General Suggestions Thread

[ccexplore]

Do you think having a Intro/Ending tune for the NeoLemmix would be a popular and pleasant idea, or just annoying and unnecessary (or a mid-term)?

Having the tunes don't make sense unless there is also support for an actual Intro/Ending sequence, or at least a screen for each.  (Maybe those exist already; as you know I haven't done much with NL so far. )

While I'm sure some (maybe many?) people will find it more on the annoying/unnecessary side, I guess as long as no one is forced to go through the intro every time they want to play the set, it is not a terrible feature in and of itself.

[mobius]

The fact that the success/failure melodies packed with current NeoLemmix (and played after a level ends) come from the outstanding SMS Lemmings port, reminds me of the Menu music of that version, and also of the classic "March Of The Mods", present in some ports as an Intro theme or as an Ending melody (like Sega Mega Drive/Genesis).

Do you think having a Intro/Ending tune for the NeoLemmix would be a popular and pleasant idea, or just annoying and unnecessary (or a mid-term)?

I don't get exactly what you mean by this; when would this music play? when you open the game or begin a level? I'm okay with having music play in between levels or on the menu screen; as long as it's configurable (turn on and off)

[ccexplore]

Ah I see, I didn't think of having it played on the preview screen and on the post-view ("you saved <blah>...") screen.  If that's what you meant, I guess it's fine as long as people can choose to turn it off (w/o having to turn off all music altogether).  At least some console versions of Lemmings do that, so it's possible some people may even prefer that to the silence that is standard on DOS and Amiga versions for those screens.  (And also, by Lemmings 2 you do get music in more, if not all, of the various outside-of-level screens.)

[GigaLem]

Figured I make this topic active again because I thought of something too late

[New skill] Reimpliment the Ghosts, but as a permanent skill instead "Spiriter"
If you ask me, Neutral Lemmings are the reverse of this. You can't save them, but you can assign skills to them.

[New skill] "Revitalizer" this revives Zombies and Ghosts with a simple click, I was also thinking if Skill converters were a thing, It would be the only time they have opposite effects
Removers can turn lemmings into zombies, Converters can revive zombified lemmings

[Object] New Spliter types, This either seperates lemmings by...
-if they have a skill attached
-what skills they have (normal lemmings ignore it, you can only have two skills be separated)
-If the lemming is a zombie or not (zombies will be sent away while Alive lemmings are sent to safety)

[Object+Gameplay] One way Up/Down fields + Have Floaters ascend Updrafts
The idea here is, having a pseudo elevator. Lemmings can walk one it as well. while if the field is pointed down, it acts like a ceiling
and for the second part, the floater will ascend the updraft and if the floater touches a ceiling it'll be sent into "Special Fall" (Yes im using Smash terms for Lemmings) where any floaters will be falling despite having an umbrella, this will only happen if they hit a ceilling, or if they come into contact with any terrain.
Alt idea Once they reach the apex of the updraft, they'll slowly float back down

[mobius]

Water Lemmings
Introduced through Revolution is water lemmings, along with a unique pallet, they can walk on water, if any other types of lemmings exist on revolution that im forgetting, let me know,
That and swimmers exist, im afraid they'll be redundant

This was a surprisingly interesting mechanic in Revolution despite myself finding it very weird at first:
(a more realistic approach imo would be the lemmings either swimming or walked UNDER the water. That is; from a design standpoint; basically ignoring it altogether)

-Water Lemmings can fall onto water from any height without splatting.
-this worked in tandem with the pool mechanic on many levels, to pretty nice effect.

swimmer do make this somewhat redundant. Especially if the pool mechanic was implemented; unless my second suggestion (walking along bottom of water pools). Then you could have buttons underwater etc, that can only be reached by a water lemming but not a swimmer.

There was one other type of Lemming; acid lemmings. But they're essentially the same except they can walk on acid but not water. (and visa versa for water lemmings). A couple of clever puzzles used both of these in tandem.

//In revolution you had essentially three distinct types of water objects: water, acid and lava. Lava cannot be traversed by anyone (despite what the stupid game manual says).

-the other unique thing about this mechanic is that they could only enter respective exits OR the multi-use exit.

[Strato Incendus]

[New skill] Reimpliment the Ghosts, but as a permanent skill instead "Spiriter"

I've started toying around with ghosts in my "Lemmicks" levels on the 1.43 editor. Indeed they seem to be the reverse of what is being considered to implement today as "neutral lemmings". A "spirit" as a skill however to me feels like it should be able to walk through walls. Oftentimes, you can send single lemmings ahead if you only have 1 climber / floater / glider / swimmer / disarmer. Removing terrain however is always a temporary skill with a permanent effect. A "spirit lemming" that could pass through walls sideways (not vertically, it would still require solid terrain beneath its feet) would be the opposite: a permanent skill with no damage to the terrain. In line with actual destructive skills, it shouldn't be able to pass through steel.

