Games can be surprisingly insightful into many areas of research. Think of all the AI research that has been done with just Chess. And Lemmings is way more complicated than that! I'll admit I haven't read the paper, but it sounds like something I kind of wanted to do if I ever decide to go to grad school, so maybe I will sit down and read it...
(Side note: I found out that someone from Thailand did a computer science-y research project on a map I made for Warcraft III. It wasn't the same level (advanced high school), but it's still crazy what you can find on the Internet...)
