Lemmings
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UK honors 'Tomb Raider', 'Worms' and other classics with retro postage stamps
The UK's video game legacy is being honored with a new set of commemorative stamps from the Royal Mail. The collection, which will set you back £14.25 (nearly $19), features iconic designs from the likes of Wipeout, Lemmings, Micro Machines, Worms and, of course, Tomb Raider.
Classic puzzler 'Lemmings' returns as a free-to-play mobile game
It's been a long time since there was a Lemmings game on phones, but the clear-a-path game is back -- albeit with some catches. Sony and Sad Puppy have released the simply-titled Lemmings for Android and iOS (no, no PlayStation), offering that familiar experience of saving self-destructive creatures through their talents. The interface has logically been adapted to touchscreens, and Sad Puppy has gone so far as to design levels with vertical phone and tablet screens in mind. On the surface, at least, it's a dose of nostalgia for people who grew up on Psygnosis games, with a few modern twists like collectible "tribes" and online tournaments.
The Morning After: Friday, February 03 2017
Welcome to Friday. Snapchat makes a move to become an even bigger business, Uber's CEO bows out from President Donald Trump's advisory council and hey! There's the long-awaited, brand new Engadget app!
Tetris meets Lemmings in Mousecraft, coming this summer
Combining intrepid rodents with the gaming industry's favorite suffix comes Mousecraft, a new puzzle game from indie developer Crunching Koalas which is coming to the Vita courtesy Curve Studios. "The basic gameplay [in Mousecraft] is very simple: Your goal is to lead a group of mice through a machine to find the cheese at the other end of the level," wrote Curve Studios PR manager Rob Clarke on the PlayStation.blog. "You don't control the mice directly however, but instead control their environment through the use of many different types of classic 'Tetromino' blocks that can be dropped onto the level." "Imagine the careful strategy and planning of a game like Lemmings with the blocks and fast-paced decision making of Tetris, and you've got an idea of how Mousecraft works," Clarke added. According to the developer, Mousecraft will feature 50 stages of increasing complexity, online leaderboards, an in-game ranking system, collectables to hunt and a "fully-featured level editor available during launch." Curve Studios claims that Mousecraft "should" be available on Vita and PC at some point in May, with a PlayStation 4 version of the puzzle game following this summer. It's currently unknown what price point will be attached to Mousecraft. Update: Originally this article described Curve Studios as the creator of Mousecraft. Crunching Koalas is actually the creator the indie game, while Curve is responsible for bringing Mousecraft to the Vita. [Image: Curve Studios]
The Apple Super Bowl commercial that flopped
Most people are likely familiar with Apple's famous "1984" ad, largely upheld as one of the best commercials of all time. But much more obscure is Apple's follow up commercial for the 1985 Super Bowl, an advert dubbed "Lemmings." Apple's "Lemmings" ad touted Macintosh Office, a product primed to be a modern day business computing environment comprised of networked Macs, a file server, and a networked laser printer. Much like the "1984" ad, "Lemmings" purported to show that folks deciding to stay with IBM (or any PC variant) were nothing more than lemmings blindly following one another off of a cliff. And though the "Lemmings" ad more or less carried the same tone as "1984", the ad was largely considered an absolute flop. Network World reports: Reportedly inspired by the myth that lemmings committed mass suicide by accidentally walking off cliffs during migration, the ad showed blindfolded businessmen walking single file off of cliffs in a dystopian wasteland, the implicit result of a world ruined by enterprise PCs that didn't run Macintosh. Whereas the 1984 ad was praised for its allusion to the dystopian future laid out in Orwell's legendary novel, the Lemmings ad was denounced for creating an overly bleak, suicidal scenario created specifically as a knock against Apple's competitors. Compounding matters was that the advertised product -- Macintosh Office -- never really shipped as originally envisioned. Indeed, the file server wasn't even ready for release until 1987. Wired adds: The product simply did not exist. And if you write a check with your advertising that your product can't cash, you will - I assure you - bite the karmic weenie," Steve Hayden, the co-creator of the 1984 ad and the copywriter for Lemmings, said last week during an anniversary bash for the Macintosh. "We bit it big time." It would be a good 14 years before Apple would again run a Super Bowl ad, a Y2K themed ad featuring HAL. To say it's sleep inducing might be an understatement. So with the Super Bowl tomorrow and the Mac recently having celebrated its 30th birthday, might we see Apple get back into the Super Bowl ad game once more? In any other year, "no" would be a safe bet, but given that Apple actually acknowledged the Mac's 30th birthday in a major way, and given the following tweet from longtime Apple ad man Lee Clow, perhaps Apple will have a surprise in store for us come Sunday. Gonna be a goodSuper Bowl. Mac's gonna be 30 :) - Lee Clow (@_clow) January 20, 2014
Lemmings Touch coming soon to PS Vita
Following up on last year's launch of Lemmings for PlayStation Mobile, developer d3t has announced the upcoming release of Lemmings Touch, a revised version of the classic puzzler for the PlayStation Vita. Along with powers and abilities featured in previous Lemmings games, players can use new touch-and-drag elements within each level to guide the mindless rodents to their salvation and/or doom. In addition, d3t warns that "not all Lemmings are quite what they seem," hinting at the possibility of enemy characters interfering with the proceedings. A release date for Lemmings Touch is not yet known, though d3t notes that more details will be available soon.
