kaywhyn's List of Completed LPs of Lemmings Packs and Upcoming Packs to LP

[kaywhyn]

I have added the LP of Chip's Challenge to the OP, as that is another one that I have completed Chip's Challenge is a puzzle game I remember playing growing up. I'm sure I knew about the game from how in early Windows OSes Microsoft shipped the game with it as part of their "entertainment packs." I don't think I would had known about the game otherwise. It was released in 1989, so a few years before Lemmings.

As you might had guessed, I didn't complete the game as a kid, as I ended up playing several levels before I gave up/lost interest. I think it was level 31 - Knots where I stopped. At least in my memory, I don't think I ever completed anything beyond that at the time. Or if I did, then I'm nearly certain it was that I didn't play much further after that level. This particular level requires you to collect close to 120 chips but in just 29 seconds. I remember being very confused when I got the message that I ran out of time, and then when I restarted the level and saw the very strict time limit, that made me gulped. Certainly a level like this was one I couldn't comprehend as a kid. So, I didn't come back to the game for years. As it would turn out and I later found out, the game is quite long (149 levels), some of which are also very difficult on top of being really long themselves.

Sometime in high school, either during my sophomore or junior year, I remembered this game. Now that my house has had Wifi for around a year, I searched for the game and downloaded it. It was a long journey, but after nearly a month (I think?) I eventually completed all of the game save for one level, Block Buster II. All other levels I completed, but after I found out there's an easy way to do the upper section of the level without all the dodging madness, I finished this one too.

The game was originally made for the Atari Lynx, and the game was later ported to MS, which is what you see in the LP. I must say, the game still looks great on it even to this day. Unfortunately, the porting came with some negative side effects. I think due to a lot of rushing and hence not enough testing, some bugs carried over. Some of these allow you to complete a level much faster than you can on Lynx. These so-called "busted" levels also make some of them far easier than intended on MS. I completed some of these by taking advantage of the busts, but others I have forgotten that they're busted. In any case, if you want you could solve those levels as they should be played as if you were doing it under Lynx, but it's up to you.

Some time later, the creator, Chuck Somerville, made a sequel to the game, Chip's Challenge 2. It was ready for release, until he found out that an agreement couldn't be negotiated with the other party, who bought the rights to the game and required that he pay an undisclosed huge amount of money. As a result, the game was in limbo for many years, but it finally got released on Steam in 2015. When I heard the news about it, I bought the bundle that included both CC and the editor. Even though I was working at the time, I played and completed both games on Steam. The Steam version is pretty much improved in nearly all aspects, such as the smooth movements and sounds. Not to mention the far better graphics. I was especially excited for CC2, as that meant new levels to play and the game could finally be seen in all its glory. It's definitely tougher than the original CC, but it's also longer, with 200 levels compared to 149. I will leave a more detailed post about CC2 when I get around to LPing the game.

Until CC2 was released, CC fans (there's an online community for that too, and I know a few members here are also a part of it) decided to put together a community pack called Chip's Challenge Level Pack 2. This in a way served as a replacement for CC2 in the meantime until the official game could finally be released. I have completed this, but it's much harder than CC, particularly since the pack uses what is known in the community as "invalid tiles." IMO this is very akin to hidden info in Lemmings, though for CC it's far worse since you don't have the convenience tools like NL does, such as CPM. In other words, anything hidden behind/beneath other stuff you have absolutely no idea as to any of their locations or what they are until you actually try it or if you look in a level editor for the game. Thus, at least to this Lemmings community, a lot of levels in CCLP2 would be considered "unfair" and not so much fun, as countless minutes, even hours, could potentially be wasted in solving them that wouldn't be the case if the stuff wasn't hidden from the player's sight. As a result of this, CCLP2 likely wouldn't even make for a great LP, so I don't think I have plans to. However, I might upload video solutions of them, as I believe I used an emulator called Tile's World to play and solve them. It's pretty much akin to loading up replays for levels in NL in that when you complete a level, a replay of your solution gets solved.

The CCC has produced several more level packs for the game, and if I'm not mistaken it is currently up to CCLP5. I have only completed CCLP2 and most of CCLP3. I'm only missing the last 6 or 7 levels due to being stuck on a level close to the very end. Hence, I have not played CCLP4 and CCLP5. There's also a CCLP1 (not to be confused with CC) which kind of serves as a predecessor to CC, though it's more a prequel to CCLP2 despite being released years after the latter and is supposed to be quite easy. I've played to about close to half of CCLP1, but again I haven't completed this one either.

So why did I LP the Microsoft port of CC, you asked? For one thing, I grew up playing the Microsoft version. Definitely for the nostalgia, even if it isn't as spectacular as, say, the Steam version. Also, I apologize for not playing the game with the music on. Truth be told, when I first played the game back in elementary, I played it without the music. So, in keeping with that, I decided to do the same. Besides, I find the music loud and a bit obnoxious. The Steam version should be better, with the better sounding tunes, which does include Joplin. The same ones should play for CC2, IIRC. Even then, I think most of us would agree the game on MS still looks pretty good for this day and age.

If you like Lemmings, then you'll likely love Chip's Challenge, as the two games share plenty of similarities with one another. They're both puzzle type games, and some themes are recurring in CC, such as Sokoban (block pushing) type puzzles, others are more action based, where you need to dodge the enemies, and some even combine both. Just beware that you don't have the convenience tools that allow you to more easily complete levels, such as a CPM like feature to help you see hidden stuff. At least not until you get to CC2, but for CC there's no such feature. Luckily, there aren't that many levels that have stuff behind blocks in CC, but they are far more common in the custom packs.

It was a long road and journey, but I managed to complete all 149 levels of CC again after having last played it when it came out on Steam back in 2015. It was definitely great for reliving the nostalgia of a wonderful game, even if it's quite difficult and frustrating in many places. I'm definitely happy that I got to know the game when I was growing despite having only completed 1/4 of it at the time and then I happened to remember it when I was in high school. I also remember playing this game at times at a local computer store that used to exist in my hometown, called Comp USA. It was definitely in the early 1990s, as the computer likely wouldn't have the game otherwise.

