Comments on: Space Worms

Space Worms

Edible Energy — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 05:01:25 -0800

It is the year 3065.
Mankind has long been extinct, and the only forms of life left are two warring species: the worms, and the dots. You happen to be one unlucky worm, having crash landed in the middle of a whole crapload of evil dots. Luckily you have infinite lives.
Friday Flash Fun
Also, check out "The Search For Fonzie's Treasure," winner of the 2005 'hardest RPG of the year' award.

By: slater

slater — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 05:16:31 -0800

but... it's not friday yet!

By: wheelieman

wheelieman — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 05:32:29 -0800

Eh who cares if its Friday or not? Its flash, be happy!!

By: Nugget

Nugget — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 05:36:30 -0800

but... it's not friday yet! In New Zealand it's Friday, so that's a good enough reason for starting the weekend early. A little bit of solidarity with our Antipodean cousins never goes amiss..

By: slater

slater — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 05:41:23 -0800

*shakes fist at time-travellin' antipodeans nice game tho :)

By: Plutor

Plutor — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 05:46:03 -0800

It is the year 3065. Mankind has long been extinct, and the only forms of life left are two warring species who don't have calendars: Fridayists and Thursdayists. You happen to be one unlucky Fridayist, having crash landed in the middle of a whole crapload of evil Thursdayists. Luckily you have a Flash plugin.

By: alumshubby

alumshubby — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 05:50:42 -0800

I, for one, welcome our time-traveling antipodean overlords. (Hadda do it, hadda do it....)

By: LunaticFringe

LunaticFringe — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 05:56:52 -0800

Has anyone lasted longer than 2 seconds? I think I must suck real bad.

By: mrzer0

mrzer0 — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 06:01:01 -0800

I've lasted for about 30 seconds, but I don't know what to do other than move around? My score never seems to get past 1000. *shrug* Gonna try hitting more buttons while I'm moving...

By: biffa

biffa — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 06:02:24 -0800

Got to level 8 after lucking into a trick that overwhelms the AI but can't see how to make it out of that many of them.

By: mrzer0

mrzer0 — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 06:03:41 -0800

Oh, guess It wasn't 30 seconds. More like 10, cuz thats how long it takes to get to level 2. All you do is move around and avoid the dots. WHICH ARE RAVENOUS!! AHHH!! :)

By: biffa

biffa — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 06:04:06 -0800

mrzerO, one level should finish and the next start each time the clock gets to 1000, you also start with 1000 points and you get 1000 more points for each level you get through.

By: mrzer0

mrzer0 — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 06:07:33 -0800

Thx biffa, I had just figured that out :) Now if only I could last past 200 in level 4! Oh wells. Back to work.

By: voltairemodern

voltairemodern — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 06:14:28 -0800

Ah! How do you get past them when there are 4 chasing you! From all sides! Ah!

By: voltairemodern

voltairemodern — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 06:17:03 -0800

Ok, got to the next level. Ah! How do you get past them when there are 6 chasing you! From all sides! Ah!

By: Pendragon

Pendragon — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 06:37:56 -0800

7000... Then it gets hard!!!

By: selfnoise

selfnoise — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 06:39:16 -0800

The post text reminds me of the weird plots from Atari 2600 games. "So, Bill, we've got a game with dots and lines and squiggly lines. The dots turn red when they touch the lines. The squiggly lines turn into straight lines when they touch the dots. Can you write a blurb in the manual?" "IN THE YEAR 3204, THE YZGNOBIAN DEFENSE FORCE IS ATTACKED BY..."

By: psychotic_venom

psychotic_venom — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 06:40:11 -0800

I'm at level 8, but as far as I can tell, you just get lucky getting out of the first few seconds.

By: biffa

biffa — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 06:54:37 -0800

Yeah, up to level 8 you can survive by going off immediately at angles then reversing then if you go into a diagonal cutting off 2 corners of the screen the dots will fall into a little group in the middle, but getting out of the group of 8 was just too hard.

By: Bdave

Bdave — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 07:07:44 -0800

ARGGGHHHHHHHH! /hatred of all life

By: voltairemodern

voltairemodern — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 07:24:48 -0800

Has anyone gotten past 8 yet? I gave up there.

By: cameleon

cameleon — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 07:25:10 -0800

Just made it to level 9!

By: CrunchyFrog

CrunchyFrog — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 07:25:11 -0800

"So, Bill, we've got a game with dots and lines and squiggly lines. The dots turn red when they touch the lines. The squiggly lines turn into straight lines when they touch the dots. Can you write a blurb in the manual?" Degenatron! DEFENDER OF THE FAITH "Save the green dots with your fantastic flying red square!" MONKEY'S PARADISE "Swing from green dot to green dot with your red square monkey!" PENETRATOR "Smash the green dots deep inside the mysterious red square!"

By: cameleon

cameleon — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 07:33:18 -0800

And my dot ... eh, spaceship just made it to level 10! Flying out at an angle seems to work well. Changing direction doesn't work for me anymore at higher levels.

By: gwenzel

gwenzel — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 07:38:06 -0800

OMG my fingers are BLEEDING!!!

