Author Topic: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour [Difficulty: Medium]  (Read 42234 times)

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Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #30 on: October 17, 2019, 09:30:38 PM »
I've updated the Old-Formats version so that it features all the changes that are going to occur in the New-Formats version (except for the Radiation and Slowfreeze levels, of course, which are always going to remain intact in Old Formats! :thumbsup: ).

One level had a cosmetic change - I've finally decided to go ahead and re-colour the flower traps from the L2 Highland tileset to match the title of this level / song (="White Roses from Athens"):


Weiße Rosen aus Athen

These white re-coloured flower traps are now part of my general tileset (the one that features Arty's rain and snow objects, as well as the blue fire traps in Old Formats).
Thus, when you re-download the updated pack from the starting post, also re-download the styles folder!
You only need to extract the "general.dat" graphic set into your 10.13 styles folder, though, nothing else has changed.

I've also converted the white flower trap to New Formats right away, where it will be going under my strato_generalmd tileset. A former version of it is already available for the Lemmings Open Air test levels; the one including the white flowers will be uploaded together with the New-Formats release of Lemmings World Tour.

That said, the New-Formats release is indeed ready for release! ;) I'm just not sure whether I should wait until the stable version 12.7? That's what I understood from namida.
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 namida

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #31 on: October 17, 2019, 10:34:31 PM »
Quote
I'm just not sure whether I should wait until the stable version 12.7? That's what I understood from namida.

If your pack works on V12.6.5, you can release it now. If it only works on V12.7 (eg. you've run it through the "Cleanse Levels" or are using V12.7-exclusive features like antisplat pads, etc), please wait until the V12.7 stable release, although a private release to testers should be fine.

(Of course, this is purely advisory - I can't stop you from releasing a V12.7.0-RC version of the pack if you want, I just advise against it, especially if you don't plan to double-check everything against the stable version as soon as possible after its release.)
My Lemmings projects
2D Lemmings: NeoLemmix (engine) | Lemmings Plus Series (level packs) | Doomsday Lemmings (level pack)
3D Lemmings: Loap (engine) | L3DEdit (level / graphics editor) | L3DUtils (replay / etc utility) | Lemmings Plus 3D (level pack)

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #32 on: October 18, 2019, 07:46:32 AM »
Great, thanks for the explanation, namida! :thumbsup:

You guys can expect the release this evening (Central European Time) - I have all the levels in my Dropbox already, but not the updated strato_generalmd tileset with the white flowers yet. I might also alter the logo slightly (call it "Lemmings World Tour Remastered" or so :D ), to indicate that some levels indeed differ from their Old-Formats versions and have different solutions now.

Weekends seem like an appropriate time to release packs anyway :D , that means more people have the chance to try them right away! ;)
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 #33 on: November 08, 2019, 11:37:46 PM »
Professional 21, "The lion sleeps tonight" has received an emergency fix to finally make it slightly more difficult (maximum release rate plus an additional cat trap).

It's still quite easy for its position, but now you have to at least slightly think about which skill goes where, and practice the ever so slightest form of flow control. I hope it's really just enough to move it from a completely pathetic level to something that can at least be considered "somewhat nice". :-[

Download links are still the same.
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 #34 on: December 27, 2019, 01:22:31 PM »
A small update containing backroute fixes to Professional 07, "Holy diver", Professional 08, "Blocking all over the world", and Professional 20, "Rome". Link is still the one in the starting post.

Thanks to IchoTolot for finding these! :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 #35 on: April 28, 2020, 09:16:11 PM »
The next update at last! Fixes to four levels for which IchoTolot found backroutes - two each on the Diva rank ("Wrecking ball" and "Total eclipse of the builders") and the Rockstar rank ("Highway to Hell" and "Under bergets rot"). "Under bergets rot" is hard to fix though, and I still believe the intended solution isn't quite being enforced - probably another case of the intended solution being unnecessarily complicated, so that it can always be bypassed by an easier solution...

I've also expanded the pre-level hints on the Noisemaker levels "Glide and joy" (08) and "Rock, paper, scissors" (38), since I felt they weren't providing enough of a help to explain the tricks they are supposed to teach.

Finally, I discovered a minor way on Noisemaker 11 myself that allows to avoid using the central trick during the first part of the level (it still had to be used on the second part of the level). I've decided to go ahead and fix this with a bit of steel, so that it's not possible to dig behind the hatch on the right.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2020, 09:40:59 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 #36 on: September 16, 2020, 09:52:50 PM »
Another update is here! :) The link in the starting post is still the same.

This update brings backroute fixes to the Rockstar and Legend rank. No changes to Encore and Groupie (yet).

