Author Topic: Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll  (Read 15050 times)

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Offline Strato Incendus

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Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll
« on: October 13, 2019, 05:35:03 PM »


Lemmings Open Air is halfway done - and the main reason why development on that front isn't going faster is because I keep getting ideas for levels that simply don't fit into the classic tilesets.
Lemmings Hall of Fame, meanwhile, can't really make any progress without the Jumper. I've created some levels for it, but as recent discussions have shown, the Jumper seems to be quite essential for creating that authentic Lemmings 2: The Tribes feeling which that pack is going for.

So this is where all my other level ideas go, especially those which involve tileset mixing, because that is sort-of a no-go for the other two packs I'm working on, albeit not completely inevitable.

This pack, in contrast, is going to mix tilesets in a very specific way for a very specific reason...


When the Lems go marching in


True colors


The internet is for p0rn


Welcome to my nightmare


Scratching the ceiling of the world


Cake to bake


Analogous to Lemmings Hall of Fame taking Lemmings 2: The Tribes to NeoLemmix, Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll is going to be a NeoLemmix version of Lemmings 3D! :D

First of all, that means self-recorded rock/metal versions of all the Lemmings 3D tracks this time.
8-)

Second, as you can see, I'm using several tilesets revolving around the same theme to get as close as possible to the graphic sets used in Lemmings 3D.
They don't really seem to have universally agreed-upon names, but I'm going to call them:

1. Army: L3 Biolab, L2 Beach, L2 Medieval - for the "Polar" subtype: L2 Polar, Raymanni Snow, ONML Snow / Christmas
2. Classic ("Lemgo"): L2 Circus, L2 Shadow, Arty Lego, namida Abstract, namida Psychedelic, Raymanni Toys
3. Candy: namida Candy, Raymanni Food, davidz Candy
4. Medieval: L2 Medieval, IchoTolot Castle, mobius tanCastle, Gronkling Slime, GigaLem TreeMod
5. Circus: L2 Circus, L2 Beach, Raymanni Circus
6. Outdoor (Maze): L2 Outdoor, L2 Highland, Jaimie House (Speedy Eggbert), GigaLem TreeMod, ONML Brick
7. Digital: Raymanni Cyberspace, Sonic Cybertrack / Technobase, namida Circuit, Gronkling Cyber, Gronkling Minimal, Jarv Future...
8. Egyptian: L2 Egyptian, L3 Egyptian, L2 Beach, namida Desert, GigaLem DesertMod, orig Pillar
9. Space (Alien): L2 Space, L2 Shadow, namida Space, plom Metro, Gronkling Minimal, (Ex-Gronkling) Electric, SQron Turrican / Alien, Raymanni Sewer (for the water)
10. Sports (Golf) : L2 Sports, L2 Beach, L2 Medieval, namida Desert, GigaLem DesertMod

All levels are going to feature some sort of coloured background, to simulate the 3D experience a little more, while Lemmings Open Air and Lemmings Hall of Fame are going to feature almost exclusively black backgrounds, like their respective original games.

For example, for the Candy setting, I'm combining namida's Candy tileset, Raymanni's Food tileset, and the Candy tileset by davidz:


Eatin' ain't cheatin'

The menu background is the one from Lemmings 3D, and I've also made the menu signs white with red letters, in honour of the original. I actually tried using the original L3D signs first, but the rank names didn't fit the square shape; for everything else, this would have worked fine! :thumbsup:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)


There are going to be four main ranks of 20 levels each, like in Lemmings 3D, as well as a Practice rank for first-time players. The rank names are:

00. Virgin
01. Sober
02. Drunk
03. Plastered
04. Delirious


The Practice rank is going to feature levels centered around 1 or 2 skills, i.e. not quite as simple as the mono-skill levels in Lemmings 3D, but in a similar vein. Levels such as this one:


Walkin' after midnight

But occasionally, there are also still going to be somewhat "artistic" levels. Here's one associated with the Medieval and one with the Outdoor setting:


Les Lems des cathédrales


Wuthering Heights

As you can see, we're still sticking to the song-title theme. ;)

So yeah, Lemmings Open Air is definitely going to be finished first - and if only for the fact that it's the only one that doesn't require me to record a bunch of new music tracks first before releasing it.

