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NeoLemmix New Feature Poll - Preparation Topic

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Nepster:
I will soon release the new-formats version to convert graphic styles and level packs. Only some more testing needs to be done. After that it will be lots of bug-fixing for me, and hopefully I will have at least some time to work on new features in NeoLemmix.
There have been a lot of suggestions for such new features in the previous months - far more than I will be able to implement in a reasonable amount of time. So I have to decide which of them to do first (or at all), for which I need your help and opinion: Starting from next weekend, September 9th, there will be a poll on exactly this topic. But to start this poll, I first have to know what features you would like to see implemented! Therefore:
Please add to this topic all your feature wishes that you would like to see implemented! Please do so until September 9th.

Here are the ones I will definitely put on the poll:
1) New skill: Shimmier
A new skill similar to the L2 shimmier. However it will not jump forward, but straight up to catch the ceiling. Otherwise it would be far too powerful.

2) New skill: Jumper
Pretty much a copy of the L2 jumper of the lix jumper, except that it will become a faller (i.e. move diretly down) instead of a tumbler (i.e. still move forward a bit), because that's far easier to implement.

3) Level wrap
Add support for levels that wrap horizontally and/or vertically, similar to the Lix feature.

4) Grouping of terrain pieces
Similar to the Lix feature: You can combine several terrain pieces (erasing or not) to a single piece and work with it as it would be one of the standard pieces in the editor.

5) Add download of styles via the editor
With the old editor you could download styles from the NeoLemmix homepage. The new-formats NeoLemmix player will have this feature, too. But currently it is missing in the new-formats editor.

6) Multi-use pick-up skills
Pick-up skills that give you more than one of a given skill, as proposed originally by Raymanni.

7) Single-use triggered animation objects
Similar to the current triggered animation objects, but these could only triggered once, not every time a lemmings moves into their trigger area.

8) Neutral lemmings
Such lemmings would behave exactly like usual lemmings, with the main difference that the player may not assign any skills to them.

9) Exits that only permit a given number of lemmings
These exits only allow a pre-determined number of lemmings to exit, then shut.

10) Exits that only permit lemmings with a certain skill
These exits only allow lemmings with a pre-determined permanent skill to exit. All other lemmings will just walk past.

PS: I went through the various topics to collect the suggestions that seem still up-to-date. Please forgive me if I missed any other you proposed and please post them yourself.
PPS: I reserve the right to disqualify your suggestion, if it is technical (almost) impossible, like getting NeoLemmix to run on Linux, or if it's too much against the current spirit of the game, like adding an option to disallow any framestepping.

GigaLem:

--- Quote from: Nepster on September 01, 2017, 04:16:43 PM ---
Here are the ones I will definitely put on the poll:
1) New skill: Shimmier
A new skill similar to the L2 shimmier. However it will not jump forward, but straight up to catch the ceiling. Otherwise it would be far too powerful.

2) New skill: Jumper
Pretty much a copy of the L2 jumper of the lix jumper, except that it will become a faller (i.e. move diretly down) instead of a tumbler (i.e. still move forward a bit), because that's far easier to implement.

3) Level wrap
Add support for levels that wrap horizontally and/or vertically, similar to the Lix feature.

4) Grouping of terrain pieces
Similar to the Lix feature: You can combine several terrain pieces (erasing or not) to a single piece and work with it as it would be one of the standard pieces in the editor.

5) Add download of styles via the editor
With the old editor you could download styles from the NeoLemmix homepage. The new-formats NeoLemmix player will have this feature, too. But currently it is missing in the new-formats editor.

6) Multi-use pick-up skills
Pick-up skills that give you more than one of a given skill, as proposed originally by Raymanni.

7) Single-use triggered animation objects
Similar to the current triggered animation objects, but these could only triggered once, not every time a lemmings moves into their trigger area.

8) Neutral lemmings
Such lemmings would behave exactly like usual lemmings, with the main difference that the player may not assign any skills to them.

9) Exits that only permit a given number of lemmings
These exits only allow a pre-determined number of lemmings to exit, then shut.

10) Exits that only permit lemmings with a certain skill
These exits only allow lemmings with a pre-determined permanent skill to exit. All other lemmings will just walk past.


