Hidden/invisible objects: OK? Or not OK?

[WillLem]

I have hidden a teleporter in a backroute, which takes the player to a slightly more difficult-to-navigate area of the level.

I did this in the spirit of finding fun, inventive ways to get around The Backroute Problem (rather than just blocking it off with steel or one-way-arrows, or limiting time and/or skills).

Further to this, the backroute is actually there intentionally: the level was designed with this in mind and is titled Backroute To the Future.

My question is: given this information, is the hidden teleporter justified in this scenario?

Please note that, if I get an overwhelming response of "No!", I will edit this level to no longer feature a hidden teleporter. However, I would like this case to be discussed first so I can truly understand people's reasons against the idea when it's clearly done in good, clean fun, and with no intention to annoy or troll the player.

If the response is neutral or "Yes!", then I'll leave the level as it is.

[namida]

It's the same as any other case of hiding details: It misleads the player. Whether or not it's doing so along the intended route, or along a backroute, doesn't matter, because the player at first does not know what is or isn't a backroute - and indeed, might never know if they don't share replays / follow discussions. They only know whether a solution works or not - or at a glance, whether a solution should work or not (there's shades of this - perhaps a solution has potential but they're not sure if something measures up exactly - but this is still not a case of misleading, just a case of physics being hard to mentally simulate).

There are ways you can hide easter eggs that don't at all interfere with the functional aspects of the level. For example, you could have a no-effect object hidden behind terrain, with a graphic of a dancing Rick Astley. (This is just one possible suggestion. You could in fact make the graphic almost anything you like - of course I would advise making it very obvious that it's a no-effect easter egg, but that's about it.)

It's generally advised that it should be obvious that a backroute won't work out. Using this level as an example, such a fix would be placing steel or one-way arrows in the way. In some cases, it isn't possible to be obvious without either opening further backroutes, or breaking the intended solution - in this case, it should still not be misleading, even if it's hard to judge. It's much harder to give examples of this, but it could arise from eg. it isn't clear if two steel blocks line up such that they prevent a single direct miner - it's still clear to the player that this might not work.

There are still other ways you can play with backroutes. For example, if you've got a case where the backroute isn't obviously impossible, you could hide a no-effect object (as described above) just before the point at which the backroute fails. Or you could do the reverse - intended-looking solutions don't work out, and the actual solution is something that would feel more like a backroute (I've made a couple of levels like this).

[ccexplore]

I have hidden a teleporter in a backroute, which takes the player to a slightly more difficult-to-navigate area of the level.

I did this in the spirit of finding fun, inventive ways to get around The Backroute Problem (rather than just blocking it off with steel or one-way-arrows, or limiting time and/or skills).

Further to this, the backroute is actually there intentionally: the level was designed with this in mind and is titled Backroute To the Future.

Why hide the teleporter?  It sounds like the point is to transform a backroute that was originally so much easier than the intended solution as to cheapen the level considerably, and instead make it actually a more difficult alternate solution compared to the intended one, by virtue of the teleporting.  You can do that with a non-hidden teleporter just as well as a hidden one.

[IchoTolot]

Simply: No.

Make the teleporter visible and your plan will still work without misleading the player.

[Proxima]

In the main Lemminas topic, you asked: what if the intention was for the player to try the backroute first and find the hidden object by being tripped up by it?

If any decision in level design is made with the intention of wasting the player's time, it was the wrong decision.

I would like this case to be discussed first so I can truly understand people's reasons against the idea when it's clearly done in good, clean fun, and with no intention to annoy or troll the player.

Sorry if it feels like we're piling up on you, but I felt this needed a response. What about this is "clear"? If I'm playing a level, I'm on a solution path that should work (given what I know so far) and I find that hidden objects have been put there to block it, my thought is not going to be "the level designer thought this was fun", but rather "the level designer wanted to block this route, was determined to preserve their level's aesthetics, and just didn't think about playability".

Yes, things were different in the days of original Lemmings (Havoc 1, for example). The difference? Previous levels had let you know, in a relatively harmless way, that hidden traps were going to be a recurring hazard throughout the game. Without clear physics mode available, it became a regular part of gameplay to scout for hidden traps before starting to think about a solution. By contrast, NL culture is so strongly against hidden traps (and hidden information generally) that the player is accustomed to starting to think towards a solution at the very start of looking at the level. By the time they run into the hidden trap, they are on a path they believe to be a solution, and you are snatching away that victory.

[WillLem]

Due to overwhelming consensus, I will make the teleporter in Backroute To The Future visible in Lemminas V1.01.

Further to this, I will look at adding some sort of "in" and "out" indicator to the custom shimmery-light teleporters, or at least make them a different colour from each other so the player can determine which is which after encountering them for the first time in 1-5.

Just to continue the conversation though, two questions occur:

1) With clear physics mode now available (as well as traps being animated), it's now easier than ever to spot hidden traps: if a player really wants to solve the level before they've even started playing it (a practice I'm personally quite averse to), they need only switch on clear physics mode to reveal anything that the designer may have chosen to hide. With this in mind, why is it frowned upon to hide anything? Surely now more than ever, wouldn't you agree that it's a non-issue?

2) For me, a big part of the enjoyment of a video game is hitting the "GO!" button and seeing what happens; it's as much about exploration and discovery as it is about skill and precision. If all the player wants to do is solve the level without actually going for it and trying anything out, why have the game animated at all? Why not just make it a series of picture puzzles?

I understand and appreciate the sheer mental prowess of being able to solve a level in your head without actually doing anything: it's no mean feat, and I applaud it. But it shouldn't take away from the game for people who prefer a more action-and-discovery oriented approach.

With these things being said and the questions having been asked, I do want my pack to be accepted and liked by the community, so I will make the necessary changes and try to avoid the practice of hiding objects in the future.

[Proxima]

1) With clear physics mode now available (as well as traps being animated), it's now easier than ever to spot hidden traps: if a player really wants to solve the level before they've even started playing it (a practice I'm personally quite averse to), they need only switch on clear physics mode to reveal anything that the designer may have chosen to hide. With this in mind, why is it frowned upon to hide anything? Surely now more than ever, wouldn't you agree that it's a non-issue?

Putting on CPM and spending a minute or two scouring the level for hidden information is not enjoyable. But once you start hiding traps, the player is going to feel they have to do this on every level. See comment above about wasting the player's time.

2) For me, a big part of the enjoyment of a video game is hitting the "GO!" button and seeing what happens; it's as much about exploration and discovery as it is about skill and precision.

The whole reason why video game genres exist is so that different games can fulfil different needs. Exploration and discovery are great, but they don't belong in NL, which is a narrowly focused puzzle game.

If all the player wants to do is solve the level without actually going for it and trying anything out, why have the game animated at all?

Strato's straw man rears its ugly head again. No-one, I repeat no-one, has said this. What I am saying is that when I start playing a NeoLemmix level, I get straight into thinking about possibilities for what the solution might be. If something looks likely, I may well try it out immediately! Given the complexity of terrain in a typical level, often I can't know if a builder or miner can get from A to B without sending a lemming there and looking at the skill shadow, and that's fine; that's an expected part of the gameplay. I do not expect to have to send lemmings to scout the level to look for hidden objects, because that's not part of usual NL gameplay. I will play levels with the expectation that there are no hidden objects, not because that's inherently better or worse, but because that is how I have been trained by NL culture.

