The popular “Worms” franchise just invaded Teletext

“Worms” is a game that pits teams of adorable, customizable worms against each other in a battle for supremacy. Each player controls a team of worms, taking turns to strategically maneuver their worms and use a wide variety of weapons to eliminate opponents. The gameplay is turn-based, with players selecting their actions from a menu and trying to outsmart their opponents using the environment and weapon selection. Software programmer Alex Grupe started a big project by converting this classic to Teletext a technology that originated in the late 1970s and was commonly used to transmit information and simple graphics over television signals. The limitations of Teletext’s graphical capabilities result in a very basic and minimalistic presentation, but the creativity involved in adapting such a game to such a constrained medium is impressive. Worms VBI debuted at Evoke 2023, where it ranked 1st in its competition. It’s a simplified version of Worms with only three weapons available. None the less, generating Teletext signals in a way that utilizes the vertical blanking interval (VBI) is a creative way to deliver content that goes beyond the visible screen area, thus allowing for special features like additional data, graphics, or in this case, a simplified version of a classic game. The vertical blanking interval is a period during which the electron beam of a CRT television or monitor returns to the top of the screen to start drawing the next frame. Leveraging this period for additional data transmission or content display is a clever approach to maximize the capabilities of older display technologies. It’s truly remarkable how the demoscene continues to explore and adapt these older technologies to create new and engaging experiences. The game works on most Commodore Amiga computers (AGA/ECS) and requires a Teletext-capable TV.

News source: Youtube / download Worms VBI

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