Changelog (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 kaywhyn

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #37 on: October 03, 2020, 11:15:19 PM »
Just started playing this pack last night. I'm essentially using this time in between the contest and testing your LOA pack to catch up on your flagship pack. I just finished the Noisemaker rank, so here are my complete set of replays for the rank and my feedback. Also, I'm well aware that you still need to release an update for the Encore and Groupie ranks. Honestly, you'll probably get that done way before I even get to those ranks.

Feedback on the Noisemaker Rank

Since this is yet again another first rank of tutorial levels, instead of feedback on every individual level (honestly, 40 is a lot in one rank, and I can't even begin to phantom how very long it will take me to write feedback on all 40 levels for each rank, especially the later ones) like I did with Paralems and Pit Lems, I'm just going to focus on a select few.

Being another first rank that's just tutorials, I'll be honest, and that is I was pretty bored with the rank, since I'm pretty much familiar with all of the tricks mentioned in the pre-text associated with each level. That probably means I probably could had skipped the Noisemaker rank entirely, but when it comes to playing packs I play all ranks anyway, so endure it I must. To be fair, this rank isn't the main meat and the real deal of the pack, since I believe the exciting stuff is in the Amateur rank and beyond. However, I believe I also gathered from the OP of this topic that the Amateur rank is similar to the Noisemaker with tutorial style levels, with the first few levels of the Amateur rank I have played so far being quite similar to the first few of Pit Lems in that they're being grouped by type of skills: constructive, destructive, horizontal movement, etc. up until a little over the halfway point of the rank. So, I think with this knowledge I will likely be bored even more until I'm past all of them in the Amateur rank.

Another thing about the Noisemaker levels is that they're also quite challenging. It's like you said, these aren't your very basic skill tutorial levels, there's also a real puzzle on top of introducing the skill mechanics rather than just their basic function. Even the first level already starts off a bit difficult, although I still think Noisemaker 1 is a bit easier than LOL 1 of Pit Lems. Heck, Basic 1 of Lemmicks is the easiest out of these first levels in the first rank. Now, I know that you said that nin10doadict thought Pit Lems got difficult too quickly and that you were essentially aiming for intermediate with LWT. I don't think that has been the case so far with the tutorial levels, but I'm only in the very early stages of the pack, so I'm likely speaking too soon. In particular, I think Noisemaker 4 - Going under is the first level that will likely stump many players, as it really requires you to think about how to get through the multiple obstacles with the extremely limited amount of destructive skills. The level certainly does a great job of enforcing the idea needed, though, it's just a bit harsh with the very limited skillset IMO.

Noisemaker 5 - Over the rainbow might also be another somewhat difficult level for the less experienced players.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I also consider Noisemaker 8 - Glide and joy to be another unusually difficult level, not just because of how to get the trick to turn around on steel with builders and a digger, which you explained in more detail in the most recent update from earlier this year, but also because

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Noisermaker 10 - Noel nouvelet is quite a nice somewhat challenging puzzle using only NL skills. I say the only tricky thing here is the placement of the stacker, especially when trying to make sure just the glider slips past and no other lemmings do.

Finally, not a difficult level per se, but I consider the trick needed in Noisemaker 33 - Mein kleiner gruener Kaktus to be an extremely obscure one for less experienced players. I have known it for quite a while, and hence the level is easy for someone like me, but

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's also a pretty nice looking level too, although the giant OWW arrows really stand out and make the cacti not look as nice. 

All other levels in the rank weren't as challenging as the ones mentioned above, although they're still challenging enough to require some thinking on how to solve. I really liked Noisemaker 21 - Rainbow in the dark, which is a really close repeat of Noisemaker 5, using the builder wall trick at the end, which is first taught 3 levels prior.

There are levels that I would like to point out where I didn't really use the trick you intended in your spoiler list. I think Noisemaker 14 - Digital World (I know what you mean in the spoiler list, but I certainly didn't use it, and I have skills leftover), Noisemaker 18 - Stop and stair (I simply brute forced it and so I have a basher leftover, easiest fix here is to increase the number of lemmings so I can't pull off what I did in my replay), Noisemaker 22 - Locked Away (I didn't assign any skills at the top of the walls to stop the climbers, and I don't think there's really any way to enforce this), and Noisemaker 30 - In the Army (I don't know what you mean in the spoiler) are the ones I didn't use the trick you intended. For the last one, unless that's exactly you mean,

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A lot of these levels look really nice, even in the ones that use just the original styles. I got to say the nicest looking level in this rank is Noisemaker 15 - Octopus's Garden, with Noisemaker 39 - Vegas Lights a close second. I absolutely love the former song, as I'm a huge Beatles fan. Written primarily and sung by none other than Ringo Starr too, the one who contributed the least but occasional vocals as compared to his 3 bandmates in their songs. Hidden traps here, but the real saving grace is that it's a very short level and plus the locations of the traps in the octopus are kind of easy to guess at, although the level can still be a bit annoying to pull off. I'm not sure if my very temporary digger pit on the clam is intended, as well as getting past the trigger on top of it, is intended, though.

