Lemmings

2005-11-29 06:56:52 pm

what about "lemmings for windows"? ok, the interface looks like crap but its useable. AND you can use old lemmings+dosbox

HidoiMidoriRyuu

Edit history:

HidoiMidoriRyuu: 2005-11-30 12:05:37 am

2005-11-29 10:10:32 pm

4NT

My version of Lemmings is Lemmings for Windows. It is runnable in XP although it might randomly crash when scrolling. Pausing helps if I remember correctly. I even got Oh No! More Lemmings with my copy.

I played some Lemmings actually. I have gotten to the conclusion that Fast Forward is probably based on CPU speed. Meaning that me with a 3GHz CPU will have an unfair advantage over someone with a 150MHz CPU. Also, if Fast Forward is used the internal game timer cannot be used.

Enhasa

2005-11-30 08:00:30 am

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

poCari: In Lemmings 2, the number of lemmings you save carries over to the next level.

Yautja: Both Lemmings 1 and 2 were on both the SNES and Genesis.

kwinse: The PC version allows you to skip We All Fall Down? I have no clue which version you played...

Lag.Com: I never played the Windows version much except to see how it worked, but it just felt worse for whatever reason (could have just been the difference in processing power). As long as everyone can agree to the same version I guess.

Never tried more than a minute of DHTML Lemmings, but several years back this guy created a Lemmings clone that allowed you to create your own levels. Since this is a very obvious feature, it rocked, even though the music was stolen sucky pop music and the mechanics were different enough to be annoying at times.

Hidoi: You might try a compatibility mode to see if that helps with the crashing.

The original versions (Amiga, Mac, DOS) didn't have fast forward anyway. I wouldn't see it as a big loss.

[u]poCari[/u]: In Lemmings 2, the number of lemmings you save carries over to the next level.

[u]Yautja[/u]: Both Lemmings 1 and 2 were on both the SNES and Genesis.

[u]kwinse[/u]: The PC version allows you to skip We All Fall Down? I have no clue which version [i]you[/i] played...

[u]Lag.Com[/u]: I never played the Windows version much except to see how it worked, but it just [i]felt[/i] worse for whatever reason (could have just been the difference in processing power). As long as everyone can agree to the same version I guess.

Never tried more than a minute of DHTML Lemmings, but several years back this guy created a Lemmings clone that allowed you to create your own levels. Since this is a very obvious feature, it rocked, even though the music was stolen sucky pop music and the mechanics were different enough to be annoying at times.

[u]Hidoi[/u]: You might try a compatibility mode to see if that helps with the crashing.

The original versions (Amiga, Mac, DOS) didn't have fast forward anyway. I wouldn't see it as a big loss.

StuporMan

2005-11-30 01:40:31 pm

Stupor is as Stupor Does

I have dug up an old copy of lemmings and went ahead and beat all the levels (all 120 of them, 30 per "difficulty"). I used dosbox to get it to run and other than some speed issues (the speed the game runs at varies from time to time, sometimes insanely fast, sometimes a crawl) and some segmenting issues it really is not too bad. It can be done in under 7 hours (in fact I do not think the in game timer will let you play longer than that). The in game timer corrects much of the speed issues (since the clock ticks are affected by game speed, it slows when the game slows and speeds up when it speeds up).

The only real difficulty is segmenting since we do not want 120 <10 minute videos. The other problem is that there are not a ton of really impressive tricks that you have to work with on a lot of levels, especially with regard to speed. Recording sound may also be a problem since it does not go through the sound card AFAIK.

As far as segments go, I would think that doing all of Fun, then split Tricky in half, then about five or six Taxing levels at a time, and then 1 or two Mayhem levels in a segment. Mayhem levels are too difficult IMO to run much more than about 2 in a row, when trying to make the timing perfect to reduce time, that makes things even more difficult.

I look forward to seeing how this turns out.