All rightie, there's a few other games that I would like to get to before I come back to Lemmings content. I should return to the latter in about a week or two. The break is definitely helping a lot. I might do the same as Gigalem in putting up a poll asking what the next two games to LP should be, I might not. I'll have to think about it, though I think for the next one I've already decided what it is and hence there likely won't be too much of a point in doing one.

Can't believe it's March already, and 3 more days until my birthday!  

[kaywhyn]

All rightie, finally added some more LP links to the OP, especially as some were long overdue. 5 more LPs added: On the Lemmings front, the LP of namida's LPOII and WillLem's Lemminas II, while on the non-Lemmings front: Operation Neptune (PC), Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow (PC CD), and Bio Menace Episode 1: Dr Mangle's Lab (Dos).

For LPO2, this was the very first level pack of 2023 I LPed, and that was near the end of last month. As indicated by the pack's name, this is the sequel to namida's Lemmings Plus Omega pack, as well as currently the third-to-last pack in the Lemmings Plus series (after this there are LPVI, LPA, and LP3D). I took a 3 month hiatus from the game to focus on other stuff, and I can say it was a much needed break. Before this, I came back to cover LDC #27 content, and it was a pretty rude awakening, as I totally didn't expect the levels to be difficult. It would seem that my solving skills have rusted quite a bit during that time. Then when I followed that up with my LP of LPO2, I apparently was beyond sharp (pun intended) until I got to the final Sharp rank, the hardest levels the pack has to offer. This culminates in Sharp 18, possibly namida's hardest level I have played and solved. However, I was eventually able to make it all the way to the very end and solve all of the pack, giving me a great sense of accomplishment, as I have beaten one of namida's hardest packs. In the level pack topic, he classes the difficulty as "extreme," but honestly it didn't really feel over the top hard in any way other than the Sharp levels. To be fair, it likely is due to all the experience I have gained from solving so many level packs before I took on LPO2. I have to suspect if this was one of the earliest NL packs I've played, I likely would had struggled even more than I did during my LP. At the same time, the extreme difficulty is still justified, as this is apparently a pack that even Nepster and Akseli, who I both consider better solvers than me, couldn't solve completely. Though I was able to solve all of the pack, this is a reminder that this does not in any way prove one's intelligence, as namida has stated elsewhere on this site which I completely agree with. Really all it means is that I simply get stuck on different levels than they do.

In any case, I absolutely enjoyed LPO2 from start to finish and is currently very high up on my favorite level packs of all time! I do understand how some have complained about LPV and LPO2 being too hard and hence namida intentionally dialed back on the difficulty for LPVI, but I absolutely love these challenging level packs and am willing to face the challenges. Being able to solve these really hard levels is what allows one to get better at solving! The sense of accomplishment of doing so can also feel great!

The next Lemmings level pack I took on shortly after finishing LPO2 was WillLem's Lemminas II. Again as indicated by the pack's name, this is the sequel to WillLem's flagship pack Lemminas. This pack is on the much easier side, but I still enjoyed it nevertheless. As I've stated plenty of times, yes, I prefer hard Lemmings levels with specific solutions, but the truth is I enjoy Lemmings levels of all difficulties. So, don't worry about if I think the pack is easy. After all, packs of all difficulties can still be critically acclaimed and well-received. They just need to be done right. In addition, the emphasis was more on the visuals and "accessibility" and therefore WillLem aimed for a lower difficulty with this sequel pack than the higher difficulty of the prequel pack. This can really be seen in the new tilesets featured in the pack that haven't been seen before. They are mostly just recolorings of previously released tilesets while keeping with the Lemminas theme. In regards to the lower difficulty, I think WillLem has been successful in achieving just that with Lemminas II. This is just considering the non-talismans, as the talisman challenge solutions are supposed to offer an even greater challenge/difficulty. Even then, don't be fooled by this, as some levels are still challenging enough even without the talismans!

I've also noted that WillLem's remakes of the official levels tend to be some of his best and hardest levels. There's at least one remake of an official level per rank in this pack. I generally prefer to play new levels instead of remakes from the official Lemmings games, but it's fine with there aren't too many of the latter. I think WillLem stroke the right balance here between new levels and remakes.
 
For the record, currently there are two levels that I haven't been able to solve yet, Black Hole 1 from Nepsterlems (been stuck here for almost 3 years) and the final level of RotL (almost 4 months). So far, they have yet to eclipse the level I've been stuck on the longest, for which the record goes to Gronkling's level Bonus 25 - "Mystery Machine" on the Lemmini version of RotL. That level had me stuck for a little over 3 years all because of a glitch I never even knew about or seen before. To be fair, it is a huge leap to come up with on one's own, and I actually needed some clarification of the glitch needed for the level in the Lemmini glitch topic as it was a bit poorly worded. Yes, I got stuck for a long time there, but eventually I was able to figure it out.

Operation Neptune LP

Then on the non-Lemmings front, another game I LPed was Operation Neptune. This is a game that was made by The Learning Company. It involves navigating the submarine Operation Neptune around collecting capsules and data canisters while avoiding sea creature hazards by shooting ink pellets at them to render them harmless for several seconds or one could simply maneuver carefully around them and avoid getting hit. The focus is on math skills, and I certainly remember when I first played the game either in upper elementary or in middle school that the highest level problems were beyond my comprehension, let alone that I wasn't good at problem solving back then. Interestingly enough, I went on to major in math and studied it for both my bachelor's and master's degrees. As a result, I obviously am more than capable of handling the highest level of math problems in the game now.

There are two different games here, Voyager and Expert. The former is like the easy mode, while the latter is a hard mode. While the objective is the same and you go through the same 5 zones in each game, the sectors are different in the layout in each one. The sea creature hazards in the latter also tend to be faster and smarter, making it harder to avoid them without shooting ink pellets at them. In addition, the storyline is different, as indicated by the data log entries from the data canisters you unlock.

