Okay, just like IchoTolot did it for the Laser Blaster, I am going to compile the proposed behaviour for the NeoLemmix Slider:
General premise: The Slider is a downward Climber. His position marker is at his feet and 1 pixel inside the wall.General behaviour:
- Whenever a Slider reaches the edge of a platform, he turns around and falls. - As long as there is an uninterrupted straight wall, he will hold on to it, which will prevent him from splatting. Once he lets go of the wall (either because the skill is cancelled or because the wall is no longer straight), he transitions to a Faller, i.e. fall height is measured from there.
- After turning around, once the Slider completes his action, he will move 1 pixel further into the new direction he is now looking. This is the equivalent of a Climber hoisting himself onto a wall he has been climbing up before. It should be a natural result of the lemming's position trigger being buried 1 pixel inside the wall: Once the wall ends, this means the lemming has now been moved 1 pixel to the side. Technically though, this movement already appears as soon as a Climber / Slider "enters" the wall.
The second behaviour allows a Slider to land on the lower layer of two or more platforms with perfectly alligned edges. Meaning, the bottom platform does not need to be protruding compared to the upper one.
Much like a Climber still tries to perform the hoister animation when you remove the terrain while he is climbing (e.g. with a Basher), the Slider would still try to "dangle" on the ceiling, or whatever his respective counterpat to the Climber hoisting animation would be.
SKILL TYPE: permanent (=athletic). A lot of the challenges relating to Sliders stem from the Slider retaining its turning behaviour. You can even easily envision levels where the fall-breaking properties of the Slider are completely irrelevant, but the turning behaviour is crucial. If you want to see examples of that, take a look at the Medieval Tribe from Quest from Kieran 2 (either in Lemmings 2 for DOS Box or on YouTube).
In NeoLemmix in particular,
this would also allow for hatches with pre-assigned Sliders, which would force the player to work with this altered turning behaviour.
OVERLAP WITH OTHER ATHLETIC SKILLS:- Slider-Climber definitely needs to be possible. When a Climber-Slider reaches the bottom of a wall he has just slid down,
the Slider part needs to include the action of turning around on said wall. (This is how it's done in Lemmings 2.) Otherwise, a Climber-Slider will trap himself in an infinite loop of climbing up and sliding down the same wall.
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Slider-Glider would be useful in my opinion: The Slider would turn the lemming around, and once he lets go of the wall, he continues gliding into the new direction.
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Slider-Floater therefore seems like it should also be possible: The Slider turns around and then can still survive a fall once he lets go of the wall. A Slider-Floater can survive any drop, but yet still exploit these drops for turning around. If you don't want the player to avoid using the Slider by only making the lemming a Floater, then you should probably simply not provide any Floaters on a given level.
- Overlaps with Swimmers and Disarmers don't seem problematic.
In short, I don't think there have to be any skills which are mutually exclusive with the Slider.Thus, the only skills that would remain mutually exclusive
with each other (not with the Slider) would be Floater-Glider.
INTERACTIONS WITH OBJECTS:- one-way fields: A Slider moving through a one-way field (or Blocker, they behave the same way) that's exerting force into the opposite direction than the one the Slider is facing should turn around and let go of the wall, just like a Climber does.
- splat pad: A Slider landing on a splat pad does not splat because he never becomes a Faller; it's like a Climber performing the hoister animation within the trigger area of a splat pad and then continuing to walk.
- splitters. This is different from one way fields, I just found out: A Climber that climbs through a splitter which has its trigger buried in the wall he is climbing and is pointing into the opposite direction will briefly turn around and turn into a Faller. However, he can't get out of the wall, so he's briefly trapped on that pixel. Because that pixel is within the trigger area of the splitter, he will trigger the splitter again so that it now points into the same direction as he was facing before. At the next opportunity, he starts climbing up again. So I'd expect the Slider to act in a similar way and also continue sliding down.
- teleporter: A Slider sliding into a teleporter and coming out of a teleporter that's also touching a wall should continue sliding. This is what Climbers do as well.
- triggered traps: A Slider-Disarmer moving through the trigger of a trap should behave the same way as a Climber-Disarmer. Which to my knowledge is: The lemming dies. Even though his feet are technically 1 pixel inside the wall, i.e. he is standing, he isn't able to perform the Disarmer animation.
