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Liero – Sling'n'shoot Worms Game
- bberenberg 3y agoI loved playing Liero when I was a kid. One of the best patterns of play I had found and one of the few shooters where I was even remotely competitive with others. Super cool to see that it's still alive and that there is even a web version.
- hypercube33 3y agoliero is amazing even to this day. I love it as much as I love the antics of works 2? with the ninja rope shenanigans
- solardev 3y agoIs this an open source clone of the Worms games by Team17? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worms_%28series%29?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worms_%28series%29?wprov=sfla1
- pubby 3y agoNo, Liero is real-time as opposed to turn-based.
- DenisM 3y agoAre there turn-based clones?
- doublerabbit 3y agoTeeworlds is a fun clone. https://www.teeworlds.com https://www.teeworlds.com
- nerdponx 3y agoPlenty. I always liked Pocket Tanks. And there was an online game called Gunbound, but it was a little bit pay-to-win.
- gliptic 3y agoNo, Liero is a real-time game somewhat inspired by Worms perhaps, but mostly by Molez. This has several versions, some of which are (reversed engineered) open source versions of the original game.
- solardev 3y agoInteresting! It looks like Worms 1 came out in 95, then MoleZ a few years later, then Liero. It definitely seems like the same genre of game... the ninja rope definitely brings back some nostalgia :) The real-time is a cool twist though.
- johndough 3y agoNo, but there is Hedgewars, which is an excellent open source clone of Worms: https://www.hedgewars.org/ https://www.hedgewars.org/ https://github.com/hedgewars/hw https://github.com/hedgewars/hw On Ubuntu, you can install it with sudo apt install hedgewars
- Sharlin 3y agoWorms itself is just a Scorched Earth clone.
- rzzzt 3y agoScorched Earth is a supercharged version of Artillery Duel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery_Duel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery_Duel
- solardev 3y agoI mean, yes, but Liero means "worm" in Finnish, according to the wiki. Just trying to understand how these games evolved from each other (or not) for the sake of video game history :) I loved Worms when I was a kid, and wish I had discovered Liero back then!
- Sharlin 3y agoYeah, I know (am Finn, and played Liero a lot when it was first released). And sure, it’s not exactly wrong to describe Liero as "Worms but in realtime". However, Liero was inspired primarily by another Finnish SW game Molez, the titles sharing two defining gameplay elements: realtime and digging. Like moles, worms live underground and dig tunnels, so they were a natural animal choice for a Molez clone. The ninja rope in Liero, of course, is straight from Worms though.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rixrax 3y agoLoved playing Worms as a kid, not so much Liero. But before Worms, it was really Scorched Earth[0] that got me introduced to the genre. And with which I must have spent untold hours. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_Earth_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_Earth_(video_game)
- ohfoydoyd 3y agoall the neighborhood kids used to crowd into my neighbor jeff's dad's office for scorched earth. a half dozen preteens around a 486 having a blast... gorilla.bas was a nice stand in for when we were at school
- aidos 3y agoI loved Scorched Earth! Don’t know anyone else who ever played it.
- imperialdrive 3y agoPlayed A-LOT of it :)
- antoniuschan99 3y agome too! Together with Ski free and star control
- rkagerer 3y agoAh, Star Control II still ranks as an all-time favorite.
- thesuperbigfrog 3y agoStar Control II lives on as "The Ur-Quan Masters": "The project started in August 2002, when Toys For Bob released the partially ported sources of Star Control 2 3DO version to the fan community. Our goal is to port this wonderful game to current personal computers and operating systems. It is and will remain 100% free of charge, and anyone can contribute to the project and thus help make it even better. For more information, look at our info page." https://sc2.sourceforge.net/downloads.php https://sc2.sourceforge.net/downloads.php Works on most modern operating systems and even has community add-ons and remixes.
- DrSiemer 3y agoFantastic game. One of my favorite multiplayer experiences, besides San Andreas, classic UT/Q3 and some Tron based lightcycle game that was basically fast 3d multiplayer snake.
- crabmusket 3y agoArmagetron!
