Oh blimey, has it really been a year since I looked at Genesis Quest? Which would make it three years since I actually read it? Well, the good news is I manged to do better with Hypnosis Enigma in that I got this review written up right after going through the book. The bad news is it's almost as broken as Genesis Quest.

Well done, you two.

Hypnosis Enigma plays out a bit different from Genesis Quest. At the beginning of the book you get to choose a certain number of lemmings from three tribes plus the Classic tribe, and instead of a flat 50 lemmings the number you get is determined by some dice rolls. Then instead of playing through eight areas in whatever order you want, you start out in the Classic tribe, and depending on your decisions will ideally follow a path of Classic, Highland, Shadow, Egyptian, and finally Space. But like Genesis Quest, your adventure will be driven entirely by luck and inconsistent logic.

Rolled some bad numbers when you were building your team? Eat shit. Don't possess the alien psychic powers needed to instantly know which tribes and skills are actually going to be used in the book? Go to hell. Lit the gunpowder on fire because you thought having your lemmings punch it was equally as stupid and we figured the only reason you'd light in on fire was if you're an idiot so we didn't give you the choice to make the lemmings run away after lighting the wick? Screw you. Don't know what a "star-mangled spanner" is and think it's a joke on "star-spangled banner" because you're a fat, stupid American who uses the word "wrench"? Up yours, fat, stupid American. Went straight to the pyramid because you thought that oasis was going to be a mirage? Serves you right for not trusting us, you cad. Thought we would have learned something from Genesis Quest? Serves you right for trusting us, sucker!

And a couple more skidmarks were dragged over from Genesis Quest. Gross and Sutherland apparently thought you liked the mazes from the first book, so you get to spend more time in them in the Shadow and Egyptian areas. Better yet, the one in the Shadow tribe has a 1/6 chance of losing a lemming every time you chose your path. And one of the mazes in the Egyptian area is just a bunch of forks where one of them makes you start the whole thing over every time you take a wrong path, but I can't decide if that's more or less painful than running around in circles. Hypnosis Enigma is also written that same style as Genesis Quest that attempts to be playful, but comes across as condescending and just makes me want to rip the book into fourths and ram a chunk up each of Gross and Sutherland's nostrils.

But hey, at least you can legitimately complete this one.

The first time I attempted this book, I got dogpiled by an army of hostile lemmings in the Shadow tribe and hadn't loaded up my team with gun-based lemmings like bazooka and laser blasters. Then I sat on it for months before finally deciding, you know what? If these two don't want to sort their shit out and make a book that follows some kind of logic, I'm just going to follow my own and read through it like I have whatever I need for the situations. Screw them for making such broken books.

But if you do decide to legitimately play this book because you either must have your hands on anything Lemmings related (*cough*) or are just a sadistic weirdo (*fidget*), here's a few pointers. First and foremost, choose Egyptian lemmings as one of your starting tribes. It hardly matters what the other two teams are, but Egyptian lemmings are necessary to complete the adventure. When you come around to Classic lemmings, make sure you take plenty of builders, and at least one Blocker, Fencer, Miner, and Attractor. You can also take a Musician if you want, but it is not a substitute for an Attractor.

Throughout the quest you'll earn two scores, Victory and Mystery points. The Victory points determine if you'll get a proper ending after completing the Space area. The Mystery points determine if you "get" to read the paragraph that explains what's causing all the trouble in Lemmingland. I put "get" in quotation marks because you could just go to the paragraph that explains it anyway. Or let me tell you it's a blue star that gives off pulses of a light that turn lemmings into opposites of themselves.

Hypnosis Enigma was the only other Lemmings game book released, so I never have to do one of these again. Praise be to Baast.