Level of the Year 2025: Playing Phase

[kaywhyn]

JawaJuice and Simon got intended/acceptable solutions to all my levels except for Oh Yes! A Hardcore Molten Problem. Both solved it with different backroutes. Thanks for catching and showing me them! I've attached an updated version of the level which hopefully fixes the backroutes. Simon's backroute was easy to fix with a flamethrower, while JawaJuice's was what I thought was impossible to fix without hackish changes needed around in the starting area. That is, until I looked in an entirely different area and spot to modify which should now hopefully force the intended solution. How it boggles the mind!

I'm also attaching Oh No! Another Hardcore Molten Problem as well since the rule here is that we make two levels which have the exact same layout and objects and hence one is a repeat of the other but with differing skillsets and, entirely up to the author, can also differ in number of Lemmings, RR, etc. JawaJuice got the intended/acceptable solution for Oh No!, so no resolving of that level needed. Just Oh Yes! needs resolving!

For Simon, yes, Oh Yes! is intended to be played first while Oh No! is the repeat version. Hence b_jonas was right!

The feedback I've received on this pair of levels is that Oh Yes! is the harder of the two despite the Oh No! level kind of referencing ONML in the title and its much higher difficulty compared to L1 Needless to say, I've subverted it here!

Shame you didn't have the music I intended playing on them. They're both remixes of an official Lemmings track! In particular, Oh Yes! has a Rainbow Island remix, while Oh No! has an ohno_5 remix

kaywhy's Oh Yes! A Hardcore Molten Problem: We conjecture that our solution is a backroute.

Seems you were in a hurry that you didn't even notice that you made a typo with my username. I expected better from you, considering you're one of the admins of the Forums! Would love it if you can fix it though. I tend to get very worked up when people make a typo of it despite it being a nickname I'm using for my online accounts

I also don't know if it's a bad thing that I made you groan in anger while you were trying to solve Oh Yes! Then again, I know it's a tendency for German people to do that but that it doesn't necessarily mean they're mad out of frustration. You did after all compliment me in the end that I managed to make a hard level with it even though you solved it with a backroute by joining heads with some people who were in the chat during the stream. Thanks, I appreciate it!  

'kaywhyn's Organic National Park' gave them a good run for their money though; had me stumped for ages, that one!

Wow, thanks for the compliment! I know you mentioned it to me in a PM, but honestly it really surprises me that that particular level of mine managed to stump you for a while The intended solution requires way more precision than ever, but here you can thank Crane for that! He kept backrouting the level so much and hence why it looks and feels pretty hackish with all the changes I made!      

[kaywhyn]

All rightie, I have now played and solved all of the LOTY2025 nominated levels. My entire replay collection is attached

Here, I needed to resolve Dexter's The Split and Epilogue levels, as my solutions were determined to be backroutes when I solved them in his Lock & Key level pack. My new solutions to these levels are in the zip. The former still seems to be a backroute, while the latter seems to be good now!

The rest of these levels I have previously played, except for Gigalem's levels and Crane's in the Mixed rank. In addition, I had previously solved GigaLem's Lawful Neutral and Re-Enlistment from when he posted them while the new 12.13 objects were still in experimental NL, but here I needed to solve them again due to them being remade in a different graphic set. As usual, Gigalem's levels are visually quite impressive, but my biggest gripe with them that I've been saying for practically all of his Festival Millas packs is it's extremely difficult to tell what's solid vs what's background in them. At least without using CPM. Also, I'm not going to lie, but Lawful Neutral and Palace of Ice really stand out and glare out way too much and were way too distracting for me that they hurt my old eyes too much to be able to focus on playing them properly while trying to solve them. Please consider toning down and making the visuals clearer so that it's easier to distinguish between solid terrain vs background, and especially so that it doesn't hurt and strain one's eyes too much! Then again, I've been wearing glasses for almost 30 years now, so I've been blind for a really long time!

As for Crane's level, I was able to solve it and obtain the talisman to boot all without having first opened it up before playing! Nice one and certainly one of the easier levels than the usual affair by Crane.

Nicely done to all the nominated authors and best of luck to everyone! Will try and record and post videos showing off the levels and my solutions in the coming days!  

[Simon]

you made a typo with my username.
Would love it if you can fix it

Fixed! Sorry.

groan in anger while you were trying to solve Oh Yes!

I don't remember a particular annoyance on Oh Yes Molten Problem. Can you point to a timestamp in the June 21 stream?

I'll wager that it was general exhaustion. It was a hot day, the stream had been going for 3 hours, the level (Oh Yes Hardcore Molten) had no obvious method of attack (zero climbers when it looks like you want to start with climbing), and I had spent energy on Dexter's No Looking Back.

It's also possible that I was grunting about something in the NL user interface. Again, I don't know any particular UI shortcoming that hit during Oh Yes Molten Problem.

