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

[JawaJuice]

Keep in mind that the Medium difficulty classification for Guigui's pack was suggested by Icho, who is quite possibly the best level solver in this community. He made Lemmings United, one of the most difficult packs currently in existence, and for which I'm one of three people who solved all of it. Icho was also the one who pre-tested Guigui's pack.

Hey kaywhyn Apologies, it wasn't my intention to question Icho's judgement or ruffle any feathers, but as someone who has completed literally every other pack on the forum with 'Medium' designation, I thought I would offer my perspective. I'm aware that Icho is one of the best solvers on the board, as well as a very accomplished creator, but is it not possible that what someone of his skill considers 'not too difficult', many others like myself might struggle with? I believe it was Icho that designated DoveLems Medium as well, and I found that pack pretty hard towards the end. Ultimately, difficulty designation is subjective and depends entirely on who's playing it. I would also just mention that Icho initially said on this thread that he thought this pack should be either Medium or Medium-Hard. I feel the latter is more appropriate but yes, that's just one man's opinion. Everyone is of course free to disagree!

Yea, Quest From Kieran is a very difficult pack. If you gentlemen had been struggling so much with it, I think my suggestion to Kieran that the pack is Medium - Very Hard is quite accurate then! I pretty much knew from the very first level that it was going to be a hard pack. I also struggled in plenty of places but eventually was able to get to the end.

Yes, I think you were spot on in suggesting Medium-Very Hard for that one. It let me know going in that it was gonna get really difficult, but I still thought I'd give it a crack! I enjoy Kieran's approach to level design.

Finally, I silently took a look at the two levels that you reported from LemFan's pack as not possible to solve and I too couldn't solve them. You're absolutely right that it seems due to either not enough skills or the wrong skill types provided that make them unsolvable. That report of yours was what made me make a topic on the NeoLemmix Main board about always making a solving replay for any completed levels an author makes

Ah! If someone of your solving ability is saying that as well, then I think that settles it - I'll check out your topic. I also tried LemFan's Lemmings Obliterated pack and while I finished most of it, there are about half a dozen levels I don't believe are solvable. I would have posted about it, but I didn't think anyone would be too interested since no-one has mentioned playing the pack.

Incidentally, I don't know whether you missed it, but I also posted my replay for your AWESOME Fire Level to the random levels thread. I'd be interested to know whether it's the solution you intended.

[kaywhyn]

Hey kaywhyn Apologies, it wasn't my intention to question Icho's judgement or ruffle any feathers, but as someone who has completed literally every other pack on the forum with 'Medium' designation, I thought I would offer my perspective. I'm aware that Icho is one of the best solvers on the board, as well as a very accomplished creator, but is it not possible that what someone of his skill considers 'not too difficult', many others like myself might struggle with? I believe it was Icho that designated DoveLems Medium as well, and I found that pack pretty hard towards the end. Ultimately, difficulty designation is subjective and depends entirely on who's playing it. I would also just mention that Icho initially said on this thread that he thought this pack should be either Medium or Medium-Hard. I feel the latter is more appropriate but yes, that's just one man's opinion. Everyone is of course free to disagree!

Nah, you're good. I know you weren't questioning Icho's judgment on the difficulty of Guigui's pack Indeed, difficulty is quite subjective. What some people find easy, others may find hard, or vice versa. Similarly, one's idea of medium difficulty may be quite different from someone else's idea of medium difficulty. I would agree with you on DoveLems being on the high end of the medium difficulty especially near the very end. Here, the classifications were made according to the average difficulty of the pack as a whole. Yes, there are some individual levels in there that I would consider to be "Hard" difficulty, but as a whole the average of all the difficulties of every level of the pack is around "medium" since there's a bunch of levels that are considered "easy" as well. Thus, when you take the average (arithmetic mean) of all the easy, medium, and hard levels of the pack, it comes out approximately medium

PimoLems I would also consider on the higher end of the medium difficulty especially near the end, though I personally consider it a Medium - Very Hard pack instead as I feel like it has way more hard and very hard levels than DoveLems. Thus, a case of while most of the time Icho and I agree on the difficulty classification of the packs, there's still some where we slightly differ on that, and that's ok Hence harking back to how difficulty is subjective as you mentioned  

Incidentally, I don't know whether you missed it, but I also posted my replay for your AWESOME Fire Level to the random levels thread. I'd be interested to know whether it's the solution you intended.

