I've spent a lot of time reverse-engineering various Lemmings games lately. While collecting distributions of the various Amiga games and demos, I saw all those not-public-domain tracks and got super curious about it.

In the usual Psygnosis demo with the dirt-and-grass "LEMMINGS" splash screen, all of the instrument sample and song files are on the disk, but only four tunes are actually featured in-game: cancan, doggie, tenlemmings and mountain. Regrettably, the data that associates instrument samples with tunes only contains the mappings for those four songs, so the original "copyrighted" soundtrack can't be restored this way.

There was an earlier demo from December 1990 that was distributed via Amiga Format (#18) and CU Amiga Magazine (#8). This is old enough that the game's mechanics haven't been finalized: Builders don't shrug, Bombers have a question mark over their heads instead of the head-shaking animation. In this demo, only the files for three tunes are present: cancan, doggie and tenlemmings. This is presumably because the demo had to share space on the coverdisk with other demos.

But here's the kicker: the track listing data in this older (oldest?) demo contains instrument mappings for all 20 pre-release tunes (the four in the Psygnosis demo plus the 16 copyrighted songs). The data from both demos can be used in conjunction, and by their powers combined, the forbidden publisher-unfriendly version of the soundtrack can be fully restored. As far as I've been able to determine, this is what Wanted Team must have done, because their SoundPlayer files (and subsequently Mindless's MOD files) all use the correct instruments.

The order that the songs would have played in-game is as follows:
01. cancan
02. doggie
03. tenlemmings
04. batman
05. missionimpos
06. daysnight
07. addamsfamily
08. birdie
09. entertainer
10. hogan
11. matchespana
12. mountain
13. ateam
14. oblasuper
15. panther
16. petergunn
17. raindrops
18. richman
19. scoobydoo
20. twist

It's not worth the risk of hooking it up, so I'm glad that I had an up-to-date backup.

I'm so glad you didn't have to learn that the hard way. Sooooooooooo many people learn that the hard way.

Those figurines are remarkable. They look just like the game art!

uh, sorry but I don't get it. why?

http://www.oakgloves.net/v/vspfiles/photos/categories/25.jpg" alt="" class="bbc_img" />

Hats and scarves also wouldn't make me feel comfortable to see someone wearing when preparing my food. Just sayin'.

You're welcome to move it to some other format if you like, but I'm content leaving it in this forum as documentation.

Not quite, DragonsLover. The compression format isn't documented there. On the other hand, it is documented http://www.lemmingsforums.com/index.php?topic=765.msg16355" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">here.

So what's the deal with that 'what's the deal with airline food' joke? It seems everyone's aware of the notion that it's supposed to be a terrible non-joke, but then again, nobody except nobody actually understands where the humor supposedly comes from.

See, there's three kinds of people who respond to the phrase "What's the deal with airline food?":

1) "Ugh, boooo! Get off the stage!"
2) "I don't get it. What's so funny about that?"
3) "That's just it. It's NOT funny! Hahahaha!"

Of the three, only number 2 is showing any sense, because 1 and 3 aren't even thinking about it. Be careful about replying to this, since you'll probably just wind up in group 3. (-: Think about it, have you ever heard anyone explain why it's supposed to be funny? Of all the people you've ever talked to who supposedly "get it", have they ever elaborated on it? I've seen my fair share of "But when someone explained it to me, I sure felt silly!", but not a one ever went into detail. The closest thing I've ever found to an explanation is "airline food is terrible", which... isn't a joke.

I set out to find the hidden meaning of "airline food" and, much to my amusement, found that nobody knows why everyone thinks it's a joke. Because, as it turns out, it's not a joke or even a non-joke. It was a segue between bits during a performance by one Jerry Seinfeld, where he was telling jokes about the airplane travel experience. It was simply a way to transition into jokes about the food served on airplanes; the line itself was never meant to be humorous. The fullest context of how it gained its current status as a lame joke may have been lost to time, but it's always linked to lousy comics ripping off other people's acts. It would be like someone saying "in other news" and the audience groaning.

Aaaaaaaanyhoo, seeing as how this is a thread about actual jokes, I present you with two subtle variations that actually do genuinely include humorous intent:

1) So what's up with airline food?
2) So what's the deal with Monty Hall?

Could generate a hash on the resulting bitmap I suppose.

Except it's Sony, so I expect the worst. I predict microtransactions and achievements at the very least. (-:

No one from Sony will ever ask for your password because someone's already stolen it anyway.

For C++ under Windows, I've used MinGW, it's free software. Hunt around the web for that, I recall that one needs to install several things from their site.

It works just fine with just the http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/" class="bbc_link" target="_blank">mingw-get-setup.exe file linked to on their SourceForge page. I think what you have in mind is MSYS, which is an additional package that contains a Windows version of the make utility among other things.

I'd go with MinGW, möbius. It exposes the gcc and g++ commands to the Windows command prompt, and it's what you're most likely to run into out there in the real world (at least, the real world that isn't married to Microsoft).

Thanks for the suggestion/offer, though. http://www.lemmingsforums.com/Smileys/lemmings/wink.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" class="smiley" />

I'm not convinced that you understand what VirtualBox can do. (-:

If you need to use Windows for whatever reason, you can set up a VM using VirtualBox, which is probably part of your official Linux repository. If you need a copy of Windows to install on it, well, let's just say I know a Guy who can help you out.

I'm not aware of what the problem is. Could you describe what it's doing wrong?