A Swedish programmer has developed a hack for MacBook Pro’s new Touch Bar which brings a classic Dundee icon back to life.
Erik Olsson has found a unique way to reanimate the cartoonish green-haired videogame characters known as Lemmings in a streamlined version of the multi-million selling Amiga game.
Having built various children’s games for iOS and Android in the past, Mr Olsson revisited Lemmings as a way to get acquainted with Apple’s latest hardware.
“I bought the new MacBook last week. During the weekend I decided to take a closer look at the Touch Bar to see what can be done with it,” he said.
“The plan wasn’t so much to make a game, but rather see what was possible. I found some old game sprites from Lemmings and immediately loved seeing the little blue creatures walking around on the tiny screen.”
Well someone had to do it pic.twitter.com/BLy73AWfZ6
— Erik Olsson (@valross2) December 10, 2016
With interest in the release mounting since it appeared on Sunday, Mr Olsson has unwittingly made a viral hit out of the groundbreaking puzzler all over again.
“The response has been overwhelming,” he said. “I figured that some of my friends would like it on Twitter, but I didn’t expect 20,000 retweets or to be doing an interview like this. I especially didn’t expect [Lemmings creator] Mike Dailly to retweet the video.”
The original game was developed for the Commodore Amiga by Dundee-based DMA Design, the small independent firm that went on to release Grand Theft Auto and ultimately laid the foundation for world games giant Rockstar North.
Lemmings sold 55,000 copies on its first day, and eventually recorded over 15 million sales.
The cuddly characters were immortalised as statues yards from DMA’s former Nethergate headquarters in 2013 and more recently featured in the Oor Wullie Bucket Trail.
This may be the best app I've ever built pic.twitter.com/Z9WJi7e74G
— Erik Olsson (@valross2) December 11, 2016
