Lemmings

North American Amiga box art.

Lemmings, known in Japan as レミングス [Remingusu], is an action puzzle game developed by DMA Design Limited and published by Psygnosis Limited for the Amiga in 1991, and later ported to dozens of other platforms.

I got a copy of Lemmings for DOS around 1993 because it came bundled with a piece of hardware. I think it was my Sound Blaster 2, but I'm not positive. I played through all 30 Fun levels and started on the Tricky levels, but got bored with it, but I really enjoyed the custom DOS music for the game.

I'm not sure where my disk went, but I do remember the game had a verification mechanism where it required the original disk to be in the diskette drive to play, and copies of the disk wouldn't work. 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.

Status

I do not own the game and I have not beaten the game.

Review

• Overall: 5/10
• Best Version: Not sure.

Good

• The background graphics look amazing, and the lemming animations are great.
• Despite most of the music being arrangements of children's songs, they're pretty good, and the original music is great.
• The point-and-click interface is great.
• Some later stages use the same map, but give you a limited set of lemmings 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.

Bad

• The instruments used in the Amiga version are really obnoxious.

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 second. This isn't fun, it's tedious.

Box Art

• 

  This is the original box art 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

• Lemmings - Manual.pdf

  Game manual for Amiga, Atari ST, and DOS.

• Lemmings - CDTV - Manual.pdf

  Game manual for CDTV.

• Lemmings - NES - Manual.pdf

  Game manual for NES.

• Lemmings - SNES - Manual.pdf

  Game manual for SNES.

• Lemmings - GG - Manual.pdf

  Game manual for Game Gear.

• 

  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.

Gallery

• 

  Comic by Zac Gorman.

• 

  Fan art by Artbybones.

Links

• mobygames.com/game/lemmings - MobyGames.
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmings_(video_game) - Wikipedia.
• codiekitty.com/LEM/index.htm - Fan site.