Hello and welcome to another entry in the Lost Gems series. Here I discuss forgotten classics, hidden gems and titles that have sadly been abandoned, with no official way to obtain these games. In this instalment, I am going to be covering a title that is near and dear to me, the brain teasing puzzler Lemmings. This game was developed by DMA Design and published by Psygnosis, with ports by Sunsoft, Probe Software and more.
Disclaimer: while the game discussed here is no longer officially on sale, there are ways to obtain it. This can either be through the second hand market, or through unofficial digital roms/rips. I do not condone or promote piracy, so there won’t be any links to roms or rips of the games being covered.
So with the introductions out of the way, let’s get started. I will be starting with the general game experience, then give my personal thoughts on the title. This title was released across a wide range of platforms, so I will be speaking about the game in rather general terms. Images and gameplay demo are taken from Super Famicom, Game Gear and Mega Drive versions of the game.
About the game
Lemmings is a puzzle strategy game, where the objective is to guide groups of “Lemmings” to the goal, trying to get as many of them to safety as possible. In each of the levels, there will be a target percentage to rescue of the total lemmings in the stage, with the numbers varying from level to level. During a stage, there will be obstacles to overcome, posing great danger to the lemmings that attempt safe passage through.
Across the different stages, there will be traps that will kill the lemmings, like flamethrowers, crushing presses and contraptions that suck them up. But these are not the only risks they face. There are natural hazards like water, pits they can fall down and fire that will incinerate them. If too many lemmings are lost during a stage, the player will be unable to reach the target, to speed things up the player can “nuke” the level blowing the lemmings up.
In order to overcome the dangers that the lemmings face, the player has the ability to assign skills to individual lemmings. These skills have a few different purposes, with the main one to alter the terrain of levels, like the digger, basher and miner. Additionally there are skills that allow the lemmings to traverse more perilous areas, like the climber and floater. Each stage has a limited set of skills, making skill management important.
The original release and many of the ports have four difficulty levels, ranging from Easy to Expert, with the settings called Fun, Tricky, Taxing and Mayhem. However, in a couple of the Sunsoft ports, there are additional stages for players too challenge. This is most notable with the SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis version, which has two additional sets of stages and a special Hebereke themed level. There is even a 2 player mode, with their own stages in some versions.
But in the inverse, there are several versions of the game are wildly different. Some ports are severely limited, with reductions in the scale of stages, presence of traps and more. These limitations make for a vastly different gameplay experience, alongside the need for clever modifications. Some versions have a lock on feature, where the player can immediately target a single lemming, making it a little more manageable.
The limitations of different versions also extend to the number of lemmings that can appear on screen. Some versions like the SEGA Game Gear can only have 20 on screen, while the Game Boy version can only show 14 at a time. There is also slowdown in some games, which occurs when there are a significant amount of lemmings on screen. This can be a little frustrating for some, but it is an unfortunate side effect of hardware from the time.
In most versions of the game, progress is recorded through the use of passwords, which vary from platform to platform. But some of them do have crossover, due to the way the games were programmed. The password system works very well, with passwords being spread across the playground back in the day. Some of the ports do have memory back up, like the PC-Engine Super CDROM version and the Windows release.
Last to mention is the sound, which is a defining feature of the Lemmings experience. There is a use of digitised voice for most of the games, which is a great choice, but is sadly lacking from those with hardware limits. The music does tend to very across the different games, but most of them contain many if not all of the original soundtrack. Then there are the special musical inclusions, with music from games by Psygnosis and Sunsoft, depending on the version.
Personal Thoughts
My earliest memories of Lemmings is from the SEGA Game Gear, sitting on the floor while plugged into the wall, bathed in the glow of that old backlit screen. The enjoyment and wonder I felt gave me a love for puzzles, sticking with me throughout my life. My love for lemmings has never gone away, finding any way to be able to play the game, even putting home brew emulators on my DS as a kid. I even have what little merchandise is available for the game.
There is a simple yet magical charm to watching the little sprites of the lemmings, making their way through each of the perilous journeys that they faced. The sprites are simple yet effective, with all of the animations working to show everything perfectly. Out of all versions of the game, my personal favourite is the SEGA Mega Drive version, as that was one that I was able to play the most. This is closely followed by the Game Gear.
The puzzles are balanced well, with none of them being overly complex to the point it is ridiculous. It is one of those games that needs a little bit of planning at times, but this can be as simple as sketching out the stage on paper. I had a bunch of notebooks for this game as a kid, filled with passwords, stage sketches and notes. Sadly these have been lost to time, but I have made new books since that I still use during play.
Each of the different versions of the game has a unique charm, offering a fun experience that can be enjoyed by everyone. No matter what system you had at the time, there was a copy of lemmings that you could play. There were releases on home computers, consoles, handhelds and even a Java release. This made it one of the most widely available games of its time, with 28 different official releases during the games lifetime.
I have been trying to collect complete in box versions of the series, while keeping to a relatively tight budget. But this can be a little tricky, due to the ballooning cost of retro games. This is made worse by the limited availability of some, as they are region specific, like the PC-Engine Super CD, Atari Lynx and Panasonic 3DO. The cost of many versions of the game may lock players out, but there are many variations that are accessible.
Sadly the original game hasn’t been released since, due to Sony buying up the original IP owner Psygnosis, who were shut down in 2012. This death of a beloved franchise hurts even more, as the last official Lemmings game was a terrible microtransaction filled mobile release. Like many of the other series that get bought up with companies, Lemmings has been abandoned, so we may never see this game get released again.
I do wish that a new Lemmings game will be released at some point in the future, maybe just a port of the originals or even a release on GOG or Steam. There isn’t much hope for this though as the 30th anniversary has already passed, so if there was going to be something, it would have happened by now. This is just another story of a fantastic game that can be enjoyed by everyone, being forgotten, abandoned and lost to time.
If you have enjoyed this feature, then I suggest you check out the other content on this site. I write in depth reviews about more recent games, alongside coverage of retro games, classic titles and even the weird outliers in gaming. So stick around and see what catches your eye, as there is hopefully a little something for everyone.
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