Author Topic: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour  (Read 12745 times)

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Offline Strato Incendus

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[NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« on: November 18, 2017, 09:29:15 PM »


I know - multitasking is bad :) . Humans aren't particularly good at it. But I keep getting ideas for both gimmick- and non-gimmick levels, for levels with and without fencers, for levels with and without graphic set-mixing. This tendency of mine to try out all possible combinations is probably one of the main reason why I'm usually against culling anything, because it will always lead to sub-optimal compromises in level design due to having to switch between several platforms. So I work with what I have.

For these "regular" levels, I wanted to do something with an overarching theme. The reason I felt Pit Lems was a little "soulless", despite being mechanically more challenging than my first offering, was that it lacked precisely that: A general topic connecting all the individual levels. So I want to keep the puzzliness of Pit Lems, combine it with the allusions and humour of Paralems, as well as with the scenery-type level building style which I tried to go for with "The Death Titan" or "Face the Hydra", and which Arty has taken to perfection :) .

While the idea for this pack actually came to me when the introduction of jumpers and shimmiers was announced, I know now that they will be introduced successively (first shimmier, then jumper, possibly with a couple months in between). So I thought of creating this pack for Lix, especially now that it has music, but too many of the levels I had already designed by then were relying on the fencer, which Lix doesn't have.

Depending on how quickly this thing develops, I may create just an additional rank for Lix, making this a (possibly first of its kind? :D ) cross-platform pack. However, since the development for this pack will probably take much longer than Paralems or Pit Lems - the reasons for which I'm going to get to in a minute - perhaps the shimmier and jumper will indeed be ready for use by then. In that case, I'll make a version for both NeoLemmix 10.13 and the new formats-version, which will be identical except for the unique mechanical features each of them has to offer:

The levels from the 10.13 featuring radiation, anti-splat pads or slowfreeze (because I keep getting ideas for these as well ;) ) will be replaced specifically with levels which have to include either the shimmier or jumper (or limited-number exits, which are the third possible new feature). I don't want to provide any exclusive bonus stuff for either version except for levels which can only be created in that specific version. So ideally, it will be like playing original Lemmings on Mac vs. Windows, with either "Going their separate ways" or "All the 6s".



But what is this pack going to be about, you ask? ;)


Rock you like a hurricane

Indeed: Where Colorful Arty's upcoming back will be based on different artistic eras, this one is going to be music-based.
And also geography-based, I guess :D : The idea of a Lemmings musical ensemble touring around the world. If possible, every level should be named after a famous song, or at least clearly allude to one, and also as many famous locations as possible should be covered. Ideally, a level should do both in one :) . Which means there are at least two auto-includes from my preceding two packs:


Diggas in Paris


Walking in Lemphis

You see the idea isn't new: I have built song-based levels in the past. However, most of the remaining ones are not really based on such popular songs. So it's questionable whether I should include them just because they "are songs, too". If I were to include them all, I'd put them into a separate rank called "Evergreens", like Flopsy did with the MegSEBytes levels in SEB Lems. Then again, the two examples mentioned above are that famous - not as levels, but with regard to both the song and the place they refer to - that I think at least these should be part of the main pack.


But now, on to the new stuff:

Lemmings World Tour is supposed to return to the classic 30 levels per rank-structure, with five ranks, like in Paralems:
Amateur, Professional, Diva, Rockstar, and Legend.
These names aren't final, though. Other combinations I could think of are:
Overture, Aria, Symphony, Opera, and Finale
Warmup, Rehearsal, Gig, Concert, and World Tour

Additionally, there will be a bonus rank in which I try to imitate signature level building styles of other forum members :D . This rank will either be called "Encore", or, if we stick to the "Amateur-Rockstar-Legend" rank names, a more suitable name might be "Groupie" ;) . So it's sort of like me trying to "cover your songs". The titles of these levels will probably stray from the "must be named after a song" format, though.


On to the ranks!

AMATEUR
You are just learning to play the instrument called "Lemmings". So take your time, practice slowly, and remember that

It's a long way to the top
...if you wanna rock 'n roll! ;)

Timber (It's going down!)

As you can see, I'm looking for creative ways to do introductory levels again ;) . For Pit Lems, it was "all destructive skills", "all creative skills", "all athletic skills" and so on. Now it's "all upwards-moving skills", "all downwards-moving skills", "all horizontally-moving skills", "all diagonally-moving skills" etc. :D


PROFESSIONAL
Hold on, this term doesn't mean you're a master of your instrument yet - only that you have decided to do this for a living. :) You're ready to live on the road, going from place to place, being spat out onto foreign ground by a hatch again and again, level after level, rather than staying in your comfortable little home known as the exit.

Pompeii

DIVA
People who make it this far are probably more likely to think quite highly of their skills. Rightfully so, perhaps? You'll have to find out.

My Lems will go on

ROCKSTAR
When these Lemmings go out to perform, the crowd goes crazy. Which means that ocassionally, that crowd might be pretty hard to control ;) .

Another brick in the wall

And this one is sadly quite fitting to be presented to you today :( . R.I.P., Angus!


