Hello everyone!
I've been working on an unofficial native macOS Lemmings project, currently called **Ultimate Lemmings**, and wanted to introduce it here. Its focus is bringing the original campaigns, their different presentation options, and the first two sequels together in one Mac application.
I grew up with the Macintosh version. What started as a personal preservation project has become an attempt to build the experience I wanted when I returned to Lemmings after about twenty years: the artwork I remembered, the games I missed, and convenient controls for playing them today.
I know I'm introducing this to a community that has spent decades developing engines, researching the originals, making levels and refining how Lemmings can be played. Projects such as Lemmix, NeoLemmix and Community Edition, the Lemmini family, Lix, SuperLemmix and L2Player already cover a great deal of ground. My project also benefits directly from community research into the original games' formats and behaviour.
The particular experience I'm working towards is a continuous journey through **Lemmings, Oh No!, the Xmas/Holiday releases, Lemmings 2: The Tribes, and All New World of Lemmings / The Lemmings Chronicles**, with Macintosh presentation as the starting point.
The application is written in Swift and runs natively on macOS. It reads the original game data through new engine implementations, without running the original executables or an emulator. Beta 9 supports macOS 13 or later on Apple silicon and Intel.
(https://iili.io/n3Uy6wQ.jpg)
The Macintosh version where this startedThe classic Mac port has its own detailed 2× artwork: terrain, objects, lemming animations and interface graphics. This is a unique high-res version of the original sprites not found in any other port, and wanted to make that original artwork usable in a modern application. Beta testers have described it playing it as "how I remembered it in my mind". It is not a modern upscale, but rather hand crafted 2x versions of the same sprites done in the same era.
(https://iili.io/n3Us0Gf.jpg)
The classic games use those Macintosh assets by default. Amiga and DOS VGA artwork are also selectable, and changing artwork during play preserves the current game state.
The classic simulation is based on DOS behaviour. Selecting Macintosh artwork changes the presentation; it does not select a recreation of the original Macintosh engine's physics. I'm still validating behaviour - all levels have been tested to completion, but I'm not claiming perfect fidelity with every original platform's tricks or solutions.
Of course NeoLemmix already supports high-resolution graphics. The interest here is specifically in using the original Macintosh artwork and carrying its visual character through the wider collection.
The sequels have their own native enginesTribes and Chronicles, being completely separate beasts, retain their separate gameplay systems. Their levels run through dedicated engine implementations that read the sequel data directly.
For Tribes, that includes the 51 skills, fan interaction, tribe-specific objects, survivor carry-over, medals and campaign structure. For Chronicles, it means its tool collection and use, individual actions, reserves, creatures and separate tribe progression.
That is a substantial part of the project's scope. I want moving from classic Lemmings into Tribes, and then Chronicles, to feel like continuing through the series while each game keeps its own identity. L2Player is another relevant project in this space, and the community's sequel research has helped make my own implementation possible.
The sequels are at different stages of development. Tribes is now a native beta with all twelve tribes available. Chronicles remains a preview with more work needed on mechanics, audio and presentation. Having every level load is only one stage of getting these games right.
I've also been exploring a Macintosh-style treatment for the sequelsAfter spending time with the classic Mac graphics, I wanted a consistent visual experience when continuing into Tribes and Chronicles. Otherwise the progress hits a significant visual downgrade once it hits the sequels.
The sequel artwork is a new 2× reconstruction informed by comparisons between the original DOS and Macintosh assets. I've used rules for character details, terrain shading, architecture, liquids and mechanical objects. It preserves the sequels' underlying geometry and animation registration.
This is my interpretation of a Macintosh-style treatment. The authentic Mac assets belong to the classic releases; the sequel treatment is newly generated from their original artwork. It is new artwork that never existed before, but in an alternate reality should have.
The original sequel artwork remains selectable, and switching between the two preserves gameplay state. (I particularly welcome feedback from people familiar with the original Mac graphics about where the treatment captures their character and where it needs work.0
The shared campaignThe current library covers eight releases and 502 campaign levels:
- Lemmings: 120.
- Oh No! More Lemmings: 100.
- Xmas 1991 and 1992: four each.
- Holiday 1993: 32.
- Holiday 1994: 32 additional levels, with the repeated 1993 levels counted once.
- Lemmings 2: 120.
- Chronicles / All New World of Lemmings: 90.
And of course the current library of
6025 fan made levels from this very forum.
"Full Quest" resumes unfinished campaigns and continues into the next release when one is complete. You can also choose an individual game or level. Each engine retains its own progression rules, including the sequels' survivor systems.
The longer-term goal is a consistent set of controls across the collection: speed control, rewind, frame stepping, precise selection, zoom, widescreen views, scrolling and keyboard shortcuts.
These features are at different stages today. Classic gameplay has rewind; general rewind across both sequels is still work ahead. Classic and Tribes have nuke undo, which restores the state from immediately before the nuke. The shared controls and camera behaviour are still being brought together.
I'm also working on the presentation around the games: selectable artwork and sound sources, campaign achievements, and an optional adaptive DJ mode that changes music in response to play. Mixing the presentation elements I remember from different versions has been a surprisingly enjoyable part of the project.
Fan levels and NeoLemmix compatibilityThe collection I've been exploring contains more than 6,000 existing community levels. The application has a browser for older-format fan packs, alongside separate experimental support for NeoLemmix's `.nxlv` format.
Those are existing authors' levels. That number describes the collection, not thousands of newly created levels or thousands of verified solutions.
For NeoLemmix content, my implementation is still incomplete. In beta 9, Fencer and Laserer are unsupported, and there are other object and physics details still to implement or verify. General rewind and gameplay sound effects are also missing in that player.
I'm not claiming NeoLemmix replay compatibility or guaranteeing that a level's intended solution works here. Parsing and displaying a level is different from reproducing the exact behaviour its author designed around.
For playing a NeoLemmix pack under its intended rules, NeoLemmix remains the reference. My interest is in developing another native Mac route into that content, with compatibility claims grounded in testing.
I also want to handle the community's work properly. Author credits, original pack identity, source links and authors' preferences about inclusion all matter. I'd welcome input from pack and style authors on that side of the project.
Beta 9The classic family is the most developed part of the application. Tribes includes all twelve tribes, 120 campaign levels, 51 skill implementations, four practice maps, original audio, menus, progression, saves and ending sequences. Full campaign solution coverage and original-engine equivalence are still being checked.
Chronicles has all 90 campaign levels available in its preview, but mechanics remain under development and music, sound effects and movie playback are not yet connected.
I'd especially appreciate testing from people who know the original games well: familiar solutions that behave differently, awkward skill interactions, incorrect artwork or animation, and campaign progression problems. A game/version, level name and reproducible sequence would be very useful.
This has also become something much more personal than a technical exercise. My partner had barely played video games before, and we've been playing together, laughing at disastrous attempts and celebrating when a plan finally works. Returning to Lemmings has reminded me how much pleasure there is in these puzzles, and shown me how much community-made material I missed.
If you have a suitable Mac and would like to try the beta, please send me a PM. Feedback on the project's direction is welcome here too, particularly from people maintaining engines, researching the originals or creating levels.
I am of course open to porting this back to Windows/Linux or other platforms once in a good state. I'm also currently exploring the best ways of distributing this without stepping on licensing and copyright toes. Ultimately no copyrighted material will be distributed, but a smooth end player experience is the ultimate goal for people for whom emulation is a step too hard.
As for personal features that I am adding that I always wished were in the game, I am adding per level stats and leaderboards - my goal as a kid was always to max out the saved lemmings. Now this will be built in to each solution: The maximum possible saved lemmings versus your effort.
Of course any and all of these modern QoL features will be optional, but I bet you you'll be going back and min/maxing them all ;)
Oh yeah, and I'll be adding a Retry button for each level even if you finished it :lix-evil: