EARTHWYRM by HolyBlackCat
A puzzle where you need to guide a worm through a series of puzzle rooms, by changing the environment around it.
There are 17 levels in total. The progress is saved on exit, you can continue from where you left off.
Hotkeys
- Alt+Enter — Toggle fullscreen
- F1 — Show FPS
Everything else can be controlled with the mouse, but you can use hotkeys for most actions. They can be viewed in game by holding the mouse over buttons.
- Space — Play/pause
- R — Restart level
- Tab — Change game speed
- 1..4 — Select a tool
- Left-click (with an active tool) — Use the tool
- Right-click — Deactivate the tool
Help I'm stuck
- Level 8 — The exit is not where it normally is. I tried my best to hint at its location. (answer)
Level 12 — What else can you bomb? (answer)
How does the "Bait" work?
When a worm bonks into a wall and can't decide between going left or right (because both directions are equally [un]obstructed), normally it always goes right. But if you place a bait, it will move in the direction of the closest bait instead.
The bait is only considered when left and right paths are equally good. If one of them requires digging and the other doesn't, the bait will be ignored and the second one will be selected.
Note to Linux users
The Linux build is experimental. If it doesn't work, run the Windows build using Wine.
Make sure the working directory is set to the directory where the executable is. (cd LD48_earthwyrm_v1.2.1_linux)
If you tried the Linux version and it worked (or didn't work), please tell what distro and version you're using!
Changelog
v1.2.1 — Apparently play & pause icons were swapped.
v1.2 — Can no longer exit pipe sideways. Fixed a huge skip in level 10.
v1.1 — Built with more recent library versions. Fixed misplaced tiles in level 12. Removed a dumb shortcut in level 16.
| Windows | https://holyblackcat.itch.io/earthwyrm |
| Linux (experimental) | https://holyblackcat.itch.io/earthwyrm |
| Source | https://github.com/HolyBlackCat/LD48 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/earthwyrm |
Ratings
| Overall | 11th | 4.258⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 26th | 4.188⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 44th | 4.21⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 144th | 4.047⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 63th | 4.234⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 143th | 3.742⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 242th | 3⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 191th | 3.69⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 15🗳️ | 14🗨️ |
- Nice graphics (youve used color palette and it is always appreciated)
- I enjoyed most of puzzles but there were some random ones (fe. broken pipe was a bit confusing (i thought that level was broken till I looked at its name) and choose the pipe level was just random guessing )
- I couldnt get past level 12. There are only 2 items to use but somehow I couldnt solve it
- ambient music reminded me about "Arx Fatalis". very atmospheric
This is the first ld48 game I checked and it is reeeally good. I hope there are more games with such quality. Good job
Level 12 relies on an unconventional use of bombs. Try bombing something other than dirt.
I love pixel art!))) Like this:
Now if only I could beat the broken pipe level...
The warning could be caused by the file being uncommon (you being the first of the few persons to download it).
I think I saw a bug where the revert direction button didn't look enabled, but still worked.
The mechanics got surprisingly deep, from a simple set of actions. I didn't realize at first that you could modify the board after unpausing, and I'm not sure what I think about that, as it feels slightly too action-y and less puzzle-y, but it was used little enough that it didn't detract from the awesome whole ^_^.
I would have liked some kind of undo, as I often placed something in the wrong spot and immediately wanted to undo, but then had to reset and re-build my whole setup.
Visuals and sound were also good, well done!
Nead little mechanic and nice polish
Though more fine level tuning to make the difficulty creep in slower would make for a more enjoyable user experience - imo
gg, tc :)
@strangeryann The exit was in the recess in the bottom pipe, at the left. Yep, I got some complaints about that level. Should've marked the true exit with a small crack or something.
I like the graphics, as well as the general idea of guiding an earthworm's movements. It's a little difficult to predict where the earthworm is going to go, but you can always just run the level without doing anything, see what the worm's default behaviour is, then plan around it. By proceeding in that sort of trial-and-error fashion, you can usually tease out the solution to each level, even if it takes a few goes.
I love the pixel art graphics as well, nice job with those!