TRANSITIONS:from another skill to a Slider- Shimmier --> Slider: A Shimmier that's a Slider and shimmies against a wall should slide down this wall instead of just falling regularly. This never comes up with Climbers, because an uninterrupted ceiling would prevent the Shimmier from climbing, and an interrupted ceiling would cancel the Shimmier before he reaches the wall he wants to climb. With Shimmier-Slider transitions, however, both the ceiling and the wall are connected, therefore the skills should connect, too.
- Jumper --> Slider: A Slider that jumps against a wall starts sliding down, much like a Climber jumping against a wall starts climbing up. If a lemming is both a Climber and a Slider, the Climber always takes precedent: A Climber-Slider jumping against a wall will start climbing up, never slide down. This is consistent with Lemmings 2 behaviour.
- Glider --> Slider: Should not be possible. A Glider-Slider that bumps into a wall will still turn around, not hold on to it and slide down vertically - just like a Glider-Climber bumping into a wall doesn't start climbing.
- Swimmer --> Slider: A Swimmer falling out of a water area has no terrain to hold on to. Therefore, even if he is a Slider, he should turn into a regular Faller at this point, facing the same direction as before, instead of turning around like a Slider would. Of course, as said above, it is generally still possible to make a lemming both a Swimmer and a Slider; the former simply can't transition into the latter directly. In contrast, a Swimmer-Slider sliding into water can just start swimming.
- Faller --> Slider: You can of course assign the permanent skill property of being a Slider to a lemming while he is a Faller, but that will not result in the lemming suddenly holding on to a wall next to which he is currently falling down - just like you can't make a Faller hold on to a wall and climb up. In order for a lemming to start sliding, he already needs to be a Slider at the top of the drop, before he even starts falling. The standard transition is always Walker --> Slider, never Faller --> Slider.
- Builder/Platformer --> Slider: A Builder or Platformer that's also a Slider and is no longer being assigned new bricks will turn around when falling off his own staircase/bridge and continue to walk back where he came from (unless the bridge ends at an altitude where he can continue walking without ever falling before).
A corner case: A Slider falling from a Stoner is interesting, because there is a gap between the stoned lemming's shoulders and head that the Slider could potentially "drop" into. I'd argue though that, with the trigger being at the Slider's feet, once he drops himself off the Stoner, his own feet will be at about the same height as the Stoner's feet. So he should drop down from there (or shimmy along the underside of the Stoner) as normal, not pull himself back up into the Stoner's head-shoulder gap.
from a Slider to another skill- Slider --> Walker: Just like a Climber, a Slider can't be cancelled by assigning a Walker to him. Of course, a Slider will automatically transition back into a water once he reaches the end of a slide and stands on solid ground (or transition to a Dangler, then Faller if there is no solid ground at the end of the slide.)
- Slider --> Cloner: Again, just like a Climber, a Slider can't be cloned while sliding. Of course, you can clone a regular walking lemming that happens to be an athlete with the property of being a Slider.
- Slider --> Bomber / Stoner: Since Sliders are 1 pixel inside the wall, they oh-no inside the wall, like Climbers.
- Slider --> Jumper: A Slider should be able to jump off the wall he is sliding down in the opposite direction, just like a Climber.
- Slider --> Shimmier: When the Slider reaches the bottom end of a straight vertical wall, but there is no terrain under his feet, before transitioning into a Faller, he should either
a) perform a "dangling" animation like in Lemmings 2, which would be the equivalent of the Climber's "hoister" animation, or
b) remain in the standard Slider animation, but at the last frame (and a couple frames before as well), it would be possible to assign a Shimmier to him, so that he then continues to shimmy along the underside of the wall he was just sliding down. This would be the equivalent of NeoLemmix Climber --> Shimmier transitions, which, in contrast to Lemmings 2, do not use the "dangling" animation for the Climber.
A corner case: If a Slider slides through a gap, and then a constructive skill closes that gap right above the Slider's head like a "Great Lemming Caper" in reverse, the Slider should be able to transition into a Shimmier and hold on to that bridge. I don't see this being particularly useful very often, because the Slider is facing towards the wall he is sliding down, so he would shimmy right against it and turn back into a Slider afterwards. One application though might be the following:
- Slider slides down wall
- Platformer / Builder / Stacker / Stoner closes gap above the Slider's head.
- Slide gets assigned a Shimmier.
- The Shimmier gets cloned.
- The original Slider shimmies against the wall he was just sliding down and transitions back into a Slider; the clone can go on to shimmy into the opposite direction.
Anyway, this would be the way I'd expect these skills to behave, based on their previously established characteristics.