StuporMan

I have dug up an old copy of lemmings and went ahead and beat all the levels (all 120 of them, 30 per "difficulty").  I used dosbox to get it to run and other than some speed issues (the speed the game runs at varies from time to time, sometimes insanely fast, sometimes a crawl) and some segmenting issues it really is not too bad.  It can be done in under 7 hours (in fact I do not think the in game timer will let you play longer than that). The in game timer corrects much of the speed issues (since the clock ticks are affected by game speed, it slows when the game slows and speeds up when it speeds up).

The only real difficulty is segmenting since we do not want 120 <10 minute videos.  The other problem is that there are not a ton of really impressive tricks that you have to work with on a lot of levels, especially with regard to speed.  Recording sound may also be a problem since it does not go through the sound card AFAIK.

As far as segments go, I would think that doing all of Fun, then split Tricky in half, then about five or six Taxing levels at a time, and then 1 or two Mayhem levels in a segment. Mayhem levels are too difficult IMO to run much more than about 2 in a row, when trying to make the timing perfect to reduce time, that makes things even more difficult.

I look forward to seeing how this turns out.

StuporMan

HidoiMidoriRyuu

2005-11-30 02:52:13 pm

4NT

Well Lemmings liked to crash on my old comp. Tried some more today and it didn't crash. And I am actually surprised that it runs without any compability options on. Also, sound works perfectly in my version. Even the MIDI music.

And as for segmenting... 120 videos is quite a lot, but to easily improve individual levels that is the best way.

The most important thing when running this is timing. Releasing all lemmings so that they reach the builder the exact moment he finishes and such. Also good coordination so you can just set the release rate to 99 the first thing you do.

StuporMan

2005-11-30 03:59:23 pm

Stupor is as Stupor Does

Sound works great on my machine too, but it comes through the mainboard speaker, thus bypassing the sound card and quite impossible to capture via camtasia or fraps sadly.

I agree timing is everything in lemmings, although not all levels can be beaten with a 99 rate from the start. 120 segments would get the best time, I agree, but would be painful to watch I am afraid.

StuporMan

kwinse

Edit history:

kwinse: 2005-11-30 05:27:40 pm

2005-11-30 05:21:03 pm

Quote:

kwinse: The PC version allows you to skip We All Fall Down? I have no clue which version you played...

It doesn't allow you to skip it outright, but on the PC version I have somewhere, the lemmings are able to survive the fall from the starting platform of "We All Fall Down" (all versions) without having to dig.

After looking into a FAQ at GameFAQs, it only works on the CD version. If you have the floppy version, than good luck to you.

HidoiMidoriRyuu

2005-11-30 05:55:18 pm

4NT

I have the CD version. But I do not remember them being able to survive that fall. Maybe they fixed it in my version or something.

kwinse

Edit history:

kwinse: 2005-11-30 06:23:34 pm

2005-11-30 06:21:59 pm

Try playing Mayhem 1 (Steel Works). If they survive the initial fall, than I do believe they can survive the falls of We All Fall Down.

Enhasa

2005-12-01 07:25:28 am

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

StuporMan: huh? Not only would individual levels make more sense and lead to easier improvements (think Starcraft), it's a run through the game that would be painful to watch and download, not individual levels.

I don't see how putting all the videos in a playlist is any worse than larger segments really. Better in fact, because the quality will be higher.

Oh and if you're talking about onboard audio, can't you disable that in the device manager or somewhere?

kwinse, as for your version, I think something so cheap should probably be disallowed. Wink

StuporMan

2005-12-01 12:13:35 pm

Stupor is as Stupor Does

Eh, I guess it is more a pain to download and keep track of 120 different avi files. Alot of work to download and view it and alot of work to maintain it seems like it may not be worth it for the few seconds gained per level. Just my 2 cents.

I could disable the onboard sound, but then I would have no sound Sad

I will experiment more with it and see if I can't figure a way to get it to go through the sound card.

StuporMan

agopo

Edit history:

agopo: 2005-12-01 12:16:49 pm

2005-12-01 12:14:01 pm

I wear glasses.

As Lemmings used to be one of my most-beloved games, I'd like to try running some of the levels as well.