For the latter, I don't know the song, but I do know Panic at the Disco. Ugh, the excessive repetitive stoning assignments to get past 4 trap trigger areas! :evil: Even after that, it can be a bit difficult to isolate a lemming to bridge the gap to the exit. Nevertheless, I do like how you included the Eiffel Tower replica, since it is there when you visit Las Vegas. Speaking of Vegas, the last time I went was way back in 2012, after I had just graduated from college. I should definitely make plans to come back and visit one of these days. Too bad I'm already in my 30s, and it's especially very difficult for me to take vacations nowadays.

Out of the 40 levels in this rank, I recognized 11 of them by title. Others I don't know the song, but I recognized the artist's name. It surprises me that you even know about singers like Katy Perry, Duran Duran, and Joan Jett. You either know them from listening to them a lot on the radio or you really did your research. Others like the Beatles and Wham not so much, since they're from around close to where you are.

One final thing regarding a level. For Noisemaker 38 - Rock, Paper, Scissors, the trigger area of the vine traps seems way off. Instead of being right on top of the vine, it's a little off to the side. Is this intended? I'm not sure if it will affect the level's solution either way.

Finally, a big issue with the pack is that it tends to take quite a while for the level preview to load up. The worst offenders in the Noisemaker ranks are the two artistic levels I just mentioned, Octopus's Garden and Vegas Lights. The latter takes the longest out of all the Noisemaker levels to load up.

Now that I'm on the Amateur rank, hopefully the very exciting stuff is to come. I was definitely very bored with the Noisemaker rank, and them being quite challenging kind of made it a turn-off even more, but then again I am a bit crankier today than I usually am due to finishing the second half and how I'm extremely sleep-deprived. Again, I'm sure the pack definitely gets better with its puzzles. Artistically, obviously many of those are to come, since most of the levels had to get the design right. If that's the case, then I definitely have something to look forward to as I proceed with the pack. I just hope that the pack does keep me engaged as I play more of it later.

Ok pack so far, but again I'm aware that I'm not even into the good stuff yet since I've only played the very boring Noisemaker rank so far.
« Last Edit: October 04, 2020, 07:38:22 AM by kaywhyn »
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMqwuqZ206rBWJrUC6wkrA - My YouTube channel and you can also find my playlists of Lemmings level packs that I have LPed
kaywhyn's blog: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5363.0

Offline kaywhyn

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #38 on: October 04, 2020, 09:37:53 PM »
Just like that, Amateur rank already completed! Here are my replays up to Amateur 40, as well as my feedback on the Amateur rank. Same thing, since it's mostly just tutorial (not really) style levels, I'll probably do the same thing here as I did with the Noisemaker rank, meaning I likely won't give feedback on each individual level until Amateur 29 and beyond.

Feedback on the First 28 Tutorial-Like Levels of the Amateur Rank

Let me start off by saying that it was a huge relief to finally start hearing the other music tracks starting in this rank. I got annoyed with the boring ONML music rotation very quickly in the Noisemaker rank. Don't get me wrong, you did a good job of remixing the 6 ONML tracks, but it was very boring hearing the same 6 tunes throughout the 40 levels of the Noisemaker rank. Indeed, I found myself rocking out to some of your original Lemmings music track remixes in the Amateur rank :thumbsup: In particular, I love the music for Amateur 7, as well as the following level, Amateur 8 (Very nice How Much is That Doggie in the Window? remix! :thumbsup:), Amateur 9 (especially the beginning which sounds almost like something from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker Suite, specifically The Flower Waltz), and Amateur 13. Nice job with these! :thumbsup: The rest of the tracks I was either partial to or wasn't a fan of. I would probably love both The Can Can and She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain tracks if they weren't as loud.

After I finished the Amateur rank last night, I headed over to the LWT New Formats topic to read the posts on the Noisemaker and Amateur ranks. Apparently I echoed a lot of Icho's feedback for the Noisemaker rank here for Old Formats, so you're going to see me echoing a lot of Icho's feedback for the Amateur rank as well.

In contrast to the Noisemaker rank, the tutorial style levels in the Amateur rank were more enjoyable and weren't nearly as difficult, and the difficulty isn't all over the place. At least after the first 2 levels of Amateur, which I felt were difficult in their own way, although the former not as much as the latter. For Amateur 1 - It's a Long Way to the top, it is a bit difficult to see that 4 stackers is sufficient to get over the first wall. Even if it's difficult visually, I guess it's very easy to deduce that stackers must be used for that, based on the skillset, since 2 builders is obviously nowhere near enough to get over the first wall. Then again, it's always difficult to tell how many stackers are needed to get over any wall, especially since most of us are used to using builders to get over walls.

