
Worms Armageddon 3.8 - typh00n
https://worms2d.info/Worms_Armageddon_3.8_Features
======
CyberShadow
Worms Armageddon maintainer here, AMA :)

Here is a somewhat more nicely formatted list of highlights:
[https://worms2d.info/Worms_Armageddon_3.8_Features](https://worms2d.info/Worms_Armageddon_3.8_Features)

~~~
grawprog
Thanks for keeping worms Armageddon alive. It's still my favourite worms game
by far.

>Worms Armageddon now runs well under Wine or Proton on Linux.

Was wondering if there would ever be a chance of a true native linux port?
I've got one of the later worms games natively on linux, but it sort of pales
in comparison to worms Armageddon and while I appreciate the efforts of the
proton maintainers and Devs like yourself that work hard to make their games
compatible with proton, but I'd still prefer to buy a game that runs natively
on the os I use.

~~~
detaro
see other comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23890279](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23890279)

~~~
grawprog
Thanks, I got too excited and didn't read the rest of the comments before
asking. I should have realized I was likely beating a dead horse. It does
sound like it may be possible to at least port it some day and work is being
made in that direction so that's pretty awesome.

------
2ion
After looking for something similar I have been playing Hedgewars
[https://www.hedgewars.org/](https://www.hedgewars.org/) which is Hogs instead
of Worms, an interesting code base and play mode addons based on Lua. Not
looking back to Worms. There's a nice European userbase and if you tune in at
hedgehog hour (8pm time in CEST/CET) you'll have some fine company.

My favourite mod is Monarchy:
[https://www.hedgewars.org/node/6718#comment-34937](https://www.hedgewars.org/node/6718#comment-34937).

~~~
joshvm
We used to play 2-player liero over the school LAN. It was great because it'd
fit a 3.5" floppy disk and was totally portable. It's real time worms, and
apparently inspired Noita.

Though reading up apparently it didn't have LAN play, so maybe we just did
splitscreen?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liero](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liero)

~~~
kibwen
You can actually play Liero online and in the browser!
[https://www.webliero.com/](https://www.webliero.com/)

------
dane-pgp
One of the interesting unique features of Worms Armageddon is that it somehow
has the ability to predict the results of various elections:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0Trlf2He3c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0Trlf2He3c)

~~~
rusty__
amazing little moments all throughout that video haha

~~~
dane-pgp
After the 2019 election results were announced, the YouTuber tweeted:

"The Worms Armageddon Political Simulation Machine is too strong. No person
should have this much power. I'm smashing it as soon as I get home, before it
does more damage."[0]

So I guess that video series won't be getting a sequel in time for November.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/manyatruenerd/status/1205250275117862913](https://twitter.com/manyatruenerd/status/1205250275117862913)

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nix23
Wait!! A game that came out 20 years ago and still gets a patch...take my
money!!

EDIT: Well you got it, maybe Linux with the next patch? :)

~~~
steren
In the release notes, they say it runs well in Wine on Linux

~~~
nix23
Naa native i mean...maybe bsd's too, sure it works with wine, but since it's
still maintained....

~~~
striking
Wine's the best you're going to get here, probably for a long time.

And it works really, _really_ well. It even works under Wayland, which is not
the case for a whole lot of games in Wine.

Buy it on Steam, hit Play, enjoy. Seriously.

~~~
Polylactic_acid
Proton is at the point where its almost better than native. Worms W.M.D has a
native linux version but it only works properly on ubuntu due to some weird
library issue. Some people suggest playing the windows version in proton is
easier than getting the linux version to work.

~~~
blaser-waffle
I don't know if it's better than native, but Proton is certainly very good.

The only reason I kept a (personal use) Windows system was to play games; WINE
and Proton are mature enough that I can run pretty much everything and ditched
Windows about a year ago.

------
throwawaysea
I can’t believe this game is over 20 years old. If you haven’t tried Worms
ever, please give it a shot. It captures an innocent and growing age of
gaming, before the modern AAA production budgets, before social media, before
societal division, where it was fun to play outside and fun to play on the
computer. I’m not sure how to describe it but I hope those who try it for the
first time feel the same good vibes.

------
iso8859-1
How much work is it too keep compatibility for old platforms? Like, can you
use the newest MSVC? What are the ugliest workarounds you had to do?

~~~
Deadcode0
I'll take this one :)

Not even a hello world supports Windows 95 when compiled by MSVC 2005, and
it's just because of a call to IsDebuggerPresent() in the standard library's
startup code. To work around this, I overrode the definition of that function
in one of WA's .cpp modules, to delay-load the real function, and return FALSE
if it doesn't exist:

    
    
      extern "C" __declspec(noinline) BOOL WINAPI _imp__IsDebuggerPresent(VOID)
      {
       typedef BOOL (WINAPI *IsDebuggerPresent_t)(VOID);
       if (HMODULE lib = GetModuleHandle("KERNEL32.dll"))
        if (IsDebuggerPresent_t proc = (IsDebuggerPresent_t)GetProcAddress(lib, "IsDebuggerPresent"))
         return proc();
       return FALSE;
      }
    

(Many more hacks like this would be necessary if using a later version of
MSVC. So I use Daffodil to allow using a later version of Visual Studio while
still using Visual C++ 2005 for the actual compiling.)

Other than that, it was just a matter of identifying all the API calls
requiring Windows 98 or later and replacing them with their Windows 95
equivalents. In cases where this would mean sacrificing functionality, that
meant delay-loading the Windows 98-or-later version and falling back to the
Windows 95 version if necessary, such as with GetDiskFreeSpaceEx() vs.
GetDiskFreeSpace().

