Creating a scheme

(Up to Guides, FAQs, and ReadMes or Schemes or Scheme ideas or Scheme file)

Creating a scheme is a process that is not necessarily as simple as editing the ammo, the power or the delay of some weapons of an existing scheme file. Some schemes may take years to be developed (they are not simply a file), requiring special maps, several testings including different players to avoid problems or to balance the scheme.

A scheme can be published or not. When published, sometimes only the upload will not necessarily make it get noticed by people and if it is not explained well enough, people may not understand it and lose interest or play it wrongly. That's why usually a good description (like a real life board game manual), with the rules (if needed), game setup, and details is part of the scheme making process.

If the intention is to make the scheme noticed, known and played by many players, some effort to "advertise" it or at least host it several times on WormNET, or organize competitive events like tournaments or cups may help. Creating videos, GIFs, icons and banners for a scheme is something that many scheme creators do.

There is etiquette regarding scheme creation. Check Etiquette for creativity: avoiding plagiarism and citing influences.

Few schemes become widely played on WormNET. This happens due to several reasons. Put in mind that it's common to players dislike or just don't feel interested on new schemes. Some might have negative behaviour regarding your effort creating and showing a new scheme. So, it can be frustating. Be prepared for these possibilities.

The idea

Everything starts with an idea. A scheme can start with inspiration on other sports, games, movies, etc. what is called adaptations. It can start as a small edit on a scheme file, to change something that could be different, changing the gameplay experience. Many original schemes are actually a mixture of two or more schemes. Many schemes are developed to explore one or more specific features of the game. There are schemes that were created to train for other schemes, or to train a specific weapon or trick. It's all about the players imagination!

The scheme file

The scheme file can be created using WA itself or an external scheme editor.

WA updates and features

The map

Which type of map would the new scheme idea work best? This question is very important, because nobody can play a scheme without a map. An "empty" map is still a map.

Sometimes, a scheme idea starts with a map, and then the scheme file needs to adapt to it. However, the opposite is more likely to happen: first you create the scheme file, then you make or choose a specific map for it.

The first thing to do is to try the new scheme on a map that can potencially suit it well. This map is a provisory map, because it is still unsure how it would work during the very beginning of the testings, so the details about the gameplay and map characteristics are yet to be discovered.

The map can be any (or a specific type of) randomly-generated map by the game's Map Editor (dual-layered caverns, twin islands with border, complex open island, cave, etc.), it can be these mentioned maps, but edited (like Quickdraw maps), it can be another map 100% done via the game's map editor (Flat Earth Apocalypse), like an "empty" map (Holy War, Burning Girders, Snooker, Martyn Brown War) or completely filled with terrain map (Mole Shopper ones), it can be a map designed for other schemes (for example, Driver uses Boom Race maps and Teleport Shopper uses Shopper maps), or it can be a completely new design of map specific for the scheme (requiring some work, check next section: "Creating a special map").

Creating a special map

For technical details about creating custom maps, see Colour map.

Testing

It's always better to test a scheme before releasing it. The more a scheme is tested, the more its bad aspects can be detected and fixed. Also, good ideas may come while testing a scheme, upgrading it for a better experience.

A scheme can be tested alone (playing against yourself), or tested with more players. Testing alone is easier and you can focus on every aspect with the time you have and want to work on. Testing with more players requires scheduling or finding interested people with free time, but it can be a lot more fun to do this, and the players may contribute figuring out, opining and suggesting things that you could not realize playing alone. Testing with other players is a way to make people notice your future scheme too.

Note: testing a scheme can also make the author give up the idea. Sometimes, if the scheme is not fun or original enough, should it be published? If there are problems in the scheme that cannot be fixed, well, it's like releasing something that doesn't work or a game with a bug. Saying "NO" to a scheme is ok. Testing is important to realize if a project should go on or not. If not, at least you are sure about it after the testings, what can be a relief if you always think "oh, there's that unfinished project to work...".

Balancement

After creating a provisory scheme file and testing it, some issues may arise and lead to possible changes in the gameplay - either by changing the scheme settings (including settings of Wormkit modules, a.k.a. mods) or adding house rules.

First of all, what balancement even mean? What are the criteria for accusing that a scheme is unbalanced? These questions are hard to answer, because there is lot of subjectivity regarding this. For a player, a scheme can be fine the way it is. For other player, it is not ok. So, this section will discuss general aspects about balancement.

