Lemmings was a DOS game that my dad kept on a floppy disk in his office. He’d make me ask to play it and beg if I wanted the codes to skip ahead a few levels. Playing this game might be my first gaming memory, but when I go back to it I’m just as addicted as when I was four or five unlike certain other games I’m nostalgic about. Lemmings sometimes gets forgotten about when people are listing awesome retro games, but this 1991 puzzle game should never be forgotten.
The gameplay consists of pixelated humanoids dropping from an entrance and walking to the right. The player can used a specified number of climbs, floats, bombs, blocks, builds, bashes, mines, and digs to traverse the landscape and get to the exit at the other side of the map. This may sound simple, but once the game teaches you the mechanics it gets challenging pretty rapidly. Lemmings takes logic, skill, and quick clicks to complete, but it will keep you addicted with its devilish puzzles.
All of that may seem like mundane puzzle-solving to you, but the love of the little lemming characters and the spectacularness of the failures are what makes this game one of my favorites of all time. It’s so good that you need to try it. You can get it now on the internet or you can buy some of the reboots or sequels. It doesn’t matter as long as you get the creatures to the exit. Have fun!
