Author Topic: "Lemmings Redux": A "remake" of official games for NeoLemmix. (Read 128006 times)

namida · « **Reply #30 on:** March 29, 2016, 05:41:07 PM »

200 levels does sound like a good target.

So, we've got:
- Consider all L1-like games
- Allow repeats only when there's a very good reason to do so (ie: not if the earlier version is just a 20-of-everything version of the latter; but allow it if they're two different puzzles, or if one is a training level, etc)
- If we're aiming for 200-ish levels, then we'll want to somewhat rely on picking and choosing, but not be too fussy about it

If we count up the total available levels to choose from (the only ones I've excluded here are the Genesis version's remakes of ONML levels, the two test maps from Genesis, and all two-player levels):
Orig Amiga: 120 Levels
Orig Genesis: 97 Levels (This includes the alternate versions of special graphics levels; obviously we will only want one version of each one at most)
Orig Master System: 12 Levels (Two versions of each SEGA level, plus Sixes Not and Stepping Stones)
Orig Others: 10 Levels (1 x Amiga Demo, 1 x Mac Demo, 4 x Budget Amiga, 2 x Bookclub Amiga, 1 x Mac Tricky 21, 1 x SNES Tricky 21)
ONML: 100 Levels
Holiday Lemmings: 70 levels (2 x X91, 4 x X92, 32 x H93, 32 x H94)
Covox: 8 Levels
Prima: 16 Levels

This brings us to a total of 433 levels. So, we'll have to decide on 233(ish) to cut out.

Perhaps looking back at the voteoff results might give us some good starting points - we should probably, in most cases, cut out those that didn't make it past the first round, except in the cases of eg. training levels, or if we're including them for the purpose of having a good difficulty curve. Basically, we can't use them as the sole deciding criteria, but they can certianly be a great help in deciding.

I don't really know that we want to go as far as including the PSP levels. Although Lemmix conversions of them do exist (and by extension, these levels have also been converted to NeoLemmix), the quality of them feels a bit iffy to me... we could remake them better, I guess, but I think we already have plenty to choose from...

namida · « **Reply #31 on:** March 30, 2016, 03:56:42 AM »

Here are the full list of levels that made it past the first round in their respective voteoffs. We can use this as a starting point.

I've bolded any levels where both versions of a level with repeats are in here; though it's quite possible I may have missed some in Genesis's case.

Also note that the voteoff didn't include the Sega Master System levels. However, if we are picking and choosing, I'd think that unless we need some extra easy levels, only SEGA Four is really worth considering (probably the Mayhem version, but it could go either way).

Original Lemmings (non-Genesis) (click to show/hide)

Original Lemmings (Genesis) (click to show/hide)

Oh No! More Lemmings! (click to show/hide)

Xmas / Holiday Lemmings (click to show/hide)

Covox and Prima (click to show/hide)

Some other levels I would argue for including:
- The training levels, for obvious reasons.
- One version of We All Fall Down. Yes, it's annoying when repeated 4 times; but a single version on its own, especially if one of the later ones, could be a nice addition.
- One version of SEGA Four, as mentioned above
- All The 6's. For obvious reasons.

(Perhaps in place of Ohayo Lemming San; the latter is basically just a less "offensive" but longer and more boring version of the former)
- Some Tame levels (no specific ones in mind), we're probably going to need some more easy ones.

The above list brings us to 181 levels, not including the Genesis remakes of ONML levels, but including both variants of repeats.
Adding the training levels to this brings it to 188. Also including my above suggestions of specific levels brings this up to 190, taking into account that All The 6's would probably replace Ohayo Lemming San in the list. So, if we can pick 10 Tame levels, we have our initial list; of course, we'll want to refine it a bit from there (I think we should decide on our list before trying to order it). We'd then also need to make decisions in regards to which pair of repeats to keep - and what levels to add in their places, unless we go for less than 200 for the total count (6 ranks x 30 levels = 180 levels is a nearby option) - but like I said, the goal is an initial list here, not the final one.

