Author Topic: [Neolemmix] Quest From Kieran Development Thread  (Read 17568 times)

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Offline kieranmillar

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[Neolemmix] Quest From Kieran Development Thread
« on: December 23, 2017, 03:18:08 PM »
Released! Go here instead: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=6184.0

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Welcome to Quest From Kieran, the prequel to Quest From Kieran 2!

This is a 40 56 60 level pack for Neolemmix v12.12.5 or later. It contains levels in the traditional Lemmings style, so only the original 8 skills, no levels taller than the original height, only levels styles from the original game and Oh No, that sort of thing. There are probably a billion backroutes. Difficulty is probably overall mid-to-high with a small number of easy levels at the start and getting very brutal towards the end, but I have no idea how to really gauge this.

The music is songs made by classic British demoscene musician 4mat, specifically tracks from a Jet Set Willy remake. You should be fine with regards to e.g. copyright on Youtube playthroughs. I came up with my own names for the tracks, there were no official names.

The Ranks

Fun
I thought it made no sense why only the original game gets to have a rank that states the levels are fun. I want my levels to be fun too! So I named this rank Fun. Hah! Take that!

Investing in Infrastructure

Also Fun
What, you thought only the first few levels in a level pack are allowed to be fun? Well not this time! These levels are a bit harder, but they're still fun!

Frozen Arches

Hard But Still Fun
Levels don't have to be easy to be fun. Even my hard levels are fun!

Pillars of the Community

Not Fun
Well I guess they can't all be winners.

The High Ground

How to Install

Extract the contents of the zip file into Neolemmix's levels folder. Then inside Neolemmix, press F2 to select the level pack you wish to play. If you want the music, extract the files into Neolemmix's music folder.
« Last Edit: March 04, 2023, 08:25:37 PM by kieranmillar »

Offline Akseli

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Re: [Neolemmix] Quest From Kieran
« Reply #1 on: December 28, 2017, 09:43:59 PM »
Okay, solved 37/40 of them now, my solutions are attached. Mostly backroutes I guess but still pretty enjoyable pack so far!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Offline kieranmillar

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Re: [Neolemmix] Quest From Kieran {v02 - 16/03/2018}
« Reply #2 on: March 16, 2018, 12:25:12 AM »
Attached to the opening post you will find v2 of this pack.

For various reasons that I won't detail here, I had decided I wasn't going to finish this pack and fix all of the issues. However abandoning a pack after all of the levels have already been built and leaving the pack completely busted was lame, so instead I have decided to do all of the quick backroute fixes I had on my ToDo list and release a version 2.

There are still many levels that are extremely broken. I'm not sure what to do, I'm not willing to spend too much time on this pack any more. Perhaps for those levels I could release the official solutions and if anybody has any good ideas on how to fix those levels I will make those changes? Or just release as-is.

In the meantime, have these small changes:

v02 changelog:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)


List of still broken levels:
Fun 6 A Bridge To Far?
Fun 10 The Ultimate Quest
Also Fun 10 The Ultimate Quest, Take 2
Hard But Still Fun 10 The Ultimate Quest, Take 3
Not Fun 1 Mined Your Head
Not Fun 2 Organic Lemming
Not Fun 4 Down The Tubes
Not Fun 6 Toil
Not Fun 8 The High Ground
Not Fun 10 The Ultimate Quest, Take 4
« Last Edit: January 20, 2019, 06:31:31 PM by kieranmillar »

Offline Wafflem

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Re: [Neolemmix] Quest From Kieran {v02 - 16/03/2018}
« Reply #3 on: March 24, 2018, 09:13:47 PM »
I've streamed this pack on Twitch (along with two ArtLems levels). It'll be up for 14 days:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/242379534

I've played the first two ranks and some of the third rank, and I've found a lot of backroutes, specifically in the following levels:
A Bridge Too Far (Fun 6), Grasping At Straws (Fun 7), The Ultimate Quest (Fun 10)
The Tree of Death (Also Fun 2), Most Valuable Lemming (Also Fun 5), The Burrowers (Also Fun 6)

I've also attached my replays. Overall, I had a LOT of fun streaming this pack, and I look forward to streaming it again at some point. Thanks for the pack, Kieran! :laugh:
YouTube: www.tinyurl.com/YTWafflem
Twitch: www.twitch.tv/Wafflem467

Have level designer's block right now? Have some of my incomplete levels for LOTS of ideas!

