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| [ goodies | dev diary | chapter one ] |
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| #1 |
Six years
and counting |
It's only fair that a development diary ought to start at the very beginning.
For Worms 3D this means hurtling back to a time during Worms 2 development in 1996.
Then, Karl Morton (who would be lead code on Worms 2/Armageddon and is sadly no longer with Team17) had
begun playing around with a variety of 3D spherical landscapes and the idea was firmly planted about the
potential of performing the game in 3D.
Whilst we wouldn't start actual code on the final design for a number of years (four, to be precise)
Worms 3D was the topic of conversation in the corridors of Team17 for five years prior to its full
production-level commencement in January 2002 - and was pretty much designed during 2001.
Given the success of the original Worms game, the call for a 3D incarnation was only to be expected,
especially given the new found 3D realisation that many console games were experiencing in late 1995 and
early 1996. 2D games had become mostly passé and Worms broke the mould in a time dominated by so many
look-a-like games.
Worms delivered unrivalled playability, clearly demonstrating that whilst graphics were important, we need
not disregard quality game play altogether. However, it remained difficult to get new people (and some of
the media) excited about our game because they wouldn't look beyond the simple graphics - we were a little
tired of people going on about the cut scenes too.
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the new
generation |
Back at Team17 we believed that the game was successful because of the format and the original limitations
put upon it when it was developed. For this reason, Worms was set to remain 2D for the immediate future
since we felt we'd only really touched the surface with the original (which had only a handful of weapons
compared to the Armageddon edition) and we set about creating Worms 2 with any plans for a 3D Worms being
put to one side for another year or so, it was something that could wait.
The success of Worms 2 in 1997 and the popularity of its FMV funnies again brought calls for the series to
enter 3D, with people believing that it was only natural that the game could look like the FMV in real time
- although of course this was unrealistic without changing the nature of the game and succumbing to a host
of technical constraints given the performance of the hardware & consoles of that era.
Worms 3D 'The New Generation' was pursued strongly by Microprose during our brief relationship with them
prior to Hasbro acquiring them in 1998. They even gave us a concept document and showed us pictures of how
it could look complete with Worms dressed as Elvis who muttered 'it's a one for the money'.
Microprose cited the Unreal engine as a way forward and badgered on about it, almost insisting on doing
the game themselves as they believed they could, without any firm foundation or understanding of what
really made the game. Fortunately they had no rights to do so - and there were also rumours of a 3D game
being made elsewhere that strongly resembled Worms.
We countered strongly that the game could only ever move to 3D when we could afford unlimited deformable
terrain and sculpt the type of landscapes and look that we really wanted to. At the time, this certainly
wasn't possible to do and had it gone ahead (as it almost did) then the game would have been pretty poor -
a pale shadow of what we wanted.
If it had been developed then and survived the development process which we felt unlikely as the new format
would have exposed a lot of critical problems, would have been a height mapped, simple and limited 3D game
typical of so many games rushed out to "cash in" on the success of predecessors. We definitely didn't want
that.
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first-person
perspective |
We also tried another variation, our own Worms FPP, in 1999. This was a real-time, FPP network game
potentially using the Quake or Unreal technology, but it only spent a couple of months in the concept
stage and it was canned when we realised that for many reasons, it just wasn't going to cut the
mustard.
With the example set by Lemmings, which failed miserably in its 3D guise, fixed firmly in our minds,
we set about re-affirming that we'd only do Worms 3D when we could pull it off how we felt it was meant
to be.
As a result, Worms 3D as a project was put back in the archives for the time being, only to be re-awakened
when the time was right.
Worms Armageddon followed after the 2D series was stretched as far as our energy and drive could sustain
(after 4.5 solid years on the project, remember) and whilst that was suggested as the last 2D version by
the team, we were brought out of retirement to do Worms World Party, another in the 2D series by the lure
of console online play for the Dreamcast - a PC version ensued because it also made sense for the
Publisher to release it (The Dreamcast market was never strong enough on its own).
The announcement and subsequent arrival of the new super-powered consoles in 2000 and 2001 such as
PlayStation2, Gamecube and XBox, along with increasingly grunt-worthy PC's heralded a new capability
in terms of performance and visualisation. And at last, the time was right, it was time to do
Worms 3D...
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| [ goodies | dev diary ] |
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| Development Diaries |
We plan diaries right up until the end of the project and they will
appear every week or two, so keep popping back for updates. The great
thing about the diary is that so much just isn't written yet!
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| overview |
The graphics and images shown in the diaries so far don't come anywhere
close to where we are currently in terms of visual style.
The first few chapters merely serve to bring us 'up to date' to how we got
where we are. It's envisaged that we will catch up with current progress
by Christmas and the diaries will then mirror recent developments rather
than things from the distant past.
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Worms FPP doc 1999
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Phase 1 doc 2000
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