[NeoLemmix] Xmas Lemmings 2021 [Difficulty: Easy-Very Hard]

[Apjjm]

Finished the bonus rank and the pack

Comments on the rest of the bonus levels:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

4 - This level looks very scary at first, but wasn't quite as hard as it looked at first! I did manage to save 31 with skills leftover, so maybe I found a backroute or something unintended here.
5 - Probably one of the easier ones of the bonus rank, but still a very clean solution - I like the way the three workers are needed to build the path. The main key for this one was deciding what needed to happen to free the crowd, and the rest of the level followed from there.
6 - What a level to finish the pack off with - I found the last piece of the puzzle on this one to be very hard to spot. I managed to make fairly consistent progress in working out a route at the start of the level but then hit a huge wall where I would lose an extra floater or be a skill short. I easily was stuck for at least 30 minutes trying lots of different ideas with no luck. I was just about to close out of the level to come back to it later when i realised what the solution was. Another LOTY worthy level here in my opinion.

Overall an incredible pack and absolutely would recommend others to play this (even if it isn't christmas)! There are some really stand-out puzzles with a great variety in how they are solved.
I think the easy-hard rating is a fair description of the dificulty for the first two ranks which have a fairly balanced difficulty curve too. I found avant-garde to be a bit harder than retro overall, but I am better at solving classic skills levels so that might just be me. The Bonus rank marks a step up in difficulty over the first two ranks and is fair to call very hard - I found Bonus 1 & 6 to the hardest of the rank, so the difficulty here I guess really depends what you get stuck on.

Finally, great job again on the menu graphics and a nice selection of music too. This really was a very fun pack to play!

[Armani]

Congraulations! and thanks for playing

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

3 01 Lemming Entanglement - Well done 100% intended I really like your thought process and logical deduction. You really are a talented puzzle solver! I honestly thought this level is the easiest among Bonus1,3 and 5(levels that were originally located in the Retro rank.) but I again failed to judge the difficulty of my own level Fun fact: This level was originally named something like "Four Different Ways to Die" which refers to the 4 loses in this level.(fire, trap, bomb, and nuke ) But I thought that title was not a good name for a holiday level.
3 02 No Matter Where You Came From - Close enough! It's not too far off with the intended solution! The only different part between your solution and mine is the bottom floor. The main puzzle of this level is to find correct route for each groups of neutral lemmings.
3 03 Hold My Beer... - It's quite close to intended. I decided to fix the level a bit but I think your solution is nice and clever!
3 04 Prerequisite: Advanced Fluid Mechanics - This one on the other hand is bad backroute But this is the only real backroute among all 30 levels and I'm happy with that The cloner is supposed to used in other location.
3 05 Curious Minds - Yes finding out how to release the crowd is the most important thing in this level. I don't know why but I thought this level is the hardest level among Bonus1,3 and 5.
3 06 This will be a Better Year - Glad you like this level I almost rejected this level in the development phase since the last piece of the puzzle you mentioned is hard to see and I was afraid that people might get angry when they see the solution replay Nuke solution is not something everyone likes.

[Armani]

V1.2 is out!

Level fix:
-3 03 Hold My Beer... - added some steels(at the third room)
-3 04 Prerequisite: Advanced Fluid Mechanics - added an ice blower

[kaywhyn]

Hi Armani,

I have finally finished solving all of the pack, picking up where I left off from the pre-testing days, solving everything except for Avant-garde 10 and all 6 Bonus levels. Here are my replays, and some feedback on the Retro level that wasn't included before release, as well as the rest of the feedback I didn't give. For the ones I already gave feedback, I'm just going to copy-paste

Retro Rank Feedback

Nice rank where the levels use only the classic 8 skills. A lot of nice puzzles here.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Retro 1 - Last One Out is a Rotten Egg Very nice level! Not too hard but at the same time not completely trivial.

Retro 2 - White Chirstmas (sic, title has been corrected) Oops, unless that was intentional, "Christmas" is spelled wrong Biggest gripe here is that unless I severely overcomplicated the solution, the builders are super precise. There's very little leeway in placing them and not getting killed by the ice steamblower trap. I would definitely ease up the precision there!

