Re: A Question about Bashers

[David Philippi]

On Sunday 27 October 2002 23:37, Ingo Ruhnke wrote:
> No, it wasn't only for fast-forward, it was also used in the later
> levels to dose the release rate so that two lemmings meet at specific
> critical point (which they didn't without some release-rate changes)
> and there where a few levels where you needed to increase the release
> rate to make it in time, which also resulted in a much harder level
> (apply 100 diggers in a row to make them survive, if you miss one,
> game over).

> I didn't really liked the second use of the release-rate, since it
> could get quite frustrating, but on the other site a bit frustration
> can be quite good for a game. But anyway, the second use won't work,
> since we have pause-mode, so the release rate wouldn't really matter.

I could imagine another possible use - reduce the release rate enough so that 
a bridger will be able to complete enough of it's bridge that the other 
lemmings don't fall down.
While I don't like the ideas of levels that really require such tricks to be 
solved too much I could imagine another good use - secret levels. How about 
creating a level that may be solved quite easily but using such tricks you 
could solve it using fewer actions which in turn would be the precondition 
for reaching a secret level.

> The first use is still valid, but there wheren't that many levels,
> that used that and having a seperate release rate per exit might be
> more useable for some puzzels.

As long as there's a default value we don't have to remove this feature. A 
global release rate modifier could very well reduce the rate of every exit by 
some percentage or similar.

> If somebody creates a few good levels which needs the release-rate
> switch to work, I will add it, otherwise I think we should leave it as
> it is.

How should anyone add such a level when it's impossible to test wheter it 
works without the feature?

Bye David