By Alec Meer on July 28th, 2010 at 11:15 pm.
We all loved DEATH WORM. DEATH WORM! It’s one of the first indie games we ever posted about on RPS, and mentioning its hallowed name remains the only known way to make Jim Rossignol use an exclamation mark.
Free browser game Worm Food is not DEATH WORM 2.0, nor is it officially related to DEATH WORM, but it is a lot like it. Probably too much like it, to be honest. Still: death worms.
It’s more visually elaborate (i.e. da grafficks is betta) and by including a starvation system rather than simply a combo score, it’s perhaps a little more polished and focused – though in some ways that’s to its detriment. DEATH WORM’s simple purity was its all.
Still, you’re a giant worm. You eat stuff. This involves acceleration, tunnelling and trying not to starve to death. Vis a vis, DEATH WORM! (But not).
Oh, what the hell. Here’s a DEATH WORM video too.
Here are some other death worms. People on YouTube are weird.
28/07/2010 at 23:26 CaptainHairy says:
DEATH WORM
28/07/2010 at 23:43 Man Raised By Puffins says:
what a shaDEATH WORM!29/07/2010 at 01:08 MD says:
My DEATH WORM is augmented.
29/07/2010 at 07:02 jigahaganaga says:
DEATH WORM
29/07/2010 at 07:51 dartt says:
Here is a picture of my friend, the DEATH WORM!
29/07/2010 at 08:03 sfury says:
DEATH TO WORMS !
29/07/2010 at 08:28 robrob says:
MONSTRO!
29/07/2010 at 09:13 Garg says:
DEATH WORM! Your turn.
29/07/2010 at 09:34 Bret says:
Unatco?
No.
DEATH WORM!
29/07/2010 at 11:09 maniacyak says:
“Oh my god JC! A DEATH WORM!”
“A DEATH WORM?”
29/07/2010 at 11:37 Ian says:
HARD SURFACE.
29/07/2010 at 13:54 Cooper says:
HEARING IMPAIRED WORM
29/07/2010 at 14:40 JB says:
I spill my DEATH WORM!!!!
29/07/2010 at 15:50 Malibu Stacey says:
How about a nice hot cup of DEATH WORM!
15/04/2011 at 08:43 TsunamiWombat says:
Mmmmmmm, Shai Hulud~
28/07/2010 at 23:28 Elyas says:
I shall call it snakeoid! … graboid?
29/07/2010 at 01:52 TeeJay says:
You’re gonna be sorry if you don’t give it a name.
28/07/2010 at 23:37 Longrat says:
Staying in the topic of death worms, here’s a nice death worm game that just came out too. It’s VERY easy but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun!
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/542845
28/07/2010 at 23:37 Nick says:
Holy christ I’m never going to Mongolia.
29/07/2010 at 08:35 itsallcrap says:
It probably doesn’t exist:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Mongolian_death_worm
Um… the death worm, that is – I’m pretty sure Mongolia exists.
29/07/2010 at 09:48 Ian says:
Pics or it’s not real.
(Mongolia, I mean.)
29/07/2010 at 15:01 Noyb says:
Mongolia is just a conspiracy of cartographers.
28/07/2010 at 23:44 Matzerath says:
Ah, Death Worm. The brilliance underneath a billion rip-offs.
Even Miami Shark is a bit of Death Worm, though at least they gave it an original look.
29/07/2010 at 00:05 FhnuZoag says:
How interesting! Worm Food takes an awesome game and somehow manages to make it unfun!
Stupid ‘kill every villager within time limit’ mechanic turns a pleasing ‘wreak havoc!’ game into a matter of flailing wildly around with the bad control scheme, trying to get that one last guy hanging on a rope bridge in the middle of nowhere.
Sigh.
29/07/2010 at 01:11 squidlarkin says:
Agreed. It doesn’t even have a combo system! Death Worm was pointless fun, this is even more pointless and less fun. Pretty though.
29/07/2010 at 08:50 faelnor says:
No blood and silly time limit!
NO SALE
29/07/2010 at 17:08 The Pink Ninja says:
I agree, can’t get past the second level.
It’s fiddly while DEATH WORM was merely chaotic
29/07/2010 at 01:24 Down Rodeo says:
But… I thought it was actual more DEATH WORM. I remember playing that nearly three years ago, in my first-year room at University… I might dig it out again. DEATH WORM!