Retro 3 - Snowy Wish As mentioned on Discord, I said this level's way too hard for its position because a lot will not realize that a lemming needs to turn around in the basher tunnel. Even more, it must be the climber that needs to turn around. It is way more precise than it needs to be because the pillar is quite thin and so there's very little room for the climber to turn around. You certainly don't want to start a pack off with a harder than usual level, as I believe this puts the pack at great risk of being rage quit.

edit: Armani has made the pillar thinner per my suggestion/feedback. It's a much better level now, and it was a good idea to not make this the opening level of the pack, as the new Retro 1 is definitely easier.

Retro 4 - Claustrophobia Wow, what a nice level that gives only bashers and miners! My only gripe here is that at the top right where you need to bash to the left it's very unclear that the lemmings can step up where there's a little overhang and they fall just before it. I mistakenly thought it would cause them to turn around. I would make it more visually clear that it won't turn them.

edit: I needed to resolve this one, as I gave Armani the feedback that the nook at the top was a bit unclear whether lemmings would turn around or be able to step up. Fixed my replay there, it plays out the same.

Retro 5 - So close, yet so far Haha, reminds me of The Tomato Watcher's R2 because of the title Nice open-ended X-of-everything level here. Bonus points for it being really nicely decorated!

Retro 6 - Christmas Crossing Nice level where you need to get a lemming on the other side of both OWWs to bash the crowd free. Just me, but I wonder if it can be made clearer that the drops are survivable? Yes, there's always the splat ruler, but I think the precision on the drops can be eased while not harming the level in any way.

edit: Also needed to resolve this, as a change was made to make one of the walls on the side clearer that the fall is safe. Level still plays out the same with where the non-floater needs to go and the floater the other side.

Retro 7 - How to Escape an Avalanche Pretty nice concept here, where you need to send out multiple climbers and block in the right places so that you can release them all with one well-placed miner. I did have to rewind plenty of times, though, to keep readjusting the blocker positions, especially the leftmost one.

Retro 8 - Harvest of Screams Great level! I really love the solution here involving two separate digger pits and blocking the left-most one to be released later by the worker who built the bridge to the exit. It took me some time to figure out where to put the pits and when to block, but it's still a nice added challenge.

Retro 9 - Rendezvous at the Mountain Cavern Nice puzzle, I especially love how multiple workers need to be sent to different areas of the level to do work and prepare the path for the others. It can be difficult to get two of them to fall in opposite directions where they land on top of the sign. The timing is a bit tight near the end as well, but that's probably because I brought that on myself. By this I'm referring to the digger where he almost dug through the builder's staircase to prevent the others from getting to the exit.

Retro 10 - And There Were Four Again! I was stuck here longer than I needed to because I was a dummy for not realizing that you can safely drop them onto the small steel block at the bottom from the top on the right side! It's funny how I never noticed this before on this particular level from OL. As a result, I kept coming up a builder short. At the same time, I can still see this one being a difficult one for some, so I guess its position in the rank is fine. Still, nice remake of "And then there were four..." from OL but Christmas themed.

Retro 11 - Roof of the World Wow, great level! It was really fun to figure out and solve this level. The only hard part is knowing how to isolate 4 workers to go on and block to turn the builder so that you can send two climbers on ahead, as well as a third one to mine the blocker free who will both become floaters. Also, placing the other blocker where the crowd is compressed so that he can be mined free with a climber later from above. Also, timing the climbers so that the second one turns around in the miner tunnel can be difficult. Overall, this was very satisfying to solve

Retro 12 - Forbidden Knowledge (Part1) The Part 1 in the title needs a space between "Part" and 1. Somewhat hard level but another great one. I like how one needs to release the pre-placed climber first and then use him to release the pre-placed floater/climber. I think the hard part here is seeing that you need to mine in such a way so that you don't release the crowd because the wall is still too high. I think most would think to mine so that you end up releasing everyone when you can actually afford not to since you can build them out later. Overall, great level to finish off the rank.

Avant-garde Rank Feedback

Now we add the NL skills as well. Once again, I was able to solve everything except for Avant Garde 10 edit: I was able to solve it, I went about the level completely wrong. If only I had another walker

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Avant-garde 1 - Frozen Fractals All Around Nice NL skills only level to start off the rank! Not hard but not trivial either

Avant-garde 2 - Meanwhile in Namidaland Nice homage to namida Similar to "Vacation in Gemland" from Holiday Lemmings in that it's the only non-Snow level in the pack and it's also in the Rock tileset. Nice open-ended level that I would say is easier than the aforementioned level, because the difficulty is a huge jump up in that game. Love the touch of decoration in the level!

