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Squirminator2k
13 May 2012, 20:26
WORMS: THE DIRECTOR'S CUT
Live Stream - Saturday, May 19th from 8pm-10pm British Summer Time
[Stream will be viewable here (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/portscenter)]
Two hours of Wormy goodness!
Chat window Q&A, so you can ask questions about WormsDC and how it impacted later releases in the series.
Probably other things! I don't know, I'm not bloody psychic. Get off my back!
WHAT IS WORMS: THE DIRECTOR'S CUT?
You might've heard of Worms: The Director's Cut (or WormsDC for short), a rare Amiga-exclusive version of Worms that was released in 1997 a few short months before the PC release of Worms 2. Now you can watch it being played live. Isn't that nice? I think it's nice.
For those who don't know, WormsDC is a very rare, very special first-generation Worms game that was released exclusively for the Amiga. It was developed by Andy Davidson, who used it as a proving grounds for new ideas that would later be incorporated into Worms 2 - it features the first appearance of weapons such as the Baseball Bat, the Super Sheep and the Holy Hand Grenade, as well as a couple of weapons that didn't make it into later games such as the Sheep-on-a-Rope.
As well as this, WormsDC is probably the most customizable version of Worms ever released. It was the first full game in the series to support custom speechbanks and saved option sets, and is to date the only Worms game that allows you to create your own terrain styles for use when generating random levels.
WormsDC holds the distinction of being the last game Team17 ever released for the Amiga. Only 5,000 copies were made by the game's original distributor, Ocean.
SCREENSHOT GALLERY
http://portscenter.tv/wormsdc/wormsdc00.png http://portscenter.tv/wormsdc/wormsdc01.png http://portscenter.tv/wormsdc/wormsdc02.png
http://portscenter.tv/wormsdc/wormsdc03.png http://portscenter.tv/wormsdc/wormsdc04-05a.png
F.A.Q.
Isn't this basically Worms: Reinforcements/Worms United?
Nope. Worms United added new features to the PC version of Worms, and even added a single new weapon - the original grenade variant of the Mole Bomb - but WormsDC is very, very different. While there are features Worms United has that WormsDC lacks, WormsDC has significantly more to offer than United does.
Ah, so it's basically a first-generation Worms 2, then?
Kind of, though not really. Andy Davidson referred to WormsDC as "Worms 1.5" back when the game was released, and that's probably the most accurate description. There are a handful of weapons that appear in Worms 2 that don't appear in WormsDC, such as the Super Banana Bomb, the Homing Strike, and Patsy's Magic Bullet. Worms 2 also features single-player missions - the closest thing WormsDC has is a single-player training mode.
I had the original Worms on the Amiga, and that had "THE DIRECTOR'S CUT!" in the main menu. Did I have WormsDC?
If it looked like this (http://www.dream17.info/softography.php?id=27&s=screens&url=screenshot_worms_amiga&i=00) then probably not. The Amiga and CD32 versions of the original Worms had a sub-header of "THE DIRECTOR'S CUT!" on the Amiga because it was developed mostly by Worms creator Andy Davidson, who was able to include a handful of new features that didn't make it into other ports of the game. Worms: The Director's Cut was a separate release with entirely new features, menus, and completely different boxart.
Is this game likely to be re-released for the PC/Mac/etc. in the future?
The short answer: No.
The long answer: Getting WormsDC running on anything other than an actual Amiga requires emulation, which in turn would likely require Team17 to license the Amiga Kickstart ROM, which I would imagine wouldn't be cheap. I wouldn't rule it out, but it's incredibly unlikely. That is to say nothing of Andy Davidson's personal wish that the game remain a swansong for Amiga users.
How can I play WormsDC right now?
You'll need an Amiga emulator, which (again) means you'll need the relevant Amiga Kickstart ROM. The only legal way to get the Kickstart ROM is to either dump it from your own Amiga - you'll probably need Kickstart 3.0 or higher - or to buy the licensed Amiga emulation package, Amiga Forever (http://amigaforever.com/). If you do buy Amiga Forever DO NOT BUY THE VALUE EDITION as it won't contain the necessary Kickstart ROM required to play WormsDC.
Once you've got that, all you need is to get a copy of WormsDC. Fortunately for you, many years ago Team17 gave us permission to make the game available for free over at Dream17, a Team17 fansite I launched back in (God, was it really) 2003. You can download WormsDC here (http://www.dream17.info/softography.php?id=34&s=downloads).
If anybody has any additional questions, feel free to ask them here and I'll answer as best I can.

DrMelon
13 May 2012, 20:38
Many a winter's evening was spent with my best friend up in his attic playing this on his Amiga. There's some really wonderful weapon ideas here that sadly didn't make it through to the sequels.

Squirminator2k
14 May 2012, 08:11
Ooh, I've just lined up something very nice for this stream. I won't give it away...
...well, I will give it away, but I won't give away what it is I'll be giving away until... I don't know... tomorrow.
[There's a prize, basically.]

