See also:
How to play and create custom levelsList of Lemmings engines (2013)Running original Lemmings from 1991 on a modern PC isn't as simple as grabbing a copy of the game and double-clicking the EXE file. It was for DOS and Amiga, but modern Windows has no support for these. Even Lemmings for Windows 95 won't run without problems.
Common ways to play on a modern system:
NeoLemmixAs of 2022, NeoLemmix is the most popular engine. It's for Windows, but runs well in Wine on Linux, too.
To play Lemmings 1 and ONML in NeoLemmix:
Physics are different from DOS Lemmings 1. Many glitches are fixed. Some non-glitch physics are changed: Builders cancel when their bellies hit terrain, steel stays intact even when ground removers move halfway inside, ground removers have different cancelling conditions, etc.
NeoLemmix offers excellent quality-of-life features: Rewinding to fix mistakes, replays, savestates, directional select, assign during pause, ... They're all optional. You can play without them.
DOS EmulationFor the most authentic Lemmings experience, DOSBox is your best option. DOSBox is a free and open-source DOS emulator for Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and several other platforms.
- Download DOSBox from its website.
- You need an actual copy of DOS Lemmings 1.
- ... see one of Simon's posts below, or search the forums, search the net ... (to edit here)
- For Lemmings 1, set DOSBox CPU cycles to 7,000 or fewer (Ctrl+F11 or sometimes Ctrl+Shift+F11?), otherwise music will not load.
- Run Lemmings 1 within DOSBox.
- When you're in Lemmings 1's main menu, you can increase CPU cycles to around 10,000 or 20,000. L2, L3, or 3D Lemmings behave best at higher cycle counts, experiment with 20,000 to 40,000 or max speed in the config.
See our threads in the Help section on how to run Lemmings 2 or Lemmings 3 in DOSBox.
Downsides: You'll have no player-assist features, and you need passwords.
LemmixLemmix is a fan-made clone originally developed by EricLang, with later improvements by ccexplore and myself. There is a "Lemmix player" for each official game based on the original mechanics, as well as one containing extra official levels from various sources. This means Lemmix is an option for Original Lemmings, Oh No! More Lemmings, Xmas Lemmings 91/92, Holiday Lemmings 94 (this includes 93), Covox Lemmings Demo, Prima Publishing Lemmings Demo, as well as virtually every official level from other (non-DOS) platform versions of these which share the same or very similar mechanics (and even some that don't, such as Sega Master System).
Lemmix emulates the original games' mechanics perfectly. For convenience, it offers savestates, fast-forward, forward framestepping, and saving solution replays -- although with unremappable, obscure hotkeys that you must locate by experiment.
SuperLemminiTooA series of Lemmings engines developed in Java. The Lemmini series marries Amiga gameplay physics with the lush graphics included in Windows 95 Lemmings, complete with an upgraded UI. It runs on practically any operating system that Java supports.
Download SuperLemminiToo: Charles's a fork of SuperLemmini. It's the latest entry in the series.
- Re-implements Timed Bombers as a user option: You can choose to play with instant or with timed bombers.
- Fixes several bugs from SuperLemmini.
- Includes a number of upgrades to the UI over SuperLemmini
- Includes the WinLemm resources. You don't have to extract those yourself from WinLemm.
Download SuperLemmini: Tsyu's fork of Lemmini.
- Fixes a number of bugs from Lemmini.
- Offers a larger catalog of levels than Lemmini.
- Improves the UI of Lemmini.
- Bombers explode instantly. They don't have a countdown timer.
Download Lemmini from the original Lemmini website. This is the original platform in this series, developed by Volker Oth. It's no longer actively maintained.
Our SuperLemmini board offers for fanmade level packs, level editors, discussion, records tables and more.
You'll get high-resolution graphics and high-resolution gameplay. Physics details will be different from DOS Lemmings.
There are basic player-assist features: fast forward, replays, direction select, forward frame-stepping. None of the Lemmini games support rewinding. When you make a mistake, restart the level, let it replay your correct actions, then interrupt the replay before your mistakes.
SNES EmulationYou can even get mouse support, unlike on a real SNES:
- Get gocha's snes9x-rr or maybe another SNES emulator with Lua support.
- Load a Lemmings or Lemmings 2 ROM in snes9x-rr.
- Download the appropriate script: Lua script for Lemmings, or Lua script for Lemmings 2.
- Load the script in snes9x-rr.
- Hide the script window. You can move it to the edge, or move it to a second monitor.
- Enter fullscreen.
Keys:
- Right mouse button = Start/Pause.
- Left mouse button = main button.
- Tab = Fast forward.
Info comes from
crazygerry's post below. Thanks!