5 ms·

Maybe I was just the perfect age - 12 - when the game came out, but I remember it as pretty much the most formative video game I've ever played. It truly blew m

Maybe I was just the perfect age - 12 - when the game came out, but I remember it as pretty much the most formative video game I've ever played. It truly blew my mind that you could have something that seemed so open, even to the extent of being able to modify the actual environment. Lemmings just seemed so different from everything else around, in a way that might be difficult to appreciate nowadays. I must've played Sim City & Populous prior, but something about the platformer genre and the level of indirection combined perfectly to make this game genuinely unique.

adibchoudhury 11y ago
Agreed-awesome game. I also felt there was nothing like it back when I played it, which made it all the more engaging.
beeswax 11y ago
Exactly - Lemmings is one of the games I still enjoy playing in DOSBox (along with e.g. Lost Vikings, Monkey Island 1+2, …). If it weren’t for those titles roughly between 1991 and 1994 I’m quite certain I wouldn’t have started to get deeper into DOS and pick up programming later on (remember messing with config.sys and HIMEM.SYS, EMM386 etc to fine-tune memory? using memmaker was so lame :) ). Last year I was fortunate enough to be working on Meerkatz Challenge, a heavily Lemmings inspired puzzle platformer: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/meerkatz-challenge/id732854001?l=de&ls=1&mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/meerkatz-challenge/id7328540... I think some of the original Lemmings concepts and controls simply don’t translate to platforms with touch input and high resolution graphics. Too bad that the PC versions don't seem to be available on archive.org.
ErikRogneby 11y ago
Scorched earth was another one around that time that had an environment you could destroy. Our token ring network got a lot of use from just those two. The thing I remember about lemmings was the frantic feeling of them just pouring in and having to time things right.
derefr 11y ago
I only found out about Lemmings when I was past my formative years, and it had long existed. But as a game designer, I still think of it as a pretty seminal game. An RTS is just Lemmings with units that will go where you tell them, after all. However, the core conceit of Lemmings—the feeling of herding a bunch of autonomous agents around, that will do whatever they like (to your detriment) unless you restrict them—is still pretty unexplored. It never spawned its own direct subgenre, unlike its cousins Tower Defense and MOBA. There were a few attempts—I think from Nintendo there was Mario & Wario, and of all things Krusty's Fun House. But generally there's still a lot of unexplored "herding game" mechanics-space. I wonder why we don't see more of it on mobile? Herding things by tapping them seems obvious.
- t0mbstone 11y ago
  Go on the Apple app store and search for "lemmings". I found quite a few games that were all based on this premise, the biggest one being "Flockers" by Team 17 (the same people who made "Worms"). Maybe it's more popular than you realized?
  - derefr 11y ago
    It may be! My belief stemmed from the fact that I've heard of no break-out success herding games besides Lemmings itself. Nobody has gotten rich by making a herding game. There is no herding game with merchandise. Etc.
- tokenrove 11y ago
  There were a number of Lemmings clones at the time. Troddlers being a favorite. However, there was so much activity around the Lemmings property itself at the time, that I conjecture the real reason we didn't see more exploration of that space was that the market was burned out on it, and then it was forgotten. Definitely a lot of potential in those mechanics.
- dogles 11y ago
  I agree, there is a lot more unexplored territory! Lemmings was definitely one of our inspirations for World Zombination. Specifically, the zombie drones that you mutate into special units with different abilities. http://worldzombination.com/ http://worldzombination.com/

adibchoudhury 11y ago

Agreed-awesome game. I also felt there was nothing like it back when I played it, which made it all the more engaging.

beeswax 11y ago

Exactly - Lemmings is one of the games I still enjoy playing in DOSBox (along with e.g. Lost Vikings, Monkey Island 1+2, …). If it weren’t for those titles roughly between 1991 and 1994 I’m quite certain I wouldn’t have started to get deeper into DOS and pick up programming later on (remember messing with config.sys and HIMEM.SYS, EMM386 etc to fine-tune memory? using memmaker was so lame :) ). Last year I was fortunate enough to be working on Meerkatz Challenge, a heavily Lemmings inspired puzzle platformer: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/meerkatz-challenge/id732854001?l=de&ls=1&mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/meerkatz-challenge/id7328540... I think some of the original Lemmings concepts and controls simply don’t translate to platforms with touch input and high resolution graphics. Too bad that the PC versions don't seem to be available on archive.org.

ErikRogneby 11y ago

Scorched earth was another one around that time that had an environment you could destroy. Our token ring network got a lot of use from just those two. The thing I remember about lemmings was the frantic feeling of them just pouring in and having to time things right.

derefr 11y ago

I only found out about Lemmings when I was past my formative years, and it had long existed. But as a game designer, I still think of it as a pretty seminal game. An RTS is just Lemmings with units that will go where you tell them, after all. However, the core conceit of Lemmings—the feeling of herding a bunch of autonomous agents around, that will do whatever they like (to your detriment) unless you restrict them—is still pretty unexplored. It never spawned its own direct subgenre, unlike its cousins Tower Defense and MOBA. There were a few attempts—I think from Nintendo there was Mario & Wario, and of all things Krusty's Fun House. But generally there's still a lot of unexplored "herding game" mechanics-space. I wonder why we don't see more of it on mobile? Herding things by tapping them seems obvious.

t0mbstone 11y ago
Go on the Apple app store and search for "lemmings". I found quite a few games that were all based on this premise, the biggest one being "Flockers" by Team 17 (the same people who made "Worms"). Maybe it's more popular than you realized?
- derefr 11y ago
  It may be! My belief stemmed from the fact that I've heard of no break-out success herding games besides Lemmings itself. Nobody has gotten rich by making a herding game. There is no herding game with merchandise. Etc.
tokenrove 11y ago
There were a number of Lemmings clones at the time. Troddlers being a favorite. However, there was so much activity around the Lemmings property itself at the time, that I conjecture the real reason we didn't see more exploration of that space was that the market was burned out on it, and then it was forgotten. Definitely a lot of potential in those mechanics.
dogles 11y ago
I agree, there is a lot more unexplored territory! Lemmings was definitely one of our inspirations for World Zombination. Specifically, the zombie drones that you mutate into special units with different abilities. http://worldzombination.com/ http://worldzombination.com/