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RPS Advent Game-o-Calendar: December 13th
Written by Jim Rossignol on December 13, 2007 at 5:32 pm.
The 13th of December is traditionally the day when we celebrate being hungry here at RPS. There are numerous ways to satiate that hunger, and therefore celebrate it. You can have a bowl of Weetabix, eat an apple, make a sandwich from last night’s curry, or, more seasonally, open a window on our Fairtrade advent calendar.
Because you know what’s in there.
CHOCOLATE. Om nom nom nom!
But how best to eat the chocolate? Clearly we must do it while saying “om nom nom nom”, but can there be more? Perhaps a game can help out: A game where all things are consumed by a gaping maw rising from the very ground we walk on…
It’s: DEATH WORM!
DEATH WORM! He eats more than mere chocolate.
I’ve spent an awful lot of time playing games this year. And I’ve played three particular games more than I should: Eve Online, Stalker, and… Death Worm. It’s a 2D scrolling eat ‘em up, where you play something like the worm from Tremors. As the worm eats the things that walk across the surface above it grows fat, and so the game escalates. You start off eating the odd soldier and some elephants, and you’ll end up being attacking with drill bombs from the sky, and finally assaulted by aliens from another world. And all the time you must eat. More meat the for the guts. You are, after all, Death Worm.
Yes, this single-level indie game has gripped me for hours at a time, and I keep coming back to it. I keep pushing the limits of how much I can make the Death Worm eat, how far his enemies can go to try and destroy him. Perhaps it says something about my true, gluttonous nature, but I find great joy in the fluidity of the giant worm’s battle to eat as much as possible, for as long as possible. Bursting from the earth to snatch a bird from the sky, while under fire from tanks and aeroplanes, well it’s a rare pleasure. This one of those designs that encapsulates a precious, meat-headed fragment of gaming: you’re a worm and you have to get a high score. That’s about as much as a videogame needs to say.
Of course Death Worm does quite a bit more: there’s even some physics. Yes, you can use the rocks on the surface to crush your enemies.
As it is in Death Worm, so it is in life. Amen.
EDIT: Vista converter thing link.
Related Stories:
- RPS Advent Game-o-Calendar: December 21st
- RPS Advent Game-o-Calendar: December 17th
- RPS Advent Game-o-Calendar is GO!
__________________
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Junior says:
Mmmmmm, curry sandwich!
But yeah, that Vista link would be nice too, I miss deathworm since my upgrade. Deathworm is one of those indie games that make the pc the only viable gaming platform.
December 13th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Bruut says:
It doesn’t work on Vista without the utility. Can be found here:
http://www.yoyogames.com/wiki/show/44
(found his sig by clicking his name :)
December 13th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
Mark says:
Awesome game! I catch myself making involuntary “Raarrgh!” noises when I play this. :)
December 13th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Seniath says:
Legendary, tho it gets a bit silly once the aliens show up. Why the giant worm concept hasn’t been used more often in games I don’t know. (Or, maybe we should be thankful it hasn’t been /overused/).
December 13th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Kennel says:
Nice game but gets quite boring when you learn to play it. The difficulty doesn’t grow after some point (3000 or 5000 or something). No stronger enemies, no larger amount of them, the worm stops growing. I made a suicide after 10 000 points and was quite bored.
December 13th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
roBurky says:
DEATH WORM!
December 13th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Steve says:
Am I going mad, or is this Streets of Rage music?
December 13th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Not-a-bot says:
DEATH WORM!
MONSTROOO!!!
Damn it’s been a long time since then…
December 13th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Lorc says:
the creator did indeed “borrow” the music from streets of rage. Works really well here though, doesn’t it?
December 13th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Steve says:
It’s great! It was just driving me slightly mad trying to place it.
December 13th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Andrew says:
Death Worm is so very awesome.
I managed to get to the aliens once and haven’t played since, though. I think I felt that my aim, my purpose in Death Worm had been achieved.
December 13th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Kieron Gillen says:
Despite living in the same house as Jim for all this year, I hadn’t tried this until now.
I HAVE CONSUMED MEAT.
KG
December 14th, 2007 at 12:55 am
Bobsy says:
I can only say the name to the tune of the Trogdor song.
DEATH WOOOOORM!
[pause for breath]
DEATH WOOOOORM!
December 14th, 2007 at 8:14 am
Andrew says:
There is a 2 player mod of Death Worm out there, I have it at the moment, but I can’t find a link for it yet…
This game is so brilliant
December 14th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Phil says:
Anyone know what’s up with the baby worms that sometimes appear - so far I’ve been eating them alive but I wonder if there are other ways to involve myself in their welfare and development?
December 14th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
F'yth says:
DEATH WORM! WHOOOOOOOOOOO!
I love this game, thank’s RPS!
December 14th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Pete says:
What a delightful distraction. Is that music from Streets of Rage or merely “inspired”?
December 14th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Dan Pryor says:
With every single kill I should “OM NOM NOM NOM” I feel it is a worthy homage to the site that pointed it out to me.
Ta RPS!
December 14th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Elyscape says:
Is it just me or does the DEATH WORM occasionally seem to go “OM NOM NOM” when eating?
December 14th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Patsy7z7 says:
Greetings, I am the creator of the Two Player modification.
Keep in mind, i am not the creator of the origonal game, nor do i take credit for any of his work. Simply, i wanted to play with my brother and made my own modifications.
Please look over the discussion topic for my version at Metanet Forums
If you have any questions. The links are also at that page.
December 15th, 2007 at 1:24 am
No Picnic says:
Did anyone else notice that the red and green mines look like the mines from the Worms game series (i.e., Worms 2, Worms World Party). It was a subtle but clever tip of the hat to a classic.
December 15th, 2007 at 10:25 am
MPK says:
DEATHWORM!
December 15th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
[...] If sinister focus groups and demographic testing decides that fear of hardware hunger was the root cause of low sales, it’s unlikely we’ll see another game to raise the technological bar as Crysis did for quite some time. Worst case scenario: we revert back to consoles defining PC games’ graphical clout. That would be sad. But hey, at least we’ve still got Death Worm. [...]
December 15th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
VOnDemon says:
Death Worm F’n RULES
December 22nd, 2007 at 1:21 am
[...] 2 11th December: Gears of War 12th December: Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords 13th December: DEATH WORM 14th December: Tabula Rasa 15th December: Knytt Stories 16th December: Half-life 2: Episode 2 17th [...]
December 25th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
MK says:
What the heck the vista download thing doesn’t work anymore does anyone have the converter thing??? I can’t play this game anymore now! I miss it…
August 20th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
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December 13th, 2007 at 5:49 pm