I think my main annoyance in the June 21 livestream was: The blue goo in the organic tileset is steel. Such a misleading tileset design. The player really needs to know this.

Thanks for watching the recordings!

Palace of Ice
distinguish between solid terrain vs background

I would have liked to force a black background on Palace of Ice. The light grey background made it hard to see the platformer bridges.

Other issues are subtler and harder to explain. I should eventually write proper feedback for Giga. E.g., I had some issues with gadget recognition, many gadgets in Giga's tilesets had straight walls walls and were snugly fit into the landscape. To the unlearned eye, that makes them look like terrain. It was fine after learning it, even if I had to learn it for every level anew, and I liked the levels in the end.

-- Simon

[kaywhyn]

I don't remember a particular annoyance on Oh Yes Molten Problem. Can you point to a timestamp in the June 21 stream?

Around the 2 hour 24 minute 25 second mark you made a really loud moan that almost sounded like you were frustrated because you couldn't figure out how to do a part of my "Oh Yes!" level. As mentioned, the feedback I've received is between the Oh Yes and Oh No pair the consensus is the former is the harder of the two. At least if the intended way is forced This is intentional, as Oh Yes is intended to be played before the Oh No level, which is its repeat.

Again, I acknowledge that it's likely a German culture thing and the tendency for people from Germany to do such, as it can easily be mistaken for the German being mad when it actually isn't. Of course, this isn't exclusive to Germans, as some other cultures are like that too! There is truth when you said it might had been due to you being exhausted, as you had been streaming for nearly 2.5 hours while you were playing my Oh Yes! level, but yes, the loud moan gave me the impression my level was your reaction to being frustrated because you were stumped trying to figure it out

I think my main annoyance in the June 21 livestream was: The blue goo in the organic tileset is steel. Such a misleading tileset design. The player really needs to know this.

Oh yes, thank you for reminding me of this, as I meant to comment about my level with this misleading design! The graphic set used for my kaywhyn's Organic National Park level is by namida called Organic. This is a graphic set that namida made while his Lemmings Plus VII level pack was in development which he ultimately ended up cancelling because of how he didn't work on it for so long. In the end, he only made 23 levels for it before he cancelled the level pack.

You're right that there's no way a player would be able to reasonably figure out the blue is steel without either activating CPM (Clear Physics Mode) beforehand or just trying stuff on the level for a while before picking up on what's steel and what isn't in the graphic set. That's reasonable, as normally steel has rivets/bolts that allow a player to easily identify that such a piece is steel. Not so with the Organic graphic set.

Now that you know what the name of the graphic set is and that it's by namida, any complaints should be reported to him regarding it! However, it's now been almost a year since namida released all the levels he made for the now cancelled LPVII and its graphic sets that it's unlikely he'll make any changes

Thanks for watching the recordings!

My pleasure, and thank you for playing my levels!

[Simon]

Ah, yes, that particular grunt is a regular reaction to getting stumped. Nothing against the level.

About the blue goo: I haven't yet decided if/how I want to weigh that into the voting. Nothing is unambiguously correct here, and I'm not familiar with the tileset culture. You're aware of the visibility issues, that's what counts.

What is standard practice with tileset visiblity issues? Do we file bugs against the engine? Against the editor? Directly against the tiles in the Tileset board? Do we make a fresh topic per bug, or do we pile everything into the set's existing topic?

-- Simon

[kaywhyn]

Hmm, good question Posting a new topic and rant of a specific NL graphic set in the NeoLemmix Styles board is probably fine and the best way to go about it. At the same time, that board is for any tilesets made, so perhaps not.

Then again, Nepster posted a rant about the City Tileset in the NeoLemmix Main board, so it might be more reasonable to file a report of namida's Organic set in his topic instead of creating a new one. It would mean hijacking a topic Nepster started, but as it's a rant about NL styles, it should be perfectly fine. There's plenty of posts in the topic, including some by you The current discussion in the topic is primarily on the City tileset and no other, so it might be a great time to add a few NL graphic sets that might need ranting and a discussion Also, keep in mind that when the topic was made that that is back in the days of Old Formats NL, i.e, v10 NL players instead of v12 NL (New Formats NL).

Anyway, the discussion of graphic set issues can probably be moved elsewhere now so as to not derail from LOTY here  

[kaywhyn]

All rightie, I've started recording and posting some LOTY2025 videos showing off my solutions and most author intended solutions!

Part 1: https://youtu.be/Vd_z3G-0-3M (92Dexter11's levels, sorry for the long video! )

Part 2: https://youtu.be/G7kXgTCJqYI (Armani's levels)

Part 3: https://youtu.be/6DRDXJRJR7U (GigaLem's levels)

Just the first three ranks for now. Will record the remaining 3 ranks after I get some rest first