--- End quote ---

First I'll state my opinion on each of them before thinking of something else

The New Skills
I'm always up for widening level horizions (without becoming Lemmings 2) but with the current engine that's only in the "Fixed physics base" A jumper probably wouldn't be possible.
Maybe we'll think about another skill

Level Wrap
I guess that's one way of bringing back a gimmick, I'm surprised it was culled in the first place.

Grouping Terrain pieces
I don't find much of a use for this, Pass!

Downloading Styles
It's expected at this point.

Multi-use pickup skill
I'd call it the "pickup skill box" I'M ALL FOR THIS!

Single use Triggered animation objects
Didn't you want to cull this? I mean I get the purpose but still, but I wouldn't find it that interesting.
If anything I feel a weather theme animated backgrounds would be better

Neutral Lemmings
I get the added challenge but I can't think of much I would do with them.
I think the better Idea would be, They can only be assigned one skill each.

Limited exits and Permanent skill exits
THIS WILL GET RID OF BACKROUTES LIKE NOTHING ELSE, go with it!

And now for my ideas
[player]View Background color only
For anyone who doesn't want to get distracted by complex backgrounds, you go to the settings in the player and turn on "View background color"

[editor]Set custom background color
As well as having no background there can also be set your own background color, like in lix you just set an RGB co-ordinate
additional feature
-Gradient Background Check

That's all I have for now so comment if you wish

Simon:
I should write longer essays on the Lix features: grouping, torus, jumper without tumbler. Some of those eat dev-time. But this is gathering of requirements, not the final debate on any idea's merit. Please nudge me in IRC for essays.

I like Giga's idea that disables all bg other than the simple bg color. That sounds like it removes a lot of worry without reaching for clear-physics all the time.

A level-browsing feature where I type a string, and the game offers a list of levels whose names contain the string. Maybe even update the list while typing, like google search when JS is enabled. Makes sense even within a single levelpack, but most powerful across packs. I miss this in Lix because I always forget where levels are sorted. I cherry-pick like mad, I play levels mainly because they're hotly discussed.

Markers on hatches that show permanent abilities. Optimize for 0, 1, or 2 abilities per hatch. It's fine if it looks ugly when the hatch assigns 5 permanents.

Merge exit tops with exits, thereby cutting topless exits and loose tops. I don't know if this is already part of the migration to new-formats. Again 100 % backwards compat physically, but hardly visually. I don't know what the consensus on Utopia was: Icho considered Utopia a strong argument to keep loose tops, I disagreed.

Merge closed and open exit during level design. During play, all exits should be closed when there are unpushed buttons, otherwise, all exits should be open.

Have many animations for some gadgets: Exits animate as closed exit, opening exit, open exit. Idling anims for triggered traps. Broken anims for disarmed traps. Maybe more that I forgot. Maybe even open hatch animates, maybe hatch closes when all lems are out, but can easily be overkill.

Remove decoration gadget, because there is no need for it anymore: Exit tops are merged with exits, and everything else should be moving background. For backwards compat, all remaining decoration becomes moving background?

Cut fake and invis gadget flags. Backwards compat is trivial: Ignore invis flag, therefore draw the gadget normally. Remove gadgets flagged fake. (Hatches draw their own markers for permanent abilities, no need to add unrelated gadgets.)

Cut splatpads. Can't have perfect backwads compat; remove and hope. If you want to kill lems coming from above, use fire. (The survivor pads carry more design substance and I don't mind them as much, even though I consider them unnecessary. You should redesign the level to shorten the fall.)

The object-orientation of the gadgets is really sad: Background wallpapers are gadgets, but you can't put them in the level at arbitrary positions. Even terrain behaves more similar to most gadgets than background wallpapers behave similar to most gadgets, yet terrain is not a gadget.

-- Simon

nin10doadict:
Level browsing - No real opinion here.
Merging the exit with the exit top objects seems fine to me. I've not seen a level that uses the exit top for anything particularly artistic without having it attached to an exit, and topless exits tend to look dumb.
Hatch markers could be nice, though oftentimes people put dummy pickups near the hatches to indicate what permanent skills will come out of there anyway.
No open and closed exits at same time seems fine to me; I never even thought of trying to use both at the same time and it seems kind of limited as to what puzzles you could make with it.
Extra animations for objects could be neat. Some traps tend to blend in with terrain pieces; if they had idle animations then they would stand out more. I could definitely see this for creature-type traps at the very least.
Fake and Invisible objects are pretty dumb, honestly. They just invite troll levels and I don't think NeoLemmix really has a place for troll levels, especially with the clear physics button. That's more of a classic Lemmix thing.
I disagree with cutting splat pads. A few levels involve having to destroy the ground under the splat pad to nullify the danger. You can't do that with fire. You could build a bridge over the fire, but you can't survive fire with a floater or glider.

