Occasionally, Lemmings would break away from the
classic fire/ice/earth themes and pay homage to other
Psygnosis Amiga games. The first two Shadow of the
Beasts each received a stage built using graphics from
the original game, as did horizontal-scrolling
shoot-’em-ups Menace and Awesome (pictured).CLASSIC MOMENT
L
et’s go! And with that cheery
battle cry, the trapdoor creaked
open and the lemmings
dropped into the level to begin
their merry march towards their
doom. Only you, an all-omnipotent
mouse cursor, could prevent these
suicidal nitwits from hurling themselves
into the nearest convenient lava pit.
Based on the old wives’ tale that
lemmings (the rodent) would blindly
follow each other off cliffs, Lemmings
(the puzzler) was one of the first games
to deny the player direct control over
its heroes. Instead, you had to coax the
ever-marching lems to the finish line by
assigning jobs to individual members of
the pack.
But coming up with the solution, of
course, was only half the battle. While
you were keeping one eye on a lemming
building a bridge to the exit or digging
an elaborate tunnel network, the other
eye had to work overtime to ensure the
rest of the herd weren’t blundering into
trouble. Fusing the puzzle and action
genres in a way we hadn’t seen before,
Lemmings was hugely influential, paving
the way for many of today’s real-time
strategy titles.