Posted by boyo on Dec 5, 2010 10:08 (Dec 5, 2010 10:08)
Like so many Christmas themed games, it seems, Holiday Lemmings (such a delightfully nondenominational title, what?) was more of a seasonal demo or snow covered gift from the developer than a full game. Still, seeing those rascally little perpetual motion machines trundling along in their Santa outfits was enough to warm the cold winter hearth of even the most tight fisted hand at the grindstone.
Nailing down exactly when those green-haired suicidal mammals first donned their Chrimbo best is as tricky as figuring out why there's no mention of Christmas crackers or cranberry sauce in the Bible. It would seem (and don't quote me if I'm wrong - that's what happened to Jesus, you know, and look how things turned out) that the massive success of Lemmings encouraged Psygnosis to do everything it could to keep puzzle gamers red hot until the sequel came along.
To promote the forthcoming add-on levels in 1991, a demo was released featuring a couple of terrains from Oh No, More Lemmings! along with a pair of bonus, Christmas themed levels since it just so happened to be that time of year. Stonking good wintery japes were had by all, so when it came time to promote the Lemmings brand once again at the end of 1992, four Christmas themed brain twisting jaunts were again put out as a demo. A demo to what, it wasn't known, but you can never have too many Lemmings, right?
Apparently, we the game playing public wanted more, and by 1993 DMA Design made the reckless rodents seasonal shenanigans official. A 32-level stand alone game was released for the commercial season. Despite its rather weighty price tag for such a short game (many of the early levels being a walk in the wintery park for seasoned Lemmings fans), the irresistibility of the wonderland wanderers in their fur lined costumes was too much. We had to have them.
1994 saw an additional 32 levels of snow covered relentless sauntering fun, and the previous year's game go out for free. Just like the year before, the box (in the UK at least) proclaimed this to be "Christmas Lemmings" while the menu screen called it "Holiday Lemmings". Mainly, this was for the sake of the Americans though it also served to make gamers question whether Psygnosis knew what they were actually doing, too.
The final Christmas present from the Lemmings inventors was yet another add-on for 1995's Lemmings 3D; a few average, ordinary puzzles already seen in the 3D original, with a sprinkling of crisp white for wintry good measure.
All in all, a critic might suggest the Christmas Lemmings outings have been disappointing ways to shore up a bit of shopping money for the developers with minimal input, and they'd be right. But now they're all buzzing around the internet for free emulation pleasures, it's hard not to fall right back in love with the idea of 99 lemmings all dressed as Santa and falling to their deaths to the tune of Jingle Bells.
