When Lemmings first bounced across our Amiga screens in the last century, early to mid nineteen ninety's, the concept was different to anything else that had gone before and took the Amiga world by storm. Our PC and Mac cousins looked on in envy until the game was ported over.

The cuddly, little green haired rodents were only too willing to die for the player whilst he tried to shepherd them across obstacles to their goal. Along the way a Lemming could be endowed with particluar attributes like building bridges or digging tunnels or even blowing himself up for the good of the rest. Some could even acquire parachutes to leap from tall buildings so that they could dig from the other side to let the rest through. Each level had a different number of Lemmings to rescue at a different precentage and not all attribute were available at every level. Just enough to enable you to win. However just beacuse a Lemming could be endowed with say digging powers there was also a limit set on how many could become diggers or how long he could dig.

The game was a mixture of keyboard/joystick skill and the ability to work out what needed to be done to get the bunch of Lemmings from their entry point, as they shouted "Let's Go" in a Chipmunk type of voice, to their home which was accompanied by Yippee!. A catchy tune played whilst they traversed hills and valleys, climbed over walls or dug through them and built bridges to cross yawning chasms. The real skill, when one "special" Lemming was building a bridge or digging, was to ensure that the rest didn't beocme trapped somewhere or got killed by falling off a cliff or something. A bridge builder only had a set number of tiles to use then they lost their "powers" and could easily fall off the built bridge to their death unless you gave the poor little fellow more tiles to use. You had to use a "blocker" to contain the little divils (yes I know it should be devils) and
stop them climbing a bridge too far then blow him up when the path was ready for the rest.

When all else failed there was always the "self destruct" button which stopped all the Lemmings in their collective tracks and as they threw their little hands up in the air and shouted Oh! No! they disappeared in a multitude of tiny pieces and you started again at that level.

At the higher levels our furry little suicidees would emerge from two or even three entry points to make the player's task nigh on impossible except to the very best and quickest not just in deed but in thought. Don't ask!

The player was unable to progrees from one level to the next unless they completed that level and gained the password for the next mind numbing stage. With the objective being to get a set percentage of Lemmings home in a set time this was not always as straightforward as could be imagined. In fact on the more difficult levels it was darned near impossible. Well it was for me. My hand eye coordination isn't what it used to be even if speed of thought appeared to be unimpaired.

Within days of the release of Lemmings the hackers had got to work and copies of all passwords soon found their way into the cheating public's hands. Er! And mine too.

Lemmings was almost as addictive as DooYoo and you didn't get paid to win but you did get a great feeling of satisfaction as you finally got the last lot home in the last level. I did but I cheated. The reward was a picture of the game writers and a Lemming.


N.B.
Thanks to everyone who informed me that there was a fault with the way my opinions were being displayed on their screens. That is every other line or so containing just one or two words.

Just got word from DooYoo that it is their problem and they are working on it.

jambutty.