After that, it really depends on how quickly we can get a stable version of the Jumper to work whether I'm going to focus on Hall of Fame or Drugs and Rock 'n Roll first... :D
« Last Edit: July 19, 2023, 10:18:25 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 NieSch

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Re: Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll
« Reply #1 on: October 13, 2019, 06:30:39 PM »
It already looks and sounds spectacular. Keep it up.
My NeoLemmix packs: All You Need Is Lemmings - Long Live Lemmings! - Yippee! More Lemmings
SuperLemmix: Tomb Rodents featuring Lemmina Croft

Offline namida

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Re: Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll
« Reply #2 on: October 13, 2019, 06:55:57 PM »
Quote
Second, as you can see, I'm using several tilesets revolving around the same theme to get as close as possible to the graphic sets used in Lemmings 3D. They don't really seem to have universally agreed-upon names, but I'm going to call them:

1. Army
2. Classic
3. Candy
4. Medieval
5. Circus
6. Outdoor
7. Digital
8. Egyptian
9. Space
10. Sports

There's official names for them that can be easily gotten from L3D's data (just by looking at filenames, nothing super fancy needed). The catch is that some styles have two possible names - three styles have only a single definitive name, three have full vs abbreviated names, and four outright have two potential names.

In the "BMPS" folder, we have BMP files of the pre-level wallpapers. Each one of these has a name for the style. The names from here are "Army", "Castle", "Circus", "Computer", "Egypt", "Golf", "Lemgo", "Maze", "Space", "Sweets". I will note in particular here - I believe "Egypt", not "Egyptian", was intended, as "Egyptian" could still fit in to the DOS character limit.

In the "SOUND" folder, we have a slight different set of names. One consideration here is that these files are limited to 5 letters for the style names, as DOS filenames are limited to 8 characters altogether, and these use a two-letter prefix for the soundcard the files correspond to plus a one-digit suffix to identify the three variations for each style. "Army", "Egypt" and "Golf" are the same. "Circus", "Computer" and "Sweets" are abbreviated as "Circ", "Comp" and "Sweet" respectively. The remaining four, "Castle", "Lemgo", "Maze" and "Space" have completely different names in the sound files - "Medi" (presumably short for "Medieval"), "Lego", "Gard" (presumably, "Garden") and "Alien" respectively.

Which set of names is the "authentic" one? I'd personally believe the ones from "BMPS" for several reasons. Firstly, I believe it's a known fact that "Lego" was the original name for the relevant style but it was changed to "Lemgo" for trademark reasons. The BMPS names use "Lemgo", the SOUND names use "Lego". Secondly, names changing during development in general is very plausible, and the BMPS files have newer modified dates. Finally, the game does not actually use the files in BMPS - they're in a much higher resolution than the game uses, and happen to exactly match common Windows screen resolutions at the time; thus, the logical conclusion is they're intended as desktop wallpapers, and the intent is that the user might see the filenames; thus, I'd believe more care went into using accurate style names here.

But ultimately, there's no official word on which possible official style name is the true official one for any given style.

On a side note, I believe L3DEdit doesn't quite use either official names for a few styles. I'm fairly sure I used "Candy" and "Pyramid" rather than "Sweets" and "Egypt". Those who are bothered by this can simply modify the L3DEditPresets.ini file (after running L3D once). ;)



Speaking of L3DEdit, it's quite easy to use it to extract the graphics from L3D. You could even use the actual L3D tilesets, though some work would be needed to convert the raw graphics into something that works well in NL.

