4 ms·

> May I ask how come you are still working on the game? Out of sheer love for it? Yes, for the game and its community. After so many years of playing the game

> May I ask how come you are still working on the game? Out of sheer love for it? Yes, for the game and its community. After so many years of playing the game and being part of the community, it is now an inextricable part of ourselves. > Did you work on the "original" codebase before becoming a maintainer? No; I started playing Worms World Party maybe around 2004. In 2006 I started writing third-party add-ons for the game, and I had been given a copy of the source code so I could continue maintaining it alongside Deadcode (David Ellsworth, the first maintainer).

riggsdk 6y ago
How come this update was based on Armageddon and not the newer versions? (IMHO Armageddon was the best in the series so I'm happy, just curious)
- CyberShadow 6y ago
  Worms World Party is the last game of its generation to use the same engine. The reason why the updates are for Armageddon and not World Party is mostly arbitrary - it was the game that the original maintainer had and was playing. A bit more info here: https://worms2d.info/WA_vs_WWP https://worms2d.info/WA_vs_WWP There is also Worms W.M.D., which we understand is based on Armageddon's source code, but that came out much later, and is still very different in terms of gameplay and style.
sillysaurusx 6y ago
That’s wonderful! Is the code open source{,able}? I used to play an old game called Underlight. When they shut it down, the owner sent me a CD with the codebase. To my eternal shame, I lost the code. It was so neat seeing the old hacks; it even overwrote the ebp register in an inner graphics loop, because apparently in the early 90’s that sort of thing made a big difference. Would love to get a glimpse at how worms’ ninja rope physics is implemented...
- gus_massa 6y ago
  Is this the code https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/981nmi/underlight_a_20_year_old_mmorpg_has_been/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/981nmi/underlight_a... ?
  - sillysaurusx 6y ago
    Yes! Wow! Thank you so much!! This brought back waves of nostalgia I haven’t felt for like a decade.
  - sillysaurusx 6y ago
    I just hopped into their Discord server and recognized so many people from those days: BuzZz, Drizzt, Ironman, Off Kilter, Star Scream, Windsong, Erasmus, Kelos, Nostradaemon, PAMSWEETS, Tember, Stormy, RavenXR. All those people helped to profoundly shape my childhood, of which ~7 years was spent playing this game. I really am grateful you posted this link. Thank you again. :)
- CyberShadow 6y ago
  > That’s wonderful! Is the code open source{,able}? Unfortunately no. And, saying this as a big open source enthusiast (see profile), it would not do the game's community much good to be open-sourced right now (as the game relies almost entirely on security by obscurity to deal with multiplayer cheating). Open sourcing also would be unlikely to solve any big problems - e.g. native Linux / macOS support is not due to lack of motivation, but simply due to how much the game depends right now on Windows and other Microsoft APIs and libraries. We are however trying to move the codebase into a direction where as many of the same benefits can be achieved, such as refactoring the game logic into a portable core, and add scripting support to allow arbitrary customizations. The question of whether the source code is open sourceable has also been raised, and unfortunately the answer is also no - my understanding is that parts of the code were written by a party under an agreement that precludes the source code being released.
  - sillysaurusx 6y ago
    A shame, but understandable. I wish you luck with your code foraging! (Also, don’t underestimate the power of people wanting to play worms on MacOS — it’s the type of thing I’d rewrite out of pure joy. But that’s not in the cards.)

riggsdk 6y ago

How come this update was based on Armageddon and not the newer versions? (IMHO Armageddon was the best in the series so I'm happy, just curious)

CyberShadow 6y ago
Worms World Party is the last game of its generation to use the same engine. The reason why the updates are for Armageddon and not World Party is mostly arbitrary - it was the game that the original maintainer had and was playing. A bit more info here: https://worms2d.info/WA_vs_WWP https://worms2d.info/WA_vs_WWP There is also Worms W.M.D., which we understand is based on Armageddon's source code, but that came out much later, and is still very different in terms of gameplay and style.

sillysaurusx 6y ago

That’s wonderful! Is the code open source{,able}? I used to play an old game called Underlight. When they shut it down, the owner sent me a CD with the codebase. To my eternal shame, I lost the code. It was so neat seeing the old hacks; it even overwrote the ebp register in an inner graphics loop, because apparently in the early 90’s that sort of thing made a big difference. Would love to get a glimpse at how worms’ ninja rope physics is implemented...

gus_massa 6y ago
Is this the code https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/981nmi/underlight_a_20_year_old_mmorpg_has_been/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/981nmi/underlight_a... ?
- sillysaurusx 6y ago
  Yes! Wow! Thank you so much!! This brought back waves of nostalgia I haven’t felt for like a decade.
- sillysaurusx 6y ago
  I just hopped into their Discord server and recognized so many people from those days: BuzZz, Drizzt, Ironman, Off Kilter, Star Scream, Windsong, Erasmus, Kelos, Nostradaemon, PAMSWEETS, Tember, Stormy, RavenXR. All those people helped to profoundly shape my childhood, of which ~7 years was spent playing this game. I really am grateful you posted this link. Thank you again. :)
CyberShadow 6y ago
> That’s wonderful! Is the code open source{,able}? Unfortunately no. And, saying this as a big open source enthusiast (see profile), it would not do the game's community much good to be open-sourced right now (as the game relies almost entirely on security by obscurity to deal with multiplayer cheating). Open sourcing also would be unlikely to solve any big problems - e.g. native Linux / macOS support is not due to lack of motivation, but simply due to how much the game depends right now on Windows and other Microsoft APIs and libraries. We are however trying to move the codebase into a direction where as many of the same benefits can be achieved, such as refactoring the game logic into a portable core, and add scripting support to allow arbitrary customizations. The question of whether the source code is open sourceable has also been raised, and unfortunately the answer is also no - my understanding is that parts of the code were written by a party under an agreement that precludes the source code being released.
- sillysaurusx 6y ago
  A shame, but understandable. I wish you luck with your code foraging! (Also, don’t underestimate the power of people wanting to play worms on MacOS — it’s the type of thing I’d rewrite out of pure joy. But that’s not in the cards.)