The other Nitrome game inspired by Lemmings! Unlike Sandman, though, you instead use your mouse to physically draw on the level, providing ways for your Lemmings to make it through the level, both directly — drawing lines to act as platforms to get them across a gap, or walls to change their direction — or by using it to influence something in the level: drawing a wall within an enemy to cut it in half, or turning the line you draw into a makeshift fuse to blow up a bomb. Each new obstacle brings a new way for the player to interface with the draw tool, and the game does a great job at mixing and matching all these different elements: never letting anything drop by the wayside, never making any given obstacle feel overdone. Combine that with level design which at times feels both frenetic and cerebral, a genuinely cute artstyle, and with some truly banger music, I genuinely think this game’s super charming. There are… issues, of course — there are some real finicky hitboxes, and one of the core mechanics where your lemmings must reach several different exit flags (and your progression through the game is gated behind a certain number of lemmings hitting the flag) seems to… straight up not work: so long as you get one little guy to an end flag, it seems like the game lets you through no matter what. They’re minor things, though, and in the case of the second one it just seems to make the game more friendly: if you’re willing to try to forgive some 17-year-old-flash-game jank, and you’re down for an experience that’s… more meaty than any of the other Nitrome made before this, I recommend it! Definitely my favourite of their 2006 output.

Reviewed on Apr 21, 2024


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