[Lemmings 2] Quest From Kieran 2

[kieranmillar]

Welcome to my Lemmings 2 : The Tribes level pack, Quest From Kieran 2! This pack replaces all 120 levels in Lemmings 2.

The gimmick of this pack is that each of the tribes has its own set of 8 thematically-appropriate skills, and their levels use only those skills. So each tribe not only looks different, but plays differently too!

Note that this is a "save everyone" pack. Every level has 100% save requirement for gold, except for the Classic Tribe, where the number you are allowed to lose and still get gold is stated in the title for each of their levels.

This pack does not rely on glitches. While every attempt was made to try and prevent glitches from being able to break levels, some may still remain. In particular, the "crawling" glitch is not used anywhere in this pack, so if you solve a level using it, I won't be impressed. Note that using the crawling glitch via the Blocker skill in the Classic tribe was too hard to prevent so it is still possible to break some levels using it.

Thank Yous
This pack would have been significantly worse and were it not for the additional help from a number of people. In alphabetical order:

• geoo - For the amazing L2Suite development tools that made making this pack significantly more enjoyable, and for his extremely comprehensive testing.
• GuyPerfect - For the excellent lgl2 level editor that made this pack possible
• Nepster - Extremely comprehensive testing
• SimonNaar - Extremely comprehensive testing

Meet the Tribes!

Beach
Like, we're totally gonna get you that talisman piece from the clams that stole it dude, but, like, there's this totally sick bunch of waves coming and I'm, like, totally there man! Surf's up dude!


Level 7: Lifeguard to the Rescue

Cavelems
10,000 years ago lemmingkind first roamed the world and survived using primitive tools. Today those lemmings are... clearly dead, I mean come on man, it was 10,000 years ago! However their memory lives on with a bunch of ironic hipsters who forgo modern technology because it's way too mainstream. But the joke's on them, now they have to deliver the talisman and have to travel by foot. Suckers!


Level 8: Dino Might

Circus
Roll Up! Roll Up! Come and see the greatest show on Lemming Island! Watch as the incredible SuperLem takes on the trapeze, without a safety net... or a trapeze! Come see our amazing laser display! And watch with amazement as sixty of our finest clowns try to deliver the talisman piece, with hilarious consequences!


Level 4: Teeny-Weeny Houdini

Classic
Nobody understands these guys. Everyone else has moved on and developed new tricks, as well as a better social understanding that deaths are often unnecessary, yet this tribe continues to do the same old stuff with the same old tricks over and over again. Legend has it that they've conquered thousands and thousands of landscapes and yet they keep on going, and somehow despite the massive losses there are just so many of them that they never go extinct. Lets hope there's still some of them left by the time they deliver their talisman piece.


Level 5: Overflow

Egyptian
Egyptian lore says that one of the gods buried the talisman piece alongside them, but there are so many gods, I guess we'll just have to check every tomb! The Egyptians love their pots, that's why this tribe bought along a whole bunch of them as their only construction skills! Historians are keen to point out that the magic carpet is actually Arabian, and not Egyptian, but the Arabian tribe don't care, they were made extinct a thousand years ago after one of them got drunk and triggered the armageddon.


Level 3: The Climber's Curse

Highland
After correctly predicting the prophecy of the Darkness befalling Lem Island, the Highland Tribe felt a bit upset that they weren't getting quite the level of thanks they'd hoped for. So Jimmy McLemming held an independence referendum for the Highland Tribe to become their own sovereign group. Unfortunately it quickly occurred to them that they were doomed without the other talisman pieces and so the referendum failed. Dejected and defeated, Jimmy McLemming spent the rest of his days drowning his sorrows with cheap bottles of scotch whiskey, so nothing different to usual really.


Level 7: Scaling Lem Nevis

Medieval
The Medieval Tribe prides itself as defender of the realm. Using the swordsmanship, bowmanship and chivalry passed down from generation to generation, Lemming island is safe from all intruders! So who better to deliver the King's talisman piece safely to the ark than 60 of his finest knights? (Actually don't tell them, but the orbital laser satellites launched years ago by the Space Tribe are significantly more effective at defending the realm).


Level 5: Ye Olde Cavern

Outdoor
At last, a tribe that takes place outdoors, if you ignore Beach, Highland, Medieval, Polar, Shadow and Space! And probably Sports too? Is that inside a stadium or in some nightmarish green hellscape dimension? Anyway, don't let the Outdoor Tribe fool you, they love to talk about how they have conquered the great outdoors and live off the land but in reality they've never ventured further than their back garden.


Level 7: Rocky's Horror Show

Polar
Why would anybody live in the bitterly cold, frigid Northern mountain range of Lemming Island? Easy, it's because there is enormous amounts of oil. And in the process of extracting it all, this tribe has become the experts of excavation and building tall structures. Now you'd think that this meant that when it came time to deliver their talisman piece, they'd be over in a flash using some motorised technology, but no, they keep trying to stick to tradition and deliver it by ski-courier, which would be fine, if the terrible skier physics meant they didn't constantly get in accidents and need to be rescued...


Level 5: Living Life on the Edge

Shadow
The masters of stealth, nobody knows where the Shadow Tribe are at any given moment. Which is quite surprising really, given the bright yellow balloons and loud explosions that follow them wherever they go. Maybe it's because everyone else is asleep when they travel during the dead of night. I guess you'll just have to hope that they deliver the talisman piece in time.


Level 4: Flee the Nest

Space
Bad news. In order to fund their space adventures the Space tribe sold off their talisman piece to the weasels years ago. It looks like there's only one solution: buy it back blast off on a risky adventure to the nearest wormhole and pass through it to an alternate dimension where they still own the talisman piece. What could possibly go wrong?


