The early 1990s were a golden age for innovative and creative video games, and one of the most memorable was Lemmings. The PC game stands out not least because it made such an impression on the older and well-remembered puzzle and strategy world it was a part of. This incredible formation happened when PC gaming was finding ways to be unique, compelling, and cool. Before we go any further, I should clarify that Lemmings didn’t run on just any old PC; it ran on an “IBM compatible 80286” or an “IBM compatible 386,” which was my clunky and endearing way into the world of the older and well-remembered puzzle and strategy games. At this rate, the proceedings will only get more of this nostalgic gleam.
An Unparalleled Idea
The idea behind Lemmings was genuinely new. The player had to lead a group of small, green-haired creatures from the start to the finish on each level. Of course, anyone who knows anything about real lemmings understands they have a reputation for walking straight into danger. You, the player, were that rumor’s only hope of survival. You had to take the lemmings that made it past the start and make them your hopefuls. Then, armed with a finite set of skills, you had to ensure the lemmings’ arrival at the level’s exit. Once there, they planted a cute little flag, and then a mysterious purple door opened for their egress, unless a lemming had been a casualty on the landscape.
The earliest memory I have of playing Lemmings is also one of the most satisfying. It was exhilarating figuring out what to do in the next level. The first few groups of levels had the same objects, but the levels kept getting harder and more complex, and there were always more “a-ha!” moments. They never stopped. Unless you played the game with a guidebook and what amounted to a series of cheatsheets by your side, you never knew what was going to make your crazy little lemmings march to the end. The thrill you felt in a triumphant level was actually earned.
The game’s lovely visuals and ear-tickling music make it all the more attractive. The actual lemmings are downright adorable, possessing a suite of delightful, all-of-a-piece animations that range from funny to funnier. The changes of scenery are fanciful and numerous; some of them recall an era rich in ingenious, idiosyncratic level design. And of gunships, lemmings, and cute animals, the most impressive aspect of the game by far is its audio. The soundtrack is lively, often hilarious, and good enough to make me remember the melodies till this day.
What really set Lemmings apart was its focus on creativity and problem-solving. Every stage was a sort of conundrum that could be solved in several ways, giving the player a lot of leeway and opportunity for some “aha!” moments. That basic format never changed, but stage design and the number of lemmings at a player’s disposal allow the gameplay to still feel fresh in the late stages of the game. I remember playing the first game, and I don’t think I played it the same way my brother or my best friend or my next-door neighbor did.
The Roadblock to Being an Expert
Lemmings leveled an uphill grade for me toward real demand. At first, these puzzles seemed sort of simple. You watch, you figure out what is going to happen, and you do something just in time to avert tragedy. That’s the whole idea. The hardest part then was making sure everything went as I saw it (rehearsed in my head, maybe — “Step here next, then do this.”). Soon hard gave way to concerts of timing, set steps, and fine-thinking that altogether left no margin for a “you-did-okay.”
A level that I remember most is “We All Fall Down,” infamous for its cringe-worthy difficulty. Traps and all sorts of obstacles filled the level. It was a huge test of logic, with virtually no safe zones in sight. I still can’t quite believe that I didn’t throw my computer out of the window when trying to get the poor creatures to the end of this deadly gauntlet. Speaking as someone who used to play this game a lot, I can confirm that Lemmings is a game that rewards the player well if they have a lot of patience and a little bit of creativity.
The talents that the Lemmings brought to the table begot an elaborate conundrum. Each had its peculiar properties that could solve riddles in their unique and individual ways. For example, the Builder Lemming could almost make things come to life in the way that he could, well, build and fix things. The Basher, conversely, could use its thick forehead (or some carpel-tunnel-inducing animation of a similar sort) to dig a horizontal tunnel of sorts through any manner of obstacles that might appear in front of the aforementioned not-so-bright builder. The Climber was useful for doing quite the opposite of what the Floater did: going up instead of down. Solving the riddle of using the right talent at the right time and in the right combination made for some long hours of head-scratching and for some very satisfying “Aha!” moments, too.
Various environmental dangers also appeared in the game and had to be negotiated. You had to be careful, stopping to think frantically about strategy and almost holding your breath when you set your careful plans in motion to see if you could make it to the promised land in each level without losing too many Lemmings. Levels that were particularly fiendish often had an “Oh no!” moment where disaster seemed imminent. Indeed, not only do the most memorable levels of the game often feature imminent failure as the “before” half of a before-and-after photograph, but they also tend to be the ones where you rush headlong into the threat of “Why not?”
Discovering the Joys of Uncovering the Unknown
Lemmings was supremely enjoyable and had an outstanding “Eureka!” quality to it. Every level felt genuinely unique and was like its own puzzle. Despite a base set of mechanics that were very simple (you could only do four things), there were a nearly endless set of possibilities for what could happen in a level, which led to some terrific “Aha!” moments.
On the unfortunate side, however, one of the things that made Lemmings great was also a factor that limited its long-term appeal. My first encounter with the “Bomber” skill in Lemmings is a vivid memory. It permits you to have a lemming explode, creating a hole in the ground. It’s a calculated risk, serviced by a stoic kind of humor that makes certain things bearable, downright amusing even, in the same way that the off-kilter whimsy in Alice Through the Looking-Glass somehow makes everything enjoyable.
Yet, with all that, the game is still tough. You have to put on your thinking cap. By and large, it also rewards you for the tight corners that you somehow navigate a duo of lemmings through. You’re a lemming sussing out snares at the cellular level.
The creativity in the game’s level design was second to none. Each stage felt extremely distinctive, and the puzzles they presented were very memorable. Some required you to guide your pack of lemmings through intricate networks of tunnels and along vertical climbs without any of them meeting an untimely end. A secure, lemming-filled route had to be met by a rigorous solution. In one particular stage that’s stayed with me over the years, the best tactic involved a sequence of events that reliably saw the ‘safe’ route being opened at just the right times. The sheer genius of the puzzle then meant that the stage had a memorable design and was altogether a lot of fun to play.
What really addicted me to the game was the charming way solutions were presented. You could often manage to get to the end of a difficult level, and it was great fun to get to the end of those. But could you? That was the question. The reason was, again, the core game mechanic: You had good Lemmings and bad ones, and you had to make sure the good ones got to the end and the bad ones went over a cliff, the suicidal aspect. The icing on the cake was the possibility that there were certain levels with alternative solutions. It was just like in any other game, where you could find secret rooms and secret power-ups. Would you get an even bigger blast at the end of the level if you accomplished the same kind of feat here?
Uncovering new ways to play was not the only reward. The developers crafted a world that sparkled with visual appeal and was fun to watch. The game’s art was super-cartoony and extra-colorful; each level was like peering into a story book. And the Lemming characters, I think of them as little AI comedians were so super-expressive; even in the earliest version, it was clearly a performance, happening inside a tiny bit of space. Then there’s the delightful animations of the whole thing to watch. There’s the super-serious talent of the game’s artists on full, funny display.
An Enduring Heritage
Lemmings has become a cultural icon in the world of video games. The beloved classic, known for its ingenious and innovative gameplay, revolves around escorting the cute but incredibly stupid creatures on a one-way journey to “safety” through a series of dumb and dumber tasks. But that’s really part of the game’s charm it’s anything but gigantically gruesome doom and gloom. (Joe Hsiao, Michelle Jiang)
Many contemporary puzzle and strategy games owe their ideas to Lemmings. Released in 1991, the original Lemmings pioneered the “indirect control” gameplay that defines the modern real-time strategy (RTS) genre. And the selfsame building and demolishing mechanics that made Lemmings a hit also surfaced in titles such as Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress, and Infiniminer after it that are part of the much-ballyhooed “crafting” genre. Of course, the game also had its ’00s imitators, like the immediate post-Lemmings puzzle hit The Humans and Diner Dash, with its harried head cook and all too close in setup to lemmings and Oh No! More Lemmings.
Looking back at my time with Lemmings, I am filled with a warm, nostalgic glow. It was a game that I sank many hours into in my formative years. In terms of video games, I would say that it was one of the titles in my life that came close to shaping me the way a good novel might. Instead of merely being something I played in a (very addictive and fun) way, it became an event in my life that I look back on because of the many good and bad strategies I came up with to solve the difficult puzzles that the game threw at me.
The enduring attraction of Lemmings speaks to what a high-quality and innovative game it was and is. New generations still fall in love with the game, finding it as fun and frustratingly hard as it was almost three decades ago. Whether it’s the precision timing and puzzle work demanded by some of the later levels or the endearing stretches of mindless meandering in the “Just Dig!” levels, the game has an amazing ability to stay fresh and engaging. There’s a reason it’s a classic, and the experience of gameplay has only made me admire Lemmings more.
Wrapping up, Lemmings is way more than a set of simple missions that you have to complete using characters that, if given the chance, would walk straight into the nearest abyss. This game and its core mechanic are a narthex to the cathedral of creativity and a paean to the endless adventure and discovery that video games as a medium can offer. Each of the 22 levels in Lemmings for Macintosh can be solved in multiple ways, and the ingenious design of both the puzzles and the tools you’re given to solve them are an homage to the situation that the developers created. Each level is a virtuoso performance of inventiveness that has to be appreciated for the craft that it is, and for the delightful payoff that comes when the set of tools, the set of rules, and the set of missions add up to that wonderful gaming moment.
