Worms (series)

Worms is the name of the game series this wiki is all about, and is developed by Team17 Digital Limited (formerly Team17 Software Limited).

Early games in the series were published by separate companies, like Ocean, Microprosse, THQ, and Ubisoft. Recent games were published internally by Team17.

Description
Worms is a turn-based, artillery, strategy and puzzling game series. The goal of each game is to eliminate all Worms in each enemy's team. This goal can be achieved by using weapons to reduce the enemy Worms' energy to zero, or drown them. The match can also be won if the other team Surrenders. Each team has weapons to defeat the enemy team. The game contains normal weapons like the Bazooka, Shotgun and the Uzi, but also unusual and bizarre weapons like the Concrete Donkey, Super Sheep, Banana Bomb, etc. Utilities can also be found in game, such as the Ninja Rope, a flexible rope with more options than expected for moving Worms, the Jet Pack, and the Teleport. The players will just get a specific amount of weapons, while other weapons, utilities and additional health can be found in Crates which drop from the sky.

The game series also contains less common Schemes like Rope Racing, where the players should get from the start to the finish as fast as possible while only using the Ninja Rope. Players will use the Worm-like acrobats or Tarzan, who swings from rope-to-rope.

The series also has a few characters, such as Boggy B, Spadge, and Clagnut. There are also villains like Professor Worminkle and Boggy the Kid. However, the series' characters are almost entirely left out, since Worms focuses mostly on the missions and combat.

History
The very first Worms game was originally made by Andy Davidson. Worms is based on the 2D classic Artillery, and originally did not feature Worms, but the "Lemmings" from the popular game of the same name. Andy was working on a program called "Jack the Ripper" for the Amiga personal computer, which allowed him to trawl the residual contents of RAM after applications had been run and quit. In this way, he "ripped" the graphics from Lemmings, and used them while developing his version of Artillery. The original name of the game (Worms) was Lemartillery, and it was created purely as a bit of fun for Andy and his school friends in 1993. The positive reaction he witnessed encouraged him to develop it further. Knowing he could never commercially release the game with Lemmings characters, he changed them for Worms and changed the name of the game to Total Wormage (possibly a reference to Total Carnage).

Andy entered the game into a publishing competition run by popular magazine Amiga Format but was unsuccessful. Undeterred, Andy took his then incomplete game to the European Computer Trade Show in London in September 1994, where he introduced it to Team17 Producer Martyn Brown who offered to help develop and publish it.

Andy, often described by his co-workers as "a bit mad" left Team17 after (or around) the release of Worms Armageddon, and told fans that he was working on a new, 3D game unrelated to the Worms series (although supposedly containing many Worms references and in-jokes), but this has not yet materialized.

Games in the Series
The Worms series consists of multiple games which can be categorized into different generations according to the game engine on which they are based:

Worms Battle Rally was supposed to be released in 2004, but it was cancelled for unknown reasons the year before. 

Some sources claim Worms W.M.D. is the start of the fifth generation because of the new look, new weapons, crafting and vehicles.

Platforms
There are a lot of classic platforms used in the first generation games. All four of the generations have Microsoft Windows.

Press quotes
"Britsoft hero to the core, Team17 have been making milestone games for pretty much every platform since it's first games for the Amiga back in 1990. Alien Breed, Body Blows, Assassin, Project X, Worms, Worms 2, Worms Armageddon, Worms: World Party - Let's face it, we've grown up with these games, and we're going to have tears in our eyes whenever they're mentioned for years to come." "Team17 has spent many, many rainy days in Worms heaven, dreaming up every permutation on a theme you could possibly devise. This game has more modes than you'd have thought humanly possible!" "Four-player Worming is almost as much fun as a night in with Britney Spears and a bottle of baby oil." "Team17 have proved with Worms that, whatever the technology of the day, it is gameplay that still counts the most." "If you are even slightly into online games at their best, you'll want to get hold of this game right now."
 * PC Format
 * Gamesdomain.com
 * DC UK Magazine
 * Stuart Dinsey, MCV
 * Dreamcast Magazine

Franchise awards
The Worms series has won a lot of franchise awards such as:

"Most original game" "Best game" "Most original game" "Best game" "Best strategy title" "Strategy game of year" "Best strategy game" "Multiplayer game of year"
 * EMAP Awards
 * BBC's Live & Kicking
 * ECTS Awards
 * Micro Mania Awards
 * PSX Developers
 * EG Monthly
 * Trophee d'or
 * GMBH

Trivia

 * The Worms in the games are somewhat as long as an average earthworm if compared to reality. It was mentioned in the Wormopedia that the Worms are about 3 inches or 7.62 centimeters tall.
 * Many of the characters from the series (usually villains) have "Boggy" in their names. The most popular character is Boggy B.