Total Wormage. Adapt, adjust, overcome – the story of Team17

• Masters of Amiga, Worms, and Evolution – the Story of Team17
• Total Wormage
• Independence incubator

Total Wormage

In 1994, a young programmer, Andy Davidson, appeared on Team17 booth on ECTS. For a long time, he'd been unsuccessfully trying to interest someone in his two-dimensional, turn-based game Total Wormage, in which players control pixel worms and use fancy weapons to kill each other. Team17 liked what they saw and decided to establish a cooperation with Davidson. So, in 1995, the first Worms were born.

Andy Davidson significantly expanded the rules of the classic Scorched Earth in Worms, creating a technically simple game that offered incredible playability.

Andy Davidson

When Team17 met with Davidson, the young man had not yet finished high school. Despite young age, he showed considerable talent. In 1993, he was suspended after his simple variation of Scorched Earth he had created, appealed to his classmates so much that it paralyzed computer science classes. Davidson called the game Lemartillery, and it was the prototype of Total Wormage.

It was a hit. The worms have taken over the world. Team17 optimistically assumed sales of tens of thousands of copies within a year. Instead, more than a million boxes of Worms were sold. And on many different hardware platforms, too – the game was released even on PlayStation, in time when Sony strongly promoted 3D and was rather skeptical about releasing two-dimensional titles, only green-lighting the strongest games of this kind.

And so, Team17 secured its future in the face of the increasingly certain death of Amiga. In the following years, the company released a few more games for the dying computers, but also put increasing effort into other hardware platforms. And into Worms, which became its cornerstone. The manufacturer turned one hit into an entire series, releasing fewer and fewer other games every year. The first part of the series waited for numerous special editions, in 1997 we got Worms 2, with much more advanced graphics. In 1999, Worms Armageddon, considered by many as the best part of the entire series. Shortly after the release of this game, the brand's creator, Andy Davidson, parted ways with the studio. His departure made a mark – Worms World Party 2001 did not offer almost anything new relative to its predecessor.

The same graphics, the same weapons, identical physics – the differences between Worms: Armageddon and Worms World Party were completely superficial.

Spin-offs

Team17 heavily exploited the Worms brand – in total, there has been over twenty games based on the same rules of turn-based games. In addition, various spin-offs were released. In 1998, a pinball game called Worms Pinball appeared, 2002 brought Puzzle Bobble, a logic-arcade game Worms Blast, and two years later, as well as in 2011, the worms played golf (Worms Golf and Worms Crazy Golf). The series also had minor successes during the initial boom of mobile gaming, although by clinging to the premium model, it failed to break into this market in the same way as f2p productions.

Personally, I remember Worms 3D relatively fondly. I may have had to constantly switch between the gamepad and keyboard and mouse depending on which weapon I used, but it was still the worms, if a tad more clumsy. But so, what – I was the only an exception and I had no one to play with – everyone else chose to go back to Armageddon.

In 2003, the worms were finally revolutionized, entering the third dimension. And that wasn't the best move. With strange camera work and awkward controls, Worms 3D discouraged a lot of fans. Worse still, Team17 did not learn from the mistake, and instead of taking a step back, stubbornly pushed in the new direction. The next 3-D Worms often introduced overly complicated rules without addressing any of the fans' feedback. Controls remained problematic, but at least the worms could build forts or create their own weapons.

Worms Reloaded is a return to the roots that happened too late.

The potential of the series was squandered, and when it finally returned to its roots in 2009 with the magnificent Worms 2: Armageddon (on PC called Worms Reloaded), it was too late. The game sold well, reaped some good scores, but it was no longer the same magnitude of success – too many people have learned over the years that Worms had lost the old charm, and it's better to stick to the earlier releases. The new generation, on the other hand, was looking for different thrills than cartoonish graphics and turn-based duels. The era of worms was officially over. This was a big problem for Team17, which at that time was almost a single-brand company.