Is Lemmings on Game Boy actually completable?

Feeling nostalgic, I decided to dig out my old copy of Lemmings on Game Boy. However, I soon remembered why I never completed the Mayhem section - level 4 appears to be completely impossible due to a bug in the game.

The full layout is the same as Fun 21 listed here. This time I get 14x Climber and 14x Digger. I need to save 14/14 Lemmings. But when the Lemmings climb up the spiral pattern, this happens:

lemmings mayhem 4

The Lemmings fall through the platform! And unfortunately the fall is too high so they go splat. After ages trying to find a workaround, I found some levels codes online (above link). Incidentally many pages only gave codes up to this level so obviously had the same problem. I'm guessing the passwords I found were extracted from the game's code.

I was going fine until level 16, which also appears to be unsolveable. I am supposed to get a climber to loop round anti-clockwise from the top then left-to-right along the bottom and back up:

lemmings mayhem 16

However, my climber cannot climb up those diamond objects - he climbs about halfway and falls back down. There are not enough Builders to bridge the gap. (I get: 1x Climber, 14x Floater, 3x Builder, 8x Basher, 3x Digger.)

So my question: Are these levels actually solvable? And is this a known issue with the game? I couldn't find any information online.


Gonna go ahead and answer this. Based on the comments above it looks like the Gameboy version of Lemmings is buggy and it is not possible to complete those levels.

The NES version is basically identical and does not have the same issues with these levels. There are also numerous other bugs in the Gameboy version (which have workarounds) plus some graphical glitches.

That likely puts pay to any chance of it appearing on the 3DS eShop, too...


What region version of Lemmings were you playing? I'm guessing PAL, as it seems these levels were adjusted in the US release. I just played through the game without encountering any problems (beyond my own stupidity), but the lemming powers were different than described.

Mayhem 4 (3 builders, 8 diggers) =

Mayhem 16 (1 climber, 14 floater, 6 builder, 8 basher, 3 digger) =