Yes, I did take a look at your solution to my AWESOME Fire Level, and this backroute you found is quite similar to another solution I was provided months ago. I simply haven't gotten around to fixing it up yet, and same thing with Hero Time Again? You can probably tell that I don't like backroute fixing, it tends to be stressful for me. Especially as I often find myself spending way more time backroute fixing than the time I spend solving levels and packs What should be simple decisions on how to patch a backroute I generally find myself overthinking or some not very nice way of fixing them  

[Guigui]

You're right about Neo 1 not being too bad (although I have no idea how to get the talisman solution) and I did finish 3 (Eroded Ark) - very clever design that one, well done! As for the other three levels, I'm completely stumped! Level 5 actually caused me to rage quit, which doesn't happen too often! I just can't see how any of these levels are possible. Obviously they are, as people have done them but I'm afraid they're beyond my ability to solve I stand by what I said: this ain't a Medium pack, it's either Medium-Hard or straight-up Hard imo.

Ouch, sorry for the ragequit on NEO 5. I must admit this level was designed to be kind of stressfull and tough on timing, or else it would not be called The 6'' Escape Plan


(By the way for those keen on extreme music, just search for Panasonic Youth by The Dillinger Escape Plan on the interwebz ; to find the original 'song' that has been 8-bit remixed for this level)


If you feel like coming back to NEO rank later, I can give as a general advice that all intended solutions use the crowd to help save one Lemming, no Lemming going to the exit by itself is allowed. Now for more specific but still vague advices if you wish :

Spoiler

NEO 2 So Many Spikes : this one may be the toughest of the rank. Do know that at least first and last lemming have an important role

NEO 4 Tower Of Sacrifice : created by IchoTolot so blame him for the difficulty ! Once you made one Lemming a climber, you must notice that the music is "I Will Survive". So please make him survive at any cost. Really nice level design by Icho where things fall into place by themselves afterwards.

NEO 5 The 6'' Escape Plan : one of them Lemming has to Escape this very poor level design. Via thE uppEr or downEr routE is your choicE.

[JawaJuice]

Ha, rest assured @Guigui, I never give up on a pack for good - just sometimes, you need a break and move onto something else that you can do, you know?

Your clue to NEO 5 might be a bit too cryptic for my little brain to process but I appreciate the annoyance of this level was intentional - it's kind of a troll level, no? As for 4, I can almost do it but always come up one skill short, which is a common experience for me with Icho's levels and typically means that I'm almost there but haven't quite got one element of the solution right.

Spoiler

NEO 2 is haaaard man I get the basic idea, but whatever I try, I always finish up a lemming short of the target. It's funny because there aren't really that many options, so it's clearly just some detail I'm not catching there. As I say though, I will come back to the pack at some point and try again

[Turrican]

I have tried the One rank , and here are the replays of my solutions.

I enjoyed the pack a lot! it's theme is pretty original , and as I said in my first post , the  puzzles have a lot of variety.

[Guigui]

I have tried the One rank , and here are the replays of my solutions.

I enjoyed the pack a lot! it's theme is pretty original , and as I said in my first post , the  puzzles have a lot of variety.

Now I feel both  for you Turrican, and  for me.

You cleared them all brilliantly, but 5 out of 6 are total backroutes, including some really easy ones that were totally overlooked !

This ONE rank now looks like a total mess to me, and I need to work more on it. I'm glad you enjoyed it still, thank you, though I think the intended solutions are much more satisfying than some you provided.


EDIT : and the OCD strikes, it cannot let me leave the ONE rank like that. Update includes modifications to the following levels following Turrican replays :

Spoiler

ONE 1 : prevented easy half-turn at then end. Turrican solution was nice but a bit too easy for last rank imo.
ONE 3 : prevented building directly to exit, who can do build directly to exit in Dolly Dimple ?!
ONE 4 : prevented half-turn with 2 close builders. Ichotolot had this solution too, nice but defeats the purpose of the clues given in the "Clues Do" level.
ONE 5 : tired of you guys flooding the exit area, so I just put AMAZING FIIIIIIRE here. Now the intended way to exit is easier to spot.
ONE 6 : I cant believe Turrican's backrtoute was not found earlier. Tortured minds of long-time lemmings player do not even see very simple solutions when they exist. Hopefully now they dont exist anymore in this level.

[darkshoxx]

Current Work In progress, good fun. The Umbrella one, if this is the intended solution then it's a brilliant.
I assume the clappy clapple is a backroute.
looking forward to finishing the ones I haven't gotten yet.
There's a high variance in difficulty 

[darkshoxx]

The upload may have failed Auto.zip

[Guigui]

Current Work In progress, good fun. The Umbrella one, if this is the intended solution then it's a brilliant.
I assume the clappy clapple is a backroute.
looking forward to finishing the ones I haven't gotten yet.
There's a high variance in difficulty 

Thank you for the input darkshoxx, you have good solutions here. Some comments :

* ONE 3 Clappy Clapple for sure is a backroute : you saved 3 and could save more. I thought I had this covered at some point, but it looks like this backroute reappeared... I will fix it, you are not very far from the intended solution at all.