I understand and appreciate the sheer mental prowess of being able to solve a level in your head without actually doing anything

Okay, you weren't here and you don't know, but still. A while back, we had exactly this discussion with Strato Incendus when he was new. We tried, patiently, to explain why we object to hidden traps. He responded with exactly the same straw man, twisting everything we said into "Oh, you think you should be able to solve a level before playing it." No, we do not. I'm sorry, I'm now feeling extra frustrated, because I'm having to spend more time going over the same arguments again and trying really hard to make them clear, and it's not entirely your fault, because you didn't know about the earlier discussion. I hope you understand that I don't feel any personal grievance towards you, and I'm really glad that you've joined and are already making great contributions to the community. Let's leave hidden traps in the past, though

[Strato Incendus]

Given that I basically got kicked out of another forum for "discussion-disturbing behaviour" for pointing out when people would use straw men - even though that is by definition a criticism of the argument a person makes and not of the person themselves - I feel the need to respond .

I can understand Proxima here, because this "getting tired of having to deal with the same twisted arguments over and over again" was precisely what also led me to point out straw men in that other forum in the first place.

So first of all, I wanna say I'm happy people here seem to already be familiar with the general concept of what a straw man is, rather than calling somebody a know-it-all for merely introducing it to them.

If all the player wants to do is solve the level without actually going for it and trying anything out, why have the game animated at all?

Strato's straw man rears its ugly head again. No-one, I repeat no-one, has said this.

Proxima is right that no-one explicitly said this, but this is the premise that people acted upon. Let me point you to the thread of my very first pack (Old-Formats only), Paralems.

The discussion arose because several people reported problems in terms of the supposed impossibility to solve my level "Skies aflame" (Disgusting rank, level 10), which also appears on the Encore rank of Lemmings World Tour.

Specifically, they were unaware that the lemmings on that level were pre-assigned Swimmers right out of the hatch. Note that there was no automatic hatch labeling in Old Formats when it came to pre-assigned skills; instead, people would use Pickup Skills (sometimes set to "fake", sometimes covered by steel, both to prevent these pickups from actually being collectible) to label their hatches. While this is certainly convenient, I still don't consider it necessary to this day.

This practice became particularly absurd when a) it was applied to pre-placed single lemmings (some level designers would put Pickup Skills onto the terrain below or above those pre-placed lemmings as "labels"; New Formats automatically shows the symbols above a pre-placed lemming's head at the beginning of a level); and b) when you had multiple hatches overlapping to effectively produce one hatch releasing different types of lemmings. My levels "Beware of collectivism" from Pit Lems and "Born this way" from Lemmings World Tour were kind of a response to this discussion, in order to demonstrate that absurdity.

So far, I haven't seen any general consensus yet that overlapping hatches would be considered unfair, btw. For example, they're also frequently used to successively release lemmings facing to the left and to the right. In New Formats, this can be identified by the arrow above the hatch pointing in both directions. When it comes to different pre-assigned skills coming out of the same hatch, though, the Old-Formats labeling tradition was actually more convenient, because it allowed you to place the pickup skills next to each other. In New Formats, skill labels will only be placed next to each other if you have athletes (=with more than one permanent skill) coming out of the same hatch; however, if you have one hatch with Climbers and one hatch with Floaters overlapping, the labels will also overlap, making them hard to identify.

Anyways, people believed this level with pre-assigned Swimmers could not be solved "just from looking at it". It didn't occur to me how anyone could come to this conclusion, partly because I didn't know about the tradition of hatch labeling, but also because I didn't consider it necessary, given that you would see those lemmings are Swimmers as soon as the first one gets released from the hatch.

Here are the specific quotes:

Also, I believe Disgusting 10 is impossible just looking at it. I even used clear physics mode to see if there were hidden exits which there weren't.

I also thought Disgusting 10 was impossible just from looking... And then I started it and saw that all the Lemmings were swimmers.

3) Do you have a working replay for "Skies aflame" (Disgusting 10)? As far as I can tell the hatch and the exit are completely separated by the steel wall and the fire trigger areas on the top.

Are you sure all of those are fire areas?

(Explanation: "Skies aflame" is a fire level; Nepster apparently forgot that the lava in the orig_fire tileset is regular water. This was nothing I changed about the level! )

Ok, this is a perfect example why markes above exits with preassigned skills are so useful. I paused before the first lemming appeared and then decided the level is impossible due to the missing swimmers.

Note: Nepster wrote "exit" here when he probably meant "hatch", because exits can't have preassigned skills. But he mixed up those two terms in that same thread elsewhere again, when he spoke of lemmings going "into a hatch" (which is impossible). I think he maybe regarded the hatches as "exits" from which lemmings are released into a level, but I doubt most other users would resort to this terminology.

Skies aflame: You are absolutely correct, but I have the tendency to pause even before the first lemmings appears and to plan my route...

Here you can clearly see people giving up on the level before they have even attempted the execution. More than that, they actively reported this to me as an "error" or "impossible level" before even trying (when I had made sure all my levels were solvable and had saved replays for every single one of them to prove it).

This level "Skies aflame" exposed that because it's literally impossible to overlook the relevant information as soon as you start the level for the first time. You can only fall victim to that confusion if you have never even once allowed a single lemming to leave the hatch.

That's what I mean by "people acted upon" the premise that it should be possible to solve the entire level in their head first before even attempting it in practice.

This was my response:

It's quite baffling to me that people claim a level were impossible even before they have actually tried to play it ^^. And no, calculating through everything in your head might be "trying to solve it", but not "trying to play it". Even pure puzzle levels often require some trial and error, e.g. because a player can easily under- or overestimate the length of a builder / platformer, or the angle of a miner / fencer, or just the time a lemming needs to get somewhere. Even some of Nepster's levels, which I would consider the epitome of "puzzly", have such timing challenges involved. How would you be supposed to solve these types of levels just by thinking through everything in your head?

In contrast, me personally, I would never go as far as accusing someone of having made an impossible level without at least having tried a couple of things by clicking through them. If the solution doesn't work out in my head, I usually tend to think I'm too stupid to mentally crack the levels of more experienced players / level designers, and decide to just give it a go by trying some stuff.

Nobody accused me of having misrepresented their position back then (Proxima was also in the thread, he didn't do so either). And looking over that discussion again now, I fail to see how I was strawmanning anyone here? When several people provably felt "entitled" enough to a completely pre-level-start cognitive solution that they would report a level as impossible before even having made a single practical attempt?

I will acknowledge though that this philosophy may have changed in the meantime, because one of the strongest proponents of "strictly-fair puzzle philosophy" - that is Nepster - is currently no longer active in the forums.


The other issue regarding hidden traps was really more about to what extent traps can be considered "hidden". Specifically, Paralems got (in-)famous for animal traps, i.e. "hiding" traps behind terrain shaped like animals. Meaning, from a purely game-mechanical perspective, those traps would count as hidden, but flavour-wise, it's completely obvious where the traps are.

I do like how you put the traps behind the creatures. It just looks neat, even though there are some who I know will hate this.

nin10doadict then actually went on to employ this trap design on one of his levels himself ("Super Mecha Death Gators" from CasuaLemmings). But he made sure to credit me for the general idea within the landscape of that level!