~~~
jhasse
Do you still test on Windows 95?

~~~
Deadcode0
Yes, occasionally, under a VM (and at least one of our alpha testers has
tested it on a period-correct machine). Windows 95 support isn't perfect;
Hardware Cursors don't work properly (an option that didn't exist in WA v3.0)
although that has a simple workaround – disabling them. And the game's taskbar
button sticks on the taskbar after the game has been closed, disappearing only
after being clicked. Other than that it works fine as far as we're aware.

------
quikoa
It's also 80% off right now on humbelbundle:
[https://www.humblebundle.com/store/worms-
armageddon](https://www.humblebundle.com/store/worms-armageddon)

------
sillysaurusx
Do you think anyone will write a web-based version of Worms? Multiplayer, in
the browser. It seems like it would be hugely popular.

You could even turn websites themselves into arenas to battle in. :) Imagine
blowing up a hacker news comment.

~~~
CyberShadow
That would be fun. There's actually a Worms Armageddon inspired web game
written in Rust:

[https://cratebeforeattack.com/](https://cratebeforeattack.com/)

~~~
encom
This exchange is as HackerNews-y as it gets.

I'll have to make Worms-as-a-Service, to keep up.

------
WilTimSon
Oh wow, this is amazing. Not only is the game kept alive literally decades
later but it's being done by a fan no less! This is really great, I might
actually fire it up to play a game or two, maybe some mates will want to
relive the "good old years". Haven't kept up with Worms after 3D came around
but the original formula is absolutely ingenious.

------
simplify
That trailer is phenomenal. The sheep-flying presentation, the music, the
audio-visual rhythmic beats, the humor... truly fantastic artistry.

~~~
cugs
Agreed. Most game trailers completely lose me; That was a joy to watch.

------
thesquib
Games that keep giving patches and content after that long are something
special! Clan Lord is another game that is over 30 years old and still gets
(infrequent) major content updates:
[https://deltatao.com/clanlord/](https://deltatao.com/clanlord/)

------
peterburkimsher
In December a company moved out of the office next door, leaving behind old
laptops and other hardware.

I reinstalled Windows XP and gave the computers to the homestay family I live
with: Anna (9 years old) and Karen (6 years old).

Karen REALLY likes playing Worms Armageddon, just like I did when I was her
age. I'm also having a lot of fun playing it again.

------
Sharlin
21 years ago?! I'm officially old now.

~~~
client4
I was just remembering I played worms on a slot loading Pentium two last... I
sound like the guys taking about PDP-11 access when I was a kid.

------
crackinmalackin
This is incredible! Thank you so much for all your hard work! Words cannot
express my gratitude for this. I have so many fond memories of playing worms
WA with friends and family. Is there a way we can help support your work here?
Or at least a way to say thank you?

------
typh00n
A game still in official development after 21 years of release and
compatibility for Win9x machines.

~~~
Polylactic_acid
It sounds like the copyright owners have allowed a fan of the game to work on
it for free.

------
hatsunearu
I tried an open source clone of Worms called hedgewars with my friend and it
was pretty good

------
atum47
well, I had this on a CD. now I'm going to look for it.

~~~
atum47
Does anyone remember what magazine gave this game? I think it was a magazine
called "full pc game" but I can't seem to find anything on google.

Got age of empires II the same way.

~~~
eddyl
It might have been PC Gamer [1] magazine. I had both Worms Armageddon and Age
of Empires II in the late '90s, and I remember some copies of this magazine
lying around. I think this magazine would come with demo CDs pretty often.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Gamer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Gamer)

------
styfle
I used to play Worms Armageddon back in the day and picked up Worms 3D a few
years later. The 2D version always had a special place in my heart but I must
have lost the CD-ROM over the years.

It’s exciting to see this game is still worked on, I’ll have to dust off the
old PC and try it out again!

I noticed there is a version for iOS—will iOS also get the update?

------
mensetmanusman
I remember playing this with my brothers 20 years ago. Such fun times on the
basement LAN :)

------
mmastrac
Oh wow. I think I still have my legit retail CD kicking around somewhere. Had
no idea it was still maintained. Can I still use that CD? IIRC it had some
pretty wild DRM on it for the time and it took forever to crack.

~~~
CyberShadow
Yes, you can use your CD! Copy-protection was removed in updates a long time
ago. Simply install the game and then install 3.8, it will download and update
anything else necessary.

~~~
mmastrac
Thank you for this info. I think I might!

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orliesaurus
Time to undust my zooka and go back playing some Shopper and Roper

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boomahora
Wow this brought back memories of holy hand grenades and banana bombs. Thanks
for keeping this alive!

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varshithr
Missed an opportunity to call it Wormageddon:)

~~~
CyberShadow
That's actually one of the internal names, which can be seen in WormNET URLs:
[http://wormnet1.team17.com/wormageddonweb/Login.asp](http://wormnet1.team17.com/wormageddonweb/Login.asp)

------
akerro
Take that Blizzard!

