Save One : do you have what it takes to save one Lemming ? (16 levels, medium)

[Guigui]

I am glad to present my level pack : Save One.

In each level of this pack you have a bunch of lemmings, but can only save one!
To this end, I had to resort to many tweaks in the level design : limited skillset, traps, locked release rate (gosh how powerful is this thing!), death awaiting around many corners.
Maybe this feature will have you think of the game in a different way than usual : play all for one and be glad when you hear the single yippee at the end.

Of course I am sure many of you master solvers will try your best to break the levels, and succeed... Even though I put much care in ensuring this is not possible, I am impatient to see how you will backroute some levels and save many Lemmings!

This small pack consists of 16 levels split in 3 ranks of roughly increasing difficulty : Eon, Neo, One. It uses only original styles, and mainly the 8 original skills.

Each rank has a "one-of-each-skill" level, a remixed level from the original Lemmings games (I Am A.T., Lemmings Ark, and Dolly Dimple) as well as a single talisman.

Also a level kindly created by guest-star IchoTolot appears in the pack !

I consider the levels to be of moderate difficulty, and hope some of the later ones will require you to think more than a little to clear.

Pack is attached in this post, with the required style. Unzip in your main NeoLemmix folder.

In order to lighten the bad mood where all lemmings will die but one I attached famous, fun and catchy musics to the levels. Can you recognize them all ?
Accept download and unzip in your main NeoLemmix folder :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hFaCTmUTf6kiE7t9m8ph6prst8MkFL_Y/view?usp=sharing

Many thanks go to IchoTolot for playtesting the pack a lot and giving me advices to improve all.
Also to Strato Incendus for letting me use his handmade musics of the original OST. I used 3 of his songs in remixed original levels.

Here are some screenshots of 3 levels, one in each rank.

One 4 : Clues Do  Three brothers and sisters try to reach the exit.


Eon 3 : I Am E.Z.T.  Time to get your revenge on the T.!


Neo 2 : So Many Spikes Easy when you know how ?


I thank your for reading and hope you have fun with the pack.

[IchoTolot]

Here are my updated solutions after the beta test. 

I can confirm that there are some really good levels in here! 

@Guigui: You might want to add the approximate difficulty of the pack in the topic's title like the other packs. I would suggest around Medium or Medium-Hard.

[Armani]

I just played through the pack and here're my replays. (two replays for One_3 and one replay for every other levels each.)
I managed to save multiple lemmings on only one level "Aquarium Deception". The talisman said save two but I managed to save most of the lemmings.
There are many good levels but my favorite was "So many Spikes", that was a brilliant level

[Guigui]

Hey there Armani,

Now this is a great moment for me when you solve my levels, as I remember I had a so tough time solving yours in Holiday Lemmings 2024!

Thank you for playing and for the kind words on the levels, I hope you enjoyed your time here. It is true that SMS took me a long time to set up properly. IchoTolot found a lot of backroutes that were not as cool as the intended solution you found.

You solved all of them levels brilliantly, and discovered some other backroutes/alternate solutions of course, details under spoiler :

Spoiler

Eon 2 Trust Your Lucky Star ? Nice trick to let them compress and clear 2 bars at once with a single miner. I'd rather player to bash through the last structure, then figure out how to save the climber. You can do this even with saving a skill for the talisman.
So I just moved the trap one bar to the right to prevent your solution.

Eon 5 Four Shruggers Real Backroute there, you're not supposed to reach exit using a single Lem ! Interaction is better so I worked on the chains again to prevent using the 4 bridges with the upmost lemming to exit on his own.

Neo 1 One Hot Minute Backroute again, not supposed to be able to bomb the way through the E by going the upper route. I put the star some pixels higher to prevent this.

One 2 Aquarium Deception Oh no ! Saving 70 Lems here ! My bad, going above the shredders was supposed to be a splat fall. Level is way too easy like this, I set the splat again.

One 3 Clappy Clapple First solution is intended. Second is very fine too though more tricky. It again shows how Release Rate and compressing lemmings can be powerful in this game, good job ! Level did not change.

One 5 Blues Nice solution too, you went through very little pixel and hard timing to get there I'd say ! Though I will consider it a backroute as you dont use most of the level and it looks like you got quite lucky at the end that the 2 survivors were close enough to reach exit like you did.
I made little change here again, can you find intended ? It is more straightforward and a bit easier to execute I think, you're not very far actually.

I changed the pack in the first post to block those backroutes in Eon 2, Eon 5, Neo 1, One 2, One 5, sorry if it breaks replays already given.

[IchoTolot]

My replay for Neo_1 broke so I had to find a new solution which fulfils the talisman + does not use 3 of the skills. Probably another backroute.  

[Guigui]

Oh yes nice. This Neo 1 is very open ended, lots of solutions indeed. It is a miracle no one managed to save more than one yet...

Building the gap between O and N is a great time saver for sure. This solution is not really a problem to me, except that it breaks the talisman which I thought was only accessible with a kind of counter intuitive solution.
It may happen that I prevent this build from O to N some days, lets see how things turn out.

