[RetroLemmini] ROTL III: Lemmings Assemble - A new community collaboration pack!

[WillLem]

I had an idea today whilst playing through Revenge of the Lemmings and just wanted to make a note of it here.

A new community collaboration pack called Lemmings Assemble. That's as far as I've got with it. I'll add more later pending discusson with Eric on Discord.

[hrb264]

I'd love to get involved:)

[Mobiethian]

I would like to make some levels for this, too! Would be fun. I'm getting better at making more difficult levels. Count me in!

[kaywhyn]

Interesting idea. I'll consider contributing some levels, though I likely won't contribute much, especially as have my Lemmings Memories pack currently in-development

I had an idea today whilst playing through Revenge of the Lemmings and just wanted to make a note of it here.

Speaking of RotL, I'm currently sorting out and tidying up eric's SuperLemmini conversion of the pack. In particular, there were a lot of duplicate music tracks and hence were removed in order to reduce the file size of the music pack. Also, as I was going through the levels to make sure I had the correct music playing on them to match with RotL v2.0 for Very Old Formats NL, I found some incorrect level stats. Will probably post an updated version soon in the Lemmini Level Packs Archive topic

I would like to make some levels for this, too! Would be fun. I'm getting better at making more difficult levels. Count me in!

For RetroLemmini, not NL

[WillLem]

Speaking of RotL, I'm currently sorting out and tidying up eric's SuperLemmini conversion of the pack.

Ah OK, cool. Well, I've been thinking that maybe the RetroLemmini version of ROTL could be split into 3 packs. There are currently 270 levels across 10 ratings, which just seems excessive tbh. We could easily split this into 2 packs of 120 each (ROTL I and II, each with 4 ratings of 30 levels), and then have 30 levels left over to start Lemmings Assemble (which would essentially then be "ROTL III"). We'd then ave a ROTL trilogy, which seems a much better way to maintain these packs going forward.

If your intention is to maintain the SuperLemmini version only, then of course you don't need to do anything regarding the proposed RetroLemmini version. But, it might be good to have your involvement with this as well.

I'd love to get involved:)

Awesome! Well, feel free to keep creating levels and we'll definitely include some for sure.

I would like to make some levels for this, too! Would be fun. I'm getting better at making more difficult levels. Count me in!

For RetroLemmini, not NL

The more the merrier!

This goes for everyone: if you mainly create for NL but want to get involved with this project, that's fine. The SLX Editor can easily convert your levels to .rlv format for use in RetroLemmini, so you don't have to do anything differently than normal. Just create some levels in whatever Editor is best for you and we'll take it from there.

[Mobiethian]

For RetroLemmini, not NL

I want to learn it is what I had in mind.

[Proxima]

Ah OK, cool. Well, I've been thinking that maybe the RetroLemmini version of ROTL could be split into 3 packs. There are currently 270 levels across 10 ratings, which just seems excessive tbh. We could easily split this into 2 packs of 120 each (ROTL I and II, each with 4 ratings of 30 levels), and then have 30 levels left over to start Lemmings Assemble (which would essentially then be "ROTL III"). We'd then have a ROTL trilogy, which seems a much better way to maintain these packs going forward.

I don't want to dampen your enthusiasm (and I'm really looking forward to making some levels for this once it gets going), but there are a few things I want to say.

RotL is a great community achievement and a fun, high-quality pack in its current state, no doubt about that. But it has remained unfinished for over 12 years because the work involved in maintaining it has been more than any one person was able and willing to take on. (I'm guilty there as well, as I offered to work on a new NL version after mobius retired from the position. I still haven't even finished solving all the levels!)

So the first question is: are you offering to take over as pack maintainer for RotL in addition to putting together and maintaining the new pack? (There is, of course, no reason why these have to be the same person.)

If so, how do you see the role? Since you talk about splitting RotL into two packs as well as creating a new collaboration, do you intend to come up with the selection and ordering yourself or through community discussion? Should new versions be made for RetroLemmini, SuperLemmini and NL so that it's playable in the new selection/ordering on all engines, or is that not important? What will you do when level solutions are impacted by game mechanics differences between the engines?

I must point out that, while RotL started on Lemmini, it's now over 10 years since it migrated to NL and has been primarily a NL pack, with other versions not so much maintained as just existing for historical reasons. It sounds like you want to move it back to (now Retro)Lemmini primarily; is that the case? If so, can you explain why you believe that should be done?

I'm really glad the pack has had a resurgence of interest, and I think this is a great time for us to put our heads together and decide on the direction it should take going forwards. I know I don't have a good track record here, but I am still happy to help with producing the next version in any way I can.

[kaywhyn]

Ah OK, cool. Well, I've been thinking that maybe the RetroLemmini version of ROTL could be split into 3 packs. There are currently 270 levels across 10 ratings, which just seems excessive tbh. We could easily split this into 2 packs of 120 each (ROTL I and II, each with 4 ratings of 30 levels), and then have 30 levels left over to start Lemmings Assemble (which would essentially then be "ROTL III"). We'd then ave a ROTL trilogy, which seems a much better way to maintain these packs going forward.

Indeed, it really confuses me why there's an Extra rank in eric's SuperLemmini Revenge of the Lemmings. As this is simply a conversion of the Lemmini RotL pack, IMO the 6 main ranks are sufficient. I don't see the point of the Extra rank whatsoever and think that it can simply be removed. From a quick glance of the Extra rank, those seem to be levels from Revenge of the Lemmings v2.0, aka, the Very Old Formats NL version of the pack. I really don't see the point of mixing the Lemmini levels with the v1.43n-F NL RotL levels when the latter already exists as a separate RotL pack anyway There's about 76 levels in just that rank alone! Can definitely remove the fluff and bloat to reduce the pack file size, especially when combining it with the music pack.

Similarly, as eric's Revenge of the Lemmings Rearranged is a conversion of RotL v2.0, aka, the pack in this topic, the 19 levels that are in the first Extra rank of Revenge of the Lemmings Rearranged can simply go into the main ranks themselves. They are secret levels in the Very Old Formats NL version of the pack, but since SuperLemmini doesn't have them, I think they can just go into the main ranks. Yes, it will cause the ranks to have different amounts of levels instead of them all having 30 like it is currently, but I don't think that's a big deal, considering the v2.0 has differing amounts of levels in the ranks when including the secret levels in each of the ranks

The other two Extra ranks, once again, I don't see the point in them, as they're levels that are already in the Lemmini version of RotL. RotL v2.0 for Very Old Formats NL is a completely separate level pack from the RotL Lemmini version and hence I don't see the point of mixing in the Lemmini levels that aren't found in the former with it by putting them in both the second and third Extra ranks as eric has done. Sure, this time it's only about 40 or so extra levels, but if there's an opportunity to remove unnecessary files in them, that should be done.
 

If your intention is to maintain the SuperLemmini version only, then of course you don't need to do anything regarding the proposed RetroLemmini version. But, it might be good to have your involvement with this as well.

Yea, I'll certainly be more than happy to help you and eric out with anything that needs doing for the RetroLemmini version of RotL. I'm generally called for for my level solving skills, so I can certainly help out on that front to ensure all levels can be solved, especially the higher ranked ones, but anything else I'll try and assist in any way possible, if and whenever I'm able to.

I'm going to make it clear that I'm not and won't be maintaining eric's SuperLemmini conversions of RotL. I'll leave that up to him if he wants to do so. I'm simply assisting by tidying up and removing all the excess fluff and bloat files that don't need to be there in the pack download in order to reduce the pack size. As previously mentioned, a lot of the music tracks are duplicates. After removing the duplicates, the number of .ogg tracks has been reduced from 48 to just 12! The rest are .mod files which don't contribute as much to the file size as the .ogg music tracks. Not only that, the number of music tracks has been greatly reduced from well over 100 to just about 66 or so!

In any case, I think once I post an update for the SuperLemmini RotL packs, they can pretty much be considered done. Unless there are problems that are spotted and in need of fixing, of course.

I want to learn it is what I had in mind.

Keep in mind the pack is just an idea floating around for now and that it may or may not happen