Surf Shopper
From Worms Knowledge Base
Surf Shopper is a variant of Shopper. Players must skim their worm (this is the additional rule) across water usually onto a shore (see worms terminology for details), but there are maps that don't have shores. This variant is played on maps specially designed for this (with different styles). Most players play with TestStuff features, but it's possible to play without them. Some players like to use the Anti Sink feature of RubberWorm/Extended Scheme Options.
Rules
Play with the regular Shopper rules: CBA, AFR, KTL + the rule about skimming the worm being controled on the water. This additional rule can vary a bit depending on the scheme settings and the design of the map being played. The following subsections are about these cases.
A Surf in worms terminology is making the current playing worm skim. Finished with worm's landing on shore or attaching rope above it.
With TestStuff features
Mandatory
- Surf Before Attack (SBA in worms terminology) - Players must skim their worms over water during their turn before attacking. This rule is played with TestStuff, which stops worms losing their turn after skimming water or bumping their heads and also allows for firing the ninja rope while a worm is still in flight after skimming. After v3.8, with its Extended Scheme Options, TestStuff features can be included separately in the scheme file.
Optional
- Attack From Surf (AFS) or Shores From Surf (SFS) - Usually means that you can attack from surf, but in particular situations means that you HAVE to AFS if there are enemy worms on shores.
Map-specific recommended surf type
Many players just play using the One-touch surf type rule, no matter the map design (in all maps). Map makers spent some time creating their maps, though, so there are surf types suggested for each type of map design.
- Side-to-shore - Applied for maps, where shores are located in the middle.
- Shore-to-shore - If shores are located at sides.
- One-touch - If there are no shores.
Without TestStuff features
There's also an alternative rule for those that cannot or don't want to use TestStuff:
- Surf After Attack (SAA in worms terminology) - Players must skim their worms over water during their retreat time, after having made an attack. If the worm performing a surf plops (and doesn't land on the shore), it's not considered a cow, it's fine.
This rule was mainly used in Worms World Party, that took the influence of WA, but it didn't have TestStuff there.
It's only possible to play Surf Shopper without TestStuff or Extended Scheme Options features if the map being played has a shore. This means that those "surf types" don't exist in this case, since you'll be surfing during the retreat time, and once you skim, you cannot do nothing except hope to the worm arrive safely on the shore.
Optional extra rules might be determined to make it difficult to kill worms on the shore, as they are vulnerable and every turn a worm stays there.
Map designs
| Map |
|---|
| Specially designed map Examples at the WMDB |
There are mainly three map designs of Surf Shopper. Two have a special design of a shore where the worms can land after skimming on the water and also special spots to attach the rope and swing it for a effective skimming. The other map style has no shores.
Some of the maps are often Fly Shopper maps as well (being Fly Surf Shoppers): the original .bit version of this map is a notable classic example, played often in WA and WWP. There are also WxW Surf Shoppers and Fly Surf WxW maps. Pod Shopper, Drive-by Shopper, Wascar, regular Shopper maps are also used for Surf Shopper if there's a long water area to skim.
The recommended turn-time for these maps vary:
- Surf-only maps -> 30s
- Surf + WxW, or Surf + Fly maps -> 45s if hard, 30s if easy
- WxW + Fly + Surf maps -> 60s
Middle shores
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W:A replay: Surf Shopper game on Middle shores map style with Zogger and Dulek (taken from Worm Olympics). Note: to watch this replay properly, the .reg file "EmulateRubberWorm_Off" must be activated on Tweaks folder. |
| Download · Info |
This style has the shores in the middle of the map, usually with narrow surf areas, and it pratically forces players to skim half of the map until the worm lands on the shore, and not only one "skim-bounce". The shore along with the surf areas are usually separeted from the rest of the map by the terrain. There are only some small passages that connects the map parts, usually stairs like this one, where the worm can leave the shores at the center island and access the rest of the map (bigger area) by walking (without the rope). Others have narrow passages that were made to connect the map parts using the rope, like this example.
Ideal surf type rule for this map design
Side-to-Shore Surf - Players must surf from one of the edges of the map until the worm being controled reach the shore at the center. Not only a single "skim-bounce".