My votes for Tame levels would be:
- Tame 1 "Down and Out Lemmings"
- Tame 4 "Downwardly Mobile Lemmings"
- Tame 8 "Dangerzone"
- Tame 9 "And Now This..."
- Tame 10 "New Lemmings On The Block"
- Tame 11 "With Compliments"
- Tame 12 "Citizen Lemming"
- Tame 13 "Thunder Lemmings Are Go"
- Tame 14 "Get A Little Extra Help"
- Tame 20 "Custom Built For Lemmings"

In the event we do decide the need for adding extra levels in place of repeats, one level I would personally push quite strongly for is "It's Not Over Til It's Over" (Budget Amiga, Taxing 15). ~~Another one I'd quite quickly put forward (although perhaps not as quickly) is Vacation In Gemland (DOS H93).~~ That level's already in there, I forgot the voteoffs were based on the DOS versions. xD

EDIT: I just counted now. Excluding Twins / None title, we have to remove 12 levels if we want to be repeat-free-except-the-training-levels, or 11 if we also allow the repeat in Fun 11's case (since it can somewhat also serve as a training level). Add one more to that if we also consider Just A Minute and its Part 2 to be a repeat of each other for the purpose of this. (In the case of Fall And No Life, I'd say the two versions are different enough that they shouldn't be considered repeats of each other.)

In regards to PSP levels, while there are indeed some good levels in there, one key thing to keep in mind is they never saw release on an L1 or very-L1-like engine. To me, including them would be comparable to if we were to, say, include some of the Classic Tribe levels from L2. Sure, there may be good levels among them, but I don't think it's right for this project...

namida · « **Reply #32 on:** March 30, 2016, 02:35:25 PM »

One question: If we're going to go with including special graphics levels, we should probably have one per rank. This would obviously be the original 4, but assuming a 5 ranks x 40 levels structure, we need one more. If we look at the voteoff results, we have two options - "The Prima Publishing Level" or "Sunsoft Special". Which one?

I would lean towards Sunsoft Special. It doesn't have as blatant branding of any kind, and there's a little bit more variety to the level. It's also a bit smaller.

(My ultimate preference would still be not to include special graphics levels at all, but it seems that isn't the overall preference, so we do need to pick one...)

607 · « **Reply #33 on:** March 30, 2016, 03:03:47 PM »

Did we already have a poll for the special graphics levels, then?
Oh, and I can't find reference of "The Prima Publishing Level", does anyone have a picture or a video?

namida · « **Reply #34 on:** March 30, 2016, 03:10:57 PM »

Quote from: 607 on March 30, 2016, 03:03:47 PM

Did we already have a poll for the special graphics levels, then?
Oh, and I can't find reference of "The Prima Publishing Level", does anyone have a picture or a video?

Tricky 1 in Prima.

namida · « **Reply #35 on:** March 30, 2016, 03:44:49 PM »

Alright, based on the new ideas for structure, I've started making a new potential list, divided into ranks. Note that once again, I've made no attempt yet to order levels within a rank.

What I'd like is if someone - preferably someone quite familiar with ONML - could go through and add the remaining ONML levels from this post to the list (I've added Tame, and all non-ONML levels). Use your own judgement as to where to place them for now; this is only meant to be a draft, after all. Don't worry too much about the 40 levels per rank target either - Rank 3 already exceeds it, while none of the other ranks meet it. We'll shuffle them around later.

I have de-repeated this for the most part; I've kept repeats (where they passed the first round of the voteoff) of the training levels, Fun 11 / Taxing 18, and "Twins" / "None title" from Genesis. I did make a few minor changes from the voteoff results; apart from the de-repeating, I added in the aforementioned Tame levels, the training levels, remaining special graphics levels (I currently listed Sunsoft Special for the 5th one, but if the voting goes the other way it can easily be swapped for Prima Publishing Level), etc.

