Sweet 'N' Sour Lemmings: a bite-size level pack [Difficulty: Easy-Medium]

[The Tomato Watcher]

After a few months of intermittent work, my first ever fully original level pack is complete.

It's very small, consisting of only 12 levels (with only 8 unique layouts) split across 2 ranks. It also features a barebones "special" level (with an accompanying special style containing the necessary objects), music from various Lemmings versions, and an additional music track composed by me.

It should be a relatively quick and easy completion for most players, but hopefully it's enjoyable nonetheless.


Sweet 3 "Long road to nowhere" / Sour 2


Sweet 5 / Sour 4 "The Ball Pit"

Below are multiple downloads of the level pack. ALL of them contain the levels themselves and the special style, so if you want the music, you only need to download ONE of these ZIP files. Regardless of which one you choose, it must be unzipped into the main NeoLemmix folder.

This download contains no custom music.
SweetNSour_CoreOnly.zip (123 KiB)

This download contains the two music tracks that are NOT alternate versions of default music.
SweetNSour_SpecialMusicOnly.zip (9.45 MiB)

This download contains all the music tracks.
SweetNSour_FullMusic.zip (21.4 MiB)

Have fun!

[weirdybeardy]

Looking forward to giving these a try.    I've been a fan of your work for ages, hehe

[Guigui]

Currently stuck at Sweet 5 Just Relax.

Lack of constructive skill gets me : 4 gaps, some quite large and high and only 2 builders and 6 stoners. Also, how can this basher help me get higher ? Need to think more I guess...

[Pieuw]

Started to play his pack yesterday. The Sweet rank gets quite challenging at some point! I'm stuck at the "Puzzle" level (I don't remember the full title). Either I don't understand how these teleport looking objects work, or they don't work properly? Probably the former. I'm quite dumb when it comes to stuff that are not in the original Lemmings.

That being said, I enjoyed the levels I managed to solve

[Guigui]

I could clear the whole pack now, except Sweet 5 Just Relax... Still stuck there because of the 5 gaps (sorry I wrote 4 gaps in my last message) and only 2 builders + 6 stoners to create terrain. Maybe I dont know how to use stoners properly ? Any hint would be appreciated.

The other levels were very pleasing to the eyes and the brain. I especially loved Sour 3 Chasms Capers (is there really an -s at "capers", I used only one caper  )
I may have found some backroutes here and there because I end up with extra skills, mainly in Sour 5 and Sour 6.

Do you mind if I post my replays here ? Always fear it can break the fun for other players.

[The Tomato Watcher]

Didn't expect Sweet 5 to be so tricky, whoops

Here's a hint for you Guigui

Sweet 5 Hint

You can't get over the tall column right before the goal with the skills available, so you'll have to go through it If you're still stumped let me know

Really happy to hear you enjoyed the other levels! You are very welcome to post your replays here I already found a backroute in Sour 5 right after posting the pack (because of course I did) and will likely leave it as is, so I'm hoping you found the same backroute

[JawaJuice]

Firstly, thank you for making this pack, The Tomato Watcher - thoroughly enjoyed playing through it! It's on the easier side, but still a nice challenge, especially on certain levels. My replays for sweet and sour ranks attached. I don't think I found any backroutes here, but I'm not the best at knowing when I've found one and when it was the author's intended solution!

Secondly, by way of introduction, I've been lurking on this forum for six years or so and thought it was time I stepped out of the shadows. I'm a long time fan of OG Lemmings, having bought it when it came out in '91 on the Atari ST (probably giving my age away a bit there!). Discovering Neolemmix and this forum was a godsend and I just want to thank all of the authors of packs on here, who've brought me many hours of entertainment (and frustration!). Keep up the good work!

[Guigui]

Didn't expect Sweet 5 to be so tricky, whoops

Here's a hint for you Guigui

Sweet 5 Hint

You can't get over the tall column right before the goal with the skills available, so you'll have to go through it If you're still stumped let me know

Yes Sweet 5 cleared now, not sure why it scared me that much after all. Thanks for the tip !

I'm joining my replays and some comments on the levels and solution :

Spoiler

Sweet 1 Nice introduction level, open ended. I made it with a single pioneer.

Sweet 2 Lost an awful lot of Lemmings in the pit here, but it is allowed so why not ?

Sweet 3 I save one basher here, with a straightforward solution : see an obstacle, overcome it with a skill.

