Liero
Encyclopedia
Liero is a computer game for DOS
, first released by Finnish
programmer Joosa Riekkinen in 1998. The game has been described as a real-time
version of Worms. It has many weapons and sounds from its precursor, MoleZ. 'Liero' is Finnish
for earthworm
and is pronounced liero. Later on, this game provided inspiration for the game Soldat
.
s) 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 him closer to his foe.
While playing, there are health power-ups to heal your worm. It is also possible to replace one of your five weapons by picking up bonuses. Before playing, you can select certain weapons to be available only in bonuses, in the entire game, or completely disable them.
Unlike most side-scrolling deathmatch games, the weapons in Liero have infinite ammo. Key factors include the reload rate of each weapon and how fast they shoot, whereas in most others include how much ammo a gun sports and how frequent more ammo for that gun can be found. Liero depends all on timing and swift maneuverability.
The gameplay mode can be deathmatch
, Game of Tag or Capture the Flag. It can be played by two human players simultaneously in split screen
or in a single player mode against the game's artificial intelligence
, although the game's popularity is derived mostly from the fast-paced player vs. player action it provides.
source code
in a hard disk
crash, and due to the lack of backup, no new "classic" versions have been released since. Despite this, and with the author's approval, the Liero community has distributed several altered (or hacked) versions of the game through the LieroCDC, and others. In 2009, "classic" Liero was officially merged with the OpenLiero project upon the release of Liero 1.34 (not to be confused with the total conversion by that name). The new versions are released by Gliptic, although Joosa Riekkinen endorses them as official.
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 and sound 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.
shooter game
. It is an unofficial sequel to Liero, and is the most popular of all the Liero clones. It features online play, fully customizable weapons, levels and characters. Liero Xtreme was created in C++
by Jason 'JasonB' Boettcher, an Australia
n programmer. With its source release on April 10, 2006, a new project has become available on October 24, 2006, known as OpenLieroX, while the development of the original LieroX project has stopped. At the time of writing (May 6, 2009), OpenLieroX has tripled in code size and has many new features.
The game is based on a deathmatch
setting, where multiple players face off in a closed level
. Each player is equipped with five weapons selected out of all the weapons allowed, and with a ninja 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, the last man standing
is usually considered the winner. Liero Xtreme also allows team deathmatches, which has made it common for players to form clans
. OpenLieroX runs on Windows, on MacOSX, on Linux and on FreeBSD.
The first release announcement of Liero Extreme was made on October 14, 2002. LieroX has become very famous over the time. On February 14, 2006, Jason Boettcher stopped the LieroX 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 the source code
of the even older version 0.55b under the zlib license
. Development of LieroXtreme is now in hands of Karel Petranek and Albert Zeyer, used the source code to create OpenLieroX, which is compatible with the popular 0.56b version, but has multiple new features and bugfixes. Michał Futer took care of the new frontend. Currently the majority of players play OpenLieroX.
As a customizable game, it allows players and developers to script
their own mods
. Different mods have different sets of unique weapons, and may also differ in player gravity and movement. The default mod is Liero 1.0, also called Classic, which is roughly equal to the basic setting in original Liero. 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 to Liero, the default level is Dirt 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
for NiL Isn't Liero) is a clone of Liero, which runs on Linux
and Windows
and is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License
. NiL is not like Liero, limited to two players as it has support for an infinite number of players over a TCP
network. It was met with considerable enthusiasm in the Linux gaming community.
The project was initiated by Flemming Frandsen in winter 1999
after he had stumbled across Liero, which he liked so much that he decided to reimplement it under Linux. He abandoned the project however five months later due to being too busy for it. NiL was then dead until the beginning of 2004
when the current maintainer of NiL, Christoph Brill, found out about the project and took over. Thereafter Daniel Schneidereit joined the project as well, but soon left. Other contributors included Nils Thuerey, Harri Liusvaara, David Hewitt and Phil Howlett.
Development however proceeded slowly as the project's source code
became almost unmaintainable and NiL was lacking developers. By mid-2005 Alexander Kahl joined development, convinced Christoph to start over and re-think the whole concept of NiL, as the other Liero clone Gusanos already existed at that time. Development seems to have stopped around mid 2006.
