Lemmings re-make

[Leviathan]

I came up with an idea yesterday...
As there are so many different packs available in so much different difficulty ratings,wouldn't it be possible to make a "real" lemmings version and a real "ONML" version by filling the "levelxxxx.dat" files from the original lemmings and ONML with custom-made levels?

If it's possible,we could nominate certain levels from other players for a certain difficulty cathegory (fun,tricky,taxing or mayhem) and off course for ONML levels tame,crazy,wild,wicked and havoc.

Nominated levels should be "reviewed" by the nominator to explain why he nominates that level.If there are too many nominations we can do a poll or something like that,and of course no-one can nominate his (or her) own levels.

For practical reasons,all "part 2" levels should be renamed in the modified lemmings version unless the level does appear twice in the complete set (which is unlikely to happen).

[JM]

Sounds good to me

[Jazzem]

Good idea I think we should make some new levels specifically for the remake however. I'd be happy to do the inevitable tutorial levels like "Just dig" and "Tailor made for blockers", for instance.

[Shvegait]

Do we have the means to edit the data for duplicate levels? Remember that 40 levels in Lemmings are duplicates which aren't stored as normal levels.

Of course, this isn't a problem if we did this with ONML.

It would be interesting to attempt a "perfect" difficulty curve though.

[ccexplore]

Do we have the means to edit the data for duplicate levels? Remember that 40 levels in Lemmings are duplicates which aren't stored as normal levels.

Good point.  Fortunately, I might be able to deal with this.  More later (still at work right now).

[Mindless]

If it's possible,we could nominate certain levels from other players for a certain difficulty cathegory (fun,tricky,taxing or mayhem) and off course for ONML levels tame,crazy,wild,wicked and havoc.

Actually, with a bit of work, we could have our own custom dificulty levels.

[Proxima]

Besides which, compiling 20 "tame" difficulty levels is just boring  

[ccexplore]

Do we have the means to edit the data for duplicate levels? Remember that 40 levels in Lemmings are duplicates which aren't stored as normal levels.

Good point. &#A0;Fortunately, I might be able to deal with this. &#A0;More later (still at work right now).

I have hacked DOS Lemmings to eliminate the whole duplicate thing and at the same time, created an ordering that makes life much easier for us.

URL: &#A0;http://www.geocities.com/guestlevels/lemmings/lemrmake.zip

(Note: &#A0;this just contains the hacked EXE, you'd need to copy the DATs off Lemmings and/or CustLemm. &#A0;Don't bother with levelXXX.dat until you read what I have to say below.)

This is based off of the version of Lemmings that DragonsLover has, the so-called "CD version" where they don't repeat the Fun 1 music when you restart the current level. &#A0;I discovered that apparently SuperLemmings work in that version! &#A0;But I haven't yet made the changes to the max safe-fall so that it's more like CustLemm rather than Lemmings.

I changed the level loading table so that it loads Fun1 - Fun10 from level000.dat (yes, you can have 10 levels in levelXXX.dat now rather than just 8), Fun11 - Fun20 from level001.dat, Fun21 - Fun30 from level002.dat, Tricky1 - Tricky10 from level003.dat...etc. &#A0;You get the idea, with Mayhem21 - Mayhem30 coming from level011.dat. &#A0;Much easier isn't it?

This new scheme can support up to 160 levels total, although of course right now it still stops after Mayhem 30.

[ccexplore]

Obviously the same can be done for ONML, but unfortunately, right now I can't hack the ONML EXE.  The problem is that after I decompress the EXE with unpklite (needs to decompress the program before I have any hopes of hacking it), it no longer works correctly, refusing to load any levels.  Until someone can produce a functional, decompressed version of ONML, no hacks on it.

[ccexplore]

But I haven't yet made the changes to the max safe-fall so that it's more like CustLemm rather than Lemmings.

That was pretty ambiguous.  What I mean is, "We All Fall Down" works properly in lemrmake.exe.  I'll change it later so that it is more like CustLemm instead.

[Leviathan]

Besides which, compiling 20 "tame" difficulty levels is just boring &#A0;

I don't think anyone on the forum is interested in 50 levels in total in the trend of "just dig"
We can start off with levels of an actual difficulty rating of at least "tricky"

[chaos_defrost]

Hey, great idea. I'd be more than happy to submit some of my old/new levels for this. Although, I'd need that version of LemEdit with mouse support for XP (I've yet to download it, for whatever reason) before I create any new levels.

[Proxima]

Besides which, compiling 20 "tame" difficulty levels is just boring &#A0;

I don't think anyone on the forum is interested in 50 levels in total in the trend of "just dig"
We can start off with levels of an actual difficulty rating of at least "tricky"

Maybe; personally, I enjoy making "fun" difficulty levels, and I especially enjoy making easy and hard versions of the same level (like on the original game). "Tame" difficulty, though, is just boring.

[Leviathan]

Don't understand me wrong,I do like the fun levels where you have the ability to try multiple solutions on an easy version of a re-occuring hard level

I just don't like those fun levels where you don't have multiple solutions for (like just dig,now use floaters,tailor made for blockers,...).

We should avoid tedious levels with lots of straight building (like "heaven can wait") or too many bomber timing (like havoc 20) for I think

One proposition of me is to have an easy "fun" rating but all with levels with multiple solutions,and not too easy like "just dig",followed by a "tricky" rating to teach real tricks (climb/bomb,...) and maybe a few glitches (nuke glitch,miner glitch,sliding/climbing trough terrain,...).
Then "taxing" and "mayhem" to be used for challenging levels,going up to near-impossible levels for mayhem 30.

The same can go for ONML,but only the "tame" rating as learning levels,the rest of the levels slightly challenging levels to very difficult levels at the end.

We can both compile new levels specially for this version and copy levels from our packs.We can calculate how many people who want to share their packs for this version,and see how many levels per author we can accept...I believe every author over here (forum) has the right for getting at least one of his/her levels in this new version of lemmings...at least one level for Lemmings and one for ONML,and a maximum of let's roughly say,10 levels per lemmings version (so 20 in total).

Off course people who want their levels to stay out of this have the right to say no

[Proxima]

I'd like to strongly urge that glitch-requiring levels be left out of this. It's simply impossible to put them on the same difficulty scale as normal levels -- their difficulty varies hugely depending on whether the player knows the glitch or not. Levels designed to "teach" glitches would be just boring for people who know them -- and way, way too difficult for Tricky for people who don't.

[Jazzem]

I agree with Ahribar, glitch levels should be out. We may want to advertise this outside the forums, and chances are people who aren't familiar with Lemedit aren't familiar with glitches. Besides, we can be more original, can't we?

I think we should do the showcase levels (Just dig, Tailor made for blockers etc), but perhaps put them into a small number of levels (We could climbers, floaters and diggers into one level, for example).

[tseug(Guest)]

Obviously the same can be done for ONML, but unfortunately, right now I can't hack the ONML EXE.  The problem is that after I decompress the EXE with unpklite (needs to decompress the program before I have any hopes of hacking it), it no longer works correctly, refusing to load any levels.  Until someone can produce a functional, decompressed version of ONML, no hacks on it.

I have no idea why, but for some reason I unpacked my version and deleted the original. So here you go (link) (I know, I should start zipping my files instead renaming them...)

[Jazzem]

Say, I've just thought of some names!

"Yippee! More Lemmings!" for the Lemmings one.

"Let's go! More Lemmings" for the ONML one!

[Leviathan]

Ok,I agree,if we want this to go outside the forum no glitches should be involved

BTW,nice new titles...you have any idea on the difficulty settings?

[tseug]

Here it is in a zip file (link)

[Jazzem]

Ok,I agree,if we want this to go outside the forum no glitches should be involved

BTW,nice new titles...you have any idea on the difficulty settings?

We may as well just keep them the same, I feel we need those titles simply so people will know of the project as something seperate to the real Lemmings. I hope we can hack it somehow to change the title blurb too.

Shall we offically start work on this after Christmas then? We should organise who's doing what too, I imagine I'll do a few Fun levels and possibly tricky/taxing ones.

[Leviathan]

One other thing is that every "difficult" level should be backroute-checked by a few people altough we can use many levels that were reviewed in the review topic

Another possibility than the first "nomination procedure" I suggested is that each pack designer promotes 4 of his/her levels (2 lemmings,2 ONML) providing a screenshot and motivation,then to be reviewed by a few people and modified for this version if necessairy.

[Jazzem]

Shall we leave the ONML one for the moment? This will take a while, and I think we should wait for the response the Lemmings remake gets before doing the ONML one.

[Shvegait]

I agree with Jazzem. Let's just worry about Lemmings for now, and only do ONML when Lemmings is complete (there's no guarantee that it will get completed, and taking on too much makes it even harder to finish something).

Another question: Are we using Lemmings graphics sets for Lemmings and ONML sets for ONML? Or all mixed up like CustLemm?

[chaos_defrost]

I'd assume the Original Lemmings sets alone would be use for the Lemmings remake, and the ONML sets for the ONML re-make. I think.

Anyways, another thing I'd like to address is graphics set distribution. Remember how original Lemmings had somewhat of a lack of crystal style levels? I would assume the set we make would want to be slightly more balanced, set-wise.

Which yields another problem. As an example, if I were to contribute levels, ALL of them would be straight piece sets (In other words, no dirt levels) -- I imagine this would be more a problem with ONML, where I'd be submitting little else but brick style levels. Maybe each author could specialize in certain style-types, and pool together to make levels with the more underrepresented types?

Just an idea. And I'm all for not including glitch levels in the set, for the reasons stated above.

[ccexplore]

Here it is in a zip file (link)

Thanks, but did this work on your machine?

On my machine your decompressed EXE has the same problem as the one I decompressed myself.  The game never gets to the main menu, instead asking to insert the original disk.

[Leviathan]

I also think the sets should be distributed evenly altough I more like symmetrical levels with straight pieces than other levels...

If I'm not mistaken there are 5 sets for Lemmings:
-Dirt
-Hell
-Pink
-Crystal
-Roman

So I guess for the lemmings version,we need 24 levels of each type of set (or 32 if it's possible to make 160 levels due to the duplicates removal)

I think I can provide at least one very tough dirt level (I'm working on it) and a very tough crystal level (title: "Yeah right,you wish")
I believe this version of lemmings should include the remakes of FANL and FANL2 too
We may also want to include a few extended graphic set levels...

[JM]

You can use my levels in this Lemmings re-make aswell  

[Shvegait]

I'm a little confused. Are we using levels that we already created? Or are we creating brand new levels for this? It seems like a combination, but which way are people leaning?

[Conway]

I think we'd be more inclined to play it if most of the levels were new, and I don't know how we're going to get it out to the rest of the world.

I'd love to contribute, but I haven't had much time or even much creativity for designing levels in a while. I fear my LemEditing days may be over.  

This remake sounds like a good idea. We should probably assign four people, one for each difficulty rating, to decide the order the levels will appear in. Because we are dealing with so many levels, the difficulty curve will be much slower than it generally is in a pack of ten levels. So four people should probably sort through every submitted level for each rating to decide which position it should go in.

[tseug]

Here it is in a zip file (link)

Thanks, but did this work on your machine?

On my machine your decompressed EXE has the same problem as the one I decompressed myself.  The game never gets to the main menu, instead asking to insert the original disk.

I remember having to do that the first time I ran it. It was compressed then so that probably isn't what's wrong. I'll see if I can figure out what that changes.

EDIT: I checked what happens now. It seems that clicking will bypass that screen.

EDIT2: It looks like it only works if you left click and don't do anything else. If you do something else then left clicking doesn't work.

[ccexplore]

I remember having to do that the first time I ran it. It was compressed then so that probably isn't what's wrong. I'll see if I can figure out what that changes.

EDIT: I checked what happens now. It seems that clicking will bypass that screen.

EDIT2: It looks like it only works if you left click and don't do anything else. If you do something else then left clicking doesn't work.

My compressed version of ONML (from abandonia) never have that screen at all, ever.

I tried left clicking on that screen with your decompressed EXE, and later with mine. &#A0;In both cases, it didn't help, although wackily enough, the message changed from "Insert Original Lemmings Disk 1..." to "Insert Oh No More Lemmings Disk..." upon clicking. &#A0;Then the program becomes unresponsive, even though there's no "Illegal opcode" complain from DOSBox.

One thing I guess I should note is that my computer doesn't have a floppy drive (it's a laptop from around 2003 or 2004). &#A0;I wonder.

I suppose I can try to figure out how to hack the EXE to bypass that screen.

[Leviathan]

I'll upload my version of ONML soon it it would help...

I had lemmings and ONML from when I was little and ONML works without CD but the original lemmings asks for disk 1 so I downloaded it elsewhere.

[ccexplore]

I suppose I can try to figure out how to hack the EXE to bypass that screen.

Good news!  Turns out hacking out that stupid screen is not as difficult as I thought, so I now have a working, decompressed version of ONML. [smiley=party.gif]

I still need to find where it stores the level loading info etc., so since it's getting late for me here and it's the holidays, give me a day or two and I'll get things done.

[ccexplore]

Ok, here they are:

http://www.geocities.com/guestlevels/lemmings/remake.zip

I've renamed them as lemnew.exe and onmlnew.exe.  I changed the level loading so it loads 10 levels from each set, starting from set 000 going up.  I changed the max safe-fall distance to match CustLemm's.

I also changed them to look for different filenames.  For Lemmings, instead of "levelXXX.dat", I made lemnew.exe look for "llvelXXX.dat", and similar for ONML I made it look for "olvelXXX.dat" instead of "dlvelXXX.dat".

By doing this, it simplies installation.  For example, when we finished with the Lemmings remake, we just need to make sure to name the sets llvelXXX.dat.  Then the player can drop lemnew.exe and the llvelXXX.dat files into the same folder as the original Lemmings, without overwriting any files there while being able to use the files that are not changed.  Similarly, for ONML, you can just drop onmlnew.exe and olvelXXX.dat files into the same folder where you have the original ONML.

******************

I was thinking that for the Lemmings remake, we should create/nominate a special graphics (vgaspecX) level for each of the 4 ratings, like the original.  Opinion?

[Timballisto]

I changed the max safe-fall distance to match CustLemm's.

Custlemm2?  If not then this program would be bad for my levels, but oh well.

[Jazzem]

I was thinking that for the Lemmings remake, we should create/nominate a special graphics (vgaspecX) level for each of the 4 ratings, like the original.  Opinion?

That's an interesting thought, perhaps we could have nomintations for some of our favourite games to be vgaspec levels? I'm sure I'd jump at the chance to do Super Mario Bros Lemmings

[Leviathan]

I was thinking that for the Lemmings remake, we should create/nominate a special graphics (vgaspecX) level for each of the 4 ratings, like the original. &#A0;Opinion?

That's an interesting thought, perhaps we could have nomintations for some of our favourite games to be vgaspec levels? I'm sure I'd jump at the chance to do Super Mario Bros Lemmings

Sounds like a very cool idea
I don't have much fantasy for creating vgaspec levels but I'm sure a few people here have a few very good ideas

[geoo]

That's an interesting thought, perhaps we could have nomintations for some of our favourite games to be vgaspec levels? I'm sure I'd jump at the chance to do Super Mario Bros Lemmings

I think you'll have a hard work doing that; I don't know Super Mario too much, but I remember it as a very colorful game. The limited number of colors might become a difficult problem there. However I'd be interested in the result.
For my next set I'm making a level with Supaplex graphic. The limited color palette gives me some problems: I can only use 4 or 5 of originally about 40 sprites. It uses glitches, but I could also make one level for the remake without.
(Obviously I like the idea of special graphics levels.)

[Jazzem]

That's an interesting thought, perhaps we could have nomintations for some of our favourite games to be vgaspec levels? I'm sure I'd jump at the chance to do Super Mario Bros Lemmings

I think you'll have a hard work doing that; I don't know Super Mario too much, but I remember it as a very colorful game. The limited number of colors might become a difficult problem there. However I'd be interested in the result.
For my next set I'm making a level with Supaplex graphic. The limited color palette gives me some problems: I can only use 4 or 5 of originally about 40 sprites. It uses glitches, but I could also make one level for the remake without.
(Obviously I like the idea of special graphics levels.)

Fairly colourful I guess, I'm sure I could fit in some question mark blocks and a goomba or two, and I could blend two similar colours into the same.

[Proxima]

I was thinking that for the Lemmings remake, we should create/nominate a special graphics (vgaspecX) level for each of the 4 ratings, like the original.  Opinion?

That's an interesting thought, perhaps we could have nomintations for some of our favourite games to be vgaspec levels? I'm sure I'd jump at the chance to do Super Mario Bros Lemmings

I've already created a few levels based on other games -- Repton, Prince of Persia, FF7, Minesweeper. And I'm planning on doing a Worms one when I find time, too. Those are all for Cheapo, though.

[Mindless]

Ok, here they are:

http://www.geocities.com/guestlevels/lemmings/remake.zip

I've renamed them as lemnew.exe and onmlnew.exe.  I changed the level loading so it loads 10 levels from each set, starting from set 000 going up.  I changed the max safe-fall distance to match CustLemm's.

