker in 'Space' tribe and hand from the dark in 'Cavelem'), and all cannons are fixed at the ground.
SNES version is also unique because there are background pictures on the levels and on the 'Polar' levels snow is falling.

Let's check is anyone here can prove to be 'The Master Lemmings Fan'.
Here are the island maps from all the versions I was able to find (demos and full versions). Only Gameboy map is missing, but this one is so obvious (4 colors monochrome).
Is there anyone capable to recognise all versions maps? I doubt that, but you can prove I am wrong.

Number them as follows:

    1         2         3

    4         5         6

    7         8         9

[geoo]

Haha, nice quiz idea. This one is way too hard for me. I think 4 or 9 is the DOS version (due to the font; I'm inclined to say 4), and 1 and 2 are probably the demo versions as they are missing the name of the tribe (I'd say 1 is DOS and 2 Amiga, for palette consistency between 1 and 4). 3 might be Genesis due to the restricted palette.

But here's an interesting tidbit (though most have probably seen it before already), courtesy of Mike Dailly's flickr, a very old L2 world map:



The blocker skill is missing from the practice screen because (at least in the DOS version), the blocker glitches up in levels that are higher than one screen, and I'm not entirely sure, but I think also in tribes that are not the Classic tribe.

[Leo]

geoo you have just one all correct 'maps quiz' answer.

[geoo]

I figured the graphics format for the demo version of DOS.

Here are all the lemmings sprites that were included: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/43603680/vlemms_demo.png
For comparison, the sprites in the final version: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/43603680/vlemms_final.png

There are some sprites I'm not sure yet what they belong to, but I don't see much of an indication of what the scrapped skills might have been intended to do. The only thing is the axe guy, which comes after the superlem; the animation looks like planting a tree and then chopping it off?

Then there's the weird dances above N1, I have no idea what that is for. And N1-N11 looks like at some point they wanted to have a tribe-specific nuke animation.

[ccexplore]

Attached is a side-by-side comparison of the 61-skills display in the demo vs the 50-skills display in the final version.  (Blocker is also in the final version but not available for practice levels, which is where the 50-skills screenshot come from.)

Skills boxed in yellow are uniqued to the version depicted in the particular screenshot.  The other colored boxes are cases where a skill in the demo version looks like it might be the same or similar skill in the final version (so I boxed them same color in both screenshots), despite major difference in the icons.

The one with the wrench in the demo version is the "User" skill.  Your guess is as good as mine as to what the other ones do.  Intriguingly, the one demo skill that's 4th row from top and 2nd column from right, kinda looks like it could be like the "cuber" in Lix?!?   And 5th row from top 1st column from right, that "kicker"-looking skill, I kinda imagine it could behave like "batter" in Lix......

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Anyway, given that it's a demo version, it's pretty expected that you'd find no signs of many of the skills depicted in the screenshot in the actual animation sprites of the game, and on the flip side, finding extra unused animation spirtes that were ultimately dropped for the final game.

[Leo]

geoo tribe-specific nuke animations for each included tribe are in the demos (on the screen); Circus (inflating like a baloons), Medieval (killing himself with a gun? and falling aside) and Polar (melting). Plus (in the final game) Classic tribe animation (just exploding) and animation for all other tribes (exploding and popping-up in the air). All together 5 different nuke animations. Should be 7 more, but they missing.

[Prob Lem]

Let's check is anyone here can prove to be 'The Master Lemmings Fan'.
Here are the island maps from all the versions I was able to find (demos and full versions). Only Gameboy map is missing, but this one is so obvious (4 colors monochrome).
Is there anyone capable to recognise all versions maps? I doubt that, but you can prove I am wrong.

I'm sorry to say that the only one I truly know is the one in the middle. It's the Mega Drive version (which happens to be my favourite version of Lemmings 2) - it's the only one that uses that chunky orange font.