Level 3: Blast Chamber

Sports
The Sports tribe actually already have the talisman piece to hand, but they've offered it up as first prize to a tournament, so now they have to go win it! Sure, you could argue that the current need for the talisman is more important and could just swap the prize out for something else, but seriously, that is not how sports work! Disclaimer: I have no idea how sports work.


Level 5: Uphill Obstacle Course

How to Install
Back up your current Lemmings 2 LEVELS folder, then extract the contents of the zip into there, overwriting the existing files.

How to run Lemmings 2 in DOSBox

A Quick Lemmings 2 Refresher

• You have to manually save the game from the main menu. There's no autosave!
• You want to run l2-fix.exe, not l2.exe
• Useful keyboard shrotcuts:
  
  
  
  • ESC: Quick Restart
  • F1 - F8: Skills
  • P: Pause
  • Spacebar: Fan (Note, you have to unpause by pressing Space if you want the fan ready when unpausing)
  • Enter: Fast Forward

Bonus Downloads!
But wait... you'll find more attached to this post:

• QFK2_LostTribe: Because 120 levels just wasn't enough, here's another 10 levels for the Egyptian Tribe that do not follow the standard skill theming as the rest of the pack. This was my opportunity to use some level ideas that simply could not work in the rest of the pack due to the strict skill limits I imposed. There is one level in this pack that does not require you to save everyone, which you'll know because like the Classic Tribe it states how many you can lose in the level title. As this overwrites the Egyptian Tribe, you may wish to create a duplicate of your Lemmings 2 game so you can run this and the main pack simultaneously without having to constantly mess around with the files.
• QFK2_Neoclassic: I have converted the Classic Tribe to Neolemmix in case you want to try the levels without suffering from Lemmings 2's bad UI. It uses the new formats, and to play you extract the folder inside the zip into the levels subfolder of Neolemmix.
• QFK2_Neoclassic_music: Extract this into your Neolemmix music folder and NeoClassic will play the Classic Tribe's music in each level. Without this, it will play random music tracks from those that come with Neolemmix.

[Ste Woz Ere]

Out of the 3 QFK packs, this was the one I was looking forward to playing the most - and it certainly didn't disappoint. Not only is it a whole new L2 game, it also has fixed skill sets per tribe...which is how the original game should've been done IMO. Here's a few observations from my trip around the island, in the footsteps of the little novel that came with the original game.

Highland: Difficult to identify any signature skills for Clan McLemming, but thrower+hopper made sense by association from the original game (and they love their bagpipes ofc). Good use of the thrower too, given it was only useful in that 1 level originally. I was hoping for more twister action in later tribes, but I did get to twist through the ceiling(!) in the first of many backroutes.

Circus: Loved the clowns for a number of reasons.  Superlem was woefully under-used, here we get to do a few tricks along with exploring the full range of laser blasters ("argh, it doesn't go high enough").  Slightly surprised to see a giant club, but I guess they nicked it from the strongman. Good theming overall.

Classic: Hard to say much about these guys really, as they never change. One level was very annoying to time correctly (even with savestates) but otherwise a solid set of puzzles. Also noting that they do seem to have mostly moved on from blowing themselves up, preferring instead to simply walk off the edge.

Medieval: This tribe has a bit of a theming issue for me - knights in heavy armour are not very likely to be climbing, shimmying and sliding around (as opposed to say, athletes or ninjas). Plus they don't dangle off the end of builder bridges, making one level extremely hard to time correctly.  On the up side, the roller actually gets used (only 3 times, but that's 3 times more than originally), the puzzles were decent (esp. skill interactions) and I learned a few things along the way. (including how to glitch 2 levels and use a roller to backroute another)

Egyptian: This one appealed quite a bit due to the unusual building methods, along with the near-useless magic carpet. Some of the advanced glue stuff did elude me, but I was really impressed with the catacomb level and the solution, plus the fact that I got it. (also pleased with a mini-backroute involving precision sand-pouring...which I was surprised to discover wasn't the official method)

Outdoor: Surprised to see this lot not hang-gliding around or digging up the garden with their bare hands...preferring instead to torch it and re-use old WW2 bombs they dug up previously with their shovels. Some of the later levels are quite memorable (even though I missed the final advanced bomber trick having gotten the previous ones) and it was great to see them planting quite a bit, being used in multiple ways too.

Beach: The theming here is among the best, although I don't know how they keep those big red stacks upright on sand. Great to see the most useless skill of all (diver) being used in multiple ways, and some of the hang-glider tricks were great to pull off (including one that I was surprised with - how did it fit through there?).  Not a fan of the short 2-skill levels in the 1st half, but a big fan of most levels in the 2nd half. (even if they all involved rescuing trapdoors who could only escape by burning through a tube of Pringles)

Sports: Not quite as sporty as expected. I hoped to be poking walls with a sabre and making bridges out of arrows instead of more builder/basher/miner action, although this did work well with the expected rock climber/shimmier antics. And the successful use of pole vaulting (the hardest skill to set up a level for) deserves commendation. In fact the puzzles here are top drawer, quite fitting for the only tribe to have a level this hard in the original game.