And finally, I just want to mention that I'm really excited to hear your renditions of the musics! :D



EDIT: Actually, I noticed another thing:

Quote
00. Virgin
01. Sober
02. Drunk
03. Stoned
04. Delirious

I'll just say, anyone who's been both (and is familiar with Lemmings rank naming in general) would very much expect Stoned to be easier than Drunk. ;)
« Last Edit: October 13, 2019, 10:37:11 PM by namida »
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: Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll
« Reply #3 on: October 14, 2019, 08:21:51 AM »
Quote
In the "SOUND" folder, we have a slight different set of names. One consideration here is that these files are limited to 5 letters for the style names, as DOS filenames are limited to 8 characters altogether, and these use a two-letter prefix for the soundcard the files correspond to plus a one-digit suffix to identify the three variations for each style. "Army", "Egypt" and "Golf" are the same. "Circus", "Computer" and "Sweets" are abbreviated as "Circ", "Comp" and "Sweet" respectively. The remaining four, "Castle", "Lemgo", "Maze" and "Space" have completely different names in the sound files - "Medi" (presumably short for "Medieval"), "Lego", "Gard" (presumably, "Garden") and "Alien" respectively.

Haha, "Lemgo" is actually a place in Germany, as well. ;) I guess both are referring to the tileset I called "Classic"; I don't even know where I got that name from, maybe just from Fun 11 ("It's a Classic"). Back in the day I used to think that was just the tileset they were using for levels that were supposed to be as closely related to original (=classical) Lemmings as possible.

I wasn't aware of that tileset being supposed to look like Lego bricks; now you've definitely inspired me to add Arty's Lego tileset into the tileset mix for emulating that specific graphic set!
:thumbsup: So far, I've only been using the blocks from the L2 Circus tileset + the L2 Shadow hatch + your Psychedelic exit. The actual Circus levels can only be distinguished by the fact that they make a lot of use of the diagonally two-coloured blocks, rather than the mono-coloured ones (plus the tent exit and, in general, more red and white stripes).

Quote
Speaking of L3DEdit, it's quite easy to use it to extract the graphics from L3D. You could even use the actual L3D tilesets, though some work would be needed to convert the raw graphics into something that works well in NL.

I think the terrain pieces wouldn't be of much use, because they're basically just blocks. I was just about to ask though whether we have the "army guy" somewhere for NeoLemmix (the officer with the brown jacket and the black hat)? ;) He's rather iconic to make the Army levels identifiable as such. I've already looked into the VGA-Special-Graphics tileset, because I was pretty sure I had seen him appearing on somebody else's custom level, but I could only find the Lemmings-3D logo itself there, which appears on e.g. some levels in SEB Lems.

That is another thing I could adapt about the menu, of course - going with the L3D logo and making it match the music theme, rather than sticking to a modified version of the original Lemmings logo. But since this pack isn't actually going to be 3D, maybe this hybrid approach works better. I actually kind of like how the grey Lemmings 3D background goes behind a standard, original-style Lemmings menu.

That said...

Quote
In the "BMPS" folder, we have BMP files of the pre-level wallpapers

...is there any way to have the pre-level menu backgrounds in NeoLemmix change on a level-by-level basis, rather than picking one for the entire pack? :D

For example, if I could just edit it into the text of a level file, like a pre-level text, moving background objects, the music etc.

That would allow me to make it even clearer which level belongs to which L3D tileset, while still having the standard grey L3D background for the post-level screens, like in L3D itself.

If this isn't possible at the moment, maybe it might be worth opening a suggestion thread for that... ;)

Quote
And finally, I just want to mention that I'm really excited to hear your renditions of the musics! :D

I'm also overall much more excited for creating these than the ones from L2! :thumbsup: L2 has a few that I like very much, but also a couple others that I already know are going to be a nightmare to record, due to frequent tempo- and rhythm changes. I may actually have to write these down and export them as MIDIs first before playing along, which takes more time.

