Welcome to my ROM hack of Lemmings on the SEGA Master System.

I've made over 100 plus levels all on my own using Squidgy's brand new level editor for the SMS version of Lemmings. If you ever wanted to play some different levels other than the original levels on the Master System version then this might be the ROM hack for you!

In this ROM hack patch there are now 8 different modes of levels each containing 30 levels in each pack making up a total of 240 levels, that's twice as much as the original Amiga version and 60 more levels than the Mega Drive/Genesis version. We have Fun, Tricky, Taxing, Mayhem, Smooth, Funky, Jazzy and Heavy.

The new Smooth rating contains all of my levels which are easy to medium and only contain a really hard one every 10 or 15 levels in. The Funky rating contains levels made by not only me but also Squidgy and another modder just to help fill up space. The Funky rating has all of the original Amiga levels that were removed in the original SMS version for the exclusive SEGA levels, i've put them all back in here, so difficulty is not consistent in this rating, it varies from easy to hard etc. The Jazzy rating contains 28 levels all made entirely by me, either recreated levels from other Lemmings games or completely original, only two are made by Squidgy in the Jazzy rating. The Heavy rating once again is entirely done by me except for level 30 Snakes Alive which was made by Squidgy. Here in the Heavy rating I started experiencing writer's block when it comes to original level maps and solutions so you'll find more recreated levels from other Lemmings games like Oh No More Lemmings, the Mega Drive exclusive levels, the budget Amiga book club version and some other odd ones very rarely seen in other ports, there's even a few PSP Lemmings levels recreated here.

The levels can now be accessed much more easily than ever before and no passwords or the cheat are needed anymore, you can get to any level and any mode by simply pressing up, down, left and right to scroll through on the level title screens.

FEATURES:

• Brand new levels never seen or played before.

• 8 ratings to choose from FUN, TRICKY, TAXING, MAYHEM, SMOOTH, FUNKY, JAZZY, and HEAVY.

• Levels can now be easily accessed, no more passwords or cheat needed.

• Can select the skill boxes by pressing B and C together and either left or right to scroll through them rather than having to put the cursor over them each time.

• Release Rate is now fixed by Squidgy so you can now lower the rate not just raise it.

• Music tracks on the new levels are personally chosen.

• Contains all of the original Amiga levels that were removed as well as the Sega levels being kept and intact.

• All The 6's is uncensored.

• All levels have been tested before release and are beatable.

• Patch is 1 Megabyte large (8 Megabits).

• Checksum is fixed for the patch.

• Jazzy: Level 14 ''Living The Pipe Dream'' has had a slight modification in v1.7 onwards, one of the tap traps is now fully active.

• Jazzy: Level 30 ''Stray Sheep'' now has it's original hidden exit restored in v1.9 onwards, so no more visible exit and no arrows on either side.

• Updated to V2.0 with all the levels finished and tested for this final release.

PATCH LOG: V1.0 has all the Smooth, Funky and the first two levels of Jazzy completed.

New Levels Included In v1.1 Are:

Jazzy: Level 3 Pride Comes Before...

Jazzy: Level 4 Let's Block Around The Dock

Jazzy: Level 5 Lemternet Shopping

Jazzy: Level 6 Great Pyramids Of Geezer Butler

New Levels Included In v1.2 Are:

Jazzy: Level 7 A Pillar Of The Community

Jazzy: Level 8 So Close But So Far Away

New Levels Included In v1.3 Are:

Jazzy: Level 9 Come On, Show Us Your Levels.

Jazzy: Level 10 The Magnificent Severn

Jazzy: Level 11 Dorothy's Rainbow

Jazzy: Level 12 Crazy World Of Arthur Brown

Jazzy: Level 13 Flying The Mad Pursuit

New Levels Included In v1.4 Are:

Jazzy: Level 14 Living The Pipe Dream

Jazzy: Level 15 The Starry Threshold

New Levels Included In v1.5 Are:

Jazzy: Level 16 Tension Sheet, Good Idea

Jazzy: Level 17 The Rubbish Dump

Jazzy: Level 18 Highland Lemmings

Jazzy: Level 19 If You've Got It, Flaunt It

New Levels Included In v1.6 Are:

Jazzy: Level 20 The Vicar Of Lemley

Jazzy: Level 21 Stepping Stones

Jazzy: Level 22 At The Frozen Ends Of The Earth

Jazzy: Level 23 Lem Me Get Outta Here!

Jazzy: Level 24 J.Russell Retro Gaming

New Levels Included In v1.7 Are:

Jazzy: Level 25 Day Tripper

Jazzy: Level 26 Darkness Of The Royal Family

Jazzy: Level 27 The Secret Of Lemminghood

Jazzy: Level 28 Salvage Boat

Jazzy: Level 29 Lunch Time

Jazzy: Level 30 Stray Sheep

Heavy: Level 1 Train Your Body

Heavy: Level 2 Have A Slice Of Lemmington Cake

New Levels Included In v1.8 Are:

Heavy: Level 3 Keep All Enemies Out.

Heavy: Level 4 Is This The Way To Amarillo?

Heavy: Level 5 Anxiety

Heavy: Level 6 Just Too Good!

Heavy: Level 7 Dangerous Terrace

Heavy: Level 8 The Gate Trap Lemmings

Heavy: Level 9 Welcome To The Party, Pal!

Heavy: Level 10 Fall And No Life

Heavy: Level 11 Happy Meal Time At McLemmy's

Heavy: Level 12 There's Madness In The Method

Heavy: Level 13 A Snugglepuss Meadow Trek

Heavy: Level 14 Going Their Separate Ways

New Levels Included In v1.9 Are:

Jazzy: Level 30 ''Stray Sheep'' now has it's original hidden exit restored in v1.9 onwards, so no more visible exit and no arrows on either side.

Heavy: Level 15 No Hurry, Relax.

Heavy: Level 16 It's Hero Time! (Part Two)

Heavy: Level 17 Evil Whisper

Heavy: Level 18 David Attenborough's Lemmings

Heavy: Level 19 Spiral Architect

Heavy: Level 20 Here Is Mr. Lemming's House

New Levels Included In v2.0 Are:

Heavy: Level 21 Welcome To Bunion Country

Heavy: Level 22 A Bastard Of A Level!

Heavy: Level 23 Lemmings Sold Separately

Heavy: Level 24 Those Hairy Jellybean Things

Heavy: Level 25 Labubus And Lemmings

Heavy: Level 26: Fancy A Good Puzzle?

Heavy: Level 27: A Ceiling Of Opportunity

Heavy: Level 28 Expecto Patronum!

Heavy: Level 29 Be More Than Just A Number

Heavy: Level 30 Snakes Alive

Credits on the NEW LEVEL screen are now changed to include Squidgy, me and Matt Furniss along with the revision number of the ROM hack patch.

v2.0 is the last patch and is now considered to be the final patch as all levels are now finished, tested and installed, if any further revisions come out of this patch it will likely be little changes like a colour patch installed or changing some text.

NOTES:

All the original Fun to Mayhem levels are intact as well as including all the cut Amiga levels and their repeats in the new Funky rating. My levels are usually set in the medium difficulty range, not too hard but not ridiculously easy either. I try and aim towards casual players rather than seasoned experts who will no doubt whinge they're too easy. If that's the case you can always build and make your own levels and release them. I personally don't like them extremely hard to the point of being stuck on them for hours, days and sometimes weeks.

Some of Squidgy's own levels and his recreated levels from the Amiga have made it in this patch, his levels are usually much shorter and much harder usually involving some quirky gimmick to milk their way to the exit. My levels are much longer but far easier.

I also recreated some repeated levels myself like ''Lemming Lament'' and ''It's Not Over, Til' It's Over'' as some had to be remade rather than ported over from the Lemmings Restored SMS ROM hack patch. They are identical as all I had to do was change the level data information.

This ROM hack is now fully finished sitting at revision no. 2.0 and it is NOT compatible with Slogra's colour patch of the original game, only the SEGA logo screen and the title screen have changed colours when this patch is patched over this, the in-game tilesets still have their original colours.

The Master System version has an invisible issue that can sneak up on you if making really large levels with too much terrain which designers in the level editor need to be aware of.

This limitation stems from the system's reliance on a tile-based renderer rather than a fully graphical framebuffer, similar to the NES, and the necessity to fit the game into very limited VRAM (Video Random Access Memory).

**Technical Explanation of the Memory Issue: Tilemap Limitations: When a level loads, the game identifies the required tiles from a 256-tile set to render the terrain, trapdoor, and exit, leaving limited free space in the tilemap for modifications

Dynamic Updating: When a lemming digs or builds, the SMS must copy affected 8x8 tiles to a new location in the VRAM and modify them to reflect the changed terrain.

The Out of Memory Scenario: When excessive digging or building occurs particularly in complex, late-game levels or if the player manipulates large swaths of the environment the system runs out of free space in the VRAM to store these newly modified tiles, leading to a sudden stop of building, bashing, mining, digging etc. (truncate)

I made 6 really long, winded levels that take up the entire map space for terrain, these levels can be completed like any other and they've been carefully tested over and over again and beaten each time as I played them wastefully on purpose to see how much memory is left over before it truncates, but it is important and best not to waste any bridge building (if it can be avoided) or any excessive bashing (if necessary). This means for example in certain scenarios where you should let the builder hit his head and walk all the way back to come round again instead of wasting another bridge to save time and when there is a climber and floater option best to take that option rather than bashing through a long tunnel and building extra bridges if unnecessary. If you play these certain levels in a wasteful way you could trigger the out of memory VRAM limitation. While this is a risk, playing the game normally (rather than deliberately destroying every pixel of terrain) usually avoids this problem, so you have been warned. If the builder suddenly stops building and the basher/miner/digger stops digging a hole, it's because the VRAM has filled up with all of the missing tiles that have been dug through or built over. It's not the game that is to blame for this but the Master System console itself as it only contains 8K of RAM. **If this ever occurs, it's because you were wasteful with builders and digging unnecessary large tunnels, try it again and conserve your builders and bashers.

LEVELS THAT SHOULDN'T BE PLAYED WASTEFULLY:

1. Cleopatra's House

2. Over The Hills And Far Away

3. A Lem On A Hot Tin Roof

4. Barbecue At Lemmy Kilmister's

5. Mr. Lemming's Bathroom

6. Ash Lemsday

These levels originally all triggered the out of memory VRAM limitation and have already been heavily cut back with less terrain over and over again to make them beatable and to have enough memory for building and bashing. I have play tested these levels dozens of times on real hardware to make sure you can beat them, and as long as you don't waste builders and dig long tunnels when you don't have to, you're right. If this limitation ever appears and the Lemmings stop and just walk, don't worry, blow the Lemmings up and try again and play it in a more salvaged, conserved way. All the levels can be beaten as they are. 100% confirmed. This limitation happened in the original retail game too. Levels like ''Sega Four'' and ''Lemming Drops'' could trigger the limitation if too many builders and bashers were used. Both those levels use the entire map area leaving very little for building and bashing and levels with traps were more capable of triggering the limitation as they use up more pixels and tiles.

If you want to make, create and release your own levels, you don't need to learn extensive Z80 coding, just make an account over on Squidgy's new web browser Lemmings SMS editor. https://lemmingseditor.trainersquidgy.com/&gt

INSTRUCTIONS:

Inside the ZIP file you'll find the IPS patch, it is in Lunar IPS format and simply needs to be patched to the Lemmings retail ROM (Europe). Everything else is done for you including a fixed checksum so it can be played on a real system with authentic Master System bios.

Enjoy and happy gaming!

• Squidgy: For creating the level editor and other hacking.
• Pooty: For the original Mappy converter software that the level editor is based on.
• SeanTheMii: For making some levels included in the Funky rating.
• Maxim over at SMSPower: For some source code documents.
• NeoLemmix: For several of the maps (when I couldn't think of anything original).
• Kaywhyn: For giving me ideas on making new maps when watching his Youtube videos on custom Lemmings levels.
• Special Thanks: Squidgy (Callum) for making all this possible in the first place.