DragonsLover
14 Sep 2005 19:38:15
Is it possible to edit WinLemm?
Do you know programs to edit the game Lemmings 95? The game contains some little bugs and I thought if it was possible to fix them and improve the game.

Here are some examples:

- Some animations of Lemmings in High-Res are not complete (like Drowning and Exiting: the first and last frames aren't there).
- Lemmings can pass over the top of the level.
- The digging mask of the miner isn't correct (looks not like the stairs made by a builder, the steps that are dug are not correct).
- Find a way to add music.
- Some sounds aren't playing or aren't good (e.g: Lemmings falling at the bottom of the level, "Oh no!" before exploding (the lemmings only said "Oh no!" when it explode, this is ugly! The "Pop!" is when a Lemmings in currently falling)
- When assigning a skill to a lemming, it starts the skill just one pixel in front, a little bit in front where it is supposed to be.
- Edit the graphics (open the .spr and .dat files) using the correct palettes (*.pal)
- Reduce the speed of the scrolling when holding the left mouse button
- Reduce the speed of accelerating (is so fast!)

There's a way?
ccexplore (not logged in)
15 Sep 2005 00:44:56
Re: Is it possible to edit WinLemm?
Do you know programs to edit the game Lemmings 95?

No, someone will have to write one.  It seems at this point 0xdeadbeef knows the most about the Windows version.

- The digging mask of the miner isn't correct (looks not like the stairs made by a builder, the steps that are dug are not correct).

Interesting.  I find the same is true in the SNES version (but I don't know whether it's incorrect in the same way as Windows).  The Amiga version does have a builder-staircase-like mining mask.

- Some sounds aren't playing or aren't good (e.g: Lemmings falling at the bottom of the level, "Oh no!" before exploding (the lemmings only said "Oh no!" when it explode, this is ugly!

What else should it do?  In the Amiga version it says "Oh no" too!  In fact, the only reason the DOS version doesn't say "Oh no" is because of limitations of sound hardware for PCs of that time, so it attempts to create a poor imitation of "Oh no" via pitch-bended music notes.

The Lemmings falling off the bottom of the level (the "Ahhh" screaming sound effect) is missing in the DOS version as well.

Of course, in the windows version they should all be just .wav files, so changing the existing sound effects should be trivial.  Adding new ones probably much messier to do though.

- When assigning a skill to a lemming, it starts the skill just one pixel in front, a little bit in front where it is supposed to be.

I'm not sure what you mean.  It seems to me that in the DOS version something similar sometimes happens.  It's possible that the game only deals with skill assignments after it first updates the position of the Lemming.  Lemmings 1 in general just isn't exactly very user-friendly when it comes to doing pixel-precise moves.

- Edit the graphics (open the .spr and .dat files) using the correct palettes (*.pal)

0xdeadbeef would know the most, followed by Mindless.  I'm too lazy to care.

===============

Perhaps it'd be easier if you wait for 0xdeadbeef to finish his Java version of Lemmings.  It's much easier to fix or improve things when the source code and the human programmer is still available.
Andi
16 Sep 2005 12:09:09
Re: Is it possible to edit WinLemm?
You could try to change the Miner-Mask by editing the graphic file. I think in my full version I managed to open it somehow.
0xdeadbeef
16 Sep 2005 17:12:43
Re: Is it possible to edit WinLemm?
There are some BMP files in the GFX directory of the Win95 version. However I don't think most of them are actually used. Probably only DIALOG.BMP and WLEMLOGO.BMP are used. All other resources and also lots of things not contained in any BMP is stored in the SPR files.
E.g. the BMP for the containing "big" lemmings (NOBOXLM2.BMP) is incomplete and half of the gfx there are actually only low res "small" lemmings scaled up.
In the according SPR file however, everything is there including the miner/digger/basher/explosion masks.
DragonsLover
18 Sep 2005 06:33:34
Re: Is it possible to edit WinLemm?
And there's no way to edit them?
0xdeadbeef
18 Sep 2005 08:46:13
Re: Is it possible to edit WinLemm?
It surely is possible.
I mean, I extracted the data from the SPR files, so it is possible of course to convert changed gifs back to SPR files.
At least when not changing sizes but only pixels, this should work I guess.

Then again, I personally have no interest to patch WinLemmings since I write my own version anyway. And as the miner mask is only one problem of many that the version for Win95 has, I don't really think it's a good idea to invest time in patching it anyway.