So far, I've simply identified the rough tempo of a track, set my metronome and recorded the drums to it, going through a couple of loops of the track, and then throwing the other instruments on top. The main issue with the original and ONML tracks was that some of them seemed to be just in between two BPM (beats per minute) numbers, as far as their tempo was concerned. So I always had to choose between playing to the original track and then doing a bunch of timing adjustments to the drums afterwards, or playing just to the metronome, with the structure of the track just in my head.

The L3D tracks, aside from already sounding more "realistic" from the getgo, have the great advantage of having a defined start- and ending point. Whether they're also at a constant speed that can be defined in a single BPM value is something I'll have to try out then. With 2 tracks for each of the 10 tilesets, there's a bunch of tracks to record, of course, but even though it's more than just the original Lemmings tracks, it's already less than I've done for LWT, because that one also included all but one of the ONML tracks. Plus, due to the defined start- and ending point, each individual one of these tracks should take less time to record.

Quote
I'll just say, anyone who's been both (and is familiar with Lemmings rank naming in general) would very much expect Stoned to be easier than Drunk. ;)

Now that you say that, swapping Drunk and Stoned around might actually even fit better with some of the level names created thus far - and also their difficulty.

Although for the penultimate rank, I would then kind of prefer a more intense synonym for "Drunk"... :evil:
« Last Edit: October 14, 2019, 11:56:52 AM by Strato Incendus »
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline namida

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Re: Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll
« Reply #4 on: October 14, 2019, 09:25:54 PM »
Quote
I think the terrain pieces wouldn't be of much use, because they're basically just blocks. I was just about to ask though whether we have the "army guy" somewhere for NeoLemmix (the officer with the brown jacket and the black hat)? ;) He's rather iconic to make the Army levels identifiable as such. I've already looked into the VGA-Special-Graphics tileset, because I was pretty sure I had seen him appearing on somebody else's custom level, but I could only find the Lemmings-3D logo itself there, which appears on e.g. some levels in SEB Lems.

You would have to shape them, or provide useful eraser pieces that can be used to shape them, I'd think. Since these erasers would likely be similar across all L3D sets, perhaps they should go in their own "l3d_erasers" set.

Quote
...is there any way to have the pre-level menu backgrounds in NeoLemmix change on a level-by-level basis, rather than picking one for the entire pack? :D

No. It might be doable per-rank (in some cases NeoLemmix will look in a rank's folder for custom graphics), not sure, but it isn't doable per-level. In such a case, it wouldn't be possible to have separate postview vs preview ones, let alone separate for each level.

Feel free to open a suggestion, though I don't know how popular it would be. I do think it would be relatively simple to implement though, which is definitely a point in its favor.

Quote
The L3D tracks, aside from already sounding more "realistic" from the getgo, have the great advantage of having a defined start- and ending point. Whether they're also at a constant speed that can be defined in a single BPM value is something I'll have to try out then. With 2 tracks for each of the 10 tilesets, there's a bunch of tracks to record, of course, but even though it's more than just the original Lemmings tracks, it's already less than I've done for LWT, because that one also included all but one of the ONML tracks. Plus, due to the defined start- and ending point, each individual one of these tracks should take less time to record.

Much of what you say here is only true of the CD audio tracks (which are, I believe, the only tracks on the console versions). When using soundcard or MIDI audio, the tracks do loop properly, and there's three tracks per style - although only two completely distinct tracks, with the third being a remix of one of the others. Speaking of which, MIDI files of these exist if those are helpful to you.
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: Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll
« Reply #5 on: October 15, 2019, 11:02:29 AM »
Suggestion thread is opened, thanks for adding the poll, namida! ;)

Quote
Much of what you say here is only true of the CD audio tracks (which are, I believe, the only tracks on the console versions). When using soundcard or MIDI audio, the tracks do loop properly, and there's three tracks per style - although only two completely distinct tracks, with the third being a remix of one of the others. Speaking of which, MIDI files of these exist if those are helpful to you.

