December 30, 2024 - Worms DCHQ Discord - Suomen Amiga-käyttäjät ry.

First, our condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Martyn Brown.

Regarding the Worms DC 1.5 custom levels, greetings from the Finnish Amiga Users Group (also known as Saku) and congratulations for all the great Worms DC level submissions. In the invite for custom levels there was a call for community group submissions, so here goes:

Our submission is a historical one, bridging our old and new Amiga user group graphics. The Finnish Amiga Users Group has been publishing Amiga magazines, organizing events and dabbling in the demoscene since 1993, always as a volunteer activity. Over the years we've hosted Petro Tyschtschenko and Michael Battilana several times as well as other usual Amiga suspects from RJ Mical to Jens Schoenfeld. If you remember the "Theme of Amiga" song (later performed by Annex), it was first played at our Saku 98 event.

Our original look was inspired by a Finnish children's rhyme of a frog with the same name as our acronym Saku. A frog in bodybuilding pose - drawn on Amiga for our Amiga disk mag in 1994 - became our logo. For twenty years our contributions had frogs on them... to the growing distaste of some of our members. So, to retire the frog, a decade ago we came up with the battered AMIGAAA! text, which became our new symbol - a little worse for wear as our beloved Amiga, but still screaming. And clearer messaging than a frog!

In our Worms DC level submission, the indefatigable worms get to clear the level of our old frog logos, and make way for AMIGAAA!, while hitting each other. Intentionally we have not added anything extraneous. The level is based on our historical and current logos - our little visual contributions to the Amiga story. We look forward to spectacular ways of people "dismantling" our old logo and of course to the Worms DC 1.5 update from Andy and the gang. Best wishes to all and a Happy New Year.

- Janne Sirén, Editor-in-Chief, Finnish Amiga Users Group (Saku)

P.S. Imagine our surprise when we later found out Japanese Amiga fans also had a frog metaphor. The word Guru resembles the Japanese interpretation of the sound that frogs make (see book The Greatest Amiga). It is a small world after all.
