Simon streamed Level of the Year 2025 in June 2026

[Simon]

Third stream will be tomorrow, Wednesday, June 10th, starting 17:00 UTC. This will be 19:00 CEST, 18:00 BST, and around noon in America.

-- Simon

[Simon]

Wed 10 stream is over!

-- Simon

[Silken Healer]

Recording will remain for 14 days at: https://www.twitch.tv/simonnaar

Do I have your consent to download your VODs and upload them somewhere so people can watch them after the 14 days are up?

[Simon]

Download the VODs as you like.

I'll have to make up my mind about rehosting. In all strictness, I play background music from random sources without permission. Unsure yet if I want that on Youtube.

-- Simon

[Guigui]

I watched the stream and can confirm that the solution to Blues Walk With Me is perfectly intended. Very good collective by all of you there  
You went through all the reflexion phases I wanted to happen when making the level, including what the heck is this button for ?, and it was a real joy to watch. Thank you for pointing out all strategies and the use of all those blues pieces I set here and there.

The only point you missed makes the execution easier :

Spoiler

if you assign climber to the 1st lemming right at the start of the level, then you can let it cycle in the button area to wait for the correct opportunity to set the blocker. Then it is easier to work on the distance between 1st and last lemming.

[Simon]

Guigui, thanks for the feedback!

Yeah, execution with our suboptimal way was still bearable enough that we nailed it after a few tries. I assume that, had we not solved it like that, we would have tried things similar to your spoiler.


The levels yet unsolved are 1 by Giga (Palace of Ice), 3 by kaywhyn, and 6 by Dexter. Guigui backroute-fixed his So Many Spikes, we'll see if we have time to return to that.

The next stream was Sunday, June 21.

-- Simon

[Guigui]

Guigui backroute-fixed his So Many Spikes, we'll see if we have time to return to that.

This is the new version of So Many Spikes, also available in the current Save One pack.
Not sure if IchoTolot needs to bother updating the LOTY pack that close to the end of the playing phase.

[Simon]

Stream is over! Recording will remain for 14 days at: https://www.twitch.tv/simonnaar

We played 2 levels by Dexter, the remaining 2 by Kaywhyn, Ice Palace by Giga, and So Many Spikes by Guigui. We backrouted Kaywhyn's Oh Yes Molten Problem.

Left unsolved: 3 by Dexter, 1 by Kaywhyn (Oh No Molten Problem).

-- Simon

[mobius]

missed another one; I was at work, I will rewatch it.

[Simon]

Playing phase will end: June 26th 2026

But we don't care, do we? We'll stream all the nominated levels! It doesn't matter if Icho conducts the first poll next week, we'll go through all the entries for 2025.

The next stream will be on Wednesday, July 1, starting 17:00 UTC = 19:00 CEST.

We have 6 unsolved levels to play:
Dexter's Prologue
Dexter's Ring of Fire
Dexter's Subjugation
Dexter's Unstable Egress
kaywhyn's Oh Yes! A Hardcore Molten Problem (re-solve, kaywhyn fixed our backroute)
kaywhyn's Oh No! Another Hardcore Molten Problem

These streams have helped me back into NL and Lix. I'm happy how I've stuck to it these weeks.

-- Simon

[Simon]

Stream is over!

Recording will remain for 14 days at: https://www.twitch.tv/simonnaar

-- Simon

[kaywhyn]

Oh Yes is close to intended that it's an acceptable solution, while Oh No is completely intended. Well done!

LOL why do people insist on making my Oh Yes harder than it needs to be? Dexter was almost right about the leftover blocker.

Spoiler

Change to "eliminates the timing completely" and that would had been accurate. I don't require that the builder and miner meet at the exact same time at all! That's what the blocker is for, use it people!

