The Making of Lemmings (2015) | Hacker News Reader

The Making of Lemmings (2015)

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I wish they would sell the old games as-is on GOG. There are a couple of recentish commercial games that try to use a similar design: Sprits is the better one IMO and MouseCraft is also somewhat similar.

https://playism.com/product/spirits

https://www.spacesofplay.com/spirits

https://www.gog.com/game/mousecraft

There are also several open source clones:

https://osgameclones.com/

The one I've played (a while ago) is Pingus, which was good IIRC.

https://pingus.seul.org/

Thanks for the recommendations! I already played Spirits, it's really nicely done, adds something original and works well with a touch interface. Of course I also tried Pingus, but while it's a perfectly competent Lemmings clone, when you play it you realise that Lemmings was about more than the novel concept - the whole package of animation, music, sound effects, the humour etc. was far more compelling than in Pingus (for my taste of course).

I would also add "World of Goo" to the list, in case anybody missed it.

I remember some of the art was quite nice and I agree that the whole package worked really well. I remember the Christmas themed Holiday Lemmings being really well done and the full games had a lot of nice artwork also (the second one had a bunch of different environments with somewhat different mechanics; I remember the space lemmings for some reason).

I haven't tried World of Goo, thanks for the recommendation!

Sony is the current rights holder. They apparently have no interest in putting it up there, making any new games with the IP, or selling it (Mike Dailly, one of the original creators, has tried to buy it back).

There is this as well:

  https://www.elizium.nu/scripts/lemmings/

A very faithful browser based reimplementation of the original.

Readers might be interested in the fan-made remakes, some intended as faithful recreations of the old games running on modern systems (Lemmix), and some geared towards loading custom levels with enhancements like the ability to framestep (forwards--SuperLemmini-- and backwards!--NeoLemmix) of the underground Lemmings scene.

I always found it remarkable that a small regional studio like DMA could come out with two of the most important video games ever made (Lemmings and GTA).

DMA were based in Dundee and there's lemming sculptures in the town:

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g186518-d126...

I’d love to see the little lemmings statues, but I haven’t been to Dundee in ages :-( They relocated to Edinburgh at some point before GTA3, I don’t think there’s any GTA sculptures there but theres plenty of Edinburgh references. The “leaf links” golf course (Leith Links, a park), Calton Heights (based on Calton Hill), Grove Street (street in Fountainbridge, where I lived when GTA:SA was released!) and plenty more besides

Ah, Lemmings... one of my favourite games of all time! It's rare that you get to play a game that defines a whole new genre.

One interesting tidbit I didn't read about before was that the music that made it into the game was actually a last-minute stopgap after they noticed that the original tracks could get them into legal trouble. For that, the music was amazingly good (at least on the Amiga)! Makes you realise there were some really talented people working on this game...

Also worth a read is Mike Dailly’s own account: http://www.javalemmings.com/DMA/Lem_1.htm

That's a blast from the past! I was also a regular at the Kingsway Amateur Computer Club in those days (and club secretary for a while). I remember being impressed by some of the demos of "The Game With No Name". I was a bit older than these guys though, and more interested in "serious" computing, but the connections I made through that club also helped kick off my computing career (academic/telecoms/finance).

The Digital Antiquarian is also worth reading on the history of Lemmings:

https://www.filfre.net/2017/10/games-on-the-mersey-part-5-th...

> You apply one of eight abilities to the lemmings, which all have obvious uses but can also follow on and interrupt each other to offer new possibilities.

This is a really good point. Lemmings was one of the earliest examples of real-time emergent gameplay based on a handful of simple rules, and nowadays the number of games that include similar mechanics is kind of mind-blowing.

It blows my mind that a decent mobile version of this hasn’t been released. One came out a couple of years ago but it was a huge scammy microtransaction pile of crap

Well, the concept of the original Lemmings games only works with a mouse-based interface which enables you to (more or less) precisely pick out one Lemming out of the crowd you have milling around on your screen. But there are a few good "save-em-up" games (as the category created by Lemmings was sometimes called in the nineties) for Android. The one I enjoyed most was World of Goo - however I don't recommend playing it on a phone, and it probably also is more enjoyable on a PC with a mouse...

Ages ago I had the Motorola A1000 - a touch screen phone with a stylus. This had a proper commercial version of Lemmings released for it and it was perfect. The stylus (while annoying for lots of normal phone stuff) was perfect to get pixel accurate lemming selection at speed. Great fun. There was also a tower defence game that was also great use of the stylus.

Any other touch screen version I've played never came close to that version from (I'm guessing) 2005.

I had that phone as well! I remember playing lemmings (also one of my favourite games ever), and a lot of old Lucas Arts adventures with ScummVM.

Ah yes the scumm emulator was great but I never really got into them. The doom version below me away on that too.

That phone had some fun features and got some good software for the time, but as a device, was pretty woeful really.

I remember playing Lemmings as a kid, what a great game.

Mike Dailly also gave a GDC talk two years ago about Lemmings development:

https://youtu.be/ybs5FR-uUNI

He mentions that there's a real-life Lemmings statue in Scotland:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/lemmings-statue

The recent mobile version have the “make blocker walk again” feature they didn’t want.

So did Lemmings 3, which DMA made.

Honestly I find that a good sign. It means it's not a direct port, but tested and modified for modern sensibilities =)

Spending tons of hours on a super difficult game like lemmings might have been more reasonable late 80's/early 90's but now everyone new to the game will assume it's broken.

The problem is that the marketing around this version states it’s a port, the classic — it’s very much not; it’s another game with the Lemmings IP slapped on it and DLC liberally sprinkled in. Frankly, such an enduring brand and IP deserves much better than the free-to-play nonsense that was received — $7 for just two hours of unlimited gameplay, such a bargain (?).

There’s very little about the original design that couldn’t have worked just fine for mobile, especially given the original was ported to mobile devices in the past. Maybe fixing release rates, making Lemmings stay spaced apart to make them easier to tap, the ability to zoom in and out, and a fast-forward function … so basically the PSP version with slight modifications!

> There’s very little about the original design that couldn’t have worked just fine for mobile, especially given the original was ported to mobile devices in the past.

I played some of the ports, they were not enjoyable on small screen. Not just that it was difficult to touch the correct lemming (even with stylus). It was not fun the way pc version was fun.

> Frankly, such an enduring brand and IP deserves much better than the free-to-play nonsense that was received — $7 for just two hours of unlimited gameplay, such a bargain (?).

People don't want to pay up front for games on mobile. I mean, I do not either. Basically never for myself unless there is free demo. And extremely rarely for kids - it gotta be minecraft basically otherwise I am not paying.

And, I am pretty typical.

That would take away an Aha! - moment which is what games fun. Fun factor is also the absolute hardest thing to create.

I believe you can rescue blockers in original Lemmings by removing the ground they're standing on.

They actually did turn the Walker idea into a game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBW7esHplAs

I loved this game. Has anyone seen to download and work on moderen systems (win10/macos etc)?

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