How long does a level take you?

[607]

Hi, it's me again!

I'm currently playing the Taxing rating of the original Lemmings.
Completing a level takes me around 30 minutes, except for the fire tileset ones, those take me less than 10 minutes. I was wondering, is half an hour a bit long for solving a Taxing level?
So, my question is: approximately how long did solving a level take you when first playing the original Lemmings?
Also: how long does a Taxing-like-difficulty level you've never seen before take you nowadays? I assume they take less time than the Taxing rating when you originally played Lemmings, as you should've improved since then.

[IchoTolot]

There I must think really hard. Was a long time ago.
I completed the original game first on "Lemmings for Windows95". It had replay function, but no directional Lemming choice and that was the biggest time eater in Taxing, because here you have very limited tasks and you need to give them the RIGHT Lemming (especially "Triple Trouble").
To figure out the solutions in Taxing was not that hard, but sometimes you needed to think a little harder ("Upsidedown World").
Now they are no brainers, but back in the day the solution to a Taxing level was up to ~ 15min, but getting it done without screwing up the skill placement ....that took the most time (Now these troubles are gone due to the new features in the current engines).

[Proxima]

"Taxing" levels vary enormously, of course -- though I don't think the tileset is especially relevant. Levels like "Walk the web rope" and "How do I dig up the way?" are pretty easy, while "Compression Method 1" and "Come on over to my place" were very hard to figure out, and "The ascending pillar scenario" and "Triple Trouble" were easy to figure but nightmarishly hard to execute. Some levels were over in minutes, others took me months. I have no idea about how much actual playing time it took to pass the harder levels, but certainly at least several hours.

[namida]

I'd agree with Proxima, more or less.

On my first time through (and you do have to take into account I was probably 5 years old at most when I first played), I'd usually beat at least 3 or 4 levels in a day - and this was often with only an hour or two at most playing time. Some levels did take me significantly longer though. Tricky 19 took me about a week to pass. Taxing 11 took me a couple of days. The absolute record holder though was Mayhem 29, which I never did beat back then and gave up on the game, coming back to it once in a while, but not ultimately beating until around 7-8 years later. This was mostly an execution thing, of course - I was able to get to the end with enough spare skills, but couldn't pull off those perfectly-timed builders.

One somewhat recent experience that can compare was the first time I played GeoffLems - Mayhem 28 (IIRC) "Dazed and Confused" took me SO LONG to beat! This wasn't due to fiddly execution, but because it actually took me ages to work it out. You can't see this in my videos though, because my videos were of a second playthrough. My GigaLems video was a first-time play, and a similar struggle (though not nearly as long, this one was only about an hour and a half) can be seen with Scorching 13 "It's not time for flying toast" - it has an entire video just dedicated to (without success) trying to beat that level, as well as a fair portion of the videos before and after it; its dedicated video is by far the longest video in my GigaLems playthrough series.


And for the record IchoTolot, I'm almost certain WinLemm does have directional select, though it definitely doesn't have save states or frame-control.

[607]

Yup, the ascending pillar scenario was what made me ask this.
I'm going to tell about my experience with it, using very minor spoilers.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I had it figured out after fiddling around with it for 5-10 minutes, aside from a few minor changes I made to my strategy later (things like using a miner instead of a digger somewhere).
But the entire level took me near fourty minutes, because little things kept going wrong. And well, when you've done the entire easy part, do one last thing, and all Lemmings walk the wrong way... After about 25 minutes I had an attempt that was going very well. Then something went wrong though, because the Lemmings could get up somewhere they weren't supposed to. I quickly fixed it though, by using some skills I had left. Three Lemmings still went the wrong way, though. But I managed to turn them using builders. So, looks like I was going to win, right? Nope, time up... About thirty seconds short. Sigh... but yeah, I beat it, and it was fun.

With some levels I just thought entirely in the wrong direction, and it took me some time to realise that. Still though, the only level I've spent nearly an hour on as of yet is lend a helping hand. And that was due to extreme stupidity,

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

not noticing the lack of steel somewhere .

Oh, and also, what is this directional selection you speak of? Does the DOS version not have it?

[namida]

In some versions, including WinLemm, (Super)Lemmini and NeoLemmix (but not regular Lemmix) you can hold a directional key while selecting a lemming, and you'll only ever select a lemming facing that direction.

[Proxima]

If you don't have directional select, a good method for "The ascending pillar scenario" is to leave the release rate untouched, then free the crowd with the last lemming out.

[IchoTolot]

And for the record IchoTolot, I'm almost certain WinLemm does have directional select, though it definitely doesn't have save states or frame-control.

What! "Lemmings for Windows 95" (not WinLemm) has directional select? All that time and frustration that could be avoided

[namida]

As far as I'm aware, "Lemmings for Windows 95" and "WinLemm" refer to exactly the same thing... I could be wrong though.

[607]

If you don't have directional select, a good method for "The ascending pillar scenario" is to leave the release rate untouched, then free the crowd with the last lemming out.

I used a digger to free the crowd, so not having directional select didn't matter one bit

Also, I played another level of the fire tileset today, and did it first try. Again. Doesn't anyone else think most levels using the fire tileset are much easier than most using other tilesets?

[Proxima]

Also, I played another level of the fire tileset today, and did it first try. Again. Doesn't anyone else think most levels using the fire tileset are much easier than most using other tilesets?

On second thoughts, you might have a point. Most of the really good (and hard) puzzles in Lemmings use the marble tileset -- "Compression Method 1", "Tribute to M. C. Escher", "Come on over to my place", "It's hero time", "Poles Apart", "Just a Minute", "No added colours or lemmings". We know that the levels were made by several designers, so maybe there was one designer who was particularly good at puzzles and happened to prefer that tileset 

Though the fire set definitely has its share of difficult levels too, with "Heaven can wait (we hope)", "Triple Trouble", "The Boiler Room" and "Down, along, up. In that order"....