A scheme may be seen as unbalanced (likely to be boring, very repetitive, not tactical, not skillful, not accurated...) when, for example:

The map can be easily and completely destroyed in one or two rounds. This will end the game very quickly with a very high chance of a draw happen, oftentimes with a lot of luck involved.
There are a lot of health crates that give a lot of health to the worms constantly spawning on the map, but the weapons are weak, so they are almost useless in terms of damage (worms will cure more than receive damage).
There are infinite health worms and the objective is to kill them, but there is no way to plop these worms on the maps designed for it.
A very long race map that takes more than 6 hours to a player complete alone, specially if it is supposed to be played online with six players.
A scheme with Extended Scheme Options features that is likely to happen an infinite loop, ruining the game, for example: a worm that is affected by the very strong wind and skims on the water for the eternity, or a worm following forever an orbit of a black hole gravity without hitting any objects (and no air viscosity is activated in the settings as a break system).
A battle scheme with a very long turn time, many infinite weapons, and Weapon Use Doesn't End Turn feature: the player who starts will easily kill all enemy worms of the map in one turn.
A Sudden Death flood that sinks the entire map in one turn.

A special case that must not be forgotten is the snowball effect. Some schemes are very likely to happen this effect. It can be considered part of the strategy and these schemes can be balanced by adding many rounds to define a winner, like playing best of 9 or setting 5 victories at the trophy sprite on the scheme settings. However, it can be a very bad experience to the player losing, like only having the option to skip turns for several turns while the other player enjoys (or not) the big advantage. The snowball effect makes a comeback become something hard to happen on a game, being very easy to predict the winner and know the result of the game many minutes before its end. For these reasons, snowball effect can be considered something to avoid on a scheme.

Some examples of the effct:

A player is stuck with no transport tools or weapons while the other player has a lot of crates and transport tools to get them, knowing that these weapons will continue on the next rounds for this player and for the other don't (because he couldn't collect them).
A player gets x3 ropes with 5 stars of power in a crate and this allows the worm to collect all crates on the map, while the other player doesn't have transport tools and the only crate near his/her worm is a Prod.
A scheme without transport tools: one player started at the top of the map (or got easy access to it) and the other player started at the bottom (or was dropped to the bottom). The player at the top can drop weapons easily on the player at the bottom, but the player at the bottom will face the gravity, and will have hard times hitting the player at the top. The player at the bottom will not be able to climb the map and even if it does climb, it's easy to the player at the top drop it to the bottom again. Consider that this scheme has no Air Strike-like weapons to the player at the bottom have a chance to easily damage the enemy at the top.

Now that the extreme cases of unbalancement of a scheme were described, it is clear that it is very important to balance a scheme, not only to make a scheme functional, but fun enough, skillful enough, tactical enough, etc. For this, paying attention to weapon powers, crate probabilities, crate ammo, initial ammo, Stockpiling, initial health, Sudden Death timing,, Fall Damage, etc. is very important. If the scheme has Extended Scheme Options or RubberWorm features, the values of the gravity, air viscosity, crates per turn, etc. must be well calculated. Yeah, you need math to make a scheme!

The rules

A game and a society don't exist without rules. If a scheme says it has "no rules" it means that the rules are coded in the game as the standard gameplay schemes and there are no additional house rules by the players that weren't coded yet.

Rules will complicate things a lot more to players understand how to play a scheme. So, oftentimes it is good to avoid implementing house rules. However, house rules can make a scheme very unique and different from the rest, changing the gameplay completely. And this is something that is rare to see in other games, it is something very special about W:A, so adding rules can be very interesting. Examples of other games that had house rules are Among Us and the ARAM mode from League of Legends that received an official map and became a successful game mode created originally by the community of the game.

Rules can be added from an initial concept of gameplay scheme (since the start of the project), or they can be added after some testings to make the gameplay more balanced, less repetitive or more skillful.

The more rules, the more complicated it will be to learn the scheme, to play without infringements (cows), and to organize competitive events properly. On the other hand, few or too simple rules may lead to players interpret things wrongly and get confused without the details, specially in competitions. Also, simple rules may make the scheme gameplay not the optimal one.

