Lemmings clone starring penguins
Lemmings is the kind of casual videogame you never grow tired of. This is why it’s always good to have remakes of this classic title, although this time we’re going to save penguins instead of those small, pink, hairy creatures.
Pingus is a very well-done Lemmings clone, both in gameplay and graphics, which challenges you in the same way the original title did. Controls are very easy, especially if you already played Lemmings before. The downside to this is that you’re forced to play the tutorial whether you like it or not, and it can be quite boring if you’re familiar with the game’s mechanics.
Pingus is a free Lemmings-like game covered under the GNU GPL. It features currently 22 playable levels.
Pingus has started at the end of 1998 with the simple goal to create a Free Lemmings clone. The Free means you get the sources and are allowed and encouraged to change and distribute them. You basically get everything that I used to create this game. In the years it has grown than quite a bit over the original goal and become something more than just a clone, we have original artwork, a built-in level editor, new actions, multiplayer and a few other features.
If you don’t know Lemmings, here comes a short introduction. Its a puzzle game developed in 1991 by DMA Design. The player takes command in the game of a bunch of small animals and has to guide them around in levels. Since the animals walk on their own, the player can only influence them by giving them commands, like build a bridge, dig a hole or redirect all animals in the other direction. The goal of each level is to reach the exit, for fix multiple combination of commands are necessary.
While Pingus is based on the idea of Lemmings, it has included some other ideas, which weren’t presented in the original Lemmings, like the worldmap or secret levels, which might be familiar from games the Super Mario World and other Nintendo games. We have also a few new actions, like the jumper which weren’t presented in the original game.