Avant-garde 3 - Xmas in Lemmingland Another nice level. Not hard but not easy either. Love the Christmas tree near the exit!

Avant-garde 4 - We Move Unseen Ah, Starcraft 2 reference! Great level, especially with how some are swimmers, the rest are climbers and need to shimmy. There's the laserer trick with firing two of them at the same location to keep the shimmiers going again, just like Icho's R2. It's a nice one and all, I just hate the extreme precision needed for it.

Avant-garde 5 - Ice Climbing Somewhat hard, although the hardest part is certainly seeing that you need to stack at a certain location at the start so that the climber does not go out into the water and drown. Also, there's the maxing out the RR so that everyone makes it past the stack on time before it becomes too high and turns some around, which is certainly the hardest part to see. That's exactly what did me in on Gear World 7 in LemRunner The rest of the level's somewhat straightforward, although one needs to realize to have the first climber turn around to mine the crowd out while the second one goes on to build the rest of the path. Nice level here!

Avant-garde 6 - Santa Training Center Wow, I really like this level! One of my favorites in the pack. The builder/miner combo is clever, especially the second one so that you can get low enough to bash to avoid the icicle trap. I also love the very long shimmier section at the top. Well done here!

Avant-garde 7 - CAUTION, Thin Ice Another nice level, although a bit difficult. Once again, I didn't realize that the crowd can get over the first pillar without needing any help. The hardest part was realizing how to contain and get the crowd down safely afterwards. The rapid fire jumping to get up higher to dig away the final obstacle was pretty interesting.

Avant-garde 8 - Last Shepard of the Dead Another great level. I like how only one needs to use the teleporter to forge the path. Some skills leftover, but I'm guessing that's fine.

Avant-garde 9 - Get Your Sled Ready! Nice level, although I was a bit of a dummy and didn't think to send the entire crowd into the pit on the right where you need to use stackers to help a fencer. Clever level here, I really liked it

Avant-garde 10 - Sorry, No Rooms Available Tonight Unsolved, I ended up skipping this one as I had already spent a couple of hours on this with no success when I asked you if you could verify 100% solvability on Discord. I will try again some other time.

edit: Finally was able to solve it earlier this month. This is a very hard but really good level! The hardest thing to see here is that two stoners is actually enough to cover the entire gap at the bottom. Otherwise, most would seem to conclude that you need 3, but the problem here is that you can't afford to use all 3 stoners down there, as you need the third one for the tiny gap where the left entrance is. Thus, I take back what I said with reducing the precision here. I simply went about the level completely wrong, such as using a stoner to make one of the exit platforms with just one builder. The way the blockers are used here is really nice. To achieve bridging the gap with just two stoners requires very pixel precise builder placements. In this way, the stoners will be at the maximum width from one another in order to be able to bridge with only two stoners. Nice job here!

Avant-garde 11 - This Level has no Time Limit Ironic, considering that you need to get the bomber pickup and use it on the blocker just before the zombie gets to him but at the same time the zombie needs to turn around on the blocker before he explodes. Nice level, although again I was a dummy here and didn't realize to have everyone jump over the stack to be released

Avant-garde 12 - Presents For You Looks intimidating and very hard, but it's really not that bad. It's all about knowing which pickups to go for first, as well as making up for a basher shortage with a cloner. The only problem I kept running into was making sure that I had a spare jumper for the end, as one needs to jump over the exit in order to bash through the OWW.

Avant-garde 13 - Thanks for Playing Self-solving level, where you don't have to do anything. Nice message

Bonus Rank Feedback

The 6 levels here, as Armani described in the OP, are simply the 3 hardest levels from both the Retro and Avant-garde ranks. Indeed, these are all quite difficult, although I thought both Bonus 4 and Bonus 5 were the easiest of the rank

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Bonus 1 - Lemming Entanglement This was a really hard level and one that I was stuck on for a long time. I was constantly either a lemming short of the requirement or a skill short. It might be a bit too hard for its position as the first level of the rank, actually. If anything, since I thought Bonus 5 was easy, it might be suitable to swap with it instead. Anyway, the most difficult part to see was blocking in the compressed crowd almost up against the pillar on the right side. For some reason, I didn't think a bomber would be able to blow through the rest of the pillar and also free the blocker at the same time. This took a very long time to see. Before I was successful in solving the level, I kept trying other things, such as building over the icicle trap or building over the top and other shenanigans, but they all ultimately don't work. Needless to say, there were plenty of times I kept thinking I had the level solved but then something pops up or I forgot to take something into consideration. The level definitely wasn't nice to me at all

