Author Topic: [SUG][PLAYER] "Use every skill" Talisman  (Read 1312 times)

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Offline WillLem

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[SUG][PLAYER] "Use every skill" Talisman
« on: November 19, 2020, 07:44:46 AM »
It's in the title. We have loads of Talismans and challenges that are to do with reducing the number of skills used in a level. How about one which encourages the player to think about how every skill can be used as part of a solution?

Since it's a Talisman, troll levels with 99 of everything wouldn't be an issue, since Talismans can be ignored anyway. Plus, it could be so that, if a designer adds an infinite skill to the level, this Talisman does not apply (either at all, or just to that skill) and could be greyed out as an option in the Editor.

Most importantly, it's another way to enforce a solution without (necessarily) disrupting the layout of the level.

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Full disclosure: I have a feeling I might have suggested this, or something similar, previously. My memory for these things isn't always that great, since I have lots of ideas and don't always keep track of them! Many apologies if that's the case, admins please feel free to move/merge/delete this topic accordingly :lemcat:

Offline namida

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Re: [SUG][PLAYER] "Use every skill" Talisman
« Reply #1 on: November 19, 2020, 07:54:03 AM »
This would be pointless in the vast majority of cases, because the player could just randomly assign the skill to a lemming at a time when it would basically do nothing. There's no technical obstacle to making the player use the skill full stop, but it's unrealistic to try and define, let alone detect, if their use of it is "meaningful".

If your intent is to force the player to spread out their use of the skills more evenly, this would be best achieved by using the "X of each skill" type talisman, or simply by setting low limits for every skill - if well designed, it could very well be the case that these limits do ultimately mean the only available solutions, use every type of skill. This is the closest thing to an outright "use every skill" talisman that would make sense.

There's maybe a very select few case where this could create an interesting puzzle - in particular on levels with a lot of blockers - but I'm not convinced this would have enough overall value to be worthwhile, even considering such cases.
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