For Amateur 2 - Timber (It's going down!), the only difficult part is the leftmost entrance. It's not easy to figure out how to delay the lemmings long enough for a worker lemming to mine the tree obstacle before anyone turns back and drowns. The other two entrances are very easy to figure out. Then again, this is also the very first time I have played a level in your Autumn tileset, which means I need to get used to recognizing the objects but most importantly the trap, which blends in very well with the other leaves, although I correctly suspected the bottom one on the left since it really stand out, even if the top trap took me by complete surprise, since I have never played this tileset ever.

After the first two levels, then I say we had a long stretch of fairly easy levels. Amateur 3 - Walking on sunshine will likely look impossible at first glance for most, but then I looked at the number of lemmings in the level, and with two hatches, that means 5 out of each, hence the 5 swimmers. Also, since you later teach that the water breaks falls with Amateur 12 in the pre-text, I'm wondering if these levels should switch positions. The only problem here is that this would break the already neatly placed levels according to movement of skills for the first three levels (up, down, and horizontal), so unless your intention is for the player to figure out that water always breaks falls, I would say this can be a huge step up in difficulty for the less experienced players. Luckily, if the player manages to figure that out, the rest is easy.

Amateur 8 - Who let the dogs out? is quite a difficult level and I would even say is a huge step up in difficulty compared to the previous levels of the rank. It's not easy to figure out how to navigate the terrain and around the dog traps with the extremely restricted skillset. Truthfully, the missing disarmer was the very first thing I noticed in the level, so naturally I scanned the level to find the disarmer pickup. Surprisingly, I couldn't spot it myself, so at first I thought you were trolling and made an error for the level. I did suspect that it was the mound next to the last dog before the exit, but I wasn't certain. It should be obvious to you that I resisted turning on CPM, and I played the entire level without the aid of it. Indeed, the "boing" pickup sound took me a bit by surprise after I passed the mound I suspected where the pickup was. I then rewinded a bit and took another quick look, and I finally did see the disarmer icon in the mound. Quite well-hidden, if I do say so myself.

As for the level, I got to say that it definitely shouldn't be a surprise that indeed there are hidden traps in the dogs, particularly since the pre-text somewhat hints at it. It's also as you say, your animals are hungry for lemmings. I got to say, though, that you did a great job of depicting dog poop at the barrel, and when the trap went off, my reaction was, "Eww, the dog pooped on the lemming and killed it!" There is also some kind of trap that sucks lemmings upwards in the first and last dogs that I encountered in my solution when you get to its mouth. I got to ask, what kind of trap is it that's sucking the lemmings upwards? Especially since the lemming immediately gets sucked up once it steps on the trigger area. Obviously, it's to give the impression that the dog ate the lemming, so I thought that was fun to see. Above all, great looking level! ;)

I say Amateur 13 - Ayo Technology is a pretty difficult radiation level. It's definitely not easy to work out how to manuever the lemmings with the radiation coundown to get them to explode in the places that will get the crowds from either side up to the exit. The save requirement might seem very lenient, but even with the cloners it's pretty tight. Nice looking level though, with the depiction of the atom and referencing lemmings being blown into atoms with the radiation.

Amateur 15 - Ring, ring! can also be difficult, but I say more tricky than difficult. The solution I came up with building into terrain to turn around at the end to bash the OWWs seems to be the more difficult alternative. I read your spoiler list on what you intended on this level after I had saved the rank, and indeed having looked at the level again, I say destructive skills going against the OWW is the much easier option here. Once again, nice looking level depicting a telephone with the number keys.

Amateur 16 - Slide it in can also be difficult as well, especially with figuring out how to get the floaters home since they take a little longer to open up their parachute compared to gliders. I might had overcomplicated the solution tremendously though. Indeed, I just tried it again and saw that there are much easier ways to solve it than the way I did. This was what gave me a lot of problems on Hasty 6 of Lemmicks, and I mentioned that was the hardest level of the rank.

I think Amateur 17 - Float is also another difficult one, especially with figuring out how to get past the flower trap and how to bridge the gap before anyone else arrives and falls into the bottomless pit. I didn't use the stoner, so I wonder what the purpose of it is. Probably means I also backrouted the level, but I'm not sure.

Amateur 18 - Tears in Heaven is yet another difficult level and I would also say is a huge step up in difficulty to the previous difficult ones I just mentioned. The right crowd is easy, but the left crowd is quite difficult. It took me quite a while to figure out how to get all of the left crowd to the miner tunnel on the right side.