- DrSiemer 3y agoYes, that's the one! Excellent, another mystery piece of my gaming history recovered, thank you. Others recovered in the last decade are an FMV game who's demo blew my mind back in the day (almost certainly "Deadly Tide"), a two player split screen tank battle game where you could rescue little humans besides fighting with eachother ("Fire Power") and that awesome bike trick game "Elasto Mania".
- fodi 3y agoGLtron maybe? We had a blast playing it with friends in the early 2000s. Splitscreen 4-player mayhem!
- DrSiemer 3y agoLooks like that was the competition at the time, but it was Armagetron for me (found in the other suggestion)
- donquichotte 3y agoThere was also Wurmz!, a networked multiplayer version of Liero. Some history and binaries of various version as well as the source code can be found on this website [1]. [1] https://mental-reverb.com/wurmz.php https://mental-reverb.com/wurmz.php
- diggan 3y agoSee also: LieroX/OpenLieroX We played LieroX a lot at school as we could add a bunch of fun mods to it and it was networked. I think at the time, LieroX had just came out too, so it was fresh compared to Liero.
- rzzzt 3y agoAlso NiL ("NiL isn't Liero"), a re-imagination of the game running on Linux: http://web.archive.org/web/20001007120330/http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-2000-04/lw-04-nil.html http://web.archive.org/web/20001007120330/http://www.linuxwo...
- bruce343434 3y agoI'd enjoy it more if it was WASD + mouse aiming and shooting
- arketyp 3y agoCramming up two player split screen on the same keyboard with your bro was part of the deal, and pretty sweet, made it all the more visceral.
- diggan 3y agoThen you want one of the games inspired by Liero. How about Soldat? Very old school and has WASD + boring & too easy mouse aiming
- jeffhuys 3y agoTry OpenLieroX
- s-dsds 3y ago[dead]
- kimmk 3y agoLiero is part of the Finnish shareware game scene that lasted from early 90s to mid 00s [1]. These games are super nostalgic for me and a lot of other tech minded Finns of my age! [1] https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luettelo_suomalaisista_shareware-_ja_freewarepeleist%C3%A4 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luettelo_suomalaisista_sharewa...
- askonomm 3y agoNot just Finland, Liero was big in Estonia, too! I remember I got Liero on a floppy disk from a friend early 00's and ran it on my Win98. Good ol' days. Terep2 was another great game.
- eitland 3y agoIt was played in Norway too. My younger brothers played it a lot.
- Tryk 3y agoSweden as well, me and my friends played it frequently to distract ourselves in CS class.
- laszlojamf 3y agoWhat school did you go to? We played this _a lot_ at Norra Real, Stockholm XD
- zyberzero 3y agoI’m (not parent) from a small town in Västra Götaland (Sweden) and we played it a lot as well :)
- matheusmoreira 3y agoBrazil too. Used to play this with family and friends, especially one of my cousins. Also played it quite a few times with friends in computer classes. Everyone could play using the same keyboard at the same time, it was crazy.
- codetrotter 3y agoAnyone remember Soldat? https://www.soldat.pl/en/ https://www.soldat.pl/en/ > It takes the best from games like Liero, Worms, Quake and Counter-Strike and gives you fast action gameplay with tons of blood and flesh. Little ragdoll soldiers fight against each other on 2D battle arenas using a deadly military arsenal.
- doublerabbit 3y agoAnd created in Delphi. I used to host a popular soldat server in the day; good times. Shame it never regained popularity with the steam release.
- rzzzt 3y agoI found Soldat while searching for another, top-down perspective game from the genre, which I found on a demo disc once. That was Tremor Gold: https://www.tigsource.com/2008/02/20/multiplayer-on-one-keyboard-2-tremor/ https://www.tigsource.com/2008/02/20/multiplayer-on-one-keyb... Jump'n'Bump, anyone?
- continuational 3y agoJump'n'Bumb is such a blast! I even made a clone of it in JS with a friend. Gotta try Tremor. Looks a bit like Cyberdogs!
- pilaf 3y agoIs your JS clone published somewhere?
