the worm-aments

the worm-aments
by scott logie, staff worm

If you have never played Worms before, it is best to warn you about what you are getting into. Recreational play is greatly discouraged. Kill or be killed really. (We 95ers have learned to take this stupid game pretty seriously.) I would have to say that I am somewhat of an authority on this one. After all, I am the person (hated by millions) responsible for the Summer '96 Worm-aments, a series of tournaments for the game Worms.

What is Worms? Worms is a silly (and rather destructive) little game that was floating around the WWW and caught our interest. Four worms duking it out with heavy artillery...maybe a little disturbing but entertaining nonetheless. With a few hours to kill between Math 232 and one's carpool departure, I think you may be surprised at how good you become at such a game. The convenient thing was that many of the other ENSC-95ers were in the same boat as I: having some time to kill until their bus or carpool was ready to leave and nothing to occupy their time.

So with a number of people with time on their hands, and this newly-developed common interest, the Worm-aments were born: a series of six tournaments with an (often debated) point scheme and ranking system. And every second Friday (so that the anticipation would have time to build) a number of 95ers would take part in these grand events, battles of attrition, and be occupied and entertained for a few hours. (What is that saying about simple minds and simple pleasures?) The scariest thing to me is the turnout that they got. Every week there would be no fewer than twelve players, different combinations of the 19 total players who gave the game a try. Sadly enough, that is better turnout than some organized student events have received in the past!

And after all 6 tournaments, Darren Wright took the top spot in the points department with 36. The entire field finished as follows:

        RANK    NAME             POINTS
          1     Darren Wright        36
          2     Scott Logie          34
          3     Steve Wong           32
          4     Tom Weir             28
          5     Kris Sigurdson       26
          6     Matt Stewart         23
          7     Tim Norman           17
          8     Randy Cho            17
          9     Tom Ip               14
         10     Carmel Cinco         13
         11     Jag Dhaliwal         12
         12**   Bill England         11
         13     Connie Su             8 
         14     Wai Kia Li            7
         15     Kenny Cheung          5
         16     Taro Umezawa          5
         17     Ali Solehdin          3
         18     Iris Lin              2
         19     Kiyoshi Kuroiwa       1

        10 points - Tournament Winner
        7 points - Consolation Round Winner
        1 point - Participating
        ** - not in Engineering Science

But the most points out of six Worm-aments somehow didn't justify the overall victory. And it was decided (before the 6th Worm-ament) that there would be one final event, just after CMPT 105 and CHEM 115 final exams, for only the top eight players. With the absence of Randy Cho, Tom Ip was allowed to step in to fill the eighth position. And as the clock struck six, the games were underway. Best 3 of 5, with a best 4 of 7 final. After a pizza intermission at about 10:00, the finals began:


                GOLD MEDAL MATCH:

        (2) Scott Logie vs. (8) Tom Ip 

        BRONZE MEDAL MATCH:

        (5) Kris Sigurdson vs. (6) Matt Stewart

At 11:30pm, the games were completed and the final standings in the Grande Finale event were:


                RANK NAME
        Gold    1       Scott Logie
        Silver  2       Tom Ip 
        Bronze  3       Matt Stewart
	        4       Kris Sigurdson 
	        T5      Tom Weir
	        T5      Darren Wright
	        T5      Tim Norman
	        8       Steve Wong

I can imagine that for someone who wasn't a part of them, the Worm-aments probably made the ENSC-95ers look pretty bad...or did they? I mean, the 95ers showed initiative in setting up a tournament format for a game that everyone enjoyed playing, drew droves of people to play and watch, and had some pretty phenomenal spirit about the whole thing. As far as bringing the group together, I think that the Worm-aments allowed everyone to get to know each other a lot better than the ENSC 125 lab atmosphere had allowed earlier in the year. Hopefully the same system can be re-instituted again sometime, if not for Worms than for something else, because there is as much to be gained from ingesting a little fun as from any other aspect of university life.