By Jim Rossignol on December 13th, 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.
13/12/2007 at 17:49 Theory says:
He doesn’t have a signature. Will it at least run without this mystery download?
13/12/2007 at 17:54 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.
13/12/2007 at 17:56 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 :)
13/12/2007 at 18:15 Mark says:
Awesome game! I catch myself making involuntary “Raarrgh!” noises when I play this. :)
13/12/2007 at 18:18 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/).
13/12/2007 at 20:03 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.
13/12/2007 at 20:11 roBurky says:
DEATH WORM!
13/12/2007 at 21:32 Steve says:
Am I going mad, or is this Streets of Rage music?
13/12/2007 at 21:58 Not-a-bot says:
MONSTROOO!!!
Damn it’s been a long time since then…
13/12/2007 at 22:26 Lorc says:
the creator did indeed “borrow” the music from streets of rage. Works really well here though, doesn’t it?
13/12/2007 at 22:36 Steve says:
It’s great! It was just driving me slightly mad trying to place it.
13/12/2007 at 22:49 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.
14/12/2007 at 00:55 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
14/12/2007 at 08:14 Bobsy says:
I can only say the name to the tune of the Trogdor song.
DEATH WOOOOORM!
[pause for breath]
DEATH WOOOOORM!
14/12/2007 at 11:41 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
14/12/2007 at 12:03 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?
14/12/2007 at 12:04 F'yth says:
DEATH WORM! WHOOOOOOOOOOO!
I love this game, thank’s RPS!
14/12/2007 at 12:17 Pete says:
What a delightful distraction. Is that music from Streets of Rage or merely “inspired”?
14/12/2007 at 13:22 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!
14/12/2007 at 19:25 Elyscape says:
Is it just me or does the DEATH WORM occasionally seem to go “OM NOM NOM” when eating?
15/12/2007 at 01:24 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.
15/12/2007 at 10:25 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.
15/12/2007 at 14:15 MPK says:
DEATHWORM!
22/12/2007 at 01:21 VOnDemon says:
Death Worm F’n RULES
20/08/2008 at 19:40 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…
17/03/2009 at 09:37 james says:
wtf! when i try to download the utility for vista, it says – Application error (Rails) – how do i get the utility? plz help
21/03/2009 at 03:19 Zapster says:
http://wiki.yoyogames.com/index.php/Making_games_work_under_Windows_Vista
the utility