Game:

Worms (1995)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 11:01

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Worms - Gameplay Footage - PS1/PSX/PSOne - Retroarch 1080p

Summary:
Worms is a 2D artillery tactical video game developed by Team17 and released in 1995. It is the first game in the Worms series of video games.

Worms is a turn based game where a player controls a team of worms against other teams of worms that are controlled by a computer or human opponent. The aim is to use various weapons to kill the worms on the other teams and have the last surviving worm(s).

Gameplay:
Worms is a turn based artillery game, similar to other early games in the genre such as Scorched Earth. 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. The time limit can be modified in some of the games in the Worms series.

Over fifty weapons and tools may be available each time a game is played, and differing selections of weapons and tools can be saved into a "scheme" for easy selection in future games. Other scheme settings allow options such as deployment of reinforcement crates, 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 objects such as land mines and explosive barrels.

When most weapons are used, they cause explosions that deform the terrain, creating circular cavities. The types of playable terrains include "island" (terrain floating on a body of water), or "cave" (cave with water at the bottom and terrain at both top and bottom of the screen that certain weapons such as "Air Strike" cannot go through; this type is not available in 3-D versions due to camera restrictions). If a worm is hit with a weapon, the amount of damage dealt to the worm will be removed from the worm's initial amount of health. The damage dealt to the attacked worm or worms after any player's turn is shown when all movement on the battlefield has ceased.

Worms die when one of the following situations occurs:

When a worm enters water (either by falling off the island, through a hole in the bottom of it, or by the waterline's being raised above the worm during sudden death)
When a worm is thrown off either side of the arena
When a worm's health is reduced to zero

Development:
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 he met with Mark Foreman – Head Games Buyer at GEM Distribution. Mark suggested to Andy that he should speak to Ocean/Team17 as they would be an ideal partner – they also had a stand at the show. Team17 made an offer on-the-spot to develop and publish the game.

During the development of Worms 2, Andy Davidson wrote Worms – The Director's Cut, a special edition produced exclusively for the AGA chipset Amiga. Only 5000 copies were ever sold. It was also the last version released for the Commodore Amiga platform from which the game originated.

The references to the developers' home county, Yorkshire, is visible, with a soundbank named "Tykes", which is a Yorkshire accent, and in the "Hell" level found in the single player mission mode, a sign with "Welcome to Ossett! Ha! ha! ha!" written on it.

The North American release of the PlayStation version was the subject of considerable negotiation, as Sony Computer Entertainment of America had a policy against 2D games being published for the console. The Sega Saturn version of the game was a straight port of the PlayStation version

In 1995, Team 17 began development on a port of Worms to Nintendo's Virtual Boy. The game was to be published by Ocean, but was canceled only weeks into development as a result of Nintendo's discontinuation of the console.

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