
‘Worms’ or bust: Britain’s most tenacious indie games company - doppp
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/06/history-of-team17-and-worms/
======
jsheard
I want to like the newer Worms games, but IMO the series peaked with Worms
Armageddon in 1999. The physics in that game were perfect and all their
attempts since then feel floaty and weird.

Thankfully T17 turned over the source code to some fans who renovated it to
work on modern versions of Windows, and they're still running the master
server for multiplayer 17 years after release!

~~~
misnome
I remember and like armageddon - and remember world party being good too. I've
wanted to try getting into a modern-er worms again, but for several years now,
there have been _so_ many different versions being sold simultaneously with so
many different names, it's impossible to tell which is the "latest" or even
most advanced (several being cut down for consoles and subsequently ported).

See e.g. the post world-party
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worms_(series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worms_\(series\))
with often several new, similarly named titles per year. It's impossible to
know what to get, and the fact that several are usually being sold/on sale
simultaneously just leads to confusion.

~~~
NTripleOne
The latest worms game worth playing is probably Reloaded on PC. It's a little
stripped down compared to Armageddon/World Party but it's the last worms game
where the physics are spot on. After Revolution came out they've all been
floaty and janky, grenades that would rather roll than bounce, ninja ropes
that actually act like rope (and are therefore completely useless) and just
general visual 'bleh' from the 2.5d.

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JonnieCache
Did anyone ever try playing the original worms CDROM as an audio CD back in
the day? The saga of Boggy B and Spadge, along with the full vocal version of
the worms theme tune still brings a tear to my eye.

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

Back when the code was a couple of mb, and the "prerendered FMVs" (shoutouts
to intel indeo) only took up a couple of hundred so you had to come up with
something else to fill the disc.

~~~
camtarn
I similarly had no idea that there was a vocal version!

Trying to find the theme from the version I owned (Worms United - basically
Worms + the Reinforcements expansion) led me to this: not only the theme, but
the oh-so-very-old CG cutscenes from the game:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ckbNvrM83A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ckbNvrM83A)

The theme is still brilliant, but those cutscenes... oh deary me.

~~~
digi_owl
Some Looney Toons antics there.

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piotrkubisa
Hopefully, there is very mature open-source alternative called Hedgewars
[1][2]. I found this game as very nice remake of Worms Armageddon / World
Party with a multiplayer and better graphics and sounds effects.

[1] [https://github.com/hedgewars/hw](https://github.com/hedgewars/hw)

[2] [https://www.hedgewars.org/](https://www.hedgewars.org/)

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anexprogrammer
No mention of 17 Bit / Team 17 is complete without mentioning they got their
start by publishing a hugely successful disk magazine. Initially quite amateur
but became a fairly slick presentation, and very popular. If memory serves a
few of the magazines gave away their disks a time or two. Pretty much every UK
Amiga owner knew of them from this.

Worms was also notable in that it was one of a very few decent games produced
in BASIC - Blitz Basic. Not sure if other 17 Bit output was also Basic.

~~~
richardjdare
Didn't 17bit run a PD library as well as a disk magazine? Back in the day, if
you wanted free software or shareware you ordered it by post from a Public
Domain library. They used to advertise in the Amiga magazines.

I was a Blitz Basic programmer myself (still do a bit now and again). The
other big Blitz Basic game was Skidmarks, a really cool isometric racing game
from Acid Software. I used to carry my Amiga and TV set a few hundred yards to
my friends house for multiplayer games over a null modem cable!

I was a huge fan of Alien Breed, Team17's first self-published release. It was
a gauntlet style top-down shooter with an "Aliens" theme. Rico Holmes's pixel
art was fantastic and it had great sound. I had to buy an extra 512k for my
A500 for £25 in order to play it.

I think it was also one of the earliest games to have a pre-rendered animation
sequence in the intro. It was made by Tobias Richter, who was well known on
the Amiga scene for his 3d renders.

~~~
anexprogrammer
They did. The mag was probably started to promote the PD library - it'd
include a few PD things each time. Seem to remember they'd put a scene demo, a
game and an app or utility on every disk. They seemed to curate their PD
collection and give good descriptions, rather than havng to buy on blind faith
and a disk title.

The main PD competition, the Fred Fish disks were so very variable by
comparison.

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aab0
The ending is a little eyebrow-raising. Both founders are ousted, refuse to
talk about it, and we get some pablum about how they are now a 'team' (rather
implying that they epically weren't before). What was going on there in the
2000s?

~~~
cmaggard
Not sure about the team bits, but Worms in the 2000s was basically ultra-DLC
before DLC even existed. Every 'new' game for a long time kept the vast
majority of the old bits from the previous games, added a few new items, and
charged full retail for the privilege.

~~~
abritinthebay
You just described how sequels work...

~~~
cmaggard
A sequel implies some sort of continued story or major overhaul, not what
would be 1.99 DLC in this day and age.

~~~
abritinthebay
I refer you to almost the entire output of the 80s & 90s game scene.

Especially platformers.

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digi_owl
This may be the best part about Ars expanding to UK, getting some proper
coverage of what was going on Europe.

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golergka
No mention of Scorched Earth in an article about Worms creators? Sounds like
someone didn't do their research.

~~~
durzagott
I'm glad someone else mentioned Scorched Earth. My friends and I played this
to death when we were young. I never got on the Worms bandwagon though as it
just felt like an over-animated very of Scorched Earth.

~~~
ido
Worms is obviously in the same genre but it does change quite a bit - most
obviously the focus on moving your team members (SE is mostly about weapon
selection and aiming, in worms each turn also includes a movement phase which
is just as important as the other 2 elements).

This changes the gameplay quite a bit, especially in multiplayer (it become a
lot less "chess-like" and more action-y, despite being a turn based game).

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elliotpage
I'm glad the article mentions the lawsuit Team17 brought against Amiga Power,
but could really gave gone into this in greater depth- this is a fascinating
point in gaming history. It had a much bigger impact than effecting just one
(admittedly large) Magazine.

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jamespo
Sad to see Martyn Brown kicked out, I still remember writing to him at 17-Bit
Software as it was then to get maps for the game "Dungeon Master".

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anotheryou
How the heck did they survive 3D? They should have sticked to 2D. There was
even some 2D version made in 3D graphics, no?

