Lemmings is a 1991 puzzle and strategy video game developed by DMA Design and published by Psygnosis for the Amiga. The game was programmed by Russell Kay, Mike Dailly and David Jones, and was inspired by a simple animation that Dailly created while experimenting with Deluxe Paint.

The Story Behind Lemmings & Oh No! More Lemmings

One member, Russell Kay, observed that "There's a game in that!", and later coined the term "lemmings" for these creations, according to Dailly. 'Oh...', he'd mutter, and scramble off to try and fix it." They also sent internally tested levels to Psygnosis, getting back the results of their testing via fax. There were several internal iterations of the levels, each designer challenging the others.

The inspiration for gameplay came as a result of a simple animated character sprite in an 8×8 pixel box created by Dailly using Deluxe Paint as part of development for Walker, then envisioned as a sequel to Blood Money. Dailly was able to quickly produce an animated graphic showing his creations moving endlessly, with additional graphical improvements made by Gary Timmons and other members of the DMA Design team to help remove the stiffness in the animation. Beat that!', we'd calmly point out a totally new way of getting around all his traps, and doing it in a much simpler method.

How Lemmings & Oh No! More Lemmings Plays

This rating reflects several factors, including the number of obstacles the player has to surpass, the limitation on the number of types of skills available to assign, the time limit, the minimum rate of lemming release, and the percentage of lemmings that must be saved. Bombers explode after a five-second timer, destroying themselves and any destructible landscape in close proximity, though not damaging other lemmings or traps. The player also has the option to "nuke" all the remaining lemmings on the screen, converting them to Bombers.

Every level has a time limit; if the timer expires, all the lemmings explode (even non-Bombers), the level ends, and the player is evaluated on the number of lemmings rescued. The goal of each level is to guide at least a portion of the green-haired, blue-robed lemmings from the entrance to the exit by clearing or creating a safe passage through the landscape for the lemmings to use. Blockers stand still and prevent other lemmings from passing; lemmings that hit a Blocker simply reverse direction.

Why Players Still Load It Up

When readers asked if this was deliberate, Pratchett responded: "Merely because the red army can fight, dig, march and climb and is controlled by little icons? In 2004, Graham Cormode proved that deciding whether it is possible to complete a level of Lemmings is NP-hard. Two spin-off games were also made, both in 1996; Lemmings Paintball and The Adventures of Lomax.

Numerous clones of Lemmings were made, including The Humans (1992) and Pingus (1998). Lemmings has also been called a predecessor of the modern real-time strategy (RTS) video game genre. Later, Giovanni Viglietta showed that the task is PSPACE-complete, even for levels where there is only one lemming to save.

Lemmings & Oh No! More Lemmings — Frequently Asked Questions