Lemmings Plus II Topic - <100% completed>

[namida]

Yeah - that's pretty much it. I'm not wanting to reinvent the game; just add an extra twist to the odd level.

I very much like that Karoshi-style level idea. I might use that rather than the swapped entrance and exit... It might actually make a good final level. You know, something fun to finish off, that I'm sure many people will find quite entertaining after solving all the more-traditional levels. I never make the final level *overly* hard anyway - challenging sometimes, sure, but the hardest levels in my packs are always close to the final level but before it.

[namida]

Okay, here are the replays for the demo.

For those who are familiar with playtest mode in the Lemmix editor; the control is slightly different - press L, not Shift+R, to load a replay. (To save one, press U.)

Obviously, give the levels a go yourself first. If you're really stuck, you can use these - or if you've already solved it and want to compare solutions.

It should be noted that nothing is considered a backroute on the following levels. The replays are just to show how I solved them. The levels however are just a matter of "solve this any way you can with these skills", so anything goes.
- Nice 1
- Nice 2
- Cheeky 1
- Sneaky 1

Even beyond that, multiple solutions are possible on some of the other levels. Please do share if you solved a level differently; if it's overly easy I may have to block it out, but if it's a really nice solution, I may very well leave it in (this has already happened once for Cheeky 2).

[Akseli]

I'm not sure if any of you guys ever played Lemmings Revolution through, but that included one level where pausing wasn't possible. And guess what? It was a level with four entrances far above the ground, and you had to assign floaters to save the lemmings. The level is at the end of the game, it's titled "LEMTRIS" and yeah, it's surprisingly fun to play and one of my favourite levels in that game.

[namida]

I've played it, but not to completion.

Proxima: Didn't you see where I said "My original idea was to combine it with superlemming on a really really hard level"? =P

EDIT: Karoshi-style gimmick has been coded. =)

Been putting quite a bit of work into making levels today. Here's a few of the new ones.

(Three guesses what the stats and skillset are on the third one. =P)

20 Lemmings
100% to be saved
2 Minutes
Release Rate 99
9 of every skill

It's a homage/sequel to the No Time To Die levels (this level is titled "Still No Time To Die" - and it's every bit as multitasky and down-to-the-last-few-seconds as the first two).

[namida]

I've decided to have two different types of gimmick levels per rank. Why? Because that no-pause-rapid-floater thing is actually f***ing fun as hell, that's why. So, basically, there'll be two per difficulty rank - a "Floater Frenzy"* (it won't be an exact clone with more lemmings - in fact, each one uses a different graphic set, though the basic idea is the same - and there's also minor tweaks to the requirements and release rate, with an extra twist on the final one), and another gimmick level which will vary from rank to rank - I have indeed implemented the Karoshi lemmings idea (you can kill them ANY way and it counts, apart from falling off the level or running out of time), as well as so far two others.

* Please tell me Revolution at least didn't use the same name as I am...

I'm not entirely sure what I'll do about Cunning. When the plan was one per rank, I was going to leave it out altogether (due to that re-use of Fine-Tuned Lemming), but now I'm not sure. Perhaps I might go with applying the Floater Frenzy concept (no pausing) to a regular level, and not have an actual Floater Frenzy (Genius's one is quite early, so it probably won't be as missed here). Otherwise, I'll probably have either a standard gimmick level or a Floater Frenzy, but not both.

I'll probably put up a new demo fairly soon too. When I do, I'll include 8 normal levels, one gimmick level and one Floater Frenzy - most likely Nice's, as Cheeky has the gimmick level I want to include, and Sneaky's and especially Genius's may be a tad on the hard side for showing the concept. =)

(No, I didn't decide to be REALLY evil and make Genius's Floater Frenzy require 100%. It actually has the lowest requirement of all of them AND the lowest release rate. There's other reasons why it's particularly evil...)

[namida]

Here's a screenshot from my favorite (Floater Frenzy aside) gimmick level so far. =D

Basically, the gimmick is that this level has no gravity. Results are mildly amusing and actually cause quite a decent amount of difficulty.