[namida]

So far, I haven't seen any general consensus yet that overlapping hatches would be considered unfair, btw. For example, they're also frequently used to successively release lemmings facing to the left and to the right. In New Formats, this can be identified by the arrow above the hatch pointing in both directions. When it comes to different pre-assigned skills coming out of the same hatch, though, the Old-Formats labeling tradition was actually more convenient, because it allowed you to place the pickup skills next to each other. In New Formats, skill labels will only be placed next to each other if you have athletes (=with more than one permanent skill) coming out of the same hatch; however, if you have one hatch with Climbers and one hatch with Floaters overlapping, the labels will also overlap, making them hard to identify.

Personally - I would say, if it's done so that the spawn order is different from expected, it's misleading - whether this is a mild case ("mimic the DOS spawn order on a 2/3-entrance level instead of using NL's"), a moderate one ("only one lemming comes out of this entrance, the rest come from another"), or an extreme one ("it's completely random and all-over-the-place!"). This is in particular because there's nothing to even hint to the player that something's going on.

On the other hand, when it's done for alternate directions, the overlapping direction indicators make this fairly noticable. Likewise for different permanent skills - the player might need to let a few lemmings spawn to be able to tell what they are, but the jumbled overlap at least draws attention to that this is going on, and thus immediately is aware they need to investigate what skills (and in what order) spawn from it; they're not suddenly being thrown off when they expected a normal A-B-C-A-B-C spawning but almost all the lemmings are coming out of one entrance instead.

For the same reason - I would say the Swimmer example in the above post counts as "unfair design" back in old-formats where no indication was given. And thus, in new-formats, where it would be clearly marked as spawning Swimmers, the exact same design would no longer be unfair.

[Crane]

One thing I will say... by it's very definition, a backroute is not intentional. A teleporter could be used in place of a wall or a trap, but outside of troll levels, you shouldn't be doing unfair things like hiding traps in walls (where a steel plate would suffice).

[Strato Incendus]

For the same reason - I would say the Swimmer example in the above post counts as "unfair design" back in old-formats where no indication was given. And thus, in new-formats, where it would be clearly marked as spawning Swimmers, the exact same design would no longer be unfair.

I actually did add the labeling pickup skill to the version of that same level that is included in Old-Formats Lemmings World Tour . In New Formats, as you said, this is no longer necessary - and since fake objects aren't a thing anymore either, using fake pickups as labels (where the context makes it obvious that they aren't intended to be picked up) isn't even possible anymore - you can only place actual pickups above the hatch, which might in turn lead to new backroutes again.

"Beware of collectivism" in Pit Lems did not feature hatch labeling, precisely because that level was supposed to point out the conundrum of hatch labeling when it came to overlapping / different-athletes-from-the-same-hatch entrances.

In contrast, for "Born this way" in Lemmings World Tour, I did attach labeling pickup skills to the hatch in Old Formats - and placed them in the order of release from left to right (Swimmer, Glider, Floater, Climber). But that's still ambiguous: Labels placed next to each other could either mean that all lemmings in that hatch have those skills, or that you have different hatches from which lemmings of only one skill type each are released. In this case, the context should made it clear, because no lemming can be a Glider and a Floater at the same time. But with any other combination, say, Swimmer, Glider, Climber, Disarmer, this pattern of hatch labeling could just as easily mean that all lemmings coming out of said hatch are X-Athletes.

[WillLem]

Please allow me to begin this post by saying that my argument here is with the point of view, not the people. You're all lovely and I'm glad to be talking this through with you.

Putting on CPM and spending a minute or two scouring the level for hidden information is not enjoyable.

That's why I almost never use it, and much prefer to play the level and see what happens!

But once you start hiding traps, the player is going to feel they have to do this on every level. See comment above about wasting the player's time.

Agreed; I wouldn't want people to feel they have to check every one of my levels over in CPM before playing it. But then, I also wish people didn't mind encountering the occasional hidden object so much.

EDIT - I'd probably say that 1 level per rank with a gimmicky idea/hidden object is acceptable. Any more than that and even I would get tired of it. Unless it's a concept pack of all-gimmick levels, of course.

Exploration and discovery are great, but they don't belong in NL, which is a narrowly focused puzzle game.

Wow, really? I think we'll just have to agree to disagree here: I see way more in NeoLemmix than it just being a puzzle game.

NeoLemmix has developed far beyond the original Lemmings in many ways, no doubt about it. However, the game from which it evolved has that explore & discover mentality as well as being a picture-puzzle game. It would be very sad for it to completely lose that element of gameplay.

Strato's straw man rears its ugly head again. No-one, I repeat no-one, has said this.

Accusing me of straw manning isn't really fair. There have been very strong implications in a number of posts that certain players prefer to be able to solve a level in their head before actually playing it. I'm not inclined to scour past posts to find such examples, but this is the impression that I've gained from what has been said by various people. The fact it's been an issue in the past would indicate that I may not be entirely incorrect in reaching this conclusion, although it may not have explicitly been said.

I do not expect to have to send lemmings to scout the level to look for hidden objects, because that's not part of usual NL gameplay. I will play levels with the expectation that there are no hidden objects, not because that's inherently better or worse, but because that is how I have been trained by NL culture.

Training one way of playing a game doesn't preclude any other way of playing that game. Look at Monopoly rules: I don't think any two sets of people play it exactly the same way! Also, again - CPM removes the need to scout an entire level for hidden objects, although I am definitely in agreement that a player shouldn't have to use it every time. Ideally, this wouldn't need to happen anyway; hidden objects would just be encountered and then dealt with as part of one of level's natural routes (as they were in original Lemmings).

I hope you understand that I don't feel any personal grievance towards you, and I'm really glad that you've joined and are already making great contributions to the community.

Thank you. I'm glad about this and I too have no personal grievances with anyone here, least of all yourself: you've already done a lot to help me out and you're always patient enough to respond to my posts, for which I'm grateful. As I've said before, I'm happy to be part of such a great community for one of my favourite all-time video games.

My issue here is with the viewpoint. I just disagree that hidden objects are always bad. Unfortunately for me, this is not currently a popular perspective on the forum and I'm having to edit my levels and curb my creative tendencies to suit others' preferences; I'm fine with this because ultimately I do want people to enjoy my packs and I don't want to be seen as an unnecessary troublemaker, but it would be good to understand the reasons I'm making such sacrifices.

So far, the main reason that seems to be forthcoming is (and I'm paraphrasing from various sources): "hidden objects are always misleading, unfair and have no place in the game." And OK, I can live with that viewpoint - but I don't agree. Sometimes hidden objects can be a fun, exciting and novel way to spice up a game; as long they aren't used excessively and they're carefully referred to by the title, or by the level's design.

All of this being said: there was a time when even NeoLemmix had invisible terrain, wrap, fake exits, and all sorts of other gimmicks: these wouldn't have featured at all if certain players didn't enjoy such elements. The "fair puzzle" mentality has prevailed, and so the other elements of the game have gradually been phased out by natural selection. I'm a bit late to the party, it would seem, so I'm having to get used to this.

Something tells me that I won't be the last though.

[Proxima]

NeoLemmix has developed far beyond the original Lemmings in many ways, no doubt about it. However, the game from which it evolved has that explore & discover mentality as well as being a picture-puzzle game. It would be very sad for it to completely lose that element of gameplay.

