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Worms (series)

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File:Worms 4 Mayhem boxart.jpg
Worms 4: Mayhem PC cover art

Worms is a series of turn-based computer games developed by Team17 Software. Players control a small platoon of worms across a deformable landscape, battling other computer- or player-controlled teams. The games feature bright and humorous cartoon-style animation and a varied arsenal of bizarre weapons.

The game, whose concept was devised by Andy Davidson[1], was described by the Amiga gaming press as a cross between Cannon Fodder and Lemmings. It is part of a wider genre of turn-based combat games in which each player controls characters who duel with projectile weapons; predecessors include Scorched Earth and Gorilla.

Games in the series

The Worms series consists of many games, which can be categorised into different generations according to the game engine on which they are based:

2D variants 3D variants
First generation Second generation Third generation First generation
  • Worms (1994)
  • Worms Reinforcements (1995)
  • Worms & Reinforcements United (1996)
  • Worms: The Director's Cut (1997)
  • Worms 2 (1997)
  • Worms Armageddon (1999)
  • Worms World Party (2001)
  • Worms 3D (2003)
  • Worms Forts: Under Siege (2004)
  • Worms 4: Mayhem (2005)

A number of Worms-themed spin-offs have also been released, including Worms Pinball (1999), and Worms Blast (2002). Worms Breakout and Worms Breakout 2, fangames based on the popular arcade game Breakout, have been made available for download through the official Worms Armageddon website. Freeware games based on the Worms concept were also made, including Liero, Wurmz! and Gusanos, which make use of real-time rather than turn-based gameplay.

Commercial games which borrow from the Worms concept include Hogs of War, a 3D variation developed by Infogrames and released in 2000, that features pigs, developed for PlayStation and Personal Computer, and Snails, developed for Pocket PC.

The company which holds the Worms franchise, Team17, despite mainly concentrating on the new 3D variations of the game, have made a new 2D variant for the Nintendo DS and the PSP, called Worms: Open Warfare. Additionally, Worms HD is due to be released on Xbox Live Arcade[2]. Prior to this, Worms World Party had been re-released for many handheld systems, including Game Boy Advance, Pocket PC and the N-Gage.

Game description

The fully deformable landscape can be radically altered by the use of weapons, often requiring players to scrap their plans and adopt new strategies to cope with the changes.

Each player controls a team of several worms. During the course of the game, players take turns selecting one of their worms. They then use whatever tools and weapons are available to attack and kill the opponents' worms, thereby winning the game. Worms may move around the terrain in a variety of ways, normally by walking and jumping but also by using particular tools such as the "Bungee" and "Ninja Rope", to move to otherwise inaccessible areas. Each turn is time-limited to ensure that players do not hold up the game with excessive thinking or moving.

Over fifty weapons and tools may be available, but games are usually played with a less exhaustive arsenal, the settings for which are often saved into a "scheme" for easy selection in future games. Over time players have developed and refined a large number of very different and unusual schemes that do not always stick to the traditional gameplay of "last worm standing." These scheme types are more prevalent in 2-D versions of the game, due to considerable customization ability not available in the 3-D variants.

Other scheme settings allow, among other things, reinforcement crates to be deployed, from which additional weapons can be obtained, and "Sudden Death" where the game is rushed to a conclusion after a time limit expires. Some settings provide for the inclusion of terrain objects such as land mines and explosive barrels.

Most weapons, when used, cause explosions that deform the terrain, removing circular chunks. The landscape is an island floating on a body of water, or a restricted cave with water at the bottom (not available in 3-D versions due to camera restrictions). A worm dies when it enters the water (either by falling off the island, or through a hole in the bottom of it), it is thrown off either side of the arena or when its health is reduced, typically from contact with explosions, to zero (the damage dealt to the attacked worm or worms after a player's or CPU turn is shown only when all movement on the battlefield has ceased).

File:WormsArmageddon1.PNG
The random map generator provides a limitless supply of colourful terrains of various themes. Open island maps, like this one, allow players to use airstrikes. Cavern maps have an indestructible roof which cannot be passed.

Weapons and tools

See also: List of Worms weapons and tools

The Worms series is particularly notable for its exhaustive variety of weapons. With each new game that is released, new weapons are added, though many were removed in the switch to 3D for gameplay reasons. As a result, the 2D series has accumulated 60 weapons, and the 3D series about 40 weapons.

