Developer: Zach Northrop, Mason Sabharwal
Publisher: Zach Northrop
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Worming from Home – Review
Ragdoll physics and business simulation, together at last. Okay, maybe it’s not the most logical video game genre mashup, but we’ve seen stranger combinations. And the aptly titled Worming from Home pulls it off surprisingly well. How does an invertebrate function in a classic work environment, you ask? And how were developers Zach Northrop and Mason Sabharwal able to turn this unlikely scenario into one of the best little games we’ve played this year? Not to worry, we’ll explain it all right here.
Story
In Worming from Home, you’ve been working a remote office job as a junior financial analyst for the last six years. From writing spreadsheets and sending inter-office communiques to typing co-worker messages and placing phone calls, you’ve got the job down to a tee. Now, the fruits of your labour are about to pay off as you’re in line for a corporate promotion. Everything hinges on a high-stakes final video call. The only problem is that you’re a literal worm, a secret you’ve been able to maintain up until this point. Will you be able to preserve the illusion of being a “hooman” to your coworkers, and most importantly, your boss Steve? If you can suspend your disbelief and simply roll with the premise here, you’ll find a genuinely funny satirical take on office politics and the modern-day workplace. Without giving away too much, the writing is a highlight here, and worth the price of entry in and by itself.
Graphics
The absurdity of Worming from Home’s premise is highlighted by its visuals. The game centers on a human-sized workspace filled with interactive desk items, all rendered in a bright, smooth and cartoonish fashion. A notable bit of flourish we liked was that audio was accompanied by visual indicators, such as music notes floating from the radio and dramatic lines coming from the telephone as it rings. As simple as our wormy little protagonist is, you can still customise him through the in-game WorkTok app too, with various hats and skins, in addition to desktop backgrounds and custom cursors. Despite the large amount of visual flair, Worming from Home manages to maintain a high degree of at-a-glance readability, with a clear UI and in-game spreadsheets and calendars that are easy to understand. The highly polished art style also results in a remarkably smooth and well-optimised visual performance.
Sound
The soundtrack to Worming from Home was mostly sourced from royalty-free libraries, resulting in a set of tunes that range from non-intrusive lo-fi jazz to classical orchestral music. The game puts a lot of emphasis on its ambient audio and environmental sound design. There are those aforementioned audio cues, like the ringing telephone as well as humming printers. The interactive sounds, like mechanical keyboard clacks, are highly satisfying as well. Best of all, Worming from Home features full voice acting for its cast, including callers on the phone and your “helpful” assistant Tippy, a clear wink at Microsoft’s Clippy.
Gameplay
Although getting your promotion is Worming from Home’s ultimate goal, there is more to the game than just trying to convince your boss that you are, in fact, not a worm. There still is actual work to be done here! Your workday starts with slithering out of your trusty plant pot and checking the deadlines on the calendar. You’ll need to complete tasks in order to earn money. On paper, completing spreadsheets or calling customers sounds simple enough, but for a worm, this can be quite the challenge. Your basic movement consists of slithering, jumping, headbashing, and grabbing items. Typing is performed physically, by flopping your head across individual keyboard keys, for example, with the game utilising ragdoll physics. Of course, for a worm this is exhausting as well, and you’ll need to keep an eye on time and energy management. You’ll need to return to your plant pot in time for a good night’s sleep! One thing that did break the immersion somewhat though is just how basic and tedious the early game can be compared to how quickly you can improve those working conditions. It’s hard to imagine our invertebrate friend having spent the past six years working from this barebones basic setup.
Money you earn by completing tasks can be reinvested in better office equipment that removes a lot of friction, like a mouse that is smoother to move around and a keyboard that is less intensive to use. You can also hire up to 100 worm interns, who type on small keyboards to generate passive income. There is a surprising amount of depth here, but the game eases you into things, with things like an in-game stock market driven by news updates unlocking in the mid-to-late game. In turn, by automating things you can manage your day more efficiently and spend time in your reading nook and gym, where you can play minigames (including a Snake clone… except with a worm) to yield points that you can spend on passive upgrades like speed and leap distance. The aforementioned WormTok app also gives you seemingly pointless tasks like rolling a 20 on a D20 or scanning a frog to unlock those cosmetics. By this point, it’s perhaps important to reiterate the sheer absurdity of Worming from Home’s concept. Most of the fun comes from the situations that emerge from you being a worm. Without going into too much detail, there’s even a little room for office romance.
Your first playthrough of Worming from Home will likely only take you a couple of hours, which we’d say is fair given the game’s high degree of polish, how genuinely entertaining it is and its comparatively low RRP price tag of €8.15. Once you’ve completed the game, however, you can dive right back in with the so-called Imminent Layoff Mode, a post-game version of Worming from Home that offers a higher difficulty. There are also different dialogue options throughout, and you have plenty of achievements to hunt through WormTok. It all adds up to an impressively dense package for its price point.
Conclusion
Delightfully absurd, genuinely funny, and occasionally deviously challenging, Worming from Home far exceeded our expectations, especially keeping that budget asking price in mind. If you’ve got even the smallest inkling that Worming from Home may be up your alley, give it a shot. This is the kind of game that you really need to experience for yourself to appreciate it to the fullest.
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