> Mum used to tell me a story about when I first saw the Amiga. I was about 12 years old and she said my face 'lit up' in a way that she'd never seen before. And then she went straight back to dad and said "We're going to have to work extra shifts, so we can get an Amiga", and that wasn't possible for about a couple of years until the Amiga 500 came out. I'm doing an update to Worms DC at the moment and I'm gonna dedicate that to my mum and dad because, without them, without them getting me that computer, I don't know which direction I would've gone in.
Hopefully your parents also encouraged you to live your dreams, and sacrificed to get you the computer(s) you always wanted. And if you are parents now, I hope you'll do the same for your children.
My parents never discouraged my dreams, but they never actively procured anything to make them bloom either. Early in adulthood when I gained access on my own, I resented them for "holding me back". But then, after many more decades of growing up, I understand that getting your child an expensive computer isn't always as simple as "work extra shifts" for many parents.
I've donated money and time to volunteer programs to children computing groups but they've all been shut down during COVID. The ones that are popping back up are centered around LLMs and I'm less interested in encouraging this kind of (lack of) desire to understand computers.
Wow. This is strangely similar to my first experience. I was also 12, in 1984, and we were possibly the last people in our relatively affluent neighborhood not to already have either an IBM PC, an Apple ][ or a Commodore 64. My parents were German immigrants and extremely frugal, so I did not have high hopes walking into Computer Microsystems (RIP) on Northern Blvd. that day in Manhasset. But something about my interaction with, or reaction to, the Mac (which I had never seen before), the Lisa (which I had DEFINITELY never seen before), or the sales guy (Bruce Prevo, will never forget that name for whatever reason, RIP), must have convinced my parents to drop around $4.5K in 1984 dollars (that is $14,400 today) on a Macintosh 128k, an ImageWriter I, and an Apple 300 Baud Modem that day. The sum total of these was life-changing for me. (Not just for me... Supposedly, that sale is what clinched Bruce a free Porsche from Apple, which was the award for achieving the highest sales for some unknown period of time at the time. Bruce was SUPER charismatic!)
All I remember was being more blown away than I had ever been before or arguably since. I mean... this was so far beyond the green-on-black text-based UI's I was all too familiar with that I was just mindfucked. And I think that's what sold my folks on doing that crazy act.
A couple of years later they also started selling Amiga 500's. I was, for whatever reason, much less impressed.
Anyway, I spent much of the following summer coding in Microsoft BASIC for the Mac, which has its own backstory I only became aware of recently... tl;dr Cutthroat Microsoft tactics, as usual https://www.folklore.org/MacBasic.html
And if youre a high income tech worker you can do this magic yourself. The difference in the trading account is not noticable but the memory of the great feeling of helping & giving remains. 1k is a lot for most people!
https://www.givedirectly.org/
Me and my brother when playing Worms / Worms 2 preferred a mode without time constraints per move, and with infinite ninja rope. Apart from standard 'one shot per turn' it also allowed you to relocate to best next position, detonate some time-delayed landmines near enemy worms, and even use physics for additional damage - if you released a worm from ninja rope with some inertia/fall, not too big so you don't get damage yourself, but energetic enough to SLIDE - it could move enemy worm without ending a round! Fun to push one or two enemy soldiers into the water before your first shot!
My first real taste of programming came from trying to hack on gorilla.bas to add new features to it. Whoever created that game changed my life immeasurably.
I had Worms United (I think it was called) which was basically an expansion to the original DOS game that allowed for custom levels and SFX.
I created some worms sound packs loosely based on some of the pop songs on that era.
Fun times.
I never quite got into the later Worms games. Visually they looked great and the controls felt similar, but it was all a bit too cartoonish for my liking. However that might just have been because I was used to the original DOS games. But even now, I still crave that pixel art aesthetic in games (not just Worms).
Not sure about DOS versions, but Worms: The Director's Cut is a heavily-expanded version of the original: more weapons, custom levels (allowing 16 colours instead of 8, IIRC), etc. Highly recommended!
If you haven't played since childhood, this might not matter to you, but I never got on with the games from the 3rd generation (https://worms.fandom.com/wiki/Third_Generation) and beyond because the physics are different in a way I find less enjoyable. It's especially noticeable if you loved using the ninja rope in the older games.
Worms Armageddon is the one to go with from the second generation. It has received a lot of care over the years, and with the latest updates it should run perfectly on a modern computer with a big high res monitor (or without, of course). I haven't played online for quite a while, but it seems to still have an active community: https://www.tus-wa.com/
edit: but I'm looking it up now, and apparently WMD has Armageddon-like physics, so maybe that really is the obvious choice! (I don't know if they're literally the same, or just pretty similar, but I guess you probably won't care about that.)
Played a lot of Worms Armageddon when I was a kid. WMD is the best one by far and carries Armageddon's spirit. The others lost the script trying to make cooler games.
But I'm so excited to play Worms with my kids when they're old enough. My sister and I _endlessly_ played the same level in a worms 2 demo almost 30 years ago.
Yeah, took me a while, but it looks like an expansion pack for the 1997 Amiga-only game "Worms: The Director's Cut". It backports (demakes?) maps and audio from later games like Worms 2, Armageddon and World Party.
I would not get my hopes very high, it's my favorite game to play with kids on PS3 (Worms Armageddon), but they don't seem to like it as much as me, they would rather play Sonic All Stars Racing, Rayman Legends, NHL or other games, they don't share my love for Atomic Bomberman either and it's not about old graphics, they really liked TMNT Turtles in Time or Sunset Riders on emulator
This was before broadband and pocket computers were big so we had to split screen or hot seat multiplayer on the family computer. It was a lot more in person and social and that may have been a big factor.
Nothing to do with internet or smartphones, all mentioned games are split screen/coop on one TV, yet they still for some reason dont like Worms (Armageddon), I didn't even bother trying the old graphics Worms.
I remember being 10 and getting worms world party. I really was convinced that was going to be the best game I'd play for the rest of my life. Ahhh the nostalgia...
To be fair a few months later in 2002 I got to see a second cousin playing gta 3 on pc. That really sent my 11 year old brain spinning.
not even finally buying my own home with my wife this year gave me the such a thrill, perhaps because it was very grueling and we still are waiting for some repairs to move in.
I played a lot of worms in college. The shotgun was my weapon of choice - I would play with a ruler so I could snipe people across the level with it. The slippery surface physics meant that planning your shots to move around your opponent rather than damage them was a lot more effective. Getting good with mobility tools like rope or jet pack helped a lot too.
The super weapons were the great equalizer for less skilled players, but still a lot of fun.
Good times. Newer games, my biggest complaint was the less slippery terrain.
I had a babysitter that worked through the WWP campaign with me and we enjoyed it. It really became more inventive than you’d expect a campaign like that to be. For example, you get the bow, infinite weapon firing per turn, and infinite ammo. You’re meant to shoot arrows until you create a bridge to the next platform.
same times, y'all non-rich non-poor 90s and 00s kids just went face down ass up too much, is all. FU for being good boys, I thought that was a daddy issue kind of girl thing
I remember bringing worms 1 on a diskette to my schools computer lab and playing with classmates, we all got hook and had good times. Then Worms Armageddon came out many days after school were enjoyed blasting each other with bazookas, sheep and holy hand grenades.
More the nerdy side of things but the multiplayer element used IRC as communication and matchmaking infrastructure. Command & Conquer RA2 series too utilised IRC for matchmaking, Dreamforge IRCd to be exact.
Worms Armageddon was the bomb and the PlayStation One version brought original epic fun.
https://shows.acast.com/63b458521043e00011114396/episodes/69...
> Mum used to tell me a story about when I first saw the Amiga. I was about 12 years old and she said my face 'lit up' in a way that she'd never seen before. And then she went straight back to dad and said "We're going to have to work extra shifts, so we can get an Amiga", and that wasn't possible for about a couple of years until the Amiga 500 came out. I'm doing an update to Worms DC at the moment and I'm gonna dedicate that to my mum and dad because, without them, without them getting me that computer, I don't know which direction I would've gone in.
Hopefully your parents also encouraged you to live your dreams, and sacrificed to get you the computer(s) you always wanted. And if you are parents now, I hope you'll do the same for your children.
I've donated money and time to volunteer programs to children computing groups but they've all been shut down during COVID. The ones that are popping back up are centered around LLMs and I'm less interested in encouraging this kind of (lack of) desire to understand computers.
All I remember was being more blown away than I had ever been before or arguably since. I mean... this was so far beyond the green-on-black text-based UI's I was all too familiar with that I was just mindfucked. And I think that's what sold my folks on doing that crazy act.
A couple of years later they also started selling Amiga 500's. I was, for whatever reason, much less impressed.
Anyway, I spent much of the following summer coding in Microsoft BASIC for the Mac, which has its own backstory I only became aware of recently... tl;dr Cutthroat Microsoft tactics, as usual https://www.folklore.org/MacBasic.html
The best matches were the ones that we only allowed grenades, bazookas, mortars and other few basic short range weapons.
The connoisseur's choice.
Worms Armageddon saw patches for ~18 years after official updates stopped.
https://worms2d.info/Updates_(Worms_Armageddon)
I created some worms sound packs loosely based on some of the pop songs on that era.
Fun times.
I never quite got into the later Worms games. Visually they looked great and the controls felt similar, but it was all a bit too cartoonish for my liking. However that might just have been because I was used to the original DOS games. But even now, I still crave that pixel art aesthetic in games (not just Worms).
"Total Wormage" was on the Amiga, which became the original Worms. It was ported to other machines after:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worms_(series)#Development
https://worms2d.info/Total_Wormage
> an expansion to the original
Not sure about DOS versions, but Worms: The Director's Cut is a heavily-expanded version of the original: more weapons, custom levels (allowing 16 colours instead of 8, IIRC), etc. Highly recommended!
I never owned an Amiga when they were relevant but I keep thinking about buying one now for my retro hardware collection.
1999: https://web.archive.org/web/19990125104610/http://www.worm.n...
Worms Armageddon is on there, which is the one I remember from my childhood. Or am I better off with Worms WMD?
Worms Armageddon is the one to go with from the second generation. It has received a lot of care over the years, and with the latest updates it should run perfectly on a modern computer with a big high res monitor (or without, of course). I haven't played online for quite a while, but it seems to still have an active community: https://www.tus-wa.com/
edit: but I'm looking it up now, and apparently WMD has Armageddon-like physics, so maybe that really is the obvious choice! (I don't know if they're literally the same, or just pretty similar, but I guess you probably won't care about that.)
But I'm so excited to play Worms with my kids when they're old enough. My sister and I _endlessly_ played the same level in a worms 2 demo almost 30 years ago.
Yeah, took me a while, but it looks like an expansion pack for the 1997 Amiga-only game "Worms: The Director's Cut". It backports (demakes?) maps and audio from later games like Worms 2, Armageddon and World Party.
I did this too with other games. One of the joys of being an adult has been tracking down full copies of the games I'd only had demos for.
not even finally buying my own home with my wife this year gave me the such a thrill, perhaps because it was very grueling and we still are waiting for some repairs to move in.
The super weapons were the great equalizer for less skilled players, but still a lot of fun.
Good times. Newer games, my biggest complaint was the less slippery terrain.
Good old times...
Worms Armageddon was the bomb and the PlayStation One version brought original epic fun.