Congratulations on completing the pack @Swerdis! Thank you for taking the time to provide such detailed feedback. Some replies to your comments:
It was a much quicker solve than your first Lemminas pack as far as I remember. So either this pack is easier or I am a better Lemmings player nowadays. Maybe it's because the difficulty comes from the talismans here - and I don't go for them intentionally
The pack is shorter than
Lemminas by 14 levels (although I do intend to release an expansion pack at some point!). It's also intentionally easier at base level - the talismans are indeed the bulk of the challenge in this pack. Players have the choice to ignore them, or go for collecting them all (there are 88, just like in the first pack)! Given your solving skill and the fact that you prefer more of a puzzle than an open-ended level though, I'd say you're missing out by choosing not to go for the talismans. They are basically like repeat levels, after all. But, of course, it's up to you how you enjoy the pack, and I'm ultimately glad that you enjoyed it.
Teal: I'd say the first level here sets the standard of difficulty in this rank. It's a challenging one for a first level, but it doesn't get much harder later.
You're not the only person to say this! I'm surprised that this level seems difficult, since it offers so many skills and is very open-ended. Maybe the map is a bit too complex for an opening level, perhaps; it had to be a somewhat decorative and extensive level since it's a "fond farewell" to the previous installment of
Lemminas.
The trickiest level for me here was probably Teal 5 because I ran out of builders/platformers several times.
The level is possible to solve without either!
(although not in the same solution!)
Favourite one: Probably Teal 8.
Your solution provided the current Gold Talisman! I wondered whether it could be solved with 8 skills, but I couldn't find a way to do it myself, so thank you!
Crystal 8 ... introduced a new concept for me. I never played a level like this before.
This is my kinda compliment! I'm really grateful for this
I don't wanna hide the information that I got one copyright infringement complaint when I uploaded Level 3 of the final rank.
Hmm. I wonder why only this level caused a copyright infringement. Each tune appears twice in each rank, after all. Maybe it's not to do with the music; the level is heavily inspired by Nepster's
The Game Of 1000 Balls (MOON 1 from
NepsterLems) - but, I wouldn't have thought that this constitutes outright plagiarism, and I'd be amazed if YouTube were able to pick up on that anyway!
Classic: Though a familiar environment, this was my least favourite rank. There were hardly any puzzles here, the difficulty came from the execution in most cases.
The idea with the final rank was for it to seem easy and open-ended at first, but for the maps themselves to create the difficulty. It was far worse in its original draft, I ended up replacing 3 of the levels from this rank which I felt went too overboard with map complexity - 2 of the replacement levels happen to be the more puzzle-based levels in this rank!
The by far easiest one was Classic 7. Maybe because I saw this concept elsewhere ... It plays almost automatically, there are no real decisions which must be made.
It's a re-creation of a very similar level from
FestiveLems, but with a few more elements added. I agree though, it is an almost automatic level - again, more of an exploration of a concept than a puzzle. Guilty, I guess!
My favourite level in the final rank and probably in the entire pack was Classic 4. A very good puzzle which uses up all the available skills (at least in my solution).
I love your solution!
It's very similar to Apjjm's and in fact uses the Jumper in exactly the same way. Neither are in fact the intended solution, but use all of the available skills and are slower to execute, so unfortunately there's no way to include it as a Talisman, otherwise I would! (Maybe if NeoLemmix had a "use {this skill} last" Talisman...)
All in all, a very good and quite relaxing experience. Thank you for this pack and I am waiting for new material :-)
So glad you enjoyed it. As for new material, I do intend to release an expansion pack for
Lemminas II at some point. At the moment, I imagine that such an expansion will bring each rank up to 15 levels. But, I wonder whether it would be better to simply add another rank, maybe a 6th world (although that would mean creating a new style, which I'm less inclined to do at this point). Not sure at this point, and I'd like the pack to get a few more plays before anything like this happens.
If you'd be happy to share your replays btw, this would be great! If you have set any records, I'll be sure to include them when I get around to building the records table for this pack.