- continuational 3y agoI'm afraid not, but someone else put up a port of the original you can play online here: https://jumpnbump.net/ https://jumpnbump.net/
- pilaf 3y agoJump'n'Bump was awesome. I played it so often back then that I made a GUI launcher for it, since you could change various settings through command line flags only. Brainchild Design[0], the studio that made it, had some other fun and highly polished games too, Quadnet was one of my favorites. [0] https://www.dosgamesarchive.com/profile/brainchild-design https://www.dosgamesarchive.com/profile/brainchild-design
- pimlottc 3y agoIn what sense is this the "original" Worms game? Is there a particular tie between them? There's been a lot of ballistic artillery games going back to the very dawn of computers.
- dang 3y agoLet's just take "original" out of the title above. Problem solved. Thanks!
- coffeebeqn 3y agoIt’s not related to “Worms” from Team 17 at all. Both have pixel worms blowing each other up though
- dang 3y agoRelated: Liero can be played in browser now, for those who remember - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22980676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22980676 - April 2020 (86 comments) Show HN: A browser-based multiplayer clone of the DOS game Liero using WebRTC - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20668273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20668273 - Aug 2019 (7 comments)
- morbicer 3y agoI assume our hero dang has some automation in place but sometimes I dream about him rembering all posts and carefully linking the beloved topics with past occurrences.
- pvg 3y agoIf you will it, it is no dream. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25964774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25964774
- morbicer 3y agoOne of the best PC hot seats classics. Endangered my high school graduation :) I wanted to recover some of the custom maps we created and played but sadly they are in the silicon heaven already. It's fun how everyone's youth is the best time ever, but I bet i find many fellow connoisseurs here: Liero, windows 2000, electronic music of the early noughts, the internet before Facebook, Matrix, Futurama, Lebowski. A Gen X can show up saying Nirvana and BBS was the real deal before it all got whack or someone younger can make a point with more recent cultural phenomena. I am defined by the era of Liero.
- therein 3y agoI used to play Liero with my cousin for hours. It just barely would not fit a 1.44MB floppy. We downloaded it so many times over 14.4k dialup, go out to grab dinner with the family, come back to a dropped connection.
- morbicer 3y agoI imagine that's the stories I will tell my grandkids but it probably won't be that interesting. Hopefully we can see it well... maybe the rave stories will fare better. I store my old DnD stuff for the odd chance it will have vintage value to the generations far away.
- fryktelig 3y agoSame. Another amazing one I played in those days was zatacka / achtung die kurwe. So funny how we were able to pack 5 people on one laptop keyboard back in those days.
- averageRoyalty 3y ago> but sadly they are in the silicon heaven already Silicon heaven - where all the calculators go!
- pierrebai 3y agoLooks like the classic Soldat [1], except uglier, only 1v1 and less interesting maps... [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/638490/Soldat/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/638490/Soldat/
- dylanowen 3y agoLiero was one of the inspirations for Soldat
- nurettin 3y agoAnd it was so hard! You had to have the perfect coordination moving and digging while aiming, shooting, roping, dodging and switching weapons and checking everyone's health. Sometimes all at the same time! I feel so lucky to have played it on a slow amd 20+ years ago, because banana bombs and big nukes slowed the game down and gave you the perfect bullet time matrix fight experience.
- gombosg 3y agoSo many good memories from high school! Gaming in the computer lab was banned in theory and the teacher always tried to delete any games found on these machines. So we always kept about a dozen 'hidden' copies on each machine.
- aljarry 3y agoI've played Noita (https://noitagame.com/ https://noitagame.com/) for quite a bit, and lately it clicked to me, that the core mechanics of the player and environment come from Liero. Though Noita is a single player rouge-lite, it has wands instead of guns, but environment is destructible, and explosions work the same. It's much deeper, both in mechanics and in lore, it has actual levels with progressions, but I was curious why did I enjoy that game so much. Turns out, I spent a ton of time playing its predecessors with my friends :)
- Pfiffer 3y agoI think the devs for Noita said something about building the Falling Sand Game + Liero together as one game.
- timhwang21 3y agoThe larpa in Noita is a direct callback to Liero!