Highway to Hell


LEGEND
Only the greatest of the greatest become truly immortal. And only the most iconic songs can be deserving of appearing in this rank.


Purple Rain


ENCORE
I've come to know that every good pack seems to have its brownnoser levels :P . These levels will be my tribute to you guys, the people who have been playing my packs, doing LPs of them, and finding loads and loads of backroutes ^^. So it's only fair that this rank will require lots of "research" on my part, because I'll have to identify signature level building styles for each of the active content creators.
While many of you might be known for certain tricks they keep demanding from the player, some of you are even more famous for the type of level they absolutely hate :D . So of course, I can't let that opportunity slip.


Icho chambers


That's a hard level that is!

Ah, yeah, just out of curiosity, for the Nepster-style level... what's the maximum width a level can have in NeoLemmix? :D



The Music
...will be hand-made! :) Now, of course it would be nice to have each original song playing in the background for each level, and you're free to do that (pretty easy when the title gives it away, after all ;) ). I will also write the artist in the "author" line for each level - although these bands and singers won't be safe from stupid Lemming puns, just like their song titles.
However, since I can't use the original tracks, and don't want to bore you with the standard Amiga tracks either, I've decided to go for the middle path and record real-instrument versions of the existing lemmings music. Probably not all of them, some are pretty hard to transfer to actual instruments (like "How much is that Doggie?"), but I can replace these with some of the ONML songs.

Graphic sets
You already see the instruments tileset in one of the example levels shown above. The main issue with this one is the high resolution required to get accurate depictions. So these levels are usually either oversized, or you only see parts of the instruments. (The exit is the sound hole of the acoustic guitar, by the way. ;) )
I'm also working on an Indian / Western graphic set; currently however, I've mainly just recoloured existing pieces in brown or orange ^^, added in a totem pole and a couple of bird silhouettes. We'll see how far this goes.



What's to do now?
- Collecting level titles!
:D
With the tastes in music diversifying more and more on a daily basis nowadays, there are only few songs of which I can reliably guess that almost everyone will know them. The more famous, the higher up in the ranks a title should be. This is top-down level design: Take a title, and then come up with something depicting it in some way, while also having the right kind of difficulty.
And of course, any somewhat famous song referring to a somewhat famous place in the world should be in here. Aside from those shown above, I already have on my list:
- Hollywood Hills (Sunrise Avenue)
- If you're going to San Francisco (Scott McKenzie)
- Y. Lem C.A. (Village People)
- Barcelona (Freddie Mercury)
- Lemmingrad (Billy Joel)
- Samba de Janeiro (Bellini)
- The Irish Rover (traditional)
- London Bridge (hey, fitting Lemmings music for that one! ;) )
- Sur le pont d'Avignon (traditional)
- Lempire State of Mind (Jay Z feat. Alicia Keys) :D
- Hiroshima (Wishful Thinking) - you see how I kinda do need radiation in this pack, don't you? ;)

In case I do a cross-platform thing with additional levels for Lix, these might include:
- Taking orders from Van Halen (guess which skill you'll have to use here ;) )
- The Time Warp (can you guess it here as well? :) )
- Beat it! (probably also obvious)

- Telling me which of my two simultaneous projects - "Lemmicks", i.e. the pack with gimmicks, or this one - I should focus on first. :)
« Last Edit: November 19, 2017, 12:49:28 AM by Strato Incendus »
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #1 on: May 20, 2018, 01:20:13 PM »
Here's a quick update on how things are going. The "city" levels are certainly the biggest challenge as far as creating the terrain is concerned; however, I think I'm getting better at "painting" with level tiles, so I wanted to show you some of them. Arty is obviously much better at this than I am, so any tipps for improvement are appreciated! :) (As long as they don't ruin my intended solution... :P )


Vienna


Budapest


Streets of London

Sorry to the British users, no flag here, the Union Jack is pretty hard to recreate ;) .
I did the Star-Spangled Banner for a Paralems level, but in the end it made up about a quarter of the screen - at least with the correct number of stars and stripes.


Moskau, Moskau


Berlin


Barcelona


The Irish Rover

Some sails on the "27 masts" would be nice, if I knew how... :/ And this level certainly wouldn't work in New Formats, because I need all those fake hatches for my "seven million barrels of porter" ^^.


Samba de Janeiro

And of course, I also added the flag to

Diggas in Paris


As you can see, there's some heavy tileset mixing going on with all of these levels, so I am most likely just going to jam all graphic sets in my "styles" folder into the level pack file. That will blow it up in size by a huge margin, but all my preceding packs were too big to be regular attachments already, so I'm just going to use Dropbox for the link, as always.