(It's also not entirely impossible that I've missed some levels, especially from Holiday or Genesis.)

Once we've got a full list based on the voteoffs, we can look at further fine-tuning the difficulty curve and making more substitutions.

You may notice three levels are bolded:
Tricky 28 "Lost Something?" was previously mentioned as a level we probably shouldn't include. However, it did make it past the first round in the voteoff. Given that it has that "unfair" nature to it, but is also a one-off thing, is somewhat predictable (at least for me; the first time I played it, I immediately guessed correctly where the exit was; and there aren't that many other possibilities that seem logical).
Mayhem 11 "We All Fall Down" (yeah, I snuck it into the list already). Perhaps we should use Taxing 30 instead? I'm not sure. I don't think using the Fun or Tricky versions is worthwhile.
Sunsoft 19 "Let's Go Camping" will absolutely need backroute fixing if we want it to be anywhere near where it's currently placed on the list. If we decide against backroute fixes, this level needs to be much earlier.

Flopsy · « **Reply #36 on:** March 30, 2016, 03:59:11 PM »

I'll give those ONML placements a try namida, I feel like I know which ones are harder than others in that game.

Proxima · « **Reply #37 on:** March 30, 2016, 04:09:50 PM »

It seems sensible to decide on a final list of levels to include before doing any ordering. This is a big part of the project and we absolutely shouldn't hurry it.

The obvious defect of discarding all the first-round voteoff losers is that it discards roughly the same proportion from each set, whereas purely in terms of quality we should discard a much higher proportion of Holiday, Tame, Covox and Prima, a lower proportion of ONML and Genesis, and probably a middling proportion of Original.

That said, on a cursory glance, it seems that the first-round losers in ONML and Genesis are largely levels that aren't worth including. So perhaps we should consider downsizing the project to 4 x 40 or 5 x 30. I'm also going to have a closer look at the list of discarded levels and see if there are any we should keep -- some may have had bad luck in the voteoffs due to being against a particularly strong group.

* * *

Given that myself and Flopsy have expressed preference for keeping the PSP levels, and 607 and Minim approved of my draft ordering for the Fun difficulty including several of these, I really think this needs more consideration. And yes, let's include the Classic L2 levels as well (at least the better ones), if Lemmix remakes of those exist.

* * *

We All Fall Down: either include just the Fun copy, or none. Clicking on every lemming is annoying, and when the game includes framestepping, it's not even a test of skill, just an exercise in patience. However, the argument for keeping the Fun copy is that the behaviour of using diggers to reduce fall height is interesting and worth showing to new players. Perhaps give 20 lemmings and 10 diggers to make it more of a puzzle?

Let's Go Camping is an excellent level if fixed, so we should do that.

namida · « **Reply #38 on:** March 30, 2016, 04:20:58 PM »

Quote

The obvious defect of discarding all the first-round voteoff losers is that it discards roughly the same proportion from each set, whereas purely in terms of quality we should discard a much higher proportion of Holiday, Tame, Covox and Prima, a lower proportion of ONML and Genesis, and probably a middling proportion of Original.

That said, on a cursory glance, it seems that the first-round losers in ONML and Genesis are largely levels that aren't worth including. So perhaps we should consider downsizing the project to 4 x 40 or 5 x 30. I'm also going to have a closer look at the list of discarded levels and see if there are any we should keep -- some may have had bad luck in the voteoffs due to being against a particularly strong group.

That's why this is just a preliminary list, and will face much further discussion before coming anywhere close to final.

Quote

Given that myself and Flopsy have expressed preference for keeping the PSP levels, and 607 and Minim approved of my draft ordering for the Fun difficulty including several of these, I really think this needs more consideration. And yes, let's include the Classic L2 levels as well (at least the better ones), if Lemmix remakes of those exist.