Amateur 23 - Fields of gold is a difficult level in figuring out how to navigate the honeycomb and getting the right crowd up to where the left crowd can get up. My solution is probably quite fiddly and there are probably much easier ways.

Amateur 24 - Wonderwall Not necessarily difficult, just tricky, in regards to getting the basher/blocker trick to work at the very beginning, but I was already aware of this trick and so this level wasn't as hard. Definitely for less experienced players it will be a very hard level. The one thing I didn't know about was

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Amateur 26 - Like ice in the sunshine Nice slowfreeze puzzle that gave me a good struggle for about 10 minutes, so it can be difficult and is somewhat a big step up in difficulty, even with the very restricted skillset. Definitely getting the crowd down safely is hard, and also figuring out how to stop them from walking into the trap.

Finally, Amateur 28 - Zombie is quite a difficult level to finish off the tutorial-like puzzles. Once again, compression for the win here and releasing the crowd at the right time to avoid infection. Before that, I kept trying to actually get rid of the zombie by making him drown, but I wasn't able to.

The other ones I didn't mention in the first 28 levels weren't as difficult and were enjoyable and more to my liking. In particular, I absolutely loved Amateur 5 - Sugar Baby Lem (easy level and nice looking level), Amateur 6 - Cliffs of Dover (nice puzzle and how there's two solutions, my solution spares all the climbers), Amateur 7 - Join me in death (I still enjoyed this one despite the stoner staircase and repeated bombing/stoning, at least it wasn't to the extreme and done to death like it was in Paralems), Amateur 9 - Greensleeves (nice, easy puzzle!), and Amateur 11 - Whole lotta Lems (very nice puzzle, although I initially tried to get all lemmings through the pillar for a few minutes until I realized I was going about it the wrong way and that the several climbers provided had a purpose, and the miner placement and timing can be a bit difficult).

My favorite level of the rank in the first batch of 28 levels was Amateur 19 - Holding out for a hero. Decent looking level and also a very nice, easy puzzle on top of it! :thumbsup:

I also really loved Amateur 25 - Radioactive. Very nice and easy radiation puzzle! :thumbsup:

Lastly, Amateur 24 - Firework I immediately thought of the nuke being required just based on the level title, especially since it does indeed look like fireworks from all the lemmings being applied a bomber skill with the nuke. This is one of the few levels that I have played where the nuke being required for the solution didn't escape me. For some reason, that one level in Lemmicks where the nuke is needed completely went over my head. I think this is the third level that has Katy Perry as an artist, so you're apparently a fan of her, as am I.

Ok, that took longer and I wrote a lot more than I thought I would, but at least the boring tutorial-like levels are done and over with. Now finally onto the open-ended puzzles and the more exciting stuff. The remaining feedback will be on the final 12 levels of the Amateur rank, starting with Amateur 29.


Feedback on the Last 12 Levels of the Amateur Rank, Starting with Amateur 29

The rest of the rank lived up to my expectations of very exciting and well-done puzzles, and so luckily you managed to get my engagement level back up, and so I will definitely be playing out the rest of the pack with joy, unless I start getting annoyed with future puzzles that have stumped me, but I highly doubt it, since so far it's been looking really good ;P It's going to take a while, since I still have 240 levels to go, but I'll get through the whole pack eventually. In the final set of 12 levels of the rank, the hardest level for me was certainly Amateur 37. I still loved the level and solution, though! ;)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

For the Amateur rank, I recognized 10 of the songs by title

Overall, the Amateur rank was a huge improvement compared to the Noisemaker rank. It was still somewhat boring, but nowhere near as much, and the difficulty doesn't jump all over the place like it did in the Noisemaker rank. The Amateur rank definitely lived up to its promise of superb looking levels and well-made puzzles after the first 28 tutorial-like style levels. Indeed, I praised almost all of the final 12 open-ended puzzle levels of the rank, so that's certainly saying something. So, it's thanks to those levels (and some of the ones in the first 28 to an extent) that managed to get me engaged and hyped up about the pack again. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the rest of the pack and finishing up the whole thing! ;)

I think from here on out, I'm going to post with my replays and feedback when I get to the halfway point, ie, after 20 levels. As I said before, 40 levels is just way too much to write feedback on all at once. 20 levels at a time should be much more manageable in terms of how much time I waste writing my feedback. Indeed, that's exactly what I did with United, although I sent replays to Icho whenever I got truly stumped, not necessarily at the halfway point, although I did that too!