All in all, the game still holds up quite well, though you likely will need to run a virtual machine to get the game running. That's exactly how I recorded the game with OBS.

Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow LP (PC CD)

This is another game I grew up with when I was little. It was pretty much a Christmas present from the wife of a friend of my dad's. There was another game I also was gifted at the time, Toy Story for the PC. I didn't show much interest in the former at first, but once I started watching my brother play it, I took an interest. From what I understand, there's also a Genesis version, which seems to be more well-known than the PC version. The latter is apparently very hard to grab these days. I don't remember how I got it, but I think it was from a download on Youtube. In any case, I grew up with the PC version.

It features Maui Mallard, aka, Donald Duck, going through various levels/stages, killing bad guys along the way. In some levels, he can morph into his ninja alter ego form, Cold Shadow. Most stages end with a difficult boss fight battle. Once you beat the boss, you generally go to the next level/stage. Controls are pretty simple, involving jumping and shooting. There were definitely some levels that were hard for me at the time, but the one level that still remains difficult to play well and complete would be the penultimate stage. It's also quite nightmare fuel inducing.

One interesting thing I didn't realize is that apparently the one I have is different from the one I grew up with in one regard: When the plot exposition is being displayed, the name given is Donald instead of Maui. I think this isn't the North American version of the game despite being in English. I never noticed this until I had finished the LP. It's still the same game, but the connection between Donald Duck and Maui Mallard is lost this way. I think that would explain why the title splash screen is different since Maui is replaced with Donald.

This game I recorded on the Windows 10 host machine. Luckily this runs fine without needing to fire up a VM, though you still need to do some modifications in order for it to run properly. The download came with instructions, so I followed it and had no problem with it not running. Definitely can recommend, especially if you like Donald Duck, though as I've mentioned the PC version is quite difficult to get these days.

This is the first time I finished the game on Hard difficulty, which as I understand affects how much health and lives you start with but is otherwise the same in every regard. All enemies are the same and I think they still take the same number of hits to be killed, meaning the difficulty doesn't increase with there being more or them being more powerful. However, some hazards take a bigger chunk of your health if you get hit on higher difficulties than on lower difficulties.

Bio Menace Episode 1: Dr. Mangle's Lab LP (Dos)

The final game I LPed before I returned to covering Lemmings content is a Dos game called Bio Menace. I've only LPed the first episode for now, but I think I will return to do the next two episodes later on down the line. This was a game that I grew up playing but I didn't complete as a kid. I was able to complete a few levels but I either stopped on the third one or a few levels after it. I've completed the game for the first time many years later, I believe sometime in the 2010s, after I had already graduated from college/university. It features the character Snake Logan who investigates a terrorist attack in the city and completes his mission by foot after his plane crash landed. Like Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow, you go through various levels/stages, firing and killing enemies and collecting items along the way to help you turn off the electrical beam that guards each exit at the end. There are also hostages in some stages which you must rescue before you can proceed to the next. There are some boss battles along the way, but it all ends in a boss battle in the final stage which will further reveal some disturbing plot elements after you defeat him.

It's not an easy game by any means, and the brutal difficulty especially shows if you play on hard, which I did for the very first time when I did my LP. Just like the previous game I LPed from above, the difficulty affects how much bars of health and lives you begin with. There is a further handicap which will really make things tough in that if you collect a medical kit, though it's supposed to restore you to the maximum amount of health allowed in the difficulty you selected, in hard mode it caps you to two, even though you start with four. So, this pretty much means don't collect them unless you already have two health bars or less. Indeed, there were plenty of times which I needed to load up a save during the LP. As a result, this got frustrating when I kept dying so much. I honestly didn't remember the game being this hard, though that's likely because I played on lower difficulties and hence never ran into this problem, especially as there's no handicap with the medical kits.

As this is a Dos game, I recorded this through Dosbox, similar to how I did my LP of Lemmings 3D. Even with the limitations of the hardware at the time, the game still holds up quite well IMO, especially the graphics and the music. I didn't realize that the volume for my Dosbox was still turned down from the time I did L3D, so I was wondering whether the music was naturally softer. I later found out it was from the Dosbox volume still down from last time I did L3D, so I fixed that for future LP videos of the game. Only in the first video where it'll likely be hard to hear the music.

As I understand, there is now a Steam version of the game, so if you fancy that you can buy and obtain that one instead. Of course, I could had played that instead of the Dos version, but I think it was still fine to show the game as it was back then with the limited hardware, similar to how I did the Microsoft version of Chip's Challenge instead of the Steam re-release. Still a game I recommend, especially if you're into the scrolling platformer type game. It still has a decent plot as well.

All rightie, I'll likely cover some more Lemmings content for a few more weeks before taking another break and LPing other non-Lemmings stuff that I would like to get to and show off. I think I will put up a poll for that in a day or so, as I think I will have you, this LF community, help me decide the next two packs to LP. So, be on the lookout for that, and I'll make sure to post to announce when I put it up  

[kaywhyn]

Hi all,

I know it's so soon for me to post again in this topic, but I'm just posting to announce that I have put up a new poll with a list of level packs. I've decided to do something that I haven't done in a long time, and that is you, yes, this community, help me decide the next two level packs to LP. For a long time, I've decided on the packs to LP on my own. Not this time. It's about time I allow you to provide your input and help me decide once and for all. The question is, which two packs/authors shall I give some attention and love to first? That's where you come in!

From the options, it should be clear that I'm just sticking to small packs for the next few weeks. Most of these are pretty recent releases, with the only one that hasn't been out this year but from a few years back being Gigalem's FM2020 pack. The plan is to start with the two packs that have more votes than the others and then work my way through the rest on the list before taking another break from Lemmings content to focus on other games that I would like to LP and record as well.

I'll likely let this run for the next several days. I originally thought about starting the LP either tomorrow or sometime over the weekend, but I think the best thing would be to maybe start it sometime next week, once enough time has passed to allow votes to come in, if any.