Sneaky 4 - "Who Turned The Gravity Off?"

[namida]

And yes, you can do this. (See attachment)

Anyway, all the gimmick levels and Floater Frenzies have now been made. So back to making regular levels now, I guess. Was pretty fun to come up with, and implement, a few levels that twist the usual rules though. That no gravity one shown above is probably the biggest deviation from normal mechanics, just to give you a rough idea of what to expect.

EDIT: I'd still like suggestions for a 5th graphic set, by the way. I can't come up with any really good ideas that'd work well for Lemmings... xD

[namida]

After I do a small thing for Tim, I'm going to make and release a second demo. Already picked the levels out for it, just got to modify the player for it. (It would be easier at this point to modify the full game's source into a demo, than to modify the existing demo's source to support some of the levels I want to include.)

Demo will include one gimmick level, one Floater Frenzy, and a decent number of purple-style levels (mixed in with everything else, of course). =D 10 levels, two from each rank again, and none of the levels will be the same as the ones in the first demo.

As you can tell, I'm finding making levels with the purple style quite fun, although it does tend to be more suited towards easy levels (that being said, we have *proper* Genius level using it already - the other Genius level with it is the Floater Frenzy).

EDIT: Here we go! New demo! Enjoy.


A hint to anyone having trouble with the Genius levels: While not always required, good use of release rate manipulation can make these levels a LOT easier (while I think they can all be done without it (and I know for sure Emergency Rescue Proceedure can be, even disregarding backroutes), all the so-far released Genius levels (with the obvious exception of Still No Time To Die) can majorly benefit from such techniques). It's often absolutely required if you want to save the maximum possible percentage (for example, the updated version of Emergency Rescue Proceedure can definitely be beaten without RR manipulation, but you'll only be able to save the bare minimum 94% - with manipulation, 96% is possible.) It should be noted that I may in the future create levels (especially for late-Genius) that do outright require it, though never to an overly-precise degree - in particular, I do not plan to recreate something like that freaking evil level Psycho 2 from LPDOS; think more along the lines of Danger 22.



Anyway, if anyone else has played these demos, please send me your solutions! Even if you've only solved some of the levels. That way I can idenitfy backroutes, and it may help with inspiration for new levels if you've solved them in a particularly clever way.

Also - I've had one comment that the gimmick level seems a bit too hard for its position. What do the rest of you think? Personally I think it's fairly well-placed (taking into account that I do try to mix up the difficulty a bit, instead of a completely constant difficulty curve), but does anyone think otherwise?

[namida]

Uploaded the updated demo. The link remains the same.

Changed levels from the first demo are:
- Sneaky 1 "Misfortune of the Masses"
- Cunning 2 "Maximum Security"
- Genius 1 "Emergency Rescue Proceedure"

The first two are just backroute fixes, the third one though is both backroute fixes and a difficulty increase.

By the way - I can confirm that, even though it may not look like it, 100% is possible on Cunning 1 of the second demo. It's actually a fairly interesting challenge. I might re-use some of the concepts as part of a level's normal solution...

Another interesting challenge: Cunning 1 of the first demo gives you 2 minutes and requires 70%. But - can you, using a right-side solution, solve it in under 1 minute saving at least 50%?



Just as an update, 5th style has been decided (but development has not yet started); it will be Desert style. (The other two considerations I had were Orange style, which would be similar in concept to the purple style - generic, randomish stuff based around a color scheme more than a type of terrain - and a Space Station style.)

Also, here's another level map. It's one of the rare larger levels from me. You can probably guess what the skillset and stats might be on this one. =P

[namida]

Started work on the desert style! Here's the first level in it. =D

At this point, the only terrain I've made is various sand pieces (as seen in the level) and steel (as not seen in the level). Cacti coming soon. =P

As usual for the first level made in a new style, it's an easy level to go in Nice. Though it IS a bit of a step up from the levels before it; I guess it could catch new players off guard at first but anyone here wouldn't have a problem with it.

