Love A Lemming
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| Love A Lemming

We have to admit, we'd never considered getting a lemming for a pet. Hamsters, yes. Guinea pigs, certainly. Hell, even a pygmy hippo would be tempting if we had space in the garden.

But a lemming? It's just fraught with problems. The minute your back was turned, the little fella would be leaping off the garage, or plummeting down the chimney.

Yes, owning pets is a great way to teach kids about the natural cycle of life and death. But introducing furry suicide into the equation is just unnecessary until they're a little bit older. (By the way, don't go spoiling our intro with blather about how real-world lemmings DON'T jump off cliffs. We'd be stuck if that was true...)

Anyway, all this is a way of introducing the fact that iFone has released a game called Love A Lemming, which lets you nurture, yes, a lemming (whether it's with love or not is down to you, frankly).

And as you may have realised, these aren't just any old lemmings. They're Lemmings! As in characters from the classic game Lemmings. Green-haired cutesy types.

There's no jumping off high objects or blowing themselves up in this game. Instead, you have to give your pet lemming a name, and then try to keep him happy in traditional Tamagotchi style, by making sure he gets enough food, drink, sleep and playtime. It's quite a commitment, as you have to play a couple of times a day to keep him sweet.

Weirdly, you even get to punish your lemming, although we're not sure the RSPCA would approve of iFone's chosen method of shoving him into a crate and slamming the lid down. Thankfully, it only takes a few of these to tame him.

The core of Love A Lemming, however, are the six mini-games that build up your lemming's skills. They're all simple, such as parachuting down or firing a cannon at a target, but they're well designed and fun to play. If you do well enough, you get credits to spend in an in-game shop on treats for your lemming.

The key to a game like this are the visuals, as they have to make you feel affection for your pet. And in that sense iFone has delivered, as the lemmings here are cutesy enough to ensure you fire the game up regularly to keep them happy.

Love A Lemming might not feature super-whizzy 3D graphics, but its cartoony 2D look is faithful to the Lemmings games that gamers know and love.

There have been plenty of virtual pet games for phones, from the earliest days of mobile gaming. But for sheer craft and cheeky appeal, Love A Lemming is one of the better examples.

Love A Lemming

A neat and cheerful virtual pet game that's bags of fun for Lemmings fans
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Stuart Dredge
Stuart Dredge
Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)