I wouldn't even describe original Lemmings as having an "explore & discover mentality". The phrase brings to mind games like Super Mario Bros and Hollow Knight, where exploration is encouraged by finding good hidden things -- fun powerups, health refills, shortcuts that let you skip difficult sections, and so on. In Lemmings, the only good thing that's hidden is the exit on two levels -- and Lost something? hides it so obviously that it might as well not be hidden at all, while in X Marks the Spot most players will go for the visible exit instead of spending time looking for a hidden one (even with the hint in the title).

It's true that original Lemmings encourages the player to leave the game unpaused and deal with obstacles as they arise instead of planning ahead. (In at least the Mac version, the manual doesn't even bother telling you that P pauses the game!) Most levels have plenty of excess skills so that you can get out of an unanticipated situation -- even a level as hard as Save Me has more skills than you need.

Over time (starting even in the days before NeoLemmix) the community found lots of interesting ideas for puzzles in the Lemmings level space. Excess skills were often a source of backroutes, and it became the norm for harder levels to trim the skillset to the skills actually needed by the solution -- even when we were using engines like Cheapo and CustLemm that don't have NeoLemmix's fine control features. The advent of framestepping made excess skills even less needed.

Given this, and the sheer difficulty of most community content, pausing and planning ahead feels like a natural consequence. I dare say it will become part of your playstyle too when you get on to more difficult packs

On a side note: I have no idea what you mean by "picture puzzle" as opposed to just puzzle. It seems to be a somewhat derogatory term. I'm sure that for most of the long-timers here, the reason we've stuck around so long and are still enjoying the game is that we love solving puzzles, and the itchy feeling of being stuck followed by the immense satisfaction of seeing a solution fit together; and NeoLemmix satisfies our desire for more of that feeling in a way that few other games can. When we want other feelings (such as the joy of exploring a world), there are other games for that.

Accusing me of straw manning isn't really fair. There have been very strong implications in a number of posts that certain players prefer to be able to solve a level in their head before actually playing it.

Fair enough; I apologise for using such a loaded word. I still think you are wrong: I don't believe anyone here prefers to solve levels before playing them. I think you are just reading this implication into posts that are trying to say something different: we normally start trying to solve a level as soon as we see it, and we expect levels to facilitate this by being honest about what their puzzle actually is.

All of this being said: there was a time when even NeoLemmix had invisible terrain, wrap, fake exits, and all sorts of other gimmicks: these wouldn't have featured at all if certain players didn't enjoy such elements.

Gimmicks were added when NeoLemmix was namida's solo effort, and the community had zero input into what features were included or not. Invisible terrain (in the sense of terrain the same colour as the background) is supported by the original game, and remained supported by inertia until we took efforts to actively exclude it.

[ccexplore]

All of this being said: there was a time when even NeoLemmix had invisible terrain, wrap, fake exits, and all sorts of other gimmicks: these wouldn't have featured at all if certain players didn't enjoy such elements.

Earlier development of NeoLemmix is not quite as community-focused as it is today.  Features are added based mainly on the whims of whoever's programming the game.  Things are featured more because the person updating NeoLemmix thinks it might be cool.  You could technically say that the person who added the feature is a player who would enjoy it, although it might be less "enjoy" than simply "it seems cool at the time".

Really as far as the original Lemmings games go, the only gimmick that's commonly used is hidden traps.  And that gimmick always loses its power immediately once the player reached that part of level.  If you ask people to pick their favorite levels from those games, in no cases will a level be picked because it features lots of gimmicks.  Presence of gimmicks is either a non-factor for favoriting the level, or for some people, actually a detractor that lessens enjoyment.

For current versions of NeoLemmix, just assume that the player will always start off examining the level in clear physics mode or even directly in the level editor.  Keep that in mind when the temptation arises to throw in a gimmick.

[ccexplore]

owever, the game from which it evolved has that explore & discover mentality as well as being a picture-puzzle game.

I actually don't agree at all that the original games have much emphasis on "explore & discover", though i guess it depends on what you mean exactly by that.  Sure, you may be encouraged to not use pausing so much and try to just wing it to solve a level.  But that's just "exploring" in the sense of trying different ideas in the course of solving a level.  And it's just a possible strategy for level solving, just as careful planning ahead is another strategy.

The one thing that to me makes Lemmings games less exploratory is, you can scroll and see any parts of the level right from the start!  At least games like Mario don't let you do that, you have to actually first move your character to some part of the level in order to see it.  That makes those games a lot more "explore & discover" compared to Lemmings.  It would've also been easy for the Lemmings game developers to, say, add hidden/buried coins and treasures and what-not scattered throughout the level that you can uncover to increase your score or something, and that could've easily add a much more exploratory aspect to Lemmings games.  But over the entire course of the franchise, not a single Lemmings game has done anything like that.

[WillLem]

Plenty of reasons why I'm wrong so far: anyone agree with what I'm saying?

On a side note: I have no idea what you mean by "picture puzzle" as opposed to just puzzle. It seems to be a somewhat derogatory term.

Have a look at this topic for a more detailed explanation of what I mean by "picture puzzle". It's not intended as a derogatory term at all, just simply a distinction from being a puzzle video game.

I'm sure that for most of the long-timers here, the reason we've stuck around so long and are still enjoying the game is that we love solving puzzles, and the itchy feeling of being stuck followed by the immense satisfaction of seeing a solution fit together; and NeoLemmix satisfies our desire for more of that feeling in a way that few other games can. When we want other feelings (such as the joy of exploring a world), there are other games for that.

There's nothing quite like a "long-timer" for dismissing alternative points of view.

The satisfaction of solving puzzles isn't the only benefit to a game like Lemmings, particularly as it was originally designed.

I guess my "agenda" here, if I have one, is that I don't want to see video game tropes like beating your best time or optimizing a solution or simply being able to manage the mayhem of the original levels to completely disappear from the game. There are ways to keep these elements in there for those that enjoy them. That's all I'm saying.

[Strato Incendus]

Wow, really? I think we'll just have to agree to disagree here: I see way more in NeoLemmix than it just being a puzzle game.

I get it - but somehow there usually only seems to be one person at a time who sees it that way . It used to be me a couple of years ago. Now it's you.

NeoLemmix has developed far beyond the original Lemmings in many ways, no doubt about it. However, the game from which it evolved has that explore & discover mentality as well as being a picture-puzzle game.

It would be very sad for it to completely lose that element of gameplay.

I think it already has lost it. Not because it wouldn't be possible to create such levels - as you've demonstrated, you clearly can - but simply because there is no market for such levels.

I get why you're upset about one specific level-design philosophy prevailing. I was as well, and sometimes still am. But the problem is not so much the philosophy itself, and it's prevalence is also just a symptom.

The actual problem is the small size of our community. In games with larger fanbases, there is usually "enough space for everyone to enjoy the game their own way". Say, for example, there are a bunch of different ways and formats to play Magic: The Gathering, and everyone can enjoy a different one. That's because the game has an active player base of several million people - this forum, in contrast, has not even yet cracked 1,000 visitors ever.