* NEO 2 So Many Spikes I consider it a backroute too, because the pioneer goes in by himself, no crowd needed. The intended solution is much more satisfying imo, need to fix again.
You used this trick twice in your replays : start bashing through an illegal terrain (steel or one-way), and still get some pixels of terrain removed under your feet because one bashing animation finishes before getting canceled. Nasty.

* ONE 1 The Umbrella Irony Perfectly intended and executed, good job  I like the irony of the umbrellas not protecting from anything.

Once again congratulations on those solves  , hope you can get more solutions and have fun with this small pack.

[kaywhyn]

Hi @Guigui,

I have solved all of the pack! Replays attached.

Also, I recorded an LP of your pack: Kaywhyn's LP of Guigui's Save One Pack

Enjoy!

General Feedback

Save One is a level pack by Guigui. The concept here is that while there are multiple Lemmings per level, it should be possible to save only 1 Lemming, very similar to Dexter's Lock & Key Pack, which I recently finished LPing after a lot of struggling before playing Guigui's pack. That being said, the only real backroute in my playthrough should be One 3, as I managed to save way more than 1 on that level

Though Icho classifies this as a medium difficulty pack, after my LP of this pack, I honestly would have to agree with JawaJuice here that the difficulty is a bit understated. It seems to be on the high end of the medium difficulty range, with some levels most definitely feeling to be "hard" difficulty, with maybe a couple "very hard" difficulty. Here, both One 2 and One 5 come to mind with the latter two, as I consider these to be the hardest levels of the pack, as brilliant as their solutions are Needless to say, I would say Guigui's pack is Medium - Hard, though Medium - Very Hard is pretty close, but overall I would probably say the former is fine.

All 3 talismans here are quite hard and hence are pretty appropriate challenges. Eon 2's was one that I figured out after a bit but took so many tries to get right and hence is the most frustrating IMO, while the other two are easier but can still be hard to pull off, especially One 2's. Neo 1's is the easiest of the three talismans but whose solution is very well-hidden.

Overall, I was impressed for a first level pack by Guigui, as there's some excellent levels here, though I suppose you can expect that of a pack especially if Icho pre-tested it and Guigui fixed up the backroutes as a result Well done, @Guigui!

Eon Rank Feedback

Nothing too hard here other than Eon 2 (only if going for the talisman but isn't a hard level if not) and Eon 4, so the latter one I'm in agreement with JawaJuice about the difficulty. The music for them is great though, as I love Daft Punk and Disney's Aladdin, respectively Still, that doesn't change anything for how very frustrated I was with the talisman of the former  

Spoiler

Eon 1 - Be Attitude For Save One Nice level to start off the pack even if I got this one super quick. I love the part with bombing the second climber in order to make a turnaround point for the first one who needs to be interrupted with a builder after bashing and making a route to the exit.

Eon 2 - Trust Your Lucky Star? Not a hard level if not concerned with the talisman, but as mentioned it's super frustrating if going for it. A lot of the time the climber came at the wrong time and hence wouldn't be able to make it to the very top. Consider easing the talisman to make it less frustrating. It is a nice one though!

Eon 3 - I Am E.Z.T Nothing hard here other than you need to make sure you don't destroy all of the overhang on the far right edge, since that serves as a splatform for the Lemming trapped on the left side. It still took me longer than it should had. Not sure why it took me a while to figure it out

Eon 4 - Head Bang Bump Wash Dry Turn Blow Another one that I struggled with much longer than expected. Not sure why building to get over the teleporter from the right side took me a long time to figure out. This makes a big difference in that it allows the long basher to get to the receiver area in time to allow a neutral through after parking with a blocker and bombing to release one at the right time

Eon 5 - Four Shruggers Easy one just like Eon 1. The only hard part is the top Lemming using one builder only as delay, but it's not too hard to see after one spots catching the bottom climber with the middle Lemming by building and you see that attempting to build past the traps results in splatting after it's done. 

Neo Rank Feedback

A bit harder here but doesn't reach the peak that some One levels do. I also agree with JawaJuice about Neo 5 being so frustrating to pull off. Sorry, I'm not very keen on that level the way it is currently either!

Spoiler

Neo 1 - One Hot Minute Wow, very nice talisman and one that took me a long time to figure out. It took a while for me to find a different way than having one climb to go on ahead before I succeeded. It really should had occurred to me that you will always fail the talisman if even one obstacle is climbed, but I didn't catch on apparently! As mentioned, the talisman solution is very well-hidden. Didn't think to use a digger to turn around instead of two bombers at the start. In this way, you will have all bombers to clear all the obstacles ahead so that no climbing is necessary, since it's impossible to achieve the talisman that way, even if you squeeze out the maximum potential in saving as much time as possible. Excellent talisman!

