A new documentary that shines a light on the iconic Dundee-made video game Lemmings premieres on YouTube on Monday February 14.
The public premiere follows on from its gala screening at Dundee Contemporary Arts theatre in December.
Lemmings, which in 2021 celebrated its 30th birthday, is part of the Britsoft establishment.
It was originally developed by DMA Design in Dundee, which went on to create the Grand Theft Auto franchise.
Iconic
Lemmings was first published for the Commodore Amiga by Liverpool-based Psygnosis on February 14 1991 and has made its way to many other platforms since, including Sony’s PlayStation and, most recently, mobile.
The documentary, Lemmings: Can You Dig It? celebrates this icon of Scottish and UK games culture by speaking to the people behind its original success.
It also investigates its legacy in gameplay and takes a look at how it’s inspired some of the world’s biggest games franchises ever since.
Among the DMA team members, games industry execs, media and superfans featured in the documentary are Adrian Powell (original Lemmings cover artist), Alyson Conway (sculpture artist), Brian ‘Biscuit’ Watson, (ex-DMA) and journalist Chris Scullion.
Also featured are Chris van der Kuyl (Chroma Ventures & Kingsway Club alumni), Eli Mouawad (streamer), Enrique Hervas (Exient), Gary Penn (ex-DMA & journalist, now Denki) and Gary Timmons (ex-DMA).
The film was commissioned by Lemmings publisher Exient and is directed by leading video game film producer Richard Wilcox of That Video Company.
Jamie Wotton, Creative Marketing Manager at Exient said: “We’re absolutely thrilled to be making Lemmings: Can You Dig It? available on general release.
“It has been an absolute joy to watch the Lemmings story unfold through hundreds of hours of interview footage with the original DMA Design development team, video game industry execs and fans.
“The film celebrates everything that made the original game so special, including the city of Dundee in which it was made. And it celebrates the important place these little critters still have in popular culture.”
Origins of Lemmings
A Courier feature last October recalled how the origins of Lemmings – and indeed Dundee’s computer games industry – came out of the then Kingsway Amateur Computer Club in Dundee where Russell Kay and other future work mates met as teenagers.
Following the establishment of DMA Design in 1987 by Dave Jones who soon hired former classmates Mike Dailly, Steve Hammond and Russell, the potential for what became Lemmings was spotted one day following an argument about how small a character sprite could be and how many ways it could be killed.
It’s estimated to have sold around 20 million copies between its various ports with many retrospective reviews placing the game in their own lists of the greatest games of all time.
The film can be watched on YouTube from 12pm GMT on Monday February 14: https://youtu.be/RbAVNKdk9gA