I also changed them to look for different filenames.  For Lemmings, instead of "levelXXX.dat", I made lemnew.exe look for "llvelXXX.dat", and similar for ONML I made it look for "olvelXXX.dat" instead of "dlvelXXX.dat".

By doing this, it simplies installation.  For example, when we finished with the Lemmings remake, we just need to make sure to name the sets llvelXXX.dat.  Then the player can drop lemnew.exe and the llvelXXX.dat files into the same folder as the original Lemmings, without overwriting any files there while being able to use the files that are not changed.  Similarly, for ONML, you can just drop onmlnew.exe and olvelXXX.dat files into the same folder where you have the original ONML.

It appears that you changed a bit more than that... anyone else notice the difference?

[Timballisto]

"rating lame"

Lol

Well, I've made two special graphics levels so far.  One is difficult.  The other one is not.  Neither are based on any games, but I suppose I could make a level based on a game.

[chaos_defrost]

Ha, I made a Mario set for Cheapo. Maybe converting one of my Mario Cheapo levels into a VGASPEC format would be a neat idea.

[ccexplore]

It appears that you changed a bit more than that... anyone else notice the difference?

I see you noticed.  I tried to come up with new names for other ratings but that was the only thing that came into mind, as everyone knows what "Tame" really means in ONML.

When the time comes when people actually decided on new rating names, just let me know and I'll do further hacks (although this one might be more tricky......).  The EXE hacking is therefore not final by any means.

As for the issue of coloring for vgaspecX levels, don't worry too much about it for now.  There are programs out there that can do a reasonable job of downconverting colors, and I am hoping to incorporate such a feature into myvgaspec at some point.  For now, just come up with bitmaps that are not too overly colorful or uses extensive shadings or gradients, and I promise to do whatever it takes to make them work out.

[ccexplore]

Fairly colourful I guess, I'm sure I could fit in some question mark blocks and a goomba or two, and I could blend two similar colours into the same.

From your screenshot of Mario, I counted 3 colors for Mario, 2 shades of green, the white and blue in the cloud, and the brown from the floor.  Only 8 colors.  Eliminating the blue from the cloud and you're already down to 7 colors without changing anything else.  Going down to just one shade of green and it's just 6 colors.

---------------

Aside:  one thing worth keeping in mind is that in vgaspecX, black is always background.  So if the game uses black as a major color (rather than something like outlining which can usually be omitted), you might need to change it to something else.

[ccexplore]

I changed the max safe-fall distance to match CustLemm's.

Custlemm2? &#A0;If not then this program would be bad for my levels, but oh well.

Sorry, I choose CustLemm as the standard because that's what most people uses.  But don't worry, since it's just a 3-pixel difference, most levels should be unaffected, and the few that are affected can probably be fixed without much difficulty.

[ccexplore]

I've already created a few levels based on other games -- Repton, Prince of Persia, FF7, Minesweeper. And I'm planning on doing a Worms one when I find time, too. Those are all for Cheapo, though.

Repton and Prince of Persia are good choices for vgaspecX since those games don't use many colors, especially Repton.  Minesweeper might also work although obviously you won't get a gray background, and you won't have 8 different colors for the numbers.

Perhaps we can look at your Cheapo levels and try to create an adapted version for LemEdit use.  I do remember that most of those levels are vertically more than one screen high, so probably all we could do is to borrow the levels' high-level concepts somehow, and then redesign them in the much smaller area available for LemEdit vgaspecX levels.

One thing to note is, since vgaspecX only covers the terrain, there is currently no customizing of interactive objects yet, unlike the special graphics you find in Cheapo.  I suppose if there's great demand I can start working on programs to help with customizing interactive objects, but then again, in the original game they too just stuck the standard entrances and exits into special graphics levels, and they didn't even bother with traps.  Would people prefer to have the ability to customize interactive objects, or would it be liveable to do it the original-game way?

Oh yeah, and music.  I currently don't know anything about how music is done in DOS Lemmings, and I'm not particularly sure about hacking adlib.dat to change the music, so for the current plan there is 2 choices:

1) keep the original special graphics music, even though it would surely be weird to hear the music for "A Beast of a Level" in a Super Mario level

2) hack lemnew.exe so it just plays normal music even on special graphics levels.

Vote?  Note that the ideal choice of actually changing the music in adlib.dat is not completely out of the question, but it's something you shouldn't count on at this point if ever.

Don't even ask about sound effects, it won't happen; the sound capabilities of DOS Lemmings doesn't really support very good sound effects anyhow.

[Proxima]

Yes -- all my "special graphics" levels except The Land of Nightmares are more than one screen high, so it would be difficult to adapt them for LemEdit. (TLON uses graphics from the four Lemmings special levels, but mixed on one level, and therefore uses too many colours to be suitable.) However, let me know if you'd like to use any of my other Cheapo levels -- there are plenty of good ones, such as "Zorn's Lemming" and "Just a Minute (Part Five)" that don't require vertical scrolling.

[Jazzem]

Fairly colourful I guess, I'm sure I could fit in some question mark blocks and a goomba or two, and I could blend two similar colours into the same.

From your screenshot of Mario, I counted 3 colors for Mario, 2 shades of green, the white and blue in the cloud, and the brown from the floor.  Only 8 colors.  Eliminating the blue from the cloud and you're already down to 7 colors without changing anything else.  Going down to just one shade of green and it's just 6 colors.

---------------

Aside:  one thing worth keeping in mind is that in vgaspecX, black is always background.  So if the game uses black as a major color (rather than something like outlining which can usually be omitted), you might need to change it to something else.

I doubt I'd include Mario in, in fact probably not even Goombas or the ilk, so question mark blocks and clouds ahoy I guess. I'll look into it when I get back from England.

[Mindless]

This is a bit off topic, but I've finally made a level.  I'm sure it's unoriginal and probably not very difficult, but I figured that maybe it could be one of the "Lame" levels of the remake. ;D

KINDNESS.LVL

[tseug]

uhhh.... have you ever played onml? That level is certainly nowhere near the lame levels.

[Leviathan]

This is a bit off topic, but I've finally made a level. &#A0;I'm sure it's unoriginal and probably not very difficult, but I figured that maybe it could be one of the "Lame" levels of the remake. ;D

KINDNESS.LVL

It doesn't look bad altough it could use some more scenery (at least 2 pillars on the bottom)

I've created a Dirt set level called "se7en" where you have to save all 7 lems in one minute...
I would rate the difficulty as mid-mayhem or something.
The level contains no glitches but 2 very neat tricks (the razors edge trick and the trick I mentioned to turn around a lemming on steel).

I don't know how to create a screenshot but the level's here:
http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/seven.LVL

[Mindless]

uhhh.... have you ever played onml? That level is certainly nowhere near the lame levels.

I've played... maybe the first 10 levels.  

It doesn't look bad altough it could use some more scenery (at least 2 pillars on the bottom)

Nah... I like it's minimalistic look.  

I've created a Dirt set level called "se7en" where you have to save all 7 lems in one minute...
I would rate the difficulty as mid-mayhem or something.
The level contains no glitches but 2 very neat tricks (the razors edge trick and the trick I mentioned to turn around a lemming on steel).

I don't know how to create a screenshot but the level's here:
http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/seven.LVL

[tseug]

Hit the nuke button and make the first lem build to turn around.

EDIT: I used both of those tricks but I ended up with a basher and a builder left over. I just ran custlemm without dosbox, which works fine, except that printscreen doesn't work. So meanwhile here a really bad picture of the screen. (really bad picture)

[Jazzem]

2) hack lemnew.exe so it just plays normal music even on special graphics levels.

That seems ideal, there's very little else the Beast/Awesome/etc music would accompany well, but I'm sure we could apply the normal lemmings music to a lot of things.

[ccexplore]

uhhh.... have you ever played onml? That level is certainly nowhere near the lame levels.

I've played... maybe the first 10 levels. &#A0;

Mindless, you do realize tseug means your level is not "lame" enough right?

That being said, I really don't want 20 lame levels for the ONML remake.  Ideally it should have maybe a few Fun-type levels and then the rest are more Tricky-like, in going with the trend that ONML is supposed to be generally harder than Lemmings.

Incidentally, are we still restricting ourselves so that only the four ONML graphics sets are used for the ONML remake?  Because if so then Mindless's level, which uses the Lemmings Hell set, wouldn't qualify for the ONML remake anyway.

[JM]

That picture is awful. Did you use a webcam to take the picture?

[Leviathan]

I'll remove the nuke and the other backroute soon

[tseug]

I used a webcam. The reason it is so bad is because there isn't any way to adjust brightness while in custlemm.

EDIT: I'm not sure what the quality of the jpg is, but I think it's something like 25%....

EDIT: It's 75%. That's part of why the edges are bad....

[Leviathan]

I modified my level to eliminate the nuke backroute and the other backroute I detected on that webcam picture
I also added a little bit more scenery on the left,I'm thinking about making the level a bit more symmetric (also add terrain at the right of the center).
http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/seven2.dat

In fact another trick (digging at the edge of steel) is also involved.


BTW Mindless,I've played your level and it's certainly not easy...people who don't know the use of the pause hotkey are destined to fail every time
I hope the intended solution involves using the pillar,if not I found a backroute and saved exactly the 62% I required.

[tseug]

The nuke backroute still works. You will have to eliminate all places where a lemming can turn around just by building.

EDIT: Places so far: a certain part of grass, the top of the lump

EDIT2: I found the intended solution (uses all the skills and all the tricks you mentioned)

[Leviathan]

I knew where the grass part was and I think I eliminated that in the new version...but I didn't realize the rock I put down there for delay (otherwise dig-build worked too at a certain spot) provided an even more obvious turning-around point

Tomorrow I'll make a third version when I have the time...but if there are any other comments on how to improve the level I'dd be glad to read them

[Mindless]

uhhh.... have you ever played onml? That level is certainly nowhere near the lame levels.

I've played... maybe the first 10 levels.  

Mindless, you do realize tseug means your level is not "lame" enough right?

That being said, I really don't want 20 lame levels for the ONML remake.  Ideally it should have maybe a few Fun-type levels and then the rest are more Tricky-like, in going with the trend that ONML is supposed to be generally harder than Lemmings.

Incidentally, are we still restricting ourselves so that only the four ONML graphics sets are used for the ONML remake?  Because if so then Mindless's level, which uses the Lemmings Hell set, wouldn't qualify for the ONML remake anyway.

Yeah, I understood.  My comment was somewhat meant to be a joke....  Anyway, are we doing an ONML remake first? or is that the only remake we're doing?  I'm a bit confused, but put my level wherever it belongs.  If nothing else, my level is probably simple enough to be remade with another style.

[Jazzem]

uhhh.... have you ever played onml? That level is certainly nowhere near the lame levels.

I've played... maybe the first 10 levels.  

Mindless, you do realize tseug means your level is not "lame" enough right?

That being said, I really don't want 20 lame levels for the ONML remake.  Ideally it should have maybe a few Fun-type levels and then the rest are more Tricky-like, in going with the trend that ONML is supposed to be generally harder than Lemmings.

Incidentally, are we still restricting ourselves so that only the four ONML graphics sets are used for the ONML remake?  Because if so then Mindless's level, which uses the Lemmings Hell set, wouldn't qualify for the ONML remake anyway.

Yeah, I understood.  My comment was somewhat meant to be a joke....  Anyway, are we doing an ONML remake first? or is that the only remake we're doing?  I'm a bit confused, but put my level wherever it belongs.  If nothing else, my level is probably simple enough to be remade with another style.

Basically, we're doing remakes of both games. We're gping to go for Lemmings first which will only use terrain types 0-4. The ONML remake will follow, and use
the following terrain 5-8.

[Leviathan]

Finally after hours of trying I can access this forum...

I made a radical change to eliminate the nuke backroute and now,the level should be 100% perfect when it comes to backroutes...

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/seven3.dat

Any other comment would be appreciated too

EDIT: link modded

[tseug]

You linked to the old version. The link should say seven3 instead of seven2.

EDIT: The level looks fine to me.

[Leviathan]

So this level can have a "go" to put somewhere in the mayhem cathegory later on?

Are there any more people who already made a level for this remake?

[ccexplore]

and I don't know how we're going to get it out to the rest of the world.

I guess one way to start off is to go to the wikipedia entry for "Lemmings" and add a link there to a web page we set up that people can use to download the remake.

[Proxima]

Are there any more people who already made a level for this remake?

Like I said, I've got a few levels that would be adequate, but they're in Cheapo so someone would have to remake them -- but tell me if you're interested and I can provide the screenshots and level information.

[chaos_defrost]

I have several levels I can use, and I can also make a few new ones for the set if I can figure out how to run CustLemm3 in DOSBox. Seriously, I can't figure out DOSBox.  

[ccexplore]

Seriously, I can't figure out DOSBox. &#C2;&#A0;

What trouble are you having?

[chaos_defrost]

I don't know what command prompt I need to type to run the program. I mounted the program, now I need to figure out what to type to actually run it.

[ccexplore]

Ok, I assume you mount c to the physical c drive (or whatever letter your hard disk is), which means you did

mount c c:\

You then need to change to the directory containing CustLemm or LemEdit.  On my home computer for example I put LemEdit and its variants at c:\lemedit, and custlemm and its variants at c:\lemedit\custlemm.  So I would do

cd "c:\lemedit"
lemedit

to launch LemEdit, and

cd "c:\lemedit\custlemm"
custlemm

to launch CustLemm.  Replace "lemedit" or "custlemm" with the filename of the various hacks (eg. nocdlem, custlem2, lemedit2 etc.) to run the corresponding program.

Note that because DOSBox emulates real DOS, filenames cannot be longer than 8 characters.  If your directory path to lemedit or custlemm has a portion that is not named in a DOS compatible manner, I suggest you rename it.  So no c:\thisistoofreakinglongforDOS\lemedit.

Hope this helps.

Oh yeah, almost forgot:  for CustLemm and CustLem2, because it expects a CD-ROM drive, you need to also do

mount d d:\ -t cdrom

(replace d:\ with whatever drive letter your CD-ROM is on your computer) before CustLemm/CustLem2 will run.  The hacks nocdlem and nocdlem2, as their names suggest, does not require you to mount the CDROM drive, as they play the original music that comes with the game.

[chaos_defrost]

I type mount c c: at it says my c drive doesn't exist. What the hell.

I fail at computers.

Ok, I mistyped that line and it worked, now I type "cd c:/lemedit3" and I get "Unable to change to c:/lemedit3" ... BAH

EDIT 2: Finally got it. After about 20 minutes of fiddling. Thank you for your help.

EDIT 3: Hey, first new LemEdit level in about a year. Well, not quite -- I still have to fiddle with the release rate, and I re-discovered the joys of not having the exit on a place where lemmings enter it, and there's a couple of pain-in-the-behind bombers to time (well... one, really. The other isn't that hard)... and it's a Cheapo re-make of sorts with the solution very slightly changed (and the terrain set also messed with), but it is finished, in concept. I tried to make the level as aesthetically pleasing as possible, since it will (if you all like it) be placed into a publicly released, professional-looking re-make.

It's a re-make of "The Top Shelf" (with the Crystal Graphics) and I project it to be somewhere in mid-late Mayhem. Somewhere. Then again, we'll see what everyone else makes.

[chaos_defrost]

Double post, sorry.

My first level submission type thing is findable HERE. I am posting this because I revised the skills and save percentage from last time, and want to make sure there's no back-routes I added with this change. Thank you.

[Timballisto]

I'd be interested in submitting some levels for the fun/tricky categories in the original lemmings.  Those are cool because you can integrate some more scenery in with the course of the level, although the difficulty is compromised in the process.  If you want some say so.  I'll make a lot if I get around to it.

[Leviathan]

Double post, sorry.

My first level submission type thing is findable HERE. I am posting this because I revised the skills and save percentage from last time, and want to make sure there's no back-routes I added with this change. Thank you.

I saved 98% using only a basher and blocker fairly within 2 minutes of time.
Is this intentional?

[JM]

I've made an extended graphics file but I haven't made a level for it yet. I hope you like it when I make it.

EDIT: http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/TUT.zip

I've just made a level with a new extended graphics set I made and I hope it comes in handy for this Lemmings re-make.

[chaos_defrost]

No, no, it is not intentional. And I figured out how you did it, but I'd need to make a major terrain revision to fix it. Thanks for the observation.

[JM]

I saved 98% aswell in just 2 minutes. I liked the scenery of the level. The crystal graphics are awesome. Is somebody able to check out the extended graphics level I made?

[Jazzem]

Sorry I haven't contributed any levels so far, but tommorow I'm going to make sure I start at least three levels, two of which will be tutorial-style Fun levels and another that I imagine will be tricky.

[ccexplore]

Is somebody able to check out the extended graphics level I made?

Well I didn't actually play the level, but I did have a look at the bitmap you included in the ZIP file.

By the way, is the graphics based on some other game?  I was under the impression that we're trying to make all 4 extended graphics levels be based on other existing games out there (suggestions so far include Super Mario Bros, Supaplex, Prince of Persia, Minesweeper, Repton).  I'm partial to doing that, but that said, I guess I'm ok with using extended graphics that are outside of any existing games.

[namida]

This thing still going?

If so, I would be more than happy to remake some of my Cheapo levels(especially an Oblivion level of some description) for it, but I don't think I'll make any original ones.

[JM]

Well I didn't actually play the level, but I did have a look at the bitmap you included in the ZIP file.

By the way, is the graphics based on some other game? &#A0;I was under the impression that we're trying to make all 4 extended graphics levels be based on other existing games out there (suggestions so far include Super Mario Bros, Supaplex, Prince of Persia, Minesweeper, Repton). &#A0;I'm partial to doing that, but that said, I guess I'm ok with using extended graphics that are outside of any existing games

The terrain came from a Wolf3d TC. I'm already working on one at the minute.

[ccexplore]

The terrain came from a Wolf3d TC. I'm already working on one at the minute.

Ok. &#A0;I looked up the game in wikipedia but I still don't know what the "TC" part stands for. &#A0;Also, if it's a 3D game, how come your terrain looks so 2D? &#A0;Just confused.

But anyhow, my main impression is that the graphics just seems a bit too plain and too many straight edges to feel like an extended graphics level. &#A0;Do you think you can try to add at least some decorative touches to it?

[ccexplore]

This thing still going?

If so, I would be more than happy to remake some of my Cheapo levels(especially an Oblivion level of some description) for it, but I don't think I'll make any original ones.

This thing barely started, so do contribute! &#A0;Cheapo remakes accepted as far as I understand.

(and welcome back, Steaver)

[namida]

Okay, well I'll definately have an Oblivion remake at some time

Might do a special graphics level too... I have an idea for one ^_^

[Isu 2006]

Hey, I'm back everybody. Did y'all have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year?

I think I'll need to contribute a level, It'll probably be a Lemedit remake of an unreleased Cheapo level. I'll most likely upload it tomorrow. I first need to decide which level it is I'm remaking.

[Proxima]

Whoa, Steaver's back?

Welcome back! And since you're under a new username, I suspect you never got my PM, so I'll tell you here..... I beat Absolute Ultimate Challenge at last! Took me an hour and a half of solid play to get right, but I beat it with 100% and ten minutes to spare. I was so happy  

[Isu 2006]

There you go, There are two levels in the zip, one is brand new, the other being a Cheapo remake, although this is the first release for both of them.

I think Minerminute deserves late Taxing, and I think Cannonball should be mid-Tricky, Maybe later because of the bomber timing. What do you think?

[JM]

I've just been looking at both levels in Custlemm and they look rather nice. Which one is the cheapo re-make?

[Leviathan]

I played both of them and they look nice

The miner acceleration trick is really neat and altough I saved 90% I'm glad the save percentage is only 75%

I finished the cannonball level with 9 bombers and a basher...is that the intended solution?

[namida]

Whoa, Steaver's back?

Welcome back! And since you're under a new username, I suspect you never got my PM, so I'll tell you here..... I beat Absolute Ultimate Challenge at last! Took me an hour and a half of solid play to get right, but I beat it with 100% and ten minutes to spare. I was so happy &#A0;

Congratulations but it's not really the hardest level, just the most annoying.

[Leviathan]

I've created another level which uses the roman style (and also those missing thin pieces from genesis too).

For now it's called "the 3 musketeers" because there are 3 lems in the level

The difficulty is mid-tricky I guess altough the trick used looks really very funny :p

There are 3 possible solutions to the level,all 3 using the same trick but with a different ending move so I don't count those as backroutes...

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/musketeers.dat

[JM]

I will be taking a look at this level when I get back home as I'm at college at the minute. Maybe I should modify one of my own levels to add to this Lemmings re-make.

[chaos_defrost]

Ok, I am fairly sure I fixed the "1 basher one blocker 98%" backroute to my level. HERE's the re-submission. I think my intended solution is the one that works.

[geoo]

It seems to be the same version? [smiley=huh.gif]

[chaos_defrost]

It seems to be the same version? [smiley=huh.gif]

Errr.... ya.... forgetting a 2 in the URL kind of does that...

Link fixed.

[geoo]

The backroute still works: Setting the blocker one step earlier.

I btw solved the original Cheapo version some time ago. So there are only four more levels of your notebook to go. I didn't play them recently though. A lot of great levels there.

[chaos_defrost]

What do you mean by that? I thought if you place the blocker a space earlier, either the lemmings will turn early or not pass the blocker?

The reason I use those slopes is to improve the aesthitics of the level, although I may be forced to revert back to the original Cheapo "straight line with holes" terrain.

Out of curiousity, which 4 levels are you yet to pass?

[geoo]

Well, the lemmings get turned around before falling down: http://207.58.177.175/~geoo89/lemmings/nocdlem_019.png

The four levels I didn't solve are all Hopeless levels:
09: Attack Of The Subconscious
16: Back And Forth
18: 3M
22: Dude, Where's My Exit?

[chaos_defrost]

AotS is somewhat surprising, but I can't say I'm at all surprised with the other three. I really think Back and Forth and 3M need to be in the late 20s when I re-arrange the set.

Anyways, since I figured out what's wrong, I think the horizontal floor with holes like in Cheapo is the only way that on will work. I'll change it to that and re-re-upload.

[Isu 2006]

I finished the cannonball level with 9 bombers and a basher...is that the intended solution?

No. :-?

(How the hell did you do that?)

[Leviathan]

I finished the cannonball level with 9 bombers and a basher...is that the intended solution?

No. :-?

(How the hell did you do that?)

Just time 9 bombers next to eachother so that each one creates a gap right next to the steel (going deeper and deeper).When deep enough bash to the left,reaching the exit.Depending how precise you are,it might be needed to increase the RR to 99 to make sure the lems have a safe fall distance when going into the bomber hole.

[Proxima]

The four levels I didn't solve are all Hopeless levels:
09: Attack Of The Subconscious
16: Back And Forth
18: 3M
22: Dude, Where's My Exit?

I didn't manage Back and Forth either -- I got everything except one important trick, and in the end Steve had to tell me how to do it.

I think I've solved 3M, but I haven't had time yet to confirm that my solution works. I explained it to Steve, and he said he agreed that it might.

I haven't come near solving either of the other two.

[geoo]

AotS is somewhat surprising, but I can't say I'm at all surprised with the other three. I really think Back and Forth and 3M need to be in the late 20s when I re-arrange the set.

Anyways, since I figured out what's wrong, I think the horizontal floor with holes like in Cheapo is the only way that on will work. I'll change it to that and re-re-upload.

Well, you might use those slopes but with a length of 4 px. Or if that looks like too many steps, you might use slopes with a decreasing length with 4 px as the length of the last slope. Or you could split the high fall into several ones with a height of 6 or 7 px and then use a platform without holes.

As for the 4 levels I didn't solve, 3M is the only one I didn't give so many tries yet. For AotS, I dunno, but everything I've tried has failed yet. For the last one I had/have got a couple of ideas, but I'd need to check them out for the complete terrain, which takes some time. I suppose I have to think with the creator's point of view thinking what would be an unconventional way to hide an exit. (Although you probably came up with the idea before you created that level.) Just wondering, will it still be the last level when the complete set is ready? For "Back and Forth", my best solutions I can think of are one or two builders short.
However, I don't want hints, I'll try to do my best solving them.
EDIT: I just solved "Dude, Where's My Exit". I had actually excluded the case I was trying, but then rethinking and having a closer look at it I noticed that this idea was possible and found the exit. @Insane Steve, do you want a 'revenge-level"? While trying your level I had got an idea how to hide an exit unconventionally.

@Arhibar: You're also working on a notebook set iirc. Could you send me a preview version of it, please? You talked a couple of times about "Zorn's Lemming", I'd be interested in that and also the other levels.

[chaos_defrost]

Yes. Dude, Where's My Exit will be 4.30 when all is said and done. I'm thinking 4.27 and 4.28 for Back and Forth/3M. (4.29 is a level I've yet to design.)

Also, yes, send a level with your new idea to hide an exit in a strange way.

I'll fiddle with ways to make my LemEdit re-make level work. Another idea I had was to make a sort of slope of horizontal lines with one pixel gaps that turned lemmings on the "higher" ground if the blocker is used there but turns the lemmings into a hole if the blocker is used elsewhere.

I'm also planning a few Tricky difficulty levles, you know, something that can be solved in a few different ways but looks really neat.

[Proxima]

@Arhibar: You're also working on a notebook set iirc. Could you send me a preview version of it, please? You talked a couple of times about "Zorn's Lemming", I'd be interested in that and also the other levels.

No, you've got two sets mixed up. My notebook set contains just ten levels selected from dozens I made when I was nine or ten and recently found again; as you might expect, even the selected few are not great levels, and the rest were too poor to be worth preserving at all.

I am, however, working on a compilation set -- a linked series of sets with different difficulty categories, like Insane Steve's sets -- and Zorn's Lemming belongs to the last category of that. Only trouble is that all the levels in these sets use my new styles, which aren't publicly released yet. If you like, I can have a go at compiling a preview and including draft versions of the styles; but I should warn you that it would make a big file. (Each style is around 1MB and there are twenty..... but of course if I was sending you a preview I'd only include the styles actually used in the included levels.)

[geoo]

No, you've got two sets mixed up. My notebook set contains just ten levels selected from dozens I made when I was nine or ten and recently found again; as you might expect, even the selected few are not great levels, and the rest were too poor to be worth preserving at all.
[...]

Oh, you're right, I just noticed I even seem to have your notebook levels.
Anyway, if you could compile the set for me, that would be very kind. I already have the MichaelBlue and MichaelPink style, if there haven't been made important updates for those styles you wouldn't need to send them. I shouldn't have problems with big files. Also in case you're not using the classic (columns) style in one of your levels, I'd like to get one version of it though.
You know my e-mail? Otherwise use the e-mail button to see or here it is: geoo89(ad)gmail(dod)com

[...]
Also, yes, send a level with your new idea to hide an exit in a strange way.
[...]

I hope to get it ready until tomorrow. I already started the level, but I need to complete it. It btw will use one of the styles of a level of you I didn't solve.
I won't get it ready today, I want to watch snooker now.

To stay on topic, I might make a few levels for the remake with a medium difficulty too.

[Proxima]

I already have the MichaelBlue and MichaelPink style, if there haven't been made important updates for those styles you wouldn't need to send them.

Unfortunately I haven't been using version numbers, so I have no way of telling if you've got the latest versions or not. I'll include those styles anyway.

[JM]

Maybe some of these cheapo levels could be re-made for the Lemmings re-make game  

[Leviathan]

As I've never used Cheapo,I don't know how these levels look like

I think that the pixel-precise remake I made of FANL (fall and no life part 1) together with a few tweaks to the level could provide a very neat level...any ideas on how to make FANL really difficult would be appreciated...as I don't want the level to be completely exact in execution as in Genesis...

There were 2 major difficulties when remaking FANL which took me some hours of my time...
-The bending pillars (LemEdit lacks some pieces to make it easy).
-The thin piece that separates the 2 crucial 2-pixel wide gaps (LemEdit lacks those thin pieces themselves so I have to make them from other existing pieces).

[Proxima]

Maybe some of these cheapo levels could be re-made for the Lemmings re-make game

Well, I already suggested that (twice) but no-one took any interest.

As I've never used Cheapo,I don't know how these levels look like

I could provide screenshots if you like.......

[Leviathan]

I'dd like to see those screenshots,but there's one question about Cheapo: is the screen format the same as in Lemmings?

[Proxima]

I'm not really sure what you mean by "screen format". One screen is the same size, but levels can be incompatible sizes because Cheapo allows vertical scrolling levels as well as horizontal ones.

[JM]

I've made a level for this Lemmings re-make thing and I've been trying for the past 10 minutes to upload it to The Lemmings File Portal but the page for the file portal won't show up. Please can somebody explain why this is happening thanks?

[Leviathan]

I'm not really sure what you mean by "screen format". One screen is the same size, but levels can be incompatible sizes because Cheapo allows vertical scrolling levels as well as horizontal ones.

I'm not really sure what you mean by "screen format". One screen is the same size, but levels can be incompatible sizes because Cheapo allows vertical scrolling levels as well as horizontal ones.

I meant the vertical scrolling thing...as this isn't possible in Lemmings,those levels can't be remade
BTW,I'dd like to try cheapo but I can't find a working link/version anywhere...could you give me a link with a version that definately works and also a little bit of explanation how it works (I read about certain "sets" to be required for certain levels).


BTW,I have an idea on how to make FANL more difficult...set the time limit to 2 minutes and shift the "scenery" which is used for turning the lemming around a few pixels to the right so the "stretching builder trick" is required

I'll work on FANL 2 too very soon

[Leviathan]

It's finished...I hope some people can tell me about it,as with the "3 musketeers" level I made

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/fanl.dat

[Proxima]

OK, here are the screenshots of some of my levels, together with the skills/stats info!



(note: there's a hidden boulder trap to the left of the mound under the exit)

The Corridor of Death
Save 25 of 50, RR 1, 4 minutes, skills 10-10-10-10-5-10-10-10
Rating: Fun

The Three Tools of Death
Save 50 of 50, RR 1, 2 minutes, skills 1-1-1-1-5-1-1-1
Rating: early Taxing



We'll meet again
Save 9 of 10, RR 1, 1 minute, skills 0-1-1-1-1-0-0-5
Rating: late Fun

Lemming Dilemma
(remove the block indicated with the arrow)
Save 10 of 10, RR 1, 1 minute, skills 0-0-1-1-5-0-0-5
Rating: Taxing



Cooperation
Save 30 of 60, RR 50, 6 minutes, skills 10-10-10-10-20-10-10-10
Rating: Fun

Up on the Roof
Save 2 of 2, RR 99, 3 minutes 30 seconds, skills 1-0-0-0-10-0-3-3
Rating: late Taxing



The Two Towers
Save 25 of 50, RR 50, 5 minutes, skills 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1
Rating: Fun

Zorn's Lemming
Save 48 of 50, RR 50, 5 minutes, skills 10-1-1-1-4-0-0-10
Rating: Mayhem



Lift us up where we belong
Save 10 of 10, RR 1, 3 minutes, skills 1-1-1-1-3-0-3-0
Rating: Tricky

Just a Minute (Part Four)
Save 80 of 80, RR 10, 1 minute, skills 3-0-3-0-0-3-0-3
Rating: Taxing



From the Other Side
Save 30 of 40, RR 1, 3 minutes, skills 3-0-2-2-3-1-0-1
Rating: early Taxing

The Lemming Tower of Pizza
Save 12 of 30, RR 1, 1 minute 30 seconds, skills 20-0-10-0-3-0-0-0
Rating: Mayhem



Vignette
Save 100 of 100, RR 95, 1 minute 30 seconds, skills 0-0-0-2-5-0-0-2
Rating: Taxing



Behind Bars
Save 6 of 10, RR 1, 3 minutes, skills 3-6-3-0-3-1-0-0
Rating: Mayhem



Just a Minute (Part Five)
Save 100 of 100, RR 10, 1 minute, skills 2-0-2-0-0-7-0-7
Rating: Mayhem



Rhapsody in Blue
Save 77 of 80, RR 70, 4 minutes, skills 2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2
Rating: late Mayhem

[ccexplore]

Wow.  I especially love what you did w/ the traps for "Rhapsody in Blue".  Anyway, that level definitely deserves to be remade.  I would do it myself except I'm having a little bit of a heart attack looking at those embedded crystal pieces in the floor and the mass of overlapping crystals on the ceiling.

I'm having troubles matching level descriptions to screenshots by the way.  For example, isn't the 4th screenshot (counting from top) "Zorn's Lemmings"?  Looking at your list one would think that screenshot is for either "Up on the Roof" or "The Two Towers"  :-?.

[Leviathan]

I guess some screenshots apply to 2 levels with different skills and/or little terrain modifications

BTW: I can't beat FANL 2 so I can't remake it for now

[ccexplore]

Oh yeah, and music. &#A0;I currently don't know anything about how music is done in DOS Lemmings, and I'm not particularly sure about hacking adlib.dat to change the music, so for the current plan there is 2 choices:

I ended up figuring out adlib.dat over Xmas.  And I succeeded![smiley=party.gif]

It took a little while for me to get this out because it's slightly tedious to edit adlib.dat without writing additional programs, so I needed to spend time first on writing those programs.  But anyway, it's now ready for demo, please download:

http://www.geocities.com/guestlevels/lemmings/smbadlib.zip

Extract smbadlib.dat out of the zip file, then rename it to adlib.dat and copy it to the folder where you have Lemmings, nocdlem, or lemnew, replacing the adlib.dat there (but make a backup of the original adlib.dat first though!).

For demo purpose, this modified adlib.dat replaces the Lemmings1 music with the first 3 measures of the Super Mario Bros theme.  I would do more measures, except at this stage it's still somewhat of a pain to do adlib.dat modifications (ideally in the future I would have some way of starting from a more editable source like MIDI and converting to the adlib.dat format).  Besides, no one has decided what the special graphics levels are, so I'm not committing further hours until I know for sure what "new" music we'd need.

