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Proxima:
Tame Gone Wild

Tame Gone Wild by WillLem

20 levels in one rank. No talismans.

Features: Original skills only; some neutral lemmings but no other new features. These levels are remakes of the Tame levels from Oh No! More Lemmings, usually with the entrance and exit switched; some levels have additional trapdoors, traps and water.

The Tame levels in their original form are extremely bland 20-of-everything levels with no hazards and very few obstacles to get around; it's no surprise that making harder repeats is an idea that has come up a few times, with Clam's "CSTame" and a post in Challenges by Dullstar being previous attempts to make a full set of harder repeats of every level. At some point, I might play and review those so we can see how they compare.

WillLem's philosophy in these levels can be summarised as "difficulty through complexity": extra trapdoors to deal with (often above splat falls), extra traps in the way, one-way arrows. Unfortunately, the player is always given just the right skills to deal with each obstacle in a natural way, so there is rarely much of a puzzle. Some levels rely on the "fake difficulty" of hidden objects, such as one level in which the very last lemming falls to his death from a trapdoor entirely hidden behind terrain. Time limits are used sparingly, but when they appear, they tend to be annoyingly tight.

Difficulty: If you wished the original ONML had a difficulty rating in between Tame and Crazy, here it is.

Favourite levels: Oddly enough, the opening level "Up and Out Lemmings" is one of the most interesting and puzzly. "Thunder-Lemmings are go!" is a lot of fun (and a case where the time limit isn't a problem -- although it also doesn't add much, since the high release rate forces you to do things quickly anyway). "Custom built for Lemmings" is another nice level with a bit more puzzle to it.

Overall impressions: A decently fun filler pack. Nothing really bad here, but nothing very memorable either.

Ron_Stard:
Please, feel free to review my humble level pack, if you want:

https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4870

Akseli:
Hey Proxima, this is an awesome thread, this is really close to what I’ve been hoping myself to do from like 2015 already, but I haven’t got very far yet. :) My initial thought was to create a “Top 10 best levelsets” topic where I post a review of one levelset per day, and I’ve written notes down of everything I’ve played, but I haven’t polished them in a review form yet. Your list of aspects is delightfully comprehensive, I myself had in mind something like this (namida’s Lemmings Plus I as an example):

Lemmings Plus I
[images of some of the levels]
Author: namida
Release date: November 26th 2009
Main platform: Lemmix, NeoLemmix
Rankings and levels: Mild/Wimpy/Medi/Danger/PSYCHO; 30/30/30/30/30, total 150
Graphic sets: Dos Original Lemmings and Dos Oh No! More Lemmings
Custom music: yes in Lemmix ?? no in NeoLemmix ??
No talismans, no features, etc.
Link to the pack
[The review itself that contains historical context, difficulty evaluation and everything else about the levelset]

Keep up the good work, this thread is nice to read! I’m really hoping to get enough inspiration to write my own reviews some time soon. :)

Proxima:
Lemminas

Lemminas by WillLem

64 levels (4 ranks of 16 each). 88 talismans in total, with at least one on every level.

Features: Lemminas is a pack for which the author has gone to a lot of effort to make it feel like a game in its own right. The lemmings are replaced with female "Lemminas"; all levels use a custom tileset (containing many recolours of pieces from the default tilesets, but also many unique pieces), and all music is composed by the pack author. New skills and objects are freely used throughout, except for stoners.

I consider this to be, in a sense, WillLem's debut offering, since it's his first pack that isn't a remix of the original levels. There are still many levels in here that are clearly based on original levels, but they feel more like new levels that pay tribute to the originals, rather than retreads. The pack was released in early 2020 and got off to a somewhat bumpy start, since early versions contained some elements that could be considered unfair or problematic -- hidden elements, overlapping elements, unnecessarily large levels or high lemming counts. However, after a great deal of discussion, these elements were removed or toned down in all cases.

This pack is a great deal of fun. The unique graphics and music give it its own distinct atmosphere, and a good variety of level types -- some are open-ended with lots of skills; some just show off individual tricks; some concentrate on the use of one or two skills; and there are some very nice puzzle levels as well, especially towards the end of the pack.

