My late wife and I used to play Scorched Earth on her brothers Sinclair Spectrum, before we got married. That's going back a few years now! Thank you for another entertaining video.
The good ol days of Alien Breed and Worms on the Amiga. One of the things that fascinated me about what Worms was becoming (especially by the Director's Cut for Amiga AGA - Which I still own a functioning copy of), was how Worms was introducing the insane options screen where you could turn so many things on and off, decide what items you want available, etc. It started to become a game that was so customizable it kind of felt like you could create a number of Worms games, yourself. Or even emulate the older school artillery games, if you wanted. As Worms progressed, even as far as the excellent WMD, the customizations went through the roof. But still, even fairly early versions of worms brought so many options, I kind of think of options like that, as predecessors of the Mutators for the later-released Unreal Tournament (which offered somewhat similar, if not quite as game changing capabilities to the FPS), or eventually Super Smash Bros custom matches, offering a sort of similar worms customization to creating your own rules of play, and available items. I remember making tons of iff Bitmap Files and converting them to custom levels in Andy Davidson's Director's Cut, and while I kind of missed that feature in following games, in future platforms, they really started to offer even more options and a more robust custom level generator than what I could do with my level images. I get kind of a warm feeling, watching this, knowing I was one of those people who were right there at the beginning, buying Worms at the same time it was blowing up. The way Worms seemed to effortlessly take a popular Artillery game, like the ones we played like crazy on our computers, and threw in nods to platforming, rope Swinging, and fighting games into the mix, with the humor and voices. It was a game which, without being some crazy hardware melting graphics hog, incorporated so many genres of what we already enjoyed into this tongue-n-cheek combat game. The ability to name our own characters, (I was always a fan of naming them after the Addam's Family members), was the key to having us attached to our characters and pushed us to try so hard to not lose a single one. Definitely hard to sacrifice one of those buggers, even during times we find ourselves in a situation where that is the best choice.
It really struck a chord with me when he talks about visiting friends and hearing the kids outside yelling the phrases from Worms. We did the EXACT same thing in my circle of friends. The speech banks was a huge part of why I loved Worms and I am still a bit miffed that later Worms games moved further and further away from allowing you to create custom speech banks easily. It was one of the first games I modded on PC to have my own voice, pitched higher of course saying all kinds of weird stuff. Good times!
The original worms. Scorched Earth plus Lemmings with guns. Thanks for your incredible work and content. Loving these nostalgic trips back to those very special days of home computing and games. Though it does make me feel old. :D
I didn't play Worms very much on Amiga but I remember playing the PC version with friends. My favourite Team17 game on Amiga was Alien Breed (and later Tower Assault), I played countless of time on this one :)
I was born in '89, so Worms is pretty much one of my favourite Childhoodgames. I do Blender-Rendering myself because I was as a child always fascinated by those intro videos. They are also one of my first memories when thinking of playing it on my brothers PC back then. So Thanks a lot for this Video and bringing back fond memories :) Greetings from Austria
I believe Andy (who wrote Total Wormage whilst at Bournemouth School) based it really on Bombardment because we had a trend of people writing Bombardment clones on graph plotting calculators. A trend which lasted at least another 10 years.
Fantastic video! A great insight into the background of such a milestone in Gaming. I live in Ossett, the same town as Team 17s old HQ...and it's so sad sometimes when I drive past and reminisce about what was or should be nowadays.
I know that feeling. But the great news is the company is still going strong and the CEO has been there for years. Not that I'm not saying she's old, she looks great! I also donated the worms Amiga to the museum near their current offices, so it's all quite a nice story really.
@@RetroRecipes awww that's great news!...so glad that they're still going. Especially in the current tough times when so many smaller businesses have gone bust. Thanks very much for the info though. All the best to you and Ladyfractic...and the Puppies of course ;-)
Nicely reheated one... one of those relaxed interviews that are enjoyable to follow instead of a scripted documentary, kinda puts you in touch with legends of your childhood :) Far as Scotland is concerned... Isle of Skye is my favourite
Worms on the Amiga was cracked by the person I got my first Amiga 1200 off back in 2009, as I never got a 1200 back in the day I jumped ship to the pc from my A500. Ive got an original of it now though, just 25 years too late.
On the topic of Team17, randomly ended up at a party with both Andreas Tadic and Rico Holmes somewhere in late 2000s. Good times and starstruck to say the least 😂
Nice interview sir. Interesting to hear about the Fairlight project, I knew it was an expensive system but not that there were so few of the in existence. With it being retro and your interest in music maybe it’s something that could be followed up on.