(EDIT: LOL, 7 posts in a row, geez. Still, it looks kind of messy (not to mention attachments getting shoved to the bottom) if I just keep updating the one post... that and people who are reading but not posting may not realise there's new info...)

EDIT: Added another image to this post. As promised; cacti. =D


Also, I'm considering moving Genius's Floater Frenzy to a position a bit further back then Level 3. Not so much because of difficulty, but because Genius 1 and Genius 4 are also purple style - and while it is plausible I might create more later, at the moment those three are the ONLY purple levels in Genius; I also generally don't pick the purple style as one to design Genius levels with (Genius 1 and Genius 4 were both originally intended for lower difficulties, the former I managed to bump up the difficulty to Genius-level, the latter turned out harder than I expected) - purple style is almost purely rough-edged (as opposed to tree and desert, which are primarily rough but have plenty of straight-edge parts too). As you probably know, I kinda have a thing about levels matching up with the musics; I also definitely want Emergency Rescue Proceedure as Genius 1, and Genius 10 is taken so can't move Genius 4 (I don't feel it's hard enough to put as Genius 16). Though I could move it to Genius 10 and move Still No Time To Die to Genius 16, if I block out one of the solutions that's too easy for that position... The advantage of moving Genius 3 is that it can go anywhere, since being a Floater Frenzy it overrides the normal music order anyway. (Realistically, it'd probably end up as Genius 9 - as you can probably tell by a *LOT* of FF/gimmick levels being placed in the respective slot, I'm not a huge fan of the 3rd music. =P)


Another modification I've made which is minor, but will probably be greatly appreciated: Just like how if you pass a level it gives you the next level's code, if you fail a level it'll show you the current level's code again. This is useful if you didn't write down the code then get stuck. =)


Desert levels are also catching up quite nicely in quantity to the others now (though not as quickly as purple did). They're actually quite fun to make.
Also, wow, Cheeky's gotten ahead of Nice in terms of how many levels have been made. o_O Quite possibly because (while there are exceptions) the general formula I'm using for Cheeky levels is similar to that of Nice levels, except instead of "X of everything" it's just "what you need plus some extra, that may possibly allow for different solutions".

[namida]

Another random piece of preview material.

Cheeky 5 - "A Violation Of Lemming Rights"
Lemmings: 50
Requirement: 80% (40 lemmings)
Release Rate: 40
Time Limit: 6 Minutes
Skills: 5 climbers, 2 floaters, 1 bomber, 2 blockers, 3 builders, 2 bashers, 2 miners, 2 diggers

Getting 100% on this level is quite interesting. Not overly hard, but it required a bit of clever thinking. As for solutions that simply meet the requirement, there are SO many ways to beat this level - none of which are *too* simple, though.

[mobius]

I voted for metal best mostly because it's easiest on the eyes. But I admit I do like desert, though before seeing the cactus I didn't realize it was desert. I though... "honey? beehive?" 

For purple I think of "alien planet" ? I also see tree having a lot of potential for some reason.

I'm not a big fan of psychedelic just like I'm not a fan of circus from L2 or Lix either. Though I don't mind them once and a while.

They all look very nice.  don't be afraid to keep adding new pieces, even if you just add little decorative things. That's what makes brick and marble so fun to use from the original set.

[namida]

I kinda wish you had've given me that suggestion before I made the cactuses, I really like that idea, but far too many levels to change anything now. =P

For the purple style, I actually thought it almost looks like brains. Especially the exit. xD Though the tentacles do kinda go better with the alien planet idea. I guess it's quite open to interpretations, like VGAGR2 from the original game.