I have the PC version, and that one also only included 2 tracks per tileset. Sometimes you hear slightly altered versions on the menu screens - but those tracks can't be accessed as MP3s from the CD audio, like the regular level music.

Yes, the MIDIs would be helpful for timing and such! :thumbsup: Those might be custom recreations, though? I remember WinLems featured all the original Lemmings tracks as MIDIs, but of course, that means they sounded somewhat different
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: Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll
« Reply #6 on: October 15, 2019, 06:25:31 PM »
Quote
I have the PC version, and that one also only included 2 tracks per tileset. Sometimes you hear slightly altered versions on the menu screens - but those tracks can't be accessed as MP3s from the CD audio, like the regular level music.

The PC version has two tracks per style ("Standard" and "Alternate" in L3DEdit terminology) when using CD audio (the ones you can rip from the CD as MP3s). When you turn CD audio off - or on the menu screens, where CD audio is never used even if enabled (thus explaining the "different versions" you're talking about) - and soundcard or MIDI music is used instead, there are instead three tracks per style ("Standard", "Alternate" and the third, which is always a remix of "Standard", is "Remix"). For the record, the actual level data specifies music in terms of non-CD audio.

Theoretically, when using CD audio, "Alternate" should remain as-is, while "Remix" (due to the lack of a 3rd track on CD audio, and the fact that Remix is always similar to Standard) should fall back to "Standard". In practice, there's a bug that swaps this around; and only "Standard" is consistent between both music types. L3DUtils has a patch to fix this bug. (This bug itself is consistent - a level that uses the Alternate music in soundcard / MIDI audio will always use Standard in CD audio; and a level that uses Remix in soundcard / MIDI audio will always use Alternate in CD audio.) It's debatable which one is hearing the "wrong" music - on one hand, the level data clearly specifies in terms of soundcard / MIDI music, but on the other, the console ports (where only one kind of music setting exists, so no chance of inconsistency bugs) mostly follows PC's CD audio settings, although there are exceptions.

There's a Lemmings 3D midi convertor that someone wrote and I dug up a while ago, which also comes with pre-converted files so no need to actually figure out how to use it. In addition to making conversions from the actual General Midi format data, it seems it can also convert from the various soundcard music formats. Obviously, it cannot convert the CD audio.
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: Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll
« Reply #7 on: October 17, 2019, 08:40:23 AM »
Okay, I just took a listen to some L3D tracks again on my way to work, and yes, these MIDIs are definitely going to be helpful, if not required, to actually figure out what is going on some of the tracks. Especially the electro / "digital" tunes are hard to identify in terms of which pitches are being played, even with a trained ear.

I have no idea yet how accurate these MIDI conversions are - some are probably closer to the respective originals than others - but as a baseline for recording them, these are definitely invaluable.

Thanks a lot, namida! :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 namida

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Re: Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll
« Reply #8 on: October 17, 2019, 06:56:04 PM »
Quote
I have no idea yet how accurate these MIDI conversions are - some are probably closer to the respective originals than others - but as a baseline for recording them, these are definitely invaluable.

They are directly converted from the game's actual data for soundcard / MIDI audio, so - except for anything that might have gotten lost in conversion - they should be completely accurate.

The CD audio is often not 100% accurate to these, though - it's often shortened and a lot of sections are noticably cut out (this is very noticable on both Maze tracks and the more-common Lemgo track in particular). So if you're basing your remakes off the CD audio, you should treat these midis in the same way you might treat Mozart's sheet music for Rondo Alla Turca if you were trying to replicate the DOS Lemmings music based off it, I guess?
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: Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll
« Reply #9 on: October 17, 2019, 07:03:56 PM »
Ah, perfect - in that case, I can actually import them into Guitar Pro and have everything in notation right away. Thanks for the info, and for digging these up! :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: Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll
« Reply #10 on: November 14, 2019, 09:07:39 PM »
Here is an example of my attempts to recreate the L3D Alien tileset. I might have to adapt my level "Walkin' after midnight" (shown above) to this aesthetic; but then again, L3D Alien levels can look very different, from the black-green-orange of "Alilemms" over the plain white from the "Lemmlab" levels to the red starry background of "Dot to dot".

