Peter Molyneux, Sid Meier, Richard Garriott, Jordan Mechner, Roberta Williams, Geoff Crammond… all legends. But one person is definitely missing from that illustrious group: Wendell Hicken, the creator of Scorched Earth (1991). Released as shareware, it was played by a whole generation of gamers. Very few games had a... better multiplayer experience. To me this is a perfect example of idea and concept over graphics. It certainly didn’t look state of the art in 1991, but the gameplay was a perfect 10 out of 10.show more

Yeah, but I have to raise a "but"... The idea wasn't original, as it was already done by "Gorillas" using qbasic (1990).

I loved that game :)

This game was interesting because it made use of the floating point co-processor if one was available on the system. I first played it on a 80286 without a co-processor and then with a 80287 installed. The difference in speed was significant!

I looked up him and this is apparently the only game he ever made. That's quite the track record. Made a classic and then went "Yeah, that's good enough" Reminds me of the Boulder Dash dev. He created Boulder Dash and then switched to writing 3D software

This is a successor of Super Artillery

Ohhh, what system is that from?

Apple ][

This was played in many school computer labs in the early 90s. Usually without permission😀 Good times

Holy shit I remember this thing running on MS DOS. Funny thing is how many people are completely oblivious to Scorched Earth but it inspired such beloved series as Worms and Red Faction

He gave an interesting interview a couple decades ago: If I'd known he was just down the street at Caltech, I'd have gone and said hi, if only to thank him for the great napalm effects that delighted all of us in computer lab. He's on X, too -- tagging him so that he can bask in what I expect will be much love in the replies to your post. @whicken

Did this inspire worms?

Yes, the devs did say so if I recall correctly.

My parrot learned all the weapons 😊

The hours I spent playing Scorch with my friends...

That one was sooooooo funy back in da days! 😃

We outlawed the thermo nuke in our family, it slowed our pc too much to complete quickly lol

🔥🔥

It was small and fast enough to run on almost every school computer around the world. 😬

Scorched Earth is the Father of all games !! Or something like this xD. Wendell did a superb game. Still playing it. Btw, simultaneous mode doesn't work on emulators due a some bizarre use case

I still have that somewhere lost on an old HDD... now I feel nostalgic and will need to get it back up.

Best game and later worms to play with friends back in the 90s truly multiplayer experience

I think Worms was inspired by Scorched Earth.

More than inspared I'm saying this before Google it but I'm sure some SE Devs or company etc . It's the evolution. In scorched you almost cannot move only very short distances and equipping a batery. Worms added movement rope jump and more , is his son

Death Head + Mirv = THE ONLY WAY

This is a great game with the images quality of power point 1995

Me acuerdo que modificabamos las líneas de texto de las respuestas de los tanques cuando morían. Auténticas barbaridades poníamos.

SE and its successor Worms will always be a blast. Pun intended.

Still the best multiplayer game I ever played, honestly. In term of fun nothing compares.

@ultimadragons You can still buy a complete version of that directly from the creator :

They had an actual game. The new versions suck. The plagiarized hack-it version of 'tanks' now available in browser and on app are worth of cause to disregard technology and those who continue to study the topic.

The roller was always my favorite :)

This is sort of like GORILLA.BAS v2. We used to play and hack the shit out of that in the school computer lab!

Absolutely, fond memories of playing this with my brother

For young people who don't speak English, like my friends and me, this game was always just “The Scorch,” because of the executable file scorch.exe. The same goes for “The Starcon,” instead of Star Control. How many hours playing these games... I miss those long afternoons :)

I will always remember Scorched Earth as the only game with a dedicated keyboard binding that put up a "NO KIBITZING!" sign on the screen for when you were trying to aim and other players kept interrupting you. Of course, Scorched Earth only had local multiplayer back then.

and jeff minter, llamasoft

It was state is the art to me