Shadow: No bazooka? The lack of climber/shimmier/slider action (that got misplaced earlier) also doesn't make sense, but in all honesty the skill set really works well together. And the levels themselves are a vast improvement on the original game - instead of just being a load of dark blue blocks with the occasional building, these levels actually look like part of a city. Some clever puzzles too (a couple of them got me though), overall one of my favourite tribes. (it's also the only one that I failed to backroute at some point, probably because they're ninjas)

Cavelem: Not sure how they got the technology to use parachutes, but otherwise the theming is spot-on. Nice to see the potential of icarus wings, and even another use for spears (apart from splat-bridging). Puzzle-wise it was the most satisfying, probably because it's the only tribe I didn't need any help with. (and the final level was a case of getting there bit-by-bit, using progressively less bridges in a certain spot)

Space: Most of my theming predictions were right for this one (esp. after Shadow ditched their signature weapon), and weren't they used well? Especially the forgotten magno-boots, it was great to see them used a lot. Jetpacks less so, although I did use a long-range one for a backroute (hehe). Some of the puzzles took a while to solve (and the rescue one got me despite expecting some magno-laser interaction), but I had a real blast with this tribe. Oh, and extra points for the best attractor in the game. (2301: A Synth Odyssey)

Polar: And so we reach the tribe of snow...sadly there was some highly frustrating moments in the 1st half, with timing and precision very hard to get right (understandable in the case of skiers, though).  Thankfully the 2nd half was good, with a series of complex building+digging puzzles - some of which were quite memorable (esp. the snowman) and others that were a bit too Classic-like for me (and surely there was room for the odd signature skill, even for a generic purpose like speeding or crossing a small gap).  I managed to beat everything in the 2nd half though, and the very last level was noteworthy - after a valiant effort to bash under the exit and stack into it afterwards (1 skill short for getting everyone in), I went back to square 1 and figured out the correct way.

Overall I was really impressed with this pack - from putting useless skills to good use, through the excellent theming to the high quality of the puzzles.  The only real criticism I have (aside from the odd theming hiccup) is with a handful of levels requiring the use of pixel-perfect timing/positioning* (esp. the Medieval level mentioned above and a couple of Polar levels). Perhaps builder/basher/miner were used a little too much outside Classic, but it made good puzzles and it only got silly a couple of times. (and still far better than the lookalike-skill spam that we saw in the original game)

In short...if you liked Lemmings 2 in any way, you need to play this - it's how the game should've been designed in the first place.

*To avoid frustration with this, I would recommend using this version of DOSBox which has savestates...it's not NL in terms of player-aids, but better than nothing.
(you'll be especially thankful if you play the QFK pack for Lemmings 3, which I'm currently 1/3 of the way through)

[kieranmillar]

Oh hey, thanks for playing through the pack and giving feedback. Sorry it took me so long to see it and not respond earlier. I'm glad you enjoyed it, this is the QFK that had the most effort put into the level design (not sure it counts as the most effort overall, considering I had to learn a lot of programming to develop the level editor to make QFK3!) If you're looking for more QFK2, there's also 10 more levels in the Lost Tribe.

It does not surprise me to discover there are more backroutes hiding around. Lemmings is actually a pretty difficult game to fix backroutes for and has all sorts of things you can do with pixel perfect timing and precision, and Lemmings 2 is no exception, except it also has a bunch of really difficult to avoid bugs, usually involving crawling. In development I managed to fix a load of backroutes thanks to the brilliant testing from Simon, geoo and Nepster, but you can only do so much. Some of Lemmings 2's skills give you completely ridiculous levels of control, so sometimes, you basically can't do anything at all about it if you want to ensure you use every skill.

Some levels involving too much precision is a shame, I tired very hard to remove as much as possible, but some ideas simply could not be done without some level of precision being necessary, such as that skiing level. That's just how Lemmings 2 goes. Limiting my skills so severely certainly contributed somewhat to making this harder to fix.

On that note: theming, and why I use some "generic" skills a lot across tribes, like Miners and Builders. This is largely due to my self-imposed restriction of setting only a pool of exactly 8 skills that each tribe could pick from, and also insisting that every skill is used in at least one tribe. While I tried to focus on picking some thematically-appropriate skills, you can't go too heavy on this, or you won't be able to make enough good levels. For me, the main "verb" in Lemmings is assigning a skill to a Lemming, so I wanted to focus as much as possible on cool interactions between skills, where using two or more skills in conjunction with each other produces a neat result. So when thinking of what skills to assign, my first thought was to pick a thematically-appropriate skill, then look through all of the skills and think about what sort of things I can do, and build up some level ideas. A good example of this approach is Medieval. Clearly they needed to have the Archer skill. Well what does the Archer do that nothing else does? Attach small chunks of land to walls and ceilings with high precision. Well, what good is this if you don't have skills that interact with walls and ceilings? So the shimmier, slider and rock climber all got added to support some ideas (then it turned out those 3 skills in combination were way more interesting than anything else, go figure). I also needed to add the roller as a way to get lemmings to not use these sometimes, and now I've already used up 5 of my 8 skill slots. Well with all these single-lemming movement skills, I need something that will work as an enforcement mechanism, a reason why you want a lemming to go from point A to B on his own, and it turns out the miner is really, really good at doing this, which is why it shows up in so many tribes.

This is a trend that tended to happen across most tribes. Lemmings 2 has a lot of single-lemming movement skills, and you need some generic building / digging tools in every tribe with my self-imposed restriction, so each tribe gets some thematic movement skills and then there's little room left so the generic stuff has to perform many duties, so you have to rely a lot on the really good generic skills.

It may interest you, after developing QFK2, I ranked every skill and provided additional thoughts: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=3411.0

Again, I want to say, thanks so much for playing this all the way through and writing about it, it means a lot to me. I spent quite a lot of time on this pack so to know someone out there found it and enjoyed it, is really great and means a lot to me.

[mobius]

could I get some general hints for the space tribe? I cannot solve a single level, I feel like I'm missing some major things about how these skills work.

