I remember that when I was first introduced to Lemmings many years ago, the thing that struck me wasn’t the clever level design or the interesting new puzzle-game mechanics, but was instead how totally awesome it was listening to them all scream “Oh no!” and explode in a shower of lem-bits when you hit the Armageddon button.  I won’t say I am proud of that.

Beyond that initial amusement, Lemmings did suck me in with its clever gameplay and puzzles. The game was very simple on the surface: guide a certain number of Lemmings from the entry point to the exit point of a level using only a predetermined set of skills.  Sometimes you’d have the full array of eight skills to use, whereas other times you might only have a mere handful of blockers and diggers at your disposal.

The game had an excellent learning curve; the beginning stages start you off nice and easy, let you familiarize yourself with the abilities, and had fairly obvious solutions.  In short, they let you get comfortable with the system before ramping up the difficulty.  And ramp up it did; the later levels of the game were downright brutal, with a single mistake often sending the little fellows to their untimely deaths at the hands of traps, pits, or other environmental hazards.

I never did beat the original Lemmings, though I got pretty far along its 120 levels.  Things just got a bit too tough near the end, and I’m afraid my puzzle-solving chops just weren’t up to the task at the time.  All in all, though, I felt good about – I had given it a solid effort, and done what I could.

Over the next few years, the popularity of Lemmings grew, and an expansion pack came out, along with some home-brewed levels of varying quality of design.  It wasn’t until 199X that a true sequel arrived in the form of Lemmings 2: The Tribes.

Promising an expanded Lemmings experience with new styles of play, Tribes took the 120 level formula and spiced it up by dividing it into twelve different Lemming tribes, each with ten levels to call their own.  The tribes (Classic, Circus, Cavelem, Shadow, Space, Outdoor, Beach, Sports, Egyptian, Highland, Polar and Medieval) each had their own aesthetic and appropriately-themed levels, and the basic eight lemming skills was exploded out to a new total of fifty-one (still with only eight available in any given level, however).  Suddenly, instead of your basic Bashers and Umbrella Lemmings, there were Fencers, Runners, Hang-Gliders, and even Pole Vaulters.  Many of these functioned in very similar fashion, though with slight tweaks to area-of-effect or timing; the Flamethrower Lemming would blast holes through the environment much like the Basher, but would do it instantly and with a slightly bubble-shaped pattern.

In addition to the new abilities, there was also a “fan” tool that the player could use to create wind on-demand in the levels.  Wind could be used to loft things like the Parachutists, or to manipulate certain items in the environment.  It was another puzzle-solving tool, and it was the first one in the series divorced from the Lemmings themselves.  Finally, and perhaps most importantly, levels no longer had a quota of Lemmings needed to be saved; so long as one made it to the exit, you could advance; however many you saved on the previous level was how many you would start the next level with.  While this made simply beating a level easier, finishing with fewer and fewer lemmings was likely to make your advancement in later levels more difficult, or sometimes even impossible.  In that case, you’d have to jump back a few levels and try again in the hopes of saving more this time.

Overall, what Tribes really brought to the world of Lemmings was more complexity, and this wasn’t necessarily a good thing.  With fifty-one different skills to remember, some functioning just slightly different from others, it was sometimes hard to keep track of who would do what and when.  The fan tool also added yet another thing to keep in the back of your mind when figuring out a solution, and the persistent population from level to level put an entire new dimension of thought on top of simply surpassing obstacles.  Still, it was mostly classic Lemmings gameplay at the core, and I was determined to give it my best.

Yet, when all was said and done, my best was not enough; though I don’t recall the exact number, I think I only ever beat six out of the twelve tribes, and even then I think I only Gold-medaled on one or two.  I took several stabs at the game over a period of months, but my successes never improved.  It has been too long to say whether the failing was a matter of my personal lack of skill, or problems with the game’s more complex design. In the end, the disk was placed back in the box and put aside on a shelf to sit forgotten for years.

I found that disk a few days ago during a search through my old bedroom at my parents’ place, and the memories of my failure came flooding back to me. I am older now, and I like to think a little wiser.  On top of that, I also have access to the wonderful world of internet FAQs to help me through the rough spots (as a last resort only, of course).  So, with those things in mind, I have decided to re-tackle this old nemesis and see if I can’t finish it off.  And, barring that, at least come up with a plausible examination as to how the game is clearly flawed and impossible.

I will be sure to keep you posted.