Onward to the Professional rank! :)       
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMqwuqZ206rBWJrUC6wkrA - My YouTube channel and you can also find my playlists of Lemmings level packs that I have LPed
kaywhyn's blog: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5363.0

Offline kaywhyn

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #39 on: October 05, 2020, 06:15:36 AM »
Well, I'm halfway through the Professional rank, so I'm back again already with more replays and feedback. Here are my replays up through Professional 20, as well as feedback for Professional 1 through Professional 20. Well, I must say that I continue to be impressed by the high artistic quality of your levels and puzzles that were definitely promised during my playthrough of the Professional rank so far, after finally getting past the boring stuff from the Noisemaker rank and the little over the first half of the Amateur rank ;) I'm probably now going a little way too fast for your liking, especially since I have seem to pick up significant speed, so perhaps I should slow down my playing of LWT a bit so as not to torture you with so much work fixing up levels for LWT as well in addition to LOA.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think what I will do is finish up the Professional rank and then dial back and slow down my playthrough so as to give you a chance to catch up on fixing levels for the Encore and Groupie ranks, as well as possibly any that I might had backrouted from the Noisemaker and Amateur ranks. I'm sure making you work, aren't I? I'm going to try not to torture you too much with that. Or I might also finish through the next rank as well, which will leave me at the halfway point of the pack. We'll see what happens.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMqwuqZ206rBWJrUC6wkrA - My YouTube channel and you can also find my playlists of Lemmings level packs that I have LPed
kaywhyn's blog: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5363.0

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #40 on: October 05, 2020, 02:03:41 PM »
Mmh, if you keep going at this pace, you will most likely reach the Encore and Groupie rank before I've had a chance to fix them! :D

Again, thanks for playing and taking the time to write these long and hugely detailed responses! :thumbsup: This will definitely help me as a big memory aid when I go about fixing the levels you have solved so far.

Some remarks to select comments of yours (before having watched your replays):

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Being another first rank that's just tutorials, I'll be honest, and that is I was pretty bored with the rank, since I'm pretty much familiar with all of the tricks mentioned in the pre-text associated with each level. That probably means I probably could had skipped the Noisemaker rank entirely, but when it comes to playing packs I play all ranks anyway, so endure it I must.

That is precisely the thing about tricks: If you know them, these levels are easy, especially because the pre-level texts spell them out to you. ;) If you don't know them, the level might stump you despite it telling you what to do at the beginning. But I don't see a way of teaching somebody a trick that doesn't involve "learning by doing".

Of course, skipping this rank is indeed an option: If you know all the tricks - or, more accurately, you believe you know all the tricks that can be done in NeoLemmix (since there might always be at least 1 or 2 you don't know yet :P ) - you are free to skip this rank. But do so at your own peril. When a later level comes back at you and hits you with requiring the same trick out of nowhere, don't say I didn't accurately prepare you for it. :evil:

Of course, "you" refers to any player in this context, because for you (kaywhyn) in particular, I know you are enough of a completionist to play the entire pack no matter what. ;)

Your level of boredom with the Noisemaker rank was likely a little amplified by you having played my easier packs back-to-back with this one. If you're basically waiting 150 levels (Paralems) + whatever number of Pit Lems levels was easy for you + 40 Noisemaker levels for a real challenge, you need quite a lot of patience. :lem-shocked: This will be less strenuous when the Noisemaker rank is the first thing you encounter from me as a level creator - which I assume will be the case for most players, since only LWT is available for New Formats so far.

I don't quite understand how the Noisemaker levels can be boring and challenging at the same time, though? ??? Unless the challenge is about execution difficulty (I recently played that "I am A.T." remake in Lemmings Plus I), which I tried to avoid as much as possible in LWT, I don't see how these too things can go hand in hand. ;)


NOISEMAKER RANK
Spoiler (click to show/hide)


AMATEUR RANK
Spoiler (click to show/hide)


PROFESSIONAL RANK
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 kaywhyn

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #41 on: October 05, 2020, 10:57:29 PM »
Professional rank finished. Attached are my replays up through Professional 40, as well as my feedback for Professional 21 through Professional 40. The puzzles continue to be excellent, and more high praise incoming! :thumbsup:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Your level of boredom with the Noisemaker rank was likely a little amplified by you having played my easier packs back-to-back with this one. If you're basically waiting 150 levels (Paralems) + whatever number of Pit Lems levels was easy for you + 40 Noisemaker levels for a real challenge, you need quite a lot of patience. :lem-shocked: This will be less strenuous when the Noisemaker rank is the first thing you encounter from me as a level creator - which I assume will be the case for most players, since only LWT is available for New Formats so far.

Also, just the fact that the real, exciting stuff actually begins with Amateur 29, while everything before that were simply tutorial-like levels that aren't really tutorials in the sense of teaching what each skill does, but instead skill combinations and tricks. Once I got to Amateur 29, my excitement for LWT really kicked up to 11. Ah, see what I did there? Haha.
 
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I don't quite understand how the Noisemaker levels can be boring and challenging at the same time, though? ??? Unless the challenge is about execution difficulty (I recently played that "I am A.T." remake in Lemmings Plus I), which I tried to avoid as much as possible in LWT, I don't see how these too things can go hand in hand. ;)

Yea, challenging and boring does sound very strange indeed. For sure it applies to execution challenges, but perhaps for difficult levels they are boring when they can't be solved at first? Once again, I expected to be able to breeze through the Noisemaker rank and up through Amateur 28 very quickly just to get the boring tutorial-like level styles done and over with, particularly since I pretty much knew all those tricks already, but that was most certainly not the case. I guess it was more of the fact that the unusual high difficulty put me off more than it usually did, and it is certainly all over the place, with it being much worse in the Noisemaker rank. Also, I think you're right about how I'm currently playing your third pack shortly after I finished both Paralems and Pit Lems. Maybe if I had spaced out the timing of the playing of the packs, maybe I wouldn't be put off as much as I was when I played through the first two ranks. 

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I also consider Noisemaker 8 - Glide and joy to be another unusually difficult level

I agree, which is why I made the pre-level text more explicit about the required trick.
Sadly, I'm pretty sure the precision you mentioned here is required to actually enforce Glider usage at this point: If the lower platform of steel just stuck out slightly below the steel pillar, you could just build over there regularly and wouldn't need the Glider - a regular Faller would also survive. ;) Can't have that! :evil:

Good point! I totally didn't think about that.

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Finally, not a difficult level per se, but I consider the trick needed in Noisemaker 33 - Mein kleiner gruener Kaktus to be an extremely obscure one for less experienced players.

This particular trick I actually discovered by accident while playing one of IchoTolot's levels. And that one didn't include an introductory hint.
I agree this trick is obscure, which is why the level is rather late in the Noisemaker rank. But since this is one I actually found myself without any hints from the forums, replays etc. (in contrast to many of the other tricks featured in this pack!), I'm inclined to consider it easier than some of the other tricks the player is supposed to learn here.

I believe I also discovered this trick by accident as well in a Lemmini level pack. It might had been Pimolems, or it might possibly had been Lemmings Reunion. I really don't remember.

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Finally, a big issue with the pack is that it tends to take quite a while for the level preview to load up. The worst offenders in the Noisemaker ranks are the two artistic levels I just mentioned, Octopus's Garden and Vegas Lights. The latter takes the longest out of all the Noisemaker levels to load up.

In these cases, it's because of tileset mixing. Occasionally, this may even lead to Old-Formats NeoLemmix crashing, as mentioned in the starting post. It's not going to affect your progress / save game, though; simply restart NeoLemmix and open the level again.

Some of the graphic sets simply have long loading time becaues of high resolution, though, even if you're not mixing them. For example, all of GigaLem's Freedom Planet tilesets. You may have noticed that the Pit Lems levels "Arigato, Lemming-san!" and "You want it, you got it!" also take a good amount of tile to load for this reason. ;)

Even the ones that don't tileset mix also take some time to load, although most certainly not as much as the ones that do or the high-res ones. In New Formats, the level previews literally load up practically right away for me, whereas for Old Formats even the classic styles without tileset mixing there's about a 3 second delay before the preview loads up. And yes, the random crashes in Old Formats is quite annoying. Luckily, they're non-fatal and won't erase all progress made. If I'm not mistaken, there's no plans to mitigate or even eliminate the random crashes for Old Formats?

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This is not my Autumn tileset, it's GigaLem's remake of namida's Lemmings Plus Tree tileset. So namida is to blame for the leaf trap blending in with the trees (kind of reminding me of the boulder trap from the Dirt tileset) :P . GigaLem just adapted the trap faithfully.

Oh, my bad. I thought it was a tileset you made for some reason.

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Although, since you mentioned the barrel, I think you're referring to the dog on the balcony? ;) That is actually supposed to be the dog peeing on the lemming. Hence it's yellow, and there's the little puddle on top of the barrel. I think I used a different water drop trap on another level featuring a dog from either Paralems or Pit Lems.

Yes, the one on the balcony. What about the trap that sucks the lemming up to the dog's mouth? What kind of trap is it? It's one where lemmings are immediately sucked up once they step on the trigger area, so for sure it's not the sucker trap from the bubble tileset.

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Precisely, new players would be completely stumped by this if the level didn't tell them about it. ;) I never knew it was possible until I saw it done on a level - a level which I had considered impossible before that. The digger trick you mentioned in the spoiler isn't actually part of the intended solution. Nice to know, though - and yes, given the behaviour of Blockers, it makes total sense. ;)

Yea, you're right.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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Amateur 32 - Ich und mein Holz Nice level with a great solution! :thumbsup: You, Simon, Icho, Nepster, or eric can translate the level title for me.

The translation is already included in the pre-level text: It means "Me and my wood".