Now, this is not meant as "we're this small, sworn-in community who have agreed on these rules, so you must abide by our 'laws'!" , quite the opposite. It simply means that the target audience for any custom lemmings pack is very small already from the getgo. Given how much time and effort it takes to create any level pack, you probably don't want to chase away the few "custom-level customers" that are available. And as you acknowledged yourself, this has already started affecting your level design:

I'm having to edit my levels and curb my creative tendencies to suit others' preferences; I'm fine with this because ultimately I do want people to enjoy my packs and I don't want to be seen as an unnecessary troublemaker

While you're of course still free to design your levels in whatever way you please, if you include a lot of unpopular elements, it will simply lead to fewer people playing those levels, and eventually maybe even your packs as a whole - and there aren't even that many people around here to begin with. Look at the view counts the Let's Play videos get, those usually remain under 200 for their entire lifetime.

but it would be good to understand the reasons I'm making such sacrifices.

Sure, I'll happily try outline what I can identify as "reasons" in terms of "rational arguments" that go beyond mere personal taste - because if a majority of forum members just say that they have a personal preference for "strict puzzles", that personal taste is hard to argue with.

First of all...

Features are added based mainly on the whims of whoever's programming the game.

Yep, and features were also removed mainly on the whims of whoever was programming the game .

Currently, we see namida putting in a lot of effort to add more features to the game in very short time spans, which I greatly applaud! However, there was also a time when namida wasn't active in the further development of NeoLemmix, and a different user and moderator named Nepster was the "lead developer" of NeoLemmix.

Especially during the time of transitioning from Old Formats to New Formats (text-based), Nepster went on what is now sometimes infamously referred to as the "Culling Frenzy", where he tried to use the opportunity of format transition to get rid of a lot of stuff that the community had barely used or that the majority didn't like. And then, there were also some features he proposed to "cull" even though there wasn't really a reason to.

A short and subjectively-biased history of that era, to the best of my memory (click to show/hide)

For example:

• Nepster was the driving force behind the abolishment of anti-splat pads, arguing that in most cases, their effect is indistinguishable from that of updrafts (=landing on terrain inside an updraft). The main difference is obviously that lemmings can fall through an anti-splat pad that has no terrain inside it and still splat beneath it, whereas falling through an updraft resets the fall height. This can be used for puzzles, albeit it wasn't done frequently.
• Nepster initiated the removal of Slowfreeze objects and was willing to keep Radiation around as a compromise, because it had been used more frequently. I personally enjoyed both Radiation and Slowfreeze, and even though many people disliked the execution difficulty that came with them, I had actively been working towards better and fairer level design involving these objects that reduced the execution difficulty. Eventually, when it was clear that Slowfreeze wouldn't survive the formats change, I argued for removing Radiation as well, because both were really two sides of the same coin (objects that turned lemmings into Bombers / Stoners with a countdown like in original lemmings, with that countdown starting at 9 rather than 5). It didn't make sense to have one but not the other. As such, there was never a version of New Formats that included Radiation but not Slowfreeze; both objects never even made it to New Formats in the first place.
• Nepster proposed to abolish the option of flipping teleporters or receivers. The argument was that you couldn't tell in which a lemming would be facing when coming out of the receiver, because if you flip either of those two objects, the lemming will be turned around by the teleport, whereas otherwise, he will walk into the same direction as before. This was something that IchoTolot objected to heavily, because he had made use of this quite a bit in his levels.
• At one point Nepster even suggested to remove the Disarmer skill, because it was barely being used. This idea however received enough resistance quickly enough to be discarded, even though the Disarmer probably remains the least popular skill.

The main cause of all those heated arguments around the time of the Culling Frenzy was that Nepster had explicitly stated a certain lack of respect for existing content. (I think he literally said at one point: "Existing levels are irrelevant.") In other words, even if a feature was being used, if it just wasn't used frequently enough, he proposed culling it despite the damage it would have caused to existing content, with the supposed goal of simplifying the game for new players by giving them fewer new features to worry about and memorize.

This was kind of easy to say for him, though, because his own packs - NepsterLems and Return of the Tribes - largely or even exclusively stick to the classic 8 skills and adhere to this strictly-fair puzzle philosophy . Therefore, at some point we were joking that eventually, anything that wasn't part of classic lemmings could potentially get the axe some day.

To this day, I have never understood the benefit of removing features from NeoLemmix, because new players could always be pointed to the Introduction pack, or to packs sticking to classical skills, to make sure they wouldn't get overwhelmed.

Let me be absolutely clear here that, as critically as I've summarised this debate from my point of view, I don't want to throw shade at Nepster. I admire the work and effort he put in to get NeoLemmix from Old Formats to New Formats, and to maintain the game for everyone, even at times when basically nobody else was doing it and he had to do all the work (or so it seemed to me, I don't know to what extent namida was active behind the scenes? ). And his level packs continue to be held in high regard by practically everyone here on the forums.

It was simply a natural consequence of him being the sole programmer at that time that all the power over the game resided with him. I'm not saying he "abused" that power, not at all, he did ask for community opinion on most of the decisions he made. But if he, as the guy who had to program all this stuff at the end of the day, decided a certain, less-frequently-used feature wasn't worth the time and effort for him - next to all the programming work the "standard stuff" already took, to just get the game to work in the first place - then of course nobody could force him to spend even more of his free time on adding / keeping a feature in NeoLemmix that he considered pointless.

Therefore, I think it's fair to say that Nepster's personal level design philosophy certainly had at least quite some influence on the early development of New-Formats Neo Lemmix. Meaning, the "strictly-fair puzzles only" mentality, at least in my view, became even stronger after the transition from Old Formats to New Formats. In Old Formats, you still had all kinds of troll features, like manual steel, invisible and fake objects etc. that could potentially be exploited to create unfair levels, even though few people actually did so. New Formats, in contrast, was trying to be "clean and serious", and at that time, to me this equated "no fun allowed!"

This was one of the reasons why I "rebelled" and stuck to Old Formats for a while (meaning "I literally created the largest level pack in existence for the 'outdated' version 10.13" ), because I simply did not see myself represented in any way by the early New-Formats version, nor by the philosophy it had been created upon.

This was before the introduction of the Shimmier, you need to know - so basically, early New Formats did nothing that late Old Formats couldn't do; in fact, it did less (no Radiation, Slowfreeze, or Anti-Splat Pads). In exchange for a couple more new exclusive tilesets. I always knew I would transition to New Formats at the latest once the Shimmier was introduced. We also got Neutral lemmings, limited-number hatches and exits and many more nice things in the meantime.

But of course, eventually, peer pressure was also a factor, as you are experiencing it now, that made me switch to New Formats for good. And by peer pressure, I don't mean "threats of being ostracized" or similar , but simply "fewer people playing my packs". At some point, I was convinced nobody was playing Old-Formats Lemmings World Tour (except for the Groupie rank, which sparked quite some interest, as I had hoped for ). People were happily watching Arty play it, because, well's, he's just so entertaining to watch doing that . But I didn't really receive a lot of replays from anyone else until I converted the pack to New Formats, thus incentivising IchoTolot to give it a try.



Eventually, namida took over NeoLemmix development again, and for example brought back the anti-splat pads that Nepster had removed. This was a very welcome and positive move for me, because until then, people had always assured me that anything that had been removed once was unlikely to be brought back ever again.

This anticipation of losing everything that got removed for good was also one of the reasons why many of us fought against the Culling Frenzy as hard as we did. At first, many people were apathetic and indifferent to culls as long as they affected features they had never used themselves (like Slowfreeze, for example). But of course, the more features were supposed to go on the chopping block, the more this piled up, like a snowball effect.

