Woorm is a new game by developer Victor Widell.
So, what is it all about? It is shaping to be a multi-player, party tactical, last-man-standing worm game. The player’s goal is to simply block the path of their enemies. Worms grow as long as they move, but getting cornered with nowhere to go makes the worm shrink until it completely disappears (oh no! my worm, where has it gone!!!). Additionally, there will be no punishment for bumping into walls or other worms; the player will automatically turn onto the nearest free path.
Currently, there are 21 levels available (so far), out of which 13 are “inspired” by classic games such as Bubble Bobble and Pac-Man.
Making a new game on the C64 has always interested me as a task of choice. Should I mow the lawns or take the wife out to dinner? Nope, let’s make an 8-bit game! Now, with that in mind, I had to ask Victor about his motivation to develop Woorm.
I am a web developer by trade. It is a whole different world, with many different trade-offs. My work is all about managing complexity in large projects, very rarely limited by the hardware. I wanted to see if I could hack it on the c64, the most resource-limited platform I was familiar with. I am also a bit of a hobbyist pixel artist. I wanted to see how good-looking graphics I could make with the very peculiar limitations.
Whilst still in early development (we are looking at mid-2024 for a release based on progress made), Woorm is gearing up to support 2 to 4-player, thus ensuring that a multi-player battle royale can take place. Regarding the music, Victor tells us:
I definitely want some good music. That was always the best part of C64 gaming. As a kid I would load up Trollie Wallie only to listen to the Popcorn and JM Jarre soundtrack. It would be amazing to make the entire game on my own, but more likely, I will have to commission some SIDs. A few progressive trance tracks with pumping baselines is my dream.
The teaser demo of Woorm was exclusively distributed on the covermount of ZZAP! 64 Micro Action Issue #10.