PSA: Lemmings out now for PlayStation mobile
Lemmings is now available on PlayStation Mobile for Vita as well as compatible HTC and Sony Xperia phones and tablets. The first 30 levels of the game are free, with extra levels available as paid DLC.A list of supported PlayStation Mobile devices can be found on the service's official site. %Gallery-172954%
Sony axing Liverpool game studio, ends Psygnosis' 28-year history
Sony has confirmed that it's shuttering Studio Liverpool, more famously known as Psygnosis. The publisher was founded in 1984 and is responsible for a legion of best-selling titles including Lemmings, Colony Wars, Destruction Derby, Wipeout and the Formula One games. In a statement, the company said that after a review of its "commercially viable" projects, it's focusing on projects in other parts of the business -- after slashing the studio's remit in a cost-cutting exercise in 2010. The facility is also the location of the company's European Quality Assurance team, which will reportedly remain in operation.
PlayStation Mobile launch games include Lemmings, Super Crate Box
Sony offered a relative blowout of news for its PlayStation Mobile service today – by which we mean it actually showed games. The whirlwind of mostly unidentifiable game clips included Vlambeer's Super Crate Box and Lemmings. Sony promises games from both big publishers and indies.These launch games are planned for release at the launch of this service, later in 2012. They'll be playable on Sony Xperia phones, PS Vitas, and – newly revealed – Asus and Wikipad devices.
Spirits out on Mac App Store now
Spirits is a really amazing title that original came out on iOS last year: It's sort of a Lemmings clone, though the art style and the game's floaty physics mechanics really add a lot of great new elements to that old classic. Now, Spaces of Play has brought the game to the Mac App Store, so if you haven't gotten to play it yet, you can see it on the big screen with full audio running. Unfortunately, there's no new content available, but Spaces of Play has of course tweaked the game's graphics and interface to work on the desktop rather than on a touchscreen. And given how good this game looks, this might be the ideal version to play with -- obviously, it lacks the tactile input of a touchscreen, but here the game's aesthetic can really stretch out across the screen, and your fingers can get out of the way. Spirits for Mac is available now for an introductory sale price of $7.99 -- if you haven't played it yet, now's your chance.
Konami guides Leedmees to a September 7 release on XBLA
If your life lacks the kind of refreshing responsibility that comes with shepherding a flock of mindless, adorable drones, you're in luck! Or rather, you're about to be: Konami's clever little Lemmings-esque puzzle title, Leedmees, will make its debut on Xbox Live on September 7 for 800 Microsoft Points ($10). If you haven't heard of the Kinect-enabled downloadable title before, check out our Comic-Con preview for a brief explanation of how all the titular leeding plays out.
Leedmees preview: Like a bridge
Leedmees was a nice surprise in the Konami suite at Comic-Con this week -- we haven't posted about it yet at all, and while Fruit Ninja Kinect has gotten a lot of the press as the first downloadable Kinect title, this one looks like it might be the more original. The game describes, during a dreamy little introduction, the player wandering into a secret magical door somewhere, where little white creatures (called Leedmees, presumably) march in step from one little spinning portal to another. Like the old Lemmings games, Leadmees mindlessly walk forward, and it's up to the player to make sure they get home safely. But there's one important twist: In Lemmings, you controlled the little creatures, using their abilities to get through the environment. In Leedmees, you are the environment.
The Acorn A7000+ portable mod is what your MacBook looks like in an alternate universe
Aside from its attempted rebirth as a laptop manufacturer back in 2006, we haven't heard all that much from Acorn Computers in the past, oh, two decades or so. And if you're not a UK native, there's a pretty good chance that you didn't hear all that much about the "British Apple" before then either. But while the company's more official attempt to go portable was nothing to write home about, its late-period A7000+ desktop has now seen a successful second life at the hands of a British modder as the A7KP. The Acorn's innards have been stuffed into a five pound (relatively) portable setup, featuring a 10.4-inch LCD, 4GB of flash memory, and a battery that offers up three hours of RISC OS-based fun. It's enough to make you wonder how you ever played Lemmings on anything else.
Lemmings-like Spirits for iPad out now
Spirits for iPad, which I saw and played back at Indiecade this year, is out now on the App Store. The game is US$4.99, but as a premium iPad experience, it's worth it. The whole thing is extremely relaxing, and the art style is quite well done. If you enjoy Lemmings-style puzzle gameplay where your goal is to get a set of autonomous creatures to a level exit using their various abilities, you'll really enjoy finding your way through the 40 handmade levels in Spirits. I was told a while back that an iPhone version is coming, but the iPad version was ready to go first, so here it is. Unfortunately, there's still no Game Center achievements or any other extra modes or gameplay, but that's ok. The point of the game is just to sit back and explore the world with these weird spirit creatures, so if you're looking to spend some quality gaming time with the iPad this weekend, Spirits won't let you down.
ZUG takes live-action Lemmings tribute to Boston
The very same mall we walked through to enter the inaugural PAX East this past March just saw a heavy influx of Lemmings, care of the folks at ZUG and "a few dozen" of their "closest friends." The video contains at least one water-based Lemming fatality -- you've been warned!
Comedy Central mutes "eyePhone" Futurama parody
If you saw Thursday night's new episode of Matt Groening's Futurama on Comedy Central (and let's take a moment to relish those beautiful words, 'new episode of Futurama' -- mmm, yes), you got an earful of biting satire focused on the enthusiasm of a certain company's customers and their appetite for new, shiny things. As Engadget reported, the episode was unsparing in its portrayal of a world where underpaid laborers dealt with the toxic leavings of other planets' consumerist tendencies. Ouch. Apparently, not everyone found it amusing. As Mac|Life's Roberto Baldwin noted, one of the clips from the show on the Comedy Central website has been selectively muted; when the Mom character says "Introducing the all-new eyePhone 2.0" in the original episode, now there is silence. Wouldn't you have liked to have been an eavesdropper on that phone call. Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
Unofficial Lemmings for iPhone gets C&D
Developer Aaron Ardiri pulled off the crazy feat last week of porting the classic Lemmings game from Palm OS not only to the iPhone, but also to Windows and the Mac ... in just 36 hours. That's 36 hours straight -- he liveblogged the whole process, and did actually pull it off, sending the iPhone app, which you can see above, into the App Store for approval. There's just one hitch -- Ardiri doesn't actually own the Lemmings property. Sony does, and as soon as the company heard about his port, it dropped a cease and desist letter on him, commanding him to remove all ports he's hosted and not to port any other Sony games. So there's no way, as of now, that we'll see this app in the App Store. Of course, if Sony knows what's good for them, the company could pay Ardiri to release the port for them, and we could all play the old version of Lemmings on the iPhone (and pay for the privilege). Ardiri says he'll "open communication" for such a deal, so we'll have to wait and see.
Developer ports Lemmings to four platforms in 36 hours
Last week, Mobile 1UP developer Aaron Ardiri challenged himself to a daunting task: complete a marathon programming session to bring his PalmOS version of Lemmings to other platforms. After 36 straight hours of tireless porting and liveblogging, Ardiri managed to push the classic puzzler onto the iPhone App Store and Palm App Catalog (where it's currently awaiting approval), as well as Windows and Mac (where it's currently available to download for free). Check out ZDNet's video demo of the iPhone version of the game posted after the jump. If you feel so inclined, you could also join us in petitioning your higher power of choice that the game will miraculously be approved for mobile distribution.
Your Doodles Are Bugged! arrives on XBLA's Indie marketplace
German developer Johannes Huber sent us word that his game, Your Doodles are Bugged!, is out now on Xbox Live's Indie Games Marketplace for the low, low price of 80 (or about a buck). You can see a gameplay trailer over on YouTube right now (which we've placed along with a silly teaser trailer after the break). The game looks a little bit like Lemmings but with custom paths rather than tools -- various doodles drawn by a master doodler are infected with little jumping cartoon bugs, and your job is to draw lines that lead the bugs to various points in the illustrated environment. The game offers "lots of levels," and they seem like complicated affairs, though you can zoom in and out to chart your own path to exodus for the little bugs. There's also unlockable content and both friends and global leaderboards. Both the game and its trial are available on your Xbox right now. Download the trial version of Your Doodles are Bugged! to your Xbox 360
Trophies: Lemmings
0 Platinum1 Gold3 Silver8 Bronze Difficulty: Moderate Online Trophies? No Time to Completion: 5 hoursDLC Trophies? No View Trophy List Read More About the Game %Gallery-78306%