Okay, we can discuss this more when we get up to the point of fine-tuning the level list. Please do be aware that the current remakes are often sub-standard (especially from a graphical point of view), and I do not intend to create better remakes myself. If we do decide in favor of using them, it will fall on someone else to do the remakes (or tune up the existing ones). There is also the issue that some names do not fit tidily; this could of course be fixed with renaming them, though that is something I would like to avoid as much as possible.

In regards to the Classic tribe levels, as far as I'm aware, Lemmix / NeoLemmix remakes of them do not exist. Even if they did, we would have to make a solid decision on the save requirement for them, since L2 does not have save requirements in the same way L1, and by extension NeoLemmix, does. On the bright side, the NeoLemmix version of the Pillar set does include the flamethrower object, precisely because someone (might have been DynaLem?) expressed an interest in remaking these levels for NeoLemmix at one point; as far as I'm aware the remakes never happened though.

Quote

We All Fall Down: either include just the Fun copy, or none. Clicking on every lemming is annoying, and when the game includes framestepping, it's not even a test of skill, just an exercise in patience. However, the argument for keeping the Fun copy is that the behaviour of using diggers to reduce fall height is interesting and worth showing to new players. Perhaps give 20 lemmings and 10 diggers to make it more of a puzzle?

Once again, I'd rather keep modifications to the levels to a minimum, except for the purposes of either (a) NeoLemmix-isation (generally already done for most if not all levels, apart from time limit removal) or (b) backroute fixing. However, I do indeed see your point in using the Fun version, we should definitely give more consideration to this.

Quote

Let's Go Camping is an excellent level if fixed, so we should do that.

Yes, I've heard this often, even though I don't know the "fixed" solution myself.

That's why I put it in a late rank with the note that it would need fixing, rather than just throwing it into an early rank.

namida · « **Reply #39 on:** March 30, 2016, 04:24:05 PM »

Votes are completely in favor of Sunsoft Special, not a single vote for Prima (yes, it wasn't up for long, but I doubt Prima would catch up). Okay, put up a poll for how to handle WAFD.

Wafflem · « **Reply #40 on:** March 30, 2016, 04:38:03 PM »

Quote from: namida on March 30, 2016, 04:20:58 PM

In regards to the Classic tribe levels, as far as I'm aware, Lemmix / NeoLemmix remakes of them do not exist. Even if they did, we would have to make a solid decision on the save requirement for them, since L2 does not have save requirements in the same way L1, and by extension NeoLemmix, does. On the bright side, the NeoLemmix version of the Pillar set does include the flamethrower object, precisely because someone (might have been DynaLem?) expressed an interest in remaking these levels for NeoLemmix at one point; as far as I'm aware the remakes never happened though.

I tried doing this with the first level, but the problem is that there are some tiles in the L2 Classic version that do not appear in the L1 Pillar tileset. This, plus with some IRL stuff and trying my hand at my first set of NeoLemmix levels (this pack have been deleted since then, and some of them will appear in my large pack) have caused me to stop doing this.

There are some Lemmix remakes by MC Marshy and I think doggycharly. Nepster's converted some Lemmix levels to NeoLemmix, so you might find those there.

The simpler thing to do would be to use PacGuy765's Lemmini conversions.

namida · « **Reply #41 on:** March 30, 2016, 04:41:38 PM »

Ah, didn't know about those. Lemmini levels can almost as easily be converted to NeoLemmix ones (in cases where custom additions to the graphic set are used, they might not always correspond perfectly, but this is usually easy enough to fix up).

However, one problem there is that PacGuy tends to be a bit on the iffy side about anyone else using his content. He runs a Lemmini facebook group, and (despite me having very little to do with it) he once ranted to me for ages about how someone else supposedly didn't give him credit in a highly visible way when they used some of his graphic sets... Of course, it could be argued in this case that it isn't really his content, all he did was convert it to a different engine. (EDIT: There again; that's also equally true of most of the graphic sets he was complaining about the use of.)