- yboris 3y agoI'm a fan of artillery games. I created Gravity Wars (based on previous art) - artillery in space where planets pull projectiles with gravity: https://github.com/whyboris/Gravity-Wars https://github.com/whyboris/Gravity-Wars
- detritus 3y agoFor a minute there I thought I was going be thanking you for the Amiga version, which I have fond memories of from... well, far too long ago!
- TehShrike 3y agoI'm not able to get it to work – installing Love got me a love.app file, but nothing I can run in the terminal. The Love docs imply that the contents of your repo need to be be zipped up and then... something else happens? https://love2d.org/wiki/Game_Distribution https://love2d.org/wiki/Game_Distribution If you could make an idiots guide to running the game, I'd appreciate it, I've been wanting an orbit-based game like this for a long time
- TehShrike 3y agoI got it – these are the steps I took: 1. Download Love from https://love2d.org/ 2. Launch love.app 3. git clone git@github.com:whyboris/Gravity-Wars.git 4. cd Gravity-Wars.git 5. zip -9 -r GravityWars.love . 6. open GravityWars.love
- rendaw 3y agoThis isn't an artillery game - this is unrelated to the Worms series.
- scotty79 3y agoThe copy of Libro we got our hands on was configured to have cooldown time on all weapons reduced to barely anything. It was incredible, ridiculous fast mayhem.
- coffeebeqn 3y agoMy highest claim to fame is to be in the original Liero readme credits. I sent in the idea for a capture the flag mode as a kid. Me and my friends spent some hundreds of hours playing it. I remember you could tweak the reload speed of the weapons somehow to make it pure madness
- rendaw 3y agoAnd health... My favorite settings were 10% health 100% reload time, you had to be very careful especially with some of the more self destructive weapons but IMO was the best competitively. It made things like dart, fan, winchester (?) usable (if just barely).
- Waterluvian 3y agoI’m not sure how I discovered it, but Liero became a massive part of 10th grade Comm Tech and Elec Eng classes in 2001 when I shared it with everyone.
- clircle 3y agoDamn, I think I played this game like 20 years ago on my friends computer? (taking breaks from playing Aliens vs Predator 2)
- tomxor 3y agoYou can also play multiplayer in the browser at webliero.com There is an active community, simple to pick up and play, no login. Although most of the active servers use some more fast paced mods with different weapons, but you can start your own server in the browser with the classic mod.
- lbrito 3y agoSo many good memories of playing this with friends in the early 2000s. Thetr was a fully 3D version at some point. It was novel and fun, but didn't really work. What fantastic times. Thanks for this post!
- maccam912 3y agoThis seems about as close as we might get to another fun one, https://cratebeforeattack.com/ https://cratebeforeattack.com/ for more traditional worms style gameplay. It's fun but crashes randomly, and hasn't seen much since 2020. It anyone knows more details about if the game is looking for a new maintainer please reach out! There is so much potential here.
- tianshuo 3y agoLiero is a classic and a favorite, but weapons are a bit imbalanced, esp. spikeballs.
- glenstein 3y agoI have known and loved Liero since at least the early '00s, played it endlessly after Friday night dinner with my brothers and featured it on my high school era personal website. Glad to see it get the love and respect it deserves. We also used infinite reload speed, so that the most powerful weapons, which normally only fired one shot before reload, instead became super weapons that released like a stream of water continuously, a waterfall of big nukes, chiquita bombs, or sniper rifle shots which became a death beam. It was marvelous. Later on when imitation versions of the game were made with online play, a single game mode, castles with mortars, became the hit style. It was nice, because the game could be so many things, and the slow motion opera of flying through the air in mortar fire was quite something, but it also pared the game down to something so simple that it missed out on dozens of equally fascinating configurations every bit as radical and fun.
- gbraad 3y agoI prefer OpenLierox over Liero
- svladcjelli 3y agoAaaah so good to see this here - played the hell out of Liero, modded it a LOT. My pals had a bunch of our own insane versions we played endlessly for years. Wonder if I can find them somewhere Single keyboard frenetic split screen multiplayer is still a gaming nirvana I can never seem to get back to these days. Noita is a good modern reimagining in single player, I used to quite like Soldat etc too but none had the sweet kick of Liero...