But it'd be good if we could finally agree on what version to run.. I read myriads of different versions in this thread:

- (X-Mas) Lemmings, on an emulated Amiga 500
- Lemmings, on an emulated Super Nintendo
- DHTML Lemmings
- DOS-Box Lemmings
- Some Windows port of Lemmings

So which one are we gonna play? I'd start running some levels soon rather than discussing too much before the running has even started.. :-/

*EDIT: Oh and the multi segment way should be preferred over the single-segment run imo.. simply because there are so many levels and the Starcraft/ Broodwar runs seemed to really have profited of the multi-segment approach.

Lag.Com

2005-12-01 02:05:19 pm

sda loyalist

The usual stance is that if the levels do not relate to one another at all they should be timed individually. See Four Swords for another example of this.
If Lemmings 2: Tribes was being timed, then the individual tribes would be timed separately, as you carry over the amount of lemmings you saved.

I am looking forward to seeing some of these levels completed. Smiley

I was not much of a Lemmings pro, and I do so hate reading solutions to puzzle games.

kwinse

Edit history:

kwinse: 2005-12-01 03:36:49 pm

2005-12-01 03:35:50 pm

Quote:

Eh, I guess it is more a pain to download and keep track of 120 different avi files. Alot of work to download and view it and alot of work to maintain it seems like it may not be worth it for the few seconds gained per level. Just my 2 cents.

See, that's why the runners could just do the harder difficulty levels first, and if we really want them, they could do the others to round out the list.

Oh yeah, on the SNES version there are five additional (and very hard) levels under the difficulty "Sunsoft" in honor of the publisher. What to do with these? Anything?

chaos

2006-05-24 07:14:14 pm

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Would an unsegmented run even be possible? As I recall, you often need to rely on luck. For example when bashing through the "gate" holding back your group of lemmings. If they are in a tight spot, you sometimes click on the wrong lemming (i.e. one going the wrong direction) and can thereby easily run out of bashers, forcing a restart of the level.

DJGrenola

Edit history:

DJGrenola: 2006-05-25 08:07:21 am

2006-05-25 08:06:11 am

guffaw

This is bizarre, because I was thinking what a superb game this would be to speed run just recently.

The original PC floppy version of the game had Adlib / soundblaster sound (and the music was great), so this "only goes through the onboard speaker" thing is not correct.

This is one of those things I'd love to do (I completed the original game in about five weeks and loved every last second of it) but sadly will probably never get around to. Sad

I agree that individual level runs are the way to go.

I also think it's cool that the fastest times will always be produced by killing as many lemmings as possible, so low percenting it is very much in the Lemmings ethos. Smiley

chaos

2006-05-26 01:12:48 am

I love YaBB 1G - SP1!

Just watched a SNES TAS of the first nine levels that was done a while ago. Great fun to watch despite the fact that those levels are more of a tutorial than anything else. Here's a link to the thread:

http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2725

A pity that the run was abandoned...

If anyone is planning a new attempt, this site has graphical level walkthroughs:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/lemmings-solution/

Chib

2006-06-20 10:19:03 am

A run of Lemmings 2 would probably be more fun. And definitely more fun to watch, there are just so many cool abilities. Although it is kind of cheap that you only have to bother to save 1 lemming each round to pass even if that then reduces the lemmings to 1 for all the remaining levels in that area.

Enhasa

2006-06-20 11:01:00 am

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

Quote:

Would an unsegmented run even be possible? As I recall, you often need to rely on luck. For example when bashing through the "gate" holding back your group of lemmings. If they are in a tight spot, you sometimes click on the wrong lemming (i.e. one going the wrong direction) and can thereby easily run out of bashers, forcing a restart of the level.

There's usually ways to avoid bad luck while playing normally (and future Lemmings games often let you arrow a particular lemming or at least select which direction lemming you want to select), but for individual levels, the luck would be there since it's slightly faster if it works.

The best way to avoid the luck btw, is usually to build a bridge out of your pit, but bash a hole in it so only the builder gets out. Then you complete the bridge to free everyone else.

Quote:

Just watched a SNES TAS of the first nine levels that was done a while ago. Great fun to watch despite the fact that those levels are more of a tutorial than anything else. Here's a link to the thread:

http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2725

A pity that the run was abandoned...

If anyone is planning a new attempt, this site has graphical level walkthroughs:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/lemmings-solution/

Our very own spineshark started a SNES Lemmings 2 TAS also. Both games' TAS's are stalled though.

That site is pretty useful normally I think, but it's not good to rely on it, because its solutions are geared towards easier to implement instead of faster.

Quote:

A run of Lemmings 2 would probably be more fun. And definitely more fun to watch, there are just so many cool abilities. Although it is kind of cheap that you only have to bother to save 1 lemming each round to pass even if that then reduces the lemmings to 1 for all the remaining levels in that area.

That would get you bronze, so that would be a different category than gold (which is what I would want to see). Don't really see the point in silver.

It's kinda like low%/any% and 100%.

[quote]Would an unsegmented run even be possible? As I recall, you often need to rely on luck. For example when bashing through the "gate" holding back your group of lemmings. If they are in a tight spot, you sometimes click on the wrong lemming (i.e. one going the wrong direction) and can thereby easily run out of bashers, forcing a restart of the level.[/quote]
There's usually ways to avoid bad luck while playing normally (and future Lemmings games often let you arrow a particular lemming or at least select which direction lemming you want to select), but for individual levels, the luck would be there since it's slightly faster if it works.

The best way to avoid the luck btw, is usually to build a bridge out of your pit, but bash a hole in it so only the builder gets out. Then you complete the bridge to free everyone else.

[quote]Just watched a SNES TAS of the first nine levels that was done a while ago. Great fun to watch despite the fact that those levels are more of a tutorial than anything else. Here's a link to the thread:

http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2725

A pity that the run was abandoned...

If anyone is planning a new attempt, this site has graphical level walkthroughs:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/lemmings-solution/[/quote]
Our very own spineshark started a SNES Lemmings 2 TAS also. Both games' TAS's are stalled though.

That site is pretty useful normally I think, but it's not good to rely on it, because its solutions are geared towards easier to implement instead of faster.

[quote]A run of Lemmings 2 would probably be more fun. And definitely more fun to watch, there are just so many cool abilities. Although it is kind of cheap that you only have to bother to save 1 lemming each round to pass even if that then reduces the lemmings to 1 for all the remaining levels in that area.[/quote]
That would get you bronze, so that would be a different category than gold (which is what I would want to see). Don't really see the point in silver.

It's kinda like low%/any% and 100%.

spineshark

2006-06-20 04:29:14 pm

新世紀進歩的羽扇子音楽

Quote:

Our very own spineshark started a SNES Lemmings 2 TAS also. Both games' TAS's are stalled though.

yeah, but i am running snes9x again, so somebody make sure i'm not defective and that there really isn't one with rerecording for linux.

Enhasa

2006-06-20 05:46:58 pm

everybody wanna tell you the meaning of music

The page for nitsuja's v9 has the source. I haven't tried compiling from source but you can try it, since that's the norm on Linux anyways. And if you need any help, I'm sure people would be glad to help you out.

spineshark

2006-06-20 06:42:10 pm

新世紀進歩的羽扇子音楽

god damn it, i start using linux and suddenly i'm expected to actually know how to use a computer? fucking ridiculous! Tongue

Chib

2006-06-27 06:57:41 am

Wow, the "Classic" levels in Lemmings 2 are incredibly hard to get 100% saved on them. It ends up relying on luck on the really hard ones.

But anyway, if we do record these games, will they be officially accepted by SDA even though we're using DOSBox or whatever? Since the Lemmings games do have their own internal timers.

Stupid

2006-06-27 12:40:43 pm

defying gravity

I dont know if thats a good idea.
There are definitely levels that would be great to watch, but there are others that would not.
Additionally, there are levels that are INSANELY hard to get a close-to-perfect time without using pause.

Chib

2006-06-28 03:15:36 am

Well in Lemmings 2 there are really cool shortcuts in pretty much every level (except the "Classic" ones), and they are fun to watch. =)