The weapons available in the game range from the simple grenade and homing missile to the exploding sheep and the highly destructive Banana Bomb, both of which have appeared in every Worms game so far. More recently, the Worms series has seen weapons such as the iconic Holy Hand Grenade, the Priceless Ming Vase and the Inflatable Scouser.

File:Worms HolyHandGrenade.jpg
The Holy Hand Grenade, in Worms 3D

Some of the bizarre weapons in a particular game are based on topical subjects at the time of the game's release[3]. The Mail Strike, for example, which consists of a flying postbox dropping explosive envelopes, is a reference to the postal strikes of the time, while the Mad Cow refers to Britain's BSE epidemic of the 1990s. The French Nuclear Test, introduced in Worms 2, was even updated to the Indian Nuclear Test in Worms Armageddon to keep with the times.

Other weapons are distinctly inside jokes. The MB Bomb, for example, which floats down from the sky and explodes on impact, is a cartoon caricature of Martyn Brown, Team17's studio director. Other such weapons include the "Concrete Donkey", one of the most powerful weapons in the game, which is based on a garden ornament in Andy Davidson's home garden, and an airstrike known in the game as Mike's Carpet Bomb was actually inspired by a store near the Team17 headquarters called "Mike's Carpets"[4].

Since Worms Armageddon, weapons that were intended to aid as utilities rather than damage-dealers were classified as tools. This classification mainly differs in the fact that they don't fall in ordinary weapon crates, and instead appear in toolboxes. However, many tools were left in the wrong classification, for the sake of keyboard-shortcut conveniences. Full classification was properly introduced in Worms 3D.

Some Weapons, including the Holy Hand Grenade And Ninja Rope have been pulled out of T.V. and movies.

Audio

One of the defining features of the Worms series is its light-hearted audio. Although the first few Worms games used darker, more authentic battlefield sounds for its ambient music, all of the games included a large number of high-pitched catchphrases shouted by the worms during the course of battle, such as "I'll get you!" and "Bombs away!".

Worms & Reinforcements United and its sequels gave players the ability to pick between a variety of speech sets for each platoon of worms. Many were based on regional accents, such as "The Raj" and "Angry Scots", while others, like "Drill Sergeant", made use of stereotypes. Players could even record their own speech sets and use those instead.

The ambient and theme music for Worms 2, Worms Armageddon, Worms World Party and, in part, Worms 3D, was entirely provided by Bjørn Lynne.

History

First 2D generation (1994)

A screenshot of Total Wormage, before it was renamed Worms

The game was originally created by Andy Davidson as an entry for a Blitz BASIC programming competition run by the Amiga Format magazine, a cut-down version of the programming language having been covermounted previously. The game at this stage was called Total Wormage (possibly in reference to Total Carnage) and it did not win the competition. Davidson sent the game to several publishers with no success. He then took the game to the European Computer Trade Show, where Team17 had a stand. Team17 made an offer on-the-spot to develop and publish the game.

File:Worms1 screenshot.jpg
The first Worms game featured darker tones than later Worms games, with more realistic effects for weapons rather than cartoon-style effects, and the ambient sound of a battlefield.

It subsequently evolved into a full commercial game, renamed Worms, available initially only for the Commodore Amiga computer. As the game was extremely popular, it was regularly released for other platforms including Windows and Mac based computers, Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo 64, Nintendo Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance, Nintendo GameCube, Nokia N-Gage, SNES, Sony PlayStation and PlayStation 2, Sega Saturn, Microsoft PocketPC, and Xbox.

During the development of Worms 2, Andy Davidson wrote Worms - The Director's Cut, a special edition produced exclusively for the Amiga. This was, to his eyes, the pinnacle of the series. Featuring weapons not seen in any Worms game before or since, it looks like an enhanced version of the original game. Only 5000 copies were ever sold. It was also the last version released for the Commodore Amiga platform from which the game originated.

Full version downloads of the Amiga and Amiga CD32 versions of the originally released game are available on Dream17's Downloads page for Worms, and the full version of Worms - The Directors Cut is similarly available their WormsDC downloads page.

Second 2D generation (1997)

The engine was completely redesigned using Microsoft's DirectX for the second generation Worms series, dropping the darker tones of the first generation and adopting a more cartoonish look along the way. Worms 2 is by far the most customisable of the Worms games with a very extensive set of detailed settings and toggles. Worms 2 also introduced internet play, though the interface was considered clumsy and primitive.

