I had the privilege of working with Mike Dailly and Russell Kay (and Dave Jones) last year.
Mike and I (and Bill who did the physics for GTA) made a 3D lemmings-like prototype with 100,000 blue & green zombies in a city-like environment. And a cute tank :)
It started (as Lemmings did) with Mike just fooling about trying to see how many sprites he could get animating on screen at once. He managed 1,000,000 of the original lemmings sprites walking around on modern hardware.
I loved Lemmings. Is used to write the level codes on little post-it notes and stuck them all around me.
After a few days my room looked like Mr. Nash's garage in 'A Beautiful Mind'.
In contrast to the oft-proclaimed response to these sort of things, this news actually makes me feel young. I mean, Lemmings has been around forever, and when forever turns out to only be twenty years I feel much, much younger.
Also, I totally sucked at Lemmings. It wasn't until Worms arrived that I found my cute little animal with a death wish.
Maybe this is different for people who remember a world without Lemmings? I remember buying a copy of Lemmings for the Amiga... so that 20 yrs makes me feel super old. :-)
Agreed. I remember when Lemmings was the best game of the year. It was one of few I forked out money for on the Amiga. I wasn't much of a gamer by the time I had moved to Amiga, as I'd found other things to occupy my interest (programming, music, and networks, mostly). Knowing it is 20 years old is a reminder of my mortality, and not a "I'm so young!" moment.
I still find myself playing it for a while whenever anyone posts a link to the online version. And, it's still a compelling gaming experience. Like Tetris, it never really gets old.
The lemming suicide myth wasn't created by Disney, but it was certainly popularized by them. Various stories about the behavior of lemmings date to the 1500's.
"...followed by a cease-and-desist letter from Sony."
I thought that was just a random reference to Sony's recent legal trigger happiness. Didn't realize they actually owned Lemmings until reading comments here.
That was one of the most ported games in history. Imagine all the platforms it could appear on now, if Sony didn't own it.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 45.7 ms ] threadI remember being completely amazed seeing that. Javascript was so much harder back then.
Mike and I (and Bill who did the physics for GTA) made a 3D lemmings-like prototype with 100,000 blue & green zombies in a city-like environment. And a cute tank :)
It started (as Lemmings did) with Mike just fooling about trying to see how many sprites he could get animating on screen at once. He managed 1,000,000 of the original lemmings sprites walking around on modern hardware.
Sigh. Happy days.
Unfortunately apart from the novelty factor the game-play was pretty bad, nowhere near the 2d lemmings.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAeFxDbNTsA
Really, really fun; they added some great challenges like a mode where everything is dark except for some candlelit areas.
A modern version with more mechanics (time travel?) would be much appreciated.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM7wBdPYric
I just want to start digging like a maniac. Or blocking traffic. Or laying bricks. Or parachuting with an umbrella.
You can see screenshots and videos of lemmings et. al. here: http://www.pixelbeat.org/misc/dosbox/
Also, I totally sucked at Lemmings. It wasn't until Worms arrived that I found my cute little animal with a death wish.
Also also - Lemming suicide is basically a fiction created by Disney's Wild Kingdom in 1958. http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.asp
I still find myself playing it for a while whenever anyone posts a link to the online version. And, it's still a compelling gaming experience. Like Tetris, it never really gets old.
http://pingus.seul.org/
My kids and I have hours of fun with this game. My only complaint is that the penguins can't swim.
I thought that was just a random reference to Sony's recent legal trigger happiness. Didn't realize they actually owned Lemmings until reading comments here.
That was one of the most ported games in history. Imagine all the platforms it could appear on now, if Sony didn't own it.