Clydos
14 May 2012, 13:25
Hehe, sounds like great fun! :-)
Do I understand it correct, that we watch you play? Will you be alone or with friends? Is there a special aim or sth for the event (besides it is cool :-))? I guess you will play on Emulator in order to stream it?
I hope I can watch it ...
BTW: YOU are the founder of Dream17? Cool!!!

Squirminator2k
14 May 2012, 18:18
Hehe, sounds like great fun! :-)
Do I understand it correct, that we watch you play? Will you be alone or with friends?
I'm going to try and rope in (arf) a couple of friends to join me. I'm also hoping I can get a Special Guest into the stream via Skype, though I haven't actually asked yet.
Is there a special aim or sth for the event (besides it is cool :-))?
A lot of people haven't even seen WormsDC because of how rare it is, and how fiddly it can be to emulate (it's only been working properly in an emulator for the last couple of years, and even then it's still not 100% (http://worms2d.info/Tricks_and_glitches_(First_generation)#Emulation-specific). So I thought it'd be awesome to let people see this game.
Also, this year is the 15th anniversary of the release of WormsDC, and with Andy Davidson having returned to Team17 this year it seems only fitting. :)
I guess you will play on Emulator in order to stream it?
Yep. Unfortunately I don't currently own a real, physical Amiga to play it on.

Clydos
14 May 2012, 20:24
Thanks a lot for the explanations! I'll look forward to it. Will see that I give the link to my colleague who also uses his Amiga nearly on a daily basis.
Oh, Andy Davidson has returned to T17? Cool, didn't know that! What does he do there now?

MtlAngelus
14 May 2012, 20:30
Janitor.
Just kidding, he seems to be helping with game design, not sure what his exact position is tho.

Squirminator2k
14 May 2012, 20:32
Oh, Andy Davidson has returned to T17? Cool, didn't know that! What does he do there now?
AFAIK he's working on developing new games within the company. He's not working directly on Worms Revolution, though I believe he sticks his head in from time to time.

Squirminator2k
15 May 2012, 02:52
Ladies and gentlemen, and variations thereupon: I can now confirm that on Saturday, during the livestream, I will be giving away a copy of Amiga Forever 2012 Plus Edition to one lucky viewer... which means you could potentially win the very software needed to play Worms: The Director's Cut on your own PC.
If you win I'll even help you set it up so you can get the optimum configuration for WormsDC.
Yeah.

KRD
15 May 2012, 16:55
Excellent.

Squirminator2k
16 May 2012, 10:03
I've been working on prepping some stuff for when I demonstrate some of WormsDC's customization features. I probably don't need to tell you what the attached image is for...

*Splinter*
16 May 2012, 12:55
I probably don't need to tell you what the attached image is for...
Stroking your e-peen?

Squirminator2k
16 May 2012, 17:26
Pfft. No. I have a publicist to do that for me.

Squirminator2k
16 May 2012, 20:07
Here's a cleaner, less artifact-y version of that image:
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m43wh3jzjc1rvpcyko1_400.png

franpa
16 May 2012, 20:15
As if importing Worms 2 Hell landscape to it :O

Squirminator2k
16 May 2012, 20:17
You're right. It's almost as if that's exactly what I'm doing...! :p
Unfortunately the mountains are a little trickier because of the way WormsDC shows the mountains, but I'm convinced I can pull it off.

Squirminator2k
18 May 2012, 21:33
As a reminder, this stream is TOMORROW at 8pm BST, and you can watch it at PortsCenter.tv.

Squirminator2k
19 May 2012, 19:54
Or you can watch it here (http://ustream.tv/channel/PortsCenter), now.

Squirminator2k
19 May 2012, 19:55
Go to http://ustream.tv/channel/portscenter to watch. Participants in the chat will have the opportunity to win a copy of Amiga Forever, a fully-licensed Amiga emulation package which they can use to play Worms: The Director's Cut on their PC, legally!
I'd post this in the old thread, but it got archived in the big shuffle.
Come join me!
Mod edit - sorted now!

MtlAngelus
19 May 2012, 23:53
Is there a way to watch it now? I got off work late, and then got caught watching the last moments of the Champions final, and after that I completely forgot to check if this was still going on. :p :(

Squirminator2k
20 May 2012, 00:42
I realised almost an hour in that I'd forgotten to click "Record broadcast"... so, uh... no. Sorry.

hoppi
20 May 2012, 00:46
Damn, I was watching UCL final as well, so missed this.

MtlAngelus
20 May 2012, 01:53
Damn. :c
Well, hope it was fun. I'll make sure to read things properly next time instead of assuming it's american time because you are in america and not making arrangements to make it in time. :o

GreeN
20 May 2012, 05:56
I would like to have watched your stream, but you really picked the worst time and day of the entire month. Even worms fans choose champions league over worms :<

Squirminator2k
20 May 2012, 06:03
Living in the US, and also not actually giving a crap about the football, I had no idea idea.

Lucinda
19 Jun 2012, 10:49
I missed this due to the CL final as well is there anywhere that http://www.rabbit-insurance-broker.co.uk was recorded and available for download or anything?
Thanks

Squirminator2k
19 Jun 2012, 17:23
Unfortunately I completely forgot to record it! If there's enough demand I may do another WormsDC stream at some point in the future.

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