Bonus 2 - No Matter Where You Came From Another really hard one for me that took me a while to solve. This is also one of two levels from the rank that I had an attempt before the pack's release, the other being Bonus 1. The start was what prevented me from getting the level solved, as no matter what I did I wouldn't have the necessary skills at the bottom to separate the swimmers from the sliders. I also kept running out of skills, as when I think I've saved enough and optimized some areas it comes back to surprise me that I'm out of jumpers/shimmiers. Turns out that I massively overcomplicated my solution, as both builders at the start, as well as the stacker on top of the first one, are all very pixel precise, and I had to cancel the stacker with a jumper on the 7th brick so that he's still able to get over it to place the second builder very precisely. Comparing to your intended solution, the second walker was what kept causing me to run into problems, where I turned him around on the left side so that he can build over the ice steam blower. In any case, this is likely the first major backroute, but the solution is so complicated it might still be a fine alternative despite not using some areas that the intended solution does?

Bonus 3 - Hold My Beer... Another one that didn't look too bad but was surprisingly a very hard one despite being a 3-of-everything. It's not obvious at all how to allocate the skills to the various rooms at all. Plenty of times I would end up a skill short or be short of the requirement. My solution is almost the same as the intended, except with the way I did the 3rd room and part of the 4th room. It seems I also backrouted this level, as I didn't use the clever trick of releasing the blockers when you built over the top one in your solution and hence why I had some skills left I was also a dummy for a long time here in that I kept thinking to release the crowd in the first room to the left instead of simply blowing up the blocker and releasing them to the right Doing it the other way caused me to run into skill shortages or be short of the requirement.

Bonus 4 - Prerequisite: Advanced Fluid Mechanics Much easier than the first 3 levels of the rank IMO. It was still challenging, but the really good kind that wasn't too frustrating and is also one of my favorites! The hardest part here was stoning in the water so that a glider can land on it to platform and clone. I spotted this very quickly and early on, but I kept stoning him when the swimmer was at the surface so that the icicle overhang would interrupt the platformer. I also missed the area underneath the exit that can be bashed through for the swimmer to come back around for some time. Finally, even after I had everything all figured out, I was a dummy for a while about how to save the climber/glider athletes. Then it dawned on me that the gliders need to hit the stack in order to bounce off and go towards the exit. That was clever. Also with how only 1 stacker needs to be used in order to get a glider over the top to land on top of the stoner. I kept thinking two stackers are needed

Bonus 5 - Curious Minds I'm surprised you thought this was the hardest level. I thought this one was another easy one, probably easier than the previous level. It's almost very obvious where both miners need to go, the only hard part to see here was the bomber, I thought. Nice level that involves sending out 3 worker lemmings. Great use of the builder/miner combo too, though this might be another hard one to see. The only reason this an the previous levels were far quicker solves for me is that I'm just one of the more experienced solvers

Bonus 6 - This will be a Better Year Not the hardest level by any means, but it does require a really neat mechanic that can easily be overlooked here, which it was the case for me. I pretty much had the level solved in the first 10-15 minutes upon reaching the level, it was the nuke I missed for a very long time and thus the main reason why the level took me far longer than it should had. Very nice use of the nuke here, where it all comes down to activating it at such a time so that the timer goes off on the digger while he's still in the digger animation and before he transitions into a faller. In this way, it causes him to go into the ohno animation and fall on top of the exit trigger and exit safely without exploding. Even when this lightbulb moment came to me, I still needed to work out the timing of the fencer so that everyone makes it into the exit on time, meaning everyone is walking out to the left together and not separately in either direction. Very nice level to end off the pack!

