APRIL 2000 NEWS

Just noticed your worm in the original Peaworm could get four times longer. So now if you take about 35 peas you'll get all short again. Because of the limited memory available, I doubled this for player one only (so max. length 2048 pixels = ~70 peas), I doubt you'll pick up >35 peas in a multiplayer game.

Worm Preview
Shiar's "Worm" has been progressing very well lately. We've tested a pre-beta version lacking some features (like it doesn't have enough already ;p). There are external levels, vertical scrolling levels, little boucy balls that kill you if you run into them, you can name your worm (woohoo! mines Spunky =p), and you can start from any level you've beaten before. It's 89% done according to Shiar. In the official release, there will be link play, deathmatch, ctf, and some other stuff (coolz!). You can check out Shiar's page here. Heres some eyecandy =)

Oh yeah, one more thing for all TI-86 programmers out there: click here to check the memory areas Worm uses. Can I safely use these addresses? If not, tell me now!

• Multiple multiplayer (like deathmatch) levels in one level-file!!! The level can be selected from the main menu.
• Singleplayer games can be started at any level you've been before.
• Level numbers displayed correctly and starting with level 1 (or more if selected otherwise).
• When you have completed a level, your score will increase with 40 times the level-number!
• You gain one extra life every 1000 points.

• Supports multiple external levelfiles. When you run Worm, you have to select which file you want to use. The levelfiles now have titles too.
• Quite some size increase: upto 4500 bytes :(

I also changed the main menu a bit. Now it's easier to change the number of players, and their names (yes, they can be altered now!) and all are saved when you quit.

• When two worms run into each other, both die instead of the first one only.
• Number of lives left is displayed correctly.
• Sprite size restored when using the default sprite.
• Some optimizations, smaller size.
• Worm growth per pea can be altered in levels.

Since the computers on some schools (my own school included) have sites with the word game in it banned, my site - games3.net/shiar - cannot be reached from there. That's why I'm going to put my site back on fortunecity as well. Remember I'll always put updates on games3.net first, then upload to fortunecity. The full link is http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/manic/638 but you can also load http://come.to/shiar and click on fortunecity (mirror) before you're redirected to http://www.games3.net/shiar.

Speaking of level-files: a sample level source will be included with Worm so everybody can make his/her own custom levels! This can be either a set of deathmatch arenas, a singleplayer episode, or both. Hopefully, as soon as I release Worm, ticalc.org will be flooded with custom Worm levels ;)

• multiple levelfile (select at start)
• linkplay
• singleplay end message or something
• titlescreen
• both worms should die when they run right into each other at the same time
• CTF and domination game types
• sprites for picks
• names changable
• multiplayer level selectable

I really hope I can make this all anytime soon, because besides the items in this list I also have to fix any and all bugs appearing out of nowhere.

And there's more: bars are being drawn using the (now correctly functioning) line-procedure. A bit slower at startup (doubt you notice it) but cuts off several bytes and works better than my primitive bar-draw attempt.