Offline Akseli

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Re: [Neolemmix] Quest From Kieran {v02 - 16/03/2018}
« Reply #4 on: August 26, 2018, 08:25:55 PM »
Finally revisited this level pack, attached working replays for all the levels in the second version of the pack, QFK_v02. So most of the replays are same that I posted last time, but I also solved now the updated levels as well and three levels that I didn't solve the first time.

Comments on the levels that aren't in the "broken level list" (contain spoilers):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm really loving this pack, and it's a bit shame that you don't have motivation to work on it anymore, but even if at least some not-that-broken levels will still get possible easy fixes, I'd appreciate it a lot! And if we don't count the recurring The Ultimate Quest level and most of the last rating because of the backroutes, I'd highly recommend this pack for everyone to play. Really people, there's no excuse not to play this pack, have a go at this level pack gem! :thumbsup:

Offline kieranmillar

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Re: [Neolemmix] Quest From Kieran {v03 - 12/01/2019}
« Reply #5 on: January 12, 2019, 03:44:24 PM »
Whaaaaaaat!? 10 months later and there's an update? Version 03 has been released and attached to the opening post. I felt bad that Akseli enjoyed the pack so much but I had abandoned it, so I started working on it again.

Most important changes: This pack has 10 new levels! But 6 old ones have been removed (Fun 6 - A Bridge Too Far?, Not Fun 2 - Organic Lemming and all 4 Ultimate Quest levels that were at the end of each rank). So, each rank currently has 11 levels for a total of 44. I plan to make it go back to a more satisfying round number of levels eventually by adding even more levels, but figured it could do with a release in its current state. I do plan to eventually make a replacement for The Ultimate Quest, but that will take a while as it requires redoing from scratch and there's no point in leaving the broken levels around in the meantime.

The addition and removal of levels have made most of the levels change position, so if you care about your previous replays you might want to note which one was for which level if you only have them saved via rank name and number. All mention of rank name and number below are the new positions.

EDIT: Pack now requires Neolemmix v12.04.00 or later, which is the current latest stable version.

Levels that are still broken but I plan to fix:
Hard But Still Fun 3 - Grasping at Straws
Not Fun 1 - Mined Your Head
Not Fun 5 - Down The Tubes
Not Fun 10 - The High Ground

v03 changelog:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Offline kieranmillar

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Re: [Neolemmix] Quest From Kieran {v04 - 16/01/2019}
« Reply #6 on: January 16, 2019, 09:31:01 PM »
Another version, mainly adding more levels, plus some tweaks to others, including a rework of all 4 The Ultimate Quest levels, redesigned from scratch to more accurately represent the ideas the original levels were meant to convey, but were too complex and therefore too easily backrouted.

I'm trying to focus on making levels on the easier side because I think this pack overall is very hard and could do with a bit more of a gradual difficulty curve. I still plan to have all levels be interesting puzzles, just try to make them more straightforward.

There are now 13 levels in each rank. I hope to eventually reach 15 levels per rank.

Levels that are still broken but I plan to fix:
Hard But Still Fun 4 - Grasping at Straws
Not Fun 2 - Mined Your Head
Not Fun 6 - Down The Tubes

v04 changelog:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Offline Akseli

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Re: [Neolemmix] Quest From Kieran {v04 - 16/01/2019}
« Reply #7 on: January 20, 2019, 12:07:08 AM »
What a surprise! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

My v04 solutions are attached, though I didn't yet re-solve Pillars of the Community (yep, whaat?) and The Firing Squad (oh, this might be really evil...). Loads of backroutes probably, but I think I've now found a decent solutions at least for How's it Hanging? and Increasing Productivity, and also for the new level Rescue Rodents. The Ultimate Quest levels feel more reasonable also, now!

Investing in Infrastructre level has a typo in its title.

Edit: Btw, I played these with NeoLemmix V 12.03.00 or so, I don't know if there's important changes.

