Oh no - More Lemmings

Year 1991, it's raining outside, there's a half-liter of cola on the desk, and on the monitor a horde of little green-haired idiots are marching straight into a pit. Classic stuff. Oh No — More Lemmings isn't any kind of revolution, nor does it pretend to be — it's an add-on to one of the most popular puzzle games of that era, plain and simple.

DMA Design released the original Lemmings at the beginning of 1991 and the response was so overwhelming it was clear what to do next. More Lemmings came out later that same year as a standalone datadisk — no need for the original game — and brought a hundred new levels divided into five difficulty groups, from the easiest to properly sadistic. Genre-wise it's still the same thing: you've got a horde of lemmings mindlessly marching forward, and you have to assign them skills — digging, building, blocking, falling — to get as many as possible to the goal.

The mechanics are identical to the original, which is both a strength and a weakness. Anyone who played the first one sits down and immediately knows what they're doing. Mouse controls worked surprisingly smoothly back then and the basic logic remains readable to this day. The problem is that More Lemmings doesn't transcend its own shadow in any way — don't expect new abilities, don't expect new gameplay elements either. It's pure bonus content, without any attempt to push the formula further. The graphics use the same engine with new level themes, the sound design consists of rearranged variations on what you already know. Those expecting evolution were disappointed. Those who just wanted more of the same were satisfied.

What keeps More Lemmings alive is the quality of level design. The later difficulty groups are crafted with visible malice — you feel like a surgeon operating in carpenter's gloves. That very frustration, which then breaks into satisfaction, is the core of the entire series and you'll find it in decent concentration here. At the same time, it's fair to admit that the time pressure and pixel-perfect precision required for some solutions feel dated today — not charmingly archaic, but genuinely annoying in places.

These days More Lemmings is best enjoyed by those who've beaten the original and want more material without learning anything new. It runs without issues in your browser through various DOSBox emulations and as a pure logic puzzle for half an hour in the evening it still works. It's not a necessary stop for everyone, but for series fans it's a solid serving of more torture — in the best sense of the word.