The Complete History of Lemmings

August 26, 2007 6:43 AM

Mike Dailly, the creator of Lemmings, describes the story of the game's creation in "The Complete History of Lemmings." If you feel the need to play the game after reading that, try it in DHTML (previously mentioned, though the old link is dead), and if you need help here are some walkthroughs and level codes. Finally, to short-circuit the rumors about these misunderstood rodents: no, they don't jump off cliffs in real life.
posted by barnacles (13 comments total)

What would be cool - a game called "Insects" or something similar. The game would be like lemmings, whereby you have individual agents whose actions you can control. However, they would also have "reactions" whereby they could react to each other and possibly even communicate simple messages to each other - things like "follow my scent trail to food" or "enemy outside." In this fashion, they would behave like insects in the real world - incapable of thought, yet capable of making group decisions.

I, for one, would find it fascinating.
posted by Afroblanco at 7:12 AM on August 26, 2007

Also, if you have a Nintendo DS and the ability to run unsigned code on it, be sure to look at Lemmings DS.
posted by c0nsumer at 7:37 AM on August 26, 2007

Level 5 seems to be borked.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:46 AM on August 26, 2007

Oh. Scrollbar. Doh.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:55 AM on August 26, 2007

Nice article, I always love hearing game designers talk about their art.

What would be cool - a game called "Insects"

The 1991 Maxis title SimAnt is a little like that, but my memory is that it wasn't a very fun game. Neat simulation though.
posted by Nelson at 9:34 AM on August 26, 2007

The White Wilderness story is one of my favorites- it's just so completely emblematic of how fucked up we are as a species.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:06 AM on August 26, 2007

"Complete history" is no understatement.
posted by absalom at 11:14 AM on August 26, 2007

I was about to post this as well. It's worth it for the animated gif of the lemmings dying and exploding.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:23 AM on August 26, 2007

"The 1991 Maxis title SimAnt is a little like that, but my memory is that it wasn't a very fun game. Neat simulation though."

It had nothing on SimBrick.
posted by Auz at 11:55 AM on August 26, 2007

Amiga Power had that anim on a cover disk once. Ah, nostalgia.
posted by bonaldi at 12:48 PM on August 26, 2007

This game is way easier now that I'm not six anymore.
posted by thecaddy at 1:21 PM on August 26, 2007

> no, they don't jump off cliffs in real life.

But do they grab their heads, go EEP EEP EEP, and blow up? At least the blue ones?
posted by jfuller at 1:32 PM on August 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

Afroblanco: What would be cool - a game called "Insects" or something similar. The game would be like lemmings, whereby you have individual agents whose actions you can control. However, they would also have "reactions" whereby they could react to each other and possibly even communicate simple messages to each other - things like "follow my scent trail to food" or "enemy outside." In this fashion, they would behave like insects in the real world - incapable of thought, yet capable of making group decisions.

Also, they have rocket launchers.
posted by blenderfish at 3:07 PM on August 26, 2007 [1 favorite]