Offline kieranmillar

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Re: [Neolemmix] Quest From Kieran {v04 - 16/01/2019}
« Reply #8 on: January 20, 2019, 01:07:51 PM »
Cheers for playing again Akseli. Lots of backroutes to fix!

How's It Hanging and Rescue Rodents are intended, I've realised I can shrink the size of Rescue Rodents because it's super wide for no good reason so I will do that. Increasing Productivity, interestingly is not even close to my solution but I love your solution so much I'll leave it in. I think this level is OK to be flexible with its solutions.

As for The Ultimate Quest, glad it's more manageable, you still backrouted them all though. Serves me right for getting cute with spare Exploders I guess. But I suppose this is to be expected if I want to go to the insane ridiculousness of having an identical layout work for 4 levels.

With nobody being able to solve The Firing Squad for all this time, I do wonder if it's worth me trying to make it easier. There are lots of things I can change, but I think doing any of them might make things too obvious? I don't really want to comment too much on this before anybody else has solved it however.

Offline kieranmillar

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Re: [Neolemmix] Quest From Kieran {v05 - 20/01/2019}
« Reply #9 on: January 20, 2019, 05:08:27 PM »
Before Akseli's last post I actually had a new version ready to go and was about to post it, fortunately this means this new version now has a load of backroute fixes in it to. There are also 4 more levels and the outstanding TODO list of broken levels has been cleared out, so getting closer to a fully fixed up pack.

Would be interesting to know with the further round of fixes and simplifications if The Ultimate Quest levels are in the correct order of difficulty. It's hard for me to tell, am tempted to swap  take 3 and take 4. Any terrain tweaks to this level of course have been applied to every version.

A number of levels have been changed to change the music track as some music tracks were quite close to each other with all the level shuffling around. If Neolemmix thinks a level has been updated but it's not listed in the changelog below, then it might have moved ranks or the music changed, or a typo fixed.

v05 changelog:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Offline kieranmillar

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Re: [Neolemmix] Quest From Kieran {v05a - 20/01/2019}
« Reply #10 on: January 20, 2019, 06:17:41 PM »
A quick hotfix v05a, Not Fun 4 - Rising Condensation accidentally became too precise. I have adjusted a terrain piece by a single pixel.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2019, 10:52:12 PM by kieranmillar »

Offline Akseli

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Re: [Neolemmix] Quest From Kieran {v05a - 20/01/2019}
« Reply #11 on: January 20, 2019, 08:32:25 PM »
Solutions for 20 levels, some for the updated levels and some for new ones. The rest of the levels I need to think a bit more.

Offline kieranmillar

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Re: [Neolemmix] Quest From Kieran {v05a - 20/01/2019}
« Reply #12 on: January 20, 2019, 10:21:10 PM »
Thanks Akseli, that was fast! Although, I guess such speed is not a good sign, as the demos show. :(

Some of these backroutes are very embarrassing, like Toil, and Tree Top Trouble, but Mined Your Head made me WTF with that builder shenanigans, will have to think hard about what I'm going to do about that.

On the plus side, at least The Ultimate Quest, Take 2 was exactly intended!

Offline kieranmillar

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Re: [Neolemmix] Quest From Kieran {v06 - 02/03/2019}
« Reply #13 on: March 02, 2019, 10:14:10 PM »
I've had some changes sitting on my computer for a while. As I went in to fix namida's backroute as discovered in the LOTY2018 thread, I decided I might as well push live all fixes done so far. v6 attached to the opening post.

v06 changelog:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Levels in a currently broken state awaiting fixing:
  • Also Fun
    • 8 - Tree Top Trouble
    • 9 - Impact Zone
  • Not Fun
    • 1 - Tough Mudder - Not sure if I want to fix this or leave as is, not that broken really
    • 3 - Mined Your Head - I might replace this entirely
    • 12 - The High Ground

Offline Akseli

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Re: [Neolemmix] Quest From Kieran {v06 - 02/03/2019}
« Reply #14 on: March 31, 2019, 02:43:05 PM »
Heyaa, my solutions for updated levels in v06 except for the Ultimate Quest levels for now. My solution for Brickin' 'eck was the same, but the namida-backroute fix broke my replay so I recorded a new one.