Andy Davidson (game designer)

Andy Davidson is the creator of the original Worms computer game by Team17, the company who also released Alien Breed and Alien Breed 2, Assassin, Project-X, Superfrog and Body Blows.

The game "Worms" is based on the 2D classic "Artillery", and originally did not feature worms, but the "Lemmings" from the popular game of the same name. Andy was working on a program called "Jack the Ripper" for the Amiga personal computer, which allowed him to trawl the residual contents of RAM after applications had been run and quit. In this way, he "ripped" the graphics from Lemmings, and used them while developing his version of "Artillery". The original name of the game was Lemartillery, and it was created purely as a bit of fun for him and his school friends in 1993. The positive reaction he witnessed encouraged him to develop it further. Knowing he could never commercially release the "Lemmings" characters, he changed them for worms and changed the name of the game to Total Wormage.

Andy entered the game into a publishing competition run by popular magazine Amiga Format but was unsuccessful. Undeterred, Andy took his then incomplete game to the European Computer Trade Show in London in September, 1994, where he introduced it to Team17 Producer Martyn Brown who offered to help develop and publish it.

Andy, often described by his co-workers as 'a bit mad' left Team17 after (or around) the release of Worms Armageddon, and told fans that he was working on a new, 3D game unrelated to the Worms series (although supposedly containing many Worms references and in-jokes), but this has not yet materialised.

On April 5th, 2007, Andy opened an "ibar" in Bournemouth, Dorset. Further details can be found at the bar's website. On April 2nd, 2012, Team17 announced that Andy had returned to the company.