Reverse Lemmings: Megadrive [Difficulty: Medium-Hard]

[Guigui]

Hello Lemmings community,

JawaJuice and I are happy to present our collaboration level pack Reverse Lemmings: Megadrive.

Following in the footsteps of Colorful Arty and WillLem, we took the 60 levels from the Present and Sunsoft ranks in the 1992 Sega Megadrive version of the game, swapped hatch and exit, and tried our best to make fun and interesting levels from there. We made a point to not modify the levels' layouts, though solutions are of course completely different from the original and may use all skills available in NeoLemmix.

We would describe the general difficulty of the pack as Medium - Hard, though this may be judged better by you, our fellow community members.
Be aware though, as in Colorful Arty's pack, "the difficulty is all over the place!" There is no sense of a progressive difficulty curve and you can find open-ended X-of-everything levels next to stupid hard levels with minimal skillsets. JawaJuice reversed the even-numbered levels and I reversed the odd-numbered levels, so you know exactly who to take your grievances to if something makes no sense!

We playtested each other's levels extensively and hope they are as solid as they can be, but we're still expecting backroutes and unanticipated solutions. Do not hesitate to give any feedback or let us know if any hints are required. For a couple of levels, we actually had Armani and IchoTolot do some additional playtesting - thanks to them again for that!

We would also like to thank GigaLem for letting us use some graphical assets from his own packs, specifically the menu scroller.

The pack and its necessary style are joined in a single .zip file at the bottom of this post. Extract in your main NeoLemmix folder (levels and styles sub-folders), and it should all fall into place!

Attached to the levels is an eclectic selection of music, all chosen carefully by JawaJuice and I to fit the mood and titles of the levels. Download the music tracks from the following link and extract in your main NeoLemmix directory again (music sub-folder).

--> Reverse Lemmings: Megadrive music pack <--

Finally here are screenshots of four levels - you may recognize some from the original Megadrive game.

PRESENT 16  trap a is trap A



PRESENT 29  available room Private



SUNSOFT 19  camping go Let's



SUNSOFT 24  tune the from away Out,



We hope you will have a good time playing our pack

[LemFan]

Thanks Guigui! Would love to play it at some point, maybe kaywhyn could LP it one day!

[Armani]

Oh wow so this is what you guys have been working on! I haven't played the Megadrive version of the game so this pack will probably feel like a fresh new experience rather than a remix of the original levels for me. I'll give it a shot anyway. Though, I recognize a few of them from the Lemmings Redux pack.   The levels in the screenshots already look fascinating. The crystal one especially has a really interesting setup

Also I noticed the music pack download link is a Dropbox link. You can change the 0 at the end of the link to a 1 to force an immediate download instead of opening the preview page.

[JawaJuice]

Looking forward to watching your replays, @Armani I think Present 29 is one of Guigui's most unique, yes!

[Guigui]

I precise we do not take any credits for the level design, this is all by DMA.

I remember that Present 29 "Private Room Available" was this level where you had to trap 18 lems in 18 small rooms with diggers. It was a pain to achieve in the Megadrive version with no QoL feature at all!

In the reversed version, the lems are preset in the rooms, neutral and other useful permanent skills, and you have to guide them to the exit.

[JawaJuice]

Also I noticed the music pack download link is a Dropbox link. You can change the 0 at the end of the link to a 1 to force an immediate download instead of opening the preview page.

Guigui has fixed this now in the OP, thanks for the tip! Also, just noticed you posted an LP vid on YouTube of Present 1-15 a couple of days ago - I look forward to having a watch through that when I get chance!

[JawaJuice]

@Armani, watched your video of Present 1-15! Gratifying to see you play through it, if quite humbling at times with how fast you solve levels, but I expected that - this is you we're talking about after all! I see you generally struggled (if that's the right word) more with Guigui's levels than mine but that's understandable; he's a better, more experienced level designer than I. Early on in the pack, I was very much learning as I went along - you should see that my levels in the Sunsoft rank especially get a bit more challenging, hopefully!