Sweet 4 Scary level at first sight ! Blocking the crowd and sending a pioneer do the job works well. I get just enough builders but save many destructive skills.

Sweet 5 No comment now, I misjudged the power of stoners !

Sweet 6 Timing the upmost basher is everything here. Probably the intended solution as I have no skill left at the end.
This level reminds me of the newer Lemmings game on Android/iOS : all levels have this vertical setting and screen ratio to fit a phone screen. Is that a coincidence ?

Sour 1 Sweet 1 remixed w/ different skills. I had to struggle a bit to get the half turning lem in time to free the crowd. Good level !

Sour 2 Compression ! I fidgeted a lot to get a first batch of 3 compressed lems to prepare terrain, then compressed the others very tight. Not sure this is intended solution ?

Sour 3 Really love this one Chasm Capers. Spent way too much time building on both sides simultaneously, until I saw a peculiar skill you gave that actually helps with pits...

Sour 4 Sweet 5 remixed. I was scared at first since I could not clear the original level. But then I saw the 4 builders and how to overcome the last pillar so it was a quick solve. Maybe not intended again since I save miner and bomber ?

Sour 5 Pretty sure I backrouted here since I save more lemmings than required, and save skills. The jumper at the beginning survives the fall by one pixel thanks to the miner applied first. I am not really sure how jumpers splat height is calculated...

Sour 6 Probably another backroute. Watch me try to use the shimmier to finally let it fall to its doom ! The crowd is save at the last second of course, I had to adjust some bashers tightly to achieve this.

[The Tomato Watcher]

Nice to hear from you, JawaJuice Really glad you enjoyed the pack. You sure had some fancy solutions A lot of your solutions weren't exactly intended, but they usually involved some precise timing that I'm not expecting most players to shoot for. If that expectation turns out to be foolish, then I'll actually try to fix it. Your only true backroutes were Sour 5 and Sour 6. I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with Sour 5, but I have ideas for Sour 6.

Guigui, I really appreciate your feedback on individual levels, so thank you so much for that.

My responses

Sweet 2: Yeah, this level is definitely the most gimmick-y level of the pack, essentially just making sure the player internalizes the fact that they can lose half their lemmings, since you almost never are forced to lose so many.

Sweet 3: Saving the Basher is perfectly acceptable; in fact it better prepares you for the intended solution to this level's repeat.

Sweet 4: Indeed, the Builders are the only real skill crunch here, nicely done!

Sweet 6: The solution is intended, and the resemblance to the mobile Lemmings game is indeed intentional, nicely spotted! I play the game occasionally and thought this level would be a fun nod to it.

Sour 2: Not quite intended, the finicky timing is not at all necessary The easiest thing to do is compress the crowd after building across the first two gaps (taking advantage of being able to lose 10 lemmings) then find a way to separate one lemming from the bunch after getting past the traps. Not sure how or if I'm gonna enforce that though.

Sour 3: Glad you really liked this one! I think it's the level I'm most proud of. I think I did a good job recreating the feel of an actual ONML level with this one... aside from it having a slow RR and being taller than 160 px, both of which are required to make the level work at all.

Sour 4: Oops! I made the save requirement too lenient. You still got the core of the solution though. Shouldn't be too hard to fix.

Sour 5: I think I'm just gonna have to leave this level open-ended.

Sour 6: Indeed another backroute; I think my idea for JawaJuice's backroute will stop yours as well.

[JawaJuice]

Hey, Tomato Watcher! Apologies for the late response - I haven't quite got the hang of this forum yet I assumed when you had posted in a thread you would automatically be subscribed to it and therefore receive notifications. Since I hadn't got any notifications (email), I assumed no-one had replied to the thread so hadn't bothered to check the forum for a while! Guess you have to explicitly subscribe to a thread?

Anyway, congrats again on your pack, it really was a lot of fun and I'm glad you enjoyed watching my replays. I should have provided you with feedback for specific levels like Guigui did - I'll try and remember to do that in future as I'm sure it's helpful to a level designer! I will say that I clocked early on that a relatively lenient save rate was going to be a theme of your pack so I took it on myself to try and save as many lemmings as possible on each level as an extra challenge, hence some of the unnecessarily fiddly, un-intuitive or timing-precise solutions. I don't think there's anything to fix on your part - it's just how I decided to approach it. I'm used to playing packs that do require such precision to complete, so I guess it's a hard habit to break As a gauge, I'm a fairly experienced solver, though not on the level of a few players on this board who make LP vids! I typically struggle with Very Hard or Extreme difficulty, so packs like yours are most welcome in my book!

Spoiler

Out of interest, what were your intended solutions for Sour 5 and 6?

[kaywhyn]

@Tomato Watcher

Congrats on the release! I'll take a look at this in the coming days/weeks. The level previews look great!

Currently stuck at Sweet 5 Just Relax.

Lack of constructive skill gets me : 4 gaps, some quite large and high and only 2 builders and 6 stoners. Also, how can this basher help me get higher ? Need to think more I guess...

Started to play his pack yesterday. The Sweet rank gets quite challenging at some point! I'm stuck at the "Puzzle" level (I don't remember the full title). Either I don't understand how these teleport looking objects work, or they don't work properly? Probably the former. I'm quite dumb when it comes to stuff that are not in the original Lemmings.

That being said, I enjoyed the levels I managed to solve

This surprises me, as I took a look at these two levels after you gentlemen posted and I didn't think either of them are that hard However, @Guigui congrats for solving Sweet 5 after getting the hint

@Pieuw

Those are portals on Sweet 6. They work the exact same way as teleporters except they aren't RR sensitive and are bi-directional, meaning Lemmings can go in and come back out the same way they came from.

Firstly, thank you for making this pack, The Tomato Watcher - thoroughly enjoyed playing through it! It's on the easier side, but still a nice challenge, especially on certain levels. My replays for sweet and sour ranks attached. I don't think I found any backroutes here, but I'm not the best at knowing when I've found one and when it was the author's intended solution!

Secondly, by way of introduction, I've been lurking on this forum for six years or so and thought it was time I stepped out of the shadows. I'm a long time fan of OG Lemmings, having bought it when it came out in '91 on the Atari ST (probably giving my age away a bit there!). Discovering Neolemmix and this forum was a godsend and I just want to thank all of the authors of packs on here, who've brought me many hours of entertainment (and frustration!). Keep up the good work!

@JawaJuice

Hi JawaJuice, welcome to the Forums! Nice username. Is it a reference to Jamba Juice by any chance? It reminds me of that because of how your username is similar sounding to it when said out loud

Ah, another one who has been lurking for quite some time before finally posting to the site. I too was one for a few years even after I registered to be a member back in 2017 before finally posting publicly to the Forums in 2020. So, I've now been active in this community for 5 years but has been a member for 8 years. Before that, I read posts in the background silently

Hey, Tomato Watcher! Apologies for the late response - I haven't quite got the hang of this forum yet I assumed when you had posted in a thread you would automatically be subscribed to it and therefore receive notifications. Since I hadn't got any notifications (email), I assumed no-one had replied to the thread so hadn't bothered to check the forum for a while! Guess you have to explicitly subscribe to a thread?

Correct, you'll have to click on "notify" found at either the top or bottom of the board or topic you're viewing in order to get notifications of posts/replies to topics you wish to watch. At the same time, I think you might have to go to your profile settings => Notifications and check at least one box for the two settings "When a topic I follow receives a reply, I normally want to know via..." and "When a new topic is created in a board I follow, I normally want to know via..." That should allow you to get notifications once you click on "notify" and one of alerts or email or both are checked in your notifications settings in your profile

Anyway, congrats again on your pack, it really was a lot of fun and I'm glad you enjoyed watching my replays. I should have provided you with feedback for specific levels like Guigui did - I'll try and remember to do that in future as I'm sure it's helpful to a level designer! I will say that I clocked early on that a relatively lenient save rate was going to be a theme of your pack so I took it on myself to try and save as many lemmings as possible on each level as an extra challenge, hence some of the unnecessarily fiddly, un-intuitive or timing-precise solutions. I don't think there's anything to fix on your part - it's just how I decided to approach it. I'm used to playing packs that do require such precision to complete, so I guess it's a hard habit to break As a gauge, I'm a fairly experienced solver, though not on the level of a few players on this board who make LP vids! I typically struggle with Very Hard or Extreme difficulty, so packs like yours are most welcome in my book!

I'm the same way with wanting to either save all, or if that's not possible, then save as much as possible. Thus, this often gets me into trouble with levels where you're allowed (or even required) to lose one or more Lemmings. Has happened to me quite often!

It's perfectly normal to struggle with the Very Hard or higher difficulty levels. Everyone at some point will struggle with these levels, some more than others. For example, it took me an entire year to solve all of Lemmings United. Similarly, believe it or not it took me almost 3 years to solve all of NepsterLems, all courtesy of Black Hole 1 which I was really stuck on but finally managed to figure it out after quite some time.

Along with the above, you're in for one heck of a ride when and if I ever get around to finishing my level pack Lemmings Memories and releasing it. I haven't made that many levels for it yet, but from all the feedback I've received so far, it's shaping up to be a really difficult pack, even if I don't expect it to be the next Lemmings Reunion or NepsterLems in terms of difficulty

Anyway, enjoy your stay and the many level packs that are currently available to download and play. We're glad to have you with us!        

[Pieuw]

Those are portals on Sweet 6. They work the exact same way as teleporters except they aren't RR sensitive and are bi-directional, meaning Lemmings can go in and come back out the same way they came from.

Yep, that's what I thought and there's definitely an issue on my side as these objects don't seem to work properly. I will figure it out!

[JawaJuice]

Hi JawaJuice, welcome to the Forums! Nice username. Is it a reference to Jamba Juice by any chance? It reminds me of that because of how your username is similar sounding to it when said out loud

Very nice to meet you, kaywhyn! You're something of a legend around these parts  I've read your detailed feedback on many a pack after solving them myself. The handle is, more mundanely, a reference to Star Wars; specifically Attack of the Clones. The drink is offered to Obi-Wan in Dex's Diner on Coruscant. I know it's got nothing to do with Lemmings, but it's a name I use elsewhere so just thought I'd stick with it here 

Correct, you'll have to click on "notify" found at either the top or bottom of the board or topic you're viewing in order to get notifications of posts/replies to topics you wish to watch. At the same time, I think you might have to go to your profile settings => Notifications and check at least one box for the two settings "When a topic I follow receives a reply, I normally want to know via..." and "When a new topic is created in a board I follow, I normally want to know via..." That should allow you to get notifications once you click on "notify" and one of alerts or email or both are checked in your notifications settings in your profile

Thanks for the tips - I had already adjusted my profile notification settings correctly I think, just needed that extra step of subscribing to the actual thread. I seem to be getting notifications now

I'm the same way with wanting to either save all, or if that's not possible, then save as much as possible. Thus, this often gets me into trouble with levels where you're allowed (or even required) to lose one or more Lemmings. Has happened to me quite often!

For sure. Not paying attention to the save requirement has caused me to struggle with levels in the past though - thinking I have to save every one when in fact, that redundancy is what enables one to complete it.

It's perfectly normal to struggle with the Very Hard or higher difficulty levels. Everyone at some point will struggle with these levels, some more than others. For example, it took me an entire year to solve all of Lemmings United. Similarly, believe it or not it took me almost 3 years to solve all of NepsterLems, all courtesy of Black Hole 1 which I was really stuck on but finally managed to figure it out after quite some time.

Yeah, I'd say I've probably completed about 80% of all Neolemmix packs, but NepsterLems and Lemmings United are two where I gave up. Hopefully I'll return to them at some point if my solving skills are ever good enough! I did complete Lemmings Reunion, which is certainly easier than United but still quite challenging - a great pack actually; I really like IchoTolot's approach to level design. It can be hard to see the solution, but they're normally very logical, and fair, when you do. That's clever design. The kind of difficulty I don't care for is where a level is overly fiddly and relies on pixel perfect execution / timing or knowing some arcane trick to finish it.

Along with the above, you're in for one heck of a ride when and if I ever get around to finishing my level pack Lemmings Memories and releasing it. I haven't made that many levels for it yet, but from all the feedback I've received so far, it's shaping up to be a really difficult pack, even if I don't expect it to be the next Lemmings Reunion or NepsterLems in terms of difficulty

Anyway, enjoy your stay and the many level packs that are currently available to download and play. We're glad to have you with us!        

I'm looking forward to giving it a shot although it sounds like it might be too difficult for me I did complete your AWESOMRE Fire Level from the random levels thread, but it wasn't easy and I'm sure your new pack will be more challenging than that. Anyway, thanks for the warm welcome - happy to be a part of this great community!