Glitches in Lemmings (old thread)

[Clam]

Following on from discussions in the latest iteration of the challenge thread, it looks like the time has come to share our knowledge of glitches, rather than keeping them to ourselves. My reasoning is as follows: By now, most if not all of the glitches in the original Lemmings game (at least on DOS/Amiga) have been discovered. Most people know some of them, and a lucky few (I include myself as a recent addition to this category) are aware of pretty much all of them. Not only does this mean that some of us can build levels or invent challenges that can't be solved without this knowledge, but (IMHO more importantly) designers continue to build levels that are rendered almost trivial by some glitch or other. As such, I would like to compile a list of all the known glitches in the Lemmings games, including different ports and also sequels. Perhaps the sequels could have their own threads - we'll see how this works out.

How do we define a glitch? I'd say the word describes any behaviour that is unexpected given a good knowledge of the basic game mechanics - i.e. something the original designers wouldn't have known about. This definition probably isn't watertight, but we can decide on a case-by-case basis what is a glitch and what isn't.

Feel free to discuss anything glitch-related too - this sort of discussion has been sorely lacking in the past.

I'll start with some that have been posted before.


DOS/Amiga Lemmings

• Giant Leap - Jumper lemming climbs up through a wall after the gap it was about to jump into is closed up by a builder
• Blocker pushing lemmings through a wall
• Nuke glitch - When you nuke the level the game calculates your percentage based on the number of lemmings that have entered the level, rather than the total number in the level
• Miner falling through terrain while leaving it intact
• Climbing up when stuck inside terrain
• Miner crossing 1-pixel gaps
• Climber comes away from the wall slightly when it hits a ceiling and falls
• Blockers make steel areas destructible
• Climbers transition to walkers for one frame when the terrain they are climbing on is removed - you can then make them build in mid-air
• Right one-way walls cannot be mined
• Various steel-destruction glitches where the terrain that the lemming tries to destroy is not part of the steel area. EXAMPLE: Top 7 rows of a steel area can be bashed through - this includes the top of the level and in fact cannot be prevented by better placement in this case

[Dullstar]

Which one is used in the Tricky 28 challenge?

[Luis]

In the PSP Lemmings, you can make the Lemmings walk on top of the level and all you can see is their feet. You can beat Mayhem 12 and 28 this way. I don't know if this works in the SNES version since I haven't played that in a long time.

[Clam]

Which one is used in the Tricky 28 challenge?

I might add some slightly better descriptions at some point.

In the PSP Lemmings, you can make the Lemmings walk on top of the level and all you can see is their feet. You can beat Mayhem 12 and 28 this way.

You can do that in Windows lemmings too, except you can't see them at all. Mayhem 28 can also be backrouted using the "bashing top of steel" glitch that I mentioned.

[Dullstar]

Awl!  There's a glitch that makes Upsidedown World nearly impossible.  When I assign a lemming to a miner, it makes one gap then turns right around.

This is the right one way arrow glitch.  Not fun!
I had to use Lemmings Encyclopedia to help find a substitute solution on which this would not be a problem.

[Clam]

It's my most hated level for that reason. Most glitches are fun (and maybe a little annoying from a level design perspective), but this one just plain sucks.


Anyway, there's a couple of others I forgot to mention earlier, such as...

*SPOILERS again*

Direct drop - lemmings falling onto an exit from a height will exit and be saved instead of splatting. This one is quite common among levels made by new designers...

Lemmings falling into water are swept along by the waves unless there is terrain nearby (and sometimes even if there is - I haven't figured this out). If they fall into the edge of the water object and there is no terrain next to it (you can often remove this ground using diggers), then they will float in mid air when they drown.

If you make a builder lemming into a climber when he shrugs, he will start moving straight away, and be stuck in the shrug animation until he encounters an obstacle. For some reason this works in Original lemmings but not ONML. (The recommended level for trying this out is Fun 19 )

One-way arrow trigger areas take precedence over steel areas. (Note to Fleech - this is how I backrouted your level )

Blockers cancel out trigger areas. This includes exits!

Release rates above 99 and up to 250 can be built into levels (as seen in geoo's "Palace o/t once hacked lemmings"), and are slower than a rate of 1.

[Fleech]

One-way arrow trigger areas take precedence over steel areas. (Note to Fleech - this is how I backrouted your level )

Aha! Thanks. I've already taken out the arrows in the updated version but that's useful to know for the future.

I don't really understand the Giant Leap glitch. When is a lemming considered to be a jumper?

I found out yesterday (not that I'm claiming it to be a new find ) that you can get lems stuck in the ceiling. It came in very handy for getting 100% on the last level of the Companion demo.

[Clam]

I can see this thread is de-backrouting future levels already

I don't really understand the Giant Leap glitch. When is a lemming considered to be a jumper?

That's when a lemming hoists itself up a step of 3 to 6 pixels. They only move upwards at 2 pixels per frame, so if they are jumping into a tiny gap, there's time to fill the gap while the jumper is moving.

I found out yesterday (not that I'm claiming it to be a new find ) that you can get lems stuck in the ceiling. It came in very handy for getting 100% on the last level of the Companion demo.

You mean "Congratulations!"? How could that possibly be useful there? Unless...

[Fleech]

Oops, haha. I meant the Covox demo.

[Clam]

Wait, you weren't talking about "Congratulations!"... yet you've led me to a most remarkable discovery

If you don't know what I'm talking about, open this level in Lemmix and turn on trigger areas. You may find these smileys useful:

[Fleech]

I've just looked.

 

 

Very cool find!

[Dullstar]

Can you post a screenshot?

[geoo]

Can you post a screenshot?

You could also, like, just open the level in Lemmix, and view the trigger areas...


On a different note, I finished the levelpack I mentioned in the 'OhNo! More Challenges' thread, which is showing off variations of a certain glitch:
http://camanis.net/lemmings/levelpacks.php?info&pack=118
EDIT2: link changed to levelpack database
EDIT: Missing steel ClamSpammer mentioned below added.

First level is designed so that one can find the solution by regular means, and encounter a side effect, the actual glitch.
In the second level, you are supposed to apply that glitch, and subsequently encounter another aspect of it.
In the third and fourth level, the title gives you instructions on what the level is about.
The final two levels are for applying what you've learned in the previous ones.

Notably all solutions are supposed to stand out, i.e. being easy to find, as opposed to regular levels where the intension is to hide them.

Any solution that does not involve the glitch is a backroute, obviously.
Apart from the first two levels, the solutions are comparatively elegant and not too hard to execute.
The first two are a bit messy because I had to eliminite alternative solutions, which is difficult if the level doesn't take real advantages of the glitch just showing it off.

[Clam]

Neato 

I've solved the first four so far. Level 4 is missing a steel object, which you may want to put in

Level 3 is very nice. You'd be hard pressed to come up with a simpler level that requires this particular aspect of the glitch.



Sorry Dullstar, I must have missed that post somehow. Still, it's not difficult to open up a level in Lemmix.

[-H0ru5-]

I didn't read these comments, only downloaded the pack. Yes, I encountered something interesting, but dunno how to solve it yet. 
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