Shore at the sides
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W:A replay: Surf Shopper game on Shore at the sides map style with Veki and Wolfgang (taken from Worm Olympics) |
| Download · Info |
This style has a shore at both sides of the map. It usually has wider surf areas that sometimes players only skim once to obey the rule and often don't land on the shore, just continue roping after skimming. Sometimes players don't even cross the water to the other side of the map.
Ideal surf type rule for this map design
Shore-to-Shore Surf - Players must skim from one shore to the other shore, going from one side to the other side of the map.
No shores
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W:A replay: Surf Shopper game on No shores map style with Echiko, Blitzed and DENnis (taken from a TUS cup). |
| Download · Info |
This style of map has usually a big empty area at the bottom of the map and there's no place to the worm land (no shores). This means that playing without TestStuff features on this map with the Surf After Attack rule would result in a bad gameplay, because every turn you would plop one of your worms. So, it's recommended using TestStuff features for this map design (playing with Surf Before Attack rule). Since there's no shore, usually players only perform one "skim-bounce" to obey the rule. Some players prefer to play performing at least two "skim-bounces", though (more challenging).
Ideal surf type rule for this map design
One-touch surf - Players just need to perform one "skim-bounce" to obey the rule, launching the rope shortly thereafter.
Variations
The following scheme files were created by players to play Surf Shopper.
wkSurfShopper
This variation created by M4Dbrat is a RubberWorm scheme that uses Anti Sink and TestStuff8. It was released on TUS on 16th May 2012.
Surf Shopper v3.8 [simple] No-TS
This variation made by GrO uses v3.8 Extended Scheme Options. All extra TestStuff features are disabled (even the "Batty Rope"), only the one allowing you to Surf is enabled (along with "rope-roll drops"), and while skimming on the water the rope can be fired with [Enter] key only - it's the way it always worked when "TS" was in use. The scheme was released on TUS on 17th August 2020. Some of the information of the section Map designs were taken from this scheme description. Note that the scheme released later that was used for the Wave Riders cup is similar in concept.
3AFA SurfShopper-with-TS
This version by DENnis includes all TS features in the scheme file, but players don't need to type the command for TS, because it uses v3.8's Extended Scheme Options. It was released on 5th May 2021. Note that this release by GrO has the same concept and was released earlier.
History
| Game setup |
|---|
| Scheme |
| Shopper / WXW: |
| Map |
| Specially designed map Examples at the WMDB |
| Worms |
| Usually 3. This scheme has no v3.8's ESO features, it is an ordinary Shopper scheme, so players must type /TS to activate TestStuff before the game starts. |
The authorship of Surf Shopper variant is unknown. The oldest Surf Shopper map present on WMDB was added on 22nd March 2006 by BigBilly, having a broad surf area. Right after this map, the respective Surf Shopper maps released on the platform (WMDB) were mainly of the narrow surf areas (middle shores) style. After many releases of the narrow surf areas (middle shores) style, the wider surf areas (shores at the sides or no shores) style once again received many maps, while the narrow surf areas (middle shores) style didn't receive more maps since then. The .bit maps of this scheme were probably realeased earlier than the ones present on WMDB. Surf Shopper is very associated with TestStuff, although the scheme might have been created before TestStuff, this needs verification. The first implementation of TestStuff was on 29th March 2005 (v3.6.24.1), but only on 29th June 2007 it became publicly accessible (v3.6.28.0).
Competitive events
Surf Shopper is often played in WormNET. However there were only a few competitive events of this scheme.
There was only two Surf Shopper tournaments on Worm Olympics, this one in the 2008 edition and another one in the Winter Worm Olympics of 2010. The vast majority of the games played in the 2008 tournament were played using the narrow surf areas (middle shores) style. Although, there were a few games played on the wider surf areas (shores at the sides or no shores) style. The 2010 event was the opposite: most games were played on wider surf areas (shores at the sides or no shores) style maps, and only a few ones were played on the narrow surf area (middle shores) style map.
There was a TUS cup that took place on 31st March 2022 called Wave Riders. The maps used on the cup were from this mappack, representing the wider surf areas map (shores at the sides or no shores) style.
External links
- Some of the information present in this article was taken from this detailed Shopper rules post.
- The final rules of Surf Shopper, 2006 post by ronisaurus on BlameThePixel
- FlySurfer rules by Gnork.
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