I have only two main points of criticism. Firstly, while elements that are generally agreed to be unfair were removed, some borderline cases are still present: pickup skills obscuring terrain; overlapping elements; a few levels that are larger than necessary or just too busy. There are not many of these and they don't ruin the pack by any means, but they are there. More seriously, the number of talismans is just excessive, and many of them are not interesting and just require the player to input the same solution two or three times with minor variations. There are also some really great talismans in the pack, and I worry that fewer players will find out about these because the sheer number may put players off attempting the talismans altogether.

Difficulty: Accessible to beginners and works its way up to a difficulty slightly above Mayhem from original Lemmings.

Favourite levels:
* "Lemminas Go Forth" is the stand-out of the Magical rank: an open-ended disjoint union with a wide variety of solutions.
* "Backroute to the Future" is a great multi-tiered puzzle in which the two talismans require the player to come up with new ideas each time.
* "Poor Wee Creaturettes", "Lemmina City Steel Facility" and "With a twist of Lemmina, please" are really great puzzle levels that were immensely satisfying to solve. Two of them are closely based on original levels in terms of terrain, but are completely different puzzles from the originals.

Overall impressions: This is the stand-out pack of 2020 and a must-play for anyone wanting to immerse themselves in NeoLemmix culture.

Proxima:
Lemmings Plus I

Lemmings Plus I by namida

150 levels (5 ranks of 30 each). 17 talismans.

Features: Original skills, objects and tilesets only (except for one level that uses updrafts to simulate direct drop). Inspired by the structure of original Lemmings, the pack's early ranks consist largely of 20-of-everything repeats of the later levels, and there is a once-per-rank level with each iteration progressively harder.

Lemmings Plus I is a reboot of namida's Lemmings Plus series, which began with three packs for Cheapo in the mid-2000s. It contains remakes of the best levels from the Cheapo packs, signalling that the rest of those packs are no longer considered canonical. The pack was originally put together in 2009, under the title "Lemmings Plus DOS Project"; the engine was originally that of DOS Lemmings, but later namida changed the bombers to untimed. This was not only the inspiration for Lix to abandon bomber timers in singleplayer, but the first step towards namida making his own custom engine, which eventually became NeoLemmix. In 2014, namida remade the pack in NeoLemmix and declared this to be the official version of LPI; some levels were replaced or moved around at this stage, most notably "The Oddstack", which moved up a full rank, from Medi 16 to Danger 16.

Like many packs of the time, LPI is constructed in imitation of the original game as a whole, starting with easy repeats of the later levels, arranged from absolute beginner to moderately complex; even once the 20-of-everything levels are over, most levels are open-ended, and many are explorations of an idea rather than strict puzzles in the style namida would favour in his later packs.

This pack was, of course, immensely satisfying to finally beat, just because it's been on my radar for so long. You could say that I started it all the way back in the Cheapo days :P and I even played a little part in the way the pack came to be built, since I saved 100% on a couple of the Cheapo levels where namida believed it impossible, and now the LPI equivalents require 100% :) Danger 17 "Perfectionism" is one of these.

Difficulty: Starts at a beginner level, and works up gradually to beyond Mayhem in the Danger rank. The final rank, Psycho, is a big step up from Danger, and fully completing it is a daunting task, but even in this rank there are breather levels.

Favourite levels:
* "No Time to Die" has a really nice concept: a medium number (in this case 9) of each skill, but a low time limit, so that the puzzle is to coordinate multitasking as efficiently as possible. This concept would become a once-per-pack running theme of the Lemmings Plus series.
* "To the End!" is probably LPI's most famous level. A level that looks like a long builderfest, and indeed has an earlier repeat which the player probably solved with many builders, gives 30 of each skill but no builders. This concept, too, would be repeated across the Lemmings Plus series (though without the earlier repeat in most cases).
* "Cavern of Chills", "The Oddstack" and "Coalburner" are very tricky and devious puzzles that might seem impossible at first.
* "Variety Day" is a 1-of-each teaser with a clever trick in the solution.

Overall impressions: There are some tedious or filler levels, as expected for such a large pack, but also a lot of tough puzzles and neat tricks. I couldn't honestly say that this is a pack I think everyone should play from start to finish, but it is certainly one that every NeoLemmix player should try out. I'm looking forward to comparing it to later entries in the Lemmings Plus series 8-)

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