Nepster:
First of all: This is a topic to list new or old feature ideas, not to discuss them!


--- Quote ---[player]View Background color only
For anyone who doesn't want to get distracted by complex backgrounds, you go to the settings in the player and turn on "View background color"
--- End quote ---
The option "Disable Background Images" does exactly that. There is actually no option to disable background colors at all.


--- Quote ---[editor]Set custom background color
As well as having no background there can also be set your own background color, like in lix you just set an RGB co-ordinate
--- End quote ---
Thanks for that. Will include this in the upcoming poll.
Regarding gradient backgrounds: They are far more difficult to implement, both setting them up in the editor and then drawing them both in the editor and the player. Moreover I need more information on the proposed feature itself: Do you want gradients just in one direction? If so, then it which? Or do you want to add gradients in any direction, which would require even more code? Why is adding one background image with a fixed rainbow grading insufficient?


--- Quote ---A level-browsing feature where I type a string, and the game offers a list of levels whose names contain the string. Maybe even update the list while typing, like google search when JS is enabled. Makes sense even within a single levelpack, but most powerful across packs. I miss this in Lix because I always forget where levels are sorted. I cherry-pick like mad, I play levels mainly because they're hotly discussed.
--- End quote ---
Thanks, will include this in the upcoming poll. It will certainly not be as useful and versatile as the google feature and likely to be based ony simple regex search, but it's certainly worth considering.


--- Quote ---Markers on hatches that show permanent abilities. Optimize for 0, 1, or 2 abilities per hatch. It's fine if it looks ugly when the hatch assigns 5 permanents.
--- End quote ---

--- Quote ---Hatch markers could be nice, though oftentimes people put dummy pickups near the hatches to indicate what permanent skills will come out of there anyway.
--- End quote ---
I plan to do this regardless of the poll outcome. So don't worry if you miss it in the poll. Yes, pick-up skills are a way around this, but they are not perfect, as Strato Incendus correctly observed.


--- Quote ---Merge exit tops with exits, thereby cutting topless exits and loose tops. I don't know if this is already part of the migration to new-formats
--- End quote ---
Already contained in the new-formats version.


--- Quote ---Merge closed and open exit during level design. During play, all exits should be closed when there are unpushed buttons, otherwise, all exits should be open.

Have many animations for some gadgets: Exits animate as closed exit, opening exit, open exit. Idling anims for triggered traps. Broken anims for disarmed traps. Maybe more that I forgot. Maybe even open hatch animates, maybe hatch closes when all lems are out, but can easily be overkill.
--- End quote ---
All of this require the same extension to object animations. So I will combine them to one feature item for the poll.


--- Quote ---Remove decoration gadget, because there is no need for it anymore: Exit tops are merged with exits, and everything else should be moving background. For backwards compat, all remaining decoration becomes moving background?

Cut fake and invis gadget flags. Backwards compat is trivial: Ignore invis flag, therefore draw the gadget normally. Remove gadgets flagged fake. (Hatches draw their own markers for permanent abilities, no need to add unrelated gadgets.)

Cut splatpads. Can't have perfect backwads compat; remove and hope. If you want to kill lems coming from above, use fire. (The survivor pads carry more design substance and I don't mind them as much, even though I consider them unnecessary. You should redesign the level to shorten the fall.)
--- End quote ---
All of them are not feature request, but culling requests. Will add them to the culling thread, mainly because culling existing features deserves a discussion, not just a poll.


--- Quote ---The object-orientation of the gadgets is really sad: Background wallpapers are gadgets, but you can't put them in the level at arbitrary positions. Even terrain behaves more similar to most gadgets than background wallpapers behave similar to most gadgets, yet terrain is not a gadget.
--- End quote ---
Well, the main misconception here is that background wallpapers are gadgets: They are not, neither internally nor in the editor. Nor should they be, because as they are optimized for drawing speed not flexibility, they don't share much code with regular objects. Yes, at some point in the past, they were just another type of objects, but that changed.
Will wait for clarification on the actual feature request, before adding this item.

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