Retronauts Episode 495: The Lemmings series
Watch your step while listening to this show, please
Lemmings. They're a real animal on our planet, but humans have a few funny ideas about what they do. They do not heedlessly march en masse off of cliffs to their deaths, but they do jump into the water to swim when migrating, and not every lemming survives the journey.
Yet in 1991, the folks at DMA Design had an idea for a video game where the player had to manage a crowd of tiny creatures who heedlessly march en masse across the screen. They gave them an anthropomorphic appearance, but they named these poor souls—and the game they starred in—Lemmings. Regardless of the inaccuracies, Lemmings became popular and would continue marching across PCs and consoles for decades to come.
Three years ago, we covered the original Lemmings and included an interview with one of the men responsible for designing the first game. This week, host Stuart Gipp and guest Dave Bulmer dissect the ups and downs of the entire Lemmings series. Needless to say, they're big fans of the concept, although in discussing the many varied entries over the years, they feel a number of releases should have simply been allowed to fall into the sea.
Description: Join Stuart Gipp and master of remembering Dave Bulmer as they cling to their respective parasols and float down the Lemmings gameography, taking in classics, missteps, and weird choices that pay off.
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MP3, 48 MB | 1:41:40 Direct download Retronauts on iTunes Retronauts at Audioboom
Artwork for this episode by Leeann Hamilton and editing thanks go to Greg Leahy.