I hope Nepster's inactivity in the forum has nothing to do with the resistance some of us (including myself) presented to him back then, because again, as has been established by other users in this thread as well, this was never about personal attacks - just about not wanting to lose so many of our "toys" at once. And it's a difference whether somebody says "let's put this toy in the closet for a while because nobody is playing with it, and it does more harm than good" (=cull with the option of re-adding it later), vs. "let's throw this toy in the trash compactor forever, and even if some people are currently still playing with it, I don't care."



But enough of that history - I also want to address your current level-design philosophy. And it's probably easiest to do so in comparison to mine in my early days, because, as Proxima has pointed out, some of the arguments you are putting forth now are the same I used back then.

And no, even though I certainly evolved as a player and level designer, I haven't completely discarded the "What was fine in original lemmings should be fine in NeoLemmix" mentality that WillLem holds . So I'm by no means his "enemy" here.

And OK, I can live with that viewpoint - but I don't agree. Sometimes hidden objects can be a fun, exciting and novel way to spice up a game; as long they aren't used excessively and they're carefully referred to by the title, or by the level's design.

One general principle that I see coming up again and again when it comes to any type of content creator - be it Lemmings levels, music, videos on YouTube etc. - is the statement: "Make content that you yourself would enjoy to consume."

Now, you might say "Well, duh, the levels I make are precisely the type of content I enjoy, that's why I'm desiging them this way!" But with Lemmings levels, it's a special case because there is a solution to be discovered - a solution that is known to you, the level designer, but unknown to the player.

Hence, enjoying something as a level designer, even when playtesting your own level, is not actually the same thing as enjoying it as a player.

I know you have good old NeoLemmix 1.43 installed, since you've played a bit of my pack "Lemmicks". I suggest you go to the "Levels for v10 or older" subforum and scroll back quite a few pages until you find GigaLems. This is also just for 1.43 (doesn't actually run even in 10.13, the latest Old-Formats version). Meaning, you won't have Clear Physics Mode. But you will have a bunch of hidden traps and other troll design choices, such as the Marble exit being covered by bricks, which you also used yourself on some of your levels.

Just give it a try and see for yourself how you enjoy it when somebody else is doing this to you in a level for which you don't know the solution. And if you do enjoy it in the context of this specific pack, go on to ask yourself what it would look like if more packs were actually designed like this.

Again, not meant to throw shade at GigaLem - this particular pack just happens to be the one that you made famous in that one SEB Lems episode with Arty, in which you mentioned that you managed to make IchoTolot ragequit.


Now, obviously, I have created my fair share of "misleading" levels as well. Mostly in my first pack, Paralems.

I think I have outlined in the appropriate thread how your first pack was both better and worse than my first one:

On the one hand, you managed to create much more challenging puzzles than I did back in the day - many of the levels in Paralems that I consider "bad" now aren't bad because they're unfair; they're simply way too easy for anyone who has been playing NeoLemmix for a while. Because they were designed to be more like original Lemmings, and as Proxima has pointed out, those levels usually gave you far too many skills to be conceptually challenging - the challenge arose from the execution, if at all.

On the other hand, you took the misleading elements, as well as the execution difficulty, to way greater extremes in your first pack than I did.

Basically, Paralems was "misleading" in the sense that it broke with some conventions regarding hidden objects. But it established its own rules to go by instead; it didn't just pull a random surprise to trick the player. Basically, those rules could be summarised as:

- Any animal you see in Paralems is hungry for Lemmings. This is epitomised in the penultimate level, "IT'S FEEDING TIME!" Whether it's a trap to begin with, like the Rock Chameleon, or whether it's actually terrain, like the L2 Highland Nessy, you can be damn sure it's going to eat your lemmings in the context of this pack. Once you know this - and I clearly stated it in the thread where I uploaded the pack - none of these animal traps should be considered "hidden traps" any longer. (I do remember one genuinely hidden trap in the third-to-last level "Dark fate of Atlantis", but I think that was already the worst offender.)
- Most hidden exits had their position implied by flavour and context. For example, there was a Medieval level where the exit was hidden behind the castle gate terrain, then there was a Space level where it was hidden inside the UFO at the opposite end of the level.
- Admittedly, when I used tilesets that featured traps that had been deliberately designed to be difficult to identify as traps - like the Retractable Boulder trap from the Dirt tileset, or the falling leaves from namida's Tree tileset - I didn't go out of my way to make those traps more visible. Because that was usually only possible by making them stick out like a sore thumb (e.g. not connected to any body of terrain at all). I have always put aesthetics over strict game fairness in that regard, and thus, I basically put the blame for these "invisible" traps on the designer of the graphic set, who had created these deliberately hard-to-see traps in the first place.
- There was one troll level towards the end of the pack that was clearly labelled as such. It's called "Trust No 1" and it even has a pre-level-text disclaimer that tells the player that nothing on this level is as it seems. Thus, even this doesn't come out of nowhere.
- Then there's the level "Break My Fall" from the Demented rank in Paralems.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This level has a splat pad right under the hatch, and an anti-splat pad hidden in the terrain right below. A single Bomber is enough to uncover it, and there isn't much other stuff you can try in this level, because it's right at the beginning. Still, this is genuinely hidden information. I simply didn't know back then how else to do it, and the anti-splat pad actually had to be in the ground in order to be uncovered by the Bomber first.

I explained this to Nepster, and he actually complimented me on that level and said something along the lines of, "Yes, I know, sometimes a bit of unfairness is unavoidable."

So funnily enough, it seems like even none of the experienced forum members remembered that I could simply untick the "no-overwrite" box for that anti-splat pad, so that it would get displayed in front of the terrain it was buried in, i.e. visible. I only discovered this for myself when creating my next pack, Pit Lems - and consequently used it "fairly" on the levels "The long way down / Controlled overload".

Since Paralems is Old-Formats only and therefore probably no one is playing it anymore, I haven't actually gone back to make that anti-splat pad visible on the level "Break my fall". But I am going to make this level part of Pit Lems remastered, i.e. the extended, New-Formats version of Pit Lems. And that version, of course, is going to feature such a visible anti-splad pad inside the terrain.

In short, I rarely went out of my way to actively trick the player with a "ha, gotcha!" move. Most of the objects hidden in Paralems, and even still in Lemmings World Tour to some extent (hello octopus! ) were hidden for aesthetic reasons, not to "subvert player expectations". (I'm deliberately using that term to showcase how you're basically pulling a Last Jedi on the player if you go for too many of those nasty surprises ). I established that the player would have to resort to flavour-based common sense ("Animals can eat lemmings.") over just strictly mechanics-based knowledge ("L2 Highland Nessy is always terrain, not a trap.") to beat Paralems.

In contrast, I never employed things like e.g. the brick-covered Marble exit. That caught me completely off-guard the first time I saw it in GigaLems.



In closing, to the newest post you just wrote:

There are ways to keep these elements in there for those that enjoy them. That's all I'm saying.

Going back to the "supply-and-demand" thing I pointed out in the beginning: Eventually, you will find that the problem is not people trying to persuade you to change your level design - they can't force you, and it's not like the moderators delete packs either that don't conform to the established NeoLemmix design philosophy (that was my initial fear when I was new here! ).

Instead, once you discover that "those that enjoy those elements" are simply very few in number, within a group that's already small in numbers, you might just decide for yourself that actively putting such elements into your packs might simply not be worth your time and effort.

