NeoLemmix Community Pack

[namida]

This topic is now closed. IchoTolot has taken over this project and created a new topic for it, which can be found here: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4148.0


I suggested this idea once before, but now that NeoLemmix is a bit more stable (with updates not occurring on an almost-daily basis, and when they do, generally not changing or adding to gameplay mechanics but only interface-related or graphical features), perhaps it's a better time to suggest this project now.

So... who would be interested in such a thing? I'd like to aim to create something similar to the official games / Lemmings Plus packs in size; with contributions from a variety of authors. Of course, I'll contribute too. I think for stylistic reasons it's probably best we leave out the Horror, Xmas and Sega graphic sets (though if you disagree feel free to debate it), but all the others (official ones and LPII / LPIII sets) should be alright. The Xmas style in particular is out of place due to the different theme (and otherwise similarity to the Snow style); for Horror it's a matter of the much higher graphics quality than the others. Thinking more about it, Sega is probably fine...

I won't say this project is started yet, but if there's interest, then I'd say we should get this going! Obviously, NeoLemmix-based contest entries would mostly be good candidates to include here, as well as new levels. Existing levels that work particularly well under NeoLemmix mechanics, perhaps with some adjustments to make more use of NeoLemmix features, could also be good. One thing I do wonder about though is if the new skills will see much use; I'd rather either have them used regularly, or not at all, instead of just being these things used occasionally in the odd level here and there (though of course, at least Mechanic and Cloner will probably end up like that anyway; even in my own packs they've done so as they're quite situation-dependant and very vunerable to causing backroutes or being avoided themself).


So yeah. What do you guys think? Should we try and put together such a project?


Read before submitting!
Levels that were originally designed for other engines (including traditional Lemmix) are generally fine, but be sure to test them UNDER NEOLEMMIX before submitting. Although at a quick glance everything may appear to work the same, a lot of subtle mechanics differ - for example, a climber cannot pass through a small overhang at the top of a short wall in NeoLemmix. Also please tidy up skillsets (remove any skills that are unused rather than just setting them to zero), and if there's no reason the level needs a time limit, remove the time limit altogether. In short - this is a NeoLemmix pack; so while your levels don't have to go out of their way to make use of new NeoLemmix features, these kind of small tweaks to be consistent with the general approaches used in NeoLemmix should be made.

Also, make sure to put your name in the Author field!

Levels submitted so far:

All submitted levels can be found in this Dropbox folder: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/aig6srv3mtvvk39/AACnOIdWRlOWqkDQN_w7Lyt1a

[IchoTolot]

Sounds like a great idea!    Personally I still must get into NeoLemmix one day (I think you use the "NeoCustLemmix" setup in the editor to create new levels) and will probably try it out after I finished my own pack for Lemmini (2/3 done 100/150).
But after that is done and released; I would participate in creating levels for the pack.

[namida]

Yep, that's right. Although the editor contains presets for some other NeoLemmix-based games, you don't usually need to worry about this anymore, as unlike traditional Lemmix which relies on a graphic set number, NeoLemmix relies on a graphic set name and only uses the number as a fallback (if for example, the name isn't recognized, or when loading a traditional Lemmix level). Thus, I recommend just using NeoCustLemmix, as it contains all the graphic sets and VGASPECs from the official games (even including the Genesis ones), as well as those from Lemmings Plus and Doomsday Lemmings.

[GigaLem]

So level pack made by more than 1 person if im correct?
Sounds like a dapper idea 

[namida]

Yep; that's the idea. There's been several packs like this done on Lemmix and Lemmini already, and I believe mobius is managing a SuperLemmini one, but there hasn't been any for NeoLemmix yet.

[GigaLem]

Well if community pack many packs made by various users to certain lemmings players
Could i contribute with GigaLems

[namida]

I was hoping to mostly make it from levels that are either completely new, or were only released in small packs rather than as part of existing fangames, but if there isn't enough content this way, then including some from existing large packs could be an option. And, being a community pack, other people's input on what we should do in this regard also needs to be considered, so just because I say something doesn't nessecerially mean "that's final, this is how we're going to do it" (apart from the "we're using NeoLemmix", because otherwise it wouldn't be a NeoLemmix community pack ).

[namida]

So, here's some things I'd like to start thinking about; anyone can feel free to give their input:

1. Difficulty ranks. How many should we go for? I'm thinking 4 or 5 is probably ideal, though 3 might work.
2. Gimmick / Frenzy levels. As these are one of the most noticable NeoLemmix features, I think it'd be a shame not to include some. The bigger question is how - LPII-style where they're just mixed in (at a low frequency) with regular levels? LPIII style where they're the secret levels? LPO-style where there's a dedicated extra rank for them?
3. Repeats, or no-repeats? Having them would reduce the number of unique levels we need; we could just fill in early spaces with 20-of-everything versions of harder levels (and there's also the option of cases like with Danger 27 / Psycho 12 from LPI, where the two levels use the same map but have very different solutions).
4. Secret levels or not? Assuming we don't go with the LPIII-style for gimmick levels, then should we still have secret levels? On one hand, they're a pretty unique NeoLemmix feature, but on the other hand, while they were novel at first, I kinda feel they're more annoying that anything else now (hence the complete lack of them in Omega).

[IchoTolot]

4 or 5 ratings are fine I think, but personally I'm more of a fan of seperating the gimmik/frenzy levels into an extra rank.
Repeats should be done or not depending on how many levels (of each difficult) get together, or if a level is just born to be repeated (just my opinion). Having more different levels from more creators would be nicer than too many repeats.
Personally I an not a fan of secret levels. I think you should be able to play all the levels through beating them and not finding secrets.

[Wafflem]

I feel it should be 4 regular ranks, with the 5th rank being a gimmick/frenzy rank, very much like Lemmings Plus Omega. I also think that all levels should be unique (no repeats).

How many levels should there should be for each rank? 30?

Secret levels, hmm, there should be a poll on that. They can be fun to find, but at the same time they can be frustrating. I wouldn't use the LPIII method, however. In Lemmings Plus III, all gimmicks are secret levels, which I felt did not work for a couple of reasons:

• I don't think everyone took the effort to find the secret levels, most especially since it can be hard to find the secret levels in Rough and Fierce because they are among normal levels that are extremely difficult to pass.
• The Bonus Pack uses the Backwards and One Skill gimmicks, which both come from Rough and Fierce; it would be quite hard to accomplish those levels without firsthand experience with them in LPIII, but that experience cannot be reached unless the secret level is found. This was probably why I was the only one who took the effort to play the Bonus Pack (though I accessed the secret levels in LPIII by cheat).

In my opinion, the pack should also use all the gimmicks that have not been used in Lemmings Plus at all. The unused gimmicks are:
Reverse Count - skills go up instead of down, but stop counting up at 99.
Invincible - Lemmings don't die except the bottomless pit.
Steel Invert - Terrain is steel and vice versa
Solid Floor - the abyss is covered up, so lemmings do not disappear when they reach the bottom of the screen.
Disobedience - Lemmings shrug at you until you click on them a second time (while this appears in my first pack, it still needs to be used here)
Turnaround - Lemmings turn the opposite direction before performing the skill.
Other Skills - instead of the skill being used, all other skills count down by one.
Assign All - Every lemming is assigned a skill (except cloners).

What about NeoLemmix objects? For me, I'd like more locked exit puzzles (you know me, I enjoy locked exit puzzles and they add a very new puzzle element to the Lemmings game, with Secret 4 "Seven-Way Security" and Puzzling 30 "Drop Them Lems" being great examples; however they were severely underused in Omega). Slowfreeze and Radiation can be very frustrating though, so maybe those shouldn't really be used (though Rough 4 "I'm Gonna Try Science" makes great usage of the Radiation object).

[Nepster]

Some thoughts of mine:
Gimmick/Frenzy levels: I prefer having an extra rank to warn players, that unusual mechanics apply. But I do not see the reason why all non-used gimmicks should appear in this level pack? Only because there is the possibility to use something, it does not mean that it has to be used. In my opinion our criterium should be, that the levels make creative use of the gimmick. Unfortunately I do not see any way that a level with gimmicks "Reverse Count", "Solid Floor" or "Other skills" meets this criterium, but I like to be surprised by you!
Btw. "Invincible" seems almost equivalent to "Surviving bombers" + preassigned floaters + simply not adding any traps to the level. Do I miss anything here?

Repeats: I am against filling the first rank with 20-of-each versions of harder levels. But if one level admits two different solutions, I am in favour of including repeats featuring the alternative solutions.

Secret levels: Personally, I do not like searching the triggers of secret levels, but I would like to play these level themselves. So I would accept secret levels only if there is another possibility to reach these levels.

[namida]

One idea I had thought about, but didn't include, for Lemmings Plus Omega, was indeed secret levels based on a different concept; specifically based on completing certain challenges (to use the original game as an example, 100% on Tricky 25 "Cascade" could be an example of something that might unlock one). This idea could possibly be used for the community pack, although IMO if I was going to do this, I'd have to implement this as a standard NeoLemmix feature that anyone can use in their packs (which to be fair, I don't have a problem with doing beyond that it might be tricky to come up with an exact method of handling it).

Indeed, some of these gimmicks are little more than novelty things without much use for a real level; a lot of the weird ones involving skill counts were done back when I was accepting virtually any gimmick request, while the "reverse skill counts" was originally intended for LPII but I ended up creating the Overflow gimmick and using that instead; there's no real reason why RSC was left in the code, but it was, so it survives still. The "Invincible" one, specifically, wasn't really intended for use in actual levels, but more for testing purposes with various things. Though in comparison to the combo Nepster mentions, there would be slight timing differences due to them falling faster than floaters, as well as that it's possible to assign them Gliders.

I do agree though on the "don't use it just because it's there" option. Sure, if a good way to use it can be found, then go ahead, but if it can't, then I don't see the point in using it just for the sake of using it... At the same time, the "good way" of using it doesn't nessecerially have to be relating to a puzzle. It could just as easily be related to the theme of a level, especially in easier levels.

[Wafflem]

I really like the idea of accessing secret levels by completing certain challenges. I may do something like that for my packs. I plan for some of my future packs to be about 20 levels, which means FlexiLemmix will be needed to create such packs (since I'm not sure if CustLemmix can do that). This will be a great idea, and it could also work very well for the community pack.

How about Cheapo levels? Can those be included?

[namida]

Some of them may be good candidates; teleporters exist in Cheapo (though not in any of the styles based off official ones) so that already gives some use of NeoLemmix features.

And yeah, you'll need to use Flexi. CustLemmix only supports 10 regular levels + 5 secret levels.

[GigaLem]

If i could change the menu
i would do something like this