Thanks again for all the support and the positive reception my LPs have been getting, particularly Lemmings level packs, over the last few years! Thinking about this, it's hard for me to believe that it's now been about 2.5 years since I started LPing (November 2020)! It's also hard for me to swallow the fact I LPed so many level packs during that time! Probably in the 40-50 range by now? As I have stated sometime ago, I'm pretty much a self-declared "the Lemmings LPer." Not "a" Lemmings LPer, "the" Lemmings LPer

[kaywhyn]

All rightie, the poll has been up for a little over 2 weeks. I've intentionally hid the results until after one has voted just in case being able to see them at all times influences the votes, but I have now chosen to reveal them, as I don't think any more votes, especially as it has stayed at 5 for a long time. As you all have seen I started off with Kieran's QFK pack because it had the most votes, after about 5 days of the poll going up. The second most is tied between Lemmings in weirdyland and Mike's Lemmings second version, so it'll be up to me to decide which of those packs to LP after QFK, but I've already know what I'll be doing next. Everything else is also tied after that and hence will be up to me to decide.

I have added the LP links to Revenge of the Lemmings v4.0 and Quest From Kieran to the OP, as they are packs that I have completed The former is one that was delayed for a while because I wasn't able to solve the final level and was stuck on it for 4 months. My LP of it was essentially intended to be a Christmas 2022/New Year's 2023 gift for the NL community from me, being a compilation of the "best of the NL community up to about 2012." As such, the levels are from various authors, most of whom aren't active anymore in the Lemmings scene, and the difficulty varies. In my experiences, some authors' levels I constantly had more struggles with, particularly those by geoo, Fleech, and tseug. In any case, I absolutely enjoyed going through RotL v4.0, especially the new levels that I haven't seen before that don't exist in earlier versions of the pack in other formats.

As mentioned, there exists other versions of the pack, such as a Lemmini version and one for Old Formats NL that is also labeled v2.0. I've completed the former a while back, while the latter I haven't seen all of it, though I'm guessing that a few might be new levels. Then again, the Lemmini version has an entire Bonus rank consisting of glitch levels, for a total of 210 levels over 7 ranks of 30 levels each, while the latter removed the Bonus rank due to how the glitch levels wouldn't exactly work as intended since many of them relied on a Lemmini-exclusive glitch and therefore has 6 ranks of 30 levels each, for a total of 180 levels. I might go through the old Formats version myself at some point.

The Lemmini version has a similar struggle with the final level, where it was unsolved for about a year. The interesting thing is that the solution came to me shortly after I posted my glitch solution to Icho's Lemmings Reunion pack for Lemmini, as I made the connection of how I could get the glitch required for Lacktardo's Technoir level. However, this doesn't change the fact that Gronkling's Mystery Machine level stumped me the longest out of any other level in the Lemmini version, as I was stuck there for a little over 3 years, all because it uses a floater glitch that I've never seen before. Needless to say, I finally did manage to complete it, but not before I got stumped for a long time on a few levels.

I also enjoyed playing through Kieran Millar's Quest From Kieran pack, which was finally released a few months ago earlier this year. Work on the pack began back in 2017 and was stalled and resumed several times during this 5-6 year period. Several members of the Lemmings Forums did some pre-testing of the pack as well. I'm happy to see Kieran finally released the pack, as I absolutely looked forward to playing through it. Indeed, I was taken by surprise with the high difficulty right out the gate and therefore remaining that way throughout, but as I've stated plenty of times, hard levels are the ones I like and prefer in the game Lemmings, though in actuality I like levels of all difficulties. The pack definitely reminds me of other highly regarded packs that stick to the classic 8 skills, such as Lemmings Migration, Lemmings Stampede, and Nepsterlems, all of which are characterized by levels that are generally small-medium in size with minimal skillsets to create deceivingly difficult levels/puzzles. Sure, I backrouted plenty of the levels, but it doesn't change the fact that I enjoyed QFK very much. The fact that Kieran released a pack that's up there with the difficulty of the packs I've mentioned is quite admirable IMO and therefore is supposed to be a compliment to Kieran

All rightie, continuing to move down the list in the poll in order of the number of votes. Thanks to those who voted btw!    

[kaywhyn]

Another long overdue update to the OP. Added LP links of 4 level packs to it: Lemmings in Weirdyland by weirdybeardy, Mike's Lemmings Version 2 (just the Rigel rank) by Turrican, Unusual Lemmings by Duuddu, and finally Festival Millas 2020 by Gigalem. This essentially means that I've gotten through all 5 packs listed in the poll. Once again, thank you to everyone who has voted and who has helped decide the first two to LP In the case of the second, that one was a tie, so it was up to me to decide which pack to LP. In that case, I did Lemmings in Weirdyland before doing Mike's Lemmings Version 2.

Lemmings in Weirdyland

This is a level pack by weirdybeardy, who has returned to the Forums after a very long absence sometime last year. This pack is essentially really old Lemmix levels that he made a really long time ago. Not a bad pack at all, just my biggest gripe with it was that a lot of the time limits are super tight. I personally don't mind them, as I love math and numbers, but there was just too many tight ones in a row for my liking that it's very noticeable while playing and therefore is constantly on a player's mind and worry. Except for a few hard levels, the penultimate rank finisher which I consider the hardest of the pack, this one wasn't too bad. In any case, I still thank weirdybeardy for making a New Formats NL pack of his really old levels.

Mike's Lemmings Version 2 (Rigel Rank)

Mike's Lemmings Version 2 is more of an expansion to the original Mike's Lemmings by Turrican. It consists of the 17 levels from the Wild, Wicked, and Bonus ranks of Mike's Lemmings, plus 10 new levels in a new Rigel rank that's right between the Pollux (Wicked rank of Mike's Lemmings) and Bonus ranks. What I really like about the Rigel rank is that these levels are really great to look at. Turrican puts a lot of attention to details in his artistic craft when making levels These levels are also considerably harder than the original Wild and Wicked ranks of Mike's Lemmings. However, if you think of the Rigel rank as the equivalent of the Havoc rank, which is the rank that comes after both Wild and Wicked in ONML, then it makes complete sense that the new Rigel rank is really hard. Indeed, through the feedback I gave Turrican, there were a few levels in the early part of the rank that I consider too difficult for their position. As a result, they have moved to later in the rank.

