Lemmings

Lemmings is a puzzle computer game, developed by DMA Design and published by Psygnosis in 1991, originally for the Commodore Amiga. Lemmings was one of the most popular computer games of its time and several games magazines praised the game, giving it some of their highest review scores at the time. The popularity of the game led to development of numerous official and unofficial ports to other systems, including most recently ports to the PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 in 2006 and 2007, and the creation of several sequels.

The behavior of the creatures in Lemmings are based on the popular myth of lemmings mindlessly moving into danger en masse. In order to save a minimum number required for each level, the player must determine how to assign a limited number of eight different skills to specific lemmings that allow the selected lemming to alter the landscape, to affect the behavior of other lemmings, or to clear obstacles as to create a safe passage for the rest of the lemmings, sometimes even by means of sacrifice. The gameplay of Lemmings has been stated to be the forerunner of the real-time strategy video game genre.

Lemmings is divided into a number of levels, grouped into four difficulty levels. Each level comprises both destructable landscape elements such as rocks, indestructible sections such as steel plates, and include numerous obstacles including chasms, high walls, large drops, pools of water or lava, and traps that trigger when a lemming is close. Each level also includes one or more entrance points and one or more exits. The goal is to guide a certain percentage of the green-hair, blue-shirted lemmings from the entrance to the exit by clearing or creating a safe passage through the landscape for the lemmings to use. Unless assigned a special task, each lemming will walk in one direction ignoring any other lemming in its way (save for Blockers), falling off any edges and turning around if they hit an obstacle they cannot pass. They die if they fall from a great height, fall into water or lava or off the map, or get caught in a trap; they also die after being assigned the bomber skill.

To successfully complete the level, the player must assign certain lemmings specific skills. The quantity of skill assignments of each type is generally limited, requiring the player to best use the skills to solve each level. There are eight skills that can be assigned. Two skills stay with the lemming regardless of how they are reassigned: "Climbers" will climb any vertical surface they hit, and "Floaters" can safely fall off from heights without injury. "Bashers", "Miners", and "Diggers" cause the assigned lemming to dig across, diagonally downward, or directly downward, respectively, through destructible material until they emerge into open air, hit indestructible material, or are reassigned. "Builders" create a rising stairway of up to 12 steps, with audible cues when they are nearly done with their task to allow the player to reassign them if a longer stairway is needed. "Blockers" will reverse the direction of all lemmings that hit them, and cannot be reassigned unless first the ground under their feet is removed. (They can be exploded, though.) "Bombers" will continue whatever they were doing prior to assignment, but after 5 seconds (indicated by a countdown timer above their head) they will stop and explode, taking a small chunk out of any destructible environment around them. While the player is able to pause the game to inspect the level and status of the lemmings, skills can only be assigned in real-time.

The lemmings are released at a rate predetermined by the level (from 1 to 99), but the player can increase this to a faster rate once they've cleared a path for safe passage to an exit. The player also has the option to "nuke" all the remaining lemmings on the screen, converting them all to Bombers, either to quickly forfeit in order to retry a level or to remove any Blockers that remain after the rest have been rescued.

The four difficulty groups-"Fun", "Tricky", "Taxing" and "Mayhem"-are used to organize the levels to reflect their overall difficulty. 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 minimum rate of lemming release, and the percentage of lemmings that must be saved.

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