Nepster · « **Reply #42 on:** March 30, 2016, 04:45:44 PM »

I am currently working on MCMarshy's levels with currently three out of nine level packs finished. Hopefully I can upload these levels soon. doggycharly's levels are already available in the conversion topic.

Flopsy · « **Reply #43 on:** March 30, 2016, 05:21:45 PM »

Finished my thoughts on where the ONML levels should go.

Rank 2
Crazy 1 - Quote That's A Good Level
Crazy 14 - Time Waits For No Lemming
Wicked 6 - Pop Til You Drop (untimed bombers, 30 of 80 saved, more like a fun level now)

Rank 3
Crazy 2 - Dolly Dimple
Crazy 6 - The Stack
Crazy 7 - And Now, The End is Near
Crazy 8 - KEEP ON TRUCKING
Wild 5 - Lemming Head (untimed bombers)
Wild 10 - Higgledy Piggledy
Wicked 2 - Introducing Superlemming (Speed removed)
Wicked 8 - A Towering Problem (untimed bombers)
Havoc 10 - Flow Control
Havoc 14 - Synchronised Lemming (low time limit but easy solution)

Rank 4
Crazy 10 - ROCKY VI (hard for a Crazy level)
Wild 1 - POP Yor TOP (higher save requirement and less USABLE skills)
Wild 3 - Lemming Rhythms (Builder placements have to be near perfect)
Wild 6 - Just A Quicky (100%, 2 mins)
Wild 7 - You Take The High Road (99RR, 100%, chain link section!)
Wild 11 - Mutiny on the Bounty (Tricky solution to pull off)
Wild 15 - Silence of the Lemmings
Wild 16 - Take Care Sweetie (Tricky puzzle)
Wicked 1 - Lemming Tomato Ketchup Facility
Wicked 3 - This Corrosion
Wicked 5 - Chill Out!
Wicked 7 - Last Lemming to Lemming Central
Wicked 11 - ROCKY ROAD
Wicked 16 - Five Alive
Wicked 17 - Down The Tube
Wicked 20 - The Lemming Funhouse
Havoc 2 - Be More Than Just A Number
Havoc 3 - It's the Price You Have To Pay
Havoc 7 - Creature Discomforts (was tempted to put this in Rank 5)
Havoc 9 - AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!! (not a difficult level overall)
Havoc 12 - It's All A Matter of Timing
Havoc 18 - Lemmings in a Situation (again was tempted to put this in Rank 5)

Rank 5
Wild 13 - ONWARDS AND UPWARDS (very strict time limit)
Wicked 10 - Temple of Love (one of the hardest levels in ONML outside of Havoc)
Havoc 4 - Race Against Cliches (tight time limit and awkward timing between the groups)
Havoc 5 - There's Madness in the Method (I don't care that Neolemmix is around, this level is hard!)
Havoc 8 - Lemming About Town (tricky solution)
Havoc 16 - Scaling the Heights (not an easy one to work out)
Havoc 17 - Where Lemmings Dare (traps near the exit would catch anyone out)
Havoc 19 - Looks A Bit Nippy Out There (Like Scaling the Heights but more tricky)

EDIT: Forgot to attach the file! oops

namida · « **Reply #44 on:** March 30, 2016, 05:29:19 PM »

Awesome.

So now, we can discuss (a) should any of these levels be removed, and (b) should any other levels be added. We have 193 levels at this stage, so if we go for a 5 x 40 structure we need a few more; while if we go for a 6 x 30 structure we need to take a few out. Either of those structures is a plausible option.

Poll

Should we use Amiga or Genesis for the special graphics levels?

Author Topic: "Lemmings Redux": A "remake" of official games for NeoLemmix. (Read 128006 times)

namida

Re: "Lemmings Redux": A "remake" of official games for NeoLemmix.

namida

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namida

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607

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namida

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namida

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Flopsy

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Proxima

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namida

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namida

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Wafflem

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namida

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Nepster

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Flopsy

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namida

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