Lemmings

Lemmings

Amiga - USA - 1st edition.

Developer DMA Design Limited Publisher Psygnosis Limited, Ocean Software Published 1991-??-?? Platforms 3DO, Acorn 32-bit, Amiga, Amiga CD32, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, CD-i, CDTV, Commodore 64, DOS, FM Towns, Game Boy, Game Gear, Genesis, J2ME, Lynx, Macintosh Classic, NES, NEC PC-9800, SAM Coupé, Sharp X68000, Master System, SNES, TurboGrafx-CD, ZX Spectrum Genres Active puzzle, Puzzle Themes Cartoon Series Lemmings Distribution Commercial

Lemmings is an active puzzle video game developed by DMA Design and published by Psygnosis for the Amiga in 1991, and later ported to two dozen other platforms.

The goal of the game is to direct a bunch of lemmings to the exit of a map. However, they march in a straight line oblivious to the steep cliffs, flames, acid, and various other dangers that surround them. Without your intervention, the lemmings will either be stuck walking in an endless loop or die horrific deaths. Although you can't control the lemmings, you can still alter their journey indirectly by giving some of them special abilities like the ability to climb walls, dig into the ground, redirect traffic, and so forth. The first few maps are pretty simple and exist to teach you how the various abilities work, then things begin to become more difficult and you have to use some creativity to solve the maps.

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	No.

I got a copy of Lemmings for MS-DOS around 1993 because it came bundled with my Sound Blaster 2. I played through all 30 Fun levels and started on the Tricky levels, before becoming bored with it. My friend David nearly beat the game, but became so annoyed with the builders of one level near the end (I think Mayhem 17 or 28) he gave up. Seeing him struggle with pixel-perfect precision convinced me that I didn't want to try to finish it either.

I'm not sure where my disk went, but I do remember the DOS port had a verification mechanism where it required the original disk to be in the diskette drive to play, and the copies I made of the disk made with the standard MS-DOS copy command wouldn't work. This was a pretty devious anti-piracy measure for the time, but it didn't stop people from altering the game's binaries to bypass the check.

Review

5	5	6	7	4

Best Version: DOS

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The background graphics, especially the animations, looked amazing for the time. The lemming animations are especially cute which is offset by the rather disturbing nature of the game and the creepy backgrounds.
• The arranged children's songs fit the game perfectly, and the music made for the game is great. I don't care much for the Amiga's tracked music, because the silly instruments sound ridiculous, and find the FM-synthesis arrangement for DOS to be more enjoyable.
• The point-and-click icon-based interface works really well.
• The addition of metal walls, one-way walls, traps, and various other extras help keep the game interesting.
• Some later stages use the same maps as earlier stages, but give you a much more limited set of abilities to work with, which forces you to have to solve the same puzzle in a more convoluted manner, which I think is a great idea.
• The cartoon lemmings on the cover, designed by Adrian Powell, really make the game cute.
• The many different bitmapped backgrounds would never fit into game's limited space, so the programmers created a clever system of stitching together several smaller bitmaps at arbitrary locations in a larger canvas to make a complicated map.

Bad

• The instruments used in the Amiga music are obnoxious.
• The game doesn't have a way to correct mistakes other than by restarting the entire level. This isn't so bad if the level is short, but it's annoying in long levels.

Ugly

• In the final levels, the game becomes less about solving a puzzle and more about having to click on the exact pixel at the exact frame. This isn't fun, it's tedious.
• In the SNES port, at least one level is unbeatable due to not giving the player enough time to get the lemmings to the exit.

Media

Box Art

• 

  This is the original box art painted by Adrian Powell and used by the Amiga. Most ports use this art work, only with variations on the layout. I love the multitude of lemmings in the background all doing silly things. My favorite art.

• 

  The UK Macintosh art shows a deviant lemming with a pick-axe and a lit stick of TNT with various lemmings falling to their deaths. Kind of disturbing!

• 

  The European Mega Drive box shows a line of lemmings cheerfully jumping off a cliff to their deaths. It's also a bit disturbing.

• 

  The Game Gear box art shows a bunch of copied umbrella lemmings smiling at a single lemming without an umbrella falling to his death. Again, disturbing.

Documentation

• 

  Manual - 3DO - UK/USA.

• 

  Manual - Amiga/Atari ST/MS-DOS - English.

• 

  Manual - Amiga/Atari ST/MS-DOS - Europe.

• 

  Manual - CD-i - Europe.

• 

  Manual - Commodore CDTV - UK/USA.

• 

  Manual - Game Boy Color - USA.

• 

  Manual - Game Gear - USA.

• 

  Manual - Game Gear - Europe.

• 

  Manual - Lynx - USA.

• 

  Manual - Mega Drive - Japan.

• 

  Manual - Master System - Brazil.

• 

  Manual - Master System - Europe.

• 

  Manual - NES - USA.

• 

  Manual - SNES - Australia.

• 

  Manual - SNES - USA.

• 

  Strategy guide - Lemmings: The Official Companion.

Maps

• vgmaps.com/Atlas/PC/index.htm#Lemmings - DOS.
• vgmaps.com/Atlas/NES/index.htm#Lemmings - NES.
• vgmaps.com/Atlas/MasterSystem/index.htm#Lemmings - Sega Master System.

• 

  ZX Spectrum.

Font

The font from the Game Boy port is included in the Video game font collection.

Screenshots

• 

  DOS - Title screen - VGA. Uses an EGA resolution, but only uses 13 of the 16 available colors.

• 

  DOS - Title screen - EGA. Tries to match the VGA palette, but only uses 12 of the 16 available colors.

Fan Art

• 

  Comic by Zac Gorman.

• 

  Fan art by Artbybones.

Videos

Postmortem.

Longplay - Amiga.

Longplay - NES.

Play Online

3DO, CD-ROM2, Game Boy (Europe), Game Boy (Japan), Game Boy (USA), Game Gear, Genesis, Lynx, Macintosh Classic, Master System, MS-DOS, NES (Europe), NES (USA), SNES (Europe), SNES (USA), Super Famicom (Japan), Windows 95

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	The lemmings don't appear to have gender.
Bechdel test?	Fail	Nobody talks in the game.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	There are no human characters.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Download

This is the MS-DOS demo version of Lemmings.

• Download (Info) - Demo.

Credits

Roles	Staff
Programmer	David Jones, Mike Dailly (Amiga, Lynx), Shaun Hollingworth (Archimedes), Brian Watson (Atari ST), Andy Whyte (CD-i), Thomas Mittelmeyer (Commodore 64), Russell Kay (DOS), Taizou Kojima (FM Towns), Gerald Weatherup (Game Boy), Dominic Wood (Game Gear, Master System), Mikio Iwata (Genesis), Brian Watson (Lynx), Chris White (SAM Coupé), Shigetaka Inaba, Hiroaki Atsumi (SNES), Jonathan Dye (ZX Spectrum)
Graphics	Scott Johnston (3DO, Amiga, CD-i, CDTV, DOS, Lynx, ZX Spectrum), Leon van Rooy (Commodore 64), Gerald Weatherup (Game Boy), Mark Knowles (Game Gear, Master System), Hiroshi Ito, Dai Ozawa, Yukio Obayashi, Hiroyuki Karashima, Shigeyuki Asa, Tomomi Sakai (Genesis), Neil Holmes, Doug Holmes (SAM Coupé), Masayuki Aikawa, Atsuki Matsui, Akira Muramoto, Saiju Suzuki, Yukihiro (SNES)
Lemming Animation	Gary Timmons, Mike Dailly (3DO, Amiga, Archimedes, Atari ST, CD-i, CDTV, DOS, ZX Spectrum)
Music and Sound	Brian Johnston, Tim Wright (3DO, Amiga, Atari ST, CD-i, CDTV), Matt Furniss (Archimedes), Jeroen Tel (Commodore 64), Tony Williams (DOS, Lynx), Takashi Ohtani (FM Towns), Keith Tinman (Game Boy), Hirohiko Takayama (Genesis), Craig Turberfield (SAM Coupé), Tomomi Hatakeyama (SNES)
Sound Programmer	Hiroshi Tsukamoto (Genesis), Masaki Komatsu (SNES)

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	Lemmings
Japanese	レミングス	Remingusu	Lemmings

Expansion

A map pack was released titled, Oh No! More Lemmings which included another 100 levels.

Links

         

• codiekitty.com/LEM/index.htm - Fan site.