Still, it should be nice to know that the Lemmings music can now be customized.  (Not that we'd need to change any of the 17 music for the normal levels, just the 4 specials. )

[Proxima]

I'm having troubles matching level descriptions to screenshots by the way. &#A0;For example, isn't the 4th screenshot (counting from top) "Zorn's Lemmings"? &#A0;Looking at your list one would think that screenshot is for either "Up on the Roof" or "The Two Towers" &#A0;:-?.[/color]

It's "The Two Towers" and "Zorn's Lemming". Each picture goes with the level description(s) underneath it.

(And it's "Zorn's Lemming", not "Lemmings", in spite of there being more than one lemming on the level, because of the pun on Zorn's Lemma.)

[ccexplore]

Also, can you clarify the meaning of the red rectangles we occasionally see on levels? &#A0;I assume they are one-way walls.

[JM]

I've made a level for this Lemmings re-make thing and I've been trying for the past 10 minutes to upload it to The Lemmings File Portal but the page for the file portal won't show up. Please can somebody explain why this is happening thanks?

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/ACIDBATH.LVL

Now that the file portal is working, you can download the level  

[Proxima]

Also, can you clarify the meaning of the red rectangles we occasionally see on levels? &#A0;I assume they are one-way walls.

Yes.

[Leviathan]

I've made a level for this Lemmings re-make thing and I've been trying for the past 10 minutes to upload it to The Lemmings File Portal but the page for the file portal won't show up. Please can somebody explain why this is happening thanks?

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/ACIDBATH.LVL

Now that the file portal is working, you can download the level &#A0;

The level looks nice but there are 2 things that could be changed:

1)The trigger area of the acid is faulty so you should either drop the acid a few pixels down,or raise the terrain next to the axid a few pixels.My builder who started building at the edge of the acid drowned without even touching the acid which is annoying

2)You could cut off a number of builders to make the level more challenging

Other than that the level's very fine and would deserve mid-tricky or something

[JM]

My solution says that as soon as the floater hits the ground he starts building immediately before walking a distance or so.

[geoo]

Ok, I got my 'Exit' level ready. It's small (minimum size), therefore you shouldn't need to search for too long. However it shouldn't be too easy to find it.
Download the level, and the style if you don't have it, here:
http://207.58.177.175/~geoo89/lemmings/Exit.set
http://207.58.177.175/~geoo89/lemmings/L3-Classic.sty

Thanks @Arhibar, I'll have a closer look at your levels asap.

[Proxima]

The pedant in me would like to point out that the H comes before the R; it's pronounced that way too, "A-hri-bar"  

[Leviathan]

I've created the first 2 parter for the remake I guess

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/highlvls.dat

It's a pack with 2 levels,level 2 has only one small row of pixels in difference but it's a whole other world of difficulty due to moving a steel block 1 pixel up

I'm pretty sure I eliminated the backroutes but I'dd like it to be tested

The levels are:

Highway to hell (late fun or begin tricky)
Litter on the highway (mayhem)

[tseug]

That is a brilliant way to make a repeat level. Good job!

I am in the process of trying to save 100% on the second level. I'm stopping now, I'll continue sometime later tonight.

[ccexplore]

Wow. &#A0;I especially love what you did w/ the traps for "Rhapsody in Blue". &#A0;Anyway, that level definitely deserves to be remade. &#A0;I would do it myself except I'm having a little bit of a heart attack looking at those embedded crystal pieces in the floor and the mass of overlapping crystals on the ceiling.

I really got into it and have now remade most of that level:



For reference, the original Cheapo version looks like this:



The thin platform added on the left in my screenshot is not meant to be in the level.  I put it there to show what the max safe-fall distance is.  The platform is at the highest elevation that a lemming can safely land falling from top of platform.  Is that all right, or do I need to move parts of the level further up?

As you can see, I'm still a bit stumped dealing with the crystal floor.  It would be extremely helpful if Ahribar can give a general idea of the arrangement of the terrain pieces.  Oh yeah, and I need the starting screen x position.

It's a bit of a shame that LemEdit's crystal set seems to have slightly less vibrant colors compared with Ahribar's crystal  style.

[Leviathan]

That level looks really nice :p

Finally I've beaten FANL 2 and it was very satisfying doing so :p

I noticed "total director &#A0;A.T" in the ending credits too


By the way,I don't understand what people find so difficult in "final impediment"...I solved it very easily and it even didn't take 2 minutes...even releasing the blocker is very easy if you let him build a few stairs and then set him a blocker

[JM]

Looks good. Can't wait till there's a lemedit version of the level.

Anyway I've re-made my level "Acid bath" a small bit. I just moved the acid a few pixels down.

Download it here
http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/ACBATH2.LVL

[Proxima]

I really got into it and have now remade most of that level:

Wow! That's pretty amazing.... I can hardly tell any difference! I should mention, there is actually a sixth trap (the knife trap) hidden just to the right of the other five on the edge of the metal.

The thin platform added on the left in my screenshot is not meant to be in the level. &#A0;I put it there to show what the max safe-fall distance is. &#A0;The platform is at the highest elevation that a lemming can safely land falling from top of platform. &#A0;Is that all right, or do I need to move parts of the level further up?

Looks fine. The main thing is that even the bottom of the long platform over the exit is higher than the safe-fall distance, which it seems it is.

As you can see, I'm still a bit stumped dealing with the crystal floor. &#A0;It would be extremely helpful if Ahribar can give a general idea of the arrangement of the terrain pieces.

Um, I don't think I can. But if you look at my MichaelBlue style, you'll see there are only two different pieces, but I've turned them upside-down and back to front to cover the whole area with as few pieces as possible.

Oh yeah, and I need the starting screen x position.

I can't tell you as a number, but the right edge of the starting screen is on the rightmost pixel of the bar between the two metal ledges.

[JM]

Is there a Custlemm version of the level?

[ccexplore]

Um, I don't think I can. But if you look at my MichaelBlue style, you'll see there are only two different pieces, but I've turned them upside-down and back to front to cover the whole area with as few pieces as possible.

It's that random?  I would think it is at least a somewhat repeating pattern.

Anyhow, I guess if nothing else it would help to know whether you work out the floor from left to right, right to left, or some other order.  It might also be useful to know roughly what's the ratio of count of the two pieces used.  How often do you use upside-down and how often do you use back-to-front in the covering process?  (FYI, LemEdit doesn't support back-to-front.)

To be sure, I could probably just ad-hoc it; I guess I'm just somewhat fanatical about getting it to look as close to the Cheapo version as possible.  I'll probably use those "embedded crystal shards" as a guide to figuring how the placement of pieces.

I'll put the level up as soon as I get it done, though I'll be at work for a while so not yet.

[ccexplore]

Is there a Custlemm version of the level?

: You know, just a few posts back I already explained it is a LemEdit remake of Ahribar's Cheapo level.  So this is the Custlemm version. I'll post the level as soon as it's done.

[JM]

Cool. Is it going to be for the Lemmings re-make?

[ccexplore]

Yes.  At least I'm assuming that's why Ahribar posted screenshots of his Cheapo levels.

[JM]

Ahribar's levels look pretty good.

CHEAPO RULES!

[geoo]

I just found a backroute for the Cheapo version of "Rhapsody in Blue", @ccexplore, you don't need to care about it though because it won't work for original lemmings:
[highlight]Compress all lemmings except one. Make this one bash to pass the first trap. Use one builder to get over the second and third trap and another one to avoid the fourth and the fifth one. The only thing left you need to do is freeing the crowd blowing up the right blocker.[/highlight]

The pedant in me would like to point out that the H comes before the R; it's pronounced that way too, "A-hri-bar"

Sorry for that. Seems that I remrembered the name incorrectly.

@Leviathan: I might have a look how to increase the difficulty of FANL, but I promise nothing.

[Leviathan]

@Leviathan: I might have a look how to increase the difficulty of FANL, but I promise nothing.

I remade FANL 2 now too,I've became a little bit more expierienced with simulating the thin pieces and it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be

The irony is that puzzling out how to make the level look almost exact took much more effort than to solve FANL 2 after about 20 failed attempts

[Proxima]

I just found a backroute for the Cheapo version of "Rhapsody in Blue"

Clever. Does that avoid the hidden trap too? If so, then all I'll need to do is move it further to the right &#A0;

(As you might guess, the purpose of the hidden trap is to prevent a "compression method" solution building over the first two traps with one bridge and the third and fourth with another. It just occurs to me, though, that an alternative (though even more dishonest) method would be to turn the first, third and fifth traps into two traps each on the same location. Or just use a row of six traps, though that would involve changing the appearance, which ccexplore really likes, considerably.)

Sorry for that. Seems that I remrembered the name incorrectly.

Eh, don't worry about it.

[Proxima]

Anyhow, I guess if nothing else it would help to know whether you work out the floor from left to right, right to left, or some other order. &#A0;It might also be useful to know roughly what's the ratio of count of the two pieces used. &#A0;How often do you use upside-down and how often do you use back-to-front in the covering process?

It's left-to-right, and for the rest, I can tell you tomorrow morning when I'm on my home computer again.

[Leviathan]

Another level,this time in the pink set

It should combine 3 tricks:
-blocking lems with builders
-another (easy) method of blocking the lems on the other side
-a very neat basher trick

If there are no backroutes,it could be cathegorized as late taxing/begin mayhem I suppose.

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/bashtr.dat

[JM]

Leviathan have you taken a look at my level that has just been re-edited?

[Leviathan]

Leviathan have you taken a look at my level that has just been re-edited?

Yep,I'm afraid the problem is still there...it's not your fault but the fault of who-ever programmed the trigger area for that object

[tseug]

Another level,this time in the pink set

It should combine 3 tricks:
-blocking lems with builders
-another (easy) method of blocking the lems on the other side
-a very neat basher trick

If there are no backroutes,it could be cathegorized as late taxing/begin mayhem I suppose.

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/bashtr.dat

I see three ways:
Block off both ends and repeatedly bash to get higher. (probably intended)
Use the builder turn-around trick. (probably not)
Use the sliding glitch. (no way)

[ccexplore]

Or just use a row of six traps, though that would involve changing the appearance, which ccexplore really likes, considerably.)

Since you already threw in one hidden cutter trap already, another one wouldn't hurt (no pun intended) and certainly would leave the appearance unchanged.

[Leviathan]

Another level,this time in the pink set

It should combine 3 tricks:
-blocking lems with builders
-another (easy) method of blocking the lems on the other side
-a very neat basher trick

If there are no backroutes,it could be cathegorized as late taxing/begin mayhem I suppose.

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/bashtr.dat

I see three ways:
Block off both ends and repeatedly bash to get higher. (probably intended)
Use the builder turn-around trick. (probably not)
Use the sliding glitch. (no way)

The main trick should involve creating steps by using bashers,and builders to stop them at a certain point.

Even if you could manage to do the sliding glitch on this level,what would you do with the lemming on top of the tower?
I guess the turning around builder trick could work 1 time but you can't turn around 40 lems with it



About new levels: I think we should have at least 1 superlemming level too

[ccexplore]

About new levels: I think we should have at least 1 superlemming level too

Good idea, although I'd guess that would only be for the ONML remake.

And I'd rather have just exactly one superlemming level, unless people feel otherwise.  I don't know, I guess I'm not that big a fan of it.

Although, it might be interesting to avoid the pattern of single-lemming superlemming levels.  Imagine for example a superlemming level with multiple lemmings and multitasking required!  Clealry a "Havoc" level.

[tseug]

Imagine for example a superlemming level with multiple lemmings and multitasking required!

AHHH! I'm not going to imagine that.....

@levi: I will get screenshots of each solution a bit later.

[chaos_defrost]

If "Rhapsody in Blue" is going into the later Mayhem set (which it definitely should be; it's a very brilliantly designed level), I think I'm going to re-make the original "Rhapsody" level (as it stands, it's a bit sloppy, terrain-wise) and submit it also. I think it belongs in early-mid Taxing.

I want to put "The Razor's Edge" in this set, as well, although I really have no clue where it belongs in the packs. I'd conjecture Late-Tricky/Early-Taxing, but the trick will either be horribly obvious to some or not apparent at all to others.

[ccexplore]

It's left-to-right, and for the rest, I can tell you tomorrow morning when I'm on my home computer again.

Don't worry about it.  After examing just a portion of it, I quickly noticed that there are already many places where you use pieces in a back-to-front orientation.  So there is no way for me to even get the "crystal shards" exactly right.  I've decided to just ad-hoc it and make something that looks reasonably good and similar.

[Proxima]

Since you already threw in one hidden cutter trap already, another one wouldn't hurt (no pun intended) and certainly would leave the appearance unchanged.

Yeah...... only one won't quite cut it    but for now I've added three more cutter traps, making a row of four evenly spaces between the five demolecularisers. I'm not completely satisfied with that, just because it seems very ad hoc to use hidden traps just to kill off a route; but then, the route isn't one the player should be encouraged to even think about.......

[ccexplore]

Hmm, I just notice a backroute for the LemEdit remake of Rhapsody in Blue.  It doesn't work in Cheapo because the glitch is CustLemm/Lemmings only:

[highlight]From entrance, dig some ways, then bash to the right until you're past the traps.  Turn the bashing in the midst of one of his bash strokes to a builder.  By interrupting his bash stroke at the right time, it's possible to leave only a small "dent" into the end of the bash tunnel, such that the narrowest part of the dent is one pixel in height.  Let some other lemming build facing right while inside the one-pixel part of the dent, he will then get trapped inside the wall.  Make him a climber.  Due to the CustLemm/Lemmings glitch, he will be able to climb up thru the terrain.  Let that lemming walk towards the exit, then have him mine into the steel block near the exit to turn him around.  Now have him use miners and/or bashers to complete a path to the exit.[/highlight]

The saving grace is that one of the moves involved needs to be timed fairly precisely so it's not exactly trivial.  And if we include people not in this forum as the target audience for our Lemmings remake set, perhaps not too many people would know of the glitch used involving the climber.  Still, many of you here know of it.

Please contribute ideas on how best to eliminate this backroute.

[Proxima]

I don't understand    Isn't the ground under the entrance metal? So how can you dig there?

[ccexplore]

Oh oops, for some reason I mentally had the entrance at some other location.

Ok good, no backroute then.

[Proxima]

Would something like this be possible? (I don't know how the climber glitch works, so this is just an idea....)

Block before the traps, and send one athlete over the arch. Dig down to the crystal ground and bomb. Meanwhile send a climber up the arch and have him dig away half the right pillar; bomb away the other half, and bash the left pillar. Bash under the entrance and traps, build to stop bashing. When the climber enters the "dent" at the end of the tunnel, as in your backroute attempt, build again to trap him inside the wall. Mine into the metal to turn round and again to save the other lemmings.

Though even if it does work, it's questionable whether it qualifies as a backroute. You can't save more than 77/80 and it uses just one skill less than the main solution. Although you do save a blocker, so you don't have to use a timed bomb to blow away the other half of the pillar, making execution a lot easier.....

[ccexplore]

Would something like this be possible? (I don't know how the climber glitch works, so this is just an idea....)

Yes it's possible, and I wouldn't consider it a backroute either.  Basically, as soon as you need to start dealing with the arch, it can be argued that a solution is no longer a backroute.

But reading your route brings up a good point.  Due to the lazy way CustLemm handles explosion and metal, an exploder that's standing on steel will not remove any terrain nearby, whether or not such terrain themselves are steel.

So in order for your solution to work, I believe you'd need a non-climber to do the bombing of the right pillar, and that must happen at the time when the climber has nearly but not completely dug down the right half of the right pillar (so that the non-climber can walk up to where the digger's at, and then explode).

[Proxima]

Yes it's possible, and I wouldn't consider it a backroute either.  Basically, as soon as you need to start dealing with the arch, it can be argued that a solution is no longer a backroute.

Hmm. I agree that it isn't a backroute, but not just because of the arch. The main thing for me is that you still need to be careful with your skills -- each one has to be used in a certain place and it's hard to find the route because the most obvious things to try (e.g. making the digger build to turn round, or mine down to the metal one the left) run out of one skill or other.

But reading your route brings up a good point.  Due to the lazy way CustLemm handles explosion and metal, an exploder that's standing on steel will not remove any terrain nearby, whether or not such terrain themselves are steel.

Damn!    I hadn't thought of that, but you're right, of course. So how can the main solution be rescued, without doing anything really destructive like adding a third climber?

[ccexplore]

Wow, it's been a while, I didn't even realize your intended solution is affected too.

Don't worry though, I can rearrange things so that the topmost row of pixels of the steel plates are non-metal.  Then the explosion will work, although it does look slightly unusual since it will also take out steel parts as well.  But I'm guessing as long as you can't bomb thru the steel completely (and you can't it's too thick) things should be ok.

[Proxima]

Wow, it's been a while, I didn't even realize your intended solution is affected too.

Don't worry though, I can rearrange things so that the topmost row of pixels of the steel plates are non-metal. &#A0;Then the explosion will work, although it does look slightly unusual since it will also take out steel parts as well. &#A0;But I'm guessing as long as you can't bomb thru the steel completely (and you can't it's too thick) things should be ok.

Hmm. Just so long as that doesn't make it possible to bypass the traps by digging / blowing the ground under the triggers.....

[ccexplore]

I'm actually already aware of that possibility, so the plan is to extend the steel area further up at the part with the traps.  I also plan to have tseug test out to make sure the traps cannot be bypassed.