That said, the orange stripes on the black ground and the green "mud" water were two elements that seemed essential to me, so here's how I went about including them. This uses Gronkling's minimal tileset as well as (formerly also Gronkling's) Electric for the steel and the orange-striped pieces (here called "computer chip"), as well as elements from SQRon's Turrican / Alien set. The green water is from Raymanni's sewer tileset.


Space oddity

Not only that, but I've also attached the level for you to play. I think it's one of the most unique solutions I've come up with recently, and completely deserving of the title "oddity" (even though the title is actually just inspired by a David Bowie song).

This was intended to fill the 20th slot of the first rank, where "Alilemms" is in regular Lemmings 3D. But given how outlandish the solution is, I think it can go nowhere lower than the fourth and final rank.

Feel free to try and backroute this! :thumbsup: I'm always skeptical when providing quite a few Builders... but I think the teleporter will prevent any possible shortcuts on this level from getting too much out of control.

Also, based on namida's feedback, I've decided to change the name of the 3rd rank from "Stoned" to "Plastered". Does that sound like a proper increase in intensity to you, between "Drunk" and "Delirious"? :D
« Last Edit: November 15, 2019, 09:27:00 AM by Strato Incendus »
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll
« Reply #11 on: November 15, 2019, 10:03:20 PM »
...and here is another one - coincidentally, also a David Bowie song. :D In case you're wondering: Ziggy Stardust himself is already reserved for Lemmings Hall of Fame! :P

This one requires some pixel-precise timing, which is why it's planned to go in rank 3 of 4 (=the one recently renamed to "Plastered" :D ). But I've put this pixel precision at the beginning of the level, as we usually agree we should do, if precision cannot be avoided in the first place. ;)


Loving the alien

Sadly, I've already found out I can't enforce one particular part about the solution of the above-shown "Space oddity", because...

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

Offline Strato Incendus

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Re: Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll
« Reply #12 on: January 13, 2020, 11:21:48 PM »
I felt like doing some more level-painting again. In spirit, this is definitely going to be more of a follow-up to Lemmings World Tour than Lemmings Open Air, which is going to focus more on mechanical challenges, like Pit Lems (but stylistically more consistent).

Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll will of course still feature its fair share of "abstract" level shapes that simply emulate standard L3D levels in the various tilesets, as shown above. But so far, "Les Lems des cathédrales" is the only Geography level in the pack, so I thought I should contribute some more.

Since Lemmings World Tour was quite Euro-centric (plus a bunch of levels located in the US), here are some less-visited countries. Can you identify them? ;)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sahara

Notice how this next level starts in the exact same place where the former one ends... :D

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Arabesque

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The sound of silence - Called this way because this place is often reported to be a ghost town, where you barely encounter anyone on the streets...

As you can see, there are quite a few zombies on these levels.

The walking ones represent the occasional militia or terrorists you might encounter on your travels.

But also, some of these countries aren't actually Lemocracies. Or they weren't, until just recently.

Thus, on some of these levels, there might also be the occasional dictator (Zombie Blocker) to get rid of... :evil:
« Last Edit: January 13, 2020, 11:38:03 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

  • The King of Shimmiers (crowned by Flopsy ;D )
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Re: Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll
« Reply #13 on: January 14, 2020, 11:11:03 PM »
...but, of course, I can't visit only the more "obscure" locations in this pack which I didn't get to in Lemmings World Tour. Fortunately, as the Notre-Dame level shown in an earlier post demonstrates, some of the more prominent countries that already appeared in Lemmings World Tour still have some other sights to check out (in case of Notre Dame, it's even in the same city :D , given that World Tour featured "Diggas in Paris" again).

