12.8's high resolution mode is not without its teething problems, but it does look great and given the endless possibilities for custom styles which can now look better than ever before, it's an exciting time to be a fan of
Lemmings!
Now that the look of the game itself has been improved, and it's already possible to make the panel look however you want it to by editing it yourself (
EDIT: I've posted a picture of mine at the bottom of this post), I propose we as a community look at the possibilities of making NeoLemmix's various title screens look and feel as good as they possibly can.
My proposal would be to
bring together all the best elements of the various versions (Amiga's colour scheme and text/logo proportions, NeoLemmix/DOS's larger level previews and the size/position of the menu elements, SuperLemmini's higher resolution and enhanced text) and create some really nice looking title screens.
Here is an example of the level-preview screen from each, so you can see the differences:
Amiga's pleasing colour scheme, and perhaps less pleasing level preview size:
SuperLemmini's enhanced resolution and tightened-up text size:
NeoLemmix/DOS's larger level preview and better overall proportion of images/text:
And a reminder of the differences between the Amiga (left) and DOS (right) menu screens. I think the DOS version has better
positioning and relative-sizing of the various elements, but - as you can see - the Amiga version has everything in better proportion, albeit perhaps a bit too large:
I'm happy to do the work on the various elements that will need to be produced - backgrounds, text, menu cards, logo, etc., once the community has reached a consensus about
how it should look. Hopefully, there'll be some way of assembling everything without having to completely re-write the code.
As for the pre/post-view screens, there has
already been discussion about the possibilities of making these more interactive, maybe by including pictures. I think this is a great idea worth re-visiting. At the very least, the text could be improved and made easier to read as a very basic start on things.
So - what do you think, should we look at this? Or not bother. You decide!
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P.S. Here's what my custom panel looks like. I edited this using a simple PNG editing program. If you'd like to customise your own, the graphics can be found in NeoLemmix/gfx/panel (or panel-hr for hi-res mode) - just be careful to keep everything the same size. Or, if you like the look of mine and want me to send you the images I'll be more than happy to do so: