Worm Wars Rules: How to Play

One phone, tablet or computer per player. Everyone plays on their own screen, in the same arena, at the same time.

You can play alone against bots, with friends in the same room, or with friends anywhere who join your room code. The arena grows as more worms join.

Before each round everyone sees the round settings. Only the host can change them; everyone else watches the picks update and can tap a powerup to read what it does.

After the settings comes a short page of instructions. The round starts once everyone is through them, with a countdown.

• Arena: small, medium or large. With more than three worms the arena grows so each worm has about the same room, and bugs and plants grow with it.
• Turning: tight, normal or wide. This sets how sharply every worm can turn.
• Bugs: few, normal or many. How many bugs are kept on the floor at once.
• Bots: with other players in the room, the host adds 0 to 6 computer worms. Playing alone, you choose 1 to 4 opponents (2 to start).
• Respawn: on or off. On, an eaten worm comes back after 5 seconds. Off, an eaten worm is out for the rest of the round.
• Music: pick the soundtrack everyone hears.
• Powerups: each special bug can be switched on or off for the round, or all at once.

1. Every worm starts the same size, spaced around a ring and pointed inward, so nobody starts aimed at anyone.
2. Your worm always moves forward. You only steer left or right.
3. Touch a bug with your head to catch it. You chew it down and grow as you chew.
4. Bump another worm and you bite a piece off it. Catch a smaller worm head to head and you swallow it whole.
5. Charge a lunge to burst forward. Every bite during the burst is four times the size.
6. Eat special bugs for powers, and keep away from bigger heads.
7. Largest worm wins: the round ends the moment one worm covers a fifth of the floor.

Your worm moves forward on its own and turns on a fixed circle, so it turns the same shape at any speed. The bigger you get, the slower you move and the wider you turn. A giant worm never stops, but it never goes slower than about a third of a starting worm’s speed.

Your view zooms out as you grow, so a big worm sees more of the arena. A minimap shows where everyone is.

The arena is a round bottle. The glass never hurts you: your head slides along it.

Your own body never hurts you either. It works like the glass: your head slides along your coils instead of passing through. You can never trap and kill yourself.

Bugs walk around the floor and turn back when they meet a wall, a plant or a worm. Touch one with your head and it is in your mouth. You chew it down over time and grow longer and fatter as you go. A bigger worm chews faster, and bigger bugs take longer.

While a bug is in your mouth, other bugs you touch are pushed aside. Finish the one you have first.

A new bug cannot be eaten for half a second after it appears. Bugs are topped up as they are eaten, so the floor never runs dry.

Plain bugs come in four sizes: small, medium, large and huge. Each is worth more than the last. Special bugs are smaller meals that give you a power when you finish eating them.

Hold the lunge to charge it. While charging, your head slows to half speed and your body bunches up behind it. You can still steer. Let go to fire: your head shoots forward at four times your speed until the bunch is paid out. The longer you charged, the farther you go, up to a full charge.

Every bite you land during the burst takes four times as much, not just the first. Catch a bug during the burst and you gulp a big mouthful of it at once.

A lunge jumps clean over your own body and over plant stems.

After a lunge you wait half a second before you can charge again. Letting go without any charge does nothing.

Touch another worm’s body with your head and you bite a piece off it. The bite is sized to you: a fat worm takes a big piece. You grow by exactly what the other worm loses.

After a bite you bounce back. A small worm biting a big one bounces farther; a big worm biting a small one barely moves. You can bite the same worm again a third of a second later, so keep chasing to eat it down.

A worm bitten down to almost nothing is eaten. Whoever ate it takes all of its remaining length and all of its points.

When two heads meet, the fatter worm catches the other’s head in its mouth and swallows the whole worm, in a second or less. The swallowed worm hangs from the mouth while it goes down, and the eater grows by all of it.

If you are the smaller worm, going for a head means you are the meal. If you are exactly the same size, you both bite each other instead.

A swallow stops if the eater dies or dives under the sand. The worm being swallowed is let go with whatever is left of it.

Plants are scattered around the floor. Their round stems are solid: you slide around them like the glass, and bugs cannot cross them. A lunge leaps over a stem. If you are wedged against a stem for half a second without getting anywhere, you are let through.

Leaves are cover. Slip under them and other players cannot see you. You can still see yourself.

Special bugs give a power the moment you finish eating them. Timed powers run for a few seconds. Eat the same kind again and its time is added on, not restarted.

• Caffeine: triple speed for 8 seconds. You chew three times as fast too.
• Frenzy: for 10 seconds your bites out of other worms take three times as much and barely bounce you off, so you can stay on them. It stacks with a lunge.
• Helmet: for 12 seconds you spark. Bump a worm and you bounce off and slow it to half speed for 4 seconds. Any worm without a helmet that touches you is zapped and dies. You cannot bite or be bitten while it lasts.
• Spikes: for 10 seconds, any worm that bites you loses half its length and bounces off, and you lose nothing. A lunge or frenzy does not make it cost more. If the bite leaves it shorter than a new worm, it dies and counts as eaten by you. A bigger head that meets yours pays the same instead of swallowing you.
• Venom: for 10 seconds your bites poison. A poisoned worm is slowed and drips length and points to you for 6 seconds after each bite. Poison can finish a worm off, and then it counts as eaten by you.
• Magnet mouth: for 10 seconds nearby bugs are pulled straight to your mouth, special bugs included.
• Shrink ray: for 10 seconds everyone else sees you at half your real size. Your real size is unchanged, so a rival who takes you head on thinking they are bigger is swallowed.
• Sand storm: for 6 seconds everyone else sees only a small circle around their own head. You see it all.
• Sticky sand: for 8 seconds you leave patches behind you. Other worms crossing them move at half speed. Your own patches do not slow you. Each patch lasts 7 seconds.
• Bug swarm: eating it scatters a burst of bugs of every kind around you, all at once.
• Fertilizer: plants near you sprout extra leaves for 25 seconds, so there is more cover to hide under.

Three bugs give an ability you keep until you choose to use it. You can hold one of each kind. Eating a second of a kind you already hold is just a meal. Stored abilities stay with you when you respawn.

• Burrow: dive under the sand for 10 seconds. Nothing can bite or swallow you, you cannot bite or eat, and nobody else can see where you are. Diving lets go of any bug in your mouth. The potato bug that gives it buries itself now and then, so catch it while it is up.
• Decoy: leave a still copy of yourself behind for 25 seconds. Anyone watching the minimap may take it for you. Any other worm that touches it pops it.
• Reverse: your head and tail swap, and you set off the other way along your own body. Handy when someone is chewing on your tail. It cancels a charge and lets go of any bug in your mouth.

Your Floor percentage shows how much of the arena floor your body covers, worked out from your length times your width. Largest worm wins: reach 20 percent, a fifth of the floor, and the round is yours on the spot.

Your score goes up with everything you eat: bugs, bites and whole worms. When you eat a worm you also take all of its points. When you are eaten you lose your points to the worm that ate you. If you are zapped by a helmet, nobody gets anything and you keep your points.

With respawn on, an eaten worm comes back after 5 seconds at starting size, in a clear spot, with its score and stored abilities but none of its timed powers. The round goes on until someone covers a fifth of the floor.

With respawn off, an eaten worm is out for the round, but the round still ends only when a worm covers a fifth of the floor: the last worms left keep eating until one gets there (or, rarely, when every worm, bots included, is out). Worms still alive rank above worms that are out, and a worm that lasted longer ranks above one that went out earlier. Ties go to the higher score.

With respawn on, the standings are by score, after any worm that covered a fifth of the floor.

Bots are computer worms. They see the same arena you do and follow the same rules.

Bots added in the round settings play at medium. Bots added to the room from the lobby play at the difficulty the host set for each one, with their own name and color.

• Easy: only notices bugs close by, never lunges for a bug, never goes after another worm, thinks slowly and steers loosely.
• Medium: sees bugs across the whole arena, lunges for them, and now and then hunts a much smaller worm nearby.
• Hard: thinks fast and aims true. Goes for caffeine and magnet bugs first, hunts the heads of smaller worms, sneaks up on bigger ones to bite their tails, and keeps clear of any bigger head near it.
• Every bot runs from a bigger head pointed at it, steers clear of helmets and spikes, and breaks off for a moment after it is bitten.

Solo: host a room and start a round on your own. You choose 1 to 4 bots to race. With respawn on you can eat and grow for as long as you like; with it off, your round is over once you are eaten.

With friends anywhere: share your room code or invite link. Everyone plays on their own phone in the same arena, wherever they are.

As a party: everyone plays on their own phone, and a TV or laptop can open joinme.games/watch with the room code to show every worm in the round side by side.

If your connection drops, the round waits 3 seconds for you, then a bot steers your worm so nobody is held up. It is yours again the moment you reconnect.

On a phone you steer with a joystick under your left thumb, and the buttons on the right do the rest.

• Steer: touch anywhere on the left of the screen and push the way you want to go. Up goes up the screen and left goes left, and the worm turns until it points that way. Lift your thumb and it keeps going straight. With a mouse, click and drag in the same place.
• Lunge button: tap LUNGE to start charging, steer with the joystick, then tap again to fire.
• Stored abilities: each one gets a button above the controls. Tap it to use it.
• Keyboard: left and right arrows or A and D turn. Space, up arrow or W charges a lunge; let go to fire. Down arrow or S uses your next stored ability and opens your mouth for a roar while held.
• Pause: P or Escape pauses the round for everyone, and anyone can resume it.

How do you play Worm Wars?

Steer your worm left and right to eat bugs and grow. Bump other worms to bite pieces off them, swallow smaller worms head to head, and charge a lunge for a burst where every bite is four times the size. Largest worm wins: the first worm to cover a fifth of the arena floor wins.

How many players can play Worm Wars?

One or more. Play alone against 1 to 4 bots, or host a room and have friends join on their own phones. The arena grows as more worms join, and the host can add up to 6 bots on top.

Can you play Worm Wars alone?

Yes. Start a round on your own and choose how many bots to race. Hard bots hunt heads and bite tails, so they are real opponents.

How do you win Worm Wars?

Largest worm wins: the first worm whose body covers a fifth of the arena floor wins the round, and your Floor percentage shows how close you are. With respawn off, an eaten worm is out, and outlasting the other worms counts toward your place.

Can you die by hitting yourself in Worm Wars?

No. Your own body is like the glass wall: you slide along it. A lunge even jumps clean over it. You only die by being eaten, poisoned, or touching a worm wearing a helmet.