Dhtml Lemmings (2004)
Key topics
The nostalgic Dhtml Lemmings game from 2004 has sparked a trip down memory lane, with commenters sharing updated versions and reminiscing about the early days of web development. As they dug into the history, it became clear that "DHTML" was a short-lived term that peaked around 2001, and some even recalled it being referred to as "XHTML Lemmings" instead. The discussion also touched on the quirks of the time, like using iframes to load remote content and the lack of AJAX requests, highlighting just how far web development has come. With some commenters even recognizing the person behind a rehosted version, the thread is a fun trip back to the wild west of web development.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Active discussionFirst comment
2m
Peak period
13
132-144h
Avg / period
5.7
Based on 17 loaded comments
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Dec 8, 2025 at 9:50 AM EST
25 days ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Dec 8, 2025 at 9:52 AM EST
2m after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
13 comments in 132-144h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Dec 14, 2025 at 2:11 PM EST
19 days ago
Step 04
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https://github.com/trufae/fxos-app-lemmings
* https://github.com/tomsoftware/Lemmings.ts
* https://lldb.camanis.net/level/play/473/1/Just-dig
And even then, you couldn't really make use of it unless you were in the enviable position of not having to maintain Netscape compatibility, because Netscape basically had no ability to alter a page after it was loaded outside of extremely specific exceptions like being able to replace one image with another image of exactly the same size. And through the weird and broken 'layers' concept they came up with to try to rush out a response to IE's iframes.
I remember discovering Microsoft.XMLHTTP in early 1999; probably within a month of IE5 coming out, and it really was like suddenly gaining a superpower. People (rightfully) gave Internet Explorer a whole lot of crap for getting to IE6 and then stagnating for years; but so much of what we consider to be the modern web today can trace its lineage directly to the ideas Microsoft brought to the browser in IE4 and IE5. They basically reinvented what the browser could be.
Amiga: <https://www.paula8364.com/socse/index.php?field=audiolink&so...>
Another programmer had the same pseudo, but was working on the Atari ST.
... Which you can using various digging techniques that completely eluded you in the easy difficulty.
When I saw this adaptation back in 2004, I was amazed because the web didn't even HAVE an API for a pixel buffer; the canvas element didn't arrive until a year later! The destructible/buildable terrain here is all faked out with stacked `img` elements; they had to simulate a "simple" graphics API with a more complex one, because that's all the platform made available.
It's very good.