[DISC] Removing support for variable level boundaries

Started by WillLem, May 28, 2026, 10:18:50 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

WillLem

The next version of RetroLemmini (most likely 3.1) will no longer support variable level boundaries.

It's currently possible to set the boundaries to anything, but the default values are the only ones that actually make sense, at least from an engine maintenance point of view. Allowing them to be set to anything (particularly the top boundary, the physics for which is notoriously difficult to perfect) just causes unnecessary problems.

Furthermore, whilst variable boundaries might be a fun thing to experiment with, it's unlikely to produce any particularly good levels.

So, let's go ahead and set these values to defaults program-wide. Then, I can address the top-of-level physics properly and make sure there isn't anything unintended happening.

This topic is to provide users, creators and maintainers with an opportunity to voice any concerns or add to the discussion at this stage, before the next version is released.

Your silence = this will go ahead as planned, any levels affected by this change will be disregarded.

namida

Rather than just disregarding it for existing levels, could they be padded / shrunk accordingly?
My projects
2D Lemmings: NeoLemmix (engine) | Lemmings Plus Series (level packs) | Doomsday Lemmings (level pack)
3D Lemmings: Loap (engine) | L3DEdit (level / graphics editor) | L3DUtils (replay / etc utility) | Lemmings Plus 3D (level pack)
Non-Lemmings: Commander Keen: Galaxy Reimagined (a Commander Keen fangame)

WillLem

Quote from: namida on May 28, 2026, 10:50:30 PMRather than just disregarding it for existing levels, could they be padded / shrunk accordingly?

Yes, but I see no reason to support this engine-side. It'll be up to level designers/maintainers to manually fix any affected levels, which I imagine will number very few anyway.

If it turns out that there are in fact a large number of affected levels, it may be possible to add Editor-side support, where levels would be automatically resized (and pieces moved) if necessary to accommodate the difference. However, there would have to be more than just a handful of affected levels to make it worth pursuing this.

WillLem

OK, support for variable level boundaries has been removed from the Player but retained (for now) in the Editor, just in case we need to do anything with these values later. So, the Player will ignore these values, but they may be useful for helping designers/maintainers to update their levels following this update.