I completed Lemmings this morning.
You might find it surprising that I, clearly no novice either at creating Lemmings puzzles or at
solving them, should take so long. The reason is simple: someone out there doesn't know his percentages.
This is 26 Mayhem, The Steel Mines of Kessel, PC version. You have ten bombers, ten blockers,
ten builders, and have to save 90% of 100 lemmings, which is of course 90.
On the Mac, possibly because the old machines the game was first designed on got too slow keeping
track of 100 lemmings, all levels that have 100 on other versions have only 80. And the designers forgot
that 90% of 80 is not all but ten, but all but EIGHT.
It would still be doable, but there are also three places down the right-hand slope (between the last wall
and the trap) where the lemmings can't walk past the thorns. Do you build past them? But nine builders
are needed elsewhere, and the three impassable thorns are too far apart to get past two with one
bridge, let alone all three. Or do you block and blow? But you need to use two
fewer blockers and
bombers than the PC solution, not two more.
I looked through my diaries last night. It was in 1994 that I reached this level. In late 1996 (I was nearly
14) that I gave up on this and used codes to satisfy my curiosity about what the later levels contained. I
must have started designing my own levels soon after, because they were complete by late 1997. After that
I lost interest in the original levels, and when my designed levels were complete and I'd shown them
to everyone and there was nothing more to do, and God knows I never expected to come back to
Lemmings after that, at some point I lost the green book with the codes that let you get into the program.
But that level continued to haunt me, and eventually I thought I might have solved it. Finally, I discovered
this forum, and finlay gave me a code that would bypass the copy protection scheme. Eagerly, I loaded
up The Steel Mines, only to discover that the passage of ten years had not made it any easier. My solution
was sufficient... to save all but
nine.
That was a bit of a shaggy dog story, so I'll cut the rest short. Anyone who wants to try to find the solution
to the Mac version of this level for himself should skip the next bit.
You need to time the first two bombers: the first just above the "elbow" of the large thorn just before
the apex of the hill, the second just as he falls down the first one's hole. You can use blockers to steady them
at the right places -- this is vital with the second, which must be pixel perfect to blast that wall with just
one bomb -- but both MUST blow before the next lemming reaches them. (This is to save having
to block against the water to the left.)
Make the fourth lemming a blocker just before the edge of the hole. The third goes down and builds across
the water. When four lemmings have collected on the far side of the hill before the blocker, make
another blocker to split them off from the crowd.
The builder must block and blow through the next wall -- again pixel perfect so you don't need a builder to
climb out of his hole. Release the four lemmings, and make the back one a blocker just after they fall
off the bridge.
Where there are two little stubs of thorns just below the right overhanging ledge, build up to the right
from the first one. You must use only three builders, but you will reach a little nook just beyond the green
hangy-down things. Block and blow through the wall -- precision is needed again! Because the ground on
the other side is higher than where the lemmings are, you'll definitely need a builder as well to reach it.
Build past the three impassable thorns and use your LAST builder to get over the trap. Blow up the
last blocker, and you're free!!!
- - -
After that, the last four levels didn't take too long. Although I was a bit shocked on Save Me, after
hoarding my builders like a miser, to find myself reaching the end short of one
blocker, of all
things. Still, I did it in the end... and Rendezvous at the Mountain, and that was that.........
"So the great affair is over, but whoever would have guessed
That it would leave us all so vacant and so deeply unimpressed?
It's like our visit to the moon, or to that other star:
I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go so far."-- Leonard (or Lemmard &#A0;B)) Cohen
