…. or what the heck got into Rick Young’s head,  designing Leaping Lemmings?

Hey guys, I have often been asked, what’s a fine upstanding Wargame Designer like myself doing making a game like Leaping Lemmings? With LL coming out for iPad soon, I thought I’d fill you all in on what went on with that fateful decision.

Title Screen of Upcoming iPad version of Leaping Lemmings

It all happened at WBC several years ago, when my annual roommate, John Poniske, and myself were staying about 20 minutes away to save a few bucks.  It was a bad decision, as we were sleeping in the attic, and it was the year of the stifling 100+ degree heat wave, and there was no a/c in the attic.  That was the last year we didn’t splurge on a Hotel.

Anyway, I had designed several wargames by that point in time, and John was still unpublished, but he had several games in various stages of pre-publication.  He said during our daily commute that we should design a game together, and threw out several silly topics. The one I latched onto was one where you wanted to hurl your lemmings off a cliff.

Up to five AI opponents are pretty nasty with dirty tricks and card play!

John wanted to make a fun and whimsical family game oriented at kids (lemming cannons, lemming catapults, lemming motorcycle jumps, etc.), whereas I wanted to design a serious strategy game on the whimsical topic.

John designed the first prototype using his ideas of lemming clans and circling eagles, and my ideas of Special Actions and Movement cards, though using my initial implementation where each player had a hand of movement cards and decided each turn which card to play.  We played that prototype and he left it in my hands to polish it, and I started doing just that.

I added Special Actions to the initial four, and had about a dozen by the time I showed it to Andy at Prezcon the next February.  Andy was more than a little skeptical, but we rounded up five players and played.  And when half the ballroom was gathered near our table wondering why we were all laughing so hard, I was pretty sure he was sold.

East to use interface and in-game alerts make playing Leaping Lemmings a breeze! (It’s the strategy aspect that will challenge you!)

Several enhancements were yet to happen, as Chad Jensen’s idea to add Lemming Pellets for a new tension lever worked beautifully.  And a few more Special Action ideas came forward from Playtesters, including Gene’s contribution of Mine, all Mine!  – which allows the player to control the eagle dice for another turn.

I decided to add names to the lemmings for added fun, and that clinched the deal.  Nothing more fun than swooping the eagle down on your Dad’s lemming.

Anyway, being a wargame designer, I wrote the rules to a wargame, you have movement points, zones of control, a dead-pile, terrain effects, stacking.  Most of the wargame goodness we all love can be found in this family game that 5 people can play in an hour.  It scratches my wargame itch and lets me play with a crowd that won’t normally play wargames.

The game tracks all the scoring for you, in-game (with the exception of knowledge of opponents’ pellets) and at the finish.

The iPad version is fantastic, allowing me to kick the a.i.’s tail and have fun, it handles all the scoring, reminds you where you are in the turn, and let’s you see at a glance the game-state.

I am very happy with Game Theory’s work, and I hope it will bring others the many, many hours of joy it has already brought me.

Cheers,

Rick Young

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We’ve just submitted the Leaping Lemmings app to Apple for Approval. Given normal approval times, we should see it available on the App Store within two weeks. We’ll let you guys know here and through our various social media outlets when the game is ready for purchase. We hope all of you will support us in this new iOS launch. Enjoy the games! – Gene

Author: Rick Young