All rightie, thank goodness I finally got through the pack, even if it took me 3 months after release to solve the remaining 8 levels (7 that were part of the second patch, one new level (Retro 8) that was released to the public and not during pre-testing. The pack's definitely nowhere near as hard as Uncharted, but there's still a lot of very hard nuts here! Thus, you somewhat achieved your goal of a lower difficulty with this pack, but I would warn others that it's not a whole lot lower Looks like you got carried away with the hard puzzles Even then, this is still a great pack that I, as one of the pre-testers, can recommend others to play, with the understanding that it won't be a very quick solve, as a lot of levels still have a lot of bite to them here. Then again, a lot of my sour tone with the pack came about due to how I was under a lot of self-inflicted stress and pressure from finishing my LWT LP before the end of 2021, so there's that too

Thanks again for this Christmas pack, Armani, and I'm hoping to record a level solving commentary video series for this soon

[Armani]

Everything intended or acceptable

I think I already responded to most of your solutions so I will only respond to the new replays

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Avant-garde 5 Ice Climbing :

Somewhat hard, although the hardest part is certainly seeing that you need to stack at a certain location at the start so that the climber does not go out into the water and drown.

Actually you can place the stacker pretty much anywhere you want and increasing RR is not necessary here. The climber lemming can just climb over the stacks and turn around at the leftmost cliff. Anyway your solution is intended
Avant-garde 10 Sorry, No Rooms Available Tonight : Great job! 100% intended As you said, you have to figure out that two stoners are enough to close up the gap. I wanted to reduced the precision as much as possible but I didn't see any easy way to do so as I had to make the gap narrow enough so two stoners from the above are enough to cover the gap and at the same time I had to make the gap wide enough so you can't cover the gap by assigning two stoners to the two walkers.
Bonus 1 Lemming Entanglement : I didn't expect this level was indeed the hardest level among bonus 1,3 and 5. I think I underestimated the difficulty of Bonus1.(+I might have overestimated the difficulty of Bonus5 ) The reason why underestimate this level was probably it requires the same trick(compress the crowd with a blocker and release them with a digger) twice. But you also have to see some other things such as a bomber is enough to blow up the leftover pillar as you said. You also have to take advantage of "1 lemming per teleporter" thing multiple times. Probably these are what make this level difficult.
Bonus 2  No Matter Where You Came From : At first, I was going to accept any solutions that slider group and swimmer group take different routes and reject all other solutions that both group take same(or almost same) route. But I changed my mind and decided to accept your solution as it was pretty impressive.
Bonus 3 Hold My Beer... : Great job on saving some of the skills I don't want to enforce single solution to this X-of-everything level and you allocated the skills really well so I will take your solution as a challenge variant of the intended solution.
Bonus 4 Prerequisite Advanced Fluid Mechanics : Finally I got an intended solution replay to this level I'm glad this level is working as intended.
Bonus 5 Curious Minds : No idea why I thought this level was the hardest among 1,3 and 5 Probably I thought sacrificing a lemming at the bottom(the one who build once to make a platform for the climber lemming to fall) was hard to see.
Bonus 6 This will be a Better Year : Nice job The original idea of this level came upon to me like this: I was thinking if it is possible to make a level that requires nuke but nobody dies from the nuke And it turns out that it's possible! I intentionally made the save requirement 30/31(you start with 30 lemmings but you have a cloner ) so when you fail the level by one lemming, I wanted you try to find the way to save the lemming who start digging under the hatch! But in fact the final glider lemming is the one you need to save. Congratulation for not falling into my trap and finishing the entire pack

Thanks again for playing and I added your solutions to bonus2 and 3 to the replay pack! So there're now 4 alternative solutions from you in the replay pack

[IchoTolot]

I finally played through the pack.

I don't think I hit any major backroutes, but let's see.

Replays are attached!

[Armani]

@IchoTolot
Thanks for playing

Bonus1 is a backroute.
Your solution to Retro8, Bonus2 and Bonus3 are acceptable variance. You were slightly more effcient on them
All others are exactly intended

I attached the fixed version of Bonus1 below! I will update the main topic once the level is confirmed solid


update on Bonus1 Lemming Entanglement
 - swapped the positions of the pick-ups(climber->builder, blocker->climber, builder->blocker)
 -1blocker, +1climber
(The intended solution remains unchanged and none of the submitted replays will be broken)

[IchoTolot]

Here is my resolve.

Still seems a bit suspicious.

[Armani]

That's intended
I updated the main topic as well!



V1.3 is out!

Level fixes:
-3 01 Lemming Entanglement -  swapped the positions of the pick-ups, -1blocker, +1climber