I remember for example how you told us how much time you spent on placing all the hatches on your level "You have to be kidding me!" exactly right for your intended pixel-precision solution. Isn't it a shame that you put in all of this effort, just for most people who see the level to go "nah, I'll skip that one" at first sight?

Sure, for that you could accuse them of being "lazy" and giving up to easily. But that would be like Disney complaining that Star Wars fans are no longer willing to show up in the same numbers as they used to in order to pay for a product that is only Star Wars in the name by now, but doesn't offer the content they expect under that name. It's like that old "New Coke replacing Coca Cola" story: When you target the NeoLemmix audience, they will expect and go for NeoLemmix-philosophy content, and leave the rest on the table.

Just like they can't force you to change your design philosophy, you ultimately can't force them to play your levels, even though it's obvious to everyone how much effort you put into every single one of them.



TL;DR: I have repeatedly called myself the "libertarian voice" here on the forums, meaning I objected to those few measures I considered "authoritarian" (like features getting culled, or people e.g. locking the thread for level packs in Old Formats so that no new content for Old Formats could be posted - this was quickly reversed after my complaint, though ). Instead I always argued that the "free market of ideas" would solve these issues. And as I predicted, this basically boils down to: You should always be allowed to make unpopular design choices, but it will simply result in fewer people playing your packs.

[Proxima]

The actual problem is the small size of our community.

It's not just that. The real root of the problem is that one game can't be everything. You can't have framestepping and still have execution difficulty. You can't have skill shadows and still have levels that test precision placement. Yes, if the community were larger, then maybe an engine more similar to original Lemmings could exist harmoniously alongside NeoLemmix -- although I don't think that would be likely to happen. Sure, overcoming the challenge of execution difficulty and precision placement is satisfying in its own right; I've never denied that. But there are thousands of other games out there that tickle that urge. Lemmings would be forgotten today if not for its puzzle aspect, because that is what is truly unique about it.

[Dullstar]

Hidden objects are rarely, if ever, a good design choice. In a well designed level, in any game that isn't based on dealing with RNG, the player loses because they did something wrong. In NeoLemmix, you fail to solve the level because you didn't solve it correctly. This still applies if you want execution difficulty. Celeste is a game that's all about execution difficulty. In that game, when you die, it's because you messed up and missed a jump or something. Hidden objects take solutions that should have worked and make them fail - so the player can do everything correctly and still fail. That's not really fun. So hidden objects tend to ruin levels.

[WillLem]

Wow, Strato! Thank you for your post, that was a very good read and has brought me up to speed with some important forum history.

Even before reading this, I was aware of how small the community is and how important it would therefore be to "get with the program", so to speak.

My naturally rebellious tendencies (which have only very rarely done me any good!) are taking a bit of a pummelling at the hands of this community, but that's probably a good thing: on a personal note, it's about time I learned to truly take on board other people's points of view, even if it means compromising my own ideas and creative energies; I am grateful of the opportunity to learn a valuable lesson.

To respond more specifically to some of the things you've said:

Currently, we see namida putting in a lot of effort to add more features to the game in very short time spans, which I greatly applaud!

Agreed: I couldn't be more grateful for Namida's efforts at maintaing NeoLemmix. I originally discovered this community via my playing of Lemmings on SuperLemmini, but have officially become a NeoLemmix convert as a result of the sheer extent of its conveniences, features and the community surrounding it.

Hence, enjoying something as a level designer, even when playtesting your own level, is not actually the same thing as enjoying it as a player.

Indeed; I'm currently really enjoying GeoffLems and Lemmings Plus I, both of which are far more like classic Lemmings, and are far more "fair-puzzles-only" in their interpretation of the game. To be honest, both are easier packs to enjoy than GigaLems or Lemmicks; mainly for the reasons you've pointed out: it's not necessarily fun to play a whole bunch of gimmicky levels made by others.

But... and this is really my point here: full packs of trollish levels get tiresome quite quickly, but the odd level here and there is surely acceptable even amongst the stubbornest proponents of "puzzle-only" mentality... right?

In the same way that gimmicky levels get tiresome, constantly being presented with impenetrable puzzles usually maintains my interest for about 10 levels maximum! I struggled my way through the first rank of Nessy's Lemmings Destination before I realised that these puzzles were simply way beyond my capability. I'll probably come back to this pack at a later date because I like the spirit in which it was created and I think Nessy is a great level designer, but I'll have to steel myself up for it first! I doubt I'll ever get around to Lemmings United or Lemmings Plus Alpha - although it is fun to go in and try out the odd level from these packs, I have neither the mental ability nor the patience to pick my way through such complexity.

Interestingly, and conversely, IchoTolot has only bothered with the most difficult rank of Lemminas, and he smashed it in one sitting and managed to backroute a few of them!

We all have our strengths, weaknesses and preferences: it's what makes a community so vibrant and interesting.

Namida is very patiently working his way through the whole pack (it would seem) and providing feedback: given his limited time for such things and the fact he's probably endured way more than his share of newcomer packs already, I am grateful for him taking the time to do this and I'm being sure to take on board what he's saying.

On the other hand, you took the misleading elements, as well as the execution difficulty, to way greater extremes in your first pack than I did.... I remember for example how you told us how much time you spent on placing all the hatches on your level "You have to be kidding me!" exactly right for your intended pixel-precision solution. Isn't it a shame that you put in all of this effort, just for most people who see the level to go "nah, I'll skip that one" at first sight?

Yes, to be honest that came as a bit of a downer. I thought people would think it was awesome! Then again, I was very new at that time and still fresh from mainly playing Lemmings on WinLemm and SuperLemmini, neither of which have frameskipping or skill shadows (but they do have assign-whilst-paused and direction select), so I was still used to seeing Lemmings from that point of view.

In contrast, I never employed things like e.g. the brick-covered Marble exit.

Haha yeah, I love that one! I'm using it again in a remix pack I'm working on, but to be honest I'll probably end up removing it even though in the level I'm using it for it actually helps the player with the solution; I just don't want to be accused of misleading again!

You should always be allowed to make unpopular design choices, but it will simply result in fewer people playing your packs.[/b]

I think this is the key point here: whatever philosophy I have, nobody is preventing me from doing whatever I want with my levels, but there is ultimately a strong backlash against anything which could be considered misleading, unfair or trollish... and probably for good reason.

You can't have framestepping and still have execution difficulty. You can't have skill shadows and still have levels that test precision placement. Yes, if the community were larger, then maybe an engine more similar to original Lemmings could exist harmoniously alongside NeoLemmix.

The irony of all this is that when playing, I always have one hand on the mouse and one hand on the keyboard, ready to strike those Hotkeys for frameskipping, splat-height ruler, pause, and now Release Rate min/max jump (a feature I basically requested that has now happened!) - I'm by no means averse to any of these things that make NeoLemmix a great way to enjoy Lemmings!

I think I just don't want the community to forget what the game once was. History and origins are important (we all love a good origin story, right?) and I think it would be so easy to pacify this whole argument by allowing a few custom options - a Classic mode, for example, or a tag on the levelpack's post informing the player that they can expect a few cheeky gimmicks in the pack.

Ultimately: I'm here to create, but I'm also here to learn. I will take these lessons on board, I hope people enjoy my packs, and I'm glad to be a part of the community. That's the bottom line under all of this.