Basically, after the builder turns around to the left, you simply park and make him block at a spot so that when the miner frees him after using the builder staircase to keep going, the miner tunnel's low and deep enough to turn him back towards the exit

I also don't require the stacker to be the splatform. Instead, you can simply build back far enough so that the fall is no longer fatal but then you need to interrupt him with the stacker so that everyone turns towards the right and doesn't get into danger with the trap  

For Oh No, it's possible to do it with just two climbers, but as I haven't been shown any backroute that the third climber causes, I decided to leave it in and would take it out only if it causes backroutes

Spoiler

Simply have the first climber turn around to the left first before digging. Then the rest of the solution can be done the same as before, with the platformer over the small lava pit finishing way ahead of time of the long basher from the right so that he can platform up the gap before the exit on time before the second climber arrives

Yea, I envisioned a level with the repeat where the only way to rescue the crowd is to get help from the other side due to how the basher destructive mask works. Hence the result was Oh No

Icho simply organized all the authors' levels by ABC order. This thus creates confusion due to how Oh Yes comes after Oh No alphabetically but that the former is meant to be played before the latter because the latter is the repeat version instead of the other way.

Once again, I got the impression from your groans that you're blaming me for my designs, when in fact you should play the levels before judging. I guess I'm not used to such reactions from people who play my levels on stream, particularly since it's still more common for me to play other people's levels and hence they watch me rather than me be the viewer watching others play my levels. It is true that Oh Yes uses parts of the level that Oh No doesn't, but that is intentional Keep in mind that decoration is perfectly valid level design when it comes to deceiving and throwing players off guard into thinking it's integral to the solution when it actually isn't I simply wanted to go beyond just the main areas for Oh Yes and Oh No in an effort to make them look nice. Dexter's tilesets are wonderful to look at and make levels with! I pretty much knew from the start I wanted to use his Hoard graphic set for the Oh Yes and Oh No levels

It's also amusing people are associating me with a certain level design when I really shouldn't be, as I only have 2 or 3 such levels out of the around 50 or so total I have made in the last 5 years

Spoiler

Levels that involve extending skills

Anyway, thank you for streaming and the nice compliments on my levels! Also for the resolving of my Oh Yes after I backroute fixed it    

[Simon]

We've solved everything. Thanks everybody for joining!

I've attached replays from the stream for these levels:

A Step Down With Difficulty -- one of our solutions uses only 15 skills
Oh No! Another Hardcore Molten Problem -- kaywhyn, I'll reply tomorrow!
Oh Yes! A Hardcore Molten Problem
Prologue
Ring of Fire
Subjugation
Unstable Egress

This should ideally go with the other replay postings into Playing Phase for the 2025 levels, but that's locked.

-- Simon

[Simon]

The alphabetical sorting is one source of confusion, but even bigger sources come from Lemmings culture itself:

Oh No More Lemmings was the first expansion by DMA.
Oh Yes Something Something are user packs, they came later.

Oh No, Not Again was a level by tseug.
Oh Yes, Here Again is a variant tseug's level by Nepster.
And your two titles are similar to these two.

I got the impression from your groans that you're blaming me for my designs, when in fact you should play the levels before judging.

Hmm. It's a livestream, I say what comes to mind. Solving levels is hard. No worries with the grunts or the rants. Nearly everything in a level is an annoyance (in the widest sense) because it prevents me from solving the map.

Oh No/Yes came from the double-level contest, and it's up to me to guess how much terrain the routes share. I realized that late. Before, I wanted to send lemmings all across the map.

Thanks for following the streams so closely, and for you feedback!

why do people insist on making my Oh Yes harder than it needs to be?

Psychological reason: If you can do something with fewer skills, it's always correct; if you spend more skills, it may need revision later. And if you drill deep into a local area, you understand it better.

Yeah, I see how you solve the timing issues completely with Dexter's leftover blocker.

geoo blames me for drilling too deep into local areas, and suggests that I broaden the search. His advice is hard to follow but probably better. At least, the drilling found some almost-backroutes (wrong ideas that almost worked) in early versions of his levels, and he was able to patch that to fail more clearly.

-- Simon