Aqualems - Develoment topic

[Apjjm]

Update - this pack is semi-cancelled in it's current form. I have decided to work on a smaller, more focused packs. The levels (or at least the best of them) that I've done so far aren't going anywhere and will be released as part of a small pack (which may or may not be called aqualems ) in the future!


Hello everybody

I've had fun lurking and playing packs since I found out about this forum late last year and started to work on my own pack for the past couple of months.
The pack will be released for neolemmix and will use only the original skillsets, tilesets & features for now though (I really want to make a my first pack with the skills I am most familiar with and like the constraint of working with the original graphics set).  I'm aiming for 4 difficulty rankings of 20 levels which are as follows: Coastal, Bathyal, Abysal, Hadal. These ratings will be similar to the L1 difficulty rating, except shifted up by about half a rank or so - though this is still subject to change given that I only have around 30% of the levels made so far.


Coastal: Large Polyhedron Collider

Progress so far
Coastal: 5/20
Bathyal: 3/20
Abyssal: 7/20
Hadal: 10/20

Other
I'm not sure how to handle asking for testers and such here - is it better for me to release an early version of the pack and let anyone give feedback or do a more ask for 1 or 2 testers thing? If it is the former I was thinking of releasing an early version of 40 levels (10 of each ranking), though I'm little undecided as the rankings would have a wonky difficulty curve (especially the latter ratings, as I have the start and ends of those rankings filling up, but the middle areas lacking).

[namida]

Most packs - even those from people who haven't released packs before - tend to go through private pre-release testing these days; but of course it's up to you how you want to handle your pack. I might offer to do some testing, but I'll have to give you a decision on that closer to the time.

I really like the look of that level by the way - very neat use of the tileset!

[Simon]

Most Neolemmix packs are tested privately first.

By experience, other people won't play your pack all at once. Even though the community is small, everybody is busy with something. Some look deeper at your pack only after weeks or months.

So, rather than hand-picking your testers, you can treat as testers your early players. With this strategy, be honest that your first uploads are yet-untested, and that you need feedback. Some strong, adventurous players are guaranteed to come and take a look. This is how open-source software is built.

Some consider this anti-climatic. I can't prove that it's any better than private testing. Older rambling by me on this choice.

-- Simon

[Apjjm]

So it's been a bit of radio silence here on my end so I figured I'd post an update showing a couple of levels to show that I'm still working on this:


Abyssal - Primordial Land


Hadal - Give Me A Place To Stand

When I reach 40 levels (which is not too far away) I'm thinking of releasing a quick demo of 5-10 levels, rather than everything.

[IchoTolot]

This looks really promising!

[LJLPM]

These are neat, and very creative! Well done!!!

[RubiX]

Nice, really like the volcano erruption effect with the terrain

[Apjjm]

Happy you are liking what you've seen so far , I really hope I can get the time to reach my level goal within the next two weeks and can release a few levels for a demo soon. Though this week has been pretty slow progress on the creation front, as i've only managed to get one level done (and that level was a redesign of an existing level I was not happy with). But I'm quite pleased with how that level has turned out now, so here is picture of it:


Abyssal - No Brakes On The Bash Train

[mobius]

wow, that's truly a work of art!

[IchoTolot]

Hands down this is one of the best if not the best artistic levels if've seen so far

If all of the pack looks like this it is good from the start on even if I don't know the solutions yet!

Now if they have interesting and nice solutions on the top of it, this pack can be one of the best out there!

[607]

Oh, wow! Incredible use of the original tilesets! These are the most artistic Lemmings levels I've ever seen!

[RubiX]

woooo woooo /train

[NaOH]

The way the light on those shards of rock reflects the heat below, it's just beautiful. I wonder if there's a genre for this, art made from video game level editors...

[Colorful Arty]

That volcano level is one of the coolest things I have ever seen!

Also, that train level makes my train level look like a joke. Mad props!:D

[Pieuw]

These levels look awesome Apjjm

[mantha16]

ahh did this ever get made ito a pack some beautiful looking levels

[kaywhyn]

These look great! I know you recently posted another pack that's currently a WIP, but is there any update you can give us regarding the status of Aqualems? Is this also still a WIP and a pack which you'll eventually release? It's been years since we last heard about the pack's status, so it's only natural that some in the community are wondering about whether it got cancelled, a WIP still, on hold, etc. Take your time, of course, no rush. Just like Lemmings Quartet, I will absolutely look forward to Aqualems' release

[Apjjm]

Its probably safe to say this project can be considered cancelled at this point unfortunately. I took quite a long break from lemmings stuff in general and wanted to start (mostly) fresh when doing levels again and don't really want to commit to any long projects.

Having said that, I won't just sit on done levels forever - there are some levels I will be looking to release seperately after some edits in the future (after Quartet) in some form or other - they will be made available eventually! Getting the best of the puzzles & designs out of the pack into a release will almost certainly be my next project.

There are two levels (I think) that have had significant bits of terrain put into Lemmings Quartet (I might put the originals into a bonus rank for these).

[GigaLem]

I'm glad we got answer about the status of this project, with whatever got done for this project, I would like to play through them when they're made available, I'm a huge sucker for artsy levels.

And good luck on Lemmings Quartet, and anything after that.