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| Original author(s) | Joosa Riekkinen |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Erik Lindroos and community |
| Initial release | January 1, 1998; 27 years ago (1998-01-01) |
| Stable release | 1.33 / 1 January 1999; 26 years ago (1999-01-01) |
| Preview release | 1.36 / 5 March 2016; 9 years ago (2016-03-05) |
| Platform | Crossplatform (originallyMS-DOS) |
| Type | Single-player/multiplayeraction game |
| License | WTFPL |
| Website | www |
Liero is avideo game forMS-DOS, first released byFinnish programmer Joosa Riekkinen in 1998. The game has been described as areal-time version ofWorms (a turn-basedartillery game).[1]Liero[ˈlie̯ro] isFinnish for 'earthworm'. Inspired itself by the earlier gameMoleZ,[2]Liero provided inspiration for the later gamesSoldat andNoita.[3][4]
InLiero, two worms fight each other to death for score (orfrags) using a choice of five weapons from a total of 40 in a two-dimensional map. Most of the terrain, except for indestructible rocks, may be dug or destroyed by explosions. In addition to the weaponry, each player has a ninja rope which can be used to move faster through the map. This grappling hook-like device substitutes for jetpacks and can even latch onto the enemy worm to drag them closer to their foe.
While playing, there are health power-ups to heal the player's worm. It is also possible to replace one of the five weapons by picking up bonuses. Before playing, certain weapons can be selected to be available only in bonuses, in the entire game, or completely disabled.
Unlike most side-scrolling deathmatch games, the weapons inLiero have infinite ammo. Key factors of weapons include their reload rate and how fast they shoot, whereas in most other games of this type, key factors of weapons include how much ammo they sport and how frequently more ammo for that weapon can be found.Liero depends all on timing and swift maneuverability.
The gameplay mode can bedeathmatch, Game of Tag orCapture the Flag. It can be played by two human players simultaneously insplit screen or in a single player mode against the game'sartificial intelligence, although the game's popularity is derived mostly from the fast-paced player-vs.-player action it provides.
Joosa Riekkinen developedLiero as DOS game with the first version released in 1998.Liero was inspired by the previousfreeware game MoleZ, and took many weapons and sounds from its precursor.[2] The originalLiero's latest version was 1.33, which was released in 1999.[5][6] However, the author lost thePascalsource code in ahard disk crash, and due to the lack of backup, no new "classic" versions have been released since.[5]
Despite this, and with the author's approval, theLiero community has distributed several altered (orhacked) versions of the game through the LieroCDC, and others.[7]
In 2009, "classic"Liero was officially merged[8] with the OpenLiero project upon the release ofLiero 1.34 (not to be confused with thetotal conversion by that name). The new versions are released by Gliptic, although Joosa Riekkinen endorses them as official. The originalLiero data and binary files by Riekkinen were released available under theWTFPLlicense.[9]
Liero's last release was version 1.36, release September 3, 2013.[10] This version is compatible with almost any OS but lacks network gaming (unlike some of the remakes).
Liero Xtreme (often calledLieroX,Liero Extreme or justLX) is a2Dshooter game. It is an unofficial sequel toLiero, and is the most popular of all theLiero clones.[11][12][13][14][15] It featuresonline play, fully customizable weapons, levels and characters.Liero Xtreme was created inC++ by Jason 'JasonB' Boettcher, an Australian programmer.[12] With its source release on April 10, 2006, a new project has become available on October 24, 2006, known asOpenLieroX,[12] while the development of the originalLieroX project has stopped. At the time of writing (May 6, 2009),OpenLieroX has tripled in code size[16] and has many new features.[11][17][18]
The game is based on adeathmatch setting, where multiple players face off in a closedlevel. Each player is equipped with five weapons selected out of all the weapons allowed, and with aninja rope that allows the player to move in any direction. Players begin with a set amount of lives, and whilst the game records the number of kills, thelast man standing is usually considered the winner.Liero Xtreme also allows team deathmatches, which has made it common for players to formclans.OpenLieroX runs on Windows, on MacOSX, on Linux and on FreeBSD.