File:PC Worms2.png
Worms 2 and subsequent games featured cartoon-style explosions that released bubbles with a readable onomatopoeia overlaid on top.

Worms Armageddon was initially intended to be released as an expansion pack for Worms 2, but was released as a stand-alone game when it exceeded all expectations. Worms Armageddon included 33 in-depth missions in an extensive and elaborate campaign, along with training missions, a "deathmatch" feature, some new graphics and sounds, and a few new weapons and utilities. Much of the customisability of Worms 2, however, was removed, as Team17 thought that the interface would become cluttered and overwhelming.

Worms Armageddon also included a much more organised and functional internet play service, known as "WormNET", which required registration and utilised leagues and ranks. Problems with cheating led to the removal of the leagues, but their re-introduction is planned in a series of updates that have provided the game with more customisability[5].

Worms World Party was originally designed for Sega Dreamcast console to make use of its online capabilities, but was also released for the PC with new missions, a mission editor, and some extra customisability. This was also released later in 2005 for the N-Gage Game Deck. With no new weapons, graphics or sounds, however, some see Worms World Party as a cash cow for Team17.

Schemes

The extensive customisability of the second 2D generation series, along with good online play support, has led to enduring popularity. A variety of unusual "schemes" have been developed by the WormNET community that are often played instead of the official schemes created by Team17[6]. Some schemes have "rules" agreed to by the players but not enforced by the game itself.

Third 2D generation (2006)

File:WormsOpenWarfarePSP.jpg

Worms: Open Warfare, for the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP, is specifically designed for the handheld systems, and is the latest in the 2D series, released in March 2006. The game is considered to be a remake of the first Worms game, featuring enhanced graphics but no new weapons.

Worms HD has been developed by Team 17 for release on Xbox Live Arcade. No release date or price has been set yet.

First 3D generation (2003)

File:Worms3Dscreenshot.jpg
Worms 3D included many highly detailed themed maps for its single-player mission campaign.

In 2003, Worms 3D was released. This was the first game in the series to bring the characters into a three-dimensional environment. It features an innovative 'poxel' engine, described as a hybrid of polygons and voxels (the 3D analogues of pixels). This allows for pseudo-realistic terrain deformation similar in style to the 2D games, in which the terrain was represented by a bitmap.

File:Worms 4 Mayhem Screenshot.jpeg
Worms 4 Mayhem introduced larger maps with a height-map instead of poxels for the ground, in an effort to remove the excessive drowning of worms in Worms 3D

The second 3D game in the series was Worms Forts: Under Siege, for PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC. It was released in November 2004 and features the biggest deviation from the traditional gameplay that the series has so far seen. Players' worms are able to build forts, and the objective of the game has shifted from simply killing the enemy worms, as players can now win a game by destroying the opponent's fort. Due to the change in strategy, this game could be seen more as a spin-off — though some aspects were carried into Worms 4.

Worms 4: Mayhem was released in 2005, being a revamp of the original Worms 3D engine, featuring smoother terrain deformation and improved graphics, resulting in a more polished feel closer to the second generation Worms games. The gameplay is much the same as it was in Worms 3D, but new gameplay modes and weapons have been introduced, and the user interface has been improved and simplified. New features include the ability to select customised costumes for teams, and the ability to create custom weapons.

Franchise awards[7]

File:WormsArmageddonCoverArt.jpg
Worms Armageddon Cover Art
  • "Most original game" - EMAP Awards
  • "Best game" - BBC's Live & Kicking
  • "Most original game" - ECTS Awards
  • "Best game" - Micro Mania Awards
  • "Best strategy title" - PSX Developers
  • "Strategy game of the year" - EGM
  • "Best strategy game" - Trophee d'or
  • "Multiplayer game of the year" - GMBH

References and notes

  1. ^ Team17. Interview with Andy Davidson
  2. ^ Dream17. Dream17 entry for Worms HD
  3. ^ Team17 forum. "What things were the weapons in Worms based on?"
  4. ^ Team17 forum. Post by Martyn Brown, Team17's studio director
  5. ^ Team17 forum. WA v3.6.19.7+ (beta) Update
  6. ^ Community site. Scheme guides
  7. ^ Team17. Worms franchise awards

See also

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