Live-Action Lemmings Solution
How It Works
You can affect the actions of the lemmings by giving them tools--you had to actually hand them the tools, and not try to put them in the level yourself...doing anything "illegal" (interacting with the level instead of the lemmings, trying to squirt the lemmings, etc) caused them to yell "reset" and start over again. Each tool causes the Lemming holding it to do something specific:
| Item | Action |
|---|---|
| Boxing gloves | Turn around and punch the lemming behind you (killing him/her), unless there was no lemming behind you...in which case, punch the nearest team member. 😃 |
| Explosives | Count to five and explode! |
| Hard Hat | Do absolutely nothing (other than put it on). |
| Steel Plates | Put it down on the square in front of you, taking 5 turns to do so...once down, it permits Lemmings to walk over fire. |
| Pickaxe | Swing it wildly, killing any lemmings you can reach, and then throw it away...no real effect on the level. |
| Rope | Do absolutely nothing, other than carry it around for a while. |
| Safety Vest | Put it on, and every turn, yell "Watch Out!", "Caution!", or "Danger!"...with no effect on the other lemmings. |
| Shovel | Try to dig a hole in the concrete floor (or wood structure), realize that it's not going to work, and throw it away. |
| Squirt Gun | Our personal favorite...pump it up really well, and then douse the team, chasing them around the garage if necessary. Teams that were both clever and mean enough to set up other teammates (who hadn't yet returned for the first squirt gun attack) usually got ambushed from behind by other staff members with bigger water guns, just to even things out. 😃 In the end, Game Control was 19 for 11 in soaking teams (everyone got it once, and the winner got attacked 4 times). |
| Stepladder | Put it down in the square in front of you, and step onto it the following turn...this allowed lemmings to climb up on to the higher levels of the game. |
| Stop Sign | The classic "blocker" from the game Lemmings; when given a stop sign, the lemming would stop and prevent any other Lemmings from passing in either direction. The only way to get rid of a blocker was to kill him/her (with explosives, boxing gloves, or the pickaxe). |
| Umbrellas | "Floaters" from the game--umbrellas acted like parachutes to let Lemmings survive the fall from higher levels. |
| Water Wings | Probably our favorite "animation", giving a lemming water wings meant he or she could swim across the pool without dying. |
| U-turn signs | Immediately turn around and start heading the other direction. This was generally a single-use item (the Lemming wouldn't give it back), unless we needed to speed up the solve time for spacing reasons, in which case it became multi-use. |
Completing the level required getting three of the lemmings to the portal/door at the end, at which point they'd dance around and give the team a silver envelope containing their next destination (because this was a hub puzzle, this could have been any number of things).
Solution
Many solutions were possible, but the "intended" solution was:
- Use umbrellas to get the lemmings off the first ledge...some coordination was required, as you only had two umbrellas and between four and six lemmings.
- Give the first lemming a squirt gun to "put out the fire" and get soaked. 😃
- Start the first lemming building a bridge across the fire with the steel plates; make sure to get the timing right.
- Turn the second lemming into a blocker to prevent others from dying in the fire. At almost the same time (for timing reasons), give him/her explosives to get rid of the blocker.
- As the first lemming approaches the second high level, give him/her the ladder to build a way up.
- After the lemmings go up and over, give them each water wings in succession to cross the pool.
- Get the umbrellas ready again to get the lemmings over the ramp.
- Hope you've gotten the timing right to get all three lemmings across the see-saw at once... If not, then use the u-turns to get two at a time over.
Design Notes
Plenty of construction work here, but it goes pretty quickly when you have the right tools... We looked at a number of options (including 2D Lemmings chalked on the sidewalk, and controlled remotely from a 3rd-story window), but settled on the 3D construction purely for the visual effects.
GC Notes
Cellphones didn't work in the garage, so GC didn't have much involvement in this puzzle, other than constantly having to worry about staffing it...sorry, GC! 😃 The phone across the garage was our only link to GC, so any staff members you saw bolt off to answer the phone were just keeping them up to date.