Small Worm

SmallWorm 1.4 is a classic worm/snake arcade game for the Macintosh by Lauri Heikkila, released in the mid-1990s. Two ever-growing worms slither around the playfield trying to force each other to crash into a wall, the opponent, or their own tail. It is small, simple, and - by the author's own admission - very addictive.

Gameplay

Each worm leaves a trail behind it as it moves. The player steers with the arrow keys, trying to box the opponent in while leaving room to maneuver themselves. Dots scattered around the board slow the opposing worm when collected, adding a light tactical layer to an otherwise pure reflex contest.

One Or Two Players

SmallWorm supports either two humans sharing the keyboard or a single human against the built-in AI opponent. Version 1.4 introduced a notably better computer opponent over the 1.3 release, making solo practice viable rather than a foregone conclusion.

System Requirements

The game is intentionally tiny: any Macintosh, any display, 50 KB of free memory, and 15 KB of hard drive space. That makes it a natural fit for compact Macs, PowerBooks, and any other constrained classic system that can still mount a floppy.

Author

SmallWorm was written by Lauri Heikkila (laurih@sci.fi), with a project page at sci.fi/~laurih/smallworm during the game's active distribution years on Info-Mac.