By: patgas

patgas — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 07:45:40 -0800

So is it worth pointing out that the Fonzie's Treasure game is meant to be a demonstration of how people could be reading your commands through Ajax? It was set up for this article. (I won't get into how the article was written by Captain Obvious.)

By: Debaser626

Debaser626 — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 07:48:34 -0800

It's the year 2005, ah the hell with this... this game sucks... it's no PeekABoom

By: Debaser626

Debaser626 — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 07:50:21 -0800

umm.... PeekABoom, that is

By: stefan

stefan — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 08:12:04 -0800

i can't seem to beat level 9. incredible what simple mathematical rules can do to a system... just like conway's life. however, after spending about 5min on level 9, not being able to bring the pack into a cluster, i think that i can say, without reservation. math is hard.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 09:30:32 -0800

I beat level one by hiding out near the edge and getting the dot to ocilate in the center. Level 2 by simply weaving around randomly. Level three is intresting. Go left, obviously, and slow down enough so that the black ball hurling in from the right can follow you to the other side, then you can fly straight between the two side dots (which are now moving sinusodialy at this point). You can do this twice before they'll getcha. but it's intresting to look at.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 09:39:01 -0800

got to level 4. Fuck that's a hard game.

By: Edible Energy

Edible Energy — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 09:50:29 -0800

I love these lazy fridays, not like that fake friday that almost got me fired!

By: 235w103

235w103 — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 10:13:08 -0800

Level six. Holy BALLS.

By: cpchester

cpchester — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 10:26:41 -0800

that game is going to inspire me to commit violence

By: The Bellman

The Bellman — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 10:55:20 -0800

Metafilter: Holy BALLS!

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 11:02:01 -0800

That game got sinister real quick.

By: pmbuko

pmbuko — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 11:03:07 -0800

Can't get past eight. I got past the previous levels by darting off at a diagonal and then alternately looping/zig-zaggin left and right around the dots, which curiously all cluster themselves in the middle.

By: Chuckles

Chuckles — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 11:51:40 -0800

The AI doesn't seem to use any kind of cooperative strategy at all. It is way to easy to get them into a tight grouping on the lower levels. Of course it doesn't matter any more once there are 8 or 9 of them, but I bet even level 4 would be impossible if they cooperated more effectively. I have no idea what a good cooperation strategy would look like, but even just having one attacker at a time take a rest for a moment or two would break up the group and make it much harder. For the record, ya it looks like level 8 is passable but really really hard. I guess level 11 might be passable too, for somebody somewhere, but I bet that is the absolute limit.

By: lowlife

lowlife — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 12:16:03 -0800

I made it to level 14; at that point I decided that I'd had enough of the even numbered levels. The odd levels are generally easier, as you can usually go at an angle (up-left or down-left) to get out of the initial demolition derby; the even numbered levels are more of a pain - you have to deke the enemies, and the start direction varies between straight (usually to the left for me) or at an angle depening on the enemy layout. As mentioned above, the basic goal is to get the 'enemies' into a cluster, and not let them wrap around.

By: schyler523

schyler523 — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 12:44:33 -0800

i got to level 9 before i gave up

By: papercake

papercake — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 13:18:41 -0800

PeekABoom is AMAZING

By: delmoi

delmoi — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 14:15:39 -0800

got to level 11. The trick is A) get out of the center in levels where all 4 directions, plus all four composite directions are blocked. Once you get out, you can get into a stable patern, where you travel diagonly, and all the dots get stuck in the middle. I'm now on level 11 :)

By: delmoi

delmoi — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 14:24:32 -0800

bleh. Level 12 made me its bitch

By: Satapher

Satapher — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 15:01:08 -0800

man, i got to level 17 and died

By: schyler523

schyler523 — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 19:48:36 -0800

so what is the password to the fonz's safe?

By: spacediver

spacediver — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 21:30:30 -0800

on my system it runs about 3 times as fast in internet explorer than in opera. might explain why some people are able to reach high levels

By: juv3nal

juv3nal — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 23:45:34 -0800

so what is the password to the fonz's safe? check in the bathroom.

By: Chuckles

Chuckles — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 00:47:21 -0800

Okay, I guess my prediction is garbage, I just made it to level 21. Here are a few tricks: The attackers can't chase you over the edges, they can only come across an edge due to inertia. This can be very useful for herding them together because you can bounce back and forth across the boundary a couple of times to slow them down, etc. Also, when trying to get out of the middle at the start, you have to find holes in the attack. They don't all aim perfectly, and if you watch the pattern you can find little eyes of safety which open up and then disappear. You can learn where those eyes will appear and arrange to be in the right place at the right time. Account for your reaction time by changing input before you can see the space you are aiming for. It isn't easy, but even on level 21 you can get out of the middle with three perfectly timed changes of direction. Finally, watch the speed, it isn't always helpful. Slowing down at the right time can really help to herd the attackers together. Of course flying around at full speed will keep you alive for a while, but even if they can't hit you, you are bound to accidentally hit an attacker eventually. Much better to herd them together, and a few moments of very little motion can cause them to group up in a hurry.