The first release announcement ofLiero Extreme was made on October 14, 2002.[19]LieroX has become very famous over the time. On February 14, 2006,Jason Boettcher stopped theLieroX development for good. The last version he released was 0.62b, which had many new features, but suffered from crashes and various errors, and did not catch on within the community which continues to play the 0.56b version. Before leaving the community, he released thesource code of the even older version 0.55b under thezlib license.[20][21] Development ofLieroXtreme is now in hands of Karel Petranek and Albert Zeyer, used the source code to createOpenLieroX, which is compatible with the popular 0.56b version, but has multiple new features and bugfixes.[22] Michał Futer took care of the new frontend. Currently the majority of players playOpenLieroX.
As a customizable game, it allows players and developers toscript their ownmods. Different mods have different sets of unique weapons, and may also differ in player gravity and movement. The default mod isLiero 1.0, also calledClassic, which is roughly equal to the basic setting in originalLiero. On top of this, several player-created mods are included in the standard game packs, some of which are more popular than the default setting. Similarly toLiero, the default level isDirt Level, consisting of diggable terrain with some indestructible rock. The default level is comparatively rarely played compared to more complex player-created levels.
The game interface allow players to modify factors of the game such as which weapons in a mod are allowed, and how fast they reload and many other parameters which have huge impact on the game play.
NiL (recursive acronym forNiL Isn't Liero) is aclone ofLiero, which runs onLinux andWindows and is released under the terms of theGNU General Public License.NiL is not limited to two players, like the originalLiero is. It doesn't limit the number of players over aTCP network. It was met with considerable enthusiasm in the Linux gaming community.[23]
The project was initiated by Flemming Frandsen in winter1999 after he had stumbled acrossLiero, which he liked so much that he decided to reimplement it under Linux. He abandoned the project five months later, due to being too busy for it.NiL was dead until the beginning of2004 when Christoph Brill, found out about the project and took over as maintainer. Thereafter Daniel Schneidereit joined the project as well, but soon left. Other contributors included Nils Thuerey, Harri Liusvaara, David Hewitt and Phil Howlett.
Development proceeded slowly as the project'ssource code became almost unmaintainable andNiL was lacking developers. By mid-2005 Alexander Kahl joined development, convinced Christoph to start over and re-think the whole concept ofNiL, as the otherLiero cloneGusanos already existed at that time. Development seems to have stopped around mid-2006.[citation needed]
OpenLieroX is a remake of classicLiero, built from scratch in a new engine. It adds many features to the game, such as modding support, custom sprites, maps, and weapons, and online and lan play. The game also supports more than two players at once.
Classic-likeLiero clone in web browser with multiplayer capability.[24]
Liero is a versatile game in terms of modification. All of its 40 weapons can be completely replaced with new ones that can be given different images andsound effects from the original set. The images of the worms themselves can be transformed into completely different characters, although their movement animations are less flexible regarding modification. The maps can be given permanent terrain other than rocks alone. Destroyable terrain can also be colored more than simply plain dirt. The AI can be modified to be harder or easier. Nearly the whole game can be converted into something entirely different, except for the main aspect having to do with slaughtering another player/AI.
In 2006Liero received a TopDog award fromHome of the Underdogs.[1]OpenLieroX has been positively reviewed by multiple gaming news sites.[11][12][15][25][26] In 2013Derek Yu's webpageTIGSource reviewedLiero v1.36 favorably.[10]
TheLiero variantsNiL,Gusanos, andOpenLieroX were downloaded multiple hundred thousand times fromSourceForge alone between 2001 and 2016.[27][28][29]
CallingLiero a "masterpiece",Liero was selected for a collection of 100 classic Finnish games, which were presented on the opening of theFinnish Museum of Games inTampere in 2017.[30]
'Strike of the Dragon' had platformer tile-based maps and when I conceived Soldat in my mind I knew I wanted to make something like Liero.