European Ocean release (Worms, Amiga)

(Up to European Ocean release (Worms))

Worms was released for the Amiga in early 1996. Despite originating on the platform, the Amiga version was one of the last to be released. It was developed in-house by Team17, which much of the coding done by Worms creator Andy Davidson. It was published in Europe by Ocean Software.

The game was released on three 3.5" floppy disks. The labels are printed directly onto the disk - white ink on blue floppies.

The game includes a printed black-and-white manual, which also includes information specific to the Amiga CD32, Macintosh and PC versions. Information specific to a particular format of the game is marked in a special box.

The game also includes a black booklet (glossy black text printed on matte black pages) containing tables of numbers which serve as the game's copy protection. Upon starting the game, Worms would refer the player to a particular row and column on a particular page of the booklet, and ask them to type the number. This copy protection method was also used in other Team17 games of the time, including Alien Breed 3D. Despite the lack of widely-available means of copying CD-ROMs, this copy protection method was included on the CD32 version.

Of note: The Amiga is missing the "BEACH" and "CANDY" terrain styles. "BEACH" would be reinstated for Worms: The Director's Cut.

Technical Information

• The game was written entirely using Blitz Basic on the Amiga, and built largely upon Andy Davidson's original code for Total Wormage and other earlier for-fun builds of the game.
• Because Davidson, the originator of the Worms concept, developed this version, he opted to add the subtitle "The Director's Cut". This has caused some confusion with the later Amiga release Worms: The Director's Cut, though they are separate titles.
• Identical to the CD32 version. Worms will default to the CD32 joypad as the primary control method even if being run from an Amiga computer with a CD-ROM drive.
• Disk 2 contains the English soundbank. Disk 3 contains the German and French soundbanks, but does not contain common sound files (e.g.Bazooka fire or explosions). If the game is booted from the floppy disk but the French or German language is selected at startup, the game will load the basic sounds from disk 2 first, then the relevant soundbank from disk 3.
• The HD install program included with the game is not a standard Workbench installer but is instead a specially-coded application developed by Andy Davidson.