So I thought it would be nice to get together a set of level design conventions for NeoLemmix in a single place, since we have a lot of them - some official (eg. "don't leave heaps of empty space", "use infinite time rather than 9-minute time limits on small levels", etc), others not official but widely used (eg. "place a fake pickup skill near an entrance to signify what permanent skills the lemmings spawn with").
My preliminary list is here, does anyone have any input on it?
http://www.neolemmix.com/old/conventions.htmlSome things I'm wondering about:
> Point 3, the eventual plan is to have some built-in way to indicate pre-assigned skills rather than relying on the level designer to do so. However, until such a change is made, the existing (albeit currently unofficial) convention is very useful. As such, should that example be removed?
> Point 7, would it be better to just have a single "rule" here rather than one depending on whether new skills are used or not?
Any other input is welcome, of course. Do keep in mind though that this is meant to be "How to design a level that conforms to general NeoLemmix level conventions", not "How to design a good level". That's why, for example, I've made the suggestion to use infinite time if a time limit isn't needed, but not stated anything about how much margin of error a time limit should give in levels that do use them; or why I haven't stated anything about whether big or small levels are better, etc.