Neo 2 - So Many Spikes Somewhat hard and one in which you will always fail if you take the normal route of passing through the traps at the top, as all Lemmings get killed, even if you bomb the athlete to release the blocker so that he's compressed with the rest of the crowd and hence only 1 dies to each trap. It's not clear that a bomber is enough to not get anyone killed to the needles trap at the start. Nice solution with bombing close to the steel wall at the bottom so that the athlete is the one who goes to the exit!

Neo 3 - Eroded Ark Nice builderless level! These tend to be my favorite type of level in the game. Took me some time to see that the climber is the one who goes to the exit, not the floater. The floater simply prepares the route for the climber. Once you realize that, you have to figure out how to delay the others long enough to be able to send a climber at the right time but not so long that one of the diggers digs to the bottomless pit.

Neo 4 - Tower of Sacrifice Nice level by Icho here! Love the concept of the climbers needing to survive and go up the ramps to make turnaroud points by bombing. It can be a bit difficult to get the climbers to be first to get up the "tower of sacrifice" though. I'm guessing the floaters are for that purpose of making the timing easier, especially to release the Lemming trapped at the bottom by making him climb.

Neo 5 - The 6" Escape Plan Yea, sorry, this also made me rage. I really would suggest expanding and making more room available so that it isn't so tight on the execution. Remember, demanding precision to increase the difficulty is not a great way to do so, especially on an engine that emphasizes that the difficulty should come from the puzzle, not the execution It also wouldn't hurt to make some things more obvious that they wouldn't work, such as destroying the terrain before the exit being off by a few pixels and similarly with making it more obvious that the miner would fall past the exit at the top.   

One Rank Feedback

Being the final rank, the hardest levels of the pack are here. Indeed, IMO One 2 and One 5 are the hardest levels of the pack, but only because their solutions can be very hard to figure out, with the latter more than the former.

Spoiler

One 1 - Umbrella Irony Irony indeed, as for some time I assigned the final floater to the wrong Lemming. That's simply due to me being so fixated on building on the far right with the second builder to turn around, when in fact you can just build on top of the green emerald in the middle of the level to do so. Doing this gets around the problem of the timing not working out in the middle of the level with the gap before the emerald. Excellent level!

One 2 - Aquarium Deception Wow, this is one of the most creative levels I've seen that involves the nuke! I should had picked up sooner that the nuke is involved due to the high Lemming count, combined with the very low save requirement, and how if you attempt to build over the gaps on both sides you'll always be a builder short. My only point of criticism here is that if my solution is intended, I would lower the terrain at the top so that it's clearer they won't walk out the top of the level and die. I'm not sure if the solution can be adapted to get to the exit from the right side instead.

One 3 - Clappy Clapple Backroute just like darkshoxx, though I haven't seen their solution yet. Mine's definitely one since I saved way more than 1 Lemming here

One 4 - Clues Do Easy one but only because I'm already aware of the double builder turnaround trick. Still, I like how every Lemming needs to keep moving forward in the level, especially as only the non-climber can make it to the exit. Well done!

One 5 - Blues Possibly the hardest level in the entire pack, I had a suspicion the nuke is involved here too. It just took me a while to figure out how to make it work, as it's way less obvious here than on One 2. Should had been clear due to always being a destructive skill short if taking some kind of normal route. All the cracks and everything in the level all seem to be due to backroute fixes and hence that kind of compromises the aesthetics of the level to an extent Even then, what do I know, as I haven't made that much levels in the Fire tileset yet. Nice solution but can be very hard to execute. That took me several tries before something finally worked, since I would be able to get the crowd to the exit but none would be able to exit since some explode to take away the terrain burying the trigger and hence the ones that stop on top of the exit trigger fall past it and therefore can't exit. The solution definitely reminds me of one of my levels for my upcoming Lemmings Memories pack, but as mentioned I'm not going to spoil which one it is You'll have to wait for me to release the pack first, if and when I ever do Even then, there's a possibility that people might have figured out which one if observant enough

One 6 - Bonus Level : The Blue Pi Nice level to finish the pack on but can still take several tries before something works as well. Here I managed to save a digger but should still be acceptable since it should only be possible to save just one Lemming. Looks like I'm not quite right in that it doesn't have to be the athlete that makes it to the exit. Any of the others can do too, as long as the floating block is used to get to it.     

Thanks for this pack @Guigui and well done again! I enjoyed it from start to finish despite some levels I wasn't keen on and some stuff that is very frustrating to pull off