Some further country-related levels without any specific shape:


Smoke on the Water
(since the story takes place on the "Lake Geneva shoreline")


Walk like an Egyptian


Dragostea din tei


Malle ist nur einmal im Jahr

Further place-related song levels still on my list are:
- Shipping up to Boston
- Lempire State of Mind
- Rome
- Sur le pont d'Avignon
- Viva Colonia
- Allein in Amsterdam
- Land of Green
- If you're going to San Francisco
- Ganglem Style
« Last Edit: May 20, 2018, 03:18:22 PM by Strato Incendus »
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Nessy

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #2 on: May 21, 2018, 12:07:37 AM »
Oh my... these levels look amazing :thumbsup: I especially liked how you used the Lix ball-shaped terrain in "Moskau, Moskau"

Also really like the theme of this pack. Look forward to seeing some more previews :)

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #3 on: May 21, 2018, 08:21:58 AM »
Thanks a lot, Nessy! :)

It just came to my mind that I should probably exchange the exit on "Streets of London" for the exit from the Highland tileset that resembles a British phone cell.

The Amateur rank is currently the most finished one, since it's somehow easier for me to create more restricted, "tutorial-type" levels than huge, complex ones that are often open-ended.

Generally speaking though, a lot of levels have a smaller skillset this time, there are a lot of one-of-everything levels, or something close to that :) .
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Colorful Arty

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #4 on: May 22, 2018, 12:36:22 AM »
These levels look really awesome Strato. This may be a pack I'll have to LP when it comes out. :thumbsup:
My Youtube channel where I let's play games with family-friendly commentary:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiRPZ5j87ft_clSRLFCESQA

My Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/colorfularty

My levelpack: SubLems
For New formats NeoLemmix: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4942.0
For Old formats NeoLemmix: http://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=2787.0
For SuperLemmini: http://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=2704.0

My levelpack: ArtLems
For New formats NeoLemmix: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4583.0

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #5 on: May 22, 2018, 05:48:51 PM »
Thanks, Arty! That means a lot to me, coming from the "level painter in chief" ;) .

I guess it's no surprise that your levels were a huge inspiration for this :) !
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #6 on: June 07, 2018, 03:40:41 PM »
So... I believe I just created my hardest level to date. Basically, I just combined a lot of stuff that's already difficult by itself, and threw it together into one level :) .


Breaking the law

While I certainly could have made it look more like a prison, the drastic shortage of destructive skills should make the prison break difficult enough to make up for that :D .

It is not intended to be the last level of the pack, though, so I hope I can still do better - or worse, depending on your standpoint ;) - than this.

Additionally, I've attached two more of the mechanically challenging levels, to show you the other side of Lemmings World Tour, which is obviously supposed to be more than just pretty landscapes :) .


We will rock you


Block around the clock

Block around the clock is part of an "instructive" series where I'm trying to put all the tricks one can do with one specific skill into a single level. They are quite challenging, but also teach you something at the same time, so I'm not sure whether they should rather go in a lower rank with a pre-level text or into the higher ranks without any introducing words.

Others include:


I wanna rock!


Buildy Jean


Making your mined up

Yeah... if you have better song title suggestions for these two, go ahead! ;) At least one of them was fairly obvious:


Sex bomb



Some further "artistic ones":


A spacelem came travelling



Who let the dogs out?


Everybody's heard about the bird


Tulpen aus Amsterdam


Sur le pont d'Avignon

I was happy to find out that the broken bridge I saw when I visited Avignon in 2012 actually was that bridge the song is about :D . Because broken bridges obviously make for better levels than already intact ones, like in the Dutch level.


Rome

And a bit of local patriotism on my part :D :


Viva Colonia!
« Last Edit: June 08, 2018, 12:23:27 AM by Strato Incendus »
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #7 on: June 20, 2018, 09:38:25 PM »
I'm picking up the pace now! The first two ranks are completed, and the remaining three only have about 10 levels each to go - some more, some less.


Brick house


Don't stop believin'

I tried to represent as many signature elements from the lyrics in this one as possible - a small town on the left, a city on the right, the "midnight trains", the street lights... ;) I don't have an actual solution in mind yet, but it's probably only going to feature two lemmings - the "small town girl" and the "city boy" :D .


Ace of spades

This is one of those heavy songs where, as I mentioned, the crowd will be difficult to control ;) . You may have to create a lemming mosh pit... I mean, digger pit.


Summer of '69

...which actually took place in Portugal, according to Bryan Adams himself, hence the flag. ;)


Y. Lem C. A.


Puff, the Magic Dragon


Crazy Train

Inspired by Arty, of course, and then taken to new extremes ;) . The solution on this one isn't finalised yet, though.

Three more places we'll be going to:


Munich


Banditi di Praga


If you're going to San Francisco
« Last Edit: June 20, 2018, 10:55:37 PM by Strato Incendus »
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline nin10doadict

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #8 on: June 21, 2018, 02:38:51 AM »
These are looking pretty awesome. The Lemming-shaped terrain in Y.Lem.C.A is excellent. :D

Offline 607

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #9 on: June 21, 2018, 09:04:44 AM »
Very cool! Unfortunately I don't know a lot of songs, so almost all the references are lost on me.

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #10 on: June 21, 2018, 12:48:26 PM »
These are looking pretty awesome. The Lemming-shaped terrain in Y.Lem.C.A is excellent. :D

Thanks, I just noticed after designing the Lemming that, due to the way he's holding his arms, he also still looks a bit like an "M" :D .