In addition, there originally was a very unfair Rigel 10, the final level of the rank, that required a lot of precision. I ended up rage quitting the level in my LP and didn't come back to it for about a month before finally succeeding in pulling off the very tough execution during a 2-3 hour session when I had some spare time. Trust me, you DO NOT want to play the level in its original form! I still have it in case anyone wants to give it a try, but I'm almost 100% certain you don't want to play it. It will cause a lot of frustration and rage! In other words, I have spared future players the pain and agony of going through the same experience as me. I simply want them to enjoy Turrican's levels and packs. Due to the feedback I gave Turrican, he has released modified versions of the level that's split into two parts. There are now helpful markers that completely eliminate any guesswork if you can figure out what they mean. Believe me, you will thank me and Turrican that you didn't have to play the original version!

Despite the original Rigel 10 really making me rage, I still enjoyed the new Rigel rank and the challenges within. Let's just say that I gave the original Rigel 10 another chance and that I'm always one to come back and finish what I started I don't like leaving things unfinished on the table. So, thank you to Turrican for Mike's Lemmings Version 2, and if you ever decide to make more packs in the future I will look forward to them!

Unusual Lemmings

Unusual Lemmings is the third level pack by Duuddu. It follows the exact same structure as his previous two packs in that there are 3 ranks named Easy, Normal, and Hard, in that order, each with 5 levels. I would say that while this was an all right pack, it was more frustrating than it needed to be. In particular, I called out Hard 1 as being way too precise, similar to how Icho and I called out Hard 1 of Surge Lemmings also being precise. Don't get me wrong, the level ideas are great, but they involve things that seem to be general dislikes in the NL community. That's pretty much the only thing that confuses me in that if Duuddu was already told these tricks are not well-liked from his previous pack, then why continue to make such levels requiring them? I know my feedback was probably more harsh than it needed to be, but honestly it kind of didn't help that this came not too long after I played the original Rigel 10. Sadly, this was also present in a final rank level of FM2020, which I LPed after finishing this one, only fueling my rage even more

There were still some great gems in this pack, and some of it was still enjoyable and fun to figure out. Even then, I know Duuddu is capable of making great levels, so if he ever makes more packs in the future, I would simply make sure to avoid making the same mistake of putting in those not well-liked tricks in the Hard 1 levels. Thus, I still thank Duuddu for his newest pack and that I hope he takes onboard the feedback I given him so future packs can be improved. Please excuse me if some of it did come across harshly!

Festival Millas 2020

FM2020 is the third holiday pack in the series by Gigalem. Like the previous two packs in the FM series, there are also levels by Plom510 and Nessy. I must say, FM2020 is my favorite pack of the series thus far! It's definitely a lot harder than either of the previous packs, but I really enjoyed this one. A lot of great puzzles and many were great fun to figure out. Some I have already played from LOTY2020 due to some of these levels being nominated for it. I absolutely enjoyed this from start to finish.

My main criticism here are difficult to distinguish between background and solid terrain in the graphic sets. At first, I thought it was due to my old age and bad eyes, but no, it's not. Don't get me wrong, these new graphic sets are great, but there are plenty of things that can easily be confused and mistaken for solid terrain when in fact it's background, or vice versa. I've already pointed out some of these issues when I wrote my feedback in the level pack topic, as well as give Gigalem some feedback on that on Discord. I think that was going to be the central focus point of the overhauls, but FM2020 has yet to get one. I think same with FM2019.

Despite this, again I really enjoyed FM2020. Thank you gentlemen for this pack! I therefore look forward to FM2021 and FM2022 when I get to them!

With this, I'm pretty much now on my hiatus from the game of Lemmings. I don't know when I'll return to the Lemmings scene, but I definitely need a break! In addition, I don't exactly know how much I'll be LPing and recording other content for my YT channel during this time. I been stressing out more than I normally do in recent times, and it's probably getting to the point that it's becoming a bit unhealthy for me. As a result, something that I been thinking about, and that is I might retired from LPing after 2.5 years. Or, if not, hopefully it means that I just need to take an extensive break from recording and LPing. If people still want me to LP instead of retired from it completely, then I'll continue to do so, but again it might not be for a while. Really, it's more that I need to look out for myself matter more than anything, and if I need to take a break from LPing to help me do so, then so be it.

Thoughts?     

[kaywhyn]

Wow, I left this hanging for almost a year, but I finally updated the OP with all the LPs that have happened since then. Also, despite no feedback on it, in case it wasn't obvious already, in response to the question of whether I would continue LPing or not, I have decided that I will keep doing them, just not with the same high frequency as before. In other words, I'm spacing out my LPs way more than I did before so that by the end of the year I've only done about 10 LPs or so. In addition, though I kind of get the feeling that my videos in the past year and lately have been getting ignored, in actuality I don't think that's the case at all and that I'm just worrying for nothing. That kind of factored into me thinking of retiring from LPing, but nah, as stated before it was more to look out for myself so that I don't suffer from massive burnout. Besides, it's great to take extensive breaks from LPing from time to time.

Not to mention that I kind of lost interest in maintaining this topic of mine, but well, I have finally returned to get it up-to-date! I hopefully got all of them and didn't miss any!

Lemmings Plus VI

The final NL pack in the Lemmings Plus series by namida, this one dials back on the difficulty in response to how people thought the two packs before this one, Lemmings Plus Omega 2 and Lemmings Plus V, were too difficult. However, it's not to say that LPVI is an easy pack in contrast to those two. Rather, it's just not as hard as them. Indeed, the LPVI's first rank is already unusually high in the difficulty, though probably still easier than the first rank of LPO2 IIRC. Also, as namida has told me, the talismans here are definitely worthwhile ones IMO. Some are far harder than the "normal" solution, eg, Maniac 1. This is also a pack that namida probably considers his greatest quality-wise, and I completely agree, as I really liked this pack when I LPed it. I absolutely enjoyed it from start to finish, even if the pack isn't as hard and that I prefer hard levels in the game of Lemmings. Some of the levels in both the Maniac and Delirious ranks, the third and fourth ranks, respectively, are pretty challenging, but as you might had guessed I really enjoyed many of them.