A major point with every level I've tried so far is; how to turn the worker around?? Magnobooter can't do anything in any position other than right side up correct? Are they effected by mortar blasts? Is there a way to turn a jetpacker around?
Level specific hints are welcome as well.

[kieranmillar]

Here are some generic hints about the skills and objects in the Tribe.

Magnobooters can only be cancelled in two ways: You assign a skill when they are right side up, and you remove the ground they are standing on.

Jepacks cannot be turned around when they are on the Jetpack, they maintain the direction they were facing when you assign the skill. You also cannot push them through a 8 pixel tall gap, so if you see small gaps in the walls, it's likely a no-jetpacks-allowed enforcement.

Teleporters have no limit on the number of lemmings that can use them at once, and they maintain their facing direction. Magnobooters persist between teleporters too! Well, only if there's something to stand on at the destination.

Level specific hints:
Level 1: Introducing: Space

Spoiler

You have to send everyone the long way round. Just construct a path and you should be fine.

Spoiler

The most difficult part imo is how to get everybody past the machine gun robot trap. If you're getting mad at execution, then it may help to know that is expected that every lemming use every teleporter.

Level 2: Anti-Gravity

Spoiler

A simple spot-the-trick level. With so few skills you don't exactly have many options. It should be clear what two skills are required for the crowd to walk to the exit so that will reduce your options further. If you're still stuck, re-read my generic skill hints above.

Level 3: Blast Chamber

Spoiler

The place you use the platformer should be the most obvious skill use. The rest of the level is a turn-the-lemming-around puzzle.

Spoiler

Multiple turn-the-lemming-around puzzles actually. And how are you going to cancel the attractor? Might need some double-duty skill use.

Spoiler

If you can't turn around your jetpacker after using it, what if you turned the lemming around before using it?

Level 4: Space Elevator

Spoiler

Hopefully it is clear your goal is to get someone to teleporter 3, and you can only do that by magnobooting from teleporter 1. Well, you'd like to, but something else needs doing first.

Spoiler

You'll need somewhere to stand to do that though. Sadly there is no elevator. Well, maybe you can use a series of steps.

Level 5: Friendly Fire

Spoiler

There are a range of solutions here. Hopefully it is clear how you dig through the ground, you just need to find a safe way to do it.

Spoiler

I send a magnobooter the long way round each side, to construct a safe ceiling on the opposite side.

Spoiler

If you're struggling to get the last blasts done, you can send one group to the bottom and dig out the other side from underneath.

Level 6: Gravity Chamber

Spoiler

The attractor isn't only useful for crowd control. It also indefinitely stalls a lemming until you use another skill on it.

Spoiler

If you can't create a hole to detach a magnobooter in, try doubling up on bazooka shots.

Spoiler

If you're struggling to find a good place to use the laser blaster, maybe you're using the wrong lemming.

Level 7: Satellite Junk

Spoiler

The most direct path for the crowd is the best one, but there are some issues constructing platforms in the correct direction. Yes it's another turn-the-lemming-around puzzle!

Spoiler

The first suitable place to turn around a lemming is closer than you think.

Spoiler

There is no suitable turnaround place in the second half of the level. Maybe you need to make one.

Level 8: Space Rescue

Spoiler

OK, there's a lot going on here. First concern is the main trapdoor, the lemmings will make their way over to teleporter 1 quickly. You need time to construct a platform to the exit, but there's no crowd control. And a platform isn't even long enough! Is this correct? How are we rescuing the upper-right trapped group if we don't do this? Do we really have to use the laser blaster to free them?

Spoiler

Well, we have 20 Jumpers which can cover the extra distance the platform can't, but we still need to delay some lemmings, and we can't spare any jumpers. Or wait, can we? Are we actually sending 20 lemmings to teleporter 1?

Spoiler

Sure would be nice to get someone over to teleporter 3. And it would be great if they could take their sweet time. Shame about the machine gun robot. How can you avoid this?

Spoiler

You don't need to save a magnobooter for the other side of teleporter 3 if you are already using one, so if you need to delay even more lemmings at the start, and also don't have enough jumpers, then why not give the other lemming some company?

Level 9: Space Station Skylem

Spoiler

At first this is another turn-the-lemming-around puzzle, but with magnobooters. And it is, but there's a little more going on here. Remember: if you can't find a place to turn a lemming around, you can always make one.

Spoiler

Should be clear we are eventually going to need to platform our way over to the teleporter, either directly or in a way we can magnoboot into it. But this offers us up another problem, if we cover up all the gaps to get to the exit, how do we laser blast a way into the exit at the end?

Spoiler

Not every gap needs to be completely covered up. But you are thinking too close to the exit. Think further out.

Level 10: Alternate Dimension

Spoiler

This level looks familiar. Why would I repeat a level? Let's be real here, I wouldn't make you do this twice unless it was a very different solution to the first time. I mean very different.

Spoiler

If you were wondering if the first level had a really devious and sneaky backroute, with the trapdoor being so close to the exit, you're right! Well, it wasn't possible before, but you can do it this time.

Spoiler

There's nowhere to turn a lemming around near the entrance. So we'll just have to find somewhere further away. Much much further away. What's the quickest way to get there?

Spoiler

If you were hoping you could skip the majority of the level, well, someone's going to have to traverse it all eventually. You should have the tools to take a totally different path this time.

[jkapp76]

I have created a portable version of Lemmings 2 the Tribes for anyone running Windows.
I've included an option to play with Kieran's level pack.

Just unzip this game to a folder and run Lemm2 (or QFK2 for Kieran's level pack)

https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZAHhOVZqUmQzmyvPnRJqtcULY4T5L8sNvkX

This should make playing this awesome level pack easy and available to anyone.