Quote
Very cool! Unfortunately I don't know a lot of songs, so almost all the references are lost on me.

That's why I'm always putting the band name in the "author" line, so that all these songs can be found easily! ;)
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #11 on: June 28, 2018, 04:19:35 PM »
A quick update with somewhat major news: There's going to be an additional rank!

To be honest, I didn't really want to add this one. I still think "It's a long way to the top" is the perfect opener for a pack with this theme, and the opening music for a Lemmings pack has to be the Can-Can if it's supposed to feel like Lemmings.

But already the second level, which is thematically tied to "It's a long way to the top", namely "Timber (It's going down!)", requires some tricks, like miners tanking on steel to turn around etc.; two levels later, miners have to be used to create a pit to trap the lemmings for crowd control, etc.

All these are moves which may be well-known to seasoned Lemmings players, but new players don't stand a chance with such an approach.

Which is why I finally decided to add in another lower rank, similarly to the "Newbie" rank in Arty's Sublems.


It wasn't even that easy to come up with a music-related term for something even lower than "Amateur" (the original first rank), but in the end, I settled for:

Noisemaker :D

So far, it only has 20 levels, in contrast to the "proper" ranks of the main pack, which have 30 levels each.

I also have just ONML music playing throughout the entire Noisemaker rank, and also predominantly those graphic sets are used.

Ideally, it should feel like playing a bit of Oh no! More Lemmings before starting with the actual pack, which should feel just like regular Lemmings.

"Noisemaker" is not going to be an easy rank per se; the first level already is pretty much a replica of "Postcard to Lemmingland". It's just that the skill set is very restricted, so usually you'll be bound to discover the solution pretty quickly. Also, I've made use of pre-level texts liberally here.

The goal is not the standard procedure of teaching skills, but certain standard tricks you can do with these skills as early as possible. Things like "dig + build" to turn around, mining or bashing into steel to turn around, bouncing miners and builders with blockers, creating builder walls, making lemmings jump over 6 pixel-heights, etc.

Here is an example level from the Noisemaker rank with still somewhat artistic qualities :D :


Octopus's garden

PS: No, that octopus is not friendly towards lemmings ;) .

Another place we are going to visit later on in the pack:


YerushaLem shel zahav

Technically, "Yerushalayim shel zahav" would be correct, but I can't let such a blatant opportunity for a Lemmings pun slip ;) .


Hollywood Hills

Here's another one; I felt a bit like a little girl playing with her barbie dolls for creating this, but I just had to combine that old "disjoint unions" concept with Arty's painting approach and make a nice little house, with all the standard rooms, for my Lemmings :D :


Sweet Home Alabama

Finally, I spiced up the logo a little ;) . Thanks to namida / Nessy for providing me with the original size Lemmings logo; the one I was using before had to be stretched to fill the entire width of the screen.



The Noisemaker, Amateur, Professional, and Diva ranks are all completed.

Rockstar is only missing six levels, Legend about thirteen.

Plus, I'm going to have to create some more Groupie levels. So far, I have only created levels in the style of (or as hated by ;) ) Flopsy, IchoTolot, Nepster, nin10doadict, Raymanni, Proxima, and Nessy.
Time to do a little more "research" into your packs ;) !
« Last Edit: June 28, 2018, 06:17:19 PM by Strato Incendus »
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Colorful Arty

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #12 on: July 06, 2018, 01:52:16 AM »
(Sees Strato's screenshots)

(Looks at own ArtLems levels)

(Throws them in the trash in disgrace)

Just kidding. These levels look amazing though! I cannot wait for the pack to be released! :thumbsup:
My Youtube channel where I let's play games with family-friendly commentary:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiRPZ5j87ft_clSRLFCESQA

My Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/colorfularty

My levelpack: SubLems
For New formats NeoLemmix: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4942.0
For Old formats NeoLemmix: http://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=2787.0
For SuperLemmini: http://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=2704.0

My levelpack: ArtLems
For New formats NeoLemmix: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4583.0

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #13 on: July 10, 2018, 12:28:03 AM »
Oh, I didn't notice your post until now - strange that I wasn't notified by my settings, but whatever :) .

Quote
(Sees Strato's screenshots)

(Looks at own ArtLems levels)

(Throws them in the trash in disgrace)

Haha, I can hardly imagine they're that bad ;) ! I just guess you've set the bar for yourself a lot higher, trying to imitate certain eras of art, rather than just painting "anything" in level form, like a train or a ship.

Quote
Just kidding. These levels look amazing though!

Thanks again! ;) Though I just learned there's a limit of what's technically possible.

Here's how to crash NeoLemmix :D :


All the world's a stage

Unfortunately, this level won't be playable. The player already crashes if I just want to test it. Good thing I only created the terrain so far by copying together the iconic buildings from other levels! :) So it's nothing more than a nice title screen now, because it sums up perfectly what this pack is about.

I didn't have any specific solution in mind yet anyway; I just thought this might be a nice idea for the last level. But anyways, now I'll just return to what was originally intended to be the last level anyway.