29/07/2010 at 01:31 Down Rodeo says:
Actually, looking at that post (with its one ghost comment) I realise I can’t have read about DEATH WORM on RPS. Shocking! It must have been through a PC Gamer disc. Point stands, etc etc.
By the way, all your old posts have been spammed mercilessly. It’s quite funny to see a bot selling shoes agreeing that they would pay £30 for the entire id back catalogue though.
29/07/2010 at 01:28 roBurky says:
Story? Levels? Death Worm has no time for such things.
29/07/2010 at 01:31 Schmitzkater says:
Oh, what mindless fun the original was. YOU ARE DEATHWORM. DO DEATH!
But this? This is somehow so pointless.
29/07/2010 at 01:34 Tiktaalik says:
This is no death worm. This is at most a feeling slightly feverish worm.
29/07/2010 at 02:55 pipman300 says:
what is this crap
give me death worm
29/07/2010 at 07:22 DJ Phantoon says:
Give you death worm, or give you death?
29/07/2010 at 10:28 Nallen says:
eats, shoots and leaves
29/07/2010 at 04:08 zakkmiester says:
Took long enough.
I’m happy that gaming blogs have finally caught onto nitrome’s awesome.
though I still have that strange feeling like someone discovered a band you like.
I’m happy for them, but it doesn’t seem so… private. anymore.
29/07/2010 at 04:25 etho says:
I’ve always hated Nitrome. They so clearly are more interested in trying to make neat pixel art than making fun games. The games are rarely all that creative, and the gameplay is almost always kind of weak.
29/07/2010 at 07:01 zak canard says:
It’s certainly no Death Worm. When it comes to pixel art death worms also have a look at Tremerz for having Kevin Bacon in it.
29/07/2010 at 07:28 Freud says:
The Estate of the worm in Tremors will object on the grounds that this DEATH WORM too closely resembles the late gigantic Invertebrate.
29/07/2010 at 12:21 Jaz says:
I GET IT
29/07/2010 at 08:52 CMaster says:
Praise to Shai-hulud
29/07/2010 at 09:41 Hulk Handsome says:
I quite like some of the level design; bursting out of the sides of cliffs is rather enjoyable. But I agree everything else isn’t as fun as Death Worm, especially just controlling the thing.
29/07/2010 at 09:43 RogB says:
i like the art… when static.
but in gameplay, the limited palette, jerky scrolling and tiny sprites make it really hard to see where people are. having to use a minimap = sucky.
29/07/2010 at 09:44 Dominic White says:
So much grumbling. It’s a pretty solid little game. Tough, but fair – it’s about coming up with a plan, more than Death Worms kinda effortless random frenzy of destruction.
29/07/2010 at 16:02 Rich says:
Fair enough, but learning curve is pretty brutal. The first level is just fun, the second level is bloody impossible.
29/07/2010 at 16:33 Dominic White says:
I lost once on the second level, and realised why – I was working my way up. The level is hugely vertical. You’re expected to tunnel right up to the top, and then dive the whole length of the mountain to catch everyone you can on the way down.
29/07/2010 at 11:30 onetime says:
http://www.miniclip.com/games/worm-food/de/wormfood.swf
can’t play it on nitrome – here is miniclip fullscreen …
29/07/2010 at 11:55 Malibu Stacey says:
Death worm is awesome but I’d like it more if it could play it windowed. 640*480 or whatever on a modern monitor makes babies cry.
29/07/2010 at 15:49 Malibu Stacey says:
Hmm it appears I suck. v1.04 has a function to switch from fullscreen to windowed. Must download at home later this evening!
I blame Steam for making me lazy about game updates.
29/07/2010 at 15:21 Thunderkor says:
My son used to play Death Worm a lot. He was 4 at the time, and he loved it. Right up until the time he had a nightmare about being eaten by the worm, and from then on he won’t watch anything to do with anything involving giant worms. He’s 6 now and he still occasionally asks me “Dad….death worms aren’t real, right?”
He nearly crapped his pants when he was watching me play Lost Planet and one of those giant worms burst out from the ice.
29/07/2010 at 17:12 Gotem says:
Please, get him to play Penumbra Overture, and film his reactions
29/07/2010 at 16:54 ArtyFishal says:
My wife of two years is from northern China, unfortunately within that time we have not been able to travel to china to visit and celebrate with her family. We had planned on going next summer. “Had” because now that this game has enlightened me to the horrors brooding only meters beneath that scenic Chinese landscape, I’m never setting foot there. Never. Fuck that shit.