
The Complete History of Lemmings (2006) - tosh
http://www.javalemmings.com/DMA/Lem_1.htm
======
matte_black
Lemmings could be the perfect VR game.

A complex 3D environment that is difficult for a camera to look around in but
easy for a room scale VR player to observe. And then various analog controls
built into the environment that you manipulate to help guide the miniature
Lemmings to safety, sometimes requiring you to use both hands independently to
manipulate different sets of obstacles in the right order.

~~~
falcon620
[https://uploadvr.com/hololems-brings-lemmings-real-world-
via...](https://uploadvr.com/hololems-brings-lemmings-real-world-via-
hololens/)

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nfoz
Lemmings is one of the only games I know where (on my Amiga1000) I can plug in
two mice and play two-players each with a mouse-cursor. The two-player
competitive-gods dynamic is actually super thrilling and creative and I’d love
to see it done again. I expect the mainline desktop OS/UI stack doesn’t know
how to handle it!

~~~
mmjaa
You can totally set up multiple mouse(s) on Linux, and graphics cards too, and
even use one machine with multiple keyboard/mouse/monitor rigs to give
everyone their own X session .. assuming you've got the metal for it.

~~~
Piskvorrr
That's a different use case: one cursor controlled by multiple mice, or
multiple completely independent sessions. This is two _cursors_ in a single
session - the only case I've seen is this, and even that seems messy:
[https://pluralinput.com/](https://pluralinput.com/)

~~~
mmjaa
Well, and then there's multitouch. _ahem touchegg &etc._

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bgongfu
Sweet Amiga memories :)

I recently reverse engineered the walker to get something simple but fun to
animate, in the console no less:

[https://github.com/basic-
gongfu/cixl/blob/master/devlog/cons...](https://github.com/basic-
gongfu/cixl/blob/master/devlog/console_walkimation.md)

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cdelsolar
This is one of my favorite games of all time. I used to have it for the SNES
growing up and I almost beat the entire thing over the course of many months.
The toughest levels are absolutely insane.

Has there ever been a newer game with this same dynamic? For a while I wanted
to make a clone, I think it would work well on a console like the Switch.

~~~
flukus
There is a very good OSS clone called pingus:
[https://pingus.seul.org/screenshots-0.7.html](https://pingus.seul.org/screenshots-0.7.html)

Back in the amiga days I loved a somewhat similar one called humans. It does
seem weird that such a successful game hasn't spawned more clones though.

~~~
ekianjo
They, as in Psygnosis, completely milked the Lemmings IP over the years. The
3d episodes were pretty bad and that was the end of it if I recall correctly.

~~~
Nition
Lemmings Revolution was particularly silly as it's basically the 2D game but
superimposed onto a 3D cylinder. Luckily games have moved away in recent years
from the "everything must be 3D just because" era of the late 90s.

------
ofrzeta
Much better: First hand account by Mike Dailly
[http://www.javalemmings.com/DMA/Lem_1.htm](http://www.javalemmings.com/DMA/Lem_1.htm)
Also with animated screenshots of early Lemmings demos.

~~~
dang
OK, let's try switching to from [https://readonlymemory.vg/the-making-of-
lemmings/](https://readonlymemory.vg/the-making-of-lemmings/). Both are great,
but that has had larger and more recent threads (2016 and 2015):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12527519](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12527519)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9684830](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9684830)

while this has had smaller and older ones (2010 and 2009):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1729348](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1729348)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=876436](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=876436)

------
adad95
Recommend see this documentary about the History The Secret of Monkey Island -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17116024](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17116024)

------
harry-wood
I liked this bit on page 3: "these levels were so simple, that some under 5's
managed to play the first few levels" ...and my grandma who had never used a
mouse before: [https://harrywood.co.uk/blog/2015/02/27/grandma-trying-
lemmi...](https://harrywood.co.uk/blog/2015/02/27/grandma-trying-lemmings/)

------
lvturner
Mike Daily has also been working on getting Lemmings running on the ZX
Spectrum Next - worth a read: [http://dailly.blogspot.hk/2018/04/making-
lemmings-on-zx-spec...](http://dailly.blogspot.hk/2018/04/making-lemmings-on-
zx-spectrum-next.html)

------
malaya_zemlya
For those who've missed it: there's a link to the original PC demo of Lemmings
on the first page, behind the screenshot:
[http://www.javalemmings.com/DMA/files/OriginalLemmings.zip](http://www.javalemmings.com/DMA/files/OriginalLemmings.zip)

------
Nition
This is great, though I kind of hoped there would be more talk of the tech vs.
the art. Especially how they did those pixel-perfect collisions.

~~~
ekianjo
On Amiga the game slowed down significantly when you had many moving lemmings
on screen so these pixel perfect collisions were probably quite expensive
cycle wise.

------
forgotmypw
Site seems to be down, here's Wayback:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20180520203125/readonlymemory.vg/...](http://web.archive.org/web/20180520203125/readonlymemory.vg/the-
making-of-lemmings/)

Edit: It's back now, but I was getting a 5xx error a minute ago.

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btbuildem
What a fantastic game! I played it through on the A-500, some of the levels
were fiendishly hard.

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peterashford
Everytime an Amiga post comes up I get such a wave of nostalgia :o)

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baal80spam
Ugh, I really hate when articles have no timestamps...

