.gif)
Lemmings (video game)
Encyclopedia
Lemmings is a puzzle computer game
developed by DMA Design
(now Rockstar North) and published by Psygnosis in . Originally developed for PC
and Commodore Amiga, Lemmings was one of the most popular computer games of its time, and several gaming magazines gave it some of their highest review scores at the time. The popularity of the game led to development of its numerous ports to other systems, including most recently ports to the PlayStation Portable
, PlayStation 2
, and PlayStation 3
in and , and the creation of several sequels.
The behavior of the creatures in Lemmings is based on the supposed behavior of real lemming
s, who by urban legend
are believed to go on migrations en masse that eventually lead to disaster. The basic objective of the game is to guide lemmings through a number of obstacles to a designated exit. In order to save the required number of lemmings to win, one must determine how to assign a limited number of eight different skills to specific lemmings that allow the selected lemming to alter the landscape, to affect the behavior of other lemmings, or to clear obstacles in order to create a safe passage for the rest of the lemmings.
Lemmings game is divided into a number of levels, grouped into four difficulty levels. Each level comprises both destructible landscape elements
such as rocks, nondestructible sections such as steel plates, and numerous obstacles including chasms, high walls, large drops, pools of water or lava, and booby traps. Each level also includes one or more entrance points and one or more exits. The goal is to guide at least a certain percentage of the green-haired, blue-robed lemmings from the entrance to the exit by clearing or creating a safe passage through the landscape for the lemmings to use. Unless assigned a special task, each lemming will walk in one direction ignoring any other lemming in its way (except "Blockers"), falling off any edges and turning around if they hit an obstacle they cannot pass. They die if they fall from a great height, fall into water or lava or off the map, or get caught in a trap; they also die after being assigned the suicide bomber skill.
To successfully complete the level, the player must assign certain lemmings specific skills. The quantity of skill assignments of each type is generally limited, requiring the player to carefully assign which skills will have to be used in order to successfully guide the lemmings. There are eight skills that can be assigned. Two skills stay with the lemming regardless of how they are reassigned: "Climbers" will climb any vertical surface they hit, and "Floaters" can safely fall off from heights without injury, using umbrellas as parachutes. "Bashers", "Miners", and "Diggers" cause the assigned lemming to dig across, diagonally downward, or directly downward, respectively, through destructible material until they emerge into open air, hit indestructible material, or are reassigned. "Builders" create a rising stairway of up to 12 steps, with audible cues when they are nearly done two steps before finishing, with their task to allow the player to reassign them if a longer stairway is needed. "Blockers" will reverse the direction of all lemmings that hit them, and cannot be reassigned unless first the ground under their feet is removed. (They can be exploded, though.) "Bombers" will continue whatever they were doing prior to assignment, but after 5 seconds (indicated by a countdown timer above their head) they will stop and explode, taking a small chunk out of any destructible environment around them. While the player is able to pause the game to inspect the level and status of the lemmings, skills can only be assigned in real-time.
The lemmings are initially released at a rate predetermined by the level (from 1 to 99), but the player can increase this to a faster rate. If the rate has been increased by the player, the player can decrease the rate down to, but not lower than, the initial rate. The player also has the option to "nuke" all the remaining lemmings on the screen, converting them all to Bombers, either to quickly forfeit in order to retry a level or to remove any Blockers that remain after the rest have been rescued.
The four difficulty groups—"Fun", "Tricky", "Taxing" and "Mayhem"—are used to organize the levels to reflect their overall difficulty. This rating reflects several factors, including the number of obstacles the player has to surpass, the limitation on the number of types of skills available to assign, the minimum rate of lemming release, and the percentage of lemmings that must be saved.
The original Lemmings also has 20 two-player levels. This took advantage of the Amiga's ability to support two mice simultaneously, and the Atari's ability to support a mouse and a joystick simultaneously. Each player is presented with their own view of the same map (on a vertically-split screen), can only give orders to their own lemmings (green or blue), and had their own base. The goal is to get more lemmings (regardless of color) into one's own base than the other player. Gameplay cycles through the 20 levels until neither player gets any lemmings home. The Atari ST
also has a 2-player mode, one player using the keyboard or the joystick, and the other using the mouse.
Two-player levels are also present in the Sega Mega Drive
and Super NES
versions, along with some levels unique to those versions and produced by Sunsoft, their developer; some of these levels were also found in Oh No! More Lemmings
with other designs.
The multiplayer aspect of Lemmings has been incorporated into the variant Clones
which can support up to 16 networked players at once.
and Crackdown
, also has commented on the development and success of Lemmings.
Originally, the concept of the gameplay results as a quick demonstration of being able to create an animated character in a 8x8 pixel box as part of development for Walker, a sequel to Blood Money. Dailly was able to quickly produce an animated graphic showing his creations moving endlessly, with additional graphical improvements made by Gary Timmons other members of the DMA Design team to help remove the stiffness in the animation. One member, Russell Kay, observed that "There's a game in that!", and later coined the term "lemmings" for these creations, according to Dailly. Allowing the creatures to move across the landscape was based on a Salamander weapon concept for Blood Money and demonstrated with the animations.
Levels were designed based on a Deluxe Paint
interface, which allowed several of the members to design levels, resulting in "hundreds of levels". There were several internal iterations of the levels, each designer challenging the others. Dailly pointed out that Dave Jones "used to try and beat us, and after proudly stabbing a finger at the screen and saying 'There! Beat that!', wed calmly point out a totally new way of getting around all his traps, and doing it in a much simpler method. 'Oh...', he'd mutter, and scramble off to try and fix it." They also sent internally-tested levels to Psygnosis, getting back the results of their testing via fax. While most were solved quickly, Dailly commented that "Every now and again though, the fax would be covered in scribbles with the time and comments crossed out again and again; this is what we were striving for while we were designing the levels, and it gave us all a warm fuzzy feeling inside."
Each of the designers had notable features in their levels: Dailly's level names generally clued the player to what to do (such as "It's Hero Time", suggesting a single lemming was to be assigned all necessary skills to open the pathway to the exit for the other lemmings) and generally required the player to perform several actions at once, Gary Timmons's levels were minimal with popular culture references in the title, and Scott Johnston's levels were generally tightly packed. Dailly was also responsible for the "custom" levels based on other Psygnosis and Reflections Interactive
Amiga games, such as Shadow of the Beast
, Menace
, Awesome
, and Shadow of the Beast II.
These "Crossover" levels also used music from those games, though in ports these levels have been removed or altered to remove such references. After they developed most of the hard levels, they then created several simple levels either by copying the existing ones or created new layouts; as Dailly states, "This I believe is where many games fall down today, they do not spend the time making a good learning curve."
Music was created by Tim Wright and Brian Johnston, Scott Johnston's younger brother, and Scott's mother was the first voice of the lemmings. Timmons is credited with the official drawings of the lemmings, as necessitated by the need of Psygnosis for box cover artwork.
The two-player option was inspired by then-present games Populous
and Stunt Car Racer
. They initially wanted to use a null-modem
connection between two machines to allow competitive play, but ended up using the ability of the Amiga to have two mouse pointer devices usable at the same time and thus created the split-screen mode.
and traditional
tunes to avoid copyright problems. Songs in the game included:
A total of 21 songs featured in the game, including one for each of the four "custom" levels based on other Psygnosis games, though these were removed in other ports, as their representation was believed to be against copyright laws.
One of the original songs is re-arrangement of music that was used in an Amiga animation called "Puggs in Space". Psygnosis later used the character from the demo in a game called Puggsy
.
and ST
led to its rapid porting
to many other platforms, and it is considered to be one of the most widely-ported video games of all time.
Known commercial ports of the original game include: 3DO
; Acorn Archimedes
; Amstrad CPC
; Apple IIGS
and Macintosh; Arcade
(prototype only); Lynx; Commodore
64
, Amiga CD32
, and CDTV
systems; MS-DOS
; Hewlett-Packard
HP-48 series; Mobile phone
; Nintendo
's NES
, SNES
, Game Boy
, and Game Boy Color
; OS/2
(demo only); Palm; Philips
CD-i
; SAM Coupé
; Sega
Game Gear
, Master System
and Genesis
; Sinclair Spectrum
; several Texas Instruments
calculators; UIQ
; Pocket PC
and Windows
; TurboGrafx-CD
and Windows Mobile
.
While all ports share the same basic characteristics of the game, there are a number of significant differences, generally related to hardware and control restrictions. This may include how skills are assigned, the number of difficulty levels, the number of lemmings supported on-screen, the individual levels within each port, and exclusion of certain words and levels due to their connotation or legal standing.
General game concepts have been included in variants, such as Pingus
where the player is required to safely guide penguin
s across landscapes using a similar array of tools. Another variant, Clones
, adds internet multiplayer and new game modes to the core gameplay.
In early 2006, Sony released a remake
of Lemmings for the PlayStation Portable
(PSP) handheld console, developed by Team17
. It features all 120 levels from the original game, 36 brand new levels as well as DataPack
support (similar to the Extra Track system featured in Wipeout Pure
), and a "UserLevel" Editor. Every level in the game is a pre-rendered 3D landscape, although their gameplay is still 2D and remains faithful to the original game. UserLevels can be constructed from pre-rendered objects, in a similar manner to unofficial level editor
s such as LemEdit for DOS Lemmings and LemmEd for Amiga Lemmings 2: The Tribes
. UserLevels can be distributed by uploading
them to a PlayStation-specific Lemmings online community
. The soundtrack also marks the final video game score created by longtime composer Tim Follin
after he announced his retirement from the industry in mid-2005. Lemmings for the PSP was warmly received, with a 76/100 average rating at Metacritic
; the primary complaint about the game was the otherwise bare port of the game to yet another system, as commented in the Eurogamer
review, "But we've all done Lemmings at one time or other, there's nothing new about this."
The game was also ported for play on the PlayStation 2
with use of the EyeToy
in October by Rusty Nutz. The basic change in the concept is that the player must stretch and use his/her limbs in the recorded picture to aid the lemmings. This version was also panned by critics, being nothing more than a straight port of the PSP game with the added difficulty of getting the motions correct for the EyeToy, and only received an average Metacritic score of 67/100.
Later, in , Team17 produced a similar remake of Lemmings for the Sony PlayStation 3
for download through the PlayStation Network. The game has the similar graphical improvements as the PSP title, as well as on-line scoreboards and additional levels developed for high-definition display, but lacks the ability to create and share levels as the PSP version offers. The inability to create levels or play competitively online resulted in the game receiving mediocre reviews, with an average Metacritic score of 59/100.
Later in 2007, Lemmings was ported to Nintendo DS
as DS homebrew with use of the touch screen.
It has been confirmed for 2010 that the game will be ported to the iOS operating system by Mobile 1UP. On June 29, 2010, however, Mobile 1UP reported that Sony Computer Entertainment Europe had presented them with a cease-and-desist letter, forcing them to halt development of the port. In April 2011, Mobile 1UP has released a re-worked version of the work done in 2010 with a prehistoric setting (new artwork, sfx, music, levels) under the name Caveman available for iPhone
, iPod Touch
. iPad
(iOS) and Palm Pre
(webOS).
sold 20,000 copies and Blood Money
sold 40,000 copies cumulatively. With all the ports included, it has been estimated that over 15 million copies of Lemmings have been sold since 1991.
Several gaming magazines of the time of its first releases gave Lemmings very high scores, and only the level of graphics and sound received some small amount of criticism. David Sears of Compute!, in his review of Lemmings for the PC, stated that "Perhaps Psygnosis has tapped into the human instinct for survival in formulating this perfect blend of puzzle, strategy, and action." Amiga Computing
stated that "Lemmings is absolutely brilliant. Psygnosis have managed to produce a game that is not only totally original, but also features the kind of addicting gameplay that will keep the player coming back for more time and time again." A review from the Australian Commodore and Amiga Review (ACAR) magazine stated that "Above all, the concept is simple, and the game is a lot of fun."
Lemmings game is considered to be a gaming classic. In their review for the PSP port, GameSpot
identified that "Lemmings is a game-design classic that is as compelling now in its newest iteration on the PlayStation Portable as it was 15 years ago." In , Computer Gaming World
listed Lemmings as the 12th best game of all time out of 150 games. Edge
magazine listed Lemmings as the 82nd top game of all time in a July, list.
Lemmings has also been called a predecessor of the modern real-time strategy (RTS)
video game genre. An Amiga Power
article claims that Lemmings "was the first major game to introduce the 'indirect-control' concept", an element that is now common in many RTS games. As noted more recently by 1UP
, "The biggest difference is that instead of trying to outmaneuver another player's army, you're trying to outwit the level designers' cruel design sensibilities." Lemmings introduction of RTS elements has been noted by author Terry Pratchett
; in his novel Interesting Times
, an army
of golem
s is controlled in a fashion reminiscent of the Lemmings user interface. When readers asked if this was deliberate, Pratchett responded, "Merely because the red army can fight, dig, march and climb and is controlled by little icons? Can't imagine how anyone thought that... Not only did I wipe Lemmings from my hard disk, I overwrote it so's I couldn't get it back."
Personal computer game
A PC game, also known as a computer game, is a video game played on a personal computer, rather than on a video game console or arcade machine...
developed by DMA Design
Rockstar North
Rockstar North is a British video game developer based in Edinburgh, Scotland, best known for creating the Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings franchises in its earlier guise as DMA....
(now Rockstar North) and published by Psygnosis in . Originally developed for PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
and Commodore Amiga, Lemmings was one of the most popular computer games of its time, and several gaming magazines gave it some of their highest review scores at the time. The popularity of the game led to development of its numerous ports to other systems, including most recently ports to the PlayStation Portable
PlayStation Portable
The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...
, PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
, and PlayStation 3
PlayStation 3
The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
in and , and the creation of several sequels.
The behavior of the creatures in Lemmings is based on the supposed behavior of real lemming
Lemming
Lemmings are small rodents, usually found in or near the Arctic, in tundra biomes. They are subniveal animals, and together with voles and muskrats, they make up the subfamily Arvicolinae , which forms part of the largest mammal radiation by far, the superfamily Muroidea, which also includes rats,...
s, who by urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
are believed to go on migrations en masse that eventually lead to disaster. The basic objective of the game is to guide lemmings through a number of obstacles to a designated exit. In order to save the required number of lemmings to win, one must determine how to assign a limited number of eight different skills to specific lemmings that allow the selected lemming to alter the landscape, to affect the behavior of other lemmings, or to clear obstacles in order to create a safe passage for the rest of the lemmings.
Gameplay
Destructible environment
In video games, the term destructible environment, or terrain deformation, refers to an environment within a game which can be wholly or partially destroyed by the player...
such as rocks, nondestructible sections such as steel plates, and numerous obstacles including chasms, high walls, large drops, pools of water or lava, and booby traps. Each level also includes one or more entrance points and one or more exits. The goal is to guide at least a certain percentage of the green-haired, blue-robed lemmings from the entrance to the exit by clearing or creating a safe passage through the landscape for the lemmings to use. Unless assigned a special task, each lemming will walk in one direction ignoring any other lemming in its way (except "Blockers"), falling off any edges and turning around if they hit an obstacle they cannot pass. They die if they fall from a great height, fall into water or lava or off the map, or get caught in a trap; they also die after being assigned the suicide bomber skill.
To successfully complete the level, the player must assign certain lemmings specific skills. The quantity of skill assignments of each type is generally limited, requiring the player to carefully assign which skills will have to be used in order to successfully guide the lemmings. There are eight skills that can be assigned. Two skills stay with the lemming regardless of how they are reassigned: "Climbers" will climb any vertical surface they hit, and "Floaters" can safely fall off from heights without injury, using umbrellas as parachutes. "Bashers", "Miners", and "Diggers" cause the assigned lemming to dig across, diagonally downward, or directly downward, respectively, through destructible material until they emerge into open air, hit indestructible material, or are reassigned. "Builders" create a rising stairway of up to 12 steps, with audible cues when they are nearly done two steps before finishing, with their task to allow the player to reassign them if a longer stairway is needed. "Blockers" will reverse the direction of all lemmings that hit them, and cannot be reassigned unless first the ground under their feet is removed. (They can be exploded, though.) "Bombers" will continue whatever they were doing prior to assignment, but after 5 seconds (indicated by a countdown timer above their head) they will stop and explode, taking a small chunk out of any destructible environment around them. While the player is able to pause the game to inspect the level and status of the lemmings, skills can only be assigned in real-time.
The lemmings are initially released at a rate predetermined by the level (from 1 to 99), but the player can increase this to a faster rate. If the rate has been increased by the player, the player can decrease the rate down to, but not lower than, the initial rate. The player also has the option to "nuke" all the remaining lemmings on the screen, converting them all to Bombers, either to quickly forfeit in order to retry a level or to remove any Blockers that remain after the rest have been rescued.
The four difficulty groups—"Fun", "Tricky", "Taxing" and "Mayhem"—are used to organize the levels to reflect their overall difficulty. This rating reflects several factors, including the number of obstacles the player has to surpass, the limitation on the number of types of skills available to assign, the minimum rate of lemming release, and the percentage of lemmings that must be saved.
Two-player mode
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...
also has a 2-player mode, one player using the keyboard or the joystick, and the other using the mouse.
Two-player levels are also present in the Sega Mega Drive
Sega Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis is a fourth-generation video game console developed and produced by Sega. It was originally released in Japan in 1988 as , then in North America in 1989 as Sega Genesis, and in Europe, Australia and other PAL regions in 1990 as Mega Drive. The reason for the two names is that...
and Super NES
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...
versions, along with some levels unique to those versions and produced by Sunsoft, their developer; some of these levels were also found in Oh No! More Lemmings
Oh No! More Lemmings
Oh No! More Lemmings is a computer game expansion to the Psygnosis game Lemmings. Sometimes referred to as the "data disk", it contains 100 unique single-player levels and six new music tracks. The Amiga version also includes 10 two-player levels...
with other designs.
The multiplayer aspect of Lemmings has been incorporated into the variant Clones
CLONES
Clones is a puzzle/real-time strategy for the Windows platform, released on November 18, 2010 on the digital distribution network Steam. Clones was created by independent game developer Tomkorp Computer Solutions as their first game...
which can support up to 16 networked players at once.
Development
Mike Dailly, the first employee of DMA Design and one of the programmers for Lemmings, has provided a detailed history of the development of Lemmings entitled "The Lemmings Story". Dave Jones, founder of DMA Design and more recently, developer of Grand Theft AutoGrand Theft Auto (series)
Grand Theft Auto is a multi-award-winning British video game series created in the United Kingdom by Dave Jones, then later by brothers Dan Houser and Sam Houser, and game designer Zachary Clarke. It is primarily developed by Edinburgh based Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games...
and Crackdown
Crackdown
Crackdown is an open world, third-person shooter video game for the Xbox 360. It was released in North America on February 20, 2007, and worldwide by February 23, 2007. Crackdown was developed by Realtime Worlds, and distributed by Microsoft Game Studios. It was conceived by Realtime Worlds...
, also has commented on the development and success of Lemmings.
Levels were designed based on a Deluxe Paint
Deluxe Paint
Deluxe Paint is a bitmap graphics editor series originally created by Dan Silva for Electronic Arts .The original version was created for the Commodore Amiga and was released in November 1985...
interface, which allowed several of the members to design levels, resulting in "hundreds of levels". There were several internal iterations of the levels, each designer challenging the others. Dailly pointed out that Dave Jones "used to try and beat us, and after proudly stabbing a finger at the screen and saying 'There! Beat that!', wed calmly point out a totally new way of getting around all his traps, and doing it in a much simpler method. 'Oh...', he'd mutter, and scramble off to try and fix it." They also sent internally-tested levels to Psygnosis, getting back the results of their testing via fax. While most were solved quickly, Dailly commented that "Every now and again though, the fax would be covered in scribbles with the time and comments crossed out again and again; this is what we were striving for while we were designing the levels, and it gave us all a warm fuzzy feeling inside."
Each of the designers had notable features in their levels: Dailly's level names generally clued the player to what to do (such as "It's Hero Time", suggesting a single lemming was to be assigned all necessary skills to open the pathway to the exit for the other lemmings) and generally required the player to perform several actions at once, Gary Timmons's levels were minimal with popular culture references in the title, and Scott Johnston's levels were generally tightly packed. Dailly was also responsible for the "custom" levels based on other Psygnosis and Reflections Interactive
Reflections Interactive
Ubisoft Reflections Ltd., formerly known as Reflections Interactive, is a video game developer based in Newcastle, United Kingdom. The studio focuses on racing games and it is best known for creating the award winning Driver series.-History:...
Amiga games, such as Shadow of the Beast
Shadow of the Beast
Shadow of the Beast is a side-scrolling platform computer game produced by Reflections Interactive and published by Psygnosis in 1989. The original version was released for the Commodore Amiga, but the game has been ported to many other systems...
, Menace
Menace (video game)
Menace is a horizontal scrolling shooter game developed by DMA Design for the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and DOS.-Story:Taking place in an alien galaxy, a group of planetary dictators are banished from their home planets for their megalomaniac crimes and rally together to plot their revenge...
, Awesome
Awesome (video game)
Awesome is a science fiction action video game released by Psygnosis for the Amiga and Atari ST in 1990. It features a variety of gameplay styles, from overhead shooting to Asteroids-esque sequences, and a pre-rendered ray-traced intro sequence...
, and Shadow of the Beast II.
These "Crossover" levels also used music from those games, though in ports these levels have been removed or altered to remove such references. After they developed most of the hard levels, they then created several simple levels either by copying the existing ones or created new layouts; as Dailly states, "This I believe is where many games fall down today, they do not spend the time making a good learning curve."
Music was created by Tim Wright and Brian Johnston, Scott Johnston's younger brother, and Scott's mother was the first voice of the lemmings. Timmons is credited with the official drawings of the lemmings, as necessitated by the need of Psygnosis for box cover artwork.
The two-player option was inspired by then-present games Populous
Populous
-External links:*...
and Stunt Car Racer
Stunt Car Racer
Stunt Car Racer is a racing video game developed by Geoff Crammond and was published by MicroStyle in 1989...
. They initially wanted to use a null-modem
Null modem
Null modem is a communication method to connect two DTEs directly using an RS-232 serial cable. The name stems from the historical use of the RS-232 cable to connect two teleprinter devices to modems in order to communicate with one another; null modem communication was possible by instead using...
connection between two machines to allow competitive play, but ended up using the ability of the Amiga to have two mouse pointer devices usable at the same time and thus created the split-screen mode.
Music
When Lemmings was originally developed, all of the music was written by Brian Johnston. Johnston liberally sampled bits of copyrighted music. This had been common practice, but at that point there was a growing awareness of music copyright. Psygnosis asked Tim Wright to replace the offending tracks, who often used arrangements and reworkings of classicalClassical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
and traditional
Traditional music
Traditional music is the term increasingly used for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. More on this is at the terminology section of the World music article...
tunes to avoid copyright problems. Songs in the game included:
- "The Galop from Orpheus in the Underworld" (the music by Jacques OffenbachJacques OffenbachJacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
often used for the can-canCan-canThe can-can is a high-energy and physically demanding music hall dance, traditionally performed by a chorus line of female dancers who wear costumes with long skirts, petticoats, and black stockings...
) - "Rondo alla Turca" (from Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 11Piano Sonata No. 11 (Mozart)Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, K 331 is a sonata in three movements:#Andante grazioso — a theme with six variations#Menuetto — a minuet and trio#Alla Turca: Allegretto in A minor and major....
) - "Dance of the Reed Flutes" (from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite)
- "Dance of the Little SwansDanse des petits cygnesDanse des petits cygnes is a famous dance from the ballet Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky, from the ballet’s second act, the fourth movement of the No. 13 piece, but has become synonymous with the choreography by Lev Ivanov...
" (from Tchaikovsky's Swan LakeSwan LakeSwan Lake ballet, op. 20, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composed 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger...
) - "Twang" - A song that uses melodies from traditional song "Ten Green BottlesTen Green BottlesTen Green Bottles is a song for children that is popular in the United Kingdom. In essence the song is a single verse repeated, each time with one bottle fewer:...
", Chopin's funeral march and Wagner's "Here Comes the BrideBridal ChorusThe "Bridal Chorus" "Treulich geführt", from the 1850 opera Lohengrin, by German composer Richard Wagner, is a march played for the bride's entrance at many formal weddings throughout the Western world...
". - "London Bridge is Falling DownLondon Bridge is Falling Down"London Bridge Is Falling Down" is a well-known traditional nursery rhyme and singing game, which is found in different versions all over the world. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 502.-Lyrics:...
" - The English folk tune "Forest Green" which has been adapted into the hymn "All Beautiful the March of Days" and the carol "O Little Town of BethlehemO Little Town of Bethlehem"O Little Town of Bethlehem" is a popular Christmas carol. The text was written by Phillips Brooks , an Episcopal priest, Rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia. He was inspired by visiting the Palestinian city of Bethlehem in 1865. Three years later, he wrote the poem for his...
", mixed with the melody from the movie The Good, the Bad and the UglyThe Good, the Bad and the UglyThe Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a 1966 Italian epic spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach in the title roles. The screenplay was written by Age & Scarpelli, Luciano Vincenzoni and Leone, based on a story by Vincenzoni and Leone... - "She'll Be Coming 'Round the MountainShe'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain"She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain" is an American folk song often categorized as children's music. It is a derivation of a Negro spiritual known as "When the Chariot Comes"....
" - "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?" That Doggie in the Window?" is a popular novelty song written by Bob Merrill and Ingrid Reuterskiöld in 1952. The best-known version of the song was recorded by Patti Page on December 18, 1952 and released by Mercury Records as catalog number 70070, with the flip side being "My Jealous Eyes". It...
" - Exclusive to the Sega Master SystemSega Master SystemThe is a third-generation video game console that was manufactured and released by Sega in 1985 in Japan , 1986 in North America and 1987 in Europe....
and Game Gear versions are adaptations of:- "Miniature Overture" (first encountered in Fun 14)
- "Scotland the BraveScotland the Brave"Scotland the Brave" is a Scottish patriotic song. It was one of several songs considered an unofficial national anthem of Scotland.Scotland the Brave is also the authorised pipe band march of The British Columbia Dragoons of the Canadian Forces, and is played during the Pass in Review at Friday...
" (first encountered in Fun 15) - "My Old Man (Said Follow the Van)" (first encountered in Fun 17).
A total of 21 songs featured in the game, including one for each of the four "custom" levels based on other Psygnosis games, though these were removed in other ports, as their representation was believed to be against copyright laws.
One of the original songs is re-arrangement of music that was used in an Amiga animation called "Puggs in Space". Psygnosis later used the character from the demo in a game called Puggsy
Puggsy
Puggsy is a 1993 platform/puzzle game, designed by Traveller's Tales and released by Psygnosis on the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and Sega Mega CD/Sega CD consoles, and the Amiga computer...
.
Ports
The popularity of the game on the AmigaAmiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
and ST
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...
led to its rapid porting
Porting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
to many other platforms, and it is considered to be one of the most widely-ported video games of all time.
Known commercial ports of the original game include: 3DO
3DO Interactive Multiplayer
The 3DO Interactive Multiplayer is a video game console originally produced by Panasonic in 1993. Further renditions of the hardware were released in 1994 by Sanyo and Goldstar. The consoles were manufactured according to specifications created by The 3DO Company, and were originally designed by...
; Acorn Archimedes
Acorn Archimedes
The Acorn Archimedes was Acorn Computers Ltd's first general purpose home computer to be based on their own ARM architecture.Using a RISC design with a 32-bit CPU, at its launch in June 1987, the Archimedes was stated as running at 4 MIPS, with a claim of 18 MIPS during tests.The name is commonly...
; Amstrad CPC
Amstrad CPC
The Amstrad CPC is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, where it successfully established itself primarily in the United Kingdom,...
; Apple IIGS
Apple IIGS
The Apple , the fifth and most powerful model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The "GS" in the name stands for Graphics and Sound, referring to its enhanced graphics and sound capabilities, both of which greatly surpassed previous models of the line...
and Macintosh; Arcade
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
(prototype only); Lynx; Commodore
Commodore International
Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore Business Machines , the U.S.-based home computer manufacturer and electronics manufacturer headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which also housed Commodore's corporate parent company, Commodore International Limited...
64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
, Amiga CD32
Amiga CD32
The Amiga CD32, styled "CD32" , was the first 32-bit CD-ROM based video game console released in western Europe, Australia, Canada and Brazil. It was first announced at the Science Museum in London, United Kingdom on 16 July 1993, and was released in September of the same year...
, and CDTV
CDTV
The CDTV was a multimedia platform developed by Commodore International and launched in 1991. On a technological level it was essentially a Commodore Amiga 500 home computer in a Hi-Fi style case with a single-speed CD-ROM drive. Commodore marketed the machine as an all-in-one home multimedia...
systems; MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
; Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
HP-48 series; Mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
; Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
's NES
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
, SNES
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...
, Game Boy
Game Boy
The , is an 8-bit handheld video game device developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America in , and in Europe on...
, and Game Boy Color
Game Boy Color
The is Nintendo's successor to the 8-bit Game Boy handheld game console, and was released on October 21, 1998 in Japan, November 19, 1998 in North America, November 23, 1998 in Europe and November 27, 1998 in the United Kingdom. It features a color screen and is slightly thicker and taller than...
; OS/2
OS/2
OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal...
(demo only); Palm; Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
CD-i
CD-i
CD-i, or Compact Disc Interactive, is the name of an interactive multimedia CD player developed and marketed by Royal Philips Electronics N.V. CD-i also refers to the multimedia Compact Disc standard used by the CD-i console, also known as Green Book, which was developed by Philips and Sony...
; SAM Coupé
SAM Coupé
The SAM Coupé is an 8-bit British home computer that was first released in late 1989. It is commonly considered a clone of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer, since it features a compatible screen mode and emulated compatibility, and it was marketed as a logical upgrade from the Spectrum...
; Sega
Sega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
Game Gear
Sega Game Gear
The was Sega's first handheld game console. It was the third commercially available color handheld console, after the Atari Lynx and the TurboExpress....
, Master System
Sega Master System
The is a third-generation video game console that was manufactured and released by Sega in 1985 in Japan , 1986 in North America and 1987 in Europe....
and Genesis
Sega Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis is a fourth-generation video game console developed and produced by Sega. It was originally released in Japan in 1988 as , then in North America in 1989 as Sega Genesis, and in Europe, Australia and other PAL regions in 1990 as Mega Drive. The reason for the two names is that...
; Sinclair Spectrum
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...
; several Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology...
calculators; UIQ
UIQ
UIQ by UIQ Technology is a software platform based upon Symbian OS. Essentially this is a graphical user interface layer that provides additional components to the core OS, to enable the development of feature-rich mobile phones that are open to expanded capabilities through third-party...
; Pocket PC
Pocket PC
A Pocket PC is also known by Microsoft as a 'Windows Mobile Classic device'. It is a hardware specification for a handheld-sized computer, personal digital assistant , that runs the Microsoft 'Windows Mobile Classic' operating system...
and Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
; TurboGrafx-CD
TurboGrafx-16
TurboGrafx-16, fully titled as TurboGrafx-16 Entertainment SuperSystem and known in Japan as the , is a video game console developed by Hudson Soft and NEC, released in Japan on October 30, 1987, and in North America on August 29, 1989....
and Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...
.
While all ports share the same basic characteristics of the game, there are a number of significant differences, generally related to hardware and control restrictions. This may include how skills are assigned, the number of difficulty levels, the number of lemmings supported on-screen, the individual levels within each port, and exclusion of certain words and levels due to their connotation or legal standing.
Pingus (video game)
Pingus is a free, open source computer game inspired by Lemmings and created by Ingo Ruhnke. It features penguins instead of lemmings. It has been reviewed favorably by CNN.com, about.com, Unix Review, and other publications.-History:...
where the player is required to safely guide penguin
Penguin
Penguins are a group of aquatic, flightless birds living almost exclusively in the southern hemisphere, especially in Antarctica. Highly adapted for life in the water, penguins have countershaded dark and white plumage, and their wings have become flippers...
s across landscapes using a similar array of tools. Another variant, Clones
CLONES
Clones is a puzzle/real-time strategy for the Windows platform, released on November 18, 2010 on the digital distribution network Steam. Clones was created by independent game developer Tomkorp Computer Solutions as their first game...
, adds internet multiplayer and new game modes to the core gameplay.
In early 2006, Sony released a remake
Enhanced remake
A video game remake is a game closely adapted from an earlier title, usually for the purpose of modernizing a game for newer hardware and contemporary audiences. Typically, a remake shares essentially the same title, fundamental gameplay concepts, and story elements of the original game...
of Lemmings for the PlayStation Portable
PlayStation Portable
The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...
(PSP) handheld console, developed by Team17
Team17
Team17 Software Ltd. is a video game company best known for developing the Worms series of games , but it has made many other games, notably Superfrog and the Alien Breed series. Most of its early releases were on the Amiga home computer system and featured trademark smooth scrolling, and detailed...
. It features all 120 levels from the original game, 36 brand new levels as well as DataPack
Expansion pack
An expansion pack, expansion set, or supplement is an addition to an existing role-playing game, tabletop game or video game. These add-ons usually add new game areas, weapons, objects, and/or an extended storyline to a complete and already released game...
support (similar to the Extra Track system featured in Wipeout Pure
Wipeout Pure
Wipeout Pure is a 2005 video game in the Wipeout series for the PlayStation Portable. The game was released simultaneously with the release of the PSP during its North American launch. The developers expressed a desire to return to the handling of Wipeout 2097 and to make various changes to the...
), and a "UserLevel" Editor. Every level in the game is a pre-rendered 3D landscape, although their gameplay is still 2D and remains faithful to the original game. UserLevels can be constructed from pre-rendered objects, in a similar manner to unofficial level editor
Level editor
A level editor is a software tool used to design levels, maps, campaigns, etc and virtual worlds for a video game. In some cases the creator of a video game releases an official level editor for a game, but other times the community of fans step in to fill the void...
s such as LemEdit for DOS Lemmings and LemmEd for Amiga Lemmings 2: The Tribes
Lemmings 2: The Tribes
Lemmings 2: The Tribes, a computer game released in 1993, is the first real sequel to the popular puzzle game Lemmings. As with the original, it was developed by DMA Design and published by Psygnosis...
. UserLevels can be distributed by uploading
Uploading and downloading
In computer networks, to download means to receive data to a local system from a remote system, or to initiate such a data transfer. Examples of a remote system from which a download might be performed include a webserver, FTP server, email server, or other similar systems...
them to a PlayStation-specific Lemmings online community
Virtual community
A virtual community is a social network of individuals who interact through specific media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals...
. The soundtrack also marks the final video game score created by longtime composer Tim Follin
Tim Follin
Timothy John Follin is a former video game music composer who has written tracks for a variety of titles and home gaming systems, including the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, NES, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, Dreamcast and PlayStation.Follin's early 8- and 16-bit...
after he announced his retirement from the industry in mid-2005. Lemmings for the PSP was warmly received, with a 76/100 average rating at Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
; the primary complaint about the game was the otherwise bare port of the game to yet another system, as commented in the Eurogamer
Eurogamer
Eurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...
review, "But we've all done Lemmings at one time or other, there's nothing new about this."
The game was also ported for play on the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
with use of the EyeToy
EyeToy
The EyeToy is a color digital camera device, similar to a webcam, for the PlayStation 2. The technology uses computer vision and Gesture recognition to process images taken by the camera...
in October by Rusty Nutz. The basic change in the concept is that the player must stretch and use his/her limbs in the recorded picture to aid the lemmings. This version was also panned by critics, being nothing more than a straight port of the PSP game with the added difficulty of getting the motions correct for the EyeToy, and only received an average Metacritic score of 67/100.
Later, in , Team17 produced a similar remake of Lemmings for the Sony PlayStation 3
PlayStation 3
The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
for download through the PlayStation Network. The game has the similar graphical improvements as the PSP title, as well as on-line scoreboards and additional levels developed for high-definition display, but lacks the ability to create and share levels as the PSP version offers. The inability to create levels or play competitively online resulted in the game receiving mediocre reviews, with an average Metacritic score of 59/100.
Later in 2007, Lemmings was ported to Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
as DS homebrew with use of the touch screen.
It has been confirmed for 2010 that the game will be ported to the iOS operating system by Mobile 1UP. On June 29, 2010, however, Mobile 1UP reported that Sony Computer Entertainment Europe had presented them with a cease-and-desist letter, forcing them to halt development of the port. In April 2011, Mobile 1UP has released a re-worked version of the work done in 2010 with a prehistoric setting (new artwork, sfx, music, levels) under the name Caveman available for iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
, iPod Touch
IPod Touch
The iPod Touch is a portable media player, personal digital assistant, handheld game console, and Wi-Fi mobile device designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The iPod Touch adds the multi-touch graphical user interface to the iPod line...
. iPad
IPad
The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
(iOS) and Palm Pre
Palm Pre
The Palm Pre is a multimedia smartphone designed and marketed by Palm with a multi-touch screen and a sliding keyboard. The smartphone was the first to use Palm's Linux based mobile operating system, webOS...
(webOS).
Reception
The original sales for Lemmings on the Amiga topped 55,000 copies on the first day of sales; in comparison, MenaceMenace (video game)
Menace is a horizontal scrolling shooter game developed by DMA Design for the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and DOS.-Story:Taking place in an alien galaxy, a group of planetary dictators are banished from their home planets for their megalomaniac crimes and rally together to plot their revenge...
sold 20,000 copies and Blood Money
Blood Money (computer game)
Blood Money is a scrolling shooter game developed by DMA Design for the Amiga, Commodore 64, Atari ST and IBM PC compatibles . It was released on January 6, 1989 and published by Psygnosis.-Gameplay:...
sold 40,000 copies cumulatively. With all the ports included, it has been estimated that over 15 million copies of Lemmings have been sold since 1991.
Several gaming magazines of the time of its first releases gave Lemmings very high scores, and only the level of graphics and sound received some small amount of criticism. David Sears of Compute!, in his review of Lemmings for the PC, stated that "Perhaps Psygnosis has tapped into the human instinct for survival in formulating this perfect blend of puzzle, strategy, and action." Amiga Computing
Amiga Computing
Amiga Computing was a monthly computer magazine of a serious nature, published by Europress and IDG in both the UK and USA. A total of 117 issues came out. The games section was called Gamer, although later Amiga Action was incorporated into the magazine and became the games section.- External...
stated that "Lemmings is absolutely brilliant. Psygnosis have managed to produce a game that is not only totally original, but also features the kind of addicting gameplay that will keep the player coming back for more time and time again." A review from the Australian Commodore and Amiga Review (ACAR) magazine stated that "Above all, the concept is simple, and the game is a lot of fun."
Lemmings game is considered to be a gaming classic. In their review for the PSP port, GameSpot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
identified that "Lemmings is a game-design classic that is as compelling now in its newest iteration on the PlayStation Portable as it was 15 years ago." In , Computer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World was a computer game magazine founded in 1981 by Russell Sipe as a bimonthly publication. Early issues were typically 40-50 pages in length, written in a newsletter style, including submissions by game designers such as Joel Billings , Dan Bunten , and Chris Crawford...
listed Lemmings as the 12th best game of all time out of 150 games. Edge
Edge (magazine)
Edge is a multi-format computer and video game magazine published by Future Publishing in the United Kingdom. It is known for its industry contacts, editorial stance, distinctive anonymous third-person writing style, yearly awards and longevity....
magazine listed Lemmings as the 82nd top game of all time in a July, list.
Lemmings has also been called a predecessor of the modern real-time strategy (RTS)
Real-time strategy
Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....
video game genre. An Amiga Power
Amiga Power
Amiga Power was a monthly magazine about Amiga computer games. It was published in the United Kingdom by Future Publishing, and ran for 65 issues, from May 1991 to September 1996....
article claims that Lemmings "was the first major game to introduce the 'indirect-control' concept", an element that is now common in many RTS games. As noted more recently by 1UP
1UP.com
1UP.com is a video game website owned by IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corporation. Previously, the site was owned by Ziff Davis before being sold to UGO Entertainment in 2009....
, "The biggest difference is that instead of trying to outmaneuver another player's army, you're trying to outwit the level designers' cruel design sensibilities." Lemmings introduction of RTS elements has been noted by author Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...
; in his novel Interesting Times
Interesting Times
Interesting Times is the seventeenth novel in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett.The opening lines explain that the title refers to the phrase "may you live in interesting times".-Plot summary:...
, an army
Terracotta Army
The Terracotta Army or the "Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses", is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China...
of golem
Golem
In Jewish folklore, a golem is an animated anthropomorphic being, created entirely from inanimate matter. The word was used to mean an amorphous, unformed material in Psalms and medieval writing....
s is controlled in a fashion reminiscent of the Lemmings user interface. When readers asked if this was deliberate, Pratchett responded, "Merely because the red army can fight, dig, march and climb and is controlled by little icons? Can't imagine how anyone thought that... Not only did I wipe Lemmings from my hard disk, I overwrote it so's I couldn't get it back."
Sequels
Lemmings has inspired a number of sequels, some which have modified the core gameplay but still involve the use of lemming skills to rescue lemmings:- Xmas LemmingsXmas LemmingsChristmas Lemmings is a series of short computer games released between 1991 and 1994, based on the original Lemmings game released in 1991...
and Oh No! More LemmingsOh No! More LemmingsOh No! More Lemmings is a computer game expansion to the Psygnosis game Lemmings. Sometimes referred to as the "data disk", it contains 100 unique single-player levels and six new music tracks. The Amiga version also includes 10 two-player levels...
contain the same gameplay as Lemmings but provide a new set of levels to the player. - Lemmings 2: The TribesLemmings 2: The TribesLemmings 2: The Tribes, a computer game released in 1993, is the first real sequel to the popular puzzle game Lemmings. As with the original, it was developed by DMA Design and published by Psygnosis...
introduces several new types of skills that can be assigned to the lemmings in addition to new levels. Similarly All New World of LemmingsAll New World of LemmingsAll New World of Lemmings is a computer game released in 1994, as the third game in the popular Lemmings puzzle game series. In North America, the game was named The Lemmings Chronicles...
(The Lemmings Chronicles in North America) alters some of the core mechanics of gameplay by reducing the number of key skills and adding other mechanics more typical of a two-dimensional platformerPlatform gameA platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...
. - 3D Lemmings3D Lemmings3D Lemmings is a computer game released in 1995, developed by Clockwork Games and published by Psygnosis. The gameplay, like the original Lemmings game, requires the player to lead all the lemmings to their exit by giving them the appropriate "skills". It was the first Lemmings game to be rendered...
brought the game into the third dimension with skills to take advantage of the additional dimension. - Lemmings RevolutionLemmings RevolutionLemmings Revolution is a puzzle computer game released in 2000. Like previous games in the Lemmings series, the object of the game is to guide the lemmings characters to an exit by giving them specific skills...
returned to the original's 2D gameplay and core skillset and mechanics, but featured pseudo-3D graphics, and some of the platformer mechanics originally introduced by All New World of Lemmings.
Spinoffs
Two spinoffs were made with drastically different general gameplay:- Lemmings PaintballLemmings PaintballLemmings Paintball is a game from the Lemmings franchise made by Visual Science and published by Psygnosis. The game was released in 1996.-Summary:...
is an isometricIsometric projectionIsometric projection is a method for visually representing three-dimensional objects in two dimensions in technical and engineering drawings...
action game where the player takes part in a lemmings paintballPaintballPaintball is a sport in which players compete, in teams or individually, to eliminate opponents by tagging them with capsules containing water soluble dye and gelatin shell outside propelled from a device called a paintball marker . Paintballs have a non-toxic, biodegradable, water soluble...
match. - The Adventures of LomaxThe Adventures of LomaxThe Adventures of Lomax is a spin-off video game of the Lemmings series. The player takes the role of Lomax, a lemming character that has to save his friends and animals from an evil doctor. The game was released for the PlayStation and Windows in 1996...
is a side-scrolling platformerPlatform gameA platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...
where the player controls one lemming named Lomax to save other lemmings.
External links
- The Lemmings Encyclopedia — Information and screenshot solutions for many Lemmings games
- Lemmings Universe — Lemmings information, pictures, news, and walkthroughs
- Lemmings Ports — Informational blog on most Lemmings game ports
- Lemmings demo — Free download (4 levels only)
- Lemmix - a free Lemmings clone Works in Windows; also operating systems that run WineWine (software)Wine is a free software application that aims to allow computer programs written for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems. Wine also provides a software library, known as Winelib, against which developers can compile Windows applications to help port them to Unix-like...
- HTML5 Lemmings - clone of Lemmings written entirely in HTML, CSS and JavaScript
- Tim Wright aka. CoLD SToRAGE Homepage - Homepage of the musician Tim Wright who composed many of the tunes in the original game