First, a little announcement. At this point, I’ve made plenty of articles in this “what I’m playing” series, and this is the eighth.

So now I’m gathering them onto my extremely barebones website, under the “gamelog” tag!

Not your father’s Nokia Snake game

WORMHOLE, like all Snake-style games, has the usual formula. Eat stuff, get longer, and don’t hit the walls or yourself. I found this game from a Steam Next Fest last year, where I was drawn in by the enigmatic trailer. I was really surprised by how intense and hypnotic the demo’s gameplay was.

Snake Arcade (Snarkade)

But WORMHOLE is also a natural advancement of the Snake formula, bringing in arcadey additions. You get a choice of three classes of worm each with their own unique ability and wind your way around the galaxy through craptons of levels, full of planets to eat. You occasionally get a break to choose which set of levels to go to and get an upgrade on the way.

At the “SECTOR SELECTOR” screen, you choose which levels to play next and get a choice of three upgrades within.

There are side objectives to eat, like the skulls that show up to steal your snacks, costing you points. UFOs fly by, worth big points if you catch them. Eat an entire trail of stars and you trigger a supernova, clearing the whole screen.

A supernova is triggered, announced onscreen with the word “SUPERNOVA” and lots of effects

Obviously, there are wormholes as well! That’s why this game is called WORMHOLE. You go in one and come out another. They make it easy to reach faraway parts of the level and can be handy escape routes if you trap yourself with your long body.

It also mimics old-school arcade games in its presentation. The game uses monochrome pixel graphics with the usual set of filters to make the game feel like it’s on a worn, ghosty CRT display, but you can turn those effects off if they bother you. The extremely restricted palette of WORMHOLE’s graphics reminds me of Downwell, which does the same thing. And likewise, you get to unlock alternate palettes as a minor reward for playing the game. I’ve been deliberately switching palettes to show them off in this article.

You can also choose from a range of corny background art that’s like what you might see on the panels of an arcade cabinet, including some that write game instructions into the art.

Snake turned up to 11

A game of WORMHOLE starts off looking and feeling pretty mild, but that contrasts with the much more intense late game. This game hypnotizes like the Polybius arcade machine from urban legends. It’s full of very juicy effects to dazzle you, with plenty of particles, screen shake, and hitpause. It’s especially apparent in the bonus levels, which are packed with UFOs to eat.

Grabbing and eating one of many UFOs in a bonus stage

Early on, the music sounds chipper and friendly, but gets more and more panicked and aggressive near the end. The game gets faster and faster. Your worm gets longer and longer. The levels get increasingly intricate or cramped. You’ll need to react quickly to navigate the levels. Thankfully, the game helps you a bit here: you get a brief warning period if you’re about to die, with the game slowing down and the screen dimming. And if you don’t save yourself in time…

Nose bleed.

With a longer worm and smaller levels, you’ll start moving in dense squiggle patterns to fit, but that comes with its own risks. If you’re not careful, you’ll make a closed loop and trap yourself.

An example of messy, dense winding to save space when the worm gets very long

This wormhole was made for me

I’ve been playing this game a lot in the past few weeks. A full run doesn’t take too long but it’s definitely satisfying to get into a flow state and mentally sink into the wormhole.

Early on, I was really struggling to control the worm properly, especially as the game speeds up. But once I synchronized with the vibe of the game, I started to figure it out. Knowing which wormholes are connected. Always keeping track of where the head is to steer accurately. Always keeping in mind the tail length so I don’t trap myself. Developing a strategy for which upgrades to take.

Of the three classes of worm in the game, I found a fave in Yeehaw, a cowboy hat-wearing worm that shoots bullets. Lately, though, I’ve been focusing on playing Dash because of its strong high score potential. I’ve found that the Dash worm’s high-speed charge can finish levels very quickly, which leads to big score bonuses.

WORMHOLE is a hidden gem

WORMHOLE is a proper hidden gem. The game is small in scope but very polished for its purpose. Currently, it has only 35 reviews on Steam. If you merely finish the game, you’ll be guaranteed a top 10 spot on the leaderboard, since only the top 9 have even gotten to the kill screen!

You want to make it to the kill screen?

Garbled graphics at the kill screen

EAT EM ALL.