Personally, the Psychedelic style is my favorite. Partly because of it being far more colorful than most Lemmings sets, and partly because the long, thin pieces work quite well with the way I think for Lemmings. Back when the only level editor was a pen and paper, levels I'd draw were almost entirely comprised of thin lines, and I think even after years of *actual* editors I have significant traces of that mentality for designing. That being said, I've had a lot of fun making desert levels recently too. xD

About expanding the styles: Having already released the style files (except desert), I'm a bit iffy about making further modifications to it. I don't really want multiple versions of them floating around (okay, there's an old version of the tree style out there, but that's because it was originally a proof-of-concept thing then was later developed into a proper style). As you can tell from the progress report on the first page though, I do plan to extend the desert style a bit further.

[Tim]

Can I ask if this project you are doing is simply lemmings with new tilesets, or a new type of lemmings? I have made two tilesets of my own under the existing lemmings structure (in Lemmini style), but I am unsure if you are only making your own ones or having more join in?

Hope that made any sense

[namida]

You could almost think of it as being a bonus game in a similar vein to Oh No More Lemmings (except fanmade). The only really special feature as far as the graphic sets go is that they're entirely DOS compatible - Lemmix players bundle the files into the EXE (but it does use the native DOS formats), but I can easily distribute the graphic sets seperately. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first case of custom graphic sets in a DOS-compatible format - this also contributes to them retaining the classic Lemmings look and feel to some extent.

The primary reason for LPII being available only as a Lemmix player, not standalone datafiles which can be used with CustLemm or ONML, is due to special features in other places. There's a few mechanics changes (the most notable one being the instant bombers) and bugfixes (one way right miners, for example), and in turn these levels are built for these mechanics, not those of the original game. A level that required mining through one-way-right terrain or a bomber to detonate within the first 5 seconds, for example, would be impossible under the normal mechanics. Apart from that, there's also the gimmick levels and Floater Frenzies, which the LPII Lemmix player has special code to handle - though these were more a matter of "since I'm using a custom Lemmix player, let's do this" rather than "I want to do this, I'm going to have to use Lemmix".

But yeah. Ultimately, LPII is essentially just a really fancy (and fairly large) level pack contained in its own Lemmix player, with custom graphics, a few mechanics adjustments (mostly fixing bugs, the only one that's a true change is the way the bombers work), and a very small number of levels which deviate slightly from the usual mechanics (as in, the core game is still the same, but minor details change - such as being unable to pause in Floater Frenzy, or the absence of gravity in Who Turned The Gravity Off?, etc). I guess on a continuum, it'd be somewhere between "level pack" and "fan game"... maybe it'd count as a mod? I'm not sure. Have you played the Lemmings Plus DOS Project? It's basically like that, but with custom graphics and a very few levels with unique features.

And sorry, but LPII is my own project, so I'm not looking for help with the graphic sets or levels - even on the technical side, I'm trying to ask only when I absolutely need to. However, I'm more than happy for you to use my graphic sets to create your own levels and distribute those levels however you like - all of the sets except desert are included with the second demo (the desert style hadn't even begun being made, let alone finished, when that demo was released). Desert style's files will be released with the full release when it's ready. The graphic sets work as-is with LemEdit or the Lemmix editor; you can use my extractor program (posted over in Fan Corner) to extract them to a format that'll work with jLevelBuilder. If you're using any other editor, you're on your own sorry. =P As for playing them, the graphic sets work fine with all the DOS games*, or the Lemmix editor's playtest mode (or if you know how to compile your own Lemmix player, they'll work fine in that too); or again, you can use that tool to convert them to Lemmini format (the sound effects of the traps will likely be wrong though, because the convertor program uses hardcoded values for their sounds).

* CGA/Tandy versions excluded. However, it should work fine under EGA. (However, in EGA mode, the colors may look weird, as just like LemSet downscales the 24-bit pallete to 18-bit colors for VGA (which is barely noticable), it again downscales them to 6-bit colors for EGA (which most certianly is noticable); they are not currently possible to define seperately and at any rate I see little reason to do so - hardly anyone uses EGA now, and in the unlikely event they have to, the sets are still purely functional, they just might have slightly weird colors.)