Worms?

Worms? is a 1983 computer game written by David Maynard for Electronic Arts, released for the Atari 800 and Commodore 64. It was one of the original five games that launched the company. More a software toy than a game, Worms? is an interactive version of Paterson's Worms.

The game is abstract, like Conway's Game of Life, but the player's ostensible goal is to optimally program one or more "worms" (each a sort of cellular automaton) to grow and survive as long as possible. The game area is divided up into hexagonal cells, and the worms are essentially programmed to move in a particular direction for each combination of filled-in and empty frame segments in their immediate vicinity. Over the course of a game, the player needs to give his/her worm less and less input, and more and more moves by their worm result in the encountering of familiar situation for which the worm has already been 'trained'. As the worms move, they generate aleatoric music.

Reception

Orson Scott Card in Compute! in 1983 gave Worms? and two other EA games, M.U.L.E. and Archon: The Light and the Dark, complimentary reviews, writing that "they are original; they do what they set out to do very, very well; they allow the player to take part in the creativity; they do things that only computers can do".Compute!'s Gazette's reviewer called Worms? for the Commodore 64 "one of the most fascinating games I've played in a long time. It's so different from anything else that it quickly captivated me. Worms? tournaments become popular among the staff of Compute! ... [It] is as much fun to watch as it is to play". He added that part of its appeal was that "The game is hard to master. It's easy to play, but seems almost impossible to play well time after time".Compute! listed the game in May 1988 as one of "Our Favorite Games", writing that four years after its introduction "Worms? is still in a class by itself", requiring "a sense of strategy as well as proficiency at joystick maneuvers".

Worm (Kamen Rider)

Worms (ワーム, Wāmu) are the villains in the Japanese tokusatsu series Kamen Rider Kabuto. They are an alien life form that came from a meteor destroying the city district of Shibuya seven years prior to the series' timeline. However, the Worms known as Natives existed prior to the coming of the Shibuya Meteorite, through another meteorite that came 35 years ago. In the movie, a third meteor nearly hit the Earth, though thanks to Kabuto it was adverted and history was altered. This implies that meteors containing Worms are insolated and there are others.

The Worms were designed by Yasushi Nirasawa (韮沢 靖, Nirasawa Yasushi), who also designed the Undead for Kamen Rider Blade, the Horrors in GARO and later created the Imagin for Kamen Rider Den-O. These designs were later detailed in Worm Works: GITAI (ワームワークスGITAI, Wāmu Wākusu GITAI).

Shibuya Meteorite

A mysterious meteorite that crashed into Shibuya seven years ago. This meteorite brought along the extraterrestrial creatures known as Worms. During episode 41, Riku Kagami explains that another meteorite carrying the Natives had arrived on Earth thirty-five years before this, explaining why fragments of the meteorite similar to those of the Shibuya Meteorite existed so long ago. The Natives that arrived on Earth worked with humans to create the Masked Rider System in order to fend off the threat of other Worms that would arrive later. In the movie, which acts as a prequel to the series, it is revealed this meteor was actually far larger and would've vaporized Earth's oceans and released many more Worms until Hyper Kabuto went back in time with the meteor and caused it to slam into the Shibuya meteor, resulting in only a small fragment of it landing in Shibuya.

Worms (2007 video game)

Worms is an artillery strategy game developed by Team17. It is available on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and iOS platforms and is one of the many installments of the Worms series created by Team17. The game was known as Worms HD during development, but Microsoft renamed it to just Worms.

Gameplay

Players control a small platoon of worms across a deformable landscape, battling computer or player controlled teams. The game features bright and humorous cartoon-style animation and a varied arsenal of weapons. Full voice communication is also available among the players of the game. The game includes a tutorial, single-player challenges, and competitive multiplayer for up to four teams either online or offline.

Development

The development and release of the Xbox Live Arcade version of Worms was significantly delayed due to a disagreement during the certification process prior to release, over the requirement of an in-game means of providing opposing player feedback in post-game lobbies. This delay in the certification process was a source of a frustration for everyone involved. Downloadable content released in May and July 2007 included new costumes, voices, and environments for the games. The game has since taken on the moniker, Worms (2007). Its first official public demonstration was on the showroom floor of the 2007, Consumer Electronics Show.

Buzz!

Buzz! is a series of video games originated by Sleepydog Ltd., developed by Relentless Software and published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable consoles. They are quiz games that see the players answering trivia questions while competing in the fictional game show, Buzz!. Created specifically with multi-player party gaming in mind, the series launched in October 2005 and to date comprises 18 games; including 13 in the Buzz! series and five Buzz! Junior titles. The series made the transition to the PlayStation 3 with Buzz!: Quiz TV in 2008. The sixteenth game in the series Buzz!: Brain of the UK was released in March 2009. The latest Buzz! game is Buzz!: The Ultimate Music Quiz which was released in October 2010.

In 2006 the second game in the Buzz series, Buzz!: The Big Quiz, won the BAFTA award for Best Casual and Social game.Buzz!: Quiz TV has been nominated in the Best Social Game and Best Multiplayer Game categories for the 2009 BAFTA video game awards.

Jeskola Buzz

Jeskola Buzz is a freeware modular software music studio environment designed to run on Microsoft Windows via Microsoft .NET. It is centered on a modular plugin-based machine view and a multiple pattern sequencer tracker.

Buzz consists of a plugin architecture that allows the audio to be routed from one plugin to another in many ways, similar to how cables carry an audio signal between physical pieces of hardware. All aspects of signal synthesis and manipulation are handled entirely by the plugin system. Signal synthesis is performed by "generators" such as synthesizers, noise generator functions, samplers, and trackers. The signal can then be manipulated further by "effects" such as distortions, filters, delays, and mastering plugins. Buzz also provides support through adapters to use VST/VSTi, DirectX/DXi, and DirectX Media Objects as generators and effects.

A few new classes of plugins do not fall under the normal generator and effect types. These include peer machines (signal and event automated controllers), recorders, wavetable editors, scripting engines, etc. Buzz signal output also uses a plugin system; the most practical drivers include ASIO, DirectSound, and MME. Buzz supports MIDI both internally and through several enhancements. Some midi features are limited or hacked together such as MIDI clock sync.

Buzz (TV series)

The Buzz was a Canadian comedy television series that aired on The Comedy Network. The show was hosted by Morgan "Mista Mo" Smith and Daryn Jones. The show originally aired in the mid-90s as a community channel show on Rogers Television before getting a network deal in 2000. In 2001, the show won a Gemini Award in the "Best Writing in a Comedy or Variety Program or Series" category. The 2003 season saw them take the show to New York, London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt. The show ended in 2005.

Created in Toronto, the show found a place on the Comedy Network when The Tom Green Show left to MTV. The show uses sketch comedy, non-sequiturs and guerrilla comedy. The two hosts, Daryn Jones, a geeky theatre major, and Mista Mo, an "almost real rapper" often riff on the racial tensions between them.

Recurring sketches and characters