The
great scramble Once upon
a time at the Unconventional
2k I saw for the first time
a game for the Multilink. It
was Multi Dash. Jiri Bernasek
wrote it for an existing network
system nobody remembered.
![[Screen-shot: Game 1]](images/game1.gif)
Well
to see eight XL/XE computers
connected via a SIO network
was very impressive.
So
soon some people wanted to know
how it works to code some games.
So Jiri was bombarded with questions.
He gave me a piece of code at
the ATARIADA 2k1, but he warned
me that it is hard to understand,
because it is documented in
Czech. But he promised to make
it more modular and to make
a simple and documented example.
At
the ATARIADA 2k2 Jiri released
his next Multilink game, called
Multi Race. Together with this
game he released the example,
Multi Worms.
At
a RAF meeting at my apartment,
we finally built up a network
and tested the game. As with
all the other Multilink games
there is a master and some slaves.
You load the game on the master,
connect the slaves via the SIO
bus and power on the slave(s).
The game automatically boots
over the network, so you need
only one floppy drive!
![[Screen-shot: Menu]](images/menu.gif)
On
every master or slave there
can be two players.
You
can choose which joystick each
players will use (or keyboard).
Type in the name of the player(s).
On
the master you can choose whether
you want a failed player to
disappear from the screen, or
his corpse be an obstacle for
the other players.
You
can also send messages to each
other player. A popular sentence
for example is, "It wasn't
my fault, the joystick you gave
me doesn't work".
The
game starts when the master
and the slaves declare themselves
ready.
![[Screen-shot: Game 2]](images/game2.gif)
You
control a little worm. This
worm has to eat some apples
and avoid some skulls.
With
every apple he eats he becomes
longer. Besides the optional
skulls, the worm has to avoid
hitting the other worms (players).
New
apples appear somewhere else
after you eat one of them.
At
the beginning the worms aren't
long, so you have to concentrate
to get the apples, not the skulls.
Later when the worms become
longer, you have to be careful
not to bump into another worms.
![[Screen-shot: Score board]](images/score.gif)
The
more apples you eat the more
points you score.
Multi
Worms is at first sight similar
to Cervi from Raster/CPU.
But instead of having five seconds
time to find your worm (Cervi), in Multi Worms your
worm starts when you first hit
the joystick. This is less stressful
for the players.
We
can look forward to some fine
new XL/XE network competitions
in the future.
thorsten@myatari.co.uk
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![[Photo: Mad Butscher gives 4/5]](images/thorst4.jpg)
![[Image: 4/5 stars]](images/4star.gif) Mad
Butscher The principle
of the game is explained in
five sentences, that's mostly
an indication of a fun game.
So it is. The rules are easy
to understand, the menus are
few in number and self-explanatory,
the graphics are simple but
the fight against the other
worms is exciting. The network
works effectively without problems,
so you forget that you are playing
on a network after a while.
![[Photo: Bunsen gives 5/5]](images/gunnar5.jpg)
![[Image: 5/5 stars]](images/5star.gif) Bunsen When
I first played it, I knew, for
me Multi Worms is the best multi-player
game so far. Playing in a network
with up to ten people on five
systems (if you have five TVs
and enough space) is cool. Also
the game-play is great to play.
![[Image: Uncle Harry gives 4/5]](images/harry4.jpg)
![[Image: 4/5 stars]](images/4star.gif) Uncle
Harry With Multi Worms,
Jiri Bernasek proved once again,
that simple game-play, technically
well adapted and innovatively
improved (network), is a great
mixture to have fun with your
8-bit Atari.
![[Photo: CAS gives 5/5]](images/cas5.jpg)
![[Image: 5/5 stars]](images/5star.gif) Carsten Strotmann Yet another great game from BeWeSoft. Titled as, "just a demo for a magazine" is
a great understatement. It's similar to Cervi (Worms), but totally
different game-play. It's very funny to play. Really a highlight this year.
![[Image: WGL 4/5 award]](images/wgl4star.gif)
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