Making a board game based on a video game is no easy task, particularly when that video game is focused on physics and kinetic weaponry. At first glance, you might assume Worms: The Board Game is a dexterity game – that is, a game about flicking or flinging projectiles at the opponent. This is not the case. Worms: The Board Game does focus the experience on chaos and unintended consequence, but it arrives at this destination through heaps of random chance. This is Worms if your carefully aligned bazooka shot was at the whim of a fistful of dice and a prayer.
I think designers Jack Caeser and Matt Gilbert deserve some credit. Attempting to capture the physics engine at the heart of the Worms video game series would be a nearly impossible task. Instead, this duo decided to emulate the environment and energy at the heart of the game. The core tenet of Worms is Murphy’s Law, and the turmoil of unexpected outcomes is a prominent feature in this board game.
The Worms board game uses a straightforward system. Up to four players each control their own team of four worms. Over roughly 45 minutes, you will battle to the death, blowing each other and the battlefield itself apart. Once a player’s entire team of worms has been eliminated, the game ends, and the person with the most worms remaining is the winner. So it’s a fight to the death, but one where pink fleshy nightcrawlers wield bazookas, uzis, and cluster bombs. The video game is hilarious, and this tabletop adaptation includes a dose of humor as well.
The ruleset is easy to understand, even for board game beginners. On your turn, you choose one of your worms to activate, move it up to two times, and then play a weapon card from your hand to unleash hell on your fellow invertebrates. The complexity is contained in the weapon cards themselves. Bazookas blast entire hexes and cause mass damage. Machine guns harm only a single target. More exotic weapons are plucked from crates that litter the board and feature highlights from the video game series such as the banana bomb and holy hand grenade. There are dozens of items with various capabilities and strengths. The large variety here is core to the experience as the weaponry births the chaos and personality of the design. It’s also where the board game both fantastically captures and wildly diverges from the spirit of the video games.
This is Worms if your carefully aligned bazooka shot was represented by a fistful of dice and a prayer.
The majority of weapons require you to toss dice. These are chunky 12-siders that map to the various edges of your target hex. For instance, if you roll a one your shot scatters north of your intended location and hits whatever is in the hex above it. Three of the die-faces show direct hits, meaning your shot doesn’t scatter and instead lands where intended. The closer you are to your target, the more dice you typically roll, allowing you to choose the best option for your intended consequence. It’s relatively simple and slick. The best part is the wind.
Wind faces one of the hex-side directions and will randomly change throughout the game. Three of the 12 faces on the target dice show a wind result, which means the shot scatters in the direction the wind is blowing. It’s such a key feature of the Worms video game that it had to be represented here. What’s marvelous is that it encourages a targeting strategy on the table top that’s similar to what’s employed in the electronic version. This is reflected in better overall odds by aiming upwind of your target and hoping your shot blows just shy of where you’re aiming. It’s a clever little inflection that results in meaningful gameplay with minimal rules overhead.
Another humorous quality is that the scatter dice are not only used for targeting weapons. When worms are hit with blast effects from explosions, the worms themselves scatter into nearby spaces. Sometimes this can throw you into a safe patch of dirt, other times it tosses you onto a mine and creates a hellish chain reaction. This is when the game is at its best.
In addition to worms, there are various objects littering the battlefield. Crates of course to dispense the implements of justice, but also mines and barrels. Mines have a 50% chance to explode when you enter the hex. They’re another tool of carnage that can be set off unintentionally. Barrels are grand. When they blow, they spit fire into surrounding spaces. This can hurt other worms, but it can also set off other barrels or mines. It’s not hard to envision a scenario where you fire a bazooka and nail your target which causes a worm to fling onto a nearby hex and set off a mine that also blows up a barrel. I’ve had plays of this game where I’ve lost half my team before I even got a turn due to these unexpected chain reactions.
This chaos also introduces the possibility of harming yourself. Your cluster bomb could scatter backwards, landing on your own space and blowing your worm off the board and into a deadly water hex. The most memorable moments feature these dramatic resolutions, with players holding their breath as handfuls of dice are dropped to the table and violence reverberates. It can be splendid.
It also can be somewhat uneventful. Occasionally, multiple spouts of flame scatter into water and no one is harmed. Sometimes your shot misses altogether and lands into an empty hex. It’s even possible you run low on weapon cards and have nothing terribly useful. A game with high variance can result in such situations of non-event.
Barrels are grand. When they blow, they spit fire into surrounding spaces.
This unpredictability is a large aspect of the game. It’s also a key component in avoiding any sense of malice. The light tone inherent to the property means you’ll generally laugh – rather than get angry – when bad luck runs your way. The stakes feel extraordinarily low, which is fun, but can also be a problem. So much nonsense occurs that it’s difficult to be totally committed. The experience is somewhat hollow, resulting in a game that serves as filler to something more meaningful at game night.
Those beautiful moments of anarchy butt right up against that ceiling. They aren’t frequent enough to truly tip the scales, instead, punctuating play occasionally and teasing some chuckles from the group. The result is a perfectly serviceable mass market game that manages to capture some of the Worms experience. But it’s also unfortunately forgettable, edged out by stronger competitors with either richer and more evolving gameplay, or an extended amount of content to keep players’ interest. It offers exceptional components with high quality plastic worms, crates, mines, and barrels that would be lovely to paint. Everything is crisp and the graphic design, while garish, fits the Worms aesthetic well.
Worms: The Board Game is enjoyable and certainly offers fun, but it never manages to push through and actually achieve a sense of greatness. It’s sure enough to please most players, but it fails to leave a lasting impression. It’s less the game to repeatedly explore, and more the one someone sees on your shelf only to ask, “There’s a Worms board game? Does it involve flicking?”
