Greetings, worms! Finally, for all you readers who are worms, scouring Nintendo Life for worm-related content, here’s a game that puts annelids front and centre. Wiggling onto Switch from solo dev Munted Finger, Can of Wormholes dares to open that proverbial can and launch squiggly bird food – if we may call you that – straight at a wonderful array of cross-dimensional puzzles. Worms everywhere can stand proud. Or at least just sort of lie proud.
The rules of the game are simple enough to get your minuscule worm brains around: on each stage, you, the worm protagonist, must wriggle into a worm-shaped slot. You move your head square-by-square on a grid and the rest of your body follows the path you take – much like when you eat through a flowerbed, aerating the soil. A critical tweak to proceedings is that, when reversing, your tail end always goes back in a straight line, not retracing the route it came by. Further mechanical additions include pills that can be eaten to grow longer, blocks to push, shapes to ingest, and more. The game even permits the sad discovery that slicing a worm in two does not, in fact, create two worms. (Not two living worms, anyway.)
The puzzle variety is seriously impressive. Challenges are grouped in sort of wormy spaceships, and hopping between ships – a meta-puzzle in its own right – introduces new concepts alongside new visual themes. But even within each ship, the range of logical tests is impressive, with new ideas stacked on top of each other continuously. And they are serious brain teasers – or at least they will tease the small, brain-like ganglion at the top of your central nerve cord. (No offence, but you worms are not really known for your intellectual prowess – you’re more about instinct. That and eating dirt.)
But to accompany the trickiness of the puzzles, there is a hint system that truly goes the extra mile. It doesn’t hold you by the hand – or by the bristle-like setae that cover your worm body – rather, it takes time out to actually teach you the core concept of each poser. It does this by dropping out of the stage into a smaller, simpler, black-and-white setting. Here, the crux of the puzzle is isolated so that you can work out the key ideas for yourself before taking them back to the 'real world' and applying them. It leaves so much up to you as the player that it never feels like a cheat or a cop-out to call on it.
For the most part, the presentation is clear and to the point, letting the puzzles do the talking. As worms with no eyes, you’re not missing too much on the graphics front. However, equipped as you are to detect vibrations, you will appreciate the music, which brilliantly drops in optimistic cues when you make a key step along a solution, or goes a bit dissonant when you’ve messed up.
With ingenious puzzles, a high level of difficulty, and an educational hint system, be careful or Can of Wormholes will have you hooked.
Comments 9
Never thought I'd see the day when an article would revel in calling its readers worms!!! 😂🤣😂
Thanks for the funny review, already seemed like it could be a really good puzzle game based on the trailer and love to hear that's genuinely the case for those interested in getting it (me potentially included, but only if I can get past the shiver down my spine caused by this game being focused on worms/similar creatures and their movements)!
My wishlist has a healthy amount of puzzle games at the moment, and it looks like this will join them! Thank you for the review.
Haven’t felt this well represented in a video game since the Worms series of video games which featured a great many worms.
Those games worm my favourite games of all time on account of all the worms I could relate to as a fellow worm.
Hopefully we don’t get blown up as much in this game.
From the title of the review, I thought for sure it was gonna be a Kate Gray piece 😅
I give this review a 9. Good descriptions and good humor. Great writing! And, I’ll check out the game.
Why is it not being a casual puzzle listed as a negative? That’s no negative.
Looking forward to getting around to this one. It sounds ace!
The fact it is a puzzle game tickles my fancy whether casual or mind bending. This review content made me chuckle and makes it sound banging. Think I am dwon for this. Cheers fke the review
They call me Dr Worm..
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