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
, first released by Finnish
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
programmer Joosa Riekkinen in 1998. The game has been described as a real-time
Real-time computer graphics
Real-time computer graphics is the subfield of computer graphics focused on producing and analyzing images in real time. The term is most often used in reference to interactive 3D computer graphics, typically using a GPU, with video games the most noticeable users...
version of Worms. It has many weapons and sounds from its precursor, MoleZ. 'Liero' is Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
for earthworm
Earthworm
Earthworm is the common name for the largest members of Oligochaeta in the phylum Annelida. In classical systems they were placed in the order Opisthopora, on the basis of the male pores opening posterior to the female pores, even though the internal male segments are anterior to the female...
and is pronounced liero. Later on, this game provided inspiration for the game Soldat
Soldat
Soldat is a Polish 2D multiplayer game for Windows. It is a side-scroller inspired by Liero and Scorched Earth, combined with elements from Counter-Strike and Worms. The game is shareware...
.
Gameplay
In Liero, two worms fight each other to death for score (or fragFrag (video gaming)
Frag is a computer and video game term originating from the word fragging, a term indicating to kill an unpopular superior officer with a fragmentation grenade. A frag is roughly equivalent to "kill", with the typical main difference that the player being "fragged" can instantly respawn in most...
s) 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 him closer to his foe.
While playing, there are health power-ups to heal your worm. It is also possible to replace one of your five weapons by picking up bonuses. Before playing, you can select certain weapons to be available only in bonuses, in the entire game, or completely disable them.
Unlike most side-scrolling deathmatch games, the weapons in Liero have infinite ammo. Key factors include the reload rate of each weapon and how fast they shoot, whereas in most others include how much ammo a gun sports and how frequent more ammo for that gun can be found. Liero depends all on timing and swift maneuverability.
The gameplay mode can be deathmatch
Deathmatch (gaming)
Deathmatch or Player vs All is a widely-used gameplay mode integrated into many shooter and real-time strategy computer games...
, Game of Tag or Capture the Flag. It can be played by two human players simultaneously in split screen
Split screen (computer graphics)
Split screen is a display technique in computer graphics that consists of dividing graphics and/or text into non-movable adjacent parts, typically two or four rectangular areas. This is done in order to allow the simultaneous presentation of related graphical and textual information on a computer...
or in a single player mode against the game's artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
, although the game's popularity is derived mostly from the fast-paced player vs. player action it provides.
Modification
Liero's last release was version 1.33, released in 1999. However, the author lost the PascalPascal (programming language)
Pascal is an influential imperative and procedural programming language, designed in 1968/9 and published in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth as a small and efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming and data structuring.A derivative known as Object Pascal...
source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
in a hard disk
Hard disk
A hard disk drive is a non-volatile, random access digital magnetic data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the...
crash, and due to the lack of backup, no new "classic" versions have been released since. Despite this, and with the author's approval, the Liero community has distributed several altered (or hacked) versions of the game through the LieroCDC, and others. In 2009, "classic" Liero was officially merged with the OpenLiero project upon the release of Liero 1.34 (not to be confused with the total conversion by that name). The new versions are released by Gliptic, although Joosa Riekkinen endorses them as official.
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 and sound 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.
Liero Xtreme
Liero Xtreme (often called LieroX, Liero Extreme or just LX) is a 2D2D computer graphics
2D computer graphics is the computer-based generation of digital images—mostly from two-dimensional models and by techniques specific to them...
shooter game
Shooter game
Shooter games are a sub-genre of action game, which often test the player's speed and reaction time. It includes many subgenres that have the commonality of focusing "on the actions of the avatar using some sort of weapon. Usually this weapon is a gun, or some other long-range weapon". A common...
. It is an unofficial sequel to Liero, and is the most popular of all the Liero clones. It features online play, fully customizable weapons, levels and characters. Liero Xtreme was created in C++
C++
C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...
by Jason 'JasonB' Boettcher, an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n programmer. With its source release on April 10, 2006, a new project has become available on October 24, 2006, known as OpenLieroX, while the development of the original LieroX project has stopped. At the time of writing (May 6, 2009), OpenLieroX has tripled in code size and has many new features.