Festival Millas 2021

The fourth holiday-themed pack in the FM series by GigaLem, this was yet another really enjoyable pack, even if it isn't as difficult as LPO2. This pack once again features levels by both GigaLem and Nessy. However, as it's a much smaller pack than LPO2, the difficulty increases faster. Even then, I didn't feel the high difficulty until the third rank. The final two ranks are definitely difficult, though I have already played some of these levels from when they were nominated for LOTY2020. Even then, as it's been a while, I couldn't remember the solutions to some for a time. Doesn't really matter, as I'm able to figure them out again given enough time. It's also good exercise for the brain to play them from "scratch" again instead of loading an existing replay. The final level is pretty challenging IMO, though I found it more annoying than very hard due to how I constantly needed to keep rewinding to adjust some things because I kept missing some important skill assignments. This is one that I self-inflicted, as replay editing would help tremendously here, but well, I don't use it at all in my LPs

Bodyworks Voyager: Missions in Anatomy

This was a pretty fun game that my dad got for my brother and me when we were growing up. As the title suggests, this is all about learning about the human body by studying a medical database of the various body systems and then get quizzed on them in the form of a multiple choice question or matching terms with definitions. Once successful, you are then presented with an arcade-like play-style where you need to fight microbes, some of which attack your ship and others which attack the patient. How hard and how many questions you need to answer depends on the difficulty that you pick at the start when you sign in with your name. The highest difficulty for the questions requires you answer 3 questions correctly, while the higher difficulties for the arcade style playing requires more microbes to be destroyed per mission. I believe to see the true ending it is required that you just play on the highest difficulty for both the questions and arcade play. If you elect to go in order with the lowest difficulty for both first, each is 60 missions long. Once you finish all 60, you then repeat the same 60 missions but for a higher difficulty for both, which the game automatically increases for you once you finish all 60. Therefore, the game is 180 missions long if you do this. Thus, it is somewhat of a long game, especially if you keep answering questions wrong on the highest difficulty or keep losing the missions because you got your ship damaged enough or you allow the patient's health to deplete completely.

Note that this is a Dos game, so it can be somewhat difficult to get it to run properly on modern machines. The only major brick wall I ran into with the game is that Dosbox would complain that there isn't enough memory to install it. I forget how I got it working, though I think I might had grabbed a copy of the game from the Internet Archive rather than from the CD, which I still have a physical copy of. In addition, there doesn't seem to be a download of the music that sounds exactly the way it does in my LP. This was how I remember the music sounding and a lot of the tracks are great. Instead, there is a link to download the MIDI versions of them, but they sound very different. Even then, I think I was pretty eager to share the music pack for the game with this community, but I found out that you won't be able to use these for music for Lemmings levels because this file extension isn't supported. Instead, you would need to convert them to a different format. I don't know anything about that, as I haven't used any music editing software myself, nor do I think I ever will get myself into using them. My knowledge is just limited to music theory, but that's pretty much it in regards to my extent of knowledge of music

The Incredible Toon Machine

This game should be familiar to those who know about The Incredible Machine series of games. This is essentially a "cartoony" version that isn't as well-known as some of the other games of the series, but it's pretty fun IMO. There's a similar one called Sid & Al's Incredible Toon Machine, but this is just a Dos version of The Incredible Toon Machine, which in contrast is a Windows game on CD. Unfortunately, this one is extremely difficult or impossible to run on modern machines. I'm able to get the game to install just fine, but there are issues running the game, such as sound/music not working. Once again, I don't remember how I got the game to run, but I was able to using the CD of the game that I still have to this day and running it thorugh a virtual machine on Windows XP. The great thing is that it works well and I was quite happy to relive some of my childhood by playing the game again after so long. Before this, I did play it some years ago in the last decade, on my previous laptop before my current one, I think.

Just like all the other games in the series, there are several modes you can choose to play, but the main one I did for the LP was "solve a puzzle." There are 100 puzzles in total, some of which are either single padlocked or double padlocked. The single padlocked ones are unlocked once you solve all the other puzzles in that difficulty. The double padlocked ones can only be unlocked after you solve all the puzzles, including the single padlocked ones. The former are unlocked by entering in a password that the game shows you on the jigsaw puzzle screen.

Back in the days, I pretty much only bothered myself with the Cake Walk difficulty, but starting in high school, once I actually played the All Brawn, No Brains difficulty for real, I found it wasn't so bad at all so I decided to try and solve all of the puzzles. I managed to get all of them solved except for the second level of the Looney Bin difficulty. I actually had to get my brother's help to get it solved. I pretty much had all of the solution correct except for one tiny but crucial part that I didn't program the timer correctly. It really needed to be that particular timer or else you will not get the level solved. Not sure why it never occurred to me that the timer needs to be halfway exactly In any case, it's very misplaced to be at the very start of the difficulty and would had been far better if it was at the very end instead.

Before I made a serious attempt at getting all the puzzles solved, I would pretty much always mess around in the "build your own puzzle" mode. Nothing serious there, I just liked messing around with the editor, especially with placing plenty of Al's and Sid's on the screen and seeing the ensuing carnage/mayhem. They are the titular characters of the Dos game, with Sid being the mouse and Al being the cat. Some nice wordplay here, where Sid Mouse = city mouse, and Al Cat = alley cat. They are voiced by veterans Rob Paulsen and Jim Cummings. I figured out Sid Mouse easily, especially as I learned about him through my Wikipedia readings online in high school, and I made that connection once I got to playing the game again after so long. However, I never guessed that Jim Cummings was the voice of Al Cat.