[kaywhyn]

Hello @Kieran Millar,

In the last 1-2 months, I have completed both QFK2 and the Lost Tribes add-on! I livestreamed both the entire thing.

QFK2 and Lost Tribes Stream Playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW4KRw26aeK8

This is a full gold playthrough. Here, to achieve this, the main challenge is to not lose any Lemmings on any level except for the Classic levels that state how many you're allowed to lose and still be able to get gold. Easier said than done on many of the non-Classic levels, as it's generally easy to lose at least one. Thus is the main challenge of how to save all!

I start with the Shadow tribe and work my way counterclockwise in order, except I skip Classic when I got to it and instead went to Circus and continued counterclockwise for the remaining tribes, circling back to finish the game on Classic. I'm glad I finished on the Classic tribe, as it turns out it's just the classic 8 skills from L1, and I felt that's a really nice way to wrap up my playthrough of QFK2. I did a similar thing for my L2 playthrough last year, except I started with the Beach tribe instead.

Per Ste Woz Ere's advice, I played the pack on Dosbox-SVN, which has save stating. While Kieran has made sure all levels are possible without ever needing to save state, I honestly am glad I played on a Dosbox that has save stating, as any chance you can get with being able to restore a save state sure beats having to do the entire level all over again. Even moreso when some levels have quite a fiddly execution due to the skills provided, and the fact the L2 engine is super clunky doesn't help matters. More often than not, I ended up really overcomplicating some solutions compared to Kieran's intended way. Even then, if you find yourself needing to load a save state often, you can almost be assured that you're doing something wrong and/or making things far harder than they need to be I of course didn't catch on in some cases

While I ultimately beat all of QFK2 and Lost Tribes without any hints (yea, I'm one of those players who prefers to figure out Lemmings levels on my own ), I ended up watching all of Kieran's videos of his intended solutions to the levels after I solved each level. Quite honestly, I'm not sure if I would had been able to think of some of those tricks on my own, but even then, watching them was still quite useful as I ended up learning plenty of things I didn't know you can do in L2. Granted, it might had been better if I had waited to beat each tribe first before watching the videos instead of solving a few levels or so on my own, but meh, I didn't think I was spoiled solutions in any way here

Thank you to everyone who was able to join my streams while I was on my quest to conquer all of QFK2 and Lost Tribes! It was quite rewarding to beat such a very difficult custom L2 pack on my own  

I will be honest here, and that is I still haven't dabbled with the Practice Mode of the L2 game at all. So, I still have no idea how it helps players learn what each skill does depending on what you picked. I first played L2 back in either 2005 or 2006, and 20 years later I still haven't ever touched the Practice Mode

In any case, Simon was right about my gold playthrough of the base L2 game from last year being more than sufficient to prepare me to take on QFK2!  

General Feedback

QFK2 is a custom L2 pack by Kieran Millar. These levels will replace the 120 levels of the base L2 game, so it is advised to backup the levels folder before you replace them with QFK2's. Similarly, Lost Tribes is an additional set of 10 Egyptian levels that will replace the QFK2 Egyptian levels, and as Kieran has advised you might want to make a backup directory of the QFK2 pack so that you don't have to switch back and forth between QFK2 and Lost Tribes.

For QFK2, every tribe starts off with a 1-of-everything level which introduces you to the 8 skills, or a subset of them, that you will work with in the remaining 9 levels of the tribe. That's what makes every tribe of QFK2 nice in that you don't ever have to worry about any new skills that didn't appear in the first level of the tribe you're playing. Also, all 51 skills make at least one appearance in the entire game, so if a particular skill didn't appear for the tribe you're playing, it's guaranteed to appear in at least one of the remaining 11 tribes.

In contrast to the base L2 game, QFK2 is many times harder. If you have played Kieran's Quest From Kieran pack for NeoLemmix, then you can pretty much expect the exact same mind-numbing brainteasers but for L2 instead. Be prepared to use and learn a lot of skill interactions that the base game didn't teach upon or explore at all! Many times, Kieran's levels have extremely small and very restrictive skillsets that still made for really hard levels. Often times, I was very mind-blown at how such levels could still be really hard. The thing is, Kieran does a really great job with the red herrings on many levels such that it makes you think the solution is one thing, when it turns out it's completely different and something else altogether.

Many times, I had to "unlearn" and distance myself from what I know from NL in order to be able to tackle many levels of QFK2. For example, remember that in L2 a shimmier makes a diagonal jump instead of a vertical one like he does in NL. Until I realized what a huge difference that makes, I was really stumped on a Sports level

Finally, Lost Tribes breaks the usual pattern of working with the same 8 skills or a subset of them for a tribe, where the skillset is different on all 10 of these levels. Essentially, these are Egyptian levels that wouldn't fit the theming of the QFK2 pack with the skillset restriction of each tribe. Be warned, these levels are many times harder than the Egyptian levels that come with the base QFK2 pack! I really got whooped on several of these levels and it was very slow going throughout the entire Lost Tribes add-on mod.   

Shadow

Great puzzles here for the most part that managed to stump me good for quite some time, culminating in Shadow 7 stumping me the longest out of any level of the tribe, with Shadow 9 a close second. For the latter, I discovered some broken steel which unfortunately allows a cheese, so I tried to find one that doesn't involve it, which I fortunately was able to find.

The only super fiddly thing in this tribe is working with the ballooner, as it's one of the fan skills, but the puzzles involving it are quite good IMO. Shadow 10 has an impressive intended solution that unfortunately can be bypassed, but tis the nature of L2 with the grid and all.

