Lemmings TS, an Open-Source Browser Remake of Lemmings, Builds the Game From Your Own Windows CD Image and Plays on Android

Paul O’Brien built Lemmings TS on top of Lemmings.ts, Thomas Zeugner’s TypeScript clone that already read original Lemmings files “on the fly” and played the AdLib music through a DOSBox-derived emulator. Zeugner’s own to-do list still says “touch support.” O’Brien’s version is the one that does it.

The trick is that the repository holds no game at all. Its README opens with the warning in bold: “No Lemmings game files are included in this repository.” Choose Add Windows ISO, point it at a disc image or an unencrypted ZIP, and the app checks the files’ structure before it saves them to the browser’s IndexedDB. The README says it “does not upload them.”

Windows mode runs straight from that disc image. It derives the “level list, terrain, characters, objects, gameplay masks, toolbar, effects and music from the player’s files,” and that includes the Windows WAV voices saying “Let’s go,” “Oh no” and “Yippee.” The DOS side reads the original .dat files and plays the AdLib soundtrack.

The two editions aren’t the same game. The Windows disc lists 114 levels (28 Fun, 28 Tricky, 29 Taxing and 29 Mayhem), “six fewer than the 120 DOS levels,” in a different order. Three of the Windows replays needed their own adjustments “because the Windows bash mask differs from DOS.”

The hints are the part a stuck player will use. They’re optional and come one step at a time, and Show example first move marks where a tested route starts. Before showing any of it, the app fingerprints your imported files on the device and checks them against the set the solutions were tested on. If yours differ, hints switch off and the game still plays. The README is firm about the standard: “loading a level alone is not treated as proof that it can be completed.”

On Android, it installs from Chrome with Install app or Add to Home screen, and you can drag to pan and pinch to zoom. O’Brien calls it “an early preview,” and says “actual Android hardware and some physics details still need further verification.” Whether it plays right on your phone is still an open question.

Expect more old games to go this way: an open engine in a browser tab, an installable web app, and the publisher’s data supplied by whoever still owns the disc. It’s a cleaner deal than an abandonware download, and it moves the old shelf onto the phone. The next thing to watch is the Android check O’Brien hasn’t finished yet, and whether the other Lemmings editions Zeugner’s code once described come back. For now, the README says only DOS and the supplied Windows edition should be assumed to work.