[Armani]

resolved updated levels 

Spoiler

Eon2, Eon5 - look intended for me now
Neo1 - probably intended? since you said the intended solution is counter intuitive and I made the turn-around point farther and save more time as a result.
One2 - looks intended
One5 - another nuke solution.. I'm pretty sure the intended solution has some kind of nuke interaction in it to compensate the lack of destructive skills, but I'm not sure if this is the one you intended.

[Guigui]

Fine resolves here  I loved your method for passing under the E in Neo 1!

All are definitely acceptable as intended, except maybe One 5.

Spoiler

One 5 Blues : Using nuke seems mandatory indeed because not enough destructive skills. Your solution with flooding a chain then nuke and block near the exit does work, though it could certainly save more than one with a little tweaking and luck.
Maybe I'll work a little more on that, but the number of ways to reach the exit is so big that I'm scared I cannot counter them all.

Intended solution uses the whole level, and control the lemmings so that it is quite impossible to miss the nuke part.

[Guigui]

I modified the pack once more in the first post, sorry again for breaking previous replays.

Only the following levels have been modified :

Spoiler

Eon 2 Trust Your Lucky Star : changed the vertical structure again, talisman was too easy.
Eon 5 Four Shruggers : worked on the chains to prevent easy ways in them. Beware if you're used to them : Oh No Brick chains do not react as usual.
One 3 Clappy Clapple : tightened things and removed a builder. This breaks the second solution with compression offered by Armani some posts upper. It was cool, but involved the pionneer to go in by himself, and I think interaction is always better.
One 5 Blues : blocked Armani's last backroute to the exit. I must say his solution was very tricky indeed but I fear it may save more than one. Can you find intended ? Easier to execute I think, lems control required.

[IchoTolot]

Just posting an update of my replay collection. 

[Guigui]

IchoTolot always fast solver ! Quick comments on your new replays, may contain advices on how to solve :

Spoiler

* Eon 2 Trust Your Lucky Star : at least the talisman requires some trials and errors by the player now.

* One 2 Aquarium Deception : I'm wondering if one can save 3 lems with the same method : try to make the last
3 left bridges at the end to have 3 in the correct diretion. Cannot pull it off yet myself.

* One 4 Clues Do : looks like you're speedrunning this one now! Look at how close the second builder was to the first.

* One 5 Blues : can I ask how you manage to assign the climber to the correct lem with low ID at the end ? I assign it at the beginning of level, before they're all together, to make sure I have a correct one.

[IchoTolot]

can I ask how you manage to assign the climber to the correct lem with low ID at the end ?

I use NL's highlight lemming function - the lem gets marked with an arrow. Then with a simple right-click on the skill I can assign it directly to the highlighted lemming.

[kaywhyn]

@Guigui

Congrats on the release! I'll be taking a look at your level pack as soon as I go through some other ones that were released before yours. As I just completely solved all of StokeApe's STOKEAPE JUMBLE earlier today, that means in order the next packs I'll be playing are ScottyLems and Lock and Key. Once I'm done with those two, then it'll be time for your pack! When I do, I of course will link my LP For now, I must say the level previews look great, that L1 Pillar one especially looks amazing!

That's awesome that Icho was your pre-tester for the pack before release! Indeed, he's one of the main go-to people for that, myself being another that many have also asked to pre-test levels for. So, if you ever want a second opinion or looking for other possible pre-testers, I can be one

Regarding the music, I recognize a lot with them. 12/16 as a matter of fact. As a result, you'll probably hear me singing a lot in my LP!    

[Guigui]

Ouch, now comes the time when kaywhyn will LP my pack, such a good time  . Many thanks to you, and this whole forum, for making the Lemmings game alive.

I'm also very glad that IchoTolot playtested the pack, he helped a lot. Because of the whole "you can only Save One lemming" thing, levels tend to be very prone to backroutes. A single mistake and all Lemmings can go in, not good.
At first I was working alone : make a Save One level --> playtest --> find it's nice --> go to sleep --> launch the level again the morning after --> find 3 backroutes that save more than one --> 

So I quickly understood that my solving skills were not good enough to ensure the pack to be solid and asked IchoTolot for help. The only reason why I asked Icho instead of you kaywhyn is because he is moderator on this subforum and he seemed to be more active than you on the forum at this time, I did not want to bother you. Needless to say he found looots of backroutes faster than me, and gave many good advices to make the whole thing better. I'm pretty satisfied of the pack as it is now and hope you have fun with it.

[WillLem]

Solved the Eon levels, these were great fun! Some feedback:

Build Quality: Very good. The levels are carefully crafted and tastefully decorated with attention to detail throughout. The OG style sets are used with originality and flair, giving the levels their own unique flavour.

Difficulty: So far, definitely a challenge but very accessible. The levels can be solved with minimum use of CPM and other player assists, and the level layouts hint at the solutions enough to give the player a starting point whilst not giving too much away. If it gets more difficult from here I'll probably start to struggle, but due to the overall quality of these levels I'll definitely attempt to finish this pack at some point.

Enjoyability: Excellent! I had fun solving these. It's been a while since I've sat down and just played the game, so it was a joy to be presented with levels that were challenging without being too complex. The concept is interesting and the size of the pack is inviting; I was able to get this first group of levels solved in under an hour.

Enjoy the replays!