The absolute best level IMO has to be Shadow 9, I was stumped for a really long time but once I tried something out of the blue at the start it all quickly fell into place, as I watched in awe and amazement at the solution happening. Well done to Kieran here for that level, it's quite possibly the best level in the entirety of QFK2 IMHO! It works out quite well and absolutely shows the power and potential of the Filler skill in L2 due to the many applications of it on the level that goes beyond its basic function which many of the base L2 levels only ever made use of.

Sports

The levels here are not only much harder than the Shadow ones for the most part, but it is also one of the hardest and quite possible the best tribe in the entire QFK2 pack IMHO! Indeed, IMO Sports 1 is much harder than your typical first level of a tribe, even moreso than Sports 1 of the base L2 game. Most of the time, I would often have a lot of the puzzle figured out but then get stumped at how to save the rock climber in the end. As mentioned, I had to distance myself from the NL version of the skills from the L2 version in order to finally get past some of the levels. Being so used to NL doesn't help at all, especially as I'm nowhere near as familiar with L2 with the skill mechanics as I am with L1/ONML. In addition, some L2 skills have a jump built in when the Lemming reaches the edge and/or carries a bit of forward horizontal momentum. Remember this, as it means that

Spoiler

you don't always need a constructive skill to span the entire gap in order for the Lemming to get across, as sometimes the built in jump or the momentum gets him the rest of the way across. As a matter of fact, sometimes not crossing all of the gap with the entire builder/platformer is absolutely necessary!

I am a huge fan of the shimmier skill in NL, and that holds here for the L2 shimmier as well, though the latter seems way less forgiving in terms of whether the skill takes place or not. Even then, there's one advantage of the L2 shimmier skill compared to NL's, and that is if the ceiling is too low then the L2 game won't allow you to assign the skill at all. As such, my favorite levels of the tribe are Sports 2, Sports 4, Sports 5, Sports 7, Sports 8, Sports 9, and Sports 10. Needless to say, I think I enjoyed the Sports tribe far more than Shadow, given that it's one of my favorite L2 graphic sets and one of the L2 ones I plan to use for my Lemmings Memories level pack. All the levels listed are also really hard in their own way, and I have the tendency to prefer hard levels in the game of Lemmings

The only very fiddly skill to use in the tribe is the Pole Vaulter. Sports 7 managed to stump me there, though you do get to learn a new application of the skill, culminating in you using what you've learned to do with the skill in the final Sports level, where it was immensely satisfying to figure out even though I wasn't stumped anywhere near as long on this level as some of the earlier Sports levels.

Well done on an excellently done tribe for the pack, Kieran!

Beach

As Kieran has told me on Discord, this was one of the first tribes he made for the pack, and as such wasn't as experienced with level making for L2 yet. The tribe certainly shows many signs of that, such as the Beach tribe in general is one of the easier ones of the game. I managed to breeze through the first half of the tribe very easily, though with Beach 5 taking me much longer than it should had, though in fairness that one is super fiddly on the execution. The second half somewhat redeems the not so good first half, as a lot of my favorite levels are in the former. So, I would have to agree with Ste Woz Ere here on not being too much of a fan of the levels in the first half, but liking the ones in the second half, especially given that some of the ones in the former are too fiddly for my liking.

Beach 7, Beach 8, and Beach 10 are my favorites!

Outdoor

Ah, the first tribe to have flinging involved thanks to the bomber skill. It was nice to see new applications of the planter skill in this tribe, as the base L2 game didn't really make use of it at all IIRC, where I pretty much only used it in that one Shadow level. This tribe returns to being one of the harder ones, so it is harder than the previous Beach tribe I completed, though probably much easier than Sports due to how I seemed to have backrouted plenty of levels here, which likely explains why I got through the tribe quite easily.

Favorite levels: Outdoor 4 and Outdoor 8. The latter is especially great, as I was stumped for a really long time, but once I managed to figure out the missing piece I was amazed.

Spoiler

That flinging the kayaker from below that eluded me for a very long time is excellent!

For Outdoor 5, even though I managed to solve the level with a backroute, interestingly enough I managed to figure out the final missing piece in several of my earlier attempts of the level shortly after I finished streaming:

Spoiler

Flinging apparently resets the fall distance so that they don't splat despite falling from a height that is clearly a splat fall.

Egyptian

One of the hardest tribes of the pack, though once again probably easier than Sports, due to how you only have the platformer and pourer skills to work with, the glue pourer and filler, as your primary means of getting through the levels, with the magic carpet to get a Lemming to other parts of the level. This is where I really got my behind kicked after being on a roll for quite some time with the pack. While I manged to backroute some levels, a lot of these levels weren't quick solves in any way. I especially got really stumped with the final 3 levels of the tribe, with Egyptian 8 taking me more than 2 hours and both Egyptian 9 and 10 needing some offline time for me to solve them.

I think Egyptian 5 is likely the only favorite level of mine in the entire tribe, with Egyptian 6 a close second. I will say the levels here do at least a great job of showing the power of the pouring skills and new applications of them outside of the base L2 game, but a lot of them are too fiddly for my liking IMHO, especially with the glue pourer skill. Egyptian 10 has quite an impressive intended solution but isn't quite completely enforced sadly as my solution shows. Also I managed to abuse a climber mechanic that definitely isn't possible depending on the engine. Sure, I feel bad about using it, but hey, I'll take any kind of abuse possible in the L2 engine to get these fiendishly difficult levels of QFK2 solved!

