How the Worms Video Game Went From Classroom Project to Classic

Andy Davidson was twenty-two years old when the turn-based artillery game he programmed first hit store shelves in November 1995, published by the West Yorkshire-based company Team 17.

From Calculator Tank Games to Total Wormage

Long before it became a multi-format hit, the title had remarkably humble origins. Bored during his A-levels, Davidson found mathematics particularly difficult and started programming an early version of the software on a Casio graph-plotting calculator. That initial tank game snowballed into something much larger once he began using an Amiga computer.

Working partly inside an Amiga club run by his art teacher, John Pakeman, the project initially took shape under the working title Total Wormage. It soon drew crowds of sixth formers to the corner of the school art room, eventually getting banned from the premises because so many students crowded around to watch.

Andy Davidson, game creator, said he chose worms for the game because they hadn’t been in a game before. He thought he could get a lot of character into the animations because they’re quite simple creatures.

Series Sells Seventy Million Copies Worldwide

Thirty-one years after its initial release, various incarnations of the franchise have sold enough copies that everyone in the UK could own one. Davidson admitted that the sheer scale of the success remains difficult to process.

Andy Davidson, game creator, stated that across all formats and all versions of the game it’s up to 70 million now. He just can’t get his head around it.

The franchise’s cultural footprint even extended to British postal history in January 2020, when it was named one of six British games celebrated on a special series of Royal Mail stamps. For Davidson, that particular honor made the achievement real to his family.

Players also continue to hear Davidson’s own teenage voice on their mobile devices today. He recorded the audio for all the angry invertebrates featured in the software, with “Incoming” remaining a particularly popular choice for text message notifications.