Dodgy graphics, mysteriously sourced computers and a bemused artist: a new Youtube documentary celebrates 30 years since the release of computing classic Lemmings
And it was manna to many, many kids like me, whose sole household computing device was a rubbish PC with a horrible four-colour CGA screen that basically couldn’t play any video game of the time … except Lemmings!
A group of kids, including Russell Kay, Mike Dailly, David Jones and Steve Hammond met at the city’s Kingsway Amateur Computer Club.
Viewers of the documentary will doubtless learn something new: something that I missed at the time was that the game had a carefully crafted 20-level two-player mode that almost nobody knew about, and was basically impossible to access without advanced soldering skills.
One of the more fun elements explored here is that the game had never involved any concept art whatsoever: the sprites clearly do not look like actual lemmings, and were merely given the name because of their idiot behaviour.
Hence, for hazy reasons, artist Adrian Powell – whose previous job was painting murals in old people’s homes – was drafted in, something he still sounds bemused about to this day.
There are moments when it could do with a less rambling structure, for the developer talk to be toned down (“Of course, nobody has ever credited DPaint with gaming on the Amiga,” opines renowned designer Peter Molyneux, bafflingly.)
The original article contains 678 words, the summary contains 210 words. Saved 69%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
And it was manna to many, many kids like me, whose sole household computing device was a rubbish PC with a horrible four-colour CGA screen that basically couldn’t play any video game of the time … except Lemmings!
A group of kids, including Russell Kay, Mike Dailly, David Jones and Steve Hammond met at the city’s Kingsway Amateur Computer Club.
Viewers of the documentary will doubtless learn something new: something that I missed at the time was that the game had a carefully crafted 20-level two-player mode that almost nobody knew about, and was basically impossible to access without advanced soldering skills.
One of the more fun elements explored here is that the game had never involved any concept art whatsoever: the sprites clearly do not look like actual lemmings, and were merely given the name because of their idiot behaviour.
Hence, for hazy reasons, artist Adrian Powell – whose previous job was painting murals in old people’s homes – was drafted in, something he still sounds bemused about to this day.
There are moments when it could do with a less rambling structure, for the developer talk to be toned down (“Of course, nobody has ever credited DPaint with gaming on the Amiga,” opines renowned designer Peter Molyneux, bafflingly.)
The original article contains 678 words, the summary contains 210 words. Saved 69%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!