LWT only took us to Rome and Pompeii as far as Italy is concerned... so this time, it's Venice!


O sole mio

Latin America was also a little under-represented in LWT, only visiting Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina. Brazil will definitely be in LDR again, and so will Chile:


Santiago

Speaking of Spanish-speaking countries:


Macarena

This is also a demonstration of what levels in style of the L3D "Golf" tileset could look like in this pack. The wooden constructions (built here out of pieces from L2 Medieval) appear on many levels, such as "Fore!" or "Brechin's Staircase". The sailing boat here is also a reference to the L3D level "Land Ahoi!"

And, of course, this post wouldn't be complete without another dictatorship:


I love Belarus

Yes, that is actually the title of a song. ;)
« Last Edit: January 16, 2020, 09:42:27 AM by Strato Incendus »
My packs so far:
Lemmings World Tour (New & Old Formats), my music-themed flagship pack, 320 levels - Let's Played by Colorful Arty
Lemmings Open Air, my newest release and follow-up to World Tour, 120 levels
Paralems (Old Formats), a more flavour-driven one, 150 levels
Pit Lems (Old Formats), a more puzzly one, 100 levels - Let's Played by nin10doadict
Lemmicks, a pack for (very old) NeoLemmix 1.43 full of gimmicks, 170 levels

Offline Strato Incendus

  • The King of Shimmiers (crowned by Flopsy ;D )
  • Posts: 1747
  • #RIP Spearer/Grenader (2020 - 2021)
    • View Profile
Re: Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll
« Reply #14 on: January 16, 2020, 10:22:26 AM »
A quick cosmetical question: I noticed that there's actually two shadings of green water which I could use for the "Alien" tileset: The one from Raymanni's Sewer tileset (currently used)



...and the one from the L3 Lab tileset, which is slighty darker (example taken from a former level from "Lemmicks"):



I'm not quite certain which one fits better. The Mud on original Lemmings 3D consists of several shades of green, as far as I recall, with the "air bubbles" usually being brighter or darker than the rest.

The green water from the original Marble tileset is definitely too bright of a shade of green. But the water areas from Raymanni Sewer and L3 Biolab both look equally "filthy".



In general, I have to think about how I spread the "geography" levels among the various tilesets. In-game, you will easily be able to tell which tileset a level "officially" belongs to, from the music playing in the background. :D But visually, it may be slightly less clear.

To be fair, though, L3D itself blurs the lines between the various tilesets frequently, by maybe using the "background" from a different tileset than the title menu screen. For example, the title screen may suggest a level is a "House/Maze/Garden/Outdoor" level, whatever you want to call it, but the background at the edge of the level is from Army or Golf. Or a level is officially a "Lego" level (e.g. "Fun Fair" on the Mayhem rank), but the surroundings look more like a "House/Maze/Garden/Outdoor" level.

Here's how I would categorise the levels presented so far:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

One of the issues regarding the choice of level titles, and then, by extension, solutions, is the overlap for certain tilesets between Lemmings 2: The Tribes and Lemmings 3D. While in principle, this overlap of tilesets is what enables the creation of this pack in the first place, because it provides much needed pieces for Medieval, Egyptian etc., those are also precisely the styles stealing level ideas from each other.

I've already used a couple of level titles here that I had originally "saved" in the thread for Lemmings Hall of Fame (which is L2-inspired). Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll takes precedent in this regard, because it isn't necessarily dependent on the Jumper to be completed, whereas Lemmings Hall of Fame is pretty much on a halt until the first test version of NeoLemmix featuring the Jumper might show up in May or so.

Meanwhile, Candy for example is a tileset which is very specific to L3D - and as such, there are a lot of food-related song titles and overall level ideas involving these terrain pieces that I haven't been able to use on any other pack yet.

With Sports/Golf, I have already saved a bunch of "stadium anthems" for Lemmings Hall of Fame, so for L3D Golf, I might go for more Carribean and Latin American songs. :D
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