Anyway, here's my feedback on your solutions to my levels - I'll obviously let Guigui respond to his:

Spoiler

Present 2 - A slight backroute but acceptable All of the key elements of the solution were there, you were just a bit more efficient, hence one skill leftover.
Present 4 - Completely different talisman solution to mine, but I think it's a fool's errand to try and enforce an intended solution on an x-of-everything level where there are probably many possible solutions. Good job!
Present 6 - Exactly as intended!
Present 8 - Exactly as intended again - I think the only slightly tricky part is right at the beginning of this level.
Present 10 - Yep, as intended. They key here is the RR, which you worked out very quickly!
Present 12 - As intended, with a slight variation at the beginning, but one I was aware of. You can either do it the way you did it, or you can make the first lemming out of the hatch a blocker then build into him with a left-facing lemming to reach the ledge. Then at the end, you release the blocker with one walker and turn him with the other. I think the way you did it is probably more logical though; Guigui did the same during testing IIRC.
Present 14 - As with 12, glad to see this level giving you a little more pause for thought, but this was a complete and utter backroute! Probably the issue with giving you so many walkers. This is the one level so far I will have to fix if we get around to releasing V2.

[lemmkeev20]

ok so...

if trap a is trap a...

what is trap b?

[JawaJuice]

ok so...

if trap a is trap a...

what is trap b?

lol, play and find out

[JawaJuice]

@Armani, watched the second LP vid on your YT channel. Still amazes me how quickly you solve a lot of these - it's like watching you speed run the pack lol. You often seem to intentionally backroute levels but I think that's just your M.O. isn't it? See if you can solve a level by breaking it first and only knuckle down to the intended solution if the level gives you no choice.

My thoughts on  your solutions to my levels from Present 16-30:

Spoiler

Present 16 - Nice one on saving so many more than required, but obviously a backroute - it shouldn't be possible to save more than 87.
Present 18 - Backroute, but I think you know that Any time you engage in pixel manipulation to pull off some seemingly impossible feat, you can be pretty sure it wasn't intended.
Present 20 - Exactly as intended!
Present 22 - Slight backroute due to the fact I didn't realize the far-right wall was already 6 pixels high and you could create a barrier with a single builder (which you could sacrifice since you didn't have to use the bomber). I'm happy to call it an alternative solution though as it's at least as good as the intended.
Present 24 - Acceptable solution More or less intended, just that I platform the second-highest little gap rather than the top one, but IIRC Guigui solved it the same way as you, so I guess that way of doing it must be more logical than mine.
Present 26 - Total backroute. Not a single element correct haha but well done for finding it through some insane shenanigans!
Present 28 - Another backroute - it's not supposed to be that straightforward!
Present 30 - Major backroute, with some elements correct (and very quickly deduced, well done!). The main backroute-y part is freeing the crowd with a basher from below. I thought I had already blocked this but apparently not!

[Armani]

Thank you for the detailed comments!   It feels fresh to play through a remix pack of the original levels with completely new skillsets.

I've played through the first rank and the first 10 or so levels of the second rank!

I'm planning to share some thoughts and impressions from my playthrough once I've finished the pack , but I can already say that I'm having a lot of fun!

[lemmkeev20]

ok so...

if trap a is trap a...

what is trap b?

lol, play and find out

i was just making a joke question lol

but yeah i am not gonna play it beacuse im lazy + i have to finish 2 packs im working on + memory

still this stands out as a NICE WORK

[JawaJuice]

@Armani, observations on your third video in the LP series (really enjoying watching them btw!):

Spoiler

Sunsoft 2 - Very funny watching the opening cause you so much pain - that is the intention, it's supposed to be ragebait. Then again, I imagine you're not the kind of player who's easily tilted. Personally, I would have been tearing my hair out! Ultimately a backroute though, as it's obviously not supposed to be that straightforward to simply build up to the exit - you're not supposed to have enough builders left at that point.
Sunsoft 4 - Exactly as intended, well done Amazed how quickly you solved this level though - it's like you completely visualized the solution and then just executed it on the first attempt. Either it's an easy level or you're just that good! I'm hoping it's the latter
Sunsoft 6 - Total backroute! To be fair, this level was very backroute-prone during pre-testing, so it looks like I wasn't successful in fixing it. Needs work.
Sunsoft 8 - This was so much fun to watch, though I have to say, you made a bit of a meal of it xD I'm not going to call it a backroute because you pretty much had all the elements of the intended solution, you just made it so much harder on yourself than you needed to, with all that RR fiddling. There's a reason it's set to 1 We'll just call this the crazy Armani solution that saves one shimmier!
Sunsoft 10 - Exactly as intended, good job I was sure you were going to refuse to use those shimmiers - I think you knew you should be using them, but wanted to see if you could backroute it first; pleased to see you couldn't
Sunsoft 12 - A backroute for sure, but not a huge one - a lot of the elements of the intended were in place in your solution.