Definitely can't get enough of these Worms :) Aaah, this brings back fond memories.... If was actually watching one of your Team17 videos earlier today
Lovely Scotsman! I adore Scotland, which is ironic because I never wanted to go there until my brother got married there (on the west coast in a lighthouse). And first you land in Newcastle upon Tyne... and what a dreary dismal place that is. Then two hours later you enter Scotland and it’s a different world. I adore Edinburg, it’s such a quaint little magical place. But the westcoast is indeed very stunning too like Skye is nice but I adore the highlands. The marshes and the hills that stretch out for miles. Oh mannn!
@@RetroRecipes I had expected more form Loch Ness to be honest. I fell in love with Loch Lomond that’s how I’d images Loch Ness to look, only a bit deeper. But yeah, it’s a stunning country.
@@RetroRecipes well she actually looked up from the water straight at me and said something like: “there’s no way I can compete with that monster, goodbye!” She packed her bags and waddled across the road.
Sire Records bought Ministry's Al Jourgensen a Fairlight sampler, $60K at the time, and the Revolting Cocks' sound (and a lot of the Ministry side projects' sounds) came out of trying to figure out how to make something interesting out of it despite it being way over their heads at the time. An iconic machine helping a core of musicians accidentally create an iconic sound of an era.
@@RetroRecipes It helped Ministry go from being a synth-pop band (when he was affecting a British accent) to being an industrial club superstar, eventually industrial metal. I heard of someone who went to see their live show expecting to see the "With Sympathy" era Ministry (think early Depeche Mode as far as how "hard" this fare was) and instead ending up seeing the "In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up" tour, which involved multiple guitarists, two drummers, and is documented in the album of the same name, which is probably one of the best industrial/industrial-metal live albums made. It'd be the equivalent of going to see Katy Perry and instead getting the Sex PIstols.
Great episode! Chris: enjoy the Amiga hardware after being away from the crunch. :) You gave us gamers lots of cool gaming moments back in the day, thanks! :)
Loved the video and wish I could have that A1200 too. Now that the RPi 400 is out and Pimiga OS can emulate any amiga, could you see a 'Worms Demolition Battlefield Pro Ultimate 2021 Gold Annihilation Ultra Mega Fan Edition' being a modern day project for all the lockdown days? WDBPU21GAUMFE seems like the natural progression of the series... BTW I'm from Glasgow and summer started on the Wednesday night.
That's Martyn Brown with a "y"! Back when he was still at Team17, Martyn told me that X2 for Saturn had been completed but shelved. He looked in the archive, but the backup was missing. Did Cris pinch it?!
You mentioned Psygnosis. Fun fact - my best friend bought a second hand green Subaru Impreza Turbo years back and, on looking through the paperwork, found out it was originally purchased by Psygnosis!
I think it was their company car. It was kept in pretty good condition. For some inexplicable reason though people kept reversing into it whilst it was parked outside my friend's house!
@@CrisBlyth I had looked into the Fairlight stuff back awhile ago .I found some VSTs I ended up using on Reason . Its cool that you have the real thing . I love this old synth stuff . Peace .
Great video was nice to hear how team 17 went about doing things one of my fav team back in the day as i loved the games they did. As for Witchwood maybe they could do something with it as a side project and push it out as an old style rpg on the likes of steam or the likes of. Also have to say i love puppyfractic's trick turning in to a human haha and the fact you asked about them pics found on the computer made me laugh as well, well played. Take care guys and roll on the next video :-)
LOL - Project X2 on the Saturn .... I told you some months ago that was something best left well alone :) Play testing that abomination .. not quite Team 17 finest moment! The intro was OK but the game.. oh dear.. the game.. Thank goodness the PS1 version was pretty good and had a great soundtrack at the time. PCB WAY -- Perifractic's Cris Blyth Worms Animation Yarns ? :) That was tough one..
I still have my PC version of Worms World Party, in it's original box. Mind you, the box is not in as good condition as it use to be now. All I have to do is build a PC with a CD ROM in it to be able to play it.
I'm sure you don't need any extra help Peri, but I regularly used my Atari ST to talk to the ISS and various amateur radio satellites back in the 90s. Still have some of the data disks and telemetry files on floppy somewhere. Shout if you need a hand...
@@Zadster Thanks. And I'm curious, the ISS only fitted the current device in September, and the antenna. How were you communicating with it previously? Was there a predecessor to all this and the ARISS program?
@@RetroRecipes Yes, from at least 2000 onwards, various licensed radio amateurs used voice, packet radio and slow scan TV (sstv) mostly on the 2m band but occasionally on 70cm. There were several experiments on various shuttle flights too (SAREX) Amsat and Amsat-UK are good resources. amsat-uk.org/beginners/how-to-work-the-iss-on-aprs-packet-radio/
Ah, yes. That was in QBasic as far as I remember. I programmed several quite sophisticated games in QBasic. I made a pacman clone called caveman where you control a caveman in a maze, being chased by a trex. I brought it to school to show my tech teacher, and he didn't believe I made it myself... I had to convince him by showing and explaining the code.
your videos focusing on the TECH itself does well because its more captivating in general, i did like this episode though just saying I c an see why some videos people miss, if someone posted a video about a new fpga aquarius and cnc carved case id immediately click on that compared to an interview, just at a first glance.
Yes that's a fair point. What if it was an interview with the person who designed the new FPGA Aquarius with some behind the scenes never before told gossip though!... ;-) I know I can't please all the people all of the time, but I will still try :-D Thanks for the feedback James.
The thing is.. Team17 was great and for sure one of the most important contributors tot the Amiga's scene. But Worms was just an oversimplified Scorched Tanks with better graphics. Team 17's development Amigas would be so interesting.. if you could find the sources for Alien Breed (3D), Project-X, Body Blows or something like that on them!
Unfortunately I can't find things that aren't there, but you're welcome to explore the machine as I uploaded everything to the internet archive. Links in description. 👍🕹️
@@RetroRecipes I didn't want to say it was your fault of course :) I just wanted to give an explanation, why possibly not too many retro-nerds watched it the first time. Worms was an hit, yes, but less so for the original 80s and into 90s nerds. It was more so for a somewhat later and younger generation who started with other systems, like 16 bit consoles and PCS, and are most probably less likely to remember and dream of these games as dominant childhood fantasies, because opposed to home computers, the PCs and later consoles always where less of special 'one-time in life phenomen' but more of a generic playtoy that has been iteratively renewed and replaced up until today.
@@RetroRecipes Thanks, I understand but it helped me a lot with the subs. I take this opportunity to tell you that your channel and content are great. A hug from Colombia
Brilliant interview, I don't know what it was, but every time the camera was the one on Chris alone the playback seemed jerky and made my eyes go weird, did anyone else notice that or is it just my PC or eyes?
Might've missed a little blurring in the background 19:50 ;) (soz, it's actually my day job as a legal editor so my eyes instantly spot things like that !)
Haha that actually is pixelated as it's from another video, but when shown really small like that the pixelation looks... Not so much 🤭🤷♂️ Doing my best here 😉
Uploading text to the ISS? There’s only a very small window of sight (about 10 minutes) So I assume you will use some API that NASA provides and no HAM RF transmitter? Or do you do HAM radio packets? Which would also be trivial. I wasn’t aware of being able to send data packets to ISS. I did listen on some dialogue but i never send anything.
@@RetroRecipes Sweet! looking forward to it. Now I need to look into it too, see how it's done. Maybe I can use my BoaFeng as a transmitter or my HACKRF ;)
@@RetroRecipes well you can still make an overview video, not every project needs to be a success. Every job burst has boxes of unfinished or failed project. I loved the idea, very creative thinking. But that’s you, a creative RU-vidr for sure. I always am befuddled how you come up with some of these episodes. Also looking forward to the “Scottish” Fairlight. I never seen one in real life, those are rarer than unicorn blood. Talking about failed projects, I once tried to make a sample player on the XT. Making a sample worked, but playing it back in higher speeds turned out to be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to do fast enough. The idea was inspired by ofcourse the EMU and Fairlight. BTW are you aware or Espen Kraft his channel? Cool retor synth stuff on there.
This was filmed with an older camera on the second Cam and it developed a lag halfway through. I tried to minimize the close-ups at that point, only using it when necessary to facilitate a more seamless cut
The majority of this isn't Worms. There's new Witchwood stuff that we hacked out of the code, museum updates, Fairlight synthesizer stuff, etc. Sincere question: Would you rather no video instead of that when I'm tied up with 2 week projects? #MarketResearch
@@RetroRecipes to me it’s Worms, I was a wee pup when it first came out and didn’t get into it, if you featured something else I think I would totally be on board with it. I know you have a fondness for it and I can appreciate it, that’s why I said “you do you” but I can understand I may be in the minority but like I said, just wasn’t my thing. I appreciate you!!! Thanks for asking.
@@Lost_n_Found_1 Whilst I understand the theory, I don't see how that applies here? I'm asking sincerely for market research which of the 2 options a viewer would prefer. Feel free to clarify what you mean.
