Difference between revisions of "Boom Race"

Revision as of 23:38, 20 August 2022

	W:A replay: An example match of Boom Race, with M3ntal and Balee
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How to win: shoot yourself

Boom Race is a racing-style scheme where players must navigate their sole worm through a specially-designed, indestructible map to reach a finish line from a designated starting point. Worms are anchored, so players can only make progress by blasting their own worm around using the provided weapons. The player to reach the finish line first, or hold the leading position when the round timer runs out, wins the game. Boom Race is commonly thought of as a variation of the Battle Race scheme, which differs only in that worms can move and a smaller set of weapons is provided.

Details

Players begin by each placing their single worm on the designated starting location.

With the worms anchored in position, players must use the provided weapons to carefully navigate the course by blasting their own worm. Worm health is infinite, so the use of weapons does not cause injury. However, some maps contain gaps along the bottom leading to the water, where drowning is possible. Players must take great care to navigate these hazards. Mines are sometimes also present on the map to provide an additional obstacle, but skilled players can use them to their advantage to blast their worms even further along the course.

Players can also target their opponents to set them back, though this is sometimes forbidden. Causing an opponent to drown is strictly forbidden.

The weapons provided usually include the Bazooka, Grenade, Shotgun, Homing Pigeon, Dynamite, Mine, Sheep, Holy Hand Grenade, Petrol Bomb, and Mad Cow. Prod is also provided and can be used only to nudge an opposing worm, perhaps back down a cliff. Sometimes, other weapons are included such as the Homing Missile and Magic Bullet.

Low gravity is also available, to allow players to traverse greater distances.

A game's duration depends on the difficulty and length of the map and the skill of the players. Games can sometimes last hours. Often, the game is played to the round timer, with the player in the leading position winning the game at the moment of Sudden Death.

The scheme is supported by HostingBuddy.

Rules

• Place at the start - Players must place their worms on the spot labelled Start, S, or similar.
• No drownings - Players must not drown an opponent's worm. Violating this rule forfeits the game.
• Optional: No attacking - Players must not attack opponents' worms at all, unless for the purpose of moving their own worm.

Violations of the "No attacking" rule are sometimes quite hard to determine. For example, if one player uses a bazooka to blast themselves forward, but fails, and an opponent's worm is knocked down a wall in the explosion, the attack could be declared a violation even though it wasn't intentional. Thus, this rule is usually disregarded. Some maps (example) provide parallel courses which enables players to compete without interacting with each other.

It's generally recommended that players, when joining a Boom Race game lobby on WormNET, use the term "STF" (standing for Start To Finish) to indicate to the host that they understand the concept of the scheme and will follow the rules.

Variations

Modifications with relatively small detail changes to the scheme.

Unanchored Boom Race

This variation invented by Lex (source) appeared in late 2002 at about the same time the original was popularized, and was also simply called Boom Race at first. Worms can walk around and do grenade jumps and so on, allowing the maps to be much more intricate. This also inspired the idea of playing Battle Race maps that require unlimited grenades.

Grenade Race

See Grenade Race section in Battle Race page.

This variation is a mixture of Battle Race with Unanchored Boom Race, but only with grenades.

Multi Shot Boom Race

Worms Armageddon

This variation uses the "loss of control doesn't end turn", "shot doesn't end turn" and "anti worm sink" features of RubberWorm. Players can use weapons multiple times per turn, which increases the pace of the game. The game also becomes more chaotic, since there is less time to think about a shot, if the player intends to fire a weapon three or four times per turn.

Anti Sink Bouncy Boom Race

	W:A replay: Anti Sink Bouncy Boom Race with FoxHound, Naruto, F8R and MB77
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This variation has rubber bounciness and lots of instant mines on the map.

It was created by FoxHound, being released on WMDB on 9th September 2009. The original map was designed exploring mostly the Anti Sink feature, with a surf area and a "plop twice" ending, for example. This map served as inspiration to Boom for Weapons (below), since there are zones that specific weapons are recommended (with sprites there).

Inverted Boom Race

This variation uses "Reverse Gravity" feature of RubberWorm. The scheme can be played in regular Boom Race maps, but they have to be inverted.

It was created by sbs, being released on 8th October 2016 on WMDB.

Worms World Party

In WWP, Boom Race was played using the Wormpot "Using a weapon doesn't end your turn mode", which has only 10 seconds of turn time and no "loss of control doesn't end turn" feature that is usually applied when playing WA with RubberWorm. This way, weapons like Blowtorch (as a way to "walk" with anchor mode to adjust the worm's position) and probably grenades (due to the possibility of exploding all at the same moment, concentrating their explosions or even predicting where the worm would fall, causing a chain reaction of explosions to push the worm) were very important, since they could be used without loosing the turn, differently than weapons such as shotgun or bazooka that would make the worm loose the turn immediately with the explosion impact (those weapons were used only on the last seconds).

Variants

Creative modifications of the scheme.

Boom for Weapons (BfW)

Main Article: Boom for Weapons

This variant is a mixture of Boom Race with Walk for Weapons. Basically a Boom Race map, but with zones with weapon sprites, and the Walk for Weapons rule of only using the weapon you're standing on. It is usualy played with glue (very high friction) and Shot Doesn't End Turn feature (allowing interesting combos).

Driver

Main Article: Driver

This variant is a Boom Race played with 2 worms, but it has a special rule and different weapon arsenal. One worm cannot be controled, while the other worm must push that worm to the finish. Weapons like Baseball Bat and Fire Punch can be used in this mode. Playing with Shot Doesn't End turn feature allows interesting combos.

Drive for Weapons

Main Article: Drive for Weapons

This variant of Driver combines it with Walk for Weapons elements, such as zones with weapon sprites and the rule of only using the weapon you're standing on. This scheme was inspired on Boom for Weapons (above).

Space Race

Main Article: Space Race

This variant is played with zero gravity feature of RubberWorm. The only weapons that can be used to progress on the race are: infinite Bazooka and x3 Ninja Ropes.

Snorkel

See Snorkel section in Space Race page.

This variation of Space Race has a "underwater" mood, with more rubber bounciness and more air viscosity as a break system for the inertia. It explores the map's boundaries with a gameplay based on the black area, using the pointing arrow distance number as reference to progress. It also explores more the Anti Sink feature and the weapon arsenal is different.

Boom Race Golfcourse

This variant is a mixture of Boom Race with Golf. It is played like Golf, but the worm is the ball (not the grenade). It uses a boom race scheme, but with infinite teleport and it cannot have mines.

It was created by STRGRN and DassFass, being released on 12th June 2017 on WMDB.

History

WO icon

Boom Race was invented by the wormer MrMr (source) in late 2000 based on the date of his maps (source). It was played on maps drawn in the in-game editor at first, until Bloopy created his first map for it in October 2002. The earliest color Boom Race map appeared on Worms Map Database in April 2004.

The scheme has featured consistently in competitions, featuring in the Worm Olympics every year from 2006 to 2016, and in cups hosted on The Ultimate Site between 2010 and 2018.

External links

• Boom Race on Nanacide