h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A597945

This is my first entry on a game that I both love and hate; it is also my very first entry - be gentle please!

Caper Plip

Hi Caper Plip! I think the entry's great - especially the writing style!

One point though: you don't appear to explain exactly how the lemmings behave naturaly, i.e. that they stupidly walk along in a straight line whatever is in front of them, then turn when they meet an obstruction, or exactly how you manipulate them to follow the correct course home.

Hi!

Additions made are:

-added Normality section about normal states
-added link for walkthroughs

I don't really want to add anything on how to play the game as this guide is only about the game and not how to play it.

Any more comments?

Caper Plip

Oh, I should have read the disclaimer

Lemmings caused me whole nights of lost sleep, and an unmeasurable amount of hair until I finally *deleted* it because I skipped all other things. There is a backup copy somewhere...

I seem to remember there were passwords for each level, which were revealed when a level or a game was solved. Hence you couldn't start in the middle without having solved the previous games. The passwords were unique to one instance of the program, that is, after deleting and re-installing, your list of old passwords was worthless and you'd have to start from scratch. Well, I could be wrong...


Great entry

Bossel (Scout)

Thank you for reminding me of many happy nights with the Committee. The Committee was me and between three and six friends at Uni, who would spend night after night sitting around sketches of levels, debating how we were going to get over that lava pit or whatever. This is excellent. You might think it worth pointing out what machines the original ran on, and also that there have been numerous sequels which, untypically for a computer game, failed to improve much on the original beyond adding more levels. There's even (I think) been a 3D version - sacrilege!
But even without those additions - this should be in!

My copy of Lemmings did not have 180 levels, it only had 120 levels. It had the first four categories you list, up to Mayhem, with 30 levels in each.

I liked the music.

The Sunsoft levelset was only on the Snes version of the game if I remember correctly (since Sunsoft had the licence for the game for that system).

This is a great start. There's some important details missing like why DMA Design came up with the game concept in the first place. A link to a possible source of information is on my links page at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A325423

Keep it up, this'll be one great an entry

Hi!

Additions made are:

- added History of the Game section about developers, release dates and sequels
- changed The Levels and their Puzzles to The Ratings and their Levels
- added Passwords bit in The Ratings and Levels section
- added a few more sentences in The Music bit
- added a few more footnotes
- added a link to DMA Design

I couldn't find out why DMA Design thought of Lemmings because their website is under construction and nobody else had any idea.
Sorry about that!

Any more comments?

Caper Plip

Looks great

Just a peanut there: "This lets he/she..." should be 'him/her'.

I'd say it's finished from your side (notwithstanding suggestions from other researchers which might drop by). Keep in mind that it's *your* entry and you are completely free to follow suggestions or leave them if you don't like them.

Just a few points about the further proceedings (or rather, non-proceedings...).
Us Scouts *cannot* recommend entries before they have spend a full week on the Peer Review. So this is the minimum time which you have to wait. Furthermore, there are *25* out of currently 200 (or so) entries picked *per week*. This corresponds to the 5 entries which appear on the front page every working day. Dividing 200 by 25 yields 8 weeks as some average waiting time (or let's say, worst case waiting time ) for an entry to be picked. Alas, I'm quite sure you won't have to wait overly long

Time enough to finish another level


Bossel (Scout)

Hi!

Changes made are:

-changed he/she to him/her

Thanks a lot for all of your comments! WD was warning me that it might take some time.

Thanks again!

Caper Plip

Nice entry, it brings back a lot of memories.
A few remarks.
In the part of the time limit, the second sentence "If by this time, not all of the lemmings have been saved, the level has to be redone" can be scratched, as you almost never have to bring in 100%, mostly because of the use of bombers.

The builder always uses the same number of slabs, unless it is stopped by a wall.

Maybe you can also mention that some floors cannot be broken, and the existence walls that can only be broken in one (normally the wrong) direction.

A nice puzzle to increase experience: How do you let a climber turn around at a wall instead of having it climb? I once needed this to bash through a one-sided wall.

Hi!

Additions made are:

-added a few more footnotes about walls
-altered a few sentences for flexibility

Thanks for all your comments!

Caper Plip

Great.

Couple of small things: the Acorn Archimedes reference should really be changed to RISC OS, as Archimedes was only one brand of the computers running the operating system RISC OS. Also, the RISC OS version had a cheat password, typing "IAMNOTACHEAT" (though I'm not sure about the exact wording, can check later when I get home) let you skip a level by pressing the space bar, and if you carried on pressing the space bar past level 120 you eventually found some secret levels!

ATB,
Matthew

Hi!

Changes made are:

-changed Acorn Archimedes to RISC OS

I don't really want to show any passwords, cheats etc. in case there are a few people who have RISC OS and are struggling with Lemmings and do not know about that cheat.

Thanks for the comments!

Caper Plip

Caper,
some more coments.
First, you do not have to follow every comment you get, it is YOUR story, so you decide what should be included. And if you do not change it so often, we do not have to read it again and again to see what is changed.

A warning. In the beginning you included a link to an external website. Be prepared to have it removed.

What I miss in the beginning of the story is an explanation about the lemmings themselves (litlle green men ) and the object of the game (bring them from start to exit by building, digging, or whatever means you can devise). I happen to know the game, but if you don't, this info might be usefull.

I think you did a good job, especially as it is your first. Keep it up

Hi!

Got rid of the link in the first paragraph.

IMHO I think that there's enough there gamewise, so not to reveal any secrets!

Thanks for all the comments!

Caper Plip

And I must say that *this* is where I find fun on the Peer Review: a responsive author, a bunch of interested peers, and quick turnover rates. 'Responsive' means that there's an almost immediate reply, be it 'yeah' or 'nay'. I like it this way

(Of course, there will come the time when nothing more is to be added and commented, and the entry sinks down into Peer Review... but not into oblivion! )

Lemmings definitively needs an article!

About the music: I rather like it. It's cute. (considering how old this game is, I doubt you find less annoying music at that time) Some of the melodies are english or scottish folk tunes, and those who are composed by the game designers have a decidely folkish twist to the melodies and harmonics.

Caper Plip