You just gave me that idea with your post, actually! I think that would be a sweet way to get a pioneer lemming somewhere without always having to play this old "bash first, then put a blocker there right away again" thing.

[GigaLem]

Thought of Two more Skills


Suffacer - Assign this to a lemming when climbing, the lemming will dig straight upwards

Tiler (Until a better name comes up) - Builds downwards

[Dullstar]

I'm now somewhat curious how a hypothetical Tiler implementation would work. What sort of terrain could you assign it on, and how specifically would it build downwards, i.e. is it more like a downwards builder or a downwards stacker?

[ccexplore]

I'm now somewhat curious how a hypothetical Tiler implementation would work.

I read it and basically thought of L3's builder, which if one recalls, on assignment you can choose the direction to go, to get stacker (vertical), platformer (horizontal) and builder (diagonally upward), as well as a diagonally downward bridge.  That last one would presumably be Giga's skill.  It would of course have to start from a ledge.  The only direction L3 builder can't go is straight down, because the ground's in the way.  Any possible "downward stacker" skill would have to deal with that issue.

[edit: fix a mix-up]

[GigaLem]

I'm now somewhat curious how a hypothetical Tiler implementation would work.

I read it and basically thought of L3's builder, which if one recalls, on assignment you can choose the direction to go, to get stacker (vertical), platformer (horizontal) and builder (diagonally upward), as well as a diagonally downward bridge.  That last one would presumably be Giga's skill.  It would of course have to start from a ledge.  The only direction L3 builder can't go is straight down, because the ground's in the way.  Any possible "downward stacker" skill would have to deal with that issue.

[edit: fix a mix-up]

To be clear here, it builds downwards diagonally, so instead of going up like a normal builder, it goes down

[Strato Incendus]

I thought of something similar to your surfacer a while ago. Tying it to a climber however seems to be somewhat limited to me (like the runner usually only being useful in combination with the jumper). That's why I suggested to make a version of the L2 Twister which goes straight up. It would either require to make a terrain check at the Lemming's head rather than its feet, or to jump up a certain height, like it's being discussed for the Shimmier. More importantly, once the Lemming is finished performing the skill, it would have to move a couple of pixels in the direction it is facing, to prevent it from falling straight down again. Similarly to the digger, the Lemming would be in the centre of the shaft it is creating. It also couldn't be allowed to check for terrain beneath its feet during skill performance, like with the builder.

Speaking of building, about the downward thing: Wouldn't that be a case for the L2 Roper? Obviously, it can create upward and downward slopes, as well as horizontal plains, so it can easily break levels if the creator is not careful. However, I found the limitation of the distance the hook of the rope can travel, as well as the maximum angles of the rope, to make the skill a fair one overall. From all projectile-based skills, I consider this the most useful one, a lot more versatile than the thrower, bazooka and other projectile-skills which have already been promoted.

[IchoTolot]

To be clear here, it builds downwards diagonally, so instead of going up like a normal builder, it goes down

I really like this idea!

This could really be a thing worthy of a serious suggestion!

As ccexplore said, it would need to start from a ledge of course, but I don't see this as a problem. Maybe it can also even go 12 steps just as a builder.

[Strato Incendus]

Some slight differences to the builder might not be too bad, though. I think every skill should have something unique about it. The fencer and the miner are also similar, but the angles are different, and also the tunnel created by the fencer is much smaller than that of the miner. For example, a fencer tunnel can be closed with a stacker, a basher tunnel barely can't, and a miner shaft leaves quite a bit of space there.

That's why we refer to the fencer as the fencer today, and not as "the upward miner" . I legitimately can't think of a catchy name for a downward builder currently. "Tiler" seems to be a more temporary placeholder to me; when I think of someone laying tiles, that usually happens in a plain setting, more similar to the platformer.

If we want to introduce straight-up reversed building without any changes to the skill itself, I'd say a much more interesting and generally applicable way would be to introduce lemmings walking upside-down - either via the Lemmings Revolution gravity reversal object, or via the skill of the magno booter. In the latter case, it would differ from the L2 version in that one could assign skills to it also while on the side or upside down.

That would blow the doors open for a lot more possibilities than "only" making an exact downward-moving copy of the builder.

[Colorful Arty]

I love both of these skill ideas GigaLem, although the downward builder has more puzzle-potential. How about calling the downward builder a "sloper" or "ramper"?

[Strato Incendus]

How about calling the downward builder a "sloper" or "ramper"?

Fine name suggestions, indeed.

And guess what you get when you put "sloper" and "ramper" together?

q.e.d., I'd say !