Phil the Conquistadork | Earthworms | Review | Detectives, Tentacles, and Questionable Translations @ElConquistadork | Uploaded May 2018 | Updated October 2024, 7 hours ago.
Disclosure: This video is based on complimentary code that I received from the publisher.
Developed by All Those Moments and published by Ultimate Games S.A. on February 23rd, 2018, Earthworms actually resembles the weird horror of adventure titles like Shadow Of The Comet more than anything else. There’s a classic sci-fi theme of robots, dimensional travel, and tentacles at play throughout the gameplay, and the storyline itself is so weird that it might be worth playing based on that alone.
You play as Daniel White, your classic fedora and trenchcoat wearing gumshoe (who is inexplicably Buddhist for some reason), as you investigate a small town and its bizarre inhabitants. The interface is standard point and click, and I found its puzzle solving a satisfying flashback to the adventure games of the 80’s and 90’s. However, like those games, a lot of the puzzles required such a stretch in imagination that I was left flabbergasted as to how exactly I was meant to solve them without constant help from a cheat guide or playthrough. Sometimes the solution wasn’t spelled out at all, requiring me to just click on stuff until something happened. This is made all the more frustrating by how important items and clickable content tends to blend into the background, making it impossible to find until you happen to hover your mouse over it, often by accident.
That’s a result of the art style of Earthworms, which, to be fair, I found to be charming and unique. It’s sort of a classic adventure game through watercolors style. Imagine Indiana Jones and the Quest For Atlantis or Maniac Mansion with all the edges softened and the colors almost bleeding together. It’s a terrific way to introduce you to the surreal world of Earthworms, and at times I found it both pretty and haunting. But that style makes it really hard to know what it is that you’re meant to pick up and what you’re meant to ignore. I don’t need everything highlighted for me like they did in Maize, but it would help if I knew that that smudge on a rock was a switch and not just a weird piece of shadow. And Earthworms also has a nasty habit I’ve seen in other games: the inability to collect or interact with certain items until you’ve spoken to the right person or otherwise somehow unlocked it. Game developers: please don’t do this. It’s frustrating padding at best.
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Here's what you're going to get at ElConquistadork:
Thought-provoking geek commentary that smells vaguely of gin and smoke. Game reviews and Let's Plays that cover everything from the super indie to the AAA to the "made around 700 years ago" category.
Phil The Conquistadork also maintains a healthy love to interacting with his audiences when they aren't assholes (and sometimes when they are).
What you will not get at ElConquistadork: ugliness (the host's face notwithstanding), drama (the host's bank account notwithstanding), or cat videos.
...Huh? He's put a cat in a few of his videos already? Shit.
......Okay, maybe you'll get a few cat videos.
"Sneak A Little Drinky" written and performed by The Butterscotch Bros: Carlos Avendano and Dan Ross.
Disclosure: This video is based on complimentary code that I received from the publisher.
Developed by All Those Moments and published by Ultimate Games S.A. on February 23rd, 2018, Earthworms actually resembles the weird horror of adventure titles like Shadow Of The Comet more than anything else. There’s a classic sci-fi theme of robots, dimensional travel, and tentacles at play throughout the gameplay, and the storyline itself is so weird that it might be worth playing based on that alone.
You play as Daniel White, your classic fedora and trenchcoat wearing gumshoe (who is inexplicably Buddhist for some reason), as you investigate a small town and its bizarre inhabitants. The interface is standard point and click, and I found its puzzle solving a satisfying flashback to the adventure games of the 80’s and 90’s. However, like those games, a lot of the puzzles required such a stretch in imagination that I was left flabbergasted as to how exactly I was meant to solve them without constant help from a cheat guide or playthrough. Sometimes the solution wasn’t spelled out at all, requiring me to just click on stuff until something happened. This is made all the more frustrating by how important items and clickable content tends to blend into the background, making it impossible to find until you happen to hover your mouse over it, often by accident.
That’s a result of the art style of Earthworms, which, to be fair, I found to be charming and unique. It’s sort of a classic adventure game through watercolors style. Imagine Indiana Jones and the Quest For Atlantis or Maniac Mansion with all the edges softened and the colors almost bleeding together. It’s a terrific way to introduce you to the surreal world of Earthworms, and at times I found it both pretty and haunting. But that style makes it really hard to know what it is that you’re meant to pick up and what you’re meant to ignore. I don’t need everything highlighted for me like they did in Maize, but it would help if I knew that that smudge on a rock was a switch and not just a weird piece of shadow. And Earthworms also has a nasty habit I’ve seen in other games: the inability to collect or interact with certain items until you’ve spoken to the right person or otherwise somehow unlocked it. Game developers: please don’t do this. It’s frustrating padding at best.
Feel free to subscribe: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_c...
Or follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/ElConquistadork
Or like me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Phil-K...
Here's what you're going to get at ElConquistadork:
Thought-provoking geek commentary that smells vaguely of gin and smoke. Game reviews and Let's Plays that cover everything from the super indie to the AAA to the "made around 700 years ago" category.
Phil The Conquistadork also maintains a healthy love to interacting with his audiences when they aren't assholes (and sometimes when they are).
What you will not get at ElConquistadork: ugliness (the host's face notwithstanding), drama (the host's bank account notwithstanding), or cat videos.
...Huh? He's put a cat in a few of his videos already? Shit.
......Okay, maybe you'll get a few cat videos.
"Sneak A Little Drinky" written and performed by The Butterscotch Bros: Carlos Avendano and Dan Ross.