[JM]

Is the Custlemm version of Rhapsody in blue able for download yet?

[ccexplore]

Patient, it still takes time to fill up the crystal floor even if I'm not following Ahribar's arrangement exactly.  Let's aim for Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon.

[Proxima]

   Wonderful!

Will you continue with the MIDIs after that, or do you have other things to do?

[ccexplore]

I was going to remake some more of your levels, but I guess I'll do the MIDIs first.

The interruption from the MIDI since Xmas was mainly due to the investigation on hacking adlib.dat so that custom music can be incorporated for the special graphics levels.

[tseug]

Another level,this time in the pink set

It should combine 3 tricks:
-blocking lems with builders
-another (easy) method of blocking the lems on the other side
-a very neat basher trick

If there are no backroutes,it could be cathegorized as late taxing/begin mayhem I suppose.

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/bashtr.dat

I see three ways:
Block off both ends and repeatedly bash to get higher. (probably intended)
Use the builder turn-around trick. (probably not)
Use the sliding glitch. (no way)

The sliding glitch doesn't help because the digger has to be used on the right group. So there are two ways. I'll get to screenshots at some point...

EDIT: The solution that involves turning around is too difficult to be any concern. Here's a screenshot of what was probably intended: screenshot
I accidentally lost one to the trap, but that could have been avoided.

[Proxima]

The interruption from the MIDI since Xmas was mainly due to the investigation on hacking adlib.dat so that custom music can be incorporated for the special graphics levels.

Ah, that's OK.  :  Just so long as you weren't idling about!

[Proxima]

I was going to remake some more of your levels, but I guess I'll do the MIDIs first.

Just so you know, if you do remake some of the others (and I'd be very happy if you did), I've made a slight change to "Lift us up where we belong" / "Just a Minute Part Four" to eliminate a couple of backroutes. I changed the square metal plate under the trapdoor to a vertical rectangular one, still touching the wall with a space on its left.

Oh, and I found a 100% solution to "We'll meet again"! I surprise myself sometimes......

[ccexplore]

Patient, it still takes time to fill up the crystal floor even if I'm not following Ahribar's arrangement exactly. &#A0;Let's aim for Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon.

Ok, the level is ready for beta-testing.  Here's the screenshot:



And the level can be downloaded at:

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/rhapblue.lvl

I haven't gotten around to testing the level yet, so at this point I haven't even confirmed yet that it is solvable, let alone backroutes.  I do encourage geoo89, tseug and others to really try to find a backroute.  Feel free to view the level in lemedit so you understand the steel area placement, which I hope will help eliminate potential backroutes.  Also let me know whether the slicer trap to the right of the electrode traps is actually necessary.

I actually haven't really decided yet on the steel area placement.  The current setup has the ground at y=119 and the steel at y=120, except a couple of places where the steel is raised to y=116 (in LemEdit steel coordinates are always aligned to multiples of 4).  An alternative setup I'm contemplating would have both the ground and the steel at y=120, except a few places where the steel is lowered to y=124.  For those who understand what I'm getting at, please let me know which choice you'd prefer.

I have decided however not to include any water, in contrast to the original Cheapo version.  Because in CustLemm you can't make the level width smaller than the maximum, I'd have to extend the water all the way to the left and right boundaries.  And I don't think that's any better than simply leaving those unused areas (more than a screen's worth) blank.  Of course, if you feel inspired to fill up those blank areas in some gorgeous ways, do so, but please upload a differently-named file and a screenshot so Ahribar can approve/disapprove.

[Leviathan]

I think it's possible tempering with the blocker feeld however timing a specific bomber must be pixel-precise so I guess it's nearly impossible to destroy the steel.

However breaking the steel might be possible with a bomber from above and a bomber from below...I'll try that later

What is the intended solution to this level?

[Leviathan]

I did it
96% saved within 3 minutes leaving a spare floater and climber.

I guess my solution was very difficult to pull off but it worked (I played in plain dos so I couldn't make a screenshot )
Here's what I did:

[highlight]-Make the first lem a blocker somewhere before the traps.
-Set a bomb on the second lemming and have a third one climb up the tall structure.
-The bomber should have destroyed large parts of the steel and the climber should be turned around by a builder once on top the structure by building to the crystals.
-The climber builds towards the sphere and digs down when he's beyond the traps and is made a floater.
-Once the lem is down,have him turn around on the edge of the steel block and mine down when he goes the other direction.
-Have him bash once he's sufficiently deep under the steel blocks (when bashing under the steel no "regular" terrain should remain under the steel blocks.
-Bomb the basher and time the bomber so that he explodes right under the crater of the first bomber.
-Set a blocker at the bottom of the crater and use the steel failiure glitch to remove the last 3 pixels of steel and remove the blocker if he isn't released by himself (by using the last basher).[/highlight]

It was very fun to see this actually working

[JM]

The scenery of the level is quite cool. I haven't passed the level yet but I'll try and pass it later.

[Proxima]

Hmm, that's an annoying backroute. I'm glad it's not my job to work out how to fix it!  

I'll put the intended solution on a webpage, so you don't have to see it but you can look if you want to. The address will be http://www.geocities.com/zarathustra47/Rhapsody.html

[ccexplore]

However breaking the steel might be possible with a bomber from above and a bomber from below...

Ah, good catch! [smiley=thumbsup.gif] Thanks, I'll try to fix it later tonight.

[ccexplore]

I still have about 6 hours before I get back home, but currently I'm planning to eliminate Leviathan's backroute by eliminating the possibility of turning yourself around on top of the arch using only 1 builder.  This can be done by removing and/or repositioning some of those decorative crystals on the ceiling.

Specifically, as shown in the screenshot, terrain pixels need to be above the red line.  (The red line itself is 21 pixels above the top row of pixels of the arch.)



If any of you (Ahribar?) has specific requests for how you'd like the crystals redone, post or send me a screenshot.

But perhaps more importantly, someone (Levithan?) should make sure my proposed change idea actually eliminates the sort of backroute Leviathan is going for.

[ccexplore]

I still have about 6 hours before I get back home, but currently I'm planning to eliminate Leviathan's backroute by eliminating the possibility of turning yourself around on top of the arch using only 1 builder.

On second thought, that won't help:

[highlight]Instead of turning around using a builder on top of the arch, let the lemming go over the arch and mine to turn around.  Later once you get past the sphere, when you dig down to get to lower ground, build on thin air once you dig thru, so that you turn yourself around to face left before floating down to the lower ground.[/highlight]

So don't be too glad, Ahribar.  I'm not sure at this moment how well I can eliminate the backroute without making drastic and ugly changes.

[Proxima]

I think you should just make the change to the crystals you suggested. The fact that it allows a backroute with that builder glitch doesn't matter because (1) there is a backroute with that glitch already, and (2) combining that with the other glitch needed for the solution probably makes it harder than the real solution.

As for how to move the crystals, I would suggest moving the one crystal that touches the red line on the right to just miss the line, and then moving the entire block of crystals sufficently far left.

[Proxima]

Or here'a suggestion for an alternative way you could do it....

[tseug]

It might be possible to use the mayhem 2 glitch. I found something that is certainly a backroute, but I really doubt that anyone would try it.

[ccexplore]

Well, post or PM me (and Ahribar I guess) your solution anyway, we can decide what if anything to do about it.

[tseug]

I sent a PM. I really don't see any point in removing it, changing the level could create new backroutes.

[edit]199.......[/edit]

[ccexplore]

tseug:  got your PM.  Your solution is a variant of a solution Ahribar mentioned in this earlier post in the thread.  Although, your solution does save 78/80 (perhaps even a lose 1 solution?) and have slightly more leftover skills, so it's definitely a more serious backroute in comparison.

Unfortunately, I don't have any ideas at all on how one would go about eliminating such backroutes, so looks like it'll have to stay for now.  At least your solution involves a less-known glitch and requires some precise timing with the key moves.

It's too bad that such a good level is so plagued by Lemmings/Custlemm glitches.  Hopefully I'll have better luck with remaking other Ahribar levels.

[ccexplore]

Unfortunately, I don't have any ideas at all on how one would go about eliminating such backroutes, so looks like it'll have to stay for now. &#A0;At least your solution involves a less-known glitch and requires some precise timing with the key moves.

Actually, I just came up with an interesting idea that can potentially eliminate these climb-thru terrain backroutes.

I'm fairly certain it will eliminate the backroute exactly as described by tseug.  I'm less certain about Ahribar's and variations of both.  The nice thing though is, this change is invisible on the outset!  (Hint:  it's only possible in the Lemmings/Custlemm crystal graphics set......)

I'll describe the idea later in a separate post.  Stay tuned......

[ccexplore]

Ok, here we go, a link to an explanation of my idea to eliminate tseug and Ahribar's backroutes, or at least one of them:

http://www.geocities.com/guestlevels/lemmings/pocketsofair.txt

Although I must say I'm more inclined at this point to temporarily leave alone the level.  In particular I want to start looking into remaking "From the Other Side" and "Behind Bars".  The former because it looks like one of the simplest levels to remake (except for those "rings" at the left ceilling--what a load of black eraser pieces there'd be!), and the latter because it's another one of those levels that I really like.  There's plenty of time to get back to fixing Rhasody in Blue later.

[ccexplore]

So don't be too glad, Ahribar. &#A0;I'm not sure at this moment how well I can eliminate the backroute without making drastic and ugly changes.

Back to Leviathan's backroute.  How about this for a fix:



This forces the basher to start bashing a bit lower.  It should eliminate Levithan's backroute, since I believe he would then need to apply the [highlight]"steel failure"[/highlight] glitch twice instead of just once, and that would require an additional blocker.

The only objection (if any) is concerning the visual change, what'd you think?

[ccexplore]

I should also add (without going into details) that this fix which forces lower bashing will also have the additional benefit of slightly simplifying the changes necessary to implement the idea mentioned a few posts earlier regarding the potential elimination of the backroutes involving the climber glitch.

[ccexplore]

I should also add (without going into details) that this fix which forces lower bashing will also have the additional benefit of slightly simplifying the changes necessary to implement the idea mentioned a few posts earlier regarding the potential elimination of the backroutes involving the climber glitch.

Whoa, all that in a single sentence.  Hope it's readable.

Or let's try this:

I should also add (without going into details) that by lowering the bashing, there's an additional benefit.  Namely, it simplifies the changes necessary to implement the other idea mentioned earlier, regarding the potential elimination of the backroutes involving the climber glitch.

[Proxima]

The only objection (if any) is concerning the visual change, what'd you think?

I have no problem with it. Just check that there's still enough space to make it easy for the miner from the right to get low enough -- that bit's not meant to require precision.

I'd be very happy to see "Behind Bars" remade    On "From the Other Side", though, I'm not really happy with the decorative terrain -- I'd like to have another go at doing it a bit better. I could combine that with getting rid of those ring pieces, since I imagine they will be difficult to handle on LemEdit!

[ccexplore]

I have no problem with it. Just check that there's still enough space to make it easy for the miner from the right to get low enough -- that bit's not meant to require precision.

Well, perhaps you can make a copy of your Cheapo version, erase some of the bottom-most terrain to match the LemEdit version, add the larger steel plates, and try it out and see.  It's certainly not pixel-precise, but clearly you are a bit more constrained in regards to where to start mining.  You'll have to tell me what "easy" means for you.

I can say though that I'll probably extend the left end slightly so there's more room to start mining.  Also, I can adjust the steel area so that on the right end your mining is less likely to hit steel before getting low enough.

Based on my calculations, I actually only need the bigger steel plates to be 21 pixels tall, but unfortunately they only come in 16 or 25.  I suppose I can set the steel area not to include the bottom 4 rows of pixels of the bigger steel plates.

On "From the Other Side", though, I'm not really happy with the decorative terrain -- I'd like to have another go at doing it a bit better. I could combine that with getting rid of those ring pieces, since I imagine they will be difficult to handle on LemEdit!

Well, it'd be tedious since I'd have to hollow out the rings with numerous eraser pieces, but it's doable and actually kinda neat to be able to recreate them in LemEdit.  So you don't have to get rid of those rings unless you really want to.  You decide.

[Leviathan]

I've created a new roman set level which took me a hell lot of time to design...even more than FANL...

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/BASHBEND.dat

If you know the trick it's very easy (aside from some precision) and if you don't see the trick I guess it's impossible

I guess there are no backroutes given the strict ammount of skills...but who knows

[tseug]

I certainly don't see any backroutes. In my opinion the solution is rather obvious, but still fun to watch.

[Proxima]

I have no problem with it. Just check that there's still enough space to make it easy for the miner from the right to get low enough -- that bit's not meant to require precision.

Well, perhaps you can make a copy of your Cheapo version, erase some of the bottom-most terrain to match the LemEdit version, add the larger steel plates, and try it out and see.  It's certainly not pixel-precise, but clearly you are a bit more constrained in regards to where to start mining.  You'll have to tell me what "easy" means for you.

I did, and there was no problem.

Well, it'd be tedious since I'd have to hollow out the rings with numerous eraser pieces, but it's doable and actually kinda neat to be able to recreate them in LemEdit.  So you don't have to get rid of those rings unless you really want to.  You decide.

I'll have a go at redoing the level soon and tell you if I get anywhere. I imagine there's no hurry, since you can do "Behind Bars" and the remaining MIDIs first anyway.

[ccexplore]

I did some more calculations, thinking and testing.  Unfortunately, if I modify Levithan's scheme a little (for example, making the first blocker as well as the second blocker participate in steel failures), turns out it's possible to penetrate up to 24 pixels down from the surface.  And turns out that is just barely enough to allow a basher bashing underneath to connect with the penetration.  (The basher cannot start bashing any higher or the steel area will stop the bashing.  Starting lower and the basher tunnel won't connect with the penetration.)

So even the 25-pixel steel plate is apparently not quite enough.  On the other hand, I really don't want to enlarge the steel areas any further.

So instead I'm considering the possibility of hacking the game to remove the steel failure glitch.  Since it's already necessary to hack the game for more mundane things like disabling the implicit level repeat mechanism (aka "oddtable"), there's no reason not to hack further.  I doubt anyone here misses that glitch anyway, and we stipulated no glitches required for the remakes.  This simply enforces one aspect of the rule.

I don't know yet how doable it is, but I'll definitely look into it.

[Leviathan]

It might be possible,however using this glitch as a backroute seems more difficult to pull off than the original solution so the question is: will it be worth it spending time to hack the game and maybe even alter the original game's mechanics?

I have another question: it seems in some versions of lemmings 1 the safe fall distance is different...in one version the lemmings from the exit would splat in Mayhem 1 (the version I had when I was little) and in the other version (the one I have now) they don't splat.
Both those versions are PC-DOS.

So I'm really confused about the safe fall distances...

I believe in Genesis the safe distance is the lowest of all versions (possibly the same as the first version of lemmings I mentioned) and the highest for CustLem1 (possibly the same as the second version I mentiond).

[ccexplore]

It might be possible,however using this glitch as a backroute seems more difficult to pull off than the original solution so the question is: will it be worth it spending time to hack the game and maybe even alter the original game's mechanics?

By eliminating certain glitches for good, it saves time down the road, as you no longer need to work around the same glitches in other levels.  And not having to alter the level to deal with glitches means less compromises to the desired visual appearance.

I have another question: it seems in some versions of lemmings 1 the safe fall distance is different...in one version the lemmings from the exit would splat in Mayhem 1 (the version I had when I was little) and in the other version (the one I have now) they don't splat.

That was discovered some time ago.  A more dramatic effect of the fall distance can be seen in the "We All Fall Down" levels.  In the version with the higher safe fall distance, those levels can be passed without doing anything.

It's believed that the original version of Lemmings 1 has the smaller safe fall distance.  It is alleged that at some point during ONML development, they decided to increase the fall distance slightly in order to deal with a certain level.  Around the same time, Psygnosis published an official "solution book" written by Mark Tsai.  That solution book includes a version of Lemmings 1 that I think is modified to present some preview of ONML levels or the like when you complete Mayhem or something.  That version apparently inherited the increased fall distance (most likely by accident, as the increased fall distance ruins "We All Fall Down").  That might be the version you have.

Interestingly, the ONML you can get from abandonia.com has the smaller safe fall distance, so it's not clear whether they reverted back to the original fall distance when ONML is finally published, or instead the version you get from abandonia.com is somehow hacked or otherwise not the true original copy of ONML.  I tend to think the former, because the Amiga version of ONML I downloaded somewhere also has the smaller safe fall distance.  But I can't vouch for the authenticity of the PC/DOS and Amiga versions I have on my computer.

So I'm really confused about the safe fall distances...

I can't blame you here.  But, given that the higher fall distance ruins "We All Fall Down", I think we can agree that at least for Lemmings 1, it's meant for the smaller fall distance.  Moreover, it's found that all ONML levels are solvable with the smaller fall distance.

Unfortunately, CustLemm came with the higher fall distance, and far too many CustLemm levels have been created before the fall distance difference is discovered.  This is mainly why I decided to use the higher fall distance for our Lemmings remake.  The decision is not final however.

I believe in Genesis the safe distance is the lowest of all versions (possibly the same as the first version of lemmings I mentioned) and the highest for CustLem1 (possibly the same as the second version I mentiond).

