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CultureQuiet 4d · day 6

Blog post dissects how the Lemmings franchise squandered its 1990s dominance

A filfre.net retrospective on DMA Design's puzzle hit finds a series of small missteps, not one fatal error, behind its fall from Tetris-level fame.

newest coverage 4d agosummary written 4d ago6 pieces153 likes & upvotes33 comments Hacker NewsNewswiresMastodon

What to know

  • Lemmings (1991) was ported to 24 platforms and outsold every other Psygnosis game by an order of magnitude, briefly ranking alongside Tetris and SimCity as mainstream, non-gamer-friendly hits.
  • Unlike Tetris and SimCity, which fed into the 2000s casual-gaming boom (SimCity begetting The Sims), Lemmings faded into a kitschy fad by the millennium.
  • The filfre.net retrospective argues the franchise's fall stemmed from an accumulation of smaller decisions rather than one clear misstep, starting with the ambitious but divisive 1993 sequel Lemmings 2: The Tribes.
  • The article gained little notice on its first Hacker News submission but reached the front page on a second post a day later.

DMA Design Original developer of LemmingsPsygnosis Publisher of Lemmingsfilfre.net author Author of the retrospective blog post

How it unfolded 3 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlesposts

Peak 2 pieces in two hours at Sep 19, 9 AM; 6 pieces over 6 days (1 article · 5 posts) Sep 18, 11 AM — 1 piece · 1 post — Hacker News 1Sep 18, 1 PM — quietSep 18, 3 PM — quietSep 18, 5 PM — quietSep 18, 7 PM — quietSep 18, 9 PM — quietSep 18, 11 PM — quietSep 19, 1 AM — quietSep 19, 3 AM — quietSep 19, 5 AM — quietSep 19, 7 AM — quietSep 19, 9 AM — 2 pieces · 1 article · 1 post — Hacker News 1, Newswires 1Sep 19, 11 AM — quietSep 19, 1 PM — quietSep 19, 3 PM — quietSep 19, 5 PM — quietSep 19, 7 PM — 1 piece · 1 post — Mastodon 1Sep 19, 9 PM — quietSep 19, 11 PM — quietSep 20, 1 AM — 1 piece · 1 post — Mastodon 1Sep 20, 3 AM — quietSep 20, 5 AM — quietSep 20, 7 AM — 1 piece · 1 post — Mastodon 1Sep 20, 9 AM — quietSep 20, 11 AM — quietSep 20, 1 PM — quietSep 20, 3 PM — quietSep 20, 5 PM — quietSep 20, 7 PM — quietSep 20, 9 PM — quietSep 20, 11 PM — quietSep 21, 1 AM — quietSep 21, 3 AM — quietSep 21, 5 AM — quietSep 21, 7 AM — quietSep 21, 9 AM — quietSep 21, 11 AM — quietSep 21, 1 PM — quietSep 21, 3 PM — quietSep 21, 5 PM — quietSep 21, 7 PM — quietSep 21, 9 PM — quietSep 21, 11 PM — quietSep 22, 1 AM — quietSep 22, 3 AM — quietSep 22, 5 AM — quietSep 22, 7 AM — quietSep 22, 9 AM — quietSep 22, 11 AM — quietSep 22, 1 PM — quietSep 22, 3 PM — quietSep 22, 5 PM — quietSep 22, 7 PM — quietSep 22, 9 PM — quietSep 22, 11 PM — quietYesterday, 1 AM — quietYesterday, 3 AM — quietYesterday, 5 AM — quietYesterday, 7 AM — quietYesterday, 9 AM — quietYesterday, 11 AM — quietYesterday, 1 PM — quietYesterday, 3 PM — quietYesterday, 5 PM — quietYesterday, 7 PM — quietYesterday, 9 PM — quietYesterday, 11 PM — quietToday, 1 AM — quietToday, 3 AM — quietToday, 5 AM — quietToday, 7 AM — quietToday, 9 AM — quietToday, 11 AM — quietToday, 1 PM — quiet 123
Sep 19Sep 20Sep 21Sep 22yesterdaynow · 2:25 PM ET
  1. 3

    Mastodon bots syndicate the HN discussion link

    Automated Mastodon accounts (hkrn@mstdn.social and hn50@social.lansky.name) posted the article link along with its Hacker News discussion thread over the following hours.

  2. 2

    Resubmission by zdw pushes the article onto HN's front page

    A second Hacker News submission of the same article by user zdw gained significantly more traction, reaching 54 points and 11 comments, and was picked up by the HN Frontpage RSS feed.

    “the answer comes down less to the choosing of a single ill-advised fork in the road than to a series of smaller decisions that doubtless seemed like a good idea at the time, but were exposed as less than good in retrospect…”
    — filfre.net (article author), blog author, retro-gaming history site · source
  3. background

    filfre.net argues Lemmings' decline was death by a thousand small choices — The retrospective concludes the franchise's fall from perennial-hit status to kitschy-fad status was not caused by a single bad decision but by a series of smaller choices that looked reasonable at the time.

  4. 1

    HN user doppp posts the article, drawing little attention

    The filfre.net piece was first submitted to Hacker News by user doppp, scoring only 4 points with no comments.

  5. background

    DMA Design and Psygnosis ship Lemmings 2: The Tribes — The ambitious sequel expanded the original's eight special abilities to 60, split the lemmings into twelve tribes with distinct environments, and added a narrative about escaping captivity, arriving amid heavy anticipation.

  6. background

    DMA Design releases Lemmings, which becomes a global hit — Developed by DMA Design of Dundee and published by Liverpool-based Psygnosis, Lemmings launched on the Commodore Amiga and was ported to 23 other platforms, outselling every other Psygnosis game by an order of magnitude and becoming a mainstream, non-gamer-friendly phenomenon alongside Tetris and SimCity.