At least I finally managed to accurately assemble the US flag (=with correct number of stars and stripes) at a reasonable size! :thumbsup: Also, I'm definitely going to use that "Lemming Liberty" in one of the two New York-related levels! (All the other structures were taken from already existing levels, but the statue wasn't.)

(You need to scroll this post all the way to the right to see that statue, btw ;) ! )

Quote
I cannot wait for the pack to be released! :thumbsup:

Believe me - neither can I! ;)

I'm constantly backing up everything, just to be on the safe side. It's astounding that all this work that went into it is just about 50 MB in total (not counting the music tracks, of course).

Let's play a little game for the meantime: Like with "Don't stop believin'", I have some more levels that try to mimic the actual lyrics of the song they represent, rather than just the title.

Can anyone guess which songs these are? ;)


Spoiler (click to show/hide)


Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also, Noisemaker is a full-blown rank now, it has 30 levels just like all the others.

Groupie is also going to have 30 levels; for some of you guys, I'm creating several levels "in your style" if I believe I can't fit it all into one.

Encore is already fixed to 40 levels - surprisingly, I did actually already create that many levels which are song titles in my preceding three packs. I think I even left out one or two, because 40 is just a nicer number.

That blows this pack up to 250 levels in total! :evil: (Noisemaker, Amateur, Professional, Diva, Rockstar, Legend --> 6 x 30 = 180, Encore = 40, Groupie = 30)

I believe that makes it the largest pack in existence so far? :)

Well, there's still three Rockstar levels, a couple more Legend levels, and quite some Groupie levels to go... plus some minor edits on some of the music tracks.
« Last Edit: July 10, 2018, 12:33:40 AM by Strato Incendus »
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #14 on: July 15, 2018, 12:50:18 PM »
Mmh... is anyone hungry? :D


Bon appetit!
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #15 on: July 18, 2018, 10:34:30 AM »
The main pack is finished! Now all that's left to do is the remainder of the Groupie rank. Plus some music edits. Plus backroute testing :) .

Fortunately, GigaLem has made quite a bit of use of radiation in "Millas", so I can make that Hiroshima level which I have been struggling with for a while his signature level! ^^

I'll have to see whether 30 levels are enough to deal with every major pack creator here, or whether Groupie is going to need 40 levels, just like Encore.

So far there are levels in style of:
bulletride
Clam
Colorful Arty
Deceit
Dodochacalo
Duuddu
Flopsy
GigaLem
IchoTolot
mobius
namida
Nepster
Nessy
nin10doadict
Pieuw
Proxima
Raymanni
SQron
Wafflem
Yung Gotenks
zanzindorf
« Last Edit: July 20, 2018, 11:02:18 PM by Strato Incendus »
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #16 on: July 25, 2018, 07:50:15 PM »
So... I'm kinda torn at this point. On the one hand, I'd really like to release this pack as soon as possible, and I don't want to blow it up to even more insane dimensions than it already is.

On the other hand, there are really a couple more places I'd like to visit with levels.

I just came up with these three, which wouldn't make it into the pack if it stuck to its 30-level-per-rank structure.


Cold Turkey

Yeah, I know that's not actually what this John Lennon song is about... :P


Burn

Could either be an Ellie Goulding- or a Deep Purple song.
This place is a little lesser known. But hey, it has the world's largest Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant! :thumbsup:

The crescent on the Turkish flag was nasty to create, I had to use the dark red circles from the Marble tileset to be able to actually "carve" out a bit out of the white circle again. The "erase" takes away all terrain, after all, you can't work with multiple layers like that.

So this flag theoretically also would have required a crescent, but I just didn't bother here :evil: .


WeiƟe Rosen aus Athen

Another German title (Ɵ can't be written in the Lemmings font, of course, so I used a double-s instead - insert Nazi joke here ;) ).
But Nana Mouskouri recorded this song in a bunch of different languages, so you might know it nonetheless.

I did consider recolouring those flower traps to white for a while, in order to match the level title ("White Roses from Athens")... but they're more akin to tulips than roses anyway (hence, they also appear in "Tulpen aus Amsterdam", i.e. "Tulips from Amsterdam") :D .


Also, how about a level actually imitating a music video? :)


Seven Nation Army

Or... have you ever wondered what Lemming angels look like? :D


Engel
« Last Edit: July 26, 2018, 08:20:17 PM by Strato Incendus »
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #17 on: August 01, 2018, 11:51:04 PM »
Yeah... looks like we're really going for 40 levels per rank now. I like my ranks to be even in level numbers whenever possible... Encore was bound to have 40 levels due to the sheer number of "song levels" I had already done in preceding packs; "Groupie" has 40 levels because there are a lot more different level creators out there than I thought; and the others are going to have 40 now as well, because there's still a lot more places to visit - and this type of level doesn't fit into any of the concepts for other packs I have in mind, so it's now or never! :D

At least I should have every major US city in here by now... well, every major city about which someone has made a song, that is ;) .


Out of L.A.