[Proxima]

But... and this is really my point here: full packs of trollish levels get tiresome quite quickly, but the odd level here and there is surely acceptable even amongst the stubbornest proponents of "puzzle-only" mentality... right?

Once a pack hits you with a trollish level, the enjoyment of every level in the pack is lessened because of having to be on your guard -- will this level have more hidden/misleading features, or is everything what it seems?

In the same way that gimmicky levels get tiresome, constantly being presented with impenetrable puzzles usually maintains my interest for about 10 levels maximum!

I completely agree (and I think most people here do) that there is a sad lack of easier content, as well as a lack of community effort to organise our content so it's easier for new players to find content at their level. Unfortunately, everyone here is a volunteer and we all have our own projects we are working on, so it's hard to make the step from seeing "this should be done" to actually doing it.

I'm working on an easier pack myself, but no promises about when even a testing version will be ready -- I have a lot of non-Lemmings stuff on my plate at the moment, and right now I feel it may be better to put my pack on hold and make a fresh start once we have the Jumper.

I think it would be so easy to pacify this whole argument by allowing a few custom options - a Classic mode, for example, or a tag on the levelpack's post informing the player that they can expect a few cheeky gimmicks in the pack.

Classic mode: Select the minimalist hotkey layout so you don't have hotkeys for framestepping, pause, directional select and so forth. Then select the compact skill panel so you lose the panel buttons as well.

Tagging your pack: You can already do this! See for example Strato's "Lemmicks", which used an older version of the engine to make new gimmick levels after they had officially been culled. Because the pack is what it is, it has a much smaller audience than packs for up-to-date NL, but we don't complain that it exists.

[Strato Incendus]

Tagging your pack: You can already do this! See for example Strato's "Lemmicks", which used an older version of the engine to make new gimmick levels after they had officially been culled. Because the pack is what it is, it has a much smaller audience than packs for up-to-date NL, but we don't complain that it exists.

Thanks for the shoutout, Proxima! Indeed, WillLem has already played quite a bit of Lemmicks.

I would slightly object to WillLem grouping the pack together with GigaLems, though, because pretty much the only thing the two have in common is the fact that they are for NeoLemmix 1.43 .

Lemmicks was designed after Pit Lems, i.e. was already trying to adhere to the strictly-fair puzzle philosophy much more strongly than even Pit Lems. That's why, for example, there are no time limits on any of the levels. And in fact, the goal was to see whether the gimmicks could be used to create fair puzzles in the first place - which is why, instead of the "surprising" ways they had randomly been popping up in people's packs before, I went for this organisation of each gimmick into separate ranks (and only selected the gimmicks I considered puzzle-friendly in the first place).

Lemmicks can be slightly misleading due to the general physics changes that were made in the meantime, like solid level sides and a solid ceiling (Old-Formats NeoLemmix had deadly sides but solid ceilings; only since New Formats are all level edges deadly). I could have made all the sides deadly in Lemmicks, because there actually was a gimmick for that as well, but this looked like the lemmings running into fire traps at the edges, i.e. slightly different than the behaviour we're used to. Therefore, I kept the rules that a player playing a pack in 1.43 would expect, because I considered that "most fair" at the time. It obviously still led to some confusion , but the very first rank, Basic, does the best it can do to really hammer home repeatedly that the level sides are solid.

And of course, NeoLemmix 1.43 had no skill shadows or Clear-Physics Mode, but I've deliberately tried not to exploit that (in contrast to the pack GigaLems ). I think the most difficult assignment, position-wise, is on the Bedlam level "These stairs of mine". But well, that's on the final rank, and it probably would be much easier to get the position right with skill shadows either. But it's just so nice when you finally see it working out!

Apart from that though, the only rank that actively tries to be execution-difficult is the Hasty rank - and even that only applies to one half of that rank, featuring the SuperLemming and Frenzy gimmick at once (=increased game speed and no option to pause the game). The other half just has the instant-pickup-skills gimmick active by now, so those are probably some of the fairest puzzles you will encounter.



Therefore, I indeed mainly attribute the smaller audience for Lemmicks to the fact that it's in what can by now be called "Very-Old Formats" . And to all the inconveniences that come with that (no skill shadows, no CPM, no direct level selection from a list, but having to jump through the levels with arrow keys, no Fencer or Shimmier, etc.). In fact, the main reason Flopsy quit this pack was that he simply couldn't record NeoLemmix 1.43 in full-screen mode on his PC.

The pack has certainly been called difficult by many forum members - surprisingly, even the Basic rank, which doesn't actually have any gimmicks at all. Yet, this difficulty does indeed seem to refer to the puzzles themselves, or the different rules they are based on - but the important part is that these rules are consistent.

Hence, people call it difficult, but I have yet to hear anyone call the pack unfair. Unless you want to count "Do not fear" (Basic 06), but that was an honest mistake of mine and not at all intended to be that difficult to pull off...



So perhaps, "Lemmicks, but in New Formats" might be a standard you could try to shoot for with your future packs? Gimmicky where appropriate, difficult, happy to - but consistent in its rules, no nasty surprises.

[WillLem]

Once a pack hits you with a trollish level, the enjoyment of every level in the pack is lessened because of having to be on your guard -- will this level have more hidden/misleading features, or is everything what it seems?

Agreed: I'm going to make sure V1.01 of Lemminas is completely fair: no hidden stuff, no invisible teleporters, etc. I'd like that to be my main "fair puzzle" pack, and a nice easy one at that! I'm looking more and more at ways to make easy levels that are still satisfying and interesting; it's quite a challenge, but I'm currently playing through some of the easier ranks on people's packs to see which levels stand out the most and why.

Classic mode: Select the minimalist hotkey layout so you don't have hotkeys for framestepping, pause, directional select and so forth. Then select the compact skill panel so you lose the panel buttons as well.

Haha, interestingly enough I have already tried this: I copied the NL folder, and disabled all hotkeys in that one except for pause, restart and nuke. Also removed the graphics from the "helper" folder. Still have skill shadows though... if there was an easy way to temporarily disable these, that would pretty much be Classic Mode in combination with the other things.

All of this said, I'm only promoting the idea of a Classic Mode as an alternative option; I'd only use it once in a blue moon and to see which packs are playable in this mode for a bit of fun. Otherwise, long live frameskipping and skill shadows!

Lemmicks was designed after Pit Lems, i.e. was already trying to adhere to the strictly-fair puzzle philosophy... I went for this organisation of each gimmick into separate ranks (and only selected the gimmicks I considered puzzle-friendly in the first place).

I like the way it's done - it never feels unfair, and the player always knows what to expect from a level. Some of the levels are very difficult, not because of the gimmicks, but the puzzles themselves are actually sometimes very demanding (by my standards, anyway!) Great pack though, with an enjoyable concept.

So perhaps, "Lemmicks, but in New Formats" might be a standard you could try to shoot for with your future packs? Gimmicky where appropriate, difficult, happy to - but consistent in its rules, no nasty surprises.

This is a really good idea, I might give this a try. As stated, I'm going to make Lemminas totally "fair-puzzle" in its next update, and I have ideas for two upcoming mini-packs, both of which will also be 100% gimmick-free, and nice easy packs as well.

However, Strato: if you'd be up for collaborating on a new-formats Lemmicks sequel which would be clearly labelled as a gimmicks pack, I'd really enjoy that!