So, it's complicated to decide if a rule should be added, because the more rules or complexity, it can be boring to understand and make all players play the scheme correctly. When adding rules, it is recommended that the minimum and most effective ones be added, in a very clear manner. However, there are schemes that have excessive and extensive rules in purpose.

Regarding rules that are to be added without being the initial concept: after balancing the scheme and testing all the available features of the current's WA version, if even after this the scheme looks missing something to make it better, for example if the gameplay is repetitive or there is an "abusive" tactic that players will always do that ruins a bit of the fun or make the scheme less skillful, then adding a rule might be a good idea. For example Spawn for Weapons had an initial gameplay concept rule, but after play testing it, it felt necessary to add a rule to make it less repetitive, to avoid using the same weapons, just like the case of Plop War rules.

The description (game manual)

The description of a scheme is something very important. Schemes without description might be interpreted as laziness/clumsiness of the author, or that the scheme is very likely to be played without house rules, or that it can be played the way the players want (any worms, any map, with house rules, etc.), or that it's just a random conventional gameplay or variation of other scheme. No description is very vague: it is a .wsc file, not a game explanation (like buying a product without a manual, you'll have to figure it out alone and might do it wrongly). Players may play the scheme completely different from the author's intentions, so a scheme without a description can be played in a bad way, so that people may think that the scheme is very bad, when it can potentially be good. For example, playing with few worms on a ploppy map can be very unbalanced for a scheme that the author planned to be played with 8 worms on a bulky complex map.

The description can be very short, concise and simple or it can be a full book with several chapters, explaining all the details and aspects of the scheme. Both forms of description can exist.

A short description is useful for lazy people or people without much free time (the famous expression TL;DR) that are curious to play, but doesn't want to read a lot for a single scheme. It is specially useful when a scheme doesn't have house rules, or it is a simple variation of other scheme.

A full and complete description will help to clarify all the scheme nuances to the players, specially when there are complex house rules in it, or when it's a completely new gameplay style (original concept).

When writting a description, the author of the scheme must have this in mind. Even if it's a small variation, describing the differences from the original will make it easier to players understand, because they will not need to look carefully in all the settings of the file. The description may arise the player's interest on a scheme.

Game setup

Information about how to start a match of a scheme is very important. If players don't know how many worms or the type of the map that the scheme is best played, they will assume any possibility is valid and this is very vague. A scheme that the author tested and designed with a specific type of map and number of worms might be boring in different arrangements. Of course that playing in different circumstances might be even better than the original testings of the author, but that's rare, and why not write that the scheme is open to be played in different situations? It can be seen as a bit of laziness of the author to test the idea properly and conclude the best scenario to play the scheme.

So, it's recommended to inform the number of worms, the specific map type of the scheme, if there are other details of the preparation in the game lobby before the match starts, this should be very clear and easy to players find in the description of the scheme, because players often check the description while in lobby with people waiting sometimes impatiently to play.

Rules explanation

If a scheme doesn't have house rules, the description doesn't need to mention this at all, although it's clearer to players when it is stated that there are no rules on the description. If a scheme does have rules, they must be explained very well, to avoid confusions, mistakes and misunderstandings.

Usually rules have names. They are usually written in bold text or in CAPITAL LETTERS, to get the attention of the players. Also, the rules have acronyms in most cases, to make it easier to people remember and inform people in the lobby that they know the rules. The classic example are the shopper rules. Implementing rules that already exist and already have famous acronyms is easier to the players remind them, however, sometimes special new and unique rules are needed for a new scheme. If this last situation is the case, then the rules must be very well detailed - more than ever - and example situations can be used to describe the rules. This makes things clearer to the players.

Don't forget that a rule may need explanation for situational gameplay details, so it can turn things very complex, specially for competitive games.

A common sense concept is that when someone infringe a rule (someone does or is a cow - see this term in Terminology), this player needs to skip a turn. Although, depending on the scheme skipping a turn is not that bad compared to the impact severity of the cow. So, sometimes the scheme rules will state: the player who commit a cow will lose the game instantly. However, this can be considered a very severe and strict punishment and may ruin the game too quickly or too easily. Regarding this, on some descriptions, if one cow happen, it will say to the player skip a turn, and a second cow will be instant lose for the cow player.