Medieval

Ahhhh no, the dreaded archer skill! Well, that was to be one of the expected skills of the tribe, because when it comes to Medieval, think Robin Hood Just like NL, the slider can be a huge pain since they go out the other way after every drop, except for small drops, in which that was fixed for NL so that sliders will always go out the other way after every drop no matter how small, as long as they do the dehoisting animation. So, a lot of the main puzzle challenges here required one to workaround this annoying mechanic of the slider. Even then, it was quite nice to see a lot of climber/slider/shimmier interactions with the various skills of the tribe. Fortunately, the climber and slider to shimmier transition from NL works the exact same way here in L2.

In terms of difficulty, probably easier than Egyptian, with a lot of the main difficulty coming from the execution thanks to the archer skill Interestingly enough, Medieval 4 had me stumped for a very long time despite having no archer skill but is quite possibly my favorite level in the entire tribe

Spoiler

The area in the bottom right I kept dismissing as a complete red herring for quite a long time, when it turns out it's very integral to the solution. My mistake was to keep building in such a way that it spans the entire gap, when the roller's forward momentum can carry him the rest of the way across. Also, it's necessary to not finish the gap as you do need a slider to be able to go back out the other way.

Medieval 7 I would consider another favorite of mine once you're able to get the solution to work. It does require some fiddling around, though in my case I seemed to have made it harder than it needed to be

Spoiler

That miner doing double duty to get the crowd out and to destroy the builder staircase to stop the slider from being stuck in an infinite loop is quite clever, and that reminds me of a level by Armani from I believe HL2024.

Finally, it really surprises me that Medieval 10 is the final level, as I find it to be quite easy compared to practically all the other levels of the tribe. This can easily swap places with any other level, except for Medieval 1, 2, and 3.

Circus

As mentioned, I skipped Classic and did Circus instead when I got to this point in counterclockwise order. Only the SuperLem skill is fiddly to work with, though nowhere near as fiddly as the fan skills since it goes where your cursor is. It was nice to see different applications of the L2 laser blaster outside of the common of releasing the crowd from the base L2 game, though the maximum range of the skill is more annoying here due to not knowing where it is since we don't have the luxury of skill shadows like in NL. Probably a bit harder than Medieval. Managed to backroute some levels, most particularly Circus 9 and 10 but it still took me a really long time to do so for the former.

Favorite levels: Circus 6 and Circus 8. The former might had stumped me, but the hardest part is seeing the use of the laser skill. I had everything else figured out pretty quickly save for not going far enough and seeing what happens with the trampolines. The latter has quite an excellent puzzle!

Circus 4 I unfortunately managed to abuse a club basher mechanic that I think I have completely forgotten about to backroute the level Circus 9 I do like the intended solution, but it's too bad I used some erroneous terrain to my advantage to backroute the level Honestly yea I should had been able to figure out the main trick here considering that I previously learned it from a level by Armani in his Lemmings Uncharted pack.

Spoiler

Making a hole with the laser to stop the club basher.

Highland

This tribe wasn't as bad as I thought despite the stone thrower, bazooka, hopper, and twister skills. There's still the odd level here and there which you need to deal with the annoying slider that goes out the wrong way after every drop except if small enough. Overall, difficulty seems to be about the same as Circus, if not a bit harder. I do acknowledge making many of the solutions much harder than they need to be, as I do have a bad tendency and habit of doing that

Favorite levels: Highland 7 and Highland 8. Both with interesting applications on how to get your worker Lemmings!

Spoiler

The former with stopping a rock climber, while the latter is to get the rocker climber to land on top of a stone in order to rope and prepare the rest of the route for the other entrances. Nice!

Polar

As expected, both the skier and skater skills are here. It was especially nice to see better use of the skier skill here, especially when it combos with other skills. The skater skill is still very limited and restricted, but that's expected since it's completely useless outside of the Polar tribe as no other tribe has ice to make use of the skill. Definitely still harder than Highland!

Favorite levels: Polar 2, Polar 3, Polar 4, Polar 5, Polar 7, and Polar 8. Polar 2 especially stumped me far longer than it should had, but that was just due to me overlooking something completely.

Polar 9 managed to backroute that one, though it's just mostly due to how you can platform anywhere and the fact it gains height and hence works pretty much exactly like Lix's platformer and not like NL's.

Space

Another tribe I consider one of the hardest of the pack, especially with the awkward magno booters you need to work with. You also have both ranged projectile skills, the mortar and bazooka for extra fiddliness on top of it all with the flinging You also have the jet pack as well, which is a fan skill and can be pretty annoying, especially as it's on a timer. For the most part, the laser blaster returns to its ordinary role of just releasing the crowd, though that's kind of expected given that you have no other destructive skills besides the mortar and bazooka.

This tribe is also the only one that features a repeat of a level earlier in the tribe, in this case Space 10 being a repeat of Space 1. They have the exact same layout but different skillsets. While I couldn't backroute the latter, I unfortunately did for the former

Space 9 I would likely consider the hardest level in the entire tribe, let alone quite possibly the entire pack. I was really stumped for a very long time in my stream. In the end, I probably ended up overcomplicating it ever so slightly compared to Kieran's intended way. A very nice puzzle, but very hard to figure out. 

Favorite levels: Space 2 and Space 8. Note that I have a different Space 8 compared to the one in Kieran's video. He's not sure about the discrepancy there, though we're thinking that he might had switched it out shortly after the pack's release or so. Honestly, I think I prefer the current Space 8 in the pack (the one that I played in my stream), though I haven't spoiled myself with the version in Kieran's video.

I am wondering if I managed to backroute the same level as Ste Woz Ere, and my guess is he's referring to Space 4.

Space 3 I'm guessing it should be possible to finish with a second remaining without the clock running out. Good to know it still counts as success depending on if they're fast enough in sync with the level fade out!

