Check back soon
Once posts are published, you’ll see them here.
The Origins of Worms
Worms is 20 years old today! 20 years of blowing huge chunks out of the ground around your foes in order to defeat their team! Grab your Super Sheeps and maybe a Banana Bomb or two as we look to the curious origins of this series...
In 1995 Amiga Format magazine were running a "Blitz BASIC" programming competition, one entrant was Andy Davidson who presented his game: Total Wormage. Total Wormage, however, did not claim victory but Andy didn't give up! Like any budding video game developer Andy sent his game to a huge amount of publishers but to no avail. All seemed lost, he was getting nowhere, that was until the European Computer Trade Show came into town! Andy took Total Wormage there and found the stall of Team17, here he finally claimed victory as Team17 made Andy an on the spot offer! Total Wormage was one step closer to becoming the franchise we know and love today! Team17 turned Total Wormage into a full, commercially available game and renamed it Worms, only, however, available on Commodore Amiga computer. The game became extremely popular!
The franchise found itself everywhere, the GameBoy, Dreamcast, SNES, Nokia N-Gage and a whole host more! It truly was a time of Total Wormage! Team17 may have taken over the development of the series but our dear old friend Andy still gave a huge amount of input into the series. Whilst Team17 worked on the sequel: Worms 2, Andy wote Worms: The Directors Cut, this he believed was the pinnacle of the entire series! The game was exclusive to the Commodore Amiga computers and had weapons totally unique to the franchise! You won't find a Concrete Donkey here! It may have been Andy's favourite installment but it performed miserably on the market, only 5000 units were ever sold! Worms 2, however, was hitting new heights and truly cementing the franchise! Team17 began to use a new game engine for Worms 2, making the game bigger and better but something had to change! It may have been a new engine but sacrifices still had to be made!
Team17 opted to make the graphics more cartoonish, a move that proved to be hugely popular! The cartoonish artstyle is what the series is known for! A staple of the franchise! Worms 2 truly became the groundbreaking entry! Worms Armageddon came next in the franchise, intended to be just an expansion pack but the installment exceeded everyone's expectations! The game even featured an online function: WormNET, Worms 2 had this too but Worms Armageddon made the online process much easier! The online function even featured leagues, however, they were removed due to a huge amount of cheating! Worms Armageddon hit yet further heights and further obscured Andy's Worms: Directors Cut and the series only grew from there!
By 2003 we see Worms 3D hit the market, taking our favourite warmongering Worms into the next dimension! The 3D series added new mechanics such as fort building and seemed to deviate further from the core gameplay that made it popular in the first place! The series eventually rediscovers these roots as we enter recent years with titles like Worms Clan Wars being the 2D style we've grown to love! In 2003 a kart game was even considered for the franchise! A kart game! Worms were/ are a huge franchise and we owe hours upon hours of entertainment to Amiga Format magazine and the unsung hero Andy Davidson!
