Players: 3-5
Playing Time: 15-20 minutes
This game was originally released by Gryphon Games in 2008, then rereleased in 2010. This review has likewise been updated for the new edition.
The Components
Worm Up! comes in a small box with a handful of components.
Worms: Each worm is made up of 7 wooden half-spheres painted in a player color (yellow, green, red, cyan, or pink). They look cute on the table, and you can of course position them however you want.
Die: Each player also gets a huge wooden die in his color, numbered with a 4-7 and an X. It's actually used to select numbers, not to roll.
The Race Course. You can set out the course however you want. It consists of four posts, which are large black cylinders, and one finish line, which is a glossy bit of cardboard which lies between two of the cylinders.
Overall, the components of Worm Up! are cute, evocative, and good quality. I've given them a "4" out of "5" for Style: very nice.
The Gameplay
The object of Worm Up! is to get your worm across the finish line first.
Setup: The start and finish posts are put about two feet from each other. The finish line is placed between the finish posts. All of the worms are placed behind the start posts. Each worm consists of seven segments which are placed touching each other in a line.
Each player also takes a bidding die.
Bid!: Each turn begins with a bid. Each player sets its die to one of its faces and places it in front of him, hidden by his hand, then they're all revealed simultaneously. Any players who bid the same number as someone else don't get to do anything; only the players who bid a value that no one else did get to move.
Movement: Movement (for those who get to) is done in numerical order from 4 to 7. When a player moves, he moves that number of segments forward, taking each segment from the end of his worm and putting it on the front.
Worms do not have to move straight. They can veer back and forth to block other worms behind them (and probably will).
The X. The X is a special bid. You get to turn it to any number that no one else picked and go at the appropriate time. In addition, after you move you can also move the finish line by putting your finger on one of the goal posts, then rotating the other around it.
Starting the Next Round: There's one slight catch to the bidding: if you were able to successfully move on a turn (e.g., no one else picked the same number) then you cannot use the same number on the next round.
Ending the Race: The race ends as soon as one worm touches the finish line (or else the finish line touches him).
Relationships to Other Games
Alex Randolph was one of the earliest professional game designers, publishing over a hundred games during his lifetime, most of them in the 1970s and later. His best known works are probably TwixT, Enchanted Forest, and Inkognito. His games generally foreshadowed the later German game movement with their emphasis on stout strategic mechanics. Worm Up! was one of Randolph's later publications, from the 1990s. It's usually been themed as a worm race, but it was also released as Blazing Camels, a game of racing caravans.
Mechanically, Worm Up! is a blind-bidding racing game (and a pretty simple example of the genre).
This is Gryphon Games' second edition of Worm Up! The previous one used bidding tiles instead of bidding dice. (I'm not entirely won over by the change, as it was easier to see what players couldn't bid when tiles were being used.)
The Game Design
Worm Up! is an entirely light, largely random game. The second guessing of which bid to make doesn't necessarily have a lot of depth to it, and as a result a lot of how well you do comes down to luck.
With that said, it's a fun light game. The tactics of cutting other people off as you race are very amusing, while revealing your die and seeing if you get to move at all is very exciting. Even the theming of a worm race seems to be quite successful with many players.
On the whole I'd give Worm Up! a "4"" out of "5" for Substance. It's a nice filler and it's also a very good game for families and to play with children, as it'll be amusing to adults, but kids will have a fair chance to win it.
Conclusion
It's great to see another of Alex Randolph's little novelties back in print. This one is light, amusing, and generally fun to play, though it doesn't have much in the way of depth. It'll be best appreciated by families.