Discounting versions like NES and GameBoy that have rather different game mechanics, there is just 2 known fall distances amongst the various versions.  Most versions should have the smaller fall distance, so the Genesis version's fall distance is in fact the same as the old PC Lemmings 1, Amiga Lemmings, SNES Lemmings, etc.  The only versions I know of with the higher fall distance is Mark Tsai's Lemmings 1 and CustLem1.  If anyone ever comes across a demo version of ONML, it might be interesting to check out which fall distance it uses.

[geoo]

If anyone ever comes across a demo version of ONML, it might be interesting to check out which fall distance it uses.

Well, I sometime downloaded a demo version of ONML because the complete versions didn't work for some reason (I got a working one now however), and at 66px the lemmings don't splat but at 67 px height, i.e. it has the higher fall distance.
Unfortunately I don't remember where I got this version from.

[JM]

I've created a new roman set level which took me a hell lot of time to design...even more than FANL...

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/BASHBEND.dat

If you know the trick it's very easy (aside from some precision) and if you don't see the trick I guess it's impossible

I guess there are no backroutes given the strict ammount of skills...but who knows

I don't think there is any backroutes in the level. It looks really good. I like the design of the level. I could try and do more levels for this re-make thing.

[ccexplore]

I think you should just make the change to the crystals you suggested. The fact that it allows a backroute with that builder glitch doesn't matter because (1) there is a backroute with that glitch already

@Ahribar:  if the thin platform between the sphere and the metal wall is made even thinner (say, 3 pixels or less), then even if you build on thin air, you won't be turned around.

Of course, I'm not too enthused about the resulting visual change.

I'm contemplating making this another candidate for elimination by game hacking.  Namely, I'm thinking of making it so that the digger becomes a faller as soon as it breaks through, so that you get no chance to assign it another skill while it's on thin air.

But, it's likely that if I do this, it will decrease by 1 pixel the effective fall distance of a digger who broke thru.  Basically because the digger would start falling at the elevation where the bottommost row of terrain pixels were at.  The way it is right now, the digger actually starts falling one row below.  I emphasize that this only affects diggers.

I need input from other people here regarding whether they see this change as unacceptable or ok.

[Proxima]

But, it's likely that if I do this, it will decrease by 1 pixel the effective fall distance of a digger who broke thru.  Basically because the digger would start falling at the elevation where the bottommost row of terrain pixels were at.  The way it is right now, the digger actually starts falling one row below.  I emphasize that this only affects diggers.

:-/  Am I missing something, or should "decrease" there be "increase"?

(And my levels are designed with this behaviour in mind anyway -- Cheapo does the same.)

[ccexplore]

But, it's likely that if I do this, it will decrease by 1 pixel the effective fall distance of a digger who broke thru. &#A0;Basically because the digger would start falling at the elevation where the bottommost row of terrain pixels were at. &#A0;The way it is right now, the digger actually starts falling one row below. &#A0;I emphasize that this only affects diggers.

:-/ &#A0;Am I missing something, or should "decrease" there be "increase"?

Oops, yeah, I meant increase.

Very few if any levels would be affected by the change, and even if it is affected, in many cases you can just make the terrain one pixel thicker or move the landing spot one pixel up to compensate.  The change would also make the digger's fall behavior arguably a little more consistent with other skills' fall behavior.  The way it is right now, in effect the digger doesn't fall when he breaks through, but rather when he digs at thin air.  This behavior has pretty much no analogue in the other skills.

[Proxima]

So -- just to get this straight -- in the current version it's possible to have a 1px-thick ledge at the perfect height that if you dig through it, the digger will survive but the walkers behind him will not?

[ccexplore]

So -- just to get this straight -- in the current version it's possible to have a 1px-thick ledge at the perfect height that if you dig through it, the digger will survive but the walkers behind him will not?

Unfortunately, the game mechanics is more confusing than you think. &#A0;:

For walkers going off the edge of a cliff, the game actually moves the lemming from the previous position to a position one pixel horizontally and 4 pixels down, then the transition to faller starts. &#A0;But it appears that the game code doesn't account properly for that bit of "pre-fall" when keeping track of how far the lemming has fallen, so as a result, a walker can survive a slightly longer fall than a digger. &#A0;If you recall from "Lemmings Challenge", this is why for my 100% solution to Wicked 6, I made the miner a blocker on thin air. &#A0;The miner cannot survive as high a fall as the walker (blocker transitions to walker when freed) can.

What I am saying with regards to the digger is this: &#A0;currently the way it works, the digger actually starts falling at the position marked by "*":

Code: [Select]

XXXX.........XXXX
XXXX.........XXXX
........*........This is because the digger doesn't start falling when he digs through; rather, he actually starts falling after one more dig, the "digging at thin air" dig, which places him at "*" when he finally starts falling.

With my proposed change, the "*" goes up by 1, since you do turn into a faller immediately after digging through:

Code: [Select]

XXXX.........XXXX
XXXX....*....XXXX----------------------------

Of course, being the lazy guy that I can be, I do wonder now whether we should simply ignore the existence of backroutes that use glitches, instead just pretending that the game does bar those glitches. &#A0;(Although, I'd probably still hack the game to at least fix the inconsistency regarding miners facing left/right and one-way walls.)[/color]

[ccexplore]

As a reference, this is the picture depicting the starting fall position of a walker that was standing at the bottom of the digger's pit when the digger digs through (the "+" depicts where the walker was before transitioning into faller):

Code: [Select]

XXXX...+.....XXXX
XXXX.........XXXX
.................
.................
........*........[/color]

[Leviathan]

Is it possible to adjust the trigger area for the acid water trap?


Another question: is it somehow possible to add custom usable terrain to LemEdit2? Where is the file containing all the terrain piece information as well as shapes etc?

[Proxima]

Of course, being the lazy guy that I can be, I do wonder now whether we should simply ignore the existence of backroutes that use glitches, instead just pretending that the game does bar those glitches. &#A0;(Although, I'd probably still hack the game to at least fix the inconsistency regarding miners facing left/right and one-way walls.)

Of course, it depends on how much work the hack would involve, which I know nothing about.

I'm a bit worried about how this would affect some of my other levels, in particular "Lemming Dilemma" (not that I know whether you're planning to remake that one at any stage). For that level, it's required that the digger can survive the fall from the thin platform on the left after digging it, but a faller can't. Though I guess you can simply make the platform a little thicker if necessary.

If you are sure that level will still be workable, I have no problem with the suggested change.

[ccexplore]

Is it possible to adjust the trigger area for the acid water trap?

Another question: is it somehow possible to add custom usable terrain to LemEdit2? Where is the file containing all the terrain piece information as well as shapes etc?

The answer to both your question is yes, although I'm not sure we want to do this for the remake, especially regarding your second question.

The vgagrX.dat files contains the graphics data (ie. bitmaps) for the various graphics sets.  The corresponding groundXo.dat files contains the non-graphics data (eg. width, height, trigger area info, where in vgagrX.dat the graphics for this piece is located, etc.).  They contain info for both the interactive objects and terrain pieces of the set.

Is there a reason you want the trigger areas for the water to be adjusted?  I'm under the impression that they work fine in normal setups.

[ccexplore]

I'm a bit worried about how this would affect some of my other levels, in particular "Lemming Dilemma" (not that I know whether you're planning to remake that one at any stage). For that level, it's required that the digger can survive the fall from the thin platform on the left after digging it, but a faller can't. Though I guess you can simply make the platform a little thicker if necessary.

I do hope to remake all your levels.  For Lemming Dilemma, I'm thinking that the platform should be thick enough to do what you want, we'll see.  Certainly the general concept is possible since after all, We All Fall Down works!

[Proxima]

Yes, but from what you were saying it certainly seems that there's a minimum thickness required for a platform to have the desired behaviour, and I can't offhand remember what thickness I used in "Dilemma" -- besides being a bit confused as to how to work out exactly what the required thickness would be.  :

[ccexplore]

My ASCII pictures should be of help in working out the thickness you want.  Since the difference is all in the pre-fall, it's a matter of making sure the height at which the walker transitions to a faller is a bit higher than the height at which the digger does so.

The walker if you recall transitions at 4 pixels down:

+
X
X
X
X*

So we need the digger's transition position to be at least one lower.  Since currently the digger falls one pixel below the bottommost rows of pixels of the platform, this means a minimum thickness of 4 will do it.

With my change, you'd need a minimum thickness of 5.  For reference, I think in WAFD the thickness of the platform is 6.  I know the thinner the better, but I'd think even the 6 isn't that thick to be a visual atrocity.

[ccexplore]

and I can't offhand remember what thickness I used in "Dilemma"

I checked your screenshot and it turns out the thickness is 4.  So my change would require thickening the platform slightly.

[Leviathan]

Is it possible to adjust the trigger area for the acid water trap?

Another question: is it somehow possible to add custom usable terrain to LemEdit2? Where is the file containing all the terrain piece information as well as shapes etc?

The answer to both your question is yes, although I'm not sure we want to do this for the remake, especially regarding your second question.

The vgagrX.dat files contains the graphics data (ie. bitmaps) for the various graphics sets. &#A0;The corresponding groundXo.dat files contains the non-graphics data (eg. width, height, trigger area info, where in vgagrX.dat the graphics for this piece is located, etc.). &#A0;They contain info for both the interactive objects and terrain pieces of the set.

Is there a reason you want the trigger areas for the water to be adjusted? &#A0;I'm under the impression that they work fine in normal setups.

The trigger area of the water is fine,but not that of the acid from the pink set...it seems to be offset about 4 pixels too high...

The second question wasn't remake-related but rather a general question...but how can I get access to the BMP's inside the .dat files?

[ccexplore]

The trigger area of the water is fine,but not that of the acid from the pink set...it seems to be offset about 4 pixels too high...

Ok I'll try to look into it tonight.  But make sure that when you use the object you have its y-coordinate align to a multiple of 4.  Not aligning it to a multiple of 4 will causes the trigger area to be shifted up (so that it becomes aligned).

And couldn't you just move you terrain up a little in your levels?

The second question wasn't remake-related but rather a general question...but how can I get access to the BMP's inside the .dat files?

You'd need to write a program to do it.  Mindless might be the best person to ask with regards to this, he probably already has a working program.  Although, if you merely want the bitmaps, you can also just take screenshots from LemEdit.  At least that'd work for terrain pieces, and perhaps even the interactive objects if you are patient enough to keep trying until you get all animation frames.

[Mindless]

The second question wasn't remake-related but rather a general question...but how can I get access to the BMP's inside the .dat files?

If you want read access, I can just give you all the images http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/_misc/lem_object_gfx.zip and http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/_misc/lem_terrain_gfx.zip

If you want write access, you'll have to wait for me to get a version of gxplr that can write planar bitmaps.

[Proxima]

I checked your screenshot and it turns out the thickness is 4.  So my change would require thickening the platform slightly.

Ah, it seems that's not a problem; two of the other sorts of poles on that style have thickness 5, so you could use either of them without ruining the appearance. I prefer the one with thin bands by a long way, though.

[ccexplore]

Ah, it seems that's not a problem; two of the other sorts of poles on that style have thickness 5, so you could use either of them without ruining the appearance. I prefer the one with thin bands by a long way, though.

Actually, by stacking a bunch of those 2-pixels-thick thin platforms together in the right way and some erasers near the ends, I believe I can recreate the exact look of the platform you used in Cheapo.  So it's just a matter of thickness.

[Proxima]

 :-/  No, I'd much prefer using one of the real platforms.

[ccexplore]

:-/ &#A0;No, I'd much prefer using one of the real platforms.

Ok then, less work for me too.  I did assume though that you actually had a reason to use the particular platform you used in the Cheapo version, when you could've used the "real" platforms.

[Mindless]

Of course, being the lazy guy that I can be, I do wonder now whether we should simply ignore the existence of backroutes that use glitches, instead just pretending that the game does bar those glitches.  (Although, I'd probably still hack the game to at least fix the inconsistency regarding miners facing left/right and one-way walls.)[/color]

I'll stand on the side of laziness.  ;D  Personally, I think the game engine should be, for the most part, unaltered to make it as original as possible.  Besides, how many people outside of this forum would know about most of these glitches?

[Proxima]

Ok then, less work for me too.  I did assume though that you actually had a reason to use the particular platform you used in the Cheapo version, when you could've used the "real" platforms.

In the MichaelPink style that is one of the real platforms; I don't always remember where all the different pieces come from, so I treat them equally.

Looking back, I see that it's a rotated version of the pillar found in (e.g.) Fun 19. I can't be bothered to look through every level to see whether it ever occurs horizontally as well, and of course I don't use LemEdit so I don't know whether on Fun 19 it's a single object or built up in a complicated way. But I preferred to include it in the style because I wanted to include all graphics used on the real levels.

[tseug]

[random]I think I should point out that those rings can be made with 8 pieces each. 4 curved pieces and 4 black curved pieces.[/random]

[ccexplore]

Ok then, less work for me too. &#A0;I did assume though that you actually had a reason to use the particular platform you used in the Cheapo version, when you could've used the "real" platforms.

In the MichaelPink style that is one of the real platforms; I don't always remember where all the different pieces come from, so I treat them equally.

Looking back, I see that it's a rotated version of the pillar found in (e.g.) Fun 19. I can't be bothered to look through every level to see whether it ever occurs horizontally as well, and of course I don't use LemEdit so I don't know whether on Fun 19 it's a single object or built up in a complicated way. But I preferred to include it in the style because I wanted to include all graphics used on the real levels.

Ok I guess I misread your post.  So do you want it to look like the way it is in the Cheapo version (but possibly thicker depending on glitch fix), or do you want the 5-pixel thick striped pieces?

[ccexplore]

[random]I think I should point out that those rings can be made with 8 pieces each. 4 curved pieces and 4 black curved pieces.[/random]

Can you e-mail a demonstration?  I had been thinking more along the lines of just one curve pieces and then a gazillion non-curved black pieces.

It just seems to me that you won't get the right curvature on the ring's hole if you use black curved pieces to carve it out, but maybe you have another way.

[ccexplore]

Of course, being the lazy guy that I can be, I do wonder now whether we should simply ignore the existence of backroutes that use glitches, instead just pretending that the game does bar those glitches. &#A0;(Although, I'd probably still hack the game to at least fix the inconsistency regarding miners facing left/right and one-way walls.)[/color]

I'll stand on the side of laziness. &#A0;;D &#A0;Personally, I think the game engine should be, for the most part, unaltered to make it as original as possible. &#A0;Besides, how many people outside of this forum would know about most of these glitches?

Perhaps we can vote on which (if any) glitches to fix for the remake.

I would think for example that no one would miss the nuke glitch going away.  The glitch regarding one-way-wall mining (ie. can't mine thru a right OWW facing right even though you can mine thru a left OWW facing left) is also special since rather than enabling backroutes, it has the more serious problem of preventing moves that really should be legitimate.

Anyway, I have made 6 glitch fixes so far:

http://www.geocities.com/guestlevels/lemmings/nobuglem.zip

This is a modified version of nocdlem.  I'll apply the patching to the lemmings remake EXE when the time comes.  Also include is a text file describing which glitches are fixed, and what side effects the fix introduces.  Some of the description are purposely vague.  If you want details, you can always PM me with proof that you understand the glitch whose glitch fix you want to ask about, then I'll give additional details.

I have tested it out a bit, but I encourage you to test it out on a variety of levels to make sure there are no unexpected behaviors.

[Leviathan]

For all I know the climbing trough terrain wasn't a glich but a well-known sneaky trick...in this case the 2-part level I've made earlier (highway to hell/litter on the highway) would be rendered cumpletely ueless,as it uses this trick (or glitch)...

So a general question to everybody: is climbing trough terrain a glitch which should be avoided like hell or a sneaky trick that makes you think a lot untill you try it out and see what happens?

[tseug]

It's kind of borderline, just a weird part of the game mechanics. Changing it would prevent more levels than you'd think.

EDIT: I think it would be better just to leave the little glitches in. The ones that really need fixing are things like the nuke glitch.

EDIT2: The columb set has different pieces than I thought it did. It will take more than 8. It turns out that it's like you said, two curved pieces with lots of black pieces in the center. Maybe you could get the level data from a genesis rom and see how they do it?

EDIT3: Those rings in Ahribar's level are copies of the ones from the genesis version. It looks like they were filled in with black pieces. So you either stuff a bunch of black pieces inside, or make it a special graphics level (or maybe just change the scenery).

[Proxima]

Is the climbing through terrain part of the game mechanics? First I'd like to know which versions of the real game it's possible on. (Telling me how to work the trick so that I can test the Genesis and Mac versions for myself would be a start.....)

Even if it does work on every version, it's more likely to be unintended than not. It's not used by any of the real levels and it doesn't follow from the skill behaviours the player is actually taught.

Perhaps we can vote on which (if any) glitches to fix for the remake.

Not a bad idea. But you'd need to draw up a list of which glitches are up for consideration. Some of us know very little about what the different glitches are, remember  

[ccexplore]

It's kind of borderline, just a weird part of the game mechanics. Changing it would prevent more levels than you'd think.

Well if you insist on creating one hundred levels that require it, then of course "changing it would prevent more levels than you'd think". : Gee, I wonder how Psygnosis managed to create over 158 levels (not counting the repeats and Tame) without ever using that glitch?

