Wow, this looks like a lot of progress already, namida!
I guess these two skills are the easiest one to implement? Pretty much the only things missing are the skil shadow and recolouring of the spear.
I voted for "release experimental builds as soon as they are ready" on the poll; this may end up "backfiring" in my face if the Projectiles (which I favour less than Laser Blaster and Slider) end up becoming more popular simply because they get more exposure.
But of course, I still want to give them a fair chance, and if the different RCs come out whenever they are ready, that gives everyone more time to test the candidates successively, spending more time on each of them than if we were "overwhelmed" by four different RCs at once.
I'm fine with the sprite on the skill panel being a modified version of the Basher in both cases; you'd probably just want to make the projectile stick out a little more on the skill panel sprite, especially for the
Grenadier (which yes, I agree with IchoTolot, sounds more natural than "Grenader").Personally, I would advocate for going with established skill names from Lemmings 2: The Tribes wherever possible. Meaning: Spear Thrower instead of Spearer (the latter sounds weird anyway). The Grenadier could be a new skill indeed if the projectile has too little resemblance with the Mortar or Bazooker. I think one argument for this is that both the Mortar and Bazooker would require a "shooting device", whereas the Grenadier just throws the projectile with his bare hand. Then again, sprites for the Mortar and Bazooker might be possible to rip from Lemmings 2? So then, the "shooting device" would already exist and wouldn't have to be sprited by hand. I'm not sure though, and I'm fine with the "bare-hands" solution, too.
In either case, whether its a Bazooka or a Grenade, I can already see that the main thing I would be doing with these skills is Lemmings going Worms. I already made some levels inspired by Worms levels ("Doo Wop" and "Staircase to Armageddon" from Paralems), and in fact, the name "Lemmings World Tour" was partly inspired by the game those earlier two levels were taken from: Worms World Party. Now obviously, neither the Grenade nor the Spear can kill Zombies by itself, but if you remove enough terrain under a crowd of Zombies or lock them in between Spears, the outcome will be similar.
Of course, that is not exactly a type of game style we would call "puzzle solving". And that's why I personally don't see a lot of puzzle potential in these two skills.
I agree with IchoTolot that the arc would have to be steeper in order for the skills to be more useful:- The Spear could be thrown higher up into walls to break a fall from above or stop a Climber from below
- The Grenade could be thrown against ceilings to stop Shimmiers, as IchoTolot said, or again into walls to make them irregular, which can also break falls from above or stop Climbers from below, as well as providing a niche for Climbers to climb into, from where they can start doing other things. (In regular Lemmings, this is usually solved by sending another Climber ahead and bombing him.)
Especially the idea of building bridges by connecting several spears, which was brought up as an argument for the skill earlier, seems very utopian currently. Obviously, skill shadows will make this easier.
But especially for the Spear Thrower, the skill shadow would not only have to show the arc of movement, but also the tilt the Spear would be going to have upon landing. The orientation of the spear changes rapidly as it's traveling along its arc. It's hard anough to chain several Archers together to form a bridge in Lemmings 2, and that skill has the added upside of allowing you to target it; since the Archer has been ruled out long ago, doing this with a Spear Thrower is going to be even harder, unless the skill shadow also predicts the orientation of the Spear itself in its final landing position.