Lemmings on mobile phones

Gamespot reports that iFone, a company which apparently has something to do with the telecommunications industry, has bought up the rights to last decade’s exercise in frustration, Lemmings. For those who aren’t old enough to have those sort of cherishable memories, Lemmings was a game by British developer Psygnosis which involved helping an endless conga-line of suicidal, mindless gnome-like entities with green hair and blue pyjamas negotiate their way around such wholesome devices as fire pits, whirring blades, lava, acid and the ever-popular long fall to certain death. Individual lemmings could be assigned tasks such as digging, climbing or building bridges, and at the time (1990) it was a somewhat revolutionary addition to the puzzle game genre.

While more recent Lemmings titles have not fared spectacularly (Lemmings 3D leaps to mind, no pun intended), any new publication of the original game will be for playing on mobile phones, thus making it relevant to modern youth and therefore lucrative. Under the terms of the agreement, iFone will be able to publish in Europe and North America, with the first game pencilled in for an appearance by the end of the year.

Of course, while the pixellated lemmings had absolutely no qualms with hurling themselves to their own destruction, it has long been proven by respectable scientists that the suicidal inclination of actual lemmings is a myth. It being the unspoken job of respectable scientists to spoil everyone’s fun.