History

This section of a scheme article/manual is optional, but it helps possible future fans of the scheme understand the details of its creation process better. It also helps people writing about WA history with a good document. Another thing is that it can clarify things and avoid plagiarism accusations. Not to say it is a good place to credit people.

In this section players can write in full details the creation process, the dates, what inspired the creation of the scheme, who helped with the testings, who made the first maps, who created the scheme (all the authors), etc.

Publishing

If you feel that your scheme is ready for release after creating the scheme file, testing, and writing a description, it's time to upload it to a website to finally release it publicly.

There were several websites designed to players upload and publish their schemes. Some examples: BlameThePixel, Hispanaworms, Worms-univers and other personal websites that are now defunct.

Currently, the best website to upload a scheme for the public is The Ultimate Site, with over 5000 schemes uploaded, and with fields for the icon, the original author, the player who submitted the scheme, description with HTML features, many replay slots to people download example gameplays, the scheme file itself, etc.

TUS is not the only one. This wiki has a page for this called Scheme ideas. It is a great option too, since it has a lot of HTML features (wiki code), and is accessed by a significant amount of readers. It has more limitations, since it's a wiki and other people may edit the scheme article and remove unwanted/unnecessary content. WKB's limit for files is 2MB and to download a scheme people need to right click with the mouse at the link and choose the option "save link as". WMDB is another good option, however you can only attach one scheme per map, and if there is no map, it is not possible to upload a scheme. Not any map is approved there, so it's a very limited option, but it works well. Another possibility is WSDB that can store any scheme that can be used in HostingBuddy by typing a command with its number.

Promoting

Once a scheme is published, and therefore not only for the author see it, if the idea it to make the scheme get noticed, promoting it is recommended, and this can be done in different ways.

Providing example replays

To people understand the rules or the gameplay of a scheme, it is essential that an example replay is available for download. With a replay, it is much easier to understand a scheme, and it's quicker than reading a full article sometimes. A scheme released without a replay is practically the same as having a scheme without the map or the map without the scheme. It's very important.

To upload a replay, a player can play against himself or with other players. It can be a tutorial (using the chat to explain things), or a simple match. It is better to upload a decent replay than nothing. It's not necessary to have a perfect and amazing example to people understand a scheme. Remember, it's a new scheme, if more people play it, there will be better replays in the future. For now, what matters is that people understand how it should be played, what is the idea of the scheme and how the gameplay goes. This doesn't mean that any scheme should be uploaded, there are certain things to consider before uploading a scheme: has the chat toxicity, many bad words and bad mood? Did players respect the rules? Were there any quitters? Did the match last until the end? Too many fails? Were the most essencial characteristics of the scheme properly featured during the gameplay? Was it a funny game? Are the people available in the replay ok about publishing their game? Did they authorize to make their game public?

If the replay is not very bad, if it's decent, it should be published until be replaced by a better one in the future. Remember that since WA v3.8 it is possible to sanitize replays.

The icon

Many schemes of the past still don't have an icon, and the icon may be considered unnecessary. However Worm Olympics medals were often designed with a small image representing the scheme being played. Possibly other websites had images to represent schemes before WO. The Ultimate Site probably was the first to systematize this. When submmiting a scheme, a player can upload a scheme icon to be displayed along with the scheme page.

So, creating an icon is optional, but it helps to attract the attention of other players to it. It shows that the scheme had some effort, some artistic feeling and that the idea really deserves to be noticed. Also, the cliché needs to be said: "One image worths more than 1000 words". With a simple look at the image, a player may understand the whole idea of the scheme, or a big portion of it.

The GIF

The GIF is something that few scheme makers put an effort to make. It can be the scheme icon (animated), a banner introducing the concept, like an advertisement, or just gameplay moments to show clearly how the scheme is played in practice.

Notable examples of GIFs made specifically for scheme icons are the ones from Drive for Weapons and Supermarket Shopper. There are also GIFs made to represent a scheme gameplay, like the ones used for Darts, Pool and Hoops.

The icon of Drive for Weapons for example was handmade, being in total 20 frames, which weren't an ideal number, because with more frames the animation could be more fluid. Some elements were taken and edited from the internet, though.

A recommended program for beginners or even experienced gif makers is the website ezgif. Although, many advanced GIF makers recommend a program called FFmpeg. For other technical details, see Creating a Worms GIF.

