I've gone through the levels in my pack again that have 300 Lemmings and considered: is it
really necessary? There were 7 such levels, there are now just 3.
Of the four that have had their numbers reduced:One of the levels has actually been reduced to just 4 Lemmings, and has exactly the same solution taking exactly the same amount of time to complete (in this case, all 300 Lemmings would have spawned before the completion of the level except in the case of someone finding an extremely efficient backroute, which is unlikely in this particular level).
One of the levels is now 30 Lemmings, and has had a backroute fix (thanks, Icho!) and is now a much better level as a result of both changes; I'm not actually sure why I originally wanted 300 in this one. Maybe I'd had one too many rums that evening!
The other two levels I've changed now have 100 each: these are levels that did, as ccexplore has discussed above, take a stupid amount of time for all the lems to exit. It's much more reasonable now in both cases, without taking anything away from the visual impact of the levels in question.
The three I've left, I've done so for these reasons:One of them just really does look cool with 300 Lemmings floating around whilst you're solving the level. Further to that, it involves a talisman that requires the level be done in a certain amount of time, which means executing the intended solution as efficiently as possible. This one
does require keeping your finger on the FF button at the end, but it's worth it!
One of them has a limited number of delay skills and requires the player to delay the worker as long as possible whilst the lems stream out of the exit: if they begin working any sooner, the still-entering lems die. Can't really give away too much more than that without spoiling the solution...
Another has several possible solutions, one of which also requires near-perfect timing for the worker lem to pass under the entrance hatch without disturbing the flow. To be fair, everyone who's playtested this level so far has come up with a completely different solution, and I have so far found at least 3 others. I've decided to leave the lem count at 300 just in case someone stumbles upon that particular solution tho; also, it's another level that is still being solved
after the stream has finished, so there's no waiting around for lems at the end.
I'm sure my pack has been significantly improved as a result of this discussion though, and I'll be sure to think even more carefully about my lem amounts in the future!
Just a bit of fun. Here's what the poll screen looked like just before I typed out this post. Look at all those 3s!: