See also:
How to play and create custom levelsList of Lemmings engines (2013)The original Lemmings 1 from 1991 was for DOS and Amiga, but modern Windows cannot run that natively. 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 a Windows program. It runs well on Linux in Wine, too.
To play Lemmings 1 or ONML in NeoLemmix:
Physics: Many glitches from DOS Lemmings 1 are fixed, e.g., no direct drop (= in NeoLemmix, if you splat in front of an exit, you die and don't exit). Steel remains intact even when ground removers work nearby. Bombers are untimed. Some non-glitch physics are changed: Builders cancel when their bellies hit terrain, ground removers have different cancelling conditions, ...
Convenience: Allows rewinding to fix mistakes, offers replays, savestates, directional select, assign during pause, ... Look at hotkey configuration dialog in NeoLemmix. You'll have to remember these hotkeys during play.
SuperLemmixA fork of NeoLemmix tailored towards those who prefer a more traditional gameplay style. It's a Windows program. It runs well on Linux in Wine, too.
SuperLemmix aims to offer a one-stop package for everything you need to enjoy both classic and modern Lemmings gameplay on the same system, with a rich feature set and clean, accessible UI.
- Download SuperLemmix and extract it.
- Run SuperLemmix.
- Select the Lemmings 1 levels from the level selection.
(SuperLemmix already ships with the full set of classic DMA levels, unedited and presented in the original Amiga colour scheme.)
Physics: It's a mix of NeoLemmix physics with Amiga physics. E.g., SuperLemmix reintroduces direct drop (= if you splat in front of an exit, you exit).
Convenience: The NeoLemmix convenience features are still there. For a retro Lemmings experience, press "Classic Mode" in the main menu to disable most convenience features.
Visit
the SuperLemmix board for fanmade level packs, discussion and suggestions for development, records tables and more to come. In 2024, SuperLemmix is more up to date than many of the other options, the engine is currently maintained and open for suggestions and bug reports, and will be for the forseeable future.
GolemsGolems is a clone of DOS Lemmings. It's the easiest way to play DOS Lemmings 1 in an almost-authentic way:
Physics: Practically bug-compatible with the DOS Lemmings 1 engine.
Convenience: You get fast-forward/fast-backward/framestepping for reduced tedium/frustration in executing solutions. During play, you can look at the help dialog for the hotkeys.
In addition to browser-based Golems, the Golems game engine is available as a Windows application.
LemmixLemmix is a Windows program originally developed by EricLang, with later improvements by ccexplore and namida. There is a "Lemmix player" 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.
Physics: Practically bug-compatible with DOS Lemmings 1. (= Lemmix aims at perfect emulation the original games' mechanics.)
Convenience: After you've discovered the unremappable, obscure hotkeys, you get savestates, fast-forward, forward framestepping, and saving/loading solution replays. You cannot rewind. When you make a mistake, restart the level, let it replay your correct actions, then interrupt the replay before your mistakes.
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.
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.
Physics: Mostly inspired by Amiga Lemmings. Both graphics and physics are in high-resolution. Details will be different from DOS Lemmings.
Convenience: 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.
DOS EmulationFor the most authentic Lemmings experience, play Lemmings 1 in DOSBox or one of its forks. DOSbox is a free and open-source DOS emulator for Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and others.
- Choose and install release of DOSBox:
- You need an actual copy of DOS Lemmings 1.
- Find the music bugfixes and put them into your copy of Lemmings 1.
- In Dosbox, mount the copy of Lemmings 1. (See one of Simon's posts below, or search the forums, search the net ...)
- In Dosbox, before you run Lemmings 1, lower DOSBox CPU cycles to 7,000 or fewer (Ctrl+F11 or sometimes Ctrl+Shift+F11?), otherwise music will not load. If you can't lower the cycles, look into Dosbox's configuration.
- In Dosbox, run Lemmings 1.
- 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.
Convenience: You can choose a Dosbox fork with savestates. Other than that, you get no player-assist features. When you make a mistake, start over from the beginning of the level. You need passwords to select levels.
See
Dosbox-Staging's wiki entry about Lemmings 1.
You can also play
Lemmings on the Internet Archive via DOSBox in your browser.
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!
Amiga EmulationThere are several options for the Amiga route, but these are not usually free. The Kickstart ROMs are still under licence, and at the time of writing this are only legally available from Cloanto. You can get them as part of the Amiga Forever pack, or with a bit of effort you can get hold of the Amiga Forever Essentials for Android set (for less than the price of a cup of coffee!) and copy them to your PC using
this method.
The 3 main options for Amiga emulation are:
FS-UAE - free (but you'll need to get kickstart ROMs) - very user-friendly and attractive interface, perfect for those that want a quick plug-and-play experience. It's not as powerful as some of the other Amiga emulation options, but it's more than enough to play all Lemmings games.
Amiga Forever - not free (value edition is €20 at the time of writing) - more than enough to run Lemmings on an emulated system you can customise and build yourself. It's essentially WinUAE packaged in a more user-friendly interface, whilst also providing support from the friendly devs at Cloanto.
WinUAE - free (you'll still need to get those ROMs, though!) - if you just want to play Lemmings, this might not be your best options because it takes some effort to get everything set up and configured properly, but it's an excellent choice for Amiga fans that want a more finely-tailored emulation experience.
There is also
RetroArch, which is a free and open source frontend for emulation of many retro consoles including Amiga. Get the Kickstart ROMs and a copy of the Lemmings ADFs and you're good to go; setup is fairly straightforward, and RetroArch offers many customisation options.
All of these options offer save states, current support, and other mod cons.