Below is a post that was recently made to the comp.sys.amiga.games newsgroup on Usenet. It would seem that Andy Davidson is (at last :p) going to finish of the updates to the worms series of games, read below for full details:-

Now things are a bit less hectic here at Team17 a bit (only a bit though :) I'll have some time to hopefully finish off the patches for Amiga Worms/WormsDC this week and next week.

There are 3 of them:

One for the Amiga Worms (ECS), which doesn't default to joypad on machines with cd drives, is more stable, has a few other changes which I can't remember, and removes the protection. This was the last version of Worms before it went AGA - I found the old files and got it running again, after my Amiga being set up for WormsDC for the last few years. It will also be packed with an 040/060 friendly packer.

A WormsDC upgrade for all Amigas - Option Set loading fixed, all other small obscure bugs fixed (like dynamite replays occasionally going wrong), keyboard can be used to enter names when using joypad, both mouse+joypad work at the same time on title screen, improved rope, fixed positioning/sizing of sleep window, rescan option to check for new levels installed while the game is sleeping, cursor keys scroll around in Graffiti Mode, cursor keys on numpad scroll around in game, normal landscapes can be edited in Graffiti Mode after they are generated (like Worms2), compatibility with MCP and runtime unpackers, TAB on landscape generator cycles through landscape types, multiple sample-sets for different teams ... and other things that I've forgotten :)

After this upgrade all future updates will be for hdrive/fastram only as the game is just getting too tight to run in 2meg and off floppies.

The hdrive/fastram update will add the cdrom support. This is the reason for not having this done by now - I haven't had much time to devote to WormsDC at all, and adding these features makes it too big for standard machines. I wanted to get a universal update done first.

5 types of WormSelect and Manual Worm Placing (from Total Wormage) may make it into both updates, along with some other stuff that isn't even in Worms2 yet.

All updates will be freely available and posted to Aminet as soon as they are finished - like I said, hopefully in the next 2 weeks, but things are still pretty mad at the moment with Worms2, the Worms2 expansion pack and the top-secret non-Worms game ... :)

Thanks again for the support and comments from people who take a more realistic view of the Amiga's situation - rather than just endless criticism, slagging etc. To see people on here slagging off a game (BlitzBombers) which was being given away free - and is far better than any of the post-Dynablaster alternatives (as it puts in more of the features of the later Bomberman games) - is just another example of how frustrating some Amiga owners make it for developers. Criticism is good, when it's constructive ...

Andy Davidson
theworm@team17.com