Sorry, Space 5 is way too fiddly for my liking, though I acknowledge I made things far harder than they needed to be, now that I know the intended way from watching Kieran's video

Cavelems

Probably just a bit easier than Space, if not the same difficulty as one another. There are two fan skills here, the parachuter and Icarus wings, though these aren't too bad compared to some of the other fan skills. Just remember the former is permanent and will deploy after each drop. You also have the remaining range skill in the spearer, which more or less works the exact same way as the stone thrower in adding terrain but with varying degrees of how and where it lands depending on where you throw it and whether or not it's a runner doing it or a non-runner.

Favorite levels: Cavelems 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 10. Very good use of the dinosaur in 2, 3, and 8 along with a great puzzle and solution! The puzzle in 5 is also great even if I figured that one out pretty fast 4 and 10 had me stumped the longest, but they make great use of the spearer! Even if I slightly backrouted the latter. 9 as well in this regard with the spears, though this one didn't stump me anywhere near as long as the 4 and 10.

Spoiler

For Cavelems 10, apparently parachuters are walkers for a frame if you blow them into a wall, regardless of whether or not there are holes. Even then, I can't believe that all I just needed to do was build a bit further back so that the runner doesn't make a jump and hit a wall eluded me!

 

Classic

Finally, I finished off QFK2 with the Classic tribe. A wonderful choice as the final tribe, as we return to the familiar classic 8 skills from L1, just on the fiddly L2 engine. This is also the tribe where you're allowed to lose Lemmings on some levels, and you will know which ones they are because the level title states how many you're allowed to lose and still be able to get gold.

From having played Kieran's QFK NL pack, I thought these levels would be very hard, as I know Kieran is quite a talented Lemmings level designer and is known for highly difficult levels. That was not to be the case here for QFK2. I breezed through them fairly easily until the final 3 levels of the tribe. For Classic 9, I would had kept on going, but I had to stop the stream early so that I can let my laptop do the weekly scheduled backup. Turns out there was something I didn't exactly think to try during my attempt on stream, even if I ended up backrouting it and saving more than you're allowed to lose for gold (I did the same with besting the lose record for Classic 7 and hence backrouted it too ) Same with Classic 10, I managed to backroute that one as well

Favorite levels: Classic 2, 3, 4, 5, 8. Even if I'm familiar with a lot of these tricks, they still end up being wonderful levels I would say Classic 10 as well, if it wasn't backroutable I do like the intended solution which I kind of was on the right track with, just a few things I didn't think about correctly.

Lost Tribes Add-On Egyptian Levels

Egyptian 2, 3, and 6 managed to stump me on stream. 3 quite possibly took me the longest to figure out out of any other level of this add-on, as I did spend a lot of time with it offline as well. At least in my solution, I can't get it to consistently work, as it works some of the time, while other times it doesn't. I of course acknowledge that it's simply due to the leftover skill I had which eliminates that randomness and chance completely, but from a gameplay perspective it makes absolutely no sense why it works some of the time and other times not. Well, that's the fiddly and clunkiness of the L2 engine for you! Also, seems I don't understand the skier mechanics that well at all

Egyptian 7 might be the same thing with the randomness, though my backroute probably is consistent each and every time unlike my solution for Egyptian 3 (except it is intended, just one that manages to spare a skill). I haven't checked to see if that's the case.

For Egyptian 8 and 9, I'm not sure if I ever would be able to figure out the intended way for these. For the latter, a lot of fiddliness involved in my solution that avoids a lot of the main things in the intended way, which is much easier on the execution. Similarly, a lot of fiddliness and precise assignments in the latter in my solution.

Finally, given the huge amount of ropers in Egyptian 10, I had a feeling that it's backroutable, and indeed it is, though not as much as easily as I thought. Even then, great level to finish off the Lost Tribes add-on mod, backroute or not!

Favorite levels: Egyptian 1, 6, and 10. 6 I kind of had the feeling that there were two things in there that are intended, and indeed I'm happy to see that they are, it's just a shame it's currently so backroutable which eluded me the entire time I streamed the level

Spoiler

I especially like the bomber vertically flinging him upward to get on top of a glue pourer bridge! The other thing I had in mind was using a spear to extend a glue pourer bridge, but I of course didn't find how or where to make use of this

   

Egyptian 9 is kind of borderline favorite for me. Most definitely the hardest part was figuring out how to get the others down safely, as well as how to make the path to get the others up to the exit, even if that turns out to be a simple

Spoiler

Get into place right beside the exit to mine

Also, I was really lucky the Lemming got flung and not splatted and landed at a spot so that he wouldn't be able to leave the side of the level!

Overall, I can highly recommend both of Kieran's QFK2 and Lost Tribes add-on, with the warning that both are very hard compared to the base L2 game. They didn't disappoint and all, and I was very impressed with the entire thing! They honestly have given me renewed appreciation of the L2 game as a whole despite the clunky engine. I've learned plenty of new things that I didn't know was possible in L2 due to how the base game doesn't really teach you any skill synergies or combos.

Well done once again to Kieran Millar, and thank you for QFK2 and Lost Tribes! I will be checking out your Space, Beach, and Classic add-ons at some point in the future I also plan to check out Ste Woz Ere's custom L2 pack as well, but that will come at a much later time, as I'm done with L2 for the time being. QFK2 and Lost Tribes certainly have me drained, so I'll be taking a break from L2 for a while before I come back to any custom L2 content

I think next up for me will be taking a look at your custom L3 pack! At the same time, I think there's a few other things I would like to stream before I take on your L3 pack. We'll see, but I'll likely give the custom L3 pack a go sometime within the next few weeks or so! Also, a reminder that Clam Spammer has a custom L3 Egyptian pack as well, which I also plan to take a look at at some point!