Ah, Lemmings. One of the best puzzle games of the early PC era (indeed, it was developed for the Amiga!), it’s also one of the hardest to describe. What are the lemmings, exactly? They just…walk? That’s the gist of it, really. You have to guide the lemmings, who don’t really resemble the animal of that name at all, from an entrance to the level to the exit. To do that, you can convert any lemming the drops out of the entrance into a worker of some type – you can dig, build staircases, create blockers to turn the lemmings around, and so on. Sounds simple, yes? Just like most classic puzzle games, it starts simple but quickly gets fiendishly difficult. Some levels require pinpoint timing and accuracy, conservation of lemmings, and out of the box thinking.
It might interest you to know that the company that eventually became Rockstar North, the makers of the Grand Theft Auto series, is who created Lemmings. I always love finding these things out, like when I see where else Ben Edlund or Joss Whedon or M. Night Shymalan show up  (Shymalan wrote the screenplay for Stuart Little, por ejemplo). Anyway, fire up Dosbox and start up Lemmings (you can get it at Abandonia). You might just find yourself sweating level 21 several hours later.
p.s. There is nothing more theraputic in life then getting a bunch of lemmings on screen and clicking the ‘nuke’ button to explode them all. My friends and I may or may not have done just that for the better part of an hour at various times…
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