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:: the team ::
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| [ about | the team | Martyn Brown ] |
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Producer
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Producer of all things pink, mean and incredibly funny.
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Were you surprised by the success of the original Worms?
Of course, we were staggered... We were even more surprised at the
longevity of its popularity, it really caught on, but we did spend ages
telling absolutely everyone we knew that it was an absolutely great game to
play! At the end of the day, whether you believe in the game or not, you
can't make people go out and buy the game in their thousands, but they did
and they let us know about it!
What are the major technical changes in the sequel?
The vast major technical change is that it is a complete and total re-write
from the bottom up specifically for the PC platform and today's requirements
(i.e. Pentium based Win95 machine). The whole visual system has been
revamped and upgraded; now the game boasts high-resolution, 10,000+
animation frames for the sprites. So much has been done to the game engine
to create the smooth, fluid moving display (running via DirectX). In every
department, Worms 2 is technically far advanced on the original, including
audio, visual, game-interface, play-interface, worm-interaction,
network/internet play...you name it. All of these huge technical leaps have
been made without any sacrifice or compromise to the gameplay, which was the
only way to go.
Why did you feel the need to change it?
We felt that in certain quarters, the game was rightly criticised for its
lack of visual prowess, particularly in America, where it was easy to
dismiss the game because of the somewhat crude graphics. What we've done
with the sequel is to make the visuals as attractive and interesting as
possible, whilst retaining all aspects of what made the original game so
great. We listened very closely to everyone's comments on the first game
and on the visual side in particular. Of course everyone doesn't really
consider technical implications when they are suggesting so many things, but
the No1 priority were detailed, fluid moving characters in a higher
resolution. This was not easy to achieve and to be honest, most players
will just take it for granted when they are playing, but that just means
they don't notice any bad animation or frames 'snapping' - and that means
we've accomplished what we set out to do.
What are the major differences between Worms and Worms 2?
Besides the vast upgrade in audio-visuals, a lot of work has been done on
making the game more approachable. It was difficult to get into before and
people really had to persevere. This time the game interface, controls and
suchlike are much more comfortable, a by-product of being PC lead rather
than console lead. We've also added a substantial array of new weapons and
features, which are being added constantly and will do, right up until final
beta in September. A lot of work was spent doing structure-based weapons
and tools, so that we can add lots of new stuff very quickly. There's lots
of new weapons and side-effects/features, drowning, swimming, dynamic water
effects, easy internet play, 6 player mode, option-sets, much improved CPU
players, improved 1 player missions. Basically it's bigger - better - more,
following on directly from the thousands of feedback emails we received from
the first game, the over-riding feeling to add/improve rather than destroy
or take-away. We have attempted to give Worms 1 players the game they
wanted and also open up the sequel to a whole army of new players through
the vastly improved engine. The amount of suggestions for weapons has been
incredible and we've put as many in as possible - but a lot of them remain
tucked away in crates, meaning people will be discovering new weapons for
weeks.
How long has Worms 2 been in development?
Since about April/May 96. We took a bit of a break after doing the first
game because we were all basically worn-out and just needed to think about
things a while. We knew essentially what had to be done, especially after
the first wave of feedback and the visual side started. The imagery of the
Worms themselves took a little longer and it wasn't until about
November/December that we had more or less decided what the Worms would look
like and how they would animate, development then started in earnest.
What's the biggest problem you've faced so far?
The biggest problems we've faced so far are as follows;
Worm Design - We struggled to come up with a character that would work in
terms of exactly what we wanted to do with it, in that we needed a character
that was both charismatic and detailed and also cartoon-like, was extremely
well animated and conveyed the Worms image. With worms not having hands and
stuff, it was tricky until we felt we had a universally accepted design.
Dan worked wonders and the characters really work well in the game, so much
so that users just take for granted the thousands of frames being used on
the fly to generate the action!
New ideas implementation - At the start of the project we had a huge list of
really cool ideas for the game, especially based around weapons, interactive
objects, additional things the worms would do/could do, etc. As a lot of
these were tried, we found out that a lot of the time, the ideas didn't
really gel or felt out of place, so a lot of it was dropped and re-thought
out. A good example are interactive objects, such as boulders that could be
dislodged and moved around the landscape, they just didn't work well in the
game and were removed. Another newbie was 'dynamic water' where we could
generate an object full of live 'water' (either in an object) or as a pool,
whatever. When dislodged, this would ebb, flow and settle on the landscape
either carrying worms with it, or draining into the ocean. At the moment the
code is quite slow, as it hasn't been optimised fully. Until we are
confident that it works well rather than an excuse for a 'new feature' we
aren't including it. As a by-product, a whole set of animations for Worms
swimming has been done, including all things like breathing/bubbles and
splashes etc. The idea all depends on the technical compromises that have
to be made as animating water in real time like that takes a lot of
processing time. The water is good because it also effects weapons, so a
dynamite thrown into a pool that a worm is in, extinguishes, but (e.g.) a
Sodium bomb would explode violently.
Other than technicalities with the visual side and Direct X/Networking,
there have been few headaches other than us considering what goes in and
what goes out. The original plan was to implement all the new engine and
animation/audio interface and get the game up and running and feeling
'right', then add to the structures we had built.
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| [ about | the team ] |
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Team17 would like to extend their thanks to all who played a big part in Worms2 and the success of the
original game, not least the thousands that gave us much valued feedback on our web-site.
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| Producer |
[ Martyn Brown ]
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| Development |
Craig Jones
Paul Kilburn
Paul Sharp
Espen Lyngaas
David Watson
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| Artists |
[ Danny Cartwright ]
Animation, Graphic Design & Additional Background Art
[ Rico Holmes ]
Lead Background Artist
[ Cris Blyth ]
Video Sequence Design, Animation & Production
[ Rory Little ]
Modelling Support
[ Mark Taylor ]
Modelling Support
Paul Robinson
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| Programmers |
[ Karl Morton ]
Game Code Design & Lead Programming
[ Colin Surridge ]
Menu System & Network GUI Design
[ Phil Carlisle ]
Network & Additional Programming
Rob Hill
Martin Randall
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| Sound and Music |
Bjorn Lynne
Allister Brimble
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| Web Design |
Paul James
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| Quality Assurance |
Paul Field
Paul Dunstan
Kelvin Aston
John Eggett
Mark Baldwin
Grant Towell
Andy Aveyard
Guy Palmer
Emma Aspinall
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| Original Concept |
[ Andy Davidson ]
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