Psygnosis, traditionally known for producing games with good graphics but with poor gameplay, had its greatest success in Lemmings. The game was unique and based around concepts previously untried. The player had to guide a group of up to 100 lemmings home by telling individual lemmings to climb, explode, build, block, dig, bash, and mine. (The "lemmings" of the game — small, green-haired beings that mindlessly walk en masse into any danger in their path — are not the same as real-life lemmings, although they were named for the popular myth that real lemmings behave in a similar fashion.)
The popularity of the game on the Amiga led to its rapid porting to other platforms including, Acorn, Amstrad CPC, Atari Lynx, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, Gameboy, Macintosh, NES, OS/2, SAM Coupé, Sega Genesis, SNES, Windows, Sony Playstation and even the Sinclair Spectrum.
Of the numerous sequels the only one to achieve the success of the first was Lemmings 2: The Tribes, which added eight specialist tribes of lemmings, each with their own type of level and specialist workers. Other sequels include Lemmings Paintball, 3D Lemmings, and Lemmings Revolution.
Despite its innovations and popularity at the time, the game did not give rise to a new genre.
Pingus is an open-source game inspired by Lemmings.