Sadly, the skyline of L.A. is surprisingly repetitive - lots of blue, red-brown, or white-blue skyscrapers. They of course differ in detail, but that's a level of detail I can hardly replicate in Lemmings.
The solution is kinda cool, though; it is a builder fest, of course, as you can probably tell from the looks of it, but a builder fest where you have to think quite a bit, because timing is critical here.


Vegas Lights

Since Vegas copied the Eiffel tower from Paris, I did the same :D - i.e. copied it from the "Diggas in Paris" level. Plus, there's the big wheel and the fountain.


Shipping up to Boston

Now, as many of you have probably guessed by now, I'm mainly working with photos of the skyline to create these levels. In Boston's case, I've been there myself, and I recognised many of the buildings, but sadly, in low-detail Lemmings terrain, this city suffers from a similarly "repetitive" skyline as L.A. - just with a different flair, more brown and red tones instead of white and blue.


Streets of Philadelphia

C'mon, I can't do a rock music themed pack without a song by "The Boss" in here, can I? ;) And if it's a song about a place on top of that, and a place I hadn't already covered with another level before, then this is really a no-brainer. At least these two towers on the left look a little more unique.

Btw, I finally did figure out a way to create a somewhat acceptable Union Jack in Lemmings! :thumbsup: So here's an updated version (including the Highland exit) of


Streets of London

Also, there aren't many Asian countries in this pack yet... South Korea and Japan are still coming (one with quite an obvious candidate of a song ;) ).
But then I also did a... thing:


Something in the water

If you don't get what this level is about...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)


With regard to the Groupie levels, I mainly struggle with the levels in style of GigaLem and Wafflem ;) .
In Wafflem's case, it's pretty much obvious what has to go into his level, but that doesn't mean I can come up with a cool solution involving lots of buttons and pickup skills yet.
In GigaLem's case, I have one level using a Freedom Planet tileset, and another one more in the spirit of the "GigaLems" pack.
Alberto Fernandes's level building style was pretty straightforward to figure out, but at the same time, such a level must be extremely annoying to build.

So that's a little road block in the Groupie rank at the moment. Perhaps I'll "re-finish" the main ranks first, rounding out the remaining locations to visit, before doing the final bits of the Groupie rank.

All the music edits are finished by now! :)
« Last Edit: August 03, 2018, 11:26:40 PM by Strato Incendus »
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #18 on: August 04, 2018, 05:59:00 PM »
Sometimes I can really be thankful for certain song titles... the levels practically build themselves :D . Even if the song is actually about something completely different, but hey... that was already the case for "Cold Turkey" :D .


Aquarius

Mmh... guess which exit you have to get to? :8:()[:


Ovo je Balkan

Serbian for "This is the Balkans".
A bunch of flags here, most of which people are not very familiar with ;) .

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That checkered terrain piece from the Sports tileset really was my salvation for the Croatian flag! :thumbsup: I had almost given up already on getting that one right.


Bratislava Lover
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #19 on: August 05, 2018, 04:59:28 PM »
Hey, sexy Lemming! 8-)


Ganglem Style

EDIT: Made a couple of tweaks, Plom's Garden tileset was really helpful in making this one more Asian looking! :thumbsup: My previous self-made structures based on Gronkling's Ancient tileset alone weren't very convincing, in my view ;) .

I thought one of GigaLem's Freedom Planet graphic sets would feature such structures as well, but nope... the canopy from the Dragon tileset was the closest thing I could find.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2018, 09:32:48 PM by Strato Incendus »
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline grams88

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #20 on: August 05, 2018, 11:24:53 PM »
Those look really nice levels, you must of done a lot work with it all. :thumbsup:

I like the whole countries idea which has went down quite well. :thumbsup:

It's good getting inspired by other level designers. I see you like your Mcdonald's chips, I noticed that one in the (Bon appetit!) level.

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #21 on: August 06, 2018, 03:15:14 PM »
Thanks, grams88! Although I'm only reading this right away because I was typing something different:

My hard drive just died this afternoon :( . The laptop can't boot because it doesn't find the operating system.

Fortunately, I kept saving everything on both an external hard drive as well as in Dropbox, so no levels are lost. ;P

While Paralems, Pit Lems, and Lemmicks are only in the dropbox as nxps, since I was wise enough to allow level dumping (wink to Arty ;) ), I will be able to restore the single level files from the packs, if everything else fails (although those should also be on the external hard drive).

More fortunately, I had already bought a new computer a couple of weeks ago - a Mac, though, for my music purposes, which is why I kept using the Windows Laptop for NeoLemmix.

So it will take some time until I will have set up everything on a Windows partition on that new Mac. But knock on wood, it's really just a slight delay, when it could have been a total pack development reset to zero. :laugh:

Guys, keep saving your packs both on extra hard drives and online! The latter I did mainly due to the currently high risks of forest fires everywhere (an external HD is of little use if it's in the same house as your PC in case you have to leave quickly).

So I somehow sensed something like this coming - fate favours the prepared ones... :thumbsup:
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #22 on: August 09, 2018, 10:11:17 PM »
I'm back, everything is restored! :thumbsup: Fate can really k*ss my a** at this point... This hard drive failure took me almost an entire work week, but he we are at last, the creation of the last few levels can continue.

I just tried the last version of the Old Formats Flexi Toolkit, mainly for the handy option of the Mac-style music rotation. Sadly, it doesn't work the way I'd need it to work for this pack, because it simply sets the rotation to a specific number starting with each rank, rather than being continuous.

That is: Rank 1 always starts with track 1, Rank 2 always starts with track 14 (Forest Green, as on "This should be a doddle!", and so on). Mac-style music rotation is tailor-made for 30 level-ranks.

This wouldn't work in Lemmings World Tour for several reasons:
1) The first rank is supposed to play ONML music throughout, the second one should start with the Can-Can, indicating the start of the "main pack".
2) The ranks are going to have 40 levels each now.

So I'm glad I tried this first by only deleting the music information from five levels in the Amateur rank.

Additional work was involved because the last version of the Flexi Toolkit doesn't allow several levels with the same level ID - it took me a while to figure out that the only reason I had those was due to the way I create re-runs of preceding levels (take the same level file, save it as a new one, modify the skill set). So I reset and changed the level ID on all of these. It's nice to have the player be able to differentiate between an original level and its rerun, of course - one just needs to know about this.

But ultimately, I'm going to have to keep entering the music manually for this pack - which of course is a pain whenever levels change order, but eh...
« Last Edit: August 09, 2018, 10:16:48 PM by Strato Incendus »
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #23 on: August 12, 2018, 04:40:56 PM »
After one week of an unwanted hiatus, here are some more.

Meaning more places, more stupid puns, more obscure references... :D


Stonehenge

Yes, that is a song :) . Taken from arguably the most frequently quoted movie among musicians, "Spinal Tap".
Originally, I wanted to make this an 11-of-everything level - you know, because "it's one louder!" ;)
But that would have been way too generous for such a small level!


Holy Mountains

Two flags here... I'm not taking a stance on territorial disputes in this pack! :D


Black Polished Chrome

As I said - really stupid puns... :evil:

I couldn't even come up with something involving a "War Saw", so I just went with this title by The Doors. While they are comparatively well-known as a band, I don't know whether this song is, too... ;) I certainly did not know about it before.
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #24 on: August 17, 2018, 10:41:27 PM »
More stuff... doesn't always have to be a city, btw ;) .


Ring, Ring!

I'm considering a re-run of this - Lady Gaga's "Telephone". But I'd have to come up with an alternative solution first to justify that :) .


Iron Maidan

More stupid puns, as promised ;) !


Ayo Technology

"Belgium... is a beautiful city", right? :D And one we couldn't go to in New Formats. Because obviously, you know what is going to happen when you split those atoms...

(Plus, Belgium actually has some pretty old nuclear power plants which don't really fulfil all the security standards anymore, so... :sick: )


And here is the very last level of the pack (i.e. the last level of the Groupie rank). I've hidden it away in a spoiler tag, just to make taking a look optional :) .
I think the largest pack to date should appropriately end with the largest level to date. :evil:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #25 on: August 18, 2018, 09:06:38 PM »
Yet more places to go! :)

It's getting a little taxing to create these levels... but at this point, there's a "pull factor" in form of "the anticipation of the pack being finished soon"... more so than my internal "push factor" to simply create levels.

Hence, I was a little afraid the level quality might suffer from this... especially the city levels, where most of the effort goes into designing the terrain. But somehow, most of them still manage to have somewhat unique and original solutions. Perhaps because I usually approach them thinking: "Okay, this is the terrain, I can't really change anything about it, because that's the way it has to look; now, what's the most whacky and outlandish way I could imagine to navigate through this mess?" :D


Sun of Jamaica


So Wat? (I'm still a Rockstar)


Bang-a-Boomerang


Taj-a, Taj-a, Taj-a, Taj me


Georgia on my mind

For the last one, it was really a blessing that this title came back to my mind... Now the entire Caucasus region is complete! :thumbsup:

(While the title of course originally referred to the US state of Georgia, the Beatles used the same line in "Back in the USSR", and deliberately so with the double-meaning.)

But as you can see, some of the other titles are really stretching to somehow work the name of the country, city, or landmark into the level title. So if you have any better ideas that are also song titles, please let me know! :)

(In case it's not clear: Those three places are supposed to represent Angkor Wat in Cambodia; Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh; and the Taj Mahal in India.)
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #26 on: August 19, 2018, 09:26:25 PM »
Okay, I almost would have given up on this specific place - given that it requires a Union Jack inside another flag, plus a very oddly shaped building. But thankfully, I found some way out. :D


The Phantom of the Opera

When depicting the Sydney Opera House from the side is too difficult, just look at it from the front! :)

Though there seems to be a great lack of slightly round or curvy shapes among graphic sets so far. That slightly curved outer line of the three rectangular building parts, those were actually shaped by countless inverted slopes set to "erase" from the outside. Granted, those were required anyway to cut away the excess of the blue squares inside, but still... ;P
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #27 on: August 21, 2018, 12:39:58 AM »
We're getting really close now:

Levels per rank:
Noisemaker: 39/40
Amateur: 37/40
Professional: 39/40
Diva: 40/40
Rockstar: 38/40
Legend: 38/40
Encore: 40/40
Groupie: 32/40

So yeah, the Groupie levels are still the most challenging to create. :) Some of you guys are really good at hiding your signature level design patterns - or maybe you're even so innovative that you don't even have a pattern! :thumbsup:

In the meantime, here are some more locations:


Japan

Don't worry, the Hiroshima level is still coming as well ;) . If you're wondering what the other flag is doing there, guess what those two countries have in common historically...