Lots of fun no matter how old you are, though again as I said this game is very difficult to run properly on modern machines. Your best bet is through a virtual machine and with the CD if you still have it. There are downloads of the game you can find online, but I couldn't get the music to work properly. If anyone knows how, please let me know!

Lemmings 3D Winterland/Lemmings Plus 3D

These next two packs had me return to the custom Lemmings level scene. I played both of these on namida's engine for Lemmings 3D called Loap. It's essentially the NL of L3D, as it has features such as rewinding and time skips, etc. As I haven't used Loap before, I decided to test the waters by doing Lemmings 3D Winterland first, an expansion to L3D with 6 new levels. These levels were decently challenged, with the ones near the end quite difficult, with the 5th level being the hardest IMO. That one apparently took me well over an hour on camera before I got it solved. The 6th and final level isn't anywhere as hard, but it's a completely non-trivial primarily bombers level and also the best level of the game IMO. Took me sometime to get used to the controls of Loap, especially as I ended up finally upgrading my mouse to play the game with on the engine just so I can get the panning with the middle mouse button/wheel to work properly instead of remapping the mouse buttons to different functions through the Logitech software for it.

Having completed Lemmings 3D Winterland and now being mostly familiar with Loap as a result, it was time to take on the final pack of namida's that I have yet to play, LP3D! Once again, a great pack from start to finish, though I got stuck pretty badly at various points of the pack, even as early as the Tricky rank. However, the Taxing rank is where the difficulty really picks up, as the first few levels managed to stump me pretty badly. There are fortunately some breathers later in the rank, but it already starts off pretty difficult, culminating in the penultimate Taxing level which is considered one of the hardest levels of the pack outside many of the Mayhem levels. The Mayhem rank is a wild card when it comes to difficult levels, as pretty much all the L3D enthusiasts struggled with different ones. Even then, there are several that are agreed to be quite difficult by all, but I believe the ones that don't have any doubts are the final 5 levels of the pack. For me, I consider Mayhem 16 the hardest of the entire pack. For those not in the know, this is essentially the equivalent of the "No Time to Die" level that you can find in all of the numbered packs of the Lemmings Plus series. The differences here is that you also have 9 turners and 4 minutes instead of 2, but don't be fooled by having double the amount of time! The time limit is still surprisingly very tight. However, what makes the level quite difficult is not only the route but how you need to save any turners you end up using, and it's not easy considering that they cannot turn themselves. It's not freeing them that's hard, it's how to get them to the exit once freed. On top of all that, the save all requirement is what makes LP3D's NTTD level very nasty. This is why save all levels in the game of L3D is very rare and how very few levels that don't require 100% are possible to 100%, even with glitches, which I'm not really aware of, as I didn't grow up playing L3D. I only played the official game a few summers ago.

Despite how I got stuck pretty badly on a lot of levels in LP3D, I can honestly say that I came away from the pack and learned so much about L3D. Especially with what is possible in L3D, as there were so many things that I didn't even know was possible in the game. Needless to say, I can highly recommend namida's LP3D pack and is very worth it, as it touches upon a lot of things that even L3D didn't. In particular, it makes far more use of the 3D aspect, and those are some of the highlights of the pack!

Once again, I want to thank namida for all the LP packs, including LP3D and Doomsday Lemmings! It's really hard for me to believe, but I honestly can't believe I have played through all the LP packs (LPI to LPVI, LPO/LPO2, HLP [Holiday Lemmings Plus], and LP Alpha) and Doomsday Lemmings. It might have taken me 3 years, but I managed to play them all!

Lemmings Cranium

This is a level pack compiled by Crane, who finally took to the task of putting together a pack of most of his levels from the mini-Dos packs and contest entries from over the years. I helped Crane convert the levels and get them up-to-date in the NL format, as well as help hunt down some music tracks and even got to do some pre-testing for him. Starts off easy for the first two ranks, but then gets difficult rapidly with the third rank and beyond, though the fourth rank of Challenge are just subsets of the official levels and is kind of a breather before you get into the very difficult final rank of Chaos that follows immediately after. I ended up backrouting a lot of the levels, but I did manage to finish the pack after struggling so much in the third and fifth ranks. I had already LPed the Challenge rank from about 1.5 years ago before LPing Lemmings Cranium. Sad to say some of the levels got to me and pushed me beyond my breaking point of frustration, but that is all just due to how I self-inflicted too much unnecessary precision where they got patched out. There are still some things I disagree on, but at the same time I also need to clarify up some things that caused Crane to worry about our falling out. For the time being, let's just say there were some other things that I was upset about that caused me to not be myself and I ended up feeling really dumb about, in particular:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A level that requires cancelling a digger with a blocker that I completely forgot about, which is ironic considering that the very first Lemmings level I ever made uses it It never occurred to me that that was all I was missing until I was sent a level replacing one of the Curious ones that can be thrown out that teaches the player it. That's what caused me to feel so stupid and got upset for a few days, but well, it at least has reminded me of the "trick" and therefore it wasn't a spoiler by any means. In other words, I know the trick and therefore it's not a spoiler, I was very stupid for not realizing that was the only thing I was missing.

In any case, thanks Crane for the level pack!

Logic Quest

One of the many games by The Learning Company, this one focuses on logic and reasoning. You go around in the challenges collecting robot character pieces and commands so that you can program the robot to pick up the key and unlock the door in order to get to the next level. It's one of those that I played when I was in elementary. It was pretty difficult for me back then, and I needed a lot of help from my brother. After a few levels, I understood how it's played and was able to finish all the challenges. There are 12 in total, 6 Courtyard Challenges and 6 Castle Challenges. The former are the easy ones, while the latter are the much harder ones. In addition, all Courtyard Challenges are single floor, while all Castle Challenges except the first one have multiple floors. It's not too long of a game, especially if you understand it and that the game is nice enough to not glitch out on you completely that renders you trapped in some areas of the Castle Challenges. Castle Challenge 4 was the only one that took a long time because the game kept getting me trapped at the tops of stairs in different areas, and when that happens there's nothing you can do except for restarting the current level and having all your progress for the level wiped out. Castle Challenge 4 is the most infamous level where the faulty stairs glitch happens.