It's true I guess when I analyzed it the way I did in the notes in nobuglem.zip, it doesn't seem so glitchy.  On the other hand, there is totally nothing like it with other skills.  Note for example that you can't even build your way up when you're stuck inside a wall.  It is also totally opposite the concept that when the climber hits its head, it's suppose to fall, not gradually raising up.  And the whole reason it works pretty much rests on a single implementation detail.  It could have just as easily been the case that they check for collisions first before moving the climber up, in which case the behavior would be equivalent to what you see in the fixed version.

You two are actually making it very tempting for me to put that fix in!

Surely you can find another way with your levels without using that glitch.  Besides, most of the time to use the glitch you'd need to waste a whole bunch of builders just to setup, so it is hardly an elegant move.

EDIT3: Those rings in Ahribar's level are copies of the ones from the genesis version. It looks like they were filled in with black pieces. So you either stuff a bunch of black pieces inside, or make it a special graphics level (or maybe just change the scenery).

I'm under the impression that they might've added additional terrain pieces in the genesis version.  I certainly find it unlikely that they'd actually do the black piece approach when they don't have to.

For me though, I definitely will not waste a special graphics set just for it, especially as it is very achievable with normal pieces.  I'm still partial to the idea of using special graphics sets solely for representing other games, like the way it is in the original.

[Proxima]

Ok I guess I misread your post.  So do you want it to look like the way it is in the Cheapo version (but possibly thicker depending on glitch fix), or do you want the 5-pixel thick striped pieces?

No, use the normal 5-px-thick striped pieces.

And don't worry about "From the Other Side", I've started on redoing the decorative terrain without using those ring pieces. I should have that done soon.

[ccexplore]

Is the climbing through terrain part of the game mechanics? First I'd like to know which versions of the real game it's possible on. (Telling me how to work the trick so that I can test the Genesis and Mac versions for myself would be a start.....)

As far as I know, it does work on all versions that has Amiga-like mechanics (as opposed to NES and Gameboy).  I know it works on the Mac version (ie. it has been checked).

Simply find a place with a low ceiling, then repeatedly build to get yourself stuck in the wall, then assign the lemming a climber and see.  It looks like Fun 12 is perfect for this (block off all but one lemming, and bash to create the low ceiling).

I should note that its presence on multiple versions is a rather poor indicator of intentions, since many versions are after all simply ports.  I'd actually say you get a better idea of what moves can be argued as glitches when you have a more independent remake/imitation like Cheapo.  Would someone please check what happens in the PSP version when it finally comes out?

Perhaps we can vote on which (if any) glitches to fix for the remake.

Not a bad idea. But you'd need to draw up a list of which glitches are up for consideration. Some of us know very little about what the different glitches are, remember &#A0;

Well, that's partly where the glitch list included in nobuglem.zip will come in handy.

I still have a few more glitches I'm thinking of fixing, so once the list is more or less finalized I will copy the list to a post here.

[ccexplore]

I should note that its presence on multiple versions is a rather poor indicator of intentions, since many versions are after all simply ports. &#A0;I'd actually say you get a better idea of what moves can be argued as glitches when you have a more independent remake/imitation like Cheapo. &#A0;Would someone please check what happens in the PSP version when it finally comes out?

On that note, instead of waiting for the PSP, maybe someone can check out the behavior in Lemmings Revolution?  To be sure that game isn't exactly Lemmings 1, but it's still interesting to see what happens.

[ccexplore]

Gee, I wonder how Psygnosis managed to create over 158 levels (not counting the repeats and Tame) without ever using that glitch?

Sorry, I meant "DMA" not Psygnosis.  Good thing Mike doesn't read this thread much! ;D

[tseug]

I meant that many already existing levels use the climber trick. IS in particular.

All the glitches I can think of (that have an effect):
nuke
OWW (miners)
OWW (offset)
steel detection
sliding
miner (bad positioning)
basher
blocker/steel
OWW/steel
climber (temporary walker)
lingering effect
weird_glitch_related_to_the_lingering_effect_that_I_don't_know_much_about_and probably_doesn't_affect_any_levels
blocker/terrain
blocker/object

I might know more but can't think of them atm.

[ccexplore]

I meant that many already existing levels use the climber trick. IS in particular.

Fortunatley for us, isteve has plenty of other levels that doesn't use any glitches from the list below, so I don't think it would be problematic.

Ths list you have I think covers more or less all the glitches I can think of off top of my head.

I do want to start off by mentioning the glitches that, for technical reasons, I'm not thinking of fixing, at least at this point:

steel detection:  I'm assuming this relates to the fact that an exploder can take out steel merely if he's not standing on a steel area, and related things like digging off the edge of a steel plate.  It's simply one of those glitches that would take a failry involved effort to fix, so no for now.

miner (bad positioning):  I'd like to fix the glitch, but the naive way to do it will probably change the position at which the miner's terrain-removal masks are applied, and that's a definite no-no.  I'll need to see if I can change the position at which the animation frames of the lemming are drawn without changing the position of the lemming itself.  So no for now.

blocker/terrain:  As much as I hate the idea of being able to use blockers to push lemmings into walls (or worse, through thin walls), this can actually be somewhat complicated to fix, so no for now.  Just refrain the urge to use this in the remakes, and make your walls thicker to minimize the damage.

OWW (offset):  This is actually very easy to fix if I change all the groundXo.dat files, but I'd prefer to minimize the number of changed files since each changed file will need to be included in the final distribution.  Besides, you can generally avoid this by adding an additional OWW object that's 4-pixels lower (to compensate for the offset), and set its flags to no-overdrawing so it stays hidden.

basher
OWW/steel

Wow, you managed to be even more vague than I am.  Can you remind me which glitches those 2 are talking about?

[Leviathan]

I guess he means the glitch where a OWW interacts with a steel area and neutralize the steel area...or am I wrong?

And what is meant by the miner's bad positioning?
I can think of multiple miner glitches at the moment (about 4 to be exact)...


Another thing: if the climbing trough terrain trick (yes,I still see it as a trick and not a glitch) isn't allowed for this remake, is building to get up trough terrain OK?

[Proxima]

Another thing: if the climbing trough terrain trick (yes,I still see it as a trick and not a glitch) isn't allowed for this remake, is building to get up trough terrain OK?

Building through terrain is obviously acceptable (c.f. Mayhem 2). If you are referring to the device used on that level, that is.

[ccexplore]

The trigger area of the water is fine,but not that of the acid from the pink set...it seems to be offset about 4 pixels too high...

I just checked it out but I'm not convinced that it's too high.  The trigger area starts 4 pixels below the upper-left corner of the bounding rectangle.  That is about where the liquid boundary is visually.  I think you need to check the y-coordinate of your object.

One thing to note is that the vertical size of the acid is 25, so to align it to the bottom of the level area and yet maintain a y-coordinate that's multiple of 4, the bottom-most row of pixels of the water will be off the level's boundary (it'd be ok, the game won't crash).  That is, you should set the y position to be 136 rather than 135.

[ccexplore]

Another thing: if the climbing trough terrain trick (yes,I still see it as a trick and not a glitch) isn't allowed for this remake, is building to get up trough terrain OK?

Building through terrain is obviously acceptable (c.f. Mayhem 2). If you are referring to the device used on that level, that is.

I should note that the main reason you can build thru the terrain in Mayhem 2 is because the platform there is thin enough.  You should find that if the platform there were 7 pixels thick instead of 6, you will get stuck, and once you are stuck, further building won't help.

That's the critical difference.  You can proceed upwards while you're not yet stuck, but once stuck, you can't proceed upwards.  With the climber the way it is now, it's actually the opposite:  you need to get stuck first, then the glitch will let you proceed upwards.

[tseug]

Are you talking about the modified version? That was sort of confusing.

The OWW/steel glitch is what levi said. The basher glitch is that bashers don't remove terrain in a blocker field.

[ccexplore]

I should note that the main reason you can build thru the terrain in Mayhem 2 is because the platform there is thin enough. &#A0;You should find that if the platform there were 7 pixels thick instead of 6, you will get stuck, and once you are stuck, further building won't help.

Whoops, my memory is incorrect apparently.  It is possible to keep building to go upwards.

Well Leviathan, you might have a point here I guess.

But I'm still not convinced that the glitch should be allowed.  After all, the game explicitly sets the climber to a faller when he hits his head, unlike the case with the builder where the game merely reverts it to walker.  That seems to speak the intentions pretty clearly to me.

[ccexplore]

The basher glitch is that bashers don't remove terrain in a blocker field.

Are you sure about this?  I just tried testing it out in CustLemm but didn't get the result you described.  Give me the steps you used if you can recall them.

[tseug]

Maybe it's only terrain on the opposite side of the blocker field, I'm not sure.

EDIT: It turns out that bashers do remove terrain in a blocker field. So what I had in mind is actually a really weird trick!

[ccexplore]

I can't find anything in the code that could possibly lead to the behavior you alleged.  The game doesn't take into account steel areas either when applying terrain-removal masks, so I find it unlikely that it would somehow take into account blocker fields.

So until you find a good way to reproduce the glitch, I tend to think you remembered or observed incorrectly.

[ccexplore]

EDIT: It turns out that bashers do remove terrain in a blocker field. So what I had in mind is actually a really weird trick!

Ok, now that we cleared that up, feel free to PM me (even if vaguely) what trick you have in mind that somehow caused you to think the basher doesn't remove terrain in a blocker field.

[tseug]

I sent a PM. It looks especially weird when you do it in a digger pit.

[Leviathan]

Another possibility to be able to involve the climb-trough-terrain trick/glitch is to implement a level into the fun or tricky cathegory like this one:

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/climb.dat

I could rename the level to "Get stuck and climb" if it still isn't obvious enough

[tseug]

Maybe we could just keep most of the glitches and make levels like that that teach them. That would be an interesting "fun" set....

[ccexplore]

: Well all right I can see why you have so much stake in this since your levels' are at stake.

I guess we'll have to wait to see how people vote on this.

I haven't looked at your level, but the best trainer level would be to have the entrance be embedded inside a wall, so that the lemmings come out stuck already.  Then make climbers the only available skill.

[ccexplore]

Maybe we could just keep most of the glitches and make levels like that that teach them. That would be an interesting "fun" set....

I have to admit that is an interesting idea, and definitely adds a whole new dimension to the discussion about glitches.

I would still think that some glitches are probably not worth keeping even with a trainer level, for example the nuke glitch.

[tseug]

I haven't looked at your level, but the best trainer level would be to have the entrance be embedded inside a wall, so that the lemmings come out stuck already.  Then make climbers the only available skill.

That would qualify as "Lame".

[ccexplore]

I guess he means the glitch where a OWW interacts with a steel area and neutralize the steel area...or am I wrong?

Oh ok, fortunately that's pretty easy to fix, I can just change the order the game handles setup (have it setup the steel areas after the interactive objects rather than before, so all overlaps win in favor of steel).

On the other hand, that really sounds to me like something that you can easily work around.  Why would you purposely overlap a OWW with steel anyway?

[ccexplore]

I haven't looked at your level, but the best trainer level would be to have the entrance be embedded inside a wall, so that the lemmings come out stuck already. &#A0;Then make climbers the only available skill.

That would qualify as "Lame".

Well, "Just Dig" isn't exactly any more sophisticated than my proposal. : The point is to get the glitch out of the way so the player doesn't have an excuse not to think of it later.

Notice for example that by making the trainer purposely lame, it leaves some thinking room when the glitch comes up later in a less obvious setting.  For example, my trainer level has the advantage that it doesn't alert the player to build repeatedly in order to get stuck.  Not that build-to-get-stuck is hard to figure out or anything, but the less subtlety a trainer level presents, the better.

[ccexplore]

I guess he means the glitch where a OWW interacts with a steel area and neutralize the steel area...or am I wrong?

Oh ok, fortunately that's pretty easy to fix, I can just change the order the game handles setup (have it setup the steel areas after the interactive objects rather than before, so all overlaps win in favor of steel).

On the other hand, that really sounds to me like something that you can easily work around. &#A0;Why would you purposely overlap a OWW with steel anyway?

I think I see how that can happen accidentally: &#A0;you have a steel area right above the OWW interactive object. &#A0;But since the OWW's trigger area is 4 pixels higher than the object itself, this means the bottom 4 pixel rows of the steel is actually still OWW.

This of course can be compensated for by lowering the OWW object by 4 pixels, and then possibly use a fake (z 16 or higher) OWW object to visually fill in the 4-pixel gap between the lowered OWW object and the steel.

---------

Also, it occurred to me that switching the initialization order of steel and interactive object, as suggested by my fix in the quotes, can actually be disastrous: &#A0;it is likely to render inoperable traps that are resting on steel, because the steel could potentially overwrite the trigger area of the trap. &#A0;A less straightforward approach is necessary if I were to fix it.

[ccexplore]

Ahribar's levels look pretty good.

CHEAPO RULES!

And yet, there has been practically no activity on the "Cheapo level list game" thread lately...... :

[ccexplore]

Since there's been talks of not merely leaving in, but actually advertising (as in a trainer level) the climb-thru-terrain glitch, I have resumed and finally finished the work for fixing "Rhapsody in Blue" so that it is (hopefully) immune to that glitch.  The resulting level can be uploaded at

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/rhblufix.lvl

No screenshot included because it will look almost identical to the non-fixed version......at least in VGA mode.  I also made the steel plates larger as mentioned a few pages back on this thread.

I do invite people to try to see if they can still manage a backroute using the climb-thru-terrain (plus other glitches) though.  This fix I believe is also immune to Leviathan's backroute involving the steel failure glitch, although it's not immune to other potential backroutes involving the steel failure glitch.  Then again, maybe people will vote away that glitch.

This also brings up a point we should not forget:  while allowing a glitch can enable more levels, it can also disable more levels.  Well, "disable" may be too strong a word, but you know what I mean.  This level for example I'm lucky to even come up with a way around the climb-thru-terrain glitch.  On a different level it would, at best, lead to a very visible fix, and at worst no fix.

[ccexplore]

Anyway, I have made 6 glitch fixes so far:

http://www.geocities.com/guestlevels/lemmings/nobuglem.zip

I added one more glitch fix, same URL as before if you want to download it.  It's a fix for the lingering blocker field glitch.

[ccexplore]

Maybe we could just keep most of the glitches and make levels like that that teach them. That would be an interesting "fun" set....

Going along that line of thought, here's a possible trainer level for the sliding (aka "giant leap") glitch, if people decided not to take that glitch out:

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/bigleap.lvl

Again, not much to it, but it is a trainer level after all.  And if nothing else, it serves as a template from which others can expand the level however they feel like it.

[tseug]

Hahaha! I LOLed at that. ;D The hell set is good for trainer levels.

[ccexplore]

I made an additional change to "Rhapsody in Blue" so that it becomes (I believe) immune to backroutes involving the build-on-thin-air glitch, by making the top platform thinner.  Here's a screenshot:



The file can be downloaded at Mindless's file portal:  http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/rblufix2.lvl

In my opinion the change doesn't affect the appearance for worse; Ahribar, your thoughts?

[JM]

Would an invisible level be a good idea for this lemmings re-make?

[Proxima]

In my opinion the change doesn't affect the appearance for worse; Ahribar, your thoughts?

I agree.

I've edited the level to avoid the need for a hidden trap, by the way. I decided to use a row of seven traps to keep the appearance as similar as possible. I'll put a screenshot up as soon as I have a chance.

[ccexplore]

I've edited the level to avoid the need for a hidden trap, by the way. I decided to use a row of seven traps to keep the appearance as similar as possible. I'll put a screenshot up as soon as I have a chance.

Hmm, can you point out to me the backroutes in the Cheapo version that leads to the need for this many traps?

Things might be different enough in LemEdit to not require more than 5 traps, but I need to make sure.  Of course, if you actually prefer the appearance of 7 traps over the current appearance, that's fine too.

[Proxima]

With only five traps, there are two backroutes, one Cheapo-specific and one not. In the current version, the hidden sixth trap kills the CustLemm backroute but leaves the Cheapo-specific one in, so in the CustLemm version you could leave the level as it is.... I just think I prefer not to rely on hidden traps.

First backroute: compress all but one lemming, build over first two traps with one bridge, then over third and fourth with another. Release the crowd so that they pass the last trap while it's occupied killing the builder.

Cheapo-specific backroute: compress all but one lemming, have him bash to bypass the first trap, use two builders to get past the other four AND the hidden trap.

[Leviathan]

I think we should also make levels that teach the following tricks:

-Bashing with diggers
-Reverse bash/mining
-Piercing trough terrain with builder (aka razor's edge trick)
-Dig away the edges of steel
-Climb/bomb trick
-Reverse miners with blockers
-Learn that traps have trigger areas (especially water)

So that the player knows what kinds of tricks to except in the harder levels...however off course always put some new tricks in the harder levels too


For the remake I guess the steel failiure glitch (and related) is way too serious to leave in and I guess there's no way how to make it obvious to the player what to do...but let's see what a poll would bring

I think another thing we should avoid is huge loads of straight building for no purpose...I've seen too much levels with that

[Mindless]

I'm a bit confused -- has the purpose of the remake changed to "teaching glitches" or is that something else?