Oh darn, wonder how I missed that?

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Professional 13 - Tulpen aus Amsterdam I really like this level too, both the artistic quality and the solution :) The builder/platformer for both gaps are a bit precise, but luckily you only have to do the combo twice. Here, the flag pole was solid, so something really needs to be done about this in being able to differentiate whether it's solid or not. Although, if I'm not mistaken, only the white ones are non-solid, while any other color pole is?

Correct - the white flag pole is an object from the L2 Circus tileset, whereas the other ones are solid terrain.

This issue goes back all the way to the original design of Lemmings 2: The Tribes: On the Circus tileset, it was just the flag poles. L2 Shadow is an even worse offender with its street lights (switched on or off), phone boxes, clouds, the moon with a face, and the windows from "Georgia on my mind", all of which are objects - while the trash cans and hydrants are solid, as well as the moon from the L2 Polar tileset.

We cannot "fix" these tilesets because they are official ones. I could have refrained from using the Circus flag pole, but too often, an actually solid flag pole would have been in the way, and providing an additional destructive skill to get rid of it might have opened up backroutes. Of course, I could have refrained from using solid flag poles at all, then - but in this case, the landscape was so flat (well, duh, it's the Netherlands :P ) that I needed to add at least some form of altitude gain to make this more than just a "build across the water canals" level.

Fair enough. Thanks for letting me know that my guess was correct as to which flag pole is non-solid while the rest are. Of course, you can just not put in the white flag pole and let the flag just fly in the air without one, but obviously that's not possible to do in real life, so realistically it would be very out of place and just plain weird.

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Professional 19 (click to show/hide)

Exactly! ;)


Regarding you're still needing to fix and update the Encore and Groupie ranks, I'll probably just play up through the Legend rank then and stop there until the update is released. I'm one of those who hates for my momentum to halt, especially when I'm on a roll with the pack now. I was thinking of just stopping when I finish the Diva rank, but honestly I'm plowing through the levels much faster than I thought I would. I can certainly agree with your assertment that LWT is kind of intermediate in difficulty in regards to your other packs. Paralems is the easiest, LWT in the middle, and Pit Lems hard. Although there are still some levels that are unusually difficult in LWT, for the most part I haven't encountered levels that are very hard other than Amateur 37. So, I think I'm in agreement that LWT has intermediate difficulty overall just based on the first 3 ranks completed so far.

Onward to the Diva rank! Again, apologies if I'm going way too fast for your liking. Once I get to the point where I will stop my playthrough of the pack, I will switch gears and finish up resolving all of United, as well as test your LOA pack and possibly the contest entries that I haven't been able to solve if I haven't figured them out yet. There's only 2 no solves and only one level I need to resolve right now, although the latter may change depending on if the level creator releases an update that breaks my solving replay.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMqwuqZ206rBWJrUC6wkrA - My YouTube channel and you can also find my playlists of Lemmings level packs that I have LPed
kaywhyn's blog: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5363.0

Offline kaywhyn

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #42 on: October 06, 2020, 06:26:58 AM »
Halfway through the Diva rank, so time for more replays and feedback. Replays up to Diva 20. Wow, excellent levels as usual, but the Diva levels are considerably more difficult than the ones in the previous Professional rank. The hardest one by far before the halfway point of the Diva rank was definitely Diva 19. That one stumped me real good for about an hour.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Needless to say, the difficulty has ramped up considerably from the Professional rank. The levels started getting really difficult as I got closer to the halfway point, and there were certainly some tough ones in the first 10 as well, although not as much. Well, let's see how the second half of the Diva rank goes. 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMqwuqZ206rBWJrUC6wkrA - My YouTube channel and you can also find my playlists of Lemmings level packs that I have LPed
kaywhyn's blog: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5363.0

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #43 on: October 06, 2020, 04:37:52 PM »
Diva rank completed and thus halfway (160/320 levels solved) through with the pack already. Here are my replays up through Diva 40 and feedback. In contrast to the first half, I felt the second half of the Diva rank was overall much easier.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Onto the Rockstar rank! ;)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMqwuqZ206rBWJrUC6wkrA - My YouTube channel and you can also find my playlists of Lemmings level packs that I have LPed
kaywhyn's blog: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5363.0

Offline kaywhyn

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Re: [NeoLemmix] Lemmings World Tour
« Reply #44 on: October 07, 2020, 07:22:13 AM »
Rockstar rank half completed. Here are my replays up through Rockstar 20 and my feedback. Lots of really good levels in this batch despite the difficulty being somewhat high or about the same as the Diva rank! :thumbsup:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMqwuqZ206rBWJrUC6wkrA - My YouTube channel and you can also find my playlists of Lemmings level packs that I have LPed
kaywhyn's blog: https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=5363.0