You can also choose to play the challenges with or without bats. Even playing with bats, the levels aren't that more challenging, especially as you can toss fruit to make them take a nap. You have an unlimited supply of fruit. If the bats catch you, it's stated that they carry you off to another part of the level, but from what I remember all it really does is make you go left and right for a bit before you can back up with the down arrow key to make them let go of you.

As this is for Windows, it runs fairly well on modern machines compared to some other old games, but there are still some annoying issues, such as the game crashing when you do certain things, such as clicking on the arrows to zoom the playing area in/out, or when you collect all robot character pieces and the game crashes either way. As a result, I've lost a few recordings this way and after a few of them I just played off-camera for a bit to make sure I find all the correct settings to use so that if the game does crash I at least won't lose video footage this way. The only way I got this to work all fine was recording through a virtual machine.

In the final video of the LP, I ended up showing off a few of the custom maps that you get access to after beating all 12 challenges. Just really a "playground" for you to mess around in.

Gizmos and Gadgets

Yet another game from The Learning Company, this time the focus is on science. You build vehicles to race against Morty Maxwell, aka, the Master of Mischief. There are 15 races total, 5 vehicles per building. This game is much longer than Logic Quest, though most of it is due to how you often need to go through all or nearly all doors in order to find all the bets parts. The levels therefore can be very time-consuming, especially the final two races of each building, where the warehouse is the biggest possible. These are also the vehicles that require at least 7/8 parts, with the most ever required being 9.

You go around the warehouse looking for parts to build your vehicle, as well as solve science puzzles when going through puzzles. Just like Logic Quest, you can play with or without Chimps. Playing with Chimps does make the game harder to an extent, though most of the time they can drag out levels longer than they need to if you're not able to find the part you're looking for because you're unaware that a Chimp might have it instead of you not picking up all yellow boxes in the warehouse. The first three levels have the slower bipedal Chimps, while the final two levels have the much faster, unicycle Chimps. In addition, the latter ones don't sleep as long as the former when they're fed a banana.

This was one of the most educational games I ever played in my childhood, though it was very difficult for me. I had to get help from both my brother and dad, though the latter was mostly for the science puzzles instead of the vehicles. In addition, I kept simply throwing in whatever parts I collected to make the vehicles and didn't think about whether they were the best parts or not in order to win the race. That's where my brother pointed out to me that I can find out the best parts by looking at the blueprint. Once I was told this, then it wasn't that bad at all. Even then, this game was a lot of fun back when I was young, and I was definitely very happy to play this game again for the nostalgia!

Unlike Logic Quest, this game is more frustrating to get running properly on modern machines. The biggest problem is getting the music to work properly. It installs fine, and you can get the game to work by setting the correct compatibility settings, but the most prominent issue is the music. It took a very long time for me to find a solution to this problem online. This involves creating an empty midi.cfg file and placing it in the Windows/system32 folder.

Finally, just like The Incredible Toon Machine, this was originally a Dos game, but I grew up with the enhanced version on CD, which added speech. I'm glad I grew up with the latter, as the voice acting is great.

Festival Millas 2022

The fifth holiday themed pack in the FM series, this one is a little bit longer than the previous pack of the series. It's also much harder as well, especially the levels at the end of each rank from the second one onward. Even then, like most packs, I enjoyed this from start to finish. However, there were a few levels that I unnecessarily overcomplicated and therefore resulted in some frustration. Personally, I class this as a Medium - Very Hard pack.

With the completion of this pack, I'm pretty much all caught up except for the most recent FM pack, FM2023, which was released earlier this year. I will probably get to it around July/August.

Lemmings Halloween 2023

Finally, assuming there weren't any other packs/LPs I've missed, this is the latest one I completed. This is a Halloween pack by Armani. Definitely a very high quality pack like Armani and Icho have said, as I too enjoyed this pack a lot. Even though it isn't anywhere near as hard as Uncharted, I didn't find this pack that much easier than Armani's second level pack, Xmas 2021. If anything, the difficulty is probably about the same as one another. There are two ranks of 15 levels each, with the first one, Festive, having no zombie levels, while every level of the second rank, Funeral, are all zombie levels. Though I often struggle a lot with zombie levels, I still found the Festive rank to be pretty hard. If anything, I would consider the Festive rank Medium - Very Hard, while the Funeral rank is probably Medium - Hard. Though, the second rank probably does reach Very Hard at the end or is very close to it. However, I would ultimately class this as a Medium - Very Hard level pack in the difficulty, so I guess this is where Icho's assessment differs from mine. Even then, I consider him a much better solver than me, and it likely means he didn't struggle as much with the pack as I did. So, at least to me, the difficulties of FM2022 and Lemmings Halloween 2023 are similar and that one isn't harder than the other.

The hardest level of the pack would definitely have to be Funeral 14, as is quite accurate by Armani's personal assessment. Even though it doesn't look like it, it's definitely very hard to see the correct ways to approach the level. Skills run out very quickly, particularly the jumpers/walkers, and you cannot waste the lasers whatsoever. This level was also the very first time in the longest time in which I made two attempts on video before I had to switch to off-camera time to get it solved and then recorded again once I was successful. Turns out the solution isn't that hard to execute, though there are still a few minor variants and ways to do the level. Seems the level is liked enough to be nominated for LOTY2023, and I would have to guess it was Icho who nominated it, as he's the only other person other than me who has played this pack. However, if it wasn't, then I don't know

I do have to apologize for a lot of the videos being so long I definitely went overboard here on the video lengths. I even told myself very early in my LPing days that I would use a stopwatch, but the ironic thing is that I haven't ever and am still aren't using one Hopefully it won't happen to this extent for future packs I LP!

Overall, like Icho, I can highly recommend this pack!

All rightie, I should all be caught up now I'll likely be back to LP sometime in June, but we'll see. Been taking a break from the game of Lemmings and go through other games I played in my childhood. That's always a lot of fun, right?

Hope 2024 is going well for all!