[ccexplore]

I think we should also make levels that teach the following tricks:

-Bashing with diggers
-Reverse bash/mining
-Piercing trough terrain with builder (aka razor's edge trick)
-Dig away the edges of steel
-Climb/bomb trick
-Reverse miners with blockers
-Learn that traps have trigger areas (especially water)

My intentions is that only for "serious" glitches should we make a trainer level.  For more basic tricks, rather than specifically making a trainer level, the trick should simply show up in a regular level.  Of course, I guess what counts as "serious" is up to debate, but I'd certainly say the "climb-thru-terrain" glitch is more "serious" then "reverse miners with blockers" or even "dig away edges of steel".

On that note, your list makes little sense.  "Climb/bomb trick" already showed up in Mayhem 19, so I don't think this is a trick that needs to be "taught" (and honestly, that's pretty basic).  "Reverse miners with blockers" can be "taught" more or less the same manner as how Mayhem 5 "taught" the analogous behavior with builders.  Indeed, I'd say that the only trick you mentioned in the list that might merit a trainer level would be the "Dig away edges of steel" glitch, and that glitch about the water's trigger area.

[ccexplore]

With only five traps, there are two backroutes, one Cheapo-specific and one not. In the current version, the hidden sixth trap kills the CustLemm backroute but leaves the Cheapo-specific one in, so in the CustLemm version you could leave the level as it is.... I just think I prefer not to rely on hidden traps.

It appears that due to a fortuitous miscalculation on my part (and how CustLemm always aligns, and therefore can shift up, trigger area's y-coordinate to multiples of 4), in the CustLemm version, the trigger area extends higher than I thought, in fact up to 7 pixels above ground level.

So it is impossible in my CustLemm version to use one builder to span 2 traps.  The downside is, due to the same miscalculation, the trigger area is such that if you are merely 1 pixel below the floor level, you would no longer trigger the traps.

The question of course is, whether there'd be any issues with going underneath the traps.  I believe the spacing of the traps and the raised steel area near the traps altogher makes it impossible to breach all the way thru to the right even with the steel-failure glitch (which remember, also use up blockers) and bombers.  But I welcome others to make an effort to prove me wrong.

Anyway, this means I can probably remove the hidden trap if that's what you want.  I'll put out another verison later tonight.

[ccexplore]

In fact, although I can't confirm it until I'm back home, I think even if I do shift the vertical position of the electrodes slightly so that the trigger area only extends 3 rather than 7 pixels above ground, it is still able to (albeit barely) prevent one from spanning both traps with one builder.

Which makes me wonder whether your Cheapo style has accurate trigger area for that trap.  The data from the PC/DOS version gives a trigger area of width and height 8, with the top row of trigger area located 36 pixels below the top row of pixels of the trap object.  Of course, it's also possible that maybe Cheapo checks for collision with trigger areas a little differently.

[Proxima]

I'm a bit confused -- has the purpose of the remake changed to "teaching glitches" or is that something else?

All the ones that Leviathan listed (except, arguably, digging the edge of steel, and reversing miners) are tricks rather than glitches.

For most of the tricks mentioned I can think of a good existing level that would serve to teach the trick without being a "training" level. "The Razor's Edge" for that trick is an obvious example. I think it is a good idea, for each trick, to have a medium-difficulty level in which there is a puzzle, but finding the trick is the hardest feature, rather than a training level. I guess that's what you meant.

About the electrode trap, I suppose there is a question about whether it's essential to have the exact same trigger area. Most of the triggers in the Cheapo styles have a visible 1x4 area, and it seemed a bit unfair to the player to have the actual trigger be the space up to 7px above the line.....

[ccexplore]

All the ones that Leviathan listed (except, arguably, digging the edge of steel, and reversing miners) are tricks rather than glitches.

Reversing miners with blockers is a glitch in your book?  Even I cannot agree.

[Proxima]

I said "arguably"    Thing is, we'd need to know if it was an intended behaviour, and at the moment I don't know of any evidence for either side except for the purely negative evidence that none of the standard levels use the trick. Maybe you know something I don't?

And what do you think about the traps? Should I be more careful about keeping the trigger areas exactly the same as in CustLemm?

[ccexplore]

I said "arguably" &#A0; &#A0;Thing is, we'd need to know if it was an intended behaviour, and at the moment I don't know of any evidence for either side except for the purely negative evidence that none of the standard levels use the trick. Maybe you know something I don't?

Um, your point about "none of the standard levels use the trick" would apply to quite a lot of other tricks, such as the "razor's edge" (build brick protrusion) trick.

And I'll PM you something more about the behavior.

And what do you think about the traps? Should I be more careful about keeping the trigger areas exactly the same as in CustLemm?

It's your style, so it's up to you; I don't have a strong opinion either way.  The minimum trigger area in CustLemm is 4x4, but that's mainly an implementation limit and not really reflective of intentions.  Though, I suppose, making the trigger areas the same may sometimes aid the porting of levels between Cheapo and CustLemm.

[Proxima]

Um, your point about "none of the standard levels use the trick" would apply to quite a lot of other tricks, such as the "razor's edge" (build brick protrusion) trick.

True, but the Razor's Edge trick is a logical consequence of the way we're taught that the builder works in Fun 7; it would be a glitch if the trick wasn't possible. Not so with the builder-turning-non-walkers trick.

(My point wasn't meant to be a sufficient condition for a trick being a glitch, just weak evidence that might tip the balance in the absence of anything stronger.)

And I'll PM you something more about the behavior.
In Lemmings, blockers actually are capable of turning just about anything, not just builders and walkers...

Ah, thanks. That (which is something I hadn't observed, except for fallers) is good enough evidence to satisfy me &#A0;

It's your style, so it's up to you; I don't have a strong opinion either way. &#A0;The minimum trigger area in CustLemm is 4x4, but that's mainly an implementation limit and not really reflective of intentions. &#A0;Though, I suppose, making the trigger areas the same may sometimes aid the porting of levels between Cheapo and CustLemm.

Yes, that is a point. I think on reflection what I'll do is enlarge all the 4x2 trigger areas (which is what most of the traps on my styles currently have) to 4x4, as I think otherwise the discrepancy with the ones that are 8x8 on CustLemm is too great, but I won't make them larger than that because it does seem unfair to me that the lemming gets killed when it's nowhere near the visible trigger area.

As for Rhapsody, I'll keep the seven traps on the Cheapo level, as that's what I prefer for that version, but you can leave the CustLemm version with five (and remove the hidden trap if you're quite sure the backroute is impossible).

[JM]

Nobody has answered my question yet.

Would an invisible level be good for this Lemmings re-make?

[tseug]

Maybe one, at most two. Something like an easy one to show the player that things can be invisible, and a later hard one to make them go crazy.

[ccexplore]

I'm not too big a fan of invisible levels.  But, here's an interest albeit somewhat sadistic idea:

Take a normal level that requires some precision (say, for builders).  Now in a later version, you got the same level but the terrain's now invisible.

(It's not necessarily that nasty if designed correctly.  For example, the slope of a platform can help clue in the player where the lemming is located.)

[Proxima]

I have two quick questions.

One, how does CustLemm work with regard to one digger releasing another? (This could have a large effect on a couple of my levels in which I use this trick.)

Two, did you (ccexplore that is) read my above post? Just checking.

[geoo]

In Custlemm, you can release a digger with another one only if you set the second digger at the same position as the first is, therefore you cannot create steps that way.

[Proxima]

Right...... I feared it would be like that.

That kills the 100% solution to "We'll meet again", but the level itself can manage fine without that.

"Just a Minute (Part Five)" and "Zorn's Lemming" have more serious problems. It's possible JAM5 can be salvaged by requiring only 99/100 to be saved, but getting the timing to transfer to CustLemm (by which I mean working out how wide the wall needs to be, where the one-way zone needs to be placed etc. so that the lemmings reach the right places at the right times) would be a nightmare anyway, and we may be better off just leaving the level alone.

As for Zorn, I'm still in the middle of making other changes to see how high I can raise that gap, and I've had one radical idea this morning that may, if it works out, allow me to raise it quite a lot. But, for different reasons, if I use that idea it would be a nightmare to get the level to work the same in CustLemm even without the digger release trick, so the best way out might be to leave it with the current gap height and make the solution you found the "real" one.

[ccexplore]

Two, did you (ccexplore that is) read my above post? Just checking.

Yes I did.

In case you're wondering my general silence the past few days, busy work week.  Plus I'm still trying to find where I misplaced my flash drive that contains some sketchings related to remaking your levels.

Right...... I feared it would be like that.

I suppose it's a possibility to hack CustLemm to bring it more in line with the behavior seen in most other versions of the game, including Amiga, Genesis, SNES and Mac.  With all those other versions having the same behavior that allows a 2 or 3 digger solution to "We All Fall Down", I'd say the different CustLemm behavior can strongly be argued as a glitch.

But somehow I think this "bugfix" will receive scant support.

but getting the timing to transfer to CustLemm (by which I mean working out how wide the wall needs to be, where the one-way zone needs to be placed etc. so that the lemmings reach the right places at the right times) would be a nightmare anyway

It'll take some work, yes.  But I'm still willing to consider remaking the level.

As for Zorn, I'm still in the middle of making other changes to see how high I can raise that gap, and I've had one radical idea this morning that may, if it works out, allow me to raise it quite a lot. But, for different reasons, if I use that idea it would be a nightmare to get the level to work the same in CustLemm even without the digger release trick, so the best way out might be to leave it with the current gap height and make the solution you found the "real" one.

Feel free to PM me what your idea is and what the problem would be in transferring it to CustLemm.

[geoo]

[...]
As for Zorn, I'm still in the middle of making other changes to see how high I can raise that gap, and I've had one radical idea this morning that may, if it works out, allow me to raise it quite a lot. But, for different reasons, if I use that idea it would be a nightmare to get the level to work the same in CustLemm even without the digger release trick, so the best way out might be to leave it with the current gap height and make the solution you found the "real" one.

Assuming that you mean my solution, I'd still be interested in the idea with the raised gap, I hope you'll get it work for Cheapo.

[MC Marshy]

I'm getting a level done for this re-make. I hope it's a good one  

[MC Marshy]

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/CYSTN.LVL

I made the level. Tell me what you think of it  

[Leviathan]

I just checked,there are a few bad things I'dd like to point out:

-It's possible to save 75% using just one digger (one of the entrances releases lemmings twice as fast as the other 2).
-The water's active area overlaps the edges of the pit.
-There's one block I noticed to be offset by 1 pixel.

The design strongly remembers me to the level "the room with no exit" by the way

I'm not sure what other people will say,but at least the 1 digger solution backroute is something that really needs fixing

[MC Marshy]

I just checked,there are a few bad things I'dd like to point out:

-It's possible to save 75% using just one digger (one of the entrances releases lemmings twice as fast as the other 2).
-The water's active area overlaps the edges of the pit.
-There's one block I noticed to be offset by 1 pixel.

The design strongly remembers me to the level "the room with no exit" by the way

I'm not sure what other people will say,but at least the 1 digger solution backroute is something that really needs fixing

When I get the time I will sort out those small problems. Why hasn't anybody talked about this Lemmings re-make idea in ages?

[Mindless]

Why hasn't anybody talked about this Lemmings re-make idea in ages?

Everyone's having too much fun perfecting Lemmini.  ;D

[Timmy the Geek]

*bump*

I made a level, to put wherever you want.  And it continues that Lemmings tradition of pop culture references.  It's titled "Life, the Universe, and Everything" and centers around 42.

http://www.ksoftgames.digibase.ca/files/LIFEUNEV.LVL

Probably suited best for a late Fun or early Tricky-like rating.  Stick it where you want.

[0xdeadbeef]

*bump*

I made a level, to put wherever you want.  And it continues that Lemmings tradition of pop culture references.  It's titled "Life, the Universe, and Everything" and centers around 42.

http://www.ksoftgames.digibase.ca/files/LIFEUNEV.LVL

Probably suited best for a late Fun or early Tricky-like rating.  Stick it where you want.

How's that?

http://home.arcor.de/0xdeadbeef/lifeunev.png
 ;D

[EricLang]

I am making progress! My first external edited level!
Messed it up a little...

http://home.hccnet.nl/ericenzwaan/Links/LifeUnev.png

[Mindless]

I am making progress! My first external edited level!
Messed it up a little...

http://home.hccnet.nl/ericenzwaan/Links/LifeUnev.png

LOL @ "Button2"  ;D

[Mr. K]

Hm, I guess you guys like my level  ;D

What's that editor thing that EL opened my level in?  Did I miss something?

[Mindless]

Hm, I guess you guys like my level  ;D

What's that editor thing that EL opened my level in?  Did I miss something?

EricLang is working on a level editor, possibly to replace LemEdit.  It appears he's got level and graphics loading complete, but is still working on the UI.

[EricLang]

I am indeed working on a few things. Graphics loading OK. GUI lots of work .
When I am nearing Alpha-testing stage for the editor I will open a new thread for it.
Don't mind the Button2 It is often the quickest way to do a little test.

[JM]

Will the extended graphics show up in the editor?

[EricLang]

Yes, they will. But not yet.
I have lots of things to do first. After that I will try to support the known formats.
So in the beginning I will concentrate on standard LVL format.
Maybe it is already time to make a new thread? I could use information about the alternative file formats.

[Leviathan]

I think it's better to make a specific thread about the new editor

Now,how far are people doing with designing levels for this project?
I believe we have about 15 levels now and we need about 100 (some will be repeats)

I'm busy lately with a thesis for school but I still play lemmings whenever I can

[JM]

I think it's better to make a specific thread about the new editor

Now,how far are people doing with designing levels for this project?
I believe we have about 15 levels now and we need about 100 (some will be repeats)

I'm busy lately with a thesis for school but I still play lemmings whenever I can

Yeah we should make a different thread about the editor as this thread is about the Lemmings re-make.

[Shvegait]

Is it necessary to create all new levels for this project? I thought originally it was more about compiling the best of everyone's levels into a coherent Lemmings remake with increasing difficulty, etc. But now it seems that everyone is about creating all new levels for it... I feel that if it requires so many new levels, it will never get finished. It's not as if the remake is for "us" really... I mean, those compiling the remake will have had to play the levels to know where they belong, etc., so I don't think many new levels is really a good idea. It would be much easier, and more progress would be made, if we looked for the best levels from each author, arranged them in some interesting progression of difficulty, and compiled that. Then throw in a few new levels at the end to fill in some gaps (special graphics levels, training levels if they're going in, repeats, etc.)

Then, by the end, the Lemmings re-make would be a great thing to advertise for people who maybe just discovered CustLemm and want to check out a well put-together compilation of some of the interesting custom levels out there.

[Proxima]

I'm not creating new levels    But then, my levels have up to now been for Cheapo only, so I suppose they are in a sense "new" by being newly remade.

[Leviathan]

I think it's OK to select levels from other packs to "promote" them,but we would need a bit more new levels too...let's say like 40 new levels.

[chaos_defrost]

On this note -- maybe the levels in the harder sets are selected from other people's packs as they are; however, the easier difficulty levels will likely have to be fabricated from scratch. Or, at least taken from other people's packs with different tasks.

In that case, we need levels from other packs that would serve, terrain-wise, as great Fun-type levels. Ideas?

[Proxima]

I've done a good number of levels that would be suitable for a "Fun" difficulty    Just tell me how many levels you're willing to allocate to my contribution and I'll decide which ones to give you!

[MC Marshy]

There's my level for the re-make.

http://it.travisbsd.org/lemmings/lemmingswelt/index.php?cmd=get&file=levelpacks/CYSTN2.LVL

There was a backroute and a few bugs in the level but now I have fixed them.

Thanks to Leviathan for pointing out these problems  

[JM]

The level looks better now. Good job

[STT]

Here's my contribution to the cause:

http://www.freepgs.com/snapperthetwig/stuff/twigpak1-2.zip

There are ninteen levels there (10 in the first, 9 in the second), with assorted difficulty. Some are quite good, but some arn't so. Have a look.

[Mr. K]

Good, that's what we need-- a jump-start on this thing... looks like we've been just collecting levels and doin' nothing with them.  Or is this sadly cancelled?  I would look forward to a Lemmings game that looks real, but with new levels.

EDIT:  My brother's messing around with the LEMRMAKE.EXE and can't seem to get it to take the Oh No graphics sets.  Any ideas?

[Mr. K]

*bump*

I think we should work on this again.  It's a great idea.

I'm going to round up all the levels in this topic and try ordering them so that we can see what we still have to make.

I also had an idea of, after we finish the DOS version of this, that we use a modified version of Lemmini (to include the graphics, or blown-up versions of the DOS ones) to make it have a wider audience.

Come on guys, let's go back to this!

EDIT: OMG, did anyone see how a did a septo-post!? (double post with 7 posts)  I'd thought the server went out again so I clicked it over and over.

[EricLang]

And IF you do try Lemmix 0.0.3 which will be coming soon.

[Leviathan]

Common people, I'dd like to get this project up and running

On the other hand, what happened to the CustLem level topic?Isn't it time to make a new topic if the old one keeps crashing?

Greetzz