The image

Despite the gif and the icon, an image can be created to a scheme. The image can be a banner, like an advertisement, or it can be a conceptual image that easily explains a rule of a scheme or a common tactic. It can also be simply a gameplay screenshot.

Images can be edited with effects, crops, colour brushes, etc. using any program that edits images, simple ones like MS Paint, or complex ones like GIMP and Photoshop.

Screenshots from the game can be taken by pressing the "Pause/Break" key in-game or in-replay and then rescued in "Capture" folder. In replays, using the "S" key may help to find the best frame to be captured.

The Video

A video can help promoting your scheme and get attention from players. A video can be made before the release of a scheme, like a teaser or a trailer, or after the release of a scheme showing all the details of it. It can be a tutorial video, a full match or a compilation of good example gameplay moments.

Example of schemes that received videos are: Fly-Forts, Beat The Sheep, Rope Knocking (although the video was deleted and probably lost), and Drive for Weapons.

See Creating a Worms movie for details about video making process.

Hosting in WormNET

After creating a scheme, it's natural to try it online. However, be prepared for negative comments, trolls, quitters and criticisms. Most players are not interested in new schemes.

For those who doesn't know how to host, see Hosting guide. For the ones that already know, try creating a room with the name of the new scheme to be played, maybe mentioning it's a new scheme. This will filter people that doesn't want to play new schemes and may bring some open minded people that are curious to try it. Once there is at least one player on the room, the rules should be explained briefly, however nobody learns a game perfectly at the first time it is played, so the scheme should also be explained while in game. Try to play thinking in teach the scheme rather than winning the game, try to show that the scheme is fun with the interesting aspects of it. Letting your opponent win is not something necessary, but since it's a new scheme, the author of the scheme is likely to have a huge advantage, so try to handicap your skills with the people you are showing the scheme and playing with.

Before hosting the new scheme, it is recommended to save a text file with the scheme rules and important settings (like instant mines, or different weapon powers) or things the players should know before playing the scheme. This is useful to copy and paste the brief text to players learn the core things of the scheme before playing it. It will avoid criticisms about lack of information and will avoid cows (people that don't respect the rules). Besides the brief text, a link to a full article can be useful, since there may have images, gifs, icons, replays and more details to understand the scheme better.

Another possibility to show a new scheme to players online is to play a few matches of common/known schemes and then suggest to the players to try your scheme, invite them to join you. It will make these players familiarize with you first and will show them that you also play the classic schemes. If they feel you are a nice person or a good opponent, they might want to accept trying the new scheme, specially if it is a scheme that has a similar gameplay of a classic scheme they like (a variation or a variant).

Scheduling with a friend to play or test a scheme is another choice.

Organizing competitive events

A good way to promote a scheme is organizing a competitive event. It can be a Challenge, a Tournament, a Cup or a League. Quality replays will be available after the matches and more people will know the existence of the scheme.

Note: creating a competitive event for a new scheme can be "risky", because there's a good chance that the event will flop, since people don't know the scheme yet and usually people join events of schemes they know and like or that they are good at. So, if people don't join the event and it fails, it can be frustrating for the author of the scheme or the one that organized the event. It can also be bad for the scheme itself, since people may think it is not a fun scheme. Although, it's not rare to see a competition to flop, and without trying a scheme may never shine. Sometimes the first try doesn't go well, but at other moment it may be successful. There are periods of the year that have more engagement of the community to play competitive events.

For more details about this, see Creating a competitive event.

Challenge

A Challenge is played offline by players and after several attempts, players send replays to be checked by the one organic the challenge and the moderators. If the replay is valid, following the rules of the challenge it will be a public replay and a valid record. After the stipulated time, the challenge ends and the best times will win the gold, silver and bronze medals. Challenges are good for schemes with special maps. Check TUS' basic info for challenges for more details.

Tournament

A Tournament is usually a competition that happens within a day. It is usually organized on a Sunday, on specific WormNET channels and on a time that most people can play considering the community players countries around the globe. Worm Olympics featured a lot of new schemes using the tournament system, check its tournament rules and recommendations.

Cup

A Cup usually lasts weeks, a month or more months to end. It is a system where players schedule their games, so they can play on a time that is confortable for both/all of them. They don't need to play all matches on the same day like in a tournament. The cup system featured many new schemes on TUS, check this link for details. Usually the cup moderators need to make some pressure and stablish deadlines to players play their matches. Also some players may give up the cup, requiring the moderators to replace them by other players or give free wins.