Down in Mexico


Eagle

A little trip to the Shqipƫria (Tirana, Albania). I must admit I'm quite pleased with the way that double-headed eagle turned out.


Bay of Pigs

This one is a zombie level. And since the player has to be on the victorious side in order for the level to be solvable, guess who the zombies are... ;)


Only Time

Another zombie level that also includes lots of radiation, as you can see. This was one of the first levels to be created for Lemmings World Tour, and pretty much was the main reason for continuing this pack in Old Formats.

If you get what this level is about (i.e. remember the song), that should also be a hint for you to prepare for the occasionally dark and dirty humour of this pack. :evil:

Case and point:


The Shocker
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #28 on: September 14, 2018, 07:49:00 PM »
It's been a while, since I've been busy working on my master thesis (and still am ^^), but I'm glad to announce that

Level creation is finally finished! :D

Now, all that's left to do is backroute checking and level-reordering according to difficulty. Though the resulting order is probably not going to be the final one. (The main nuisance about this is having to re-enter the music manually every time, since my 40 levels per rank don't go well with the Mac-style music rotation option.)

In the meantime, here are some levels which did not make the cut, and I think you'll be thankful for that in most cases ^^. None of these levels have working solutions anyway - if I notice something isn't working out, I usually don't finish it at all :P .


Barbie Girl (in a Barbie World)

This one is really neat looking, plus it also had a wonderfully stupid gag where if you'd have a lemming climb on top of the earthwire, he'd be struck by a lightning bolt from the cloud above (the blue lightning trap from the Bubble tileset). But in the end, it was just a vertical repetition of the same basic idea of a Lemming house, as in "Sweet Home Alabama" and "House of the Rising Sun", so I didn't continue this one. I may come back to it later, though ;) .


Ring of Fire

Fire set to "on terrain only" sadly doesn't behave the same way as water on terrain: The entire area where the fire object would normally mean is still deadly, even if there's no terrain. That made it pretty hard to have the lemmings actually fall "into the burning ring of fire". Even though GigaLem's fire traps work nicely on terrain from a visual standpoint, it was hard to implement something interesting game-mechanics-wise, especially since this song would have been supposed to go in the Legend rank. Instead, it got culled for gratuitous violins :D .


99 Luftballons

The good thing was: The title of this Nena song made it pretty clear what the terrain for this level would look like.
The bad thing was: The title of the Nena song made it pretty clear what the terrain for this level would look like ;) .
i.e. a totally obnoxious builder fest in order to connect 99 free-floating balloons. I thought of grouping some of them closer together to create miner-friendly terrain, so I could mix things up a little. But sadly, miners only really make sense to be used this way if you have climbers to send ahead - and these balloons aren't very climber-friendly either. As you can see, I tried some stuff with gliders and updraft and tricky crowd control, but I still couldn't see a way to avoid massive usage of builders and/or platformers - so this level got destroyed with 99 pinpricks :D .


Don't drop that bomb on me

This level got removed for different reasons: I tried to make the falling oh-noer trick work. My goal was to use it like in Lemmings Revolution, to prevent a lemming from splatting without using a floater. Sadly, the distance an oh-noer can fall before exploding isn't even near splat height, so that whole idea wouldn't have been possible in the first place.


Finally, I would have liked to include Falco's "Rock me, Amadeus!" But I couldn't come up with anything specific involving my Instruments tileset that would have had a clear connection to this title. Maybe I'll do such a level in the future, probably in New Formats using Arty's Silhouette tileset, since that makes it easy to build levels in the shape of musical notes.


Ah yeah, and here's the infamous "Hiroshima" level. This one actually did make it into the pack - in fact, it was the very last level I just created. I kept procrastinating this, and I can tell you I really hated creating it. Funnily enough, not because of the radiation - that's actually the coolest part about it - but because of the mess the zombies on the right were causing, with regard to the relative distance to the pioneer lemmings. I constantly had to restart to shift terrain pieces a couple of pixels, until what I had in mind finally worked out.

That said, this level probably was harder to design than it will be to play ;) . The execution is not particularly difficult, I'd say - now that I've made sure all the terrain pieces are in the right place! :)


Hiroshima
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #29 on: September 17, 2018, 10:32:04 PM »
The Lemmings World Tour has begun! Go and meet the band on the road!

This rehearsal room here can therefore now be closed :) !
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels