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Underground > Games & Gameplay >

Lemmings

All Acting Regiment

17:16 / 06.03.06

Possibly the best game concept ever? As in, when your computer breaks and you dig out the old 386, more for a laugh than anything else, and then end up glued to it all night?

a) What's your favourite level/edition/Lemming/type?

b) The game Lemmings generally.

17:58 / 06.03.06

There used to be a DHTML version of Lemmings, not so long ago, but it's been removed on legal advice; see here for details.

However, another version can seemingly be found here, for richer or poorer.

Personally, I was a big fan of two-player lemmings, which I believe may have been the first version. Lemmings 2: The Tribes (I think) was a lot of fun, but tried too hard, if I remember.

I'm so not going down the Lemmings 3D or Lemmings Paintball routes, though.

Baobab Branches and Plastic

08:11 / 07.03.06

Damn you!

I almost got sucked right in there! I loved that game as a kid... I started playing the DHTML version and then time slipped away... and away and away...

14:43 / 07.03.06

Can you believe I've never actually played that game? IN fact, let's see what the fuzz is all about.

18:38 / 07.03.06

Ah-ha... Ah-hahahahahaha! My plan is working!

(Well, to be fair, I'm just happy that I've managed to work out how to post links , so hey.)

I'm glad to be of service and I hope you're enjoying it, DM.

22:22 / 07.03.06

Guys, can you put a bit more into this than "Lemmings is teh cool" please?

All Acting Regiment

08:43 / 08.03.06

Does anyone feel that, like Mario, Lemmings, because of it's simplistic design, perhaps taps into some deep rooted part of our psyche?

Over in the temple somebody mentioned that Mario was about saving the princess from the big ape/big reptile, and how this tied in with archetypes: the princess possibly representing enlightenment (I can't find it at the moment but they explained it a lot better than this).

Maybe in Lemmings the player is the id of the species- a combined group conciousness manifesting in times of dire trouble (the dark, dangerous levels- hell!) to cause evolution (bridge building etc). Do the Lemmings think of themselves as individuals? When actually a force greater than the one is causing them to act in a certain way? And how about the fact that after completing one section they walk straight into another?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:29 / 08.03.06

I think it was E Randy who elsewhere described Pac-Man as being the top "design classic" of video games. I'd use the phrase for Lemmings, too- it's obviously not as iconic, but it's simple, distinctive (in a fairly timeless way), eye-catching- and manages to wring some fairly intense puzzles out of its one-click gameplay. (Incidentally, it looks like the html Lemmings only has the first ten levels, which are pretty much one- or two-skill affairs... please tell me this isn't true! It gets really fun when you have to start mixing and matching).

When I played it at the office last night, reaction was precisely split into "whoah, that's cool, can you send me the link?" and "fucking hell! Lemmings! I used to lose entire nights to that bastard!"

13:49 / 08.03.06

I'd use the phrase for Lemmings, too

I think it was in the 'art' thread, Stoats. What I was trying to get at with the comment about Pac-Man was that all the elements - visuals, sound, controls, play concept - gel together perfectly and are ageless because of their simplicity.

I wouldn't agree that Lemmings is in the same class. Graphics are a product of their time, imo - the characters now look rather ugly, which is a problem with a lot of games that were developed primarily with the Amiga and ST in mind (there seemed to be an unofficial school of visual design at work at the time which was exclusively made up of European developers and created work that was very... well, 'mullet' is the best way I can think to describe it).

I also think Lemmings lets itself down where level design is concerned, but this may just be my memory failing me. I've got the feeling that most of the levels only had one specific solution, and if that's the case then it was a missed opportunity - all those tools, no real freedom in how you went about using them. Is that a fair comment?

17:14 / 08.03.06

That is a fair comment. But there was a certain toolbox element to some levels, too - for every "do it this way or fail" level, there were a few that allowed for little touches of creativity, IIRC.

And the music is something that has stayed with me, especially the Oh Little Town of Bethlehem Remix style tune.

But, as I say, it was the two-player levels that I liked the most - because if you co-operated, you could get all of each of your respective colour's lemmings home, but if both of you were devious, then it got dirty and shirty very quickly. Lemming stealing, blocking, bridging and mining all took on new aspects.

18:09 / 08.03.06

Old games seem cool for old people, that's all I'm going to say.

I'm quite enjoying it...

19:47 / 08.03.06

Now that's just cheeky.

May I direct your attention, DM, to this, which will hopefully aid in understanding the nostalgia that this thread has engendered. If not, it's just fun.

20:03 / 08.03.06

I rest my case.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a nut for Super Mario Brother, River Raid, Pitfall and the such. I was just sayin'

julius has no imagination

06:45 / 07.04.06

Attempting to revive a slightly dead thread here, I guess I've got to agree with DM. 'Old' as in: Old enough to have played games that are now considered old when they were new, if you know what I mean. In other words, I rarely play games that are older than I am; my nostalgia gaming sessions tend to inolve firing up my emulator and playing the original Gameboy version of Tetris, which was the first video game I ever owned. (Of course, a lot of the games I played in those days were old even then, but I knew nothing about games and gaming so they were new and exciting to me, which is what counts...)

So I think the fact that I do play 'retro' games occasionally makes me old in the context of gaming. I'm 22.

(Oh, and by the way, for all those old DOS games that your shiny new XP - or indeed, Mac - refuses to touch: DOSbox runs Lemmings beautifully. No need to get out the 386.)

08:34 / 30.06.06

Maybe in Lemmings the player is the id of the species- a combined group conciousness manifesting in times of dire trouble (the dark, dangerous levels- hell!) to cause evolution (bridge building etc). Do the Lemmings think of themselves as individuals? When actually a force greater than the one is causing them to act in a certain way? And how about the fact that after completing one section they walk straight into another?

That's an interesting thought. Following on from that one could suggest that the game is about the survival imperative as it relates to the individual and the species.

The Lemmings, in their natural state, walk mindlessly ever onward, only stopping when they hit a sheer wall. Even then they just turn around and walk back the way they came.

The Player takes the role of the survival imperative of the species, the drive to keep the Lemmings safe. But safe as a species. Individuals are sacarificed if necessary to ensure that the species/tribe/mob continues.

Ironically though it is only through the use of unique individual Lemmings that the species can be continued.

Another theme running through the game is that, without intelligence and problem-solving skills, a species is doomed to walk blindly into giant mechanical mincing machines.

Ahh, over-analysis. It's mental coffee to me.

All Acting Regiment

08:57 / 30.06.06

I certainly think lemmings, using a group instead of a single character, paved the way for stuff like, oh, I dunno, Syndicate, Starcraft, meh, maybe that's not right.

13:28 / 30.06.06

Well, you could argue that it's not a group per se, but a fluid; look at the way they pour off cliffs. You end up with seperate little drops and large pools. They follow regular, oscillating dynamics, but you can help them help themselves.

By contrast, RTS-type games tend to involve the control of a group of individuals - not an entity that only can exist as a group.