Ok,
this is still not finished, but since some people are probably dying to play the levels even if they're not perfect yet, here they are, all 180 Genesis levels extracted:
http://www.geocities.com/guestlevels/lemmings/genlvls_raw.zipEnjoy!
[By the way, don't bother with Fun 22, Tricky 14, Taxing 15, Mayhem 22, and Sunsoft 18. Those are the five special graphics levels in Genesis, and w/o the special graphics the LVLs alone are useless.]
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(Below I explain in many words why it's not finished and what problems remain before it's fully finished.)
The big reason this is not finished is that, it turns out while the graphics sets used in Genesis Lemmings is almost identical to the PC/Amiga graphics sets, there are a few subtle differences here and there, and those differences need to be identified and adjusted for the level to be the same when played on the PC/Amiga versions. For example, I discovered that in graphics set 0, the Genesis version switched the meaning of terrain id 42 and 43, so I had to fix that in my extraction program so that the correct terrain would be used when playing the level on PC/Amiga Lemmings. As another example, there's some other not-yet-identified difference at play causing Present 27 ("Try Anything Once") to incorrectly have narrow gaps in certain places. Etc.
To completely identify all these differences, I'd need to write another program that can insert specially crafted levels back into the Genesis ROM that displays all terrain pieces and objects in a well-arranged manner, so that I can fully identify all the differences manually. This obviously will take some time, and since most levels are not affected by this issue, I figure I'd release the levels now in their slightly imperfect but mostly playable form.
Other differences that need to be taken care of:
- the Genesis version only has a 512x160 playfield while the PC/Amiga versions use 1600x160. So when translating the Genesis levels into LVLs, I shifted the x by an amount such that the 512x160 Genesis playfield is centered horizontally within the 1600x1600 PC/Amiga playfield. One effect of this is that graphics which are partially clipped on the Genesis version are not clipped when you play them on the PC/Amiga version.
While I can add eraser pieces to manually clip the unclipped portions, that might not always be the best thing to do aesthetically. Thus ultimately these clipping differences will have to be manually reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
- similar to the clipping issues, sometimes a water object which would normally be at the edge of the Genesis playfield is now no longer at the edge on the PC/Amiga version, and so it'd look a little odd. Again, the best aesthetical fix (generally, to add a terrain piece to cover the exposed left/right edge of the water object) is not something that can easily be determined by program, and therefore must be done manually.
- Genesis Lemming's viewport size is only 240x160, smaller than the 320x160 in PC/Amiga. (By viewport size, I mean the size of the portion of playfield shown on the screen at any instant.) Thus using the same starting-X position means that the initial starting screen will expose more stuff on the right side of the screen on PC/Amiga compared with Genesis Lemmings. Depending on how the level looks and works, this may or may not be appropriate. So again, each level's starting-X screen position will need to be manually re-adjusted on a case-by-case basis.
- Genesis Lemmings may have slightly different calculation for the positioning of an interactive object's trigger area. Thus once in a while, in the levels I uploaded,
you may find a trap or exit or some object that should be functional but isn't, even though the object's visual position is correct (meaning it matches its visual position in the level in Genesis Lemmings).
Please let me know if you discover such problems. Because an object's (x,y) position must be aligned in certain ways, fixing the problem may in some cases require changing the terrain slightly, so again some instances of this problem will require manual effort to fix.
As you can see, to get the levels to perfection will take some work, and frankly I'm not sure I want to commit to doing all that. I will certainly make sure all extracted levels have accurate terrain positioning and to fix serious gameplay issues like nonfunctioning traps and exits, but beyond that, the more aesthetic fixes I'll probably leave it to other people here to do.
