Fat Worm Blows a Sparky


Fat Worm Blows a Sparky is a maze video game written by Julian Todd for the ZX Spectrum and published by Durell Software in 1986. Todd wrote the game in the five months before going to university. It was not ported to other systems, and it is the only published game he developed.
The player controls a microscopic worm being chased across the circuit board of a Sinclair Spectrum. With a top-down view, Fat Worm uses solid vector graphics on the ZX Spectrum.

Reception

CRASH awarded Fat Worm 95%. The reviewers were impressed with the solid 3D graphics and the quirky nature of controlling the protagonist, concluding "extremely silly, and wonderful fun". Your Sinclair, similarly impressed, awarded 9 out of 10. Julian later became critical of the gameplay, stating that kid programmers like himself had "insufficient understanding" and that at the time "it seemed logical that the players ought to suffer" as much as the developers; but that feedback from players in the form of pokes and cheats often enhanced published games to make them fun.