Designed by: John Poniske,Rick Young
Leaping Lemmings is – as you probably already guessed – a game about lemmings hurling themselves off a cliff. Is now the time to point out that the mass suicide of lemmings is a myth? Probably not. For despite coming from a publisher known for historically-rich, time-consuming and rules-heavy games such as Twilight Struggle, Leaping Lemmings isn’t taking itself – or anything else – that seriously.
The board is essentially a track from left to right, with all the players starting at the beginning and hoping to reach the end (the clifftop) in order to hurl themselves into the void – the further the better, for want of getting more points. Most points wins. The catch? Between you and the portal into the next life are two less savoury ones: eagles, circling high above the ground, ready to drop down and pounce.
At the start of each round, the eagle dice are rolled, and a nominated player moves the eagles along their circular flight path in the direction of their choosing. If an eagle enters a zone – there are six zones in each eagle’s flight path – with lemmings in, the nominated player chooses one that the eagle eats.
Then a movement card is flipped from the deck to determine movement and all players, in turn order, get to move one or more of their lemmings by that amount. Hex to hex movement is a single movement cost, but moving into a bush – where you can’t be spotted by the eagles – costs 2 movement, and each bush only has room for a single lemming. Lemmings can also land on top of each other, with any hidden lemming unable to move until the one above them does. As the lemmings move they may be picking up pellet tokens, which are assigned randomly on the board at the start of the game: some give you extra movement; some extra points.
Finally all players have some special cards they can use once during the game, granting you a one-off benefit – or you can leave them un-used and score them at the end of the game instead. As soon as the Game End card is revealed – shuffled into the bottom five cards of the deck – the madness is over, and the player with the most points wins.
High. If someone isn't jumping you, they're setting the eagle on you or taking up residency in a bush you like.
Low to moderate, depending on how many players there are.
Low - there's a streak of tactics, a dab of strategy, but a fair amount of luck as well.
Movement cards and dice can't be predicted from game to game, although the general sense of punitive chaos can.
2-6
Players
10+
Years
60-90
Mins
Sam says
Leaping Lemmings has a bit of a catch-22 at its heart: it suits more players because the game experience thrives on busyness and chaos, but the more players you have the longer the game takes, and while being silly and fun - if you like your fun with a bit of nasty in it - it feels like a game that should last 40 minutes but can sometimes take twice as long. On the other hand, although it's much quicker with 2 it loses some vibrancy as a result. That caveat aside, I do enjoy Leaping Lemmings for its spicy and quick-moving play, and would usually be happy to play.