I’d love to hear the conversation that took place sometime in the early 90s about converting Lemmings to the humble ZX Spectrum.

“Sir, we’ve got this great idea for a Spectrum port!”
“Go on…”
“It’s colourful, mouse-driven, with pixel-level graphic detail and many, many moving characters.”
“Ummm…”

Anyway, somehow someone thought it would be possible and it happened. In fact, it happened to all the 8-bit home computers. But, did it end up as a floater or was it led over the edge to die?

Let’s go!

Screenshot of Amiga Lemmings

Everyone knows Amiga Lemmings, right? Of course you do… it’s almost the Mario of the Amiga scene. Level after level of convoluted, destructible landscapes. A continuous stream of tiny, potentially multi-talented rodents. Some quirky British humour that manifests in things like the self-destruct button or the catchy music…

It’s a game that has aged like fine wine and can still entertain today. If you somehow haven’t played it, go dig up a copy today. It’s great!

Screenshot of Spectrum Lemmings

Uhoh! first and worst of all is the ZX Spectrum. Actually, I found it difficult to know where to place this one. It plays reasonably well, and captures that basic Lemmings-ness. But it looks so… ugh.

I appreciate the problem. Lemmings requires pixel-level detail; Spectrums can do two colours per 8x8 square. So it is monochrome by necessity. But BOY is it monochrome. It’s aggressively monochrome. No nuance or detail. It looks like the Amiga gfx were sampled down to 2 colours and that’s it.

Boo!

Screenshot of Amstrad Lemmings

The Amstrad port is better, in looks at least. The graphics are bright and chunky, and the play area is large. What lets this port down is the speed. It’s very slow. The “mouse” pointer is unresponsive and sluggish which makes it hard to control.

Also, the music sounds ever so slightly wrong, to the point where it makes you feel on edge.

It’s not terrible though.

Screenshot of C64 Lemmings

Best of the 8-bits is the C64 version. This port has good music, the graphics are nice and detailed, and the game is snappy and controls well.

What let’s this one down is that the play area is kind of squeezed down to a narrow strip in the centre of the screen. For a game that requires you to see what is coming to the left and the right, this means you end up scrolling a lot. Still, it’s not a deal breaker.

So, for 8-bits at least, a C64 win!

Console port comparison

There were many other Lemmings ports, of course, most notably to the popular consoles of the day. This isn’t a format you’d expect to do well with a generally mouse-based game, but they all turned out pretty good…

MegaDrive and SNES both got a port. The MD version was my weapon of choice growing up, and it plays really well. The SNES version is similarly good, and both are well worth a look today.

NES got a port, and it’s okay, the worst of the consoles… It seems to play way too fast, which makes even the early levels tricksy.

Biggest surprise is the MasterSystem. Its port is rad! Looks great, sounds great, plays really well and has some amazingly clear speech samples.