Walker

This version of walker was eventually ditched, but it did become the basis of the new, and final version.

Mike's Editor Disk

Each person in the team was issued their own disk to work with. Mikes was issued on the 12/10/1990.

The Complete History of
DMA Design
By
Mike Dailly

Chapter 3
Part 6

The DMA Logo used in Lemmings

Come September, Dave and Pam finally got hitched. So on Friday the 7th, everyone appeared at St Paul's Cathedral in Dundee to watch Dave and Pam tie the knot.

Wayne came up to watch as well, and after the ceremony they all went to the hotel for the usual party to watch the family embarrass themselves on the dance floor.

Another game, another logo. This time, Dave used a school friend of Mikes, Geoff Gunning. Geoff had just finished Art College, and would draw the strangest of all DMA's logos, the two heads. Dave had come up with the idea of later animating two warriors fighting and turning in to stare at each other, but this proved too ambitious.

Dave had also found another team to carry on Walker, Ian Dunlop and Niall Glancey. This involved a redesign, but Niall was a budding designer, and set about doing just that.

There were now 2 sections to the game, the actual level, and a perspective road between levels. This would consume quite a bit of Ian's time to pull off, but he started it anyway.

At the end of September, they all headed back down to London for the PCW show. Brian came this time, and finally they met Tony. Psygnosis by this time were getting excited about Lemmings, and Dave had finished all the "basics" that would be needed.

Shadow Of The Best - C64

He had also finished the editor. It was heavily based on DPaint so was extreamly simple to use, and since it was built right into the game, allowed rapid turn around on levels and testing.

The race was now on to finish the levels required, this task fell on Mike, Steve, Gary and Scott, with Dave trying one every now and then.

Dave by this time had gotten fed up with Cutiepoo, it just wasn't going anywhere, and Tony wasn't putting in the effort Dave expected. So Dave again "shelved" another game, and Tony was shown the door.

Richard was now finishing up on Beast on the C64, and was finally able to get his life back together. He never worked Dave again however, since his thought that Dave recieving any of the money from Beast as unfair.

Dave of course viewed it differently; he subcontracted out to Richard, and took a risk on an unknown programmer, and as such, was still responsible if Richard never finished it. Richard went on to work with Russell in later years at Visual Scinces, before moving out of the game industry all together.

Lemmings was alomost done, so everyone was offered £10 a level for any that made it in, this helped encourage everyone to spend time at night trying to make great levels. Gary, Scott and Mike ended up trying to beat each other, by making what seemed like impossible levels, but it never worked. By this time, they were all so good at Lemmings, they could spot the solution in seconds.

Lemmings Concept Drawings

Steve was having a harder time, every level he did ended up being too simple, or simply not working out at all. Dave also found it hard going, every now and then, he would demand they all go through and try THIS level. So, everyone would trudge through, take one look and point out another obvious flaw.

Dave would then mutter, and tell them all to go away, only to shout half an hour later when he was sure he had fixed it this time.

Back in the real world, Gary was asked to draw a Lemming to give the Psygnosis P.R. staff an idea of what they were dealing with, since the little clump of pixels was all they had to go on.

The levels were now progressing well, and there were a sizeable number available to test and improve upon.

Psygnosis would also test the latest batch of levels, offering criticism and advice. They too were becoming expert in playing these levels, with the producer John Whyte being the lead tester, so keen were they.

The guys at DMA could always tell when they had done well, since John would list the time taken to solve the level. This was usually three or four minutes, but every now and then an hour or so would pop up with some thick black scribbles around it.

Gary and Dave now set about doing an intro and end sequence. They did the intro easily enough, with Gary actually doing the tune for it as well.

Lemmings - End of game screen!

But the end sequence was to be something different. Mike had taken to drawing some of the shop items they had been receiving for the game, and around this, Dave decided to digitise the team. He then put up some well done text, and got the team to clap and cheer, all in all, very different.  The text at the end of the game read:

Congratulations!
Everybody here at DMA Design salutes you
as a MASTER Lemmings player. Not many
people will complete the Mayhem levels,
you are definitely one of the elite

Now prepare to receive rapturous
applause from all here.

By Christmas the Amiga version of the game was finally finished, and was sent of to be mastered and for promotional material to be distributed. Meanwhile, Mike carried on with Shadow of the Beast...

Lemmings Editor

The editor was so simple to use, that the team rapidly throw levels together. The ultimate goal was to create a level that beat the rest of the team; it never happened.

End screen close-up

Careful examination of the image will show Mikes initialed his lemming, just in between the feet (MD).