League

A League is played usually during a month or more months. It ends after the stipulated time and usually the winners will be the ones with more wins and more games played. There are different league systems, with different points systems, but they usually end with playoffs in the end: special matches with the best players of the league to determine the winners and finalize the season (yes, usually there are several seasons). Leagues are not commonly used to feature a new scheme, but they might work for this. An example of a page containing details about leagues is on TUS.

Custom medals

Custom medals (like Worm Olympics medals) may attract more players to a competitive event. They are medals made by people that had some effort and time to be made, giving some special aura to the competition and players may adquire a unique medal on their profile.

If the scheme already has an icon, it is simple to create custom medals for a scheme: it can be that same icon, but colorized to a color similar to gold, silver and bronze. In GIMP, this can be made on the "Colors" tab, at the bottom feature named "Colorize...": click at the "Color" bar and select the desired color for each medal image. If there is no scheme icon, or a different image is the idea, images can be taken from the internet or they can be handmade. Colorize feature may still be useful.

Reception

After a new scheme is published, it may generate some expectations and enthusiasm to the author, however, the reality is: it's hard to make a scheme that people apreciate and is widely played. Scheme creation depends on the available features of the game version. Considering Worms Armageddon is maintained/updated by a very restrict group of people and that they work as a hobby and for free, new features for schemes can take a lot of time to come. Without new features, it's hard to make a new and impressive scheme that people will enjoy.

This being said, be prepared for possible frustrations with the reception of the players when you present them a new scheme. Most players will ignore your scheme's public page and if you host games, people will often just quit the game when they realize it's a different scheme and not one that they were expecting to play. Hosting a new scheme in WormNET may bring people that will insult your work, because it's a not a classic scheme that the "pros" play, or because they may think you created the scheme to have an advantage and win. Most people don't have patience to try new schemes, they prefer to play the schemes they are familiar with. The classic schemes have already a strong culture of competitive play and high level games, so these people are seeking for these schemes. There are people that are against new schemes and think that only the classics should be played, they think it's a waste of time to create more schemes. Although, all the classic schemes were made by people and some of the classics are not played anymore, some of the classics only got famous after years and years because a player revived the idea. So, new schemes can become popular and classic in competitive play. If you don't take the negative comments too deeply in your mental health, it should be fine. A scheme can always inspire other schemes, so if your idea do not become a success, don't worry, it may help another scheme get popular, or your idea can simply exist there, who said it needs to be popular? You can publish a scheme for you and for anyone else who is interested.

If the new scheme manages to become known and played, well, every scheme maker would be proud - more than ever - of its creation.

Updates to the scheme

After a scheme is released, with more time passing by, the scheme creator or other players may notice things that could be changed to the scheme. So, updating a scheme is something common. Specially when there is a new update with new features or a handy Wormkit module (a mod) that can increase the gameplay experience, updating a scheme or making a new variation is natural.

Either the scheme author can update a scheme, or fans of the scheme can update it. Or, the fans may at least release a personal variation with the new features or simple changes.

Never forget: schemes evolve!

Note: Some schemes are good the way they were made at their release. So, it is not necessary to update a scheme, specially if there are no insteresting new features to add to it. It is nice to play the original scheme the way it was conceived. Original schemes have historical value.

The future of the scheme and its gameplay culture

After a scheme is published and players start playing it, there's no turn back. They will play the scheme the way they want, even if the author states the original concept and rules of the scheme. Once a scheme is released, it is in the hands of the community and the author might be only "the England's queen": the author can opine and say a lot of things, but it doesn't have full control of it. The original concept and rules are part of the history and should be considered, but the future of the scheme may change a lot with time. Also, the scheme may stop being played so often with time, or after years, it may become played a lot again or for the first time.

Some example situations are: in the beginning, Shopper used to be played only with Pneumatic Drill as initial infinite weapon, later, players started to play the scheme with infinite Bazooka as well. Hysteria used to be played without Low Gravity and without house rules, later, most players started to play the scheme with Low Gravity , and this became the norm, and many of them included house rules, although not all players agree with these rules and prefer to play the old way (with the common tactic of exploiting the worm rotation).