Difference between revisions of "Tower Race"

Revision as of 17:16, 16 June 2024

	W:A replay: An example of a Tower Race game with Balee, KRD, ShootMe and Wyv.
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Tower Race is a rope-based scheme. It has several derived schemes, both settings- and map-wise.

Objective

Depending on the variation played, the winning conditions may vary. Mostly, they are among the following ones.

• Reach the spot labeled Finish, End or any similar variation of these, or the map's highest point.
• Be the one to survive.

Details

As stated above, this scheme has several derivations, some of the changes being more subtle, some of them drastically changing the gameplay. Most of the games that can be seen on WormNet and are labeled as "Tower Race" are, in fact, a Rope Race variant, where the map mainly extends upwards (for example this map), but the game itself is not too different from Rope Race. The original scheme, however, is. The players start from the bottom of the map, and proceed towards the top. The maps are completely vertical, tower-like - hence the name (an example of the original maps can be seen here). Each of the players have two worms, and since there is no worm selection at the beginning of the turn, they are forced to use both of them. As soon as the short round time reaches zero, the water starts to rise in a very high rate - usually set using an external scheme editor. The water's rising speed forces the players not to make mistakes, but it is low enough to allow the players to keep both of their worms alive unless one of them falls. Usually the game ends when all but one player's worm(s) are alive, or if a player reaches the top.

However, there are a lot of variables in the game settings even when playing the original Tower Race. These variables include:

• Turn time - It is usually set to somewhere around 30 seconds, although more experienced players prefer lower turn times, sometimes going as low as 15 seconds.
• Round time - While the ideal time is between 100 and 120 seconds - to be more precise, a value which allows each player to take one turn with their two worms -, it is common to set it a bit higher when there are more than 3 players, or to set lower when there are 2, especially if the turn time is lowered as well, since that delays Sudden Death.
• Weapons - Certain weapons - usually a limited amount of mines and grenades - are included in order to get a couple of extra seconds so that the player can get his worm to safety. Some variants, however, allow - or even encourage - players to attack each other to gain advantage. For this, a couple of other weapons - eg. homing missile, banana, cluster bomb - can be added in limited amounts, although the power levels are usually set to a low value.
• BattyRope/TestStuff - Normally, BattyRope or TestStuff are not activated, since they take away the risk of falling at the end of one's turn, but on certain maps - eg. when the player has to climb high, single sided walls - it comes in handy. Generally speaking, they are not used unless absolutely necessary.

Tactics

• It is advised to concentrate on both worms instead of only one. While deliberately drowning one of your worms looks like an easy tactic towards victory, it is mostly frowned upon by fellow players as being unfair, and also, even a little mistake can lead to a quick defeat - not to mention if attacking each other is allowed.
• Generally, it is recommended that you spend your last 2-3 seconds to secure your worm's position. In case you can use a weapon, only do it if you really have to - they might come in handy when an extra couple of seconds would be vital.

Variants

Creative modifications of the scheme.

Despite what it looks like, this scheme, so far, has only one well known variant that is significantly different from the original. However, there is no set name for it, people usually call it "Tower Race" as well, which can cause misunderstandings. There are some other variants that are not so famous, though.

"Tower Rope Race"

As defined above, this variant is basically a mixture of Tower Race and Rope Race, with a not-so-slight bias towards the latter. The gameplay itself is similar to turn-based Rope Races on big maps. In the past, weapons were sometimes added for gaining a little bit of time before the end of the turn, but this has fallen out of favor with the option added in WA 3.8 to enable automatic retreat time at the end of the turn and set retreat time to 0, achieving the same turn-ending effects as retreat time. Batty rope can be activated so that the worms stay attached to the rope, which comes in handy on certain maps.

Even though this modality is similar to Big Rope Race, it still has a significant difference, since usually Tower Rope Race maps have challenging different obstacles that sometimes are very creative, different from the standard maze-like Big Rope Race maps which very often follow a pattern (specially when made using a program): the same height and width through all the map. The Teleport is often mandatory in Tower Rope Race scheme, since sometimes players may fall a long way back and this is not good for a competition or for the fun. Usually players tend to apply a rule that you are allowed to teleport back to the previous area you were (before falling), similarly to using "Save State" when playing a game in an emulator.

Battle Tower

There is a variant of this scheme called Battle Tower. Players are not allowed to attack each other until they reach the top. There is water rising too. At the top, gameplay changes to a battle and the surviving team wins. There is a map of this scheme dating 8th March 2008. See some maps here. It is unknown whether the name was inspired by Pokémon's Battle Tower.

The King

The rules of this variant, The King, are not very clear, and can only be interpreted by what the original description says. It dates 30th November 2009, created by Rodrigo.

Probably players start at the bottom and the scheme has no water rising. Rope Knocking is forbidden, so players can only attack with the unlimited mines, fire punches, dragon balls and some other limited weapons. Worms have infinite health (God Worms) and it's easy to plop them. Not only the rope can be used to climb, there is infinite Jet Pack in this scheme, allowing to fire the rope at the end of the fuel. The winner is probably the player that stays one whole turn alone at the King area (letter K at the top of the original map), without being removed from there. Apperently a worm cannot attack if it is at the king place. Low Gravity is also infinite.

History

WO icon

Competitive events

The scheme has featured occasionally in competitions, appearing in the Worm Olympics in 2010 and 2012.