The game is based on a deathmatch
Deathmatch (gaming)
Deathmatch or Player vs All is a widely-used gameplay mode integrated into many shooter and real-time strategy computer games...
setting, where multiple players face off in a closed level
Level (computer and video games)
A level, map, area, or world in a video game is the total space available to the player during the course of completing a discrete objective...
. Each player is equipped with five weapons selected out of all the weapons allowed, and with a ninja 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, the last man standing
Last man standing (gaming)
Last man standing is a multiplayer deathmatch gameplay mode featured in the majority of the more recent first-person shooter computer games...
is usually considered the winner. Liero Xtreme also allows team deathmatches, which has made it common for players to form clans
Clan (computer gaming)
In computer and video gaming, a clan or guild is an organised group of players that regularly play together in a particular multiplayer games. These games range from groups of a few friends to 1000-person organizations, with a broad range of structures, goals and members. The lifespan of a clan...
. OpenLieroX runs on Windows, on MacOSX, on Linux and on FreeBSD.
The first release announcement of Liero Extreme was made on October 14, 2002. LieroX has become very famous over the time. On February 14, 2006, Jason Boettcher stopped the LieroX 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 the source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
of the even older version 0.55b under the zlib license
Zlib License
The zlib License is a permissive free software license which defines the terms under which the zlib and libpng software libraries can be distributed. It is also used by other free software packages....
. Development of LieroXtreme is now in hands of Karel Petranek and Albert Zeyer, used the source code to create OpenLieroX, which is compatible with the popular 0.56b version, but has multiple new features and bugfixes. Michał Futer took care of the new frontend. Currently the majority of players play OpenLieroX.
As a customizable game, it allows players and developers to script
Scripting language
A scripting language, script language, or extension language is a programming language that allows control of one or more applications. "Scripts" are distinct from the core code of the application, as they are usually written in a different language and are often created or at least modified by the...
their own mods
Mod (computer gaming)
Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games , especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and...
. Different mods have different sets of unique weapons, and may also differ in player gravity and movement. The default mod is Liero 1.0, also called Classic, which is roughly equal to the basic setting in original Liero. 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 to Liero, the default level is Dirt 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
A recursive acronym is an acronym or initialism that refers to itself in the expression for which it stands...
for NiL Isn't Liero) is a clone of Liero, which runs on Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
and Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
and is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
. NiL is not like Liero, limited to two players as it has support for an infinite number of players over a TCP
Transmission Control Protocol
The Transmission Control Protocol is one of the core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. TCP is one of the two original components of the suite, complementing the Internet Protocol , and therefore the entire suite is commonly referred to as TCP/IP...
network. It was met with considerable enthusiasm in the Linux gaming community.
The project was initiated by Flemming Frandsen in winter 1999
1999 in video gaming
-Events:*British Academy of Film and Television Arts hosts the 2nd annual BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards*March – Game Over republished as “Game Over: Press Start to Continue”...
after he had stumbled across Liero, which he liked so much that he decided to reimplement it under Linux. He abandoned the project however five months later due to being too busy for it. NiL was then dead until the beginning of 2004
2004 in video gaming
-Events:*January 20 — Wireds Vaporware Awards gives its first "Lifetime Achievement Award" to recurring winner Duke Nukem Forever.*March 4 — Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences hosts 7th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards; inducts Peter Molyneux into the AIAS Hall of Fame*March 22-26 — Game...
when the current maintainer of NiL, Christoph Brill, found out about the project and took over. Thereafter Daniel Schneidereit joined the project as well, but soon left. Other contributors included Nils Thuerey, Harri Liusvaara, David Hewitt and Phil Howlett.
Development however proceeded slowly as the project's source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
became almost unmaintainable and NiL was lacking developers. By mid-2005 Alexander Kahl joined development, convinced Christoph to start over